March 2, 2022 • 35 mins
Do you feel like the blurred demands of work and homelife are piling up and you cannot disconnect from all you have to do? This week, Eve and Aditi demystify multi-tasking (it’s ineffective and detrimental to the brain!). They’re joined by clinical psychologist, Dr. Amber Thornton, to help you set clear boundaries and create more physical and mental space for you. To learn more about Amber, visit www.balancedworkingmama.com.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Time Out. I'm Eve Rodsky, author of the
New York Times bestseller fair Play and Find Your Unicorn Space,
activists on the gender division of labor, attorney and family mediator.
And I'm doctor Addi naru Kar, a physician and medical
correspondent with an expertise in the science of stress, resilience,
mental health, and burnout. We're here to peel back to
(00:24):
layers around why it's so easy for society to guard
men's time as if it's diamonds, and to treat women's
time as if it's infinite like sands. And whether you
are partnered with or without children, or in a career
where you want more boundaries, this is the place for
you for all family structures. We're here to take a
time out to learn, get inspired, and most importantly, reclaim
(00:49):
our time. Hi, add how are you? Hi? You create
to see you as always. I think this is going
to be one of my favorite episodes because today we're
really talking about not shipping where we're eating in a
(01:12):
time when we are shipping where we as the really
good phrase goes, We've talked a bit about boundaries in
the home, but we haven't really talked about them or
explored them, and they're in full entirety biological boundaries, metaphysical boundaries.
What that means to be in a physical space, to
have mental space, to have as we said, spiritual space,
(01:36):
whatever space you need. We want to talk about that
today and how creating real authentic space for yourself requires boundaries.
And I was thinking about boundaries when I was talking
to two amazing people that were in my fair Place study,
Leanna and Christian. But I remember speaking to them about
what their life during COVID felt like, and even before
(02:00):
at Leanna was saying that as a mom of four
kids and they were home schooling their children, like so
many of us, that her life felt like a conveyor belt.
She used this conveyor belt metaphor that things kept on
coming at her and she was trying to pick them
up and pick them up and pick them up. Reminds
me of that old school Lucille Ball episode of the
(02:24):
chocolate balls on a conveyor belt, and she's trying to
eat them all really fast because they can't catch them
as they're flying off fine and you're doing splendidly spat
up to the point where you almost give up. You
give up because you can't catch all those chocolate balls.
(02:45):
And then her husband, Christian said that he never thought
of his life as a conveyor belt. He thought of
his life as a plate, and when his plate is full,
he stops putting things on it and off been women
are feeling like invariables in my data, and men are
(03:07):
able to be plates. And so today I really want
to think about how we can all be plates. I
want to be a plate. I want to be like
a dancing plate in the cartoon and being the beast,
one of the amazing plates that come out during that
big scene where everyone's dancing and singing. Be our guest.
(03:27):
How can we all be plates? It's so interesting when
you share that story about Lean and Christian. I think
about something like multitasking in relation to boundary setting. And
what's fascinating is that our brains are wired to do
one thing at a time. And when we say, as
women more than men, typically we say we're great at multitasking,
(03:50):
and it's a real badge of honor. In fact, what
we're doing. It's a scientific misnomer. Multitasking is task switching.
There's no such thing as multitask. The brain is wired
to do one thing at a time. Only two percent
of the population can truly multitask. The rest of us,
and I include myself in that we're just doing two
(04:11):
things in rapid succession task switching, and that can have
lots of profound detrimental effects on the brain. Affects things
like our cognition, our memory, attention and counterativity, our productivity
and efficiency. It also decreases their ability to solve complex problems.
(04:34):
And I don't know about you, but there are a
lot of complex problems to solve, so we really can't
afford to multitask. The interesting thing about boundaries, and like
the human brain, is that we function optimally in our
brains function optimally when there are clear boundaries, particularly when
(04:54):
it comes to our roles, and that has been really
challenging these past couple of years because there are no boundaries.
There's no physical boundaries. So your desk is right in
the living room, your children or zoom schooling next to you,
the kitchen is a few steps away, your partner is
right there, and so that inability to create physical space
(05:18):
translates to the inability to create space in the mind,
and so all of these things pile up on top
of each other. This is why one of the strategies
that I suggest to people during this time is to
fake your commute. The commute is so therapeutic and so
beneficial for the brain. It's because after we do our
mornings of getting our children ready for school, getting ourselves ready,
(05:41):
we have that commute, whether it's five minutes, thirty minutes,
or an hour, to just reframe and get into the
head of Okay, now I'm in work mode. And then
on your commute back home, you're thinking, okay, I'm in
home mode. But it takes some time. There's that transition
that has to happen. I call it the book ends, right,
you know how they kind of compartmentalize things. Without that
(06:02):
daily commute, we're switching from one thing to the other,
one thing to the other. We are multitasking in this
new working from home era, and we don't even know it.
We are not biologically wired to do that. And that
is why we're seeing such a rise and unprecedented level
of burnout. Mental health issues, anxiety, insomnia, depression, really bleak
(06:27):
statistics because of the inability to create space. A lot
of it is societal and forced upon us. But prior
to this particular moment was just not as acute. But
we're really feeling that pressure cooker now. Well, I think
that's so important because people are literally shipping where they eat.
I had women tell me that they were having lunch
(06:50):
in the bathroom, hiding from their families because their partners
took up the quote unquote good space essential workers. People
who are not working from home, they still had the
issue of having space time continuum problems because even if
they had to commute, their children in many cases weren't
(07:13):
having a commute, and so it was very confusing and
in that way to be able to have their head
at home. So this is a metaphorical space thing. Thinking
about home all the time while also being at work
is a very highly stressful thing as well. And so
I think regardless of whether you are physically in a
chair on zoom or whether you have to still commute,
(07:36):
but your other family members are not settled and compartmentalized
the way that they used to be, it's feeling like
everything is this metaphorical shipping where you eat. And I
love your idea of bookends because I think that's really important.
I like to think a lot about space, metaphorical space
so if you don't have physical space, which many of
(07:57):
us don't right now, it's sort of all blending into one.
It requires an urgency about creating boundaries and other ways
through self talk, through decisions we make, through actions we take.
And so I wonder if you could talk a little
bit about what other actions are you seeing people take
(08:19):
that are helpful to start protecting their boundaries. And I
know our guests Dr ever Thornton is going to be
helping us with that as well, But I wonder what
you're seeing out there. We're really facing this shadow pandemic,
which is the pandemic of mental health and burnout. The
statistics are bleak. Seven out of ten workers say that
(08:40):
this is the most stressful time of their entire professional careers.
