Soul Joy: Ditch Burnout and Fall in Love with Life
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You ready to fall back in love with life?
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She is a Therapist/Professor turned Author, Pod Caster, and Motivational Speaker.
She is all about Wellness: Body * Mind * Soul
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Soul Joy: Ditch Burnout and Fall in Love with Life
Self-Talk Makeover: From Inner Critic to Best Friend
Ever wondered what truly lies at the heart of sustainable wellness? It all begins with how you treat yourself.
Welcome to a soul-nourishing exploration of the heart chakra and its profound connection to self-relationship. This week, we're diving deep into what it means to cultivate genuine, unconditional love for yourself—not as an act of selfishness, but as the foundation for all other relationships in your life.
Many of us, especially those in helping professions, have been conditioned to believe self-focus is somehow selfish. I invite you to question where these limiting beliefs originated. Are you carrying outdated schemas from childhood that no longer serve who you've become? That inner voice that rides with you all day shapes everything—and transforming it begins with awareness.
Throughout this episode, I share practical strategies for building a healthy relationship with yourself, from validating your own emotions (something many of us weren't taught as children) to setting clear boundaries that prevent resentment. You'll discover how physical self-soothing techniques release oxytocin during moments of self-criticism, why finding your professional niche prevents burnout, and how making your life so full of joy-bringing activities naturally crowds out negativity.
As I often remind my clients and myself, this isn't about perfectionism—it's about acceptance and compassion. When we embrace both our strengths and weaknesses without judgment, we create space for true healing. The science confirms it: mindfulness practices, boundary-setting, and self-compassion significantly reduce stress while building resilience.
Ready to transform your relationship with yourself? Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts, and visit juliemerriman.com to join my email list for free weekly resources that complement each episode. Your journey to SoulJoy begins with one simple choice—choosing yourself.
Hey y'all. I'm Dr Julie Merriman and welcome to SoulJoy. This week, we're still talking about the heart chakra because, my friend, this is a very necessary component of holistic, sustainable self-care, also known as wellness. More specifically, we're going to look at a healthy relationship with yourself. All right, hey you, how's it going? I hope that you are having a great day and I just want to thank you for hanging out with me for just a hot minute to talk about self-care and all that great stuff. It's important, it really is.
Speaker 1:So what's been going on with me this week? I tell you what. I have really fallen in love with my audiobooks. Anybody, anybody. I mean, if I'm out using my electric chainsaw cleaning up some cedar, I've got my audiobook going. Or if I'm driving, I've got my audiobook going, except for when my beloved is with me. I, we talk, but um. Or if I'm cleaning the house, I don't, I just um. I love my audio books. I find it to be one of my really top-notch self-care things that I do for myself and when I'm really doing my chill, I'll put on my audio book and I have a coloring app on my phone and that I'd rather do that than go out to dinner. It is so relaxing. So I'd like to know what y'all do to relax. Shoot me a line. I just I'm interested. What are we doing to help ourselves relax out there? All right, okay, professional helpers.
Speaker 1:This podcast is dedicated to preventing and overcoming the occupational hazards of this amazing career that we've chosen, and I'm specifically looking at overcoming and preventing burnout, compassion, fatigue and vicarious trauma. And I've got a book called In Pursuit of Soul Joy. It's a 12-week guide to help you get over this stuff. So hop on over to my website or Amazon and grab you a copy if you think those might be some things you're struggling with. Okay, so this week we are talking about a healthy relationship with yourself. I take a deep dive on this in the book, but let's take a deep dive here, y'all.
Speaker 1:A healthy relationship with yourself involves valuing, respecting and prioritizing your own well-being. It's not being selfish, it's not being conceited. My daddy would always take me there when I was maybe feeling a little good about myself. He would cut me at my knees, and I'm sure it's something generational that he didn't want me to have too big a head. But I'm here to invite you that it is absolutely healthy to have a healthy relationship with yourself. This is about showing yourself kindness and understanding and patience, even when you're not perfect. Now last week we went over perfectly imperfect, so you might.
Speaker 1:If you missed that podcast, I invite you to hop back a week. I think it's episode nine and listen to that. But we've got to embrace not being perfect, and this means acknowledging your needs and practicing kind and holistic self-care, and a part of self-care is setting those boundaries that you need to set. I know I talk about this a lot on the podcast but, my friend, that's because so often I see folks not doing this simple thing for themselves.
