Mastering Your Personal Power

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Feeling like you're constantly breaking promises to yourself? That persistent self-betrayal isn't a character flaw—it's an energy imbalance in your solar plexus chakra. Today's soul-stirring exploration takes us to the powerhouse energy center in your upper belly that governs self-esteem, personal power, and integrity.

We've all experienced that morning motivation that somehow evaporates by evening. You wake up determined to exercise, eat clean, or maintain boundaries, but by day's end, exhaustion and decision fatigue hijack your best intentions. This episode dives deep into why we struggle to keep our word to ourselves, even when following through would make us feel "so damn good." Drawing from both my clinical experience and personal burnout recovery journey, I share how balancing your solar plexus requires mastering three essential elements: time management, boundary-setting, and self-integrity.

The heart of this episode introduces my "Superpower Model"—a transformative approach to breaking self-sabotage cycles. This CBT-based framework helps you identify how facts create thoughts, thoughts generate feelings, and feelings drive actions. The magic happens when you intercept and transform those thoughts, because changing your thinking changes everything downstream. I guide you through practical steps to catch self-defeating thought patterns and replace them with empowering alternatives. When you practice this interruption for 21 days, you'll not only balance your solar plexus energy but develop the badass confidence that comes from trustworthy self-relationship.

Ready to reclaim your personal power and stop the morning lecture/evening regret cycle? Download the free Superpower Model worksheet mentioned in this episode by subscribing to my newsletter at juliemerrimanphd.com. This simple but profound practice will help you identify what's blocking your follow-through and transform your relationship with yourself. Subscribe to SoulJoy wherever you listen to podcasts and join me on this journey toward sustainable self-care and authentic personal power.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey y'all, I'm Dr Julie Merriman and welcome to
SoulJoy.
Today we're going to startunpacking the solar plexus
chakra, where your personalpower lives.
Being the boss of your personalpower is a necessary component

(00:21):
of holistic, sustainableself-care, aka wellness.
All right, hey you, welcome.
I appreciate you taking timeout of your busy day to spend a
few hot minutes with me.

(00:42):
Thank you so much.
So what's been going on sincelast week when we visited?
Let's see, I got the brightidea to remodel my master bath.
Now, this didn't happen lastweek, this started back in
December, but anyway, mybelovedlly has the philosophy

(01:04):
that if it ain't broke, don'tmess with it, and I tell you, I
respect this man.
He's usually right, um, but herespects.
I have a different philosophyand I had redone our bedroom and
I wanted nothing more than toremodel that master bath when we
built the house back in 2012,.
Brown was really popular andI'm telling you that bathroom is

(01:28):
brown.
So I had the idea of, you know,this beautiful dark blue, not a
navy, more of a peacock bluefor the vanity marble on the
wall.
Shower glass shower.
Blah, blah, blah on the wall.

(01:50):
Shower glass, shower, blah,blah, blah.
Oh, but man, this, what shouldbe a seemingly easy project has
turned into a money pit.
We had a relative start to theproject, but tiles began falling
off the wall and we ceased anddesisted.
I won't even mention money andpain.
But then y'all, my goodness,trying to find a contractor.

(02:11):
Oh, my goodness.
Long story short, we found aprofessional that's going to
start in about a month and Itell you I am so ready I miss
that second bath.
But the moral to this story isI need to always remember to
listen to my brilliant and kindhubby.
I could have lived with it theway that it was, but I will say

(02:36):
my beloved does encourage me toexercise my personal power and
has been very supportive.
So, professional helpers, thispodcast is dedicated to
preventing and overcoming theoccupational hazards of the
career we chose specificallyburnout, compassion, fatigue and

(02:58):
, let's not forget, vicarioustrauma.
So that is why I'm sitting herewith you today.
So last season we spent quite abit of time on our root chakra
and our sacral chakra, but todaywe're moving to the solar
plexus chakra.
Now this is in our upper bellyand it is a powerhouse.

(03:23):
This chakra impacts yourself-esteem, impacts how you
approach your life purpose, evenif you've defined it, and it
defines how you follow throughfor yourself.
So let's just hang there for asecond.
Hear me there.
So often we know what we needto do.