Se people have at least one feature of burnout, and
about six think that the pandemic has been a culprit.
What's really fascinating about this lack of boundaries, pressure cooker
burnout situation is that we used to think that it
(09:01):
was the typical features of burnout, right apathy, feeling disengaged
from work, increased error, sporedom, lack of productivity. Yes, of
course those things are happening but more and more, what
we're seeing is that there is an inability to disconnect
from work, which is an atypical feature of burnout. People
(09:22):
have that, so they might not even recognize it as
burnout because they think of burnout is so I don't
really want to do work, I'm not into it. But
in fact, the inability to disconnect is something that is
so prevalent right now. It is also because of our
physical structure. We're working at home, we're parenting at the
(09:42):
same time. These are impossible demands. Well, thank you for that.
I think that's really important. We are at a place
now where burnout is um not going to be solved
by just taking that walk around the block. It's really
this practice, so not doing the commun once, but faking
a commune if your home every day, adding practices to
(10:05):
your life and also existentially, I would add that to me,
a true boundary is being interested in your own life.
And when you're interested in your own life and you
take actions that signal you're interested in your own life.
We talked about unicorn space like a dance class or
a pottery workshop, or a mixology experience, or an axe
(10:30):
throwing experience, or a bullrading experience. It can go on
and on and on. When you start taking actions that
show and signal you're interested in your own life, it
really can be a start of becoming curious again, of
becoming in love with your life again. In a way,
I think that so many of us who were languishing
last year have thought we could give that up and
(10:53):
that would get us more time. But I actually think
when we took that off our plate, these things that
make us come alive, actually think that our boundaries that worse.
That's what I'm hearing from the data that when I
took things off my plate for me, I thought I
would gain more time back to do everything else for
everybody else. But actually it's I don't. I'm just filling
(11:14):
my days with more hedonistic well being. I'm doomscrolling Twitter more,
I'm drinking more. So it's not like taking off the
things that we do for ourselves helps us create boundaries.
I actually think it makes it harder to create boundaries.
I often think about stress or burnout or that pressure
(11:34):
cooker situation as a tea kettle, and we are that
tea kettle, and so you are sitting on that hot stove,
the temperatures way up and we are building up steam.
And that's where we can all relate to that metaphor.
Because we feel it. We often try to adjust the
knob to decrease the heat, and in many instances we
(11:55):
can do that if it's an acute situation. But right
now these are forces out of our control. We can't
adjust the heat. So what can we do. We can
open up that lever to blow off that steam. And
it takes effort to pull up that lever to blow
off that steam, but it's that doing. And so with
all of these examples that you've given, Eve, it's all
in the doing. When you do better, you feel better.
(12:18):
But it has to be a practice, it has to
be consistent. Our brain is a muscle when the more
you use it, the better and stronger it becomes. The
other thing when we're creating new habits to combat burnout
and stress is to really think about decision fatigue, especially
now we are so tapped or really running on fumes
(12:38):
all of us. And so if you were to say
I'm going to do this twice a week, chances are
you won't get to it. Just like your research has shown,
it's very difficult to start something new when you are
psychologically not in the best place. That is why you
have to incorporate something small, something new that is small
into your day every single day, so becomes a habit.
(13:01):
We have to think about this as our mental health
hygiene and incorporating these small nuggets into our daily lives
because these small, instrumental changes have a big impact on
the brain. And what I'll end on before we introduce
our wonderful guest is that I actually think when you
(13:22):
think about boundaries, there's two words, and I love my literations,
this one is two a's. I think of boundaries as
a combination of something active when you set a boundary.
The word set is a verb, so it's something active
and it's also something that requires attention. So when you
(13:45):
think of it, if you're being active in something that
requires sustained attention, then you're helping yourself create a boundary.
That to me is how practically a boundary looks. I've
created a boundary when I am an active pursuit and
I have sustained attention to something that I decided I
(14:05):
wanted to have sustained attention on. So if you're not
feeling active in this way, we're talking about, or you
don't believe you have the ability to pay attention. That's
also a way of deducing that you probably are not
there yet in creating boundaries. So one other little ritual
that I've been doing d because you know how much
(14:26):
I love burning things, is that I've been setting a
candle next to my desk and lighting a candle for
the times where I want to have a boundary where
I'm intentional about saying I'm now an active pursuit of
something I want to pay attention to, and then I
blow out the candle when I go and have to
(14:46):
re enter society for things that other people want me
to pay attention to. It's almost like starting a timer,
but in a way that smells better than setting a
timer on your phone. Yeah, you're creating a sense of intention.
That force of intention fuels you. It's also a good
tell for others if they're watching you. Never alone right
(15:09):
now in our homes, So if someone walks by you
and wants to interrupt you, they say, oh, no, mom
has that candle, and I can't bother her my candle
is burning. So I think that's a great metaphor to
leave us on as our guest joins us today. Dr
Amber Thornton is a boundary expert. She's a clinical psychologist,
motherhood wellness consultant and helps empower working parents everywhere to
(15:33):
reimagine their working home life. She's gonna be talking with
us after the break. We're so excited to be joined
now by Dr Amber Thornton. Dr Thornton is a boundary expert.
(15:55):
She's a clinical psychologist, motherhood wellness consultant and helps power
working parents everywhere to reimagine their working home life. And
perhaps our listeners will find it comforting to know that
even our best boundary experts are an exempt from space issues.
She's joining us today from her downstairs office while her
kids are home upstairs. Hi Amber, thank you for being here.
(16:20):
Hi Amber, thank you so much for having me. I'm
really excited for this conversation. So Amber. I love your
tagline redefining motherhood one boundary at a time. That really
resonated with me. One of my first questions to you
is why our boundaries important? As women, we are often
(16:42):
socialized to one just think about the other first. We're
always told that if we have children, are our kids
are more important? If we are partners our partners are
more important in their careers, are more important, and so
we just grow up learning that we need to put
other people's needs first. We become really good anticipating the
needs of other people, and we don't learn how to
(17:04):
differentiate ourselves from the needs of other people, or the
desires of other people, or even other people's ideas for us.
And so that's why those boundaries are so important, because
if we don't have those, we will continue to operate
in a way that prioritizes everyone else and really neglects ourselves.
And so we need those boundaries as reminders to take
(17:26):
care of ourselves, but also to just remind us where
we begin, where our children begin, where we end, so
that we can really take care of ourselves. You give
us three steps to setting boundaries, and it's such a
difficult thing to do because we have to learn how
to say no. But how do we start, How do
(17:48):
we start setting the boundary? And what are the steps
to doing it? The first thing is really to just
listen to yourself. Oftentimes, when we need to set a boundary,
we know that there's this voice inside sometimes that's saying, hey,
there's something here that's not right. There's something here that
doesn't feel good, and we have to just really like
respect and honor that because again, as women and mothers
(18:10):
were socialized too not trust the little voice inside, to
not trust our intuition, and so really acknowledging that, but
then also really trusting and respecting what it's trying to
tell you. It's real, it's valid, there's nothing wrong with it,
and it's okay to move forward with setting a boundary.
