Self-Respect

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What if embracing self-respect could be the missing piece to a fulfilling and balanced life? Through heartfelt personal stories, including my family's recent journey through cancer, we explore how self-respect is a vital component of holistic self-care. Join me as we uncover actionable strategies for fostering this essential quality, like mastering the art of setting boundaries, taking control of your schedule, and the liberating power of saying no to activities that drain your energy. We'll challenge societal norms that often push self-respect to the sidelines and advocate for a shift towards prioritizing your own needs and desires. Discover how daily rituals, from dressing up to planning little monthly adventures, can boost your self-confidence and nurture true joy.

In our quest for well-being and balance, we delve into practices like body scans, superpower models, and yoga sessions designed to open the root chakra. These tools are not just exercises—they are pathways to positioning yourself as the superstar of your own life. I encourage you to revisit previous episodes where we provide guided sessions that further enhance these practices, offering a deeper exploration of your inner strength and balance. As we wrap up, I extend my heartfelt gratitude for your presence in this journey and invite you to join our thriving community through your feedback and reviews. Let’s embrace a path of self-respect and holistic self-care, paving the way for a life filled with soul joy and harmony.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hey y'all, I'm Dr Julie Merriman and welcome to
SoulJoy.
In today's episode it's allabout R-E-S-P-E-C-T.
Do you hear, aretha?
That is self-respect.
As always, this is a necessarycomponent of sustainable,

(00:22):
holistic self-care.
I also call wellness.
Okay, friend, I like that musicthat's going to come up again.
Hi, friend, welcome to today'sepisode.

(00:44):
I so appreciate you taking sometime to tune in and just hang
out with me for a hot minute.
So what's been going on at thehouse?
Well, we, let's see.
We are just kind of getting inthe groove of not being in the
hospital every week.
It has been so great.
Kelly, as y'all know, has beenbattling cancer and we had a lot

(01:07):
of what I called hospitalroulette, but anyway, he's
healthy and he's out moving hayand I have some time to sit in
my studio and make a fewpodcasts.
So home is good.
So, professional helpers, thispodcast is dedicated to
preventing and overcoming theoccupational hazards of this

(01:29):
career that we chose.
We love it, but it comes with.
I mean, it's it's.
This is hard work that we do,and I really focus on overcoming
burnout and compassion, fatigueand vicarious trauma.
So let's get to it.
So how do you feel aboutself-respect?

(01:50):
I've seen it demanded fromothers.
You know I've seen respectbeing demanded from others, but
rarely do we think aboutdemanding it of ourselves.
So how does that voice betweenyour ears disrespect you Y'all

(02:11):
if we can extend this toourselves?
If we can't extend this toourselves, it's really difficult
to receive respect from others.
You know it starts at home.
We got to do our ownhousekeeping and make sure that
that voice between our ears is arespectful voice, because it's

(02:33):
almost hypocritical to demand itfrom others when we're not
giving it to ourselves.
So this is another week for usto look at the root chakra.
Last week we looked at rootchakra stuff.
We're looking at that againthis week.
Our self-confidence radiatesfrom that chakra.
The more confident we are, themore self-respect we enjoy.

(02:58):
So here's the baseline thingsthat I've grown to believe lead
to self-respect.
Through my own experience andworking with clients over the
last 30 years, what I've foundare these things I'm about to
talk about.
So I take a much deeper diveinto this y'all in my book In

(03:20):
Pursuit of Soul Joy that you canget on my website or Amazon.
But if you really want to takea deeper dive, I really
encourage you to take a lookthere.
So here's what I found and Isay through my own lived
experience, through working withclients over the last 30 years
and through researching theseconstructs of burnout and

(03:42):
self-compassion, fatigue andvicarious trauma.
This is what my research hasshown as well.
This is what we need in orderto start living a life full of
self-respect.
So, first, you've got to beable to set healthy boundaries.
Second, you've got to own thatcalendar.

(04:02):
Second, you've got to own thatcalendar.
Third, saying no to things thatdrain you is eminently
important, because only then doyou open your life to have room
to really yummy yeses aboutthings that bring you joy.
The next one is exercise.

(04:24):
You've got to be moving yourbody.
You've got to get thoseendorphins instilled in your
body.
You've got to build a lifethat's full of mobility.
And also, ladies and gentlemen,I highly believe it's important
that we get our ass up out ofbed and get dressed every day
Comb your hair, put on yourmakeup, get dressed, put on a

(04:46):
nice outfit, feel good aboutyourself.
That is eminently important,with self-respect and y'all.
I think we need to plan onethrill a month, like this month
my husband and I are zooming offto Jamaica.
Next month we're zooming overto Windstar Brooks and Dunn will

(05:07):
be playing Is that next month?
I think that's in March.
Next month is all about theholidays and so that's going to
be my thrill getting myChristmas tree up and stuff.
You've got to have somethingthat brings you joy at least
once a month, and it's not goingto happen unless you plan it.
But I would invite you toconsider what I've just listed

(05:28):
out.
Those are baseline necessities.
There's no excuses allowed.
Those are baselines, baselinenecessities to bringing
self-respect to your life.
And when you're living a lifethat's confident and full of
self-respect, that's going to bea life full of soul joy.
That's going to be a life fullof soul joy.

