Do you know the feeling of trying to keep it all together but not having enough time or energy to manage it all? If you're a Christian woman like me, you definitely do, because I am there with you. It's so hard sometimes when we have so many things that are on our plate that we want to do well, that we feel called to do and yet to feel like we can show up and actually get the stuff done.
Six Tips for Pulling Back To Move Towards Your Goals
I'm going to share with you six tips for pulling back to be able to move forward towards your goals. Now, this does not mean pulling back from the things that are your priorities or the things that are most important, but there are some things that I can give you tips for that will make it easier if you allow yourself to think of these things as helpful life saving tips.
- Stop Time Sucks: Now, what do I mean by stop the time sucks? Basically, to illustrate this, I'll tell you about when I was a young mom where I had three kids going in different directions, and I had my grandmother who was in nursing care and wasn't doing so well. I was trying to still be able to visit with her, get her out once a week, and to still have time with the grandkids while I was homeschooling, while I was going for my Masters. I mean, there was a lot going on and keeping my marriage strong and it was a time. So I just realized, I just don't have any spare time. So I did a brain dump exercise where basically I just got out of a clean sheet of paper and wrote down everything that was on my mind, all of the responsibilities, everything I was trying to do. As I did so, I think I ended up with something like 23 areas of focus, and 13 of those were actually really priorities and important. It was something like that, or it was 13, and seven of them were actually priorities and important. But there was something about the number 13 in there. I know that it was a huge number and that it was like so many things that I needed to say, I can't possibly contain all of this in my head. I just cannot possibly hold it. I remember looking at it, and the thing that I remember crossing off the list first was bowling league. I was on the church bowling league with my husband. Now, you might say with all that stuff going on, you should have some self-care time and certainly a date with your husband. Absolutely. Totally a valid way to look at that. However, at that point in time, it was taking away my Sunday evenings, which were the only times that my husband and I had as downtime to really regroup, to be able to strategize for the next week and to tackle everything. So, it became something that was on the chopping block, because even though I could make a case for enjoying that time with my husband and for getting away and having a date and doing something recreational, the time frame of when that showed up in our schedule was not something we could work with. Now, if it had been Thursday or Friday nights, maybe that could have stayed, because maybe that would have provided the respite we needed, but given that it was Sunday night, that was high-valued real estate, because that was the time where we were gearing up for the next week and recovering from the weekend, so it had to go. So that's the way to be kind of ruthless is to say, what are those things that are sucking your time? Either by taking up space that they shouldn't be in because other priorities should be there, or by being in the wrong space. Even though they're good things, even though they're priorities, they're in a space taking up time that you do not have to give at that time frame. They might be things that you just do not have the bandwidth at the day that they're scheduled or the day that the event's happening or the day that someone needs you to do something, and it's okay to say, this isn't working for me, and it's not workable for me. So, doing a brain dump so that you can see where all of your energies and focus and time is going and then choosing what the time sucks are either that they're in inopportune spaces in your calendar or they are things that are not priorities and get them out of there. That's the first thing that you can pull back from so that you can move forward towards your goals in a better way.