And then once you learn how to trust yourself and
(18:31):
understand that inner voice, then we get to the place
of respecting ourselves or feeling that we're worthy enough to
deserve the boundary. And then that third most critical step
is saying no, which is like we're like a train
that's moving and then suddenly just come to a screeching hall.
(18:52):
I was a former people pleaser. I still am, and
I just wanted to ask you about that as we
talk about this need to people please, but then moving
past that and being able to say no. Definitely. People
pleasing can be a consequence of something negative happening to
you or around you or near you when you were
(19:15):
younger or in the past. For some people, it could
be the result of a trauma they've experienced. Girls, oftentimes,
when they're growing up, they're taught explicitly and implicitly that
it's not okay to be honest about how you feel.
We're taught to make sure everyone's okay, don't want to
hurt their feelings, don't ruffle any feathers, and our nose
(19:35):
are scary. Our nose are not okay. Our nose make
people uncomfortable, and we, unfortunately are not taught how to
sit with the discomfort that might come when someone's not
happy with us. No one teaches us, okay, well, this
is what it means when someone is upset with you,
and that's okay. When you said someone is not happy
with you, my heart started to count and I was like,
(19:56):
who's not happy with you? Right now? Exactly? Don't like
I don't want somebody to be not happy with me.
So it's creating a visceral response even as you say it,
and it's just the hypothetical. My heart is pounding exactly Automatically,
we get this visceral feeling of like, oh, I've done
something wrong or how do I fix it? When really
it's okay for people to not be pleased with you,
(20:18):
it's okay for them to not like you or be
approving of what you're doing. That all of that is okay.
And how do we learn to say no? Practice? It's
so simple, and I know people are going to be
upset with me when I say that, but truly you
have to just do it. There's no step really that
I can give you. It's truly just practice. And so
(20:39):
one way to make it a little bit easier to
start is say no to the things that feel simple efforts. So,
for instance, there might be a friend saying, hey, I
want to come over, and whether it's because of the pandemic,
whether it's because we're just tired, whatever it is, and
being okay saying hey, I would love for you to
come over, but I'm just feeling up to it. Really, truly,
(21:01):
it comes down to the practice. Really do it. Practice,
hold yourself accountable, and maybe if you ask someone to
hold you accountable so that they can cheer you on
and support you as your practicing is. We have a
group threat of my college friends and we share in
there when we're about to decline an opportunity or say
no to something. And so when you talk about practice,
(21:23):
I think it's so important because it reminds me that
people will say to me, you know, I said that
five years ago, and I expect them to still remember
that that was my boundary. But it reminds you of saying, well,
you know, I exercised once when I was eighteen, and
I'm forty five now and I'm supposed to still be fit.
I mean, if you say that, we would all laugh,
right because we know that it exercises the practice. But
(21:46):
when it comes to boundary setting, we look at it
as a one and done. You know, well I told
them no, so why are they asking me again? Sometimes
you have to keep practicing. It's absolutely not a one
and done because I think also takes time for other
people to learn and understand your boundaries. They might not
hear it the first time, and so you have to
(22:07):
continue to reiterate. Dr Amber, We've talked a lot about
friendships and setting boundaries in our personal life, but what
about in our professional life? How can we say no
to increasing work responsibilities? Yeah, that's a tough one because
right now, so much of our lives are blurred. Like
even for me, right now, my kids are here and
(22:28):
I can hear them upstairs. They're the but you know,
it's funny because I think that someone was knocking on
my door as your child was jumping on the ceiling,
and I was thinking, there's just like a This is
like a symphony of interruption to try to keep us
honest in our conversation about how hard it could be
to set a boundary, especially right now, things are so blurred.
(22:51):
So for instance, I'm working right now in my basement
and my children are upstairs running rampant, and so I
think finding the balance between the personal and then the professional,
putting some boundaries around the professional. That can be really
scary because sometimes we are fearful that if we have
to be honest or set a boundary, that that might
(23:13):
mean a missed opportunity, or it might mean that we
are not viewed in the same way that we previously work. Unfortunately,
it really leads to a lot of us hiding so
much of ourselves in our professional fronts. And I hope
that we become more comfortable with not completely blurned into
but realizing that one doesn't take away from the other.
(23:33):
What helps me is to think about our values, right
and so you know, for me, I'm one that really
values my family. I love my children. I value my
well being and I also really love my career, and
I'm really careful to make sure that one doesn't take
away from the other. And so if I do have
to set up a boundary professionally, I'm reminding myself that
(23:54):
this boundary is for the greater good of my health,
my family, myself, and it's not at the expense of
anything that I have going on. You know, you truly
do walk the talk, Dr Amber, because in your email
response it is like a gem. You are teaching women
(24:17):
how to set boundaries through your lived experience. But what
is it? Yeah, tell us what is I I think
add was the one who got your email response, so
I want to hear what it is. I put away
message up maybe about a month ago now because I
realized I was constantly checking my emails on my phone
and it was just taking so much of my time.
So I put up your way message and it basically
(24:38):
just says, hey, I've got your message, but I'm only
checking my email box on Mondays and Thursdays. This is
me setting my boundary and practicing bolden firm boundaries. I
hope you appreciate it, and I'll talk too soon. Wow.
But I've I've actually got a lot of good feedback
about if people see it and they're like, oh wow,
I want to do that too. So I'm glad it
can encourage and inspire someone else because it helps me
(24:59):
a lot. I our team when we got that, it
was so affirming. We're like, well, we got the right
expert about boundaries. If that's I guess if that's your email, right,
That's what I'm thinking right now, and I'm thinking what
days would I want to check my emails? Because I
think it's something I think I'm gonna try. It's definitely
a practical step, and I think that's the last question
(25:21):
I wanted to ask you. How do boundaries interact with expectations?