(03:44):
We make a promise to ourself todo this thing, but we do not
follow through.
That is solar plexus stuff andy'all it is big stuff.
To balance this chakra you'vegot to work on.
This is my belief.
Now you can look this up andfind lots of different things,

(04:06):
but in working with people overthe years and in working on
myself when I had my big burnoutcrash and coming back, I found
to really balance this chakra.
I had to work on timemanagement.
I had to really come to Jesusabout my boundaries and I had to
get right with the integrity ofkeeping that word to myself.

(04:28):
And I know, I know, man, it iseasier said than done, but let's
park here for another hotminute and really explore
keeping your word to yourself.
So many folks I work with,including myself, struggle with

(04:50):
this and I've done some yogaclasses where I tell them the
intention for that particularyoga class is keeping our word
to ourself and I hear women andmen just kind of moan like, oh
God, that's something I reallyneed to work on.
The struggle is real.
We know what to do, but wedon't.
So the big question there iswhy?

(05:10):
And I know as trainedtherapists we don't like to ask
the question why?
But I'm going to ask it here.
What is going on that gets inthe way of keeping your word to
yourself?
Because y'all, with all loveand respect, it takes effort to
keep our word to ourself andit's hard.
We wake up fresh in the morning, but by the time the evening

(05:32):
comes and we're wanting tofollow through with what we said
we're going to follow throughwith.
We're tired, even though whenwe do keep our word to ourself,
we feel so damn good.
We feel so damn good.
It's a wonderful feeling,friends.

(05:53):
I'm talking about keeping thepromise you make to yourself in
the morning.
Aren't we spicy in the morning?
I mean spicy, gonna take theworld on?
I'm not gonna have.
Okay.
So you wake up in the morningand maybe it's this I'm not
gonna to eat after six.
I'm going to exercise when Iget off work.

(06:15):
I'm not going to have one dropof beer, wine, booze, whatever.
I'm not going to have a dietcoke today.
I'm.
Whatever it might be.
I'm going to eat clean today.
I'm not going to see him or heragain.
Maybe there's a relationship.
You know that it's no good foryou.
I'm not going to bring up thatsore subject with my husband

(06:38):
again because it's not good forour relationship.
I'm not scheduling anyone afterfive.
I mean the list goes on, y'all,it's endless.
In my book In Pursuit of SoulJoy, on my website or Amazon, I
go a lot deeper into this and Ithink I begin in about week six

(06:59):
of the book.
But for the purposes of ourtime together today, let's just
explore this a bit.
In the morning we're fresh,right, we've not experienced any
of the stressors of the day,but y'all, by 5 pm we're
fatigued.
We've got a lot, especially inour business where we're making

(07:21):
decisions all day long.
You've got a lot of decisionfatigue going on.
It's really easy to say I'll dowhat I want to do and the cycle
continues.
You don't keep your word toyourself.
You wake up the next morningsaying, man, I wish I'd kept my
word to myself.
See, y'all, you've got tointerrupt that thought to break

(07:46):
the cycle, that thought of F it,I'm just going to do what I
want to do.
You've got to interrupt thatthought to break the cycle of
not keeping your word toyourself.
You've got to catch thatthought and spend some time with
it.
I mean, really get curiousabout it.
Go deeper.
What do I really want here?

(08:07):
Why is it easier to go herethan to just hang with that
discomfort for a hot minute,which is another thing to really
think about.
How do I handle discomfort?
Because a lot of us, includingyours truly, is not the greatest
at sitting in discomfort.
But you can only break thatcycle of not keeping your word

(08:30):
to yourself and move into therealm of being true to yourself
by sitting in some discomfortand asking yourself in a very
deeper manner what do I reallywant here?
What am I really trying toaccomplish?
And I know this is much easiersaid than done, but if you'll do

(08:52):
this break that cycle for 21days you're going to empower
yourself to help balance yourenergy in your solar plexus.
You're going to gain confidenceand feel like a real badass
because you are approaching yourrelationship with yourself with
integrity and keeping your wordto yourself.