- Take Note of What Your Priorities Are: As a Christian woman reading this, I'm going to assume that God is a priority right now. God being a priority is great. Does that mean that you have to do a two-hour devotional at 5 in the morning because your best friend does that? Or because you heard someone say that's a great idea? Or are you more beneficial? Is it more beneficial to you to get your sleep and then actually be able to remember what you're studying? Or to do it before bed at night? Or to do a little bit with family at breakfast and then listen to some Christian radio or podcasts? Spending time with the Lord can be an all-day venture. He doesn't have to be pigeonholed into just certain times of the day. So, He is with you always. So, if He is a priority, make Him a priority and find those times that really, really work. But get honest with yourself. Are your devotions, are your prayers, are your church attendance times...are those things that actually are working in your schedule or are they causing more stress? Maybe you need to go to an earlier service or a Saturday night service or go to church on Wednesday evenings or for a season, say no to a small group because you need that time with family. Putting God first does not mean it has to look a certain way or like everybody else's way. Putting God first as a priority is of course super important. Then after that, what are your priorities in this season? Are they your marriage, your kids, healing from an illness, going back to school, taking care of a family member who needs your support? It can be a number of things, but choosing your top priorities as to where you're going to focus now that may be that you focus on your marriage and that you don't go out all of the time anymore because you have new babies and that's okay. That doesn't mean you're not focusing on your marriage just because more time is going to young kids, that's pretty natural. But to continue to build in time for your marriage so that it stays strong, so that after the kids are grown you still have this important relationship is very primary and a priority. So, you need to realize where you need to invest. And sometimes time spent is not necessarily an indication of the priority as much as it is that's how much time some things take right now, it's going to ebb and flow depending on the season of your life that you're in. But the things that are not ultimate priorities overall maybe don't have to have space in your life right now in this season. So yes, absolutely, your marriage and taking care of young kids, if that's where you are. But maybe that doesn't mean that you have to take your kids to every single play date right now. Maybe that just means being able to have some time as a family to chill out and play a board game or to take the kids to the park. It doesn't have to look like other people's busy schedules. If it doesn't work for you, it doesn't work for you, and that's okay. So being able to pull back on the things for the season that you're in that don't serve your priorities, for instance, if you're going back to school while you're raising kids, then you're probably not going to be the best room mom who's throwing all of the holiday parties. And that's okay. You don't have to throw all the parties at school to be a good mom or to be prioritizing your kids, look at what's going on in your life and pull back as needed so that you can prioritize the main things.
- Think about Daily Activities that Keep It All Going; Don't Scrimp on Them: When you're trying to figure out how to get more time and how to get more energy, really think about the activities of daily living that keep it all going and don't scrimp on them. I know it's so tempting to say, I can just eat junk food, I don't have time to pack a lunch, or oh, I can't work out right now, I'm just too busy. But sometimes these basics like getting a shower every day, getting good sleep or taking a nap in the middle of the day, staying hydrated, having a healthy meal, or at least throwing an extra piece of fruit or vegetables into your lunch, those things sustain you. You can't neglect your activities of daily living such as cleanliness and good health and healthy practices and expect to be on a solid foundation where you have enough energy to focus. Now, it may mean that to have those fruits and vegetables, you need to get simple things like already chopped up vegetables that you take with you. Maybe you spend a little bit more for the convenience of healthy foods, or maybe you do double duty and take your kids in a stroller while you take your walk or go for a jog while you're also reading them, letting an audiobook be on to spend reading time with them. You can multitask, okay? But you need to be able to put those things that take care of you into the equation and ask for help if you need to. But it is okay to get a shower every day and it is okay to eat well every day, and it is okay to move your body every day and to pray every day.
- Batch Things: If you need to batch things, that's okay. You can put your kids in the stroller while you take a walk and pray. That is a triple batch and that is okay. It all counts. See what you can stack to get more mileage out of the same time block, but still prioritizing the main thing.
- Remember to Take the Sabath Day Off: Remember that taking a Sabbath a day off is not just a nicety, it's how we work best. God himself took a rest. Take a rest. Look at Chick fil A. Their sales are so much higher than other fast-food restaurants that are open seven days a week. Be like Chick fil A, take a rest. Be like God, take a rest one day a week, just take a rest. It doesn't have to be from morning to night. It could be from noon to noon. It could be from 4 to 4 the next evening. It's up to you. It doesn't have to be Sundays, doesn't have to be Saturdays, but setting aside time to rest really will be a way that you pull back to actually move faster, further. It's just so much easier when you take time off. You're actually better at the way you think, the way you prioritize, and the way you show up.