Because when I think about fair play, where it started from,
it was really an understanding that in my work is
someone who looks at behavioral design, one of the things
to a well functioning organization is explicitly defined expectations. And
so I want to understand if boundaries help us set
(25:44):
other people's expectations, or if it's that the expectations that
we set for ourselves then have to be communicated in
a boundary, or is it a big circle, It's a
huge circle. It's both of those things absolutely again. Once
we can work through the fear of setting our boundary,
it makes life easier for everyone, including ourselves. Because people
(26:05):
didn't know what to expect from us, we know what
to expect from ourselves. Once people learn our boundaries, we
then can have a better understanding of what to expect
from them. It makes everything, like you said, much more
clear because we don't have to guess, we don't have
to be surprised when we can express how we feel
what we need. It just makes um communication a lot
(26:25):
more accessible in lots of clarity, and that's always a
good thing. Well, you read my mind because my word
of is clarity. So what a beautiful gift to leave
all of us with. So I really want to thank
you so much for being with us today. We love
your work. And the last question is where can people
find you if they want to learn more about how
(26:47):
to set boundaries. Well, I'm so glad to be here,
so thank you so much for having me. Anyone can
find me at bounced Working Mama dot com. Also, I'm
always on Instagram at dr and Bert Thornton. And then
we also have an Instagram and pay for bounced working
Mama too. Hi, It's me Eve. Are you a therapist,
(27:11):
counselor coach or nutritionists that has thought about introducing the
fair Play system directly to your clients? Well, now you
can come and roll in the fair Play Method, a
new online program that provides you with hands on training,
a ton of valuable resources, and a community of certified
professionals for all part of a greater cultural movement for
systemic change. Learn more about how you can help your
(27:34):
clients shift the domestic workload in their own homes towards
more equity, more fairness, and greater connectivity. Visit fair play
life dot com. So, as you may know, now, every
episode of this podcast ends with an action item for
(27:55):
you are listeners that we call a time out. This
is really a time for you to focus on yourself
and reflect on what you're hearing today. And we're starting
the conversation first with ourselves and then ultimately with those
around us. So it seems to me that a lot
of what we're talking about in time Out is actually
(28:16):
about boundaries. And I know we started with Greg McEwen
and we keep laddering up to get to this place
of Dr Amber Thornton where we're talking about space, physical
and mental space, and how hard that is to come by.
I want to understand a d D. What is the
power of mental and physical space on the brain. What
(28:37):
does it do for us when we create physical and
mental space to have a room of one's own the
idea of Virginia Woolf a hundred years ago that we
needed a metaphorical physical room of one's own if we
wanted to write and ideate and create and think and be.
What is that power of space? Our brain function best
(29:00):
when there's compartmentalization, and that absence of boundary and compartmentalization
reeks havoc on us. So in an era when it's
really difficult to carve out that brain space and physical
space to be a worker and a parent and a
spouse since everything is happening in the same place. One
(29:20):
of the strategies that I've said before that I like
to use is a fake commute. And so since all
of us are working from home, you know that magical
twenty minutes that you would give yourself for a commute.
It may help you get into a new headspace even
though you are coming back into the same physical environment.
Another technique that we can use to create a little
(29:43):
bit more space in the mind, in the body, and
also in our physical space is avoid checking your phone
first thing in the morning. It is what we all do.
Our phones have become our alarm clocks. They sit next
to us on the nightstand. We wake up before eyes
are even fully open, and a tune to the morning light.
(30:03):
We are scrolling. We think of it as a benign,
innocuous thing that we do just to get ready for
the day. These are not benign entities, email, work responsibilities,
social media. They have a direct hit on our dopamine,
our serra tonin and our neuro transmitters. So instead, keep
your phone either in a different room if you can
(30:26):
manage it, but you can graduate to that level, or
just away from your nightstand where you have to physically
get up out of bed to check your phone in
the morning. And then the final thing I will say,
eve is the reason that we check our phones so
incessantly during the day right now, probably more than we
ever have, is because our bodies and our brains are
(30:48):
prime for survival and pandemic stoke our primal fears. Checking
the news, scrolling through social media is a primal urge.
It's our way to feel safe. What's happening though it's
negative feedback loop. We scroll, we see something that's dangerous
or news headline, and it revs up our dopamine response
and our fear cascade and our bodies. And so to
(31:10):
really combat that, we need to create a little bit
of space to understand how our bodies are responding. The
space time continuum is collapsing on all of us. So
this is our superhero episode. So what I think would
be fun for today's time out exercise? If you're listening
on the road, wait to pull over, but grab a journal,
(31:30):
grab a piece of paper. We want you to take
a time out today to commit to one space ritual.
And we don't mean suiting up for average space. But
as a d D said, pick one. We'll give you
four choices and then report us. If you don't like
one of these four choices, tell us what you do
(31:51):
to create a space ritual. We'll share it in our
show notes. I want to say one other anecdote before
we give you your choices. I had this really one
A full nurse tell me that for her being an
industrial fluorescent lights all day, it was really really hard
for her. And so if this one amazing woman told
(32:12):
me that to create space on her commute, what she's
been doing is taking a camera and taking a picture
in nature on the way to work, at lunch and
on our way home. When she does that, instead of
faking a commute, because she still has a commute, it
still allows her to separate her industrial fluorescent light, harsh
(32:34):
job as a caregiver during the days of nurse with
the communing with nature that she'd like to do with
her family, her friends. So I love that. So here's
your four choices. Your four choices are create a fake commute,
as a d D said that walk that separates your
work and your home life. If you're working from home.
(32:57):
If you're not working from home, maybe try that idea
of taking a picture or some ritual to separate you
from your job. For me, I light a candle. That's
your second choice. When I'm concentrating and paying attention in
my physical space, I actually light a candle that way,
I have to physically blow it out when I want
to leave a space of attention. Three, your choice is
(33:22):
to put your phone in another room or to not
check it when you first get up in the morning,
and fourth, if you can, we're going to go back
to Dr Amber Thornton's technique of creating some version of
an out of office email that allows you a little
bit more space to respond to other people when you
(33:42):
decide to, as opposed to reactively when they want your response.
So space is hard, but once you create it, it's
time to decide how you want to use that amazing,
glorious space. And that's what we're gonna be talking about
next week with create of professional and most amazing designer
(34:03):
and human being, Justina Blakeney. She's going to talk to
us about how to occupy space with intention and how
to get curious about our lives. Thank you for listening
to Time Out, a production of I Heeart podcasts and
Hello Sunshine. I'm Eve Rodsky, author of the New York
(34:23):
Times bestseller fair Play and Find Your Unicorn Space. Follow
me on social media at Eve Rodsky and learn more
about our work at fair Play Life. And I'm Dr
Addi Narukar, a Harvard physician with a specialty and stress resilience, burnout,
and mental health. Follow me on social media at dr
add ne Rucar and find out more about my work
(34:45):
at doctor a d D dot com. That's d R
A d I t I dot com. Our Hello Sunshine
team is Amanda farrand Aaron Stover and Jennifer Yonker. Our
I Heart Media team is Ali Perry, Dinner for Bassett
and Jessica Crnschitch. We hope you all love taking a
much needed time out with us today. Listen and subscribe
(35:07):
to Time Out on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your favorite shows.