(09:14):
And sweet soul, if you don't,you're going to be stuck right
where you are and be in thecycle of lecturing yourself each
morning with maybe a slighthint of disgust.
Sweet soul, the choice is yours.

(09:34):
Okay, before we go to theactivity, I just want to remind
you to subscribe to my emaillist.
It's on my website and you'llget an email with this podcast
and my freebies that I createand include with my podcasts
that have the activity that I'mabout to go over and I go over
in each podcast.
You just go towwwjuliemerrimanphdcom and go to

(10:01):
the bottom of the page andsubscribe to the newsletter and
I will get you hooked up.
So the activity we're going totalk about today I call it my
superpower model.
So we're going to look, we'regoing to work hard and heavy on
this activity for this week.
Okay, that's, this superpowermodel is going to become your

(10:24):
buddy this week, and here's whatI want you to do Every time you
make a promise to yourself, Iwant you to run it through a
superpower model.
Every time you break a promiseto yourself, I want you to run
that thought through asuperpower model.

(10:44):
See, you've got to figure outwhat's blocking your actions,
what is getting in your way andhow is this not serving you?
And the only way to do this isto dig in to your thoughts.
Now, my mental health friends.
It's basic CBT.

(11:05):
I did not create the idea ofthe superpower model.
Beck and Ellis and greattheorists far before my time
created this, this CBT andbehavioral theories.
But here, here's the basics, andI know, you know it, but it's

(11:26):
worth repeating Thoughts,thoughts.
Well, first there's a fact.
Okay, there's just a fact thathappens.
The fact is, I'm zonked, I'mtired.
Just an absolute fact.
Then we create drama.
Oh my God, I'm so tired, it'sthe worst day ever.
I've got to have some kind ofrelief.
You know, we just we take thatfact and make it all dramatic

(11:49):
and that fact creates a thoughtand that thought creates your
feelings and those feelings endup in actions and actions result
in your behavior.
So you've got to drill down tounderstand why you're not

(12:11):
following through for you.
So here's the superpower modeland if you've subscribed to my
email list, you're going to getthe PDF that has this all laid
out.
But I do want, as I put togetherthe superpower model and you
know, all clinicians come upwith their own little bend on

(12:34):
CBT, but for me, as I createdthis superpower model, to work
with my clients and patients, Igot to thinking you know, man,
this is like a cape-worthysuperpower model, because the
only superpower we have ischanging that thought.
Dude, when you change thatthought, it changes your

(12:54):
feelings, which changes youractions, which ends up in a
completely different behavior.
I call that capeworthysuperpower model.
And remember y'all, thoughtsare not cemented in our brain.
Just because we have a thoughtdoes not mean it's factually the

(13:15):
way it is in the world.
It's our thought and it can bechanged.
So, again, you have that factcreates a thought, creates a
feeling, and the creation fromthat will be your actions,
behaviors.
So we take this informationonce you, once you.
And let me tell you I know itcan be a bit tricky to find a

(13:37):
thought.
Sometimes we're like, well, no,I just have this feeling.
This feeling is here and I'mtelling you, it's screaming at
me and there's no thought withthis feeling.
I just have this feeling.
But I promise, when you diginto it, there's a thought there
, somewhere, somewhere, and yourchore, your opportunity, is to

(14:00):
find that thought to.
I mean, the fact has happened.
We can't change the fact.
We have a thought that ismaking meaning of that fact and
that meaning making is causingthe rest of the chain there.
When you can find that thought,that's powerful stuff.
So it may take a hot minute toreally drill down and find the
thought.
But I'm telling you it's worthit.

(14:21):
Once you have this information,fact, thought, feeling,
creation which, in my world, thecreation is your action, those
behaviors you take thisinformation to your journal and
I mean, you wear it out, you doa brain dump, you just write and
write and write to try andunderstand where that meaning

(14:45):
making is coming from and howyou can shift it to feel better
in your skin and and followthrough with integrity with the
things you say you're going todo for you.
Okay, y'all, that's it fortoday.

(15:05):
I invite you to subscribe to mypodcast.
Wherever you listen, leave areview to help me reach more
people and until next time time,take care of you.