Creating Emotional Balance in Your Home [Episode #782]

This week’s topic is: Creating Emotional Balance in Your Home

This is a real world topic that many of us need some support in because whilst our homes are thought of to be our sanctuary, a place where we can relax and feel safe and recharge, and we love our loved ones, we often share our home space with different personalities, different energies. Our children all have different energies that they give off. If you have children, your spouse, your partner, your roommates, tenants, whosoever around your home environment, is going to have an effect on our emotional wellbeing.

And it’s important that even within the space of our personal family home, we are creating safe, healthy boundaries so that we can feel recharged from a mental and emotional standpoint and are able to really feel our best. I’m really excited about this topic and I’ve created a safe home space in my own world here, which I’ll share in the show today, which is something that I really had to work on myself because it wasn’t easy.

It still isn’t easy for me sometimes to partition myself away from my kids and my husband. I’ve dealt with feelings of guilt around needing to give all my time and energy and then I end up feeling really afraid and that isn’t great for anybody. This is something that I’ve personally been working on myself and have worked through. And so when we share some of the research today and the tips just know that it’s something that I very much have benefited from and are connected to myself.

Have you been wondering about this very topic? If you want to know the answer to this question sent in by a Beauty just like you, listen now to find out!

Remember you can submit your questions at https://mysolluna.com/askkimberly/

[Question Answered]

Mandie – Minnesota

Hi Kimberly! Thank you for all you do – I love your podcast so much. I listen to it in the car as a great way to center myself before heading into work! So thank you for putting out into the world all that you know and believe in! My question is about emotional well-being in the family environment. I have 3 school aged kids ranging from 11 – 4 years old. We have a mixture of personalities, temperaments and moods. This can be great at times, but it can also create an emotional unbalance for members in our house. What is your suggestion for keeping the emotional balance in my home in check while protecting my own well-being when trying to guide and help others – kids and husband included!

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Transcript:

Note: The following is the output of transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate. This is due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.

Namaste loves and welcome back to our Thursday Q&A podcast, where our topic today is Creating Emotional Balance in Your Home. And this is a very practical topic. This is a real world topic that many of us need some support in because whilst our homes are thought of to be our sanctuary, a place where we can relax and feel safe and recharge, and we love our loved ones, we often share our home space with different personalities, different energies. Our children all have different, um, energies that they give off. If you have children, your spouse, your partner, your roommates, tenants, you know, whoever’s around your home environment, is going to have an effect on our emotional wellbeing. And so it’s important that even within the space of our personal family home, we are creating safe, healthy boundaries so that we can feel recharged from a mental and emotional standpoint so that we are able to really feel our best.

This part of our conversation, emotional wellbeing is one of our four cornerstones. We rotate around to make sure that we are nurturing and paying attention to all of the cornerstones. The other ones are food, body, and spiritual growth. So this is a big one because what we don’t wanna create is a home space that doesn’t feel nourishing or that feels draining. And then at work or you know, the activities of the day, we’re also, you know, involved in a lot of different activities and, and energies being used up there. So then if we don’t have anywhere to recharge, we can end up suffering from just feeling really run down and depleted and chronic fatigue and aches and pains in our bodies. And many other things can start to manifest, which is a sign that, hey, we need to shift something here. So I’m really excited about this topic and I’ve created a safe home space in my own world here, which I’ll share in, in the show today, which is something that I really had to work on myself because it wasn’t easy.

It still isn’t easy for me sometimes to partition myself away from my kids and my husband. You know, I’ve dealt with feelings of guilt around that or that, you know, I need to give all my time and all my energy and then I end up feeling really afraid and that isn’t great for anybody. So this is something that I’ve personally been working on myself and have worked through. And so when we share some of the research today and the tips, um, just know that it’s something that I very much have benefited from and are connected to myself.