Welcome to Time Out. I'm Eve Rodsky, author of the
New York Times bestseller fair Play and Find Your Unicorn Space,
activists on the gender division of labor, attorney and family mediator.
And I'm doctor Addi naru Kar, a physician and medical
correspondent with an expertise in the science of stress, resilience,
mental health, and burnout. We're here to peel back to
(00:24):
layers around why it's so easy for society to guard
men's time as if it's diamonds, and to treat women's
time as if it's infinite like sands. And whether you
are partnered with or without children, or in a career
where you want more boundaries, this is the place for
you for all family structures. We're here to take a
time out to learn, get inspired, and most importantly, reclaim
(00:49):
our time. Hi, add how are you? Hi? You create
to see you as always. I think this is going
to be one of my favorite episodes because today we're
really talking about not shipping where we're eating in a
(01:12):
time when we are shipping where we as the really
good phrase goes, We've talked a bit about boundaries in
the home, but we haven't really talked about them or
explored them, and they're in full entirety biological boundaries, metaphysical boundaries.
What that means to be in a physical space, to
have mental space, to have as we said, spiritual space,
(01:36):
whatever space you need. We want to talk about that
today and how creating real authentic space for yourself requires boundaries.
And I was thinking about boundaries when I was talking
to two amazing people that were in my fair Place study,
Leanna and Christian. But I remember speaking to them about
what their life during COVID felt like, and even before
(02:00):
at Leanna was saying that as a mom of four
kids and they were home schooling their children, like so
many of us, that her life felt like a conveyor belt.
She used this conveyor belt metaphor that things kept on
coming at her and she was trying to pick them
up and pick them up and pick them up. Reminds
me of that old school Lucille Ball episode of the
(02:24):
chocolate balls on a conveyor belt, and she's trying to
eat them all really fast because they can't catch them
as they're flying off fine and you're doing splendidly spat
up to the point where you almost give up. You
give up because you can't catch all those chocolate balls.
(02:45):
And then her husband, Christian said that he never thought
of his life as a conveyor belt. He thought of
his life as a plate, and when his plate is full,
he stops putting things on it and off been women
are feeling like invariables in my data, and men are
(03:07):
able to be plates. And so today I really want
to think about how we can all be plates. I
want to be a plate. I want to be like
a dancing plate in the cartoon and being the beast,
one of the amazing plates that come out during that
big scene where everyone's dancing and singing. Be our guest.
(03:27):
How can we all be plates? It's so interesting when
you share that story about Lean and Christian. I think
about something like multitasking in relation to boundary setting. And
what's fascinating is that our brains are wired to do
one thing at a time. And when we say, as
women more than men, typically we say we're great at multitasking,
(03:50):
and it's a real badge of honor. In fact, what
we're doing. It's a scientific misnomer. Multitasking is task switching.
There's no such thing as multitask. The brain is wired
to do one thing at a time. Only two percent
of the population can truly multitask. The rest of us,
and I include myself in that we're just doing two
(04:11):
things in rapid succession task switching, and that can have
lots of profound detrimental effects on the brain. Affects things
like our cognition, our memory, attention and counterativity, our productivity
and efficiency. It also decreases their ability to solve complex problems.
(04:34):
And I don't know about you, but there are a
lot of complex problems to solve, so we really can't
afford to multitask. The interesting thing about boundaries, and like
the human brain, is that we function optimally in our
brains function optimally when there are clear boundaries, particularly when
(04:54):
it comes to our roles, and that has been really
challenging these past couple of years because there are no boundaries.
There's no physical boundaries. So your desk is right in
the living room, your children or zoom schooling next to you,
the kitchen is a few steps away, your partner is
right there, and so that inability to create physical space
(05:18):
translates to the inability to create space in the mind,
and so all of these things pile up on top
of each other. This is why one of the strategies
that I suggest to people during this time is to
fake your commute. The commute is so therapeutic and so
beneficial for the brain. It's because after we do our
mornings of getting our children ready for school, getting ourselves ready,
(05:41):
we have that commute, whether it's five minutes, thirty minutes,
or an hour, to just reframe and get into the
head of Okay, now I'm in work mode. And then
on your commute back home, you're thinking, okay, I'm in
home mode. But it takes some time. There's that transition
that has to happen. I call it the book ends, right,
you know how they kind of compartmentalize things. Without that
(06:02):
daily commute, we're switching from one thing to the other,
one thing to the other. We are multitasking in this
new working from home era, and we don't even know it.
We are not biologically wired to do that. And that
is why we're seeing such a rise and unprecedented level
of burnout. Mental health issues, anxiety, insomnia, depression, really bleak
(06:27):
statistics because of the inability to create space. A lot
of it is societal and forced upon us. But prior
to this particular moment was just not as acute. But
we're really feeling that pressure cooker now. Well, I think
that's so important because people are literally shipping where they eat.
I had women tell me that they were having lunch
(06:50):
in the bathroom, hiding from their families because their partners
took up the quote unquote good space essential workers. People
who are not working from home, they still had the
issue of having space time continuum problems because even if
they had to commute, their children in many cases weren't
(07:13):
having a commute, and so it was very confusing and
in that way to be able to have their head
at home. So this is a metaphorical space thing. Thinking
about home all the time while also being at work
is a very highly stressful thing as well. And so
I think regardless of whether you are physically in a
chair on zoom or whether you have to still commute,
(07:36):
but your other family members are not settled and compartmentalized
the way that they used to be, it's feeling like
everything is this metaphorical shipping where you eat. And I
love your idea of bookends because I think that's really important.
I like to think a lot about space, metaphorical space
so if you don't have physical space, which many of
(07:57):
us don't right now, it's sort of all blending into one.
It requires an urgency about creating boundaries and other ways
through self talk, through decisions we make, through actions we take.
And so I wonder if you could talk a little
bit about what other actions are you seeing people take
(08:19):
that are helpful to start protecting their boundaries. And I
know our guests Dr ever Thornton is going to be
helping us with that as well, But I wonder what
you're seeing out there. We're really facing this shadow pandemic,
which is the pandemic of mental health and burnout. The
statistics are bleak. Seven out of ten workers say that
(08:40):
this is the most stressful time of their entire professional careers.
Se people have at least one feature of burnout, and
about six think that the pandemic has been a culprit.