Speaker 1:The relationship we have with ourselves influences all of our relationships and if you struggle with being nice to yourself, I want you to ask yourself why. Where in the hell does that come from? Ask yourself why, where in the hell does that come from? Again, is it old schema that you've not taken time to clear out the cobwebs on and clean out and retool to fit where you are today? We're no longer those children. We're grown-ass adults and we need to understand why we might be struggling with some things. So if you struggle with being nice to yourself, I want you to really dig down and ask yourself why Maybe set the timer for five minutes and do a brain dump where you're just writing everything. Dump where you're just writing everything, you're just a flow of consciousness and you're just writing, to see if that why might show itself. See, you deserve to be valued. You deserve a healthy, energy-infused self-relationship. You need to make time for all the self-practices that lead to this healthy relationship. I outline a plethora of these practices on this podcast. So if you're just stumbling across the podcast or if you've not made time, go back to episode one season one, episode one time. Go back to episode one, season one, episode one, and listen to all, all the tools that I give you that help you with healthy self-practices. They, my friend, are the cornerstone to a happy life sans burnout and compassion, fatigue Y'all. I'm talking about unconditional love for yourself, and this includes your self-talk. You know that voice that rides around with you all day in your head. You need a kind, nourishing self-talk to allow you to get to a place of unconditional love where you have a healthy relationship with self.
Speaker 1:And as I say that, I'm reminded of my sweet hubby. He's so kind to me. I mean, he has taught me so much about how to be loved unconditionally, about how to be loved unconditionally. He can tell when I'm beating myself up about something and he holds me accountable, like you know, he calls me out. He reminds me of all I've accomplished and how hard I've tried and how difficult the task was that I accomplished. Difficult, the task was, that I accomplished, and it's just amazing. He just helps me see how far I've come.
Speaker 1:He's I mean, I know not everyone is as lucky to have such an amazing man in their life or an amazing spouse or friend in their life, but y'all, he models for me what unconditional love looks like and how it feels. And he's the. I never had that until I met him. He's a gift from God, I know this. But through his modeling that for me, I'm able to do that for myself and then I model that back to him. It's just the yin and the yang works. But if you don't have someone in your life doing that for you, you can do that for you. See, we don't all have this beacon that he is to help, but you can be that beacon for yourself. You need to remember to be nice to yourself and develop a kind and loving relationship that begins with self-talk and that begins with complete acceptance of self, which you're throwing perfectionism out the window and you're getting real. You know, none of us are perfect and it's important for you to be your best friend, to be very nice to yourself.
Speaker 1:So, okay, before I go into the activity I've planned for you today, I want you to please subscribe to my email list so you can get this weekly email that I fix up for you. That's got. Want you to please subscribe to my email list so you can get this weekly email that I fix up for you. That's got a link to the podcast and also a link to the PDF I create of the activity I'm about to go over. All you have to do is jump over to my email list on at wwwJulieMerrymanPhDcom. Okay, easy, breezy, it's all free. I do this because my mission, my mission in life, is to try to help annihilate burnout, compassion, fatigue and vicarious trauma, and are helping professionals and really in anyone. As I say a lot, this podcast is for anyone who stumbles across it and finds value in it.
Speaker 1:Okay, so the activity I have planned for you today I have called Healthy Relationship with Self Workbook, and here's a more detailed look at how to cultivate a healthy relationship with yourself. I've just spent a few minutes talking about why it's important. So now I'm going to lay out how to make it happen for yourself, and first I'm going to take a big sip out of my pink cup. Got to keep water handy, okay. So first we want to look at self-awareness and acceptance, and in this you want to check in with yourself. You want to regularly reflect on your thoughts, feelings and needs. That's where journaling comes in, very important. That's where holding space for yourself comes in. I've got podcasts on all those topics. Next you want to validate your feelings. That could be kind of tricky.
Speaker 1:I found over the last 30 years of being a counselor and really the last 61 years of life, so often as children we're not, especially those of us in the boomer generation or the is it Gen X? Those, the ones raised in 60s, 70s, 80s, even 90s, before the gentle parenting, which I don't know a lot about, but I've seen some social media on the gentle parenting but so often as kids, kids our feelings are not validated. We are crying about something and our parent will say I'll give you something to cry about. You're fine, and immediately that invalidates our little inner workings on how to trust ourselves, like oh, oh. He says I'm fine. Well then, how I'm feeling must not be valid. So let me reboot. Okay, I'm fine.
Speaker 1:Parents don't do it to be mean. I didn't do it to be mean to my kids. We parent out of wherever our brokenness is, and sometimes it's hard for parents to deal with feelings, so they'd rather shut those feelings down than validate them for the child and let the child experience that. And then we arrive in adulthood not really understanding how to validate our feelings. So I'm inviting you to get right with validating your feelings. You've got to acknowledge and accept your emotions without any judgment. It's not worth judging. And you've got to recognize that, yes, they are valid. Now, society might not like that emotion, your partner might not agree with that emotion, but it does not invalidate your emotion. You've got to have that internal locus of control and be able to say no, jules, I'm talking to myself. No, self, I do feel that way. I'm going to hold space to experience that feeling and see what it is. I need to feel validated in that feeling so I can move on through it.