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Creating Emotional Balance in Your Home: Hi Kimberly! Thank you for all you do – I love your podcast so much. I listen to it in the car as a great way to center myself before heading into work! So thank you for putting out into the world all that you know and believe in! My question is about emotional well-being in the family environment. I have 3 school aged kids ranging from 11 – 4 years old. We have a mixture of personalities, temperaments and moods. This can be great at times, but it can also create an emotional unbalance for members in our house. What is your suggestion for keeping the emotional balance in my home in check while protecting my own well-being when trying to guide and help others – kids and husband included!

Alright, let’s get into our show today. And our, um, our question comes from Mandy w who lives in Minnesota. You know, Mandy, I meet the most incredibly kind, loving people from Minnesota, and I can think of a few right now, including my dear friend Dan Buettner. So there must be something really magical about Minnesota. It seems to breed the most incredible people. So sending you lots of love out there, and I definitely hope to visit one day myself to this incredible state. Your question is, hi Kimberly. Thank you for all that you do.

I love your podcast so much. I listen to it in the car as a great way to center myself before heading to work. So thank you for putting out into the world all that you know and believe in. My question is about emotional wellbeing in the family environment. I have three school-aged kids ranging from 11 to four years old. We have a mixture of personalities, temperaments, and moods. This can be great at times, but, but it can also create an emotional imbalance for members in our house. What is your suggestion for keeping the emotional balance in my home in check while protecting my own wellbeing when trying to guide and help others kids and husband included? So, Mandy, thank you again so much for your question. Thank you so much for being part of our community. And I really do love this one because I think so many of us can relate, right?

We have our loved ones around and that could also include extended family members, siblings, uh, parents, elder parents that are coming to live. And there’s just a delicate balance between wanting to give and wanting to support and then realizing that, you know, it’s tough sometimes, sometimes we need some additional support and space for ourselves. So I wanna talk about a little bit of, um, research here and then dive into some specific action steps and tips that you can take. So there was, um, a study, uh, and we’ll link to all of these in the show notes if you wanna go a little bit deeper. And this was, um, this studied relationships around personal boundaries. And so this is interesting because, you know, we talk about boundaries, um, but there’s a lot of research that’s that’s coming around to show that hey, boundaries intuitively feel good, but there’s research around it as well.

So this is from Frontiers and Psychology, and what it found was that, um, when people had personal boundaries, they were much less likely to experience different types of anxiety. So again, this sh proves shy is backing up what we know intuitively, that if we don’t take that time and we don’t have tools like healthy boundaries in place, our anxiety, our mental health very much does suffer. And then another study also studying, um, setting boundaries, found that when we create a bo just the increase of awareness of boundaries, knowing about boundaries, greatly increased communication. So all of our lifestyle tends to be related. I also pulled some research around how giving to others can create. And, and again, this is in unbounded ways. If we don’t really do it in a healthy way, there’s an, there’s an association between overgiving and stress and mortality, you know, which sounds a little bit grim, but just again, to reinforce that we need to take care of ourselves, you know, and we fill our own cup and the cup run us over.

And when we can give from that abundant place to loved ones, we don’t wanna deplete our bodies because then we can’t be of as much support and love to others anyway. And there’s also, um, research around impairments and daily mood and sleep and anger and hostility. And so what this study studied, um, specifically was that as our stress levels increase, the parents’ sleep got more, uh, poor. And then also the child’s sleep got more poor. So it’s almost like this. And sometimes we think the opposite. If we’re not sleeping well, then our moods get worse. But this was showing that, you know, when we are agitated, this is my own, um, you know, um, sort of idea about this cuz I feel it my body, if I get agitated, if I lose my temper, if I’m feeling annoyed about all the happenings in my home and I don’t feel like there’s really a place where I can relax, then I fe that agitation, that dissonance in the body, and then the nervous system carries forward.

And then it does make it harder to get good sleep. And that in turn, when we’re more agitated, it affects our child and in turn their nervous systems and their body and then they’re not sleeping as well. So it’s really important to recognize that there really is a lot to this topic. Do not ignore it if you’re feeling, you know, here, um, as, as was pointed out, but our, by our wonderful community member, Mandy w we can feel that yes, we love our families, but there’s something that we need to do to create more emotional health and wellbeing in our homes when there is a mix of very different types of energy. So let’s get into the action tips now. And the first one is one that we’ve already mentioned, which is about setting boundaries.