- Not Everything Is a Priority: Recognize that while there are many things that are important and you have many priorities, not everything is a priority. Not everything is important. Not everything is urgent. There might be some things that scream for your attention that really are not something you have to pay attention to. I remember one time this neighbor came across the street, knocked on our door and said, hey, it looks like the tree is about to fall and you should do something about it. It didn't look like the tree was about to fall to me. The tree looked fine to me. It was not on my radar, and it was not on his property, and it wasn't going to be on his property. I was like, oh, I see. I hear what you're telling me. And I shut the door, and we did nothing about it. And the tree is still standing, and that was years ago. It was like, your emergency doesn't mean it's mine. It doesn't mean I'm going to see things the same way as somebody else who thinks that you should drop something because it's something they're focused on or their priority. You need to make your own decisions about where your focus is, what your intended plan is. Notice where your energy is going and say no to things. Even if someone else thinks they should be urgent, they may not be priorities or urgent to you. Right? If someone says, oh, you really need to get back to me because we have to schedule this for the upcoming whatever. Well, if you didn't agree to join in on the upcoming whatever, then that's not your urgency and you can say no. You don't have to do things just because other people think you should or because other people think that they need to be done. Now you get to decide whether it's your priority, whether it is something that needs your attention at all, or whether it needs your attention right away if you do decide to give it attention.
So those are the six things that if you look into pulling back and reframing, how you do these things, what you pay attention to, what you tell yourself as you make these decisions that you can clear some of. The mental clutter and hopefully regain some clarity and some energy and some solid footing so that you can make wise choices and move forward faster towards the things that you really are focused on, that you really do prioritize and that really are your goals.
If you're here today and you are here because you are eager to hear the ten ways to respond or to act when someone is trying to put their thoughts, feelings and emotions on you.
Let's just first talk about emotions and relationships and how those go together. When we're in a relationship with somebody else, whether that is a romantic relationship, a family relationship, a work relationship, church relationship, just going to the grocery store, there's a relationship between us and the cashier, right? Anytime we're in a relationship with somebody, there is the potential for there to be a desired action or thought or feeling either communicated by one or the other person and sometimes expectations from the other person.
For example, if we're talking about being in a grocery store and having a relationship with a cashier, the cashier may think, I want this person to check out and get their receipt and move on to the next one. They're expecting you, as the person who is going through the checkout line, is going to respond a certain way or act a certain way. Now, if you started tap dancing on their cash register, that would be against the expectation. While that could be something that you can do, it's not really helpful to the relationship because they need to do their job and move the groceries along. The expectation of a customer in that situation is that the customer pays for their groceries and goes home. We're not talking about expectations that are reasonable within the transaction as far as the context of the relationship goes, right.
In a marriage, it's totally understandable for a husband and a wife to have a discussion about going out for food, for instance, oh, I would like to go here. And where would you like to go? Okay, well, I'd like to go there. Oh, actually I'd love to do that for you, but I can't because remember, I have this allergy. Or remember the last time we went there, that waitress really turned me off when she put her finger in the butter or whatever. Right. There are reasonable things that we need to negotiate and say, okay, this isn't going to work for me, but I hear it's going to work for you, but maybe there's something we can both work with that we can agree to.
In relationships, there are both the context of what the expectations are and also just within the normal course of respecting each other and interacting with other people and also in being able to have our preferences and to make requests and expect somebody who cares about us to be able to hear that and try to find a satisfactory negotiation that works for both parties. It's kind of like that analogy of people fighting over an orange and then they figured out that one of them needed the outside zest for flavoring for a cake and the other wanted to make orange juice. There was actually no problem there. So, they each got what they needed. Ultimately that's a good way to look at things. How can we both get our needs met as much as it is healthy, reasonable, helpful and in the context of our relationship? I'm not talking about things like that.