Speaker 1:Okay, next, you want to practice self-compassion. Treat yourself with the same kindness and understanding you would offer a loved one I talk a lot about self-compassion. You are worth practicing self-compassion. Next, you need to forgive yourself. Everyone makes mistakes, so learn to forgive yourself for past errors. We all have them. We've all got areas. You know those dark corners of our world that we're a bit ashamed of some shit we might have done in the past. I invite you to forgive yourself. Let it go. When we know better, we do better. You're no longer that person. Quit beating yourself up for it. Then embrace your strengths and weaknesses. We all have them. Acknowledge your positive attributes while accepting your imperfections. Then we're going to move into self-care and prioritization.
Speaker 1:Prioritization Make time for yourself. Schedule activities that bring joy and allow you to relax and recharge. I say this a lot we're not trying to act stuff out of our life. We're trying to make our life so full of things that bring us joy. There's no space for that other stuff. You want to prioritize your physical needs. Make sure you're getting enough sleep, eating good and engaging in regular physical activity. Get up a few minutes earlier. Make sure you have time to exercise.
Speaker 1:You want to practice mindfulness and meditation. These are techniques that help you become more present and reduce stress, and y'all neuroscience backs this up. There's research that shows the importance of this mindfulness and meditation and you want to engage in hobbies and interests, pursue activities that spark your passion and allow you to express yourself, like I was talking about my audiobooks that sparks so much passion. I enjoy those stories, I enjoy coloring and I enjoy the calmness that I get from that activity. Find one for yourself. Okay, now let's look at setting boundaries and boundaries so I've got a whole podcast on this but say no when needed, kick feeling obligated to the curb.
Speaker 1:You don't need to do things that drain your energy or conflict with your values and y'all this. Also, you need to be niching down to a clientele that does not drain you. You need to be serving clients that bring you. I mean, we're all going to get tired. The work we do is hard, but you know the clients that drain you and you look on your calendar and you kind of go oh, don't schedule those clients. Refer them out to someone that will be their niche therapist. That type of client brings that therapist a spark of energy. Know your niche clientele. Have the courage to serve that clientele. Learn to assert yourself. Communicate your needs and desires clearly and respectfully. Don't pussyfoot around. Be very direct and assertive, not aggressive. Assertive in that communication and set boundaries with others and with your clients. When you don't set boundaries, you're going to end up being resentful and you have no one to blame but that person in the mirror. You own your boundaries and you have the right to set them. Define the limits of acceptable behavior and relationships to protect your well-being. It's okay.
Speaker 1:Next, you want to focus on building self-esteem and confidence. You want to practice gratitude, confidence. You want to practice gratitude, focus on positive aspects of your life and appreciate your blessings. I had something come up just this morning when I opened an email and it was disappointment. I had hoped some time I was going to get to spend with someone would look one way and when I opened the email and saw the agenda I realized it was going to look another way. I wasn't going to get to spend as much time as I was hoping with this person and the first place I went was negative and I had to. I had to go whoo, julie, elizabeth, back it up. We're going to be grateful and practice some gratitude that at least you get to see this person and spend what time you get to spend right. Instead of being negative, nelly, I can be positive and have gratitude for it. Appreciate your blessings and this is a blessing to get to spend a hot minute with this person.
Speaker 1:Challenge negative self-talk. Replace critical thoughts with positive affirmations and self-encouragement. Instead of saying, well, that was stupid. You pat your face, release that oxytocin, you rub your hand, you pat your shoulders and you say Julie, your amygdala needs to hear your name. Bob, betty, whatever you say your name, julie, sweetness, you did the best you could. It's going to be okay. Life goes on. I mean you, instead of beating yourself up, you reframe and get some oxytocin released into your system so you can feel more grounded and then celebrate your accomplishments.
Speaker 1:This is something I struggle with. I'm the. I never show up to. You know, I'm not proud to say it, but I never show up to receive my certificates and stuff. I really do better at that. But acknowledge your achievements, no matter how small, and feel proud of your progress. Okay. So by incorporating these practices into your daily life, you can cultivate a stronger, more fulfilling relationship with yourself, a healthier way to talk to yourself, and this is going to lead to greater self-esteem, confidence and y'all. That's wellness, that's overall well-being. That is the veritable definition that I have for holistic, sustainable self-care, also known as wellness. All right, friends. That is it for today. Subscribe to my podcast. Wherever you listen to podcasts, leave me a review to help me reach more people and know what you'd like to hear on the podcast. And, until next time, take care of you.