Tip #1: Creating Emotional Balance in Your Home: Setting boundaries

I’ve mentioned this previously, but we did a really great show about boundaries with Joelle provost and her book, the Communication Guide. So please check in the show notes if you want some more structure around boundaries. We go through some very specific ways to do that. But we need to create either space boundaries, or time boundaries. And admittedly, this has been a really challenging one for me. So I will voice myself when I can feel that energy rising up in me, which is really that I am getting depleted here. And so it’s been challenging for me and I realize this as an adult, to really state my needs clearly, which is what boundaries are all about, because I didn’t really learn that as a child. And it’s important that we see, you know, gaps or tools, things that we need to continue to work on into adulthood.

And so that was a really big one for me. So when I feel that agitation rising, I speak to my husband, Hey, I need an hour. I need to go meditate. I need to, you know, have a break here. I need you to do bath time tonight. And for me, it’s, it’s often prompted by a feeling that I’ve become aware of in my body. So when I feel that coming, I know that I need to really state my need and I need to create a physical boundary. And I am lucky enough to have this basement, well it’s not really a basement cuz I can see out the window, but the bottom floor office where I’m speaking to right now, and there’s, it’s, you know, I have my own bathroom, so sometimes I’ll take a shower down here or sometimes, you know, maybe it’s for you, it’s leaving the house, going for a walk, physically removing yourself from the situation.

It can also be more, um, regular for you, you know, saying, I’m taking on a lot here at work or with my own responsibilities or, you know, you know, I’m taking on more than my fair share. You know, whether it’s at work or with colleagues or in an organization or at home. Just saying speaking your need clearly is such a huge empowering skill to say, Hey, I need you, you know, this is what I say to my seven year old now you, you need to really take your dishes after dinner and after lunch and put them in the sink yourself. You know, you, you need to help clean up now or, you know, whatever it is. And really sticking to that, if there is an emotional boundary that you need to set, that’s also something to consider. So for instance, you know, and I know Mandy, your child’s only 11, but let’s say there’s a teenager in the house or some behavior that, you know, at a certain age, children have certain responsibilities for their own behaviors.

And we can say, Hey, if you’re going to, um, you know, speak to me this way, or if you, you know, such and such happens, I’m going to have to, you know, whatever it is, leave the room or you’re gonna have to stay in your room or, you know, we’re gonna take away this privilege or whatever it is. And it’s really, um, important to be clear and to be firm and to stick to it. So I do this even with my seven year old now. He, uh, we do very limited screen time. He gets, you know, maybe 30 minutes for Friday night, quote unquote movie night. And sometimes when we’re in Hawaii, I’ll get him, get, let him have, um, a few minutes a day. But here we don’t really do much on a daily basis. So he knows if he, you know, calls his brother a name or anything of that sort, he loses that privilege.

And at first it was really difficult for me to take things away. Um, again, you know, just me building that resilience and that discipline muscle. But now it’s just very clear, you do this, this gets taken away. So that’s the first thing is really focusing on boundaries and seeing where they’ve gotten a little bit or maybe they were never defined, or maybe they’re a little bit too loose or messy. And how, what we can do to strengthen, first define, define them, and then strengthen, strengthen that, strengthen them. There we go. A little tongue twister there.

Tip #2: Creating Emotional Balance in Your Home: Prioritize self-care

Number two is taking care of yourself and prioritizing self-care. Now, self-care as we define it here at Solluna and in our feel good podcast community is really around holistic four cornerstone self-care. And so I really encourage thinking about it in that context, even if it’s, you know, simple things in each one.

But one thing I’ve really learned from experience is that we contend many of us can tend to go overboard in one. So for instance, maybe just obsessing about food or you know, my myself, you know, someone saying my self-care is just my workout. But really self-care is on a physical, emotional, mental and spiritual level. And some of it can be combined in one practice. So for instance, taking a warm bath is with salts is really wonderful for your physical body and it’s also wonderful for your emotional, you know, relaxation. You can like candles and do some breath work, your relaxing. And so there’s a spiritual quality to it as well. So I encourage you to think about self-care in this broader aspect. For me, an essential self-care practice is my one hour walk that I do, you know, barring, you know, a lot of podcasts being booked, which is very unusual in one day or whatever, Monday through Friday.