What's really fascinating about this lack of boundaries, pressure cooker
burnout situation is that we used to think that it
(09:01):
was the typical features of burnout, right apathy, feeling disengaged
from work, increased error, sporedom, lack of productivity. Yes, of
course those things are happening but more and more, what
we're seeing is that there is an inability to disconnect
from work, which is an atypical feature of burnout. People
(09:22):
have that, so they might not even recognize it as
burnout because they think of burnout is so I don't
really want to do work, I'm not into it. But
in fact, the inability to disconnect is something that is
so prevalent right now. It is also because of our
physical structure. We're working at home, we're parenting at the
(09:42):
same time. These are impossible demands. Well, thank you for that.
I think that's really important. We are at a place
now where burnout is um not going to be solved
by just taking that walk around the block. It's really
this practice, so not doing the commun once, but faking
a commune if your home every day, adding practices to
(10:05):
your life and also existentially, I would add that to me,
a true boundary is being interested in your own life.
And when you're interested in your own life and you
take actions that signal you're interested in your own life.
We talked about unicorn space like a dance class or
a pottery workshop, or a mixology experience, or an axe
(10:30):
throwing experience, or a bullrading experience. It can go on
and on and on. When you start taking actions that
show and signal you're interested in your own life, it
really can be a start of becoming curious again, of
becoming in love with your life again. In a way,
I think that so many of us who were languishing
last year have thought we could give that up and
(10:53):
that would get us more time. But I actually think
when we took that off our plate, these things that
make us come alive, actually think that our boundaries that worse.
That's what I'm hearing from the data that when I
took things off my plate for me, I thought I
would gain more time back to do everything else for
everybody else. But actually it's I don't. I'm just filling
(11:14):
my days with more hedonistic well being. I'm doomscrolling Twitter more,
I'm drinking more. So it's not like taking off the
things that we do for ourselves helps us create boundaries.
I actually think it makes it harder to create boundaries.
I often think about stress or burnout or that pressure
(11:34):
cooker situation as a tea kettle, and we are that
tea kettle, and so you are sitting on that hot stove,
the temperatures way up and we are building up steam.
And that's where we can all relate to that metaphor.
Because we feel it. We often try to adjust the
knob to decrease the heat, and in many instances we
(11:55):
can do that if it's an acute situation. But right
now these are forces out of our control. We can't
adjust the heat. So what can we do. We can
open up that lever to blow off that steam. And
it takes effort to pull up that lever to blow
off that steam, but it's that doing. And so with
all of these examples that you've given, Eve, it's all
in the doing. When you do better, you feel better.
(12:18):
But it has to be a practice, it has to
be consistent. Our brain is a muscle when the more
you use it, the better and stronger it becomes. The
other thing when we're creating new habits to combat burnout
and stress is to really think about decision fatigue, especially
now we are so tapped or really running on fumes
(12:38):
all of us. And so if you were to say
I'm going to do this twice a week, chances are
you won't get to it. Just like your research has shown,
it's very difficult to start something new when you are
psychologically not in the best place. That is why you
have to incorporate something small, something new that is small
into your day every single day, so becomes a habit.
(13:01):
We have to think about this as our mental health
hygiene and incorporating these small nuggets into our daily lives
because these small, instrumental changes have a big impact on
the brain. And what I'll end on before we introduce
our wonderful guest is that I actually think when you
(13:22):
think about boundaries, there's two words, and I love my literations,
this one is two a's. I think of boundaries as
a combination of something active when you set a boundary.
The word set is a verb, so it's something active
and it's also something that requires attention. So when you
(13:45):
think of it, if you're being active in something that
requires sustained attention, then you're helping yourself create a boundary.
That to me is how practically a boundary looks. I've
created a boundary when I am an active pursuit and
I have sustained attention to something that I decided I
(14:05):
wanted to have sustained attention on. So if you're not
feeling active in this way, we're talking about, or you
don't believe you have the ability to pay attention. That's
also a way of deducing that you probably are not
there yet in creating boundaries. So one other little ritual
that I've been doing d because you know how much
(14:26):
I love burning things, is that I've been setting a
candle next to my desk and lighting a candle for
the times where I want to have a boundary where
I'm intentional about saying I'm now an active pursuit of
something I want to pay attention to, and then I
blow out the candle when I go and have to
(14:46):
re enter society for things that other people want me
to pay attention to. It's almost like starting a timer,
but in a way that smells better than setting a
timer on your phone. Yeah, you're creating a sense of intention.
That force of intention fuels you. It's also a good
tell for others if they're watching you. Never alone right
(15:09):
now in our homes, So if someone walks by you
and wants to interrupt you, they say, oh, no, mom
has that candle, and I can't bother her my candle
is burning. So I think that's a great metaphor to
leave us on as our guest joins us today. Dr
Amber Thornton is a boundary expert. She's a clinical psychologist,
motherhood wellness consultant and helps empower working parents everywhere to
(15:33):
reimagine their working home life. She's gonna be talking with
us after the break. We're so excited to be joined
now by Dr Amber Thornton. Dr Thornton is a boundary expert.
(15:55):
She's a clinical psychologist, motherhood wellness consultant and helps power
working parents everywhere to reimagine their working home life. And
perhaps our listeners will find it comforting to know that
even our best boundary experts are an exempt from space issues.
She's joining us today from her downstairs office while her
kids are home upstairs. Hi Amber, thank you for being here.
(16:20):
Hi Amber, thank you so much for having me. I'm
really excited for this conversation. So Amber. I love your
tagline redefining motherhood one boundary at a time. That really
resonated with me. One of my first questions to you
is why our boundaries important? As women, we are often
(16:42):
socialized to one just think about the other first. We're
always told that if we have children, are our kids
are more important? If we are partners our partners are
more important in their careers, are more important, and so
we just grow up learning that we need to put
other people's needs first. We become really good anticipating the
needs of other people, and we don't learn how to
(17:04):
differentiate ourselves from the needs of other people, or the
desires of other people, or even other people's ideas for us.
And so that's why those boundaries are so important, because
if we don't have those, we will continue to operate
in a way that prioritizes everyone else and really neglects ourselves.
And so we need those boundaries as reminders to take
(17:26):
care of ourselves, but also to just remind us where
we begin, where our children begin, where we end, so
that we can really take care of ourselves. You give
us three steps to setting boundaries, and it's such a
difficult thing to do because we have to learn how
to say no. But how do we start, How do
(17:48):
we start setting the boundary? And what are the steps
to doing it? The first thing is really to just
listen to yourself. Oftentimes, when we need to set a boundary,
we know that there's this voice inside sometimes that's saying, hey,
there's something here that's not right. There's something here that
doesn't feel good, and we have to just really like
respect and honor that because again, as women and mothers
(18:10):
were socialized too not trust the little voice inside, to
not trust our intuition, and so really acknowledging that, but
then also really trusting and respecting what it's trying to
tell you. It's real, it's valid, there's nothing wrong with it,
and it's okay to move forward with setting a boundary.