(05:49):
In my experience, y'all, in myexperience being a child of the
60s, too often we're raised tonot respect ourselves, respect
our needs, respect our desires.
And as a good Texas girl, mymom and dad drilled being polite

(06:13):
over self-respect into me, andby that I mean and my
grandparents did too it wasdon't be selfish, let your
friend do this, that or theother, or she's your guest.
You need to make sure she haswhat she needs before you take
care of yourself, which I mean.
I'm not saying manners aren't agood thing, I'm just saying.

(06:36):
Sometimes, I believe we drillthose thoughts into children's
heads to the point that theydon't believe they are allowed
to respect themselves and putthemselves first in any instance
.
And that's just not true.
I cry hogwash.
You have to show up, be seen andheard to practice self-respect.

(07:00):
So do you find yourself sayingpoo poo to these ideas?
If so, you probably have someroot chakra work to do.
You need to pinpoint what mightbe getting in your way of
believing in and practicingself-respect for yourself and

(07:24):
y'all.
To be clear, I'm talking abouthow you've created your life.
Who, pray tell who is thesuperstar of your life?
If it's not you, then you'vegot work to do.
There's probably lots of old,worn out schema that you need to

(07:46):
clear because that's getting inthe way of your root chakra
energy.
Need to clear because that'sgetting in the way of your root
chakra energy.
There's nothing wrong with youbeing the superstar of your life
.
There just isn't the voicethat's between your ears, that's
you all day, every day of yourlife.
She's hanging in there with youall day, every day, and she

(08:09):
needs to be respectful of youand by George rooting for you.
So, okay, before we move to theactivity I've got planned for
you.
There's a couple of things, buteven before I segue into that,
I just want y'all to really takea step back and think about how
respectful your voice betweenyour ears is to you and that's

(08:33):
an important voice, like I say,he or she is with you 24-7, 365.
And if you're beingdisrespectful, y'all, that's a
giant clue that there's work tobe done and that's okay.
This work we do is not one anddone.
We're always working onourselves, especially those of

(08:54):
us in professional helpingprofession.
So I want you to really thinkabout what I've talked about, do
a little assessment on yourself.
Where do I have some work?
Is that voice being respectful?
Because only when you get thatvoice to be respectful can you

(09:15):
really start practicing soul joy, and I want that for you.
So, okay, I want to invite youto subscribe to my email list
and get the weekly email that Isend out when I send out my
podcast every Monday, and inthis email there's free PDFs.
There might be one, there mightbe several, depends on what

(09:37):
activities we've done.
There's one this week, but allyou have to do is go to my
website and sign up for mynewsletter to get on my email
list.
And while you're there, Iencourage you to buy a copy of
my book and really start digginginto how to create soul joy in
your life.
So my website iswwwjuliemerrimanphdcom, so I

(10:03):
hope to see you hop over thereand take advantage of that.
Okay, so the activity I have foryou today is really pretty easy
, but then again, you know Ilaugh A lot of this.
Stuff is pretty easy to reallytry to do it for yourself on a
regular basis, and believe me,I'm looking myself in the mirror

(10:23):
when I say that.
But the activity I have for youtoday is called self-respect
tools, and these y'all it's notrocket science.
Nothing, believe me, nothing Italk about is rocket science.
But research does show thatthis will help us lead a happier
, more fulfilled life full ofself-respect.

(10:45):
So first, it's simple, myfriends you just need to smile
more.
Your body reacts to thosesmiles.
Your yummy hormones are dumpedinto your system that help you
feel more alive and vibrant.
People react to you differently.
If you see someone scowling,that's a message to stay away.

(11:08):
If you see someone smiling,that's a message of endearment,
and I've got a lot of warmthhere to offer the world.
Keep a self-respect journal.
I go into that more in depth inthe PDF I send out.
Celebrate your wins.
Take time to notice them andcelebrate them.

(11:28):
If you don't, nobody else is.
Create a powerful alter ego,and what I mean by this is that
I invite you to combine thequalities of experts, people you
respect and the ways you wishyou were Taking on.

(11:53):
This persona can help youseparate from the voice between
your ears when it getsdisrespectful.
And then I invite you to createa self-respect collage.
It could be pictures, it couldbe words, it could be a
combination, it could be giant,it could be small, but I want
you to display that somewhere toremind you how important that

(12:18):
self-respect work is.
Also, do not negate doing yourbody scans, doing your
superpower models and taking ayoga class or two to really
focus on opening up that rootchakra.
And if you go back and listento earlier episodes, I walk you

(12:39):
through a super power model andI walk you through the full body
scan.
All right, y'all.
That's it for today.
I thank you so much for hangingout with me for a hot minute.
I invite you to subscribe tothis podcast.
Wherever you listen to podcasts, please leave a review.

(13:00):
I'd love to hear from you.
So until next time, take careof you.