So during the work week, I walk for one hour in the middle of the day and this to me feels like it’s hitting the three corner, the three of the cornerstones, not food, but it’s great circulation for my body. It’s, it’s hilly. So I’m buil, I’m building some muscle and resilience for my bones. It’s just mentally and emotionally getting outside and breathing fresh air and getting in the flowers, in the sunlight is transformative. And then from a spiritual standpoint, going into stillness, you know, there’s um, a part of the most of the walk, I’m out of wifi reception, which is great. Try not to check my phone, but there’s a little bit of a tendency sometimes. So for me it is that walk that is so important. And I also meditate in the morning and the evening. I need time to read and, um, you know, just everybody’s individual, the things that feel really great and important to you.

Tip #3: Creating Emotional Balance in Your Home: Communicating openly

So self-care boundaries. And then the third thing is communicating openly. So communication, as I mentioned earlier, is something that I’ve really had to work on myself, and it took me a while to really find my voice. And I internalized a lot as a child and an adolescent. And I realized much later in life that I was, I hadn’t, you know, I haven’t been always been the best communicator. So journaling has been a big help for me because as a writer also, I, I sort of, you know, I love the written word. So it’s been this facilitator in my voice to write things down and to write my needs and to help me process, you know, what I’m feeling, and then take that into communication. So I’ll sort of process and write and then I’ll take something to my husband or to my child or whoever.

And so, um, again, this is, you know, the power of the voice is a huge part of being empowered. And voice is something that Paramahansa Yoga Nanda talks about. We should really speak this. You know, the gift of vibration of voice is so powerful when we speak from a place of, um, you know, authenticity and truth. There’s much, much power behind our words. So what I’ve learned in communication, cl communicating clearly, is that we don’t wanna communicate when we are in a charged place where there’s emotionalism because that’s felt, and then it actually takes away the power of our needs. Cuz someone could think, oh, this person’s just really angry right now. Or this person’s, you know, just overly emotional and upset. I don’t really, you know, they may not take us as seriously. So what I’ve done is waited until I feel neutral, unemotional, unattached, and then I speak from my heart, which means to me, vulnerability and not coming from a place of blame and victimhood, but hey, you know, I feel like this and this is what I need.

And so it’s really important in the home space that we have these honest communications with our loved ones and our family members, and that can open the door for them to communicate back as well. So my friend, um, em, I’ll call her, you know, I, I don’t know if she wants me saying her name publicly, but she lives right down the road and she has an open floor layout of her house. So there’s two tan, two teenagers in the house, and no matter what room you’re in, even though they have separate bedrooms, just the acoustics, it’s like one of those houses where you go in and it’s all the way up to the ceiling and then the rooms are kind of on the outskirts. So one of the things they worked out as a family is that everyone, the two teen, the two teenagers and the parents have some alone time in the house, which feels very relaxing to them and nourishing.

So they just figured it out, you know, on a weekly basis everyone gets some alone time. So that means the other members use that time to go out or to run errands or to spend time with friends. And they respect that time for each of them to have. And she said it’s been amazing in her family. So that’s the power of really effective open communication.

Tip #4: Creating Emotional Balance in Your Home: Practice empathy

The next is to practice empathy. So it’s really important that we, especially when loved ones are involved, it’s a very personal home space. We try to see where the other person is coming from and we start to really listen, especially with children and teenagers. They may not be able to really verbalize the need. Maybe, you know, they need more of their own space. Maybe they need, you know, something that we aren’t seeing yet, right? So my son, my seven year old is really creative and he loves imagination games.