This is when people bring up something that they feel you should be doing because of some situation they've gotten themselves into, or where people try to tell you what side you should take, an action they want you to have, a conversation that they think you should have for someone else, or they basically put their responsibilities onto you. They do it in such a way that there is discomfort or pressure, or somehow without you even knowing how you got into this awkward situation where your feelings, your thoughts and your action choices almost seem difficult to stand up for because, one, it's probably unexpected or two, there's probably a lot of things going through your mind at that point because you're trying to figure out, well, wait a minute: Am I supposed to be nice here because of who this person is? Am I supposed to stand up for myself? Am I supposed to understand where they're coming from? It's confusing because we start to question how we're supposed to respond when someone puts us in a situation that's uncomfortable for us.
10 Ways to Respond When Someone Tries to Put Their Stuff on You
I want to give you ten ways that you can respond or act when someone is trying to put their stuff on you which are easily stackable too. You might need to use a couple of these or keep them in your back pocket for certain types of things so that you have some tools for when the unexpected comes up and someone is imposing on you in some way that you cannot support.
- I Hear You. You can say I hear what you're saying and just resist saying more. It's like, I hear what you're saying, period and don't offend. Don't explain yourself if they're not going to actually listen to you or work with you and they just want you to do something for them that is unreasonable or putting things of pressure on you or things that you don't agree with or sharing how they feel and trying to get you to join in, like to tear somebody else down or something like that, you can simply respond. I hear what you're saying, period. And you can stack this with the next one.
- Excuse Yourself from the Situation. You can say I can hear what you're saying. I hope things go well for you. Sorry, I hope you'll excuse me, but I've got to go, I've got to run. Right, so you can also excuse yourself from situations where you're uncomfortable. Excuse me, I need to run to the restroom right now. I'm sorry, I've got to take another call and then take another call, call somebody else or I apologize, but I can't stay here right now. I'm in the middle of something. The thing you're in the middle of is getting away from this awkward conversation, right? You can just respond, oh, I hear what you're saying is the first one without having to defend or explain yourself.
- Reflect Back. You can just simply reflect back, almost giving a flavor of that's interesting that you see it that way and I hear you, but all I'm going to say is sometimes it doesn't need anything more than that and then just refuse to commit to anything further. Saying something like that's so interesting, and not engaging further or try to give them something that I'm not willing to give. I'm just going to hear them and not commit to anything.
- Just Can't Help Right Now. You can say something like I would love to help you out, but I'm just not going to be able to now. This can also work in that, oh, I'm just not going to be able to help with that. Or I wish I could help you out, but I'm just not going to be able to, as well as I would love to help you out, but I'm just not going to be able to. Those can both be with an unspoken I would love to because I'm a kind person and I have a tendency to people please, but I don't want to do this because I don't really like what you're trying to get me to do. Sometimes you don't have to say the whole thought; they may not be entitled to the whole thing. That can be stuff that, you know, that I would love to help you out from my people pleasing part that you don't tell them that and yet I'm not going to be able to.
- Empathize. If they're trying to put you in a situation where they're going through something rough, and they need you to save them when they are the only ones who can take responsibility for their situation or their actions, you can say something to the effect of that sounds tough. I'm sorry to hear you're going through that. You empathize with that sounds rough for you. I hear that that's hard for you. That sounds tough. And that's it. Again, don't commit, don't take it on. Just that sounds tough.
- Empathy with [Insert Feeling]. Again, you can use empathy, where you consider what they might be feeling or thinking or how the situation is for them and still refuse to take it on as your own. You can say something like I can tell that's difficult for you, for instance, or it sounds like that's really difficult for you, or it sounds like a tough situation. It sounds like that's a lot. I can understand why you would like me to be involved, but I'm not going to be able to, or just, wow, that sounds [insert feeling], and put a period at the end of it and that's it. Just move on. Don't commit to anything.
- Unspoken "Fortunately" for Me. There's kind of an unspoken way that you don't have to explain yourself by saying, but unfortunately that's not something I'm going to be able to get in the middle of. The thing you're not saying is for you, unfortunately for you, I'm not going to be able to get in the middle of that. Fortunately for me, right, but unfortunately, I'd love to help, but I'm not going to be able to do that.