And then once you learn how to trust yourself and
(18:31):
understand that inner voice, then we get to the place
of respecting ourselves or feeling that we're worthy enough to
deserve the boundary. And then that third most critical step
is saying no, which is like we're like a train
that's moving and then suddenly just come to a screeching hall.
(18:52):
I was a former people pleaser. I still am, and
I just wanted to ask you about that as we
talk about this need to people please, but then moving
past that and being able to say no. Definitely. People
pleasing can be a consequence of something negative happening to
you or around you or near you when you were
(19:15):
younger or in the past. For some people, it could
be the result of a trauma they've experienced. Girls, oftentimes,
when they're growing up, they're taught explicitly and implicitly that
it's not okay to be honest about how you feel.
We're taught to make sure everyone's okay, don't want to
hurt their feelings, don't ruffle any feathers, and our nose
(19:35):
are scary. Our nose are not okay. Our nose make
people uncomfortable, and we, unfortunately are not taught how to
sit with the discomfort that might come when someone's not
happy with us. No one teaches us, okay, well, this
is what it means when someone is upset with you,
and that's okay. When you said someone is not happy
with you, my heart started to count and I was like,
(19:56):
who's not happy with you? Right now? Exactly? Don't like
I don't want somebody to be not happy with me.
So it's creating a visceral response even as you say it,
and it's just the hypothetical. My heart is pounding exactly Automatically,
we get this visceral feeling of like, oh, I've done
something wrong or how do I fix it? When really
it's okay for people to not be pleased with you,
(20:18):
it's okay for them to not like you or be
approving of what you're doing. That all of that is okay.
And how do we learn to say no? Practice? It's
so simple, and I know people are going to be
upset with me when I say that, but truly you
have to just do it. There's no step really that
I can give you. It's truly just practice. And so
(20:39):
one way to make it a little bit easier to
start is say no to the things that feel simple efforts. So,
for instance, there might be a friend saying, hey, I
want to come over, and whether it's because of the pandemic,
whether it's because we're just tired, whatever it is, and
being okay saying hey, I would love for you to
come over, but I'm just feeling up to it. Really, truly,
(21:01):
it comes down to the practice. Really do it. Practice,
hold yourself accountable, and maybe if you ask someone to
hold you accountable so that they can cheer you on
and support you as your practicing is. We have a
group threat of my college friends and we share in
there when we're about to decline an opportunity or say
no to something. And so when you talk about practice,
(21:23):
I think it's so important because it reminds me that
people will say to me, you know, I said that
five years ago, and I expect them to still remember
that that was my boundary. But it reminds you of saying, well,
you know, I exercised once when I was eighteen, and
I'm forty five now and I'm supposed to still be fit.
I mean, if you say that, we would all laugh,
right because we know that it exercises the practice. But
(21:46):
when it comes to boundary setting, we look at it
as a one and done. You know, well I told
them no, so why are they asking me again? Sometimes
you have to keep practicing. It's absolutely not a one
and done because I think also takes time for other
people to learn and understand your boundaries. They might not
hear it the first time, and so you have to
(22:07):
continue to reiterate. Dr Amber, We've talked a lot about
friendships and setting boundaries in our personal life, but what
about in our professional life? How can we say no
to increasing work responsibilities? Yeah, that's a tough one because
right now, so much of our lives are blurred. Like
even for me, right now, my kids are here and
(22:28):
I can hear them upstairs. They're the but you know,
it's funny because I think that someone was knocking on
my door as your child was jumping on the ceiling,
and I was thinking, there's just like a This is
like a symphony of interruption to try to keep us
honest in our conversation about how hard it could be
to set a boundary, especially right now, things are so blurred.
(22:51):
So for instance, I'm working right now in my basement
and my children are upstairs running rampant, and so I
think finding the balance between the personal and then the professional,
putting some boundaries around the professional. That can be really
scary because sometimes we are fearful that if we have
to be honest or set a boundary, that that might
(23:13):
mean a missed opportunity, or it might mean that we
are not viewed in the same way that we previously work. Unfortunately,
it really leads to a lot of us hiding so
much of ourselves in our professional fronts. And I hope
that we become more comfortable with not completely blurned into
but realizing that one doesn't take away from the other.
(23:33):
What helps me is to think about our values, right
and so you know, for me, I'm one that really
values my family. I love my children. I value my
well being and I also really love my career, and
I'm really careful to make sure that one doesn't take
away from the other. And so if I do have
to set up a boundary professionally, I'm reminding myself that
(23:54):
this boundary is for the greater good of my health,
my family, myself, and it's not at the expense of
anything that I have going on. You know, you truly
do walk the talk, Dr Amber, because in your email
response it is like a gem. You are teaching women
(24:17):
how to set boundaries through your lived experience. But what
is it? Yeah, tell us what is I I think
add was the one who got your email response, so
I want to hear what it is. I put away
message up maybe about a month ago now because I
realized I was constantly checking my emails on my phone
and it was just taking so much of my time.
So I put up your way message and it basically
(24:38):
just says, hey, I've got your message, but I'm only
checking my email box on Mondays and Thursdays. This is
me setting my boundary and practicing bolden firm boundaries. I
hope you appreciate it, and I'll talk too soon. Wow.
But I've I've actually got a lot of good feedback
about if people see it and they're like, oh wow,
I want to do that too. So I'm glad it
can encourage and inspire someone else because it helps me
(24:59):
a lot. I our team when we got that, it
was so affirming. We're like, well, we got the right
expert about boundaries. If that's I guess if that's your email, right,
That's what I'm thinking right now, and I'm thinking what
days would I want to check my emails? Because I
think it's something I think I'm gonna try. It's definitely
a practical step, and I think that's the last question
(25:21):
I wanted to ask you. How do boundaries interact with expectations?