- Gray Rocking. Gray rocking is something that you may have heard in past podcasting or in narcissistic kind of circles. When someone is being a narcissist, as far as their behaviors go, they're trying to cause some emotions in somebody else by putting them down or by trying to make themselves appear higher in some way, like better or more skilled or more connected or whatever. There's this concept called gray rock, which basically means I am just going to be about as interesting to you as a gray rock. I am not going to get engaged with you. I am not going to engage in this discussion with you. I'm not going to fight with you. I'm not going to show you that this has gotten the best of me because that's what you're looking for. I'm not going to sacrifice myself in that way because you're being abusive and so I'm not putting up with it. I become as interesting as a gray rock, and basically that's it. Whatever they're saying, whatever they're trying to get you into, you just ignore it. You just don't say it. You just, again, kind of the non-committal, look away, get up, walk away again, you don't have acknowledge it or you can, and if you do, it should be pretty bland and not really engaging anything. If somebody is trying to say that what, you're too good for me, or why won't you help or anything that's trying to kind bait and goad you into some sort of argument or defensive posture, just use one of these. If they can't get to you, they can't get to you. As a side note: Everything needs to be done with an eye towards safety, though. If someone is in physical danger and you need to play along and even lie to get out of that space to be safe, that is absolutely something that I believe the Lord understands. So, if someone says, promise you're not going to tell somebody this, or I'll insert the threat here. Right, well, oh, I promise I won't tell anybody. Well, I won't tell anybody right now because I'm under threat of whatever the threat is. But you can better believe, buddy, I'm going to be telling somebody once I'm safely out of here. If you have to for safety's sake, you can play the game as you need to be able to get out and into safety. I'm not talking about situations where you are seriously in a physical endangerment situation. These are for things where someone is emotionally trying to put stuff on you that you need to act or feel or behave a certain way or think a certain way because they want you to. That's what these tools are for.
- Change the Subject. Let's say someone calls you and says, hey, I want to tell you about this horrible thing that just happened with your sister, and she's just this awful person who's doing this, and I hope you tell her how awful she's being. You can simply stack these and say, I'm sorry that's hard on you. Wow. Hey, did you see that? I got a new pair of tennis shoes from whatever. Did you know there's a sale? Okay, you can just totally switch topics.
- Cut It Off. Just cut it off by I got to go, or an emoji. Let's say it's by text. You can just do like a thumbs up, like I hear you right or something. Just non-committal again. It's kind of like the excuse me. Oh, excuse me, I've got to do [this]. Well, this is more like, okay, well, I got to whatever insert. But, you know, the unspoken is, I got to get out of here. Okay.
Now, in all of this, am I trying to say, oh, you should bear falsehood and you should lie? No, but I'm saying being as wise as serpents, as gentle as doves, if somebody is trying to put you in a position that hurts you and they are not a healthy, safe person, such that you can actually speak from your needs and your relationship as to what you need from them as well, in a safe and respectful way, you can use these tips. These are for such extreme situations where somebody is forcing you into a situation that is not okay with you and you're trying to figure out how to stay safe and not get roped into things that you don't want to get roped into, but that you might because you're a kind person. Again, safety and survival are primary.
If somebody is going to get upset if you use any of these, those feelings are on them. If you sense that them getting upset would be a physical danger to you, then please be very cautious and wise about whether you would use these techniques or not, because we don't want you to be in further harm. So, as always, this isn't professional counseling. It's just for informational purposes only. I hope you find these helpful. If you want to respond in the Facebook group or by Instagram and tell us which one of these are your favorite or which ones you'd like to start trying to use, or situations where you felt like other people are putting their stuff on you, that you really think these types of tools could help, we'd love to hear from you. I hope you enjoyed what you heard today and that it helped you in some way.
Again, I want to invite you to Mental Health for Christian Women on Instagram and Mental Health for Christian Women on Facebook. Search for those and you can connect and follow, and I'd love to interact with you on those platforms.