Because when I think about fair play, where it started from,
it was really an understanding that in my work is
someone who looks at behavioral design, one of the things
to a well functioning organization is explicitly defined expectations. And
so I want to understand if boundaries help us set
(25:44):
other people's expectations, or if it's that the expectations that
we set for ourselves then have to be communicated in
a boundary, or is it a big circle, It's a
huge circle. It's both of those things absolutely again. Once
we can work through the fear of setting our boundary,
it makes life easier for everyone, including ourselves. Because people
(26:05):
didn't know what to expect from us, we know what
to expect from ourselves. Once people learn our boundaries, we
then can have a better understanding of what to expect
from them. It makes everything, like you said, much more
clear because we don't have to guess, we don't have
to be surprised when we can express how we feel
what we need. It just makes um communication a lot
(26:25):
more accessible in lots of clarity, and that's always a
good thing. Well, you read my mind because my word
of is clarity. So what a beautiful gift to leave
all of us with. So I really want to thank
you so much for being with us today. We love
your work. And the last question is where can people
find you if they want to learn more about how
(26:47):
to set boundaries. Well, I'm so glad to be here,
so thank you so much for having me. Anyone can
find me at bounced Working Mama dot com. Also, I'm
always on Instagram at dr and Bert Thornton. And then
we also have an Instagram and pay for bounced working
Mama too. Hi, It's me Eve. Are you a therapist,
(27:11):
counselor coach or nutritionists that has thought about introducing the
fair Play system directly to your clients? Well, now you
can come and roll in the fair Play Method, a
new online program that provides you with hands on training,
a ton of valuable resources, and a community of certified
professionals for all part of a greater cultural movement for
systemic change. Learn more about how you can help your
(27:34):
clients shift the domestic workload in their own homes towards
more equity, more fairness, and greater connectivity. Visit fair play
life dot com. So, as you may know, now, every
episode of this podcast ends with an action item for
(27:55):
you are listeners that we call a time out. This
is really a time for you to focus on yourself
and reflect on what you're hearing today. And we're starting
the conversation first with ourselves and then ultimately with those
around us. So it seems to me that a lot
of what we're talking about in time Out is actually
(28:16):
about boundaries. And I know we started with Greg McEwen
and we keep laddering up to get to this place
of Dr Amber Thornton where we're talking about space, physical
and mental space, and how hard that is to come by.
I want to understand a d D. What is the
power of mental and physical space on the brain. What
(28:37):
does it do for us when we create physical and
mental space to have a room of one's own the
idea of Virginia Woolf a hundred years ago that we
needed a metaphorical physical room of one's own if we
wanted to write and ideate and create and think and be.
What is that power of space? Our brain function best
(29:00):
when there's compartmentalization, and that absence of boundary and compartmentalization
reeks havoc on us. So in an era when it's
really difficult to carve out that brain space and physical
space to be a worker and a parent and a
spouse since everything is happening in the same place. One
(29:20):
of the strategies that I've said before that I like
to use is a fake commute. And so since all
of us are working from home, you know that magical
twenty minutes that you would give yourself for a commute.
It may help you get into a new headspace even
though you are coming back into the same physical environment.
Another technique that we can use to create a little
(29:43):
bit more space in the mind, in the body, and
also in our physical space is avoid checking your phone
first thing in the morning. It is what we all do.
Our phones have become our alarm clocks. They sit next
to us on the nightstand. We wake up before eyes
are even fully open, and a tune to the morning light.
(30:03):
We are scrolling. We think of it as a benign,
innocuous thing that we do just to get ready for
the day. These are not benign entities, email, work responsibilities,
social media. They have a direct hit on our dopamine,
our serra tonin and our neuro transmitters. So instead, keep
your phone either in a different room if you can
(30:26):
manage it, but you can graduate to that level, or
just away from your nightstand where you have to physically
get up out of bed to check your phone in
the morning. And then the final thing I will say,
eve is the reason that we check our phones so
incessantly during the day right now, probably more than we
ever have, is because our bodies and our brains are
(30:48):
prime for survival and pandemic stoke our primal fears. Checking
the news, scrolling through social media is a primal urge.
It's our way to feel safe. What's happening though it's
negative feedback loop. We scroll, we see something that's dangerous
or news headline, and it revs up our dopamine response
and our fear cascade and our bodies. And so to
(31:10):
really combat that, we need to create a little bit
of space to understand how our bodies are responding. The
space time continuum is collapsing on all of us. So
this is our superhero episode. So what I think would
be fun for today's time out exercise? If you're listening
on the road, wait to pull over, but grab a journal,
(31:30):
grab a piece of paper. We want you to take
a time out today to commit to one space ritual.
And we don't mean suiting up for average space. But
as a d D said, pick one. We'll give you
four choices and then report us. If you don't like
one of these four choices, tell us what you do
(31:51):
to create a space ritual. We'll share it in our
show notes. I want to say one other anecdote before
we give you your choices. I had this really one
A full nurse tell me that for her being an
industrial fluorescent lights all day, it was really really hard
for her. And so if this one amazing woman told
(32:12):
me that to create space on her commute, what she's
been doing is taking a camera and taking a picture
in nature on the way to work, at lunch and
on our way home. When she does that, instead of
faking a commute, because she still has a commute, it
still allows her to separate her industrial fluorescent light, harsh
(32:34):
job as a caregiver during the days of nurse with
the communing with nature that she'd like to do with
her family, her friends. So I love that. So here's
your four choices. Your four choices are create a fake commute,
as a d D said that walk that separates your
work and your home life. If you're working from home.
(32:57):
If you're not working from home, maybe try that idea
of taking a picture or some ritual to separate you
from your job. For me, I light a candle. That's
your second choice. When I'm concentrating and paying attention in
my physical space, I actually light a candle that way,
I have to physically blow it out when I want
to leave a space of attention. Three, your choice is
(33:22):
to put your phone in another room or to not
check it when you first get up in the morning,
and fourth, if you can, we're going to go back
to Dr Amber Thornton's technique of creating some version of
an out of office email that allows you a little
bit more space to respond to other people when you
(33:42):
decide to, as opposed to reactively when they want your response.
So space is hard, but once you create it, it's
time to decide how you want to use that amazing,
glorious space. And that's what we're gonna be talking about
next week with create of professional and most amazing designer
(34:03):
and human being, Justina Blakeney. She's going to talk to
us about how to occupy space with intention and how
to get curious about our lives. Thank you for listening
to Time Out, a production of I Heeart podcasts and
Hello Sunshine. I'm Eve Rodsky, author of the New York
(34:23):
Times bestseller fair Play and Find Your Unicorn Space. Follow
me on social media at Eve Rodsky and learn more
about our work at fair Play Life. And I'm Dr
Addi Narukar, a Harvard physician with a specialty and stress resilience, burnout,
and mental health. Follow me on social media at dr
add ne Rucar and find out more about my work
(34:45):
at doctor a d D dot com. That's d R
A d I t I dot com. Our Hello Sunshine
team is Amanda farrand Aaron Stover and Jennifer Yonker. Our
I Heart Media team is Ali Perry, Dinner for Bassett
and Jessica Crnschitch. We hope you all love taking a
much needed time out with us today. Listen and subscribe
(35:07):
to Time Out on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your favorite shows.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com