And so, you know, we’ve talked about it. Now he needs space where we are not in the same exact room so he can jump around and play out these games in his mind and not feel like he’s being encroached on. He’s got a little bit self-conscious like we’re watching him. And so that’s really important to not just state our needs, but to listen. And then that creates this, you know, mutual, collective supportive energy in the home, which also makes the other members of the home more likely and more empowered to support you and more inspired to support you as well. Because when they’re getting their needs met and they feel deeply nourished and listened to, of course we are more likely to reciprocate. So that’s a really powerful practice.

Tip #5: Creating Emotional Balance in Your Home: Seek support

The next is to seek support. And this could include, you know, a therapist, a guidance counselor, someone you speak to like a, you know, a third party. Sometimes it could be a spiritual counselor. There is a monk that I call on semi-regularly at our center, which is called the Self Realization Fellowship. It’s the meditation center started by Yogananda. He, I also speak about him and mention some of his life-changing advice that he was able to provide me when I went through some big changes in my life and moved out on my own and was a single mom for a while. And it was really this third party grounded advice that gave me a new perspective. So sometimes it could be a loved one, not in the home or a friend, a trusted friend or relative or neighbor or whatever it is outside of the home, right? So sometimes a different perspective can help. They can see things that we can’t see. They may be able to see your husband or wife or partner or children in a different way and say, Hey, you know, this is what I see.

They’re clearly wanting this. Or hey, like, do you see how you’re being taken advantage of? Or what, whatever it is. You know, sometimes it’s, it’s, um, sight vision, seeing that helps to prompt shifts and change and create more healthy, um, emotional wellbeing at home. So I definitely encourage that as well.

Tip #6: Creating Emotional Balance in Your Home: Creating space

And then we spoke about this a little bit, but I wanna also dedicate a little bit of specific time to this concept lastly, of creating space. So space could be time, space, physical space, um, just emotional space. And it varies greatly. You know, sometimes you can carve out a little place to meditate or you know, when you close a door in your bathroom and just take a nice shower or a bath, that’s also creating a boundary of space, going for a walk here. Sometimes we have a lower garden and if I’m feeling frazzled, I’ll just say to my husband and my kids, I’ll be back.

I’m gonna go pick flowers. We have so many wild flowers, especially right now. So they know, okay, you know, picking flowers for me gives me some time and it actually really does sooth me and it feels really good. Also, I’ll be in the same room with my husband in the evenings where he likes to watch shows and it’s just become really clear to me that screens don’t work for me, not even really any amount. And so I’ve just gotten to this point of recognizing my own sensitivities and I’m very vata and, you know, sounds and lights, like, it just feels very jarring and it’s just not my thing, you know? And he does like watching TV sometimes shows and, um, movies and whatever. So the boundary is he puts on headphones and he’s there, and then I’ll often be reading right next to him in bed or on the floor while I’m stretching or doing some yin Yoda yoga.

So we like to be together, but there’s this boundary of, you know, whereas in the past or when we started our relationship, it was more about, oh, I’ll do this because he likes it, but, uh, I feel like this is such a waste of time. I don’t really wanna be watching this and kind of eating those emotions. So I just had to be really clear and communicate with him about it. And, um, yeah, and it’s just created so much more openness and, and, um, what feels really emotionally good to me to have space to read and write more in the evenings and it feels he’s getting his needs met, which is his way of relaxing, is to watch tv. So here are our a summary of our action points. Again, setting healthy boundaries, being very clear and consistent with them, taking care of yourself, holistic self-care around the four cornerstones, communicating openly, using your voice, practicing empathy, which is, which encourages active listening and seeing things from the other person’s perspective to create that whole house, that whole home environment support and emotional wellbeing seeking support.

A third party perhaps, whether it’s a trusted friend or a therapist or a counselor. And creating space, real, real space sometimes, whether it’s physical space or time space, because then when we come back together as a group, we can feel recharged and not depleted. So please check out for more information, podcasts that I think you would enjoy. Articles, recipes, meditations, more, so many tools over@mysaluna.com. And I really hope that these tips help to support you because this is a big one. Emotional wellbeing at home, which is our home environment and a place that we really do need to create some real, um, you know, boundaries around to just make it as nourishing as possible is something that we all deserve. And it’s such a huge part of our vitality. We, we can’t just be, you know, out in this world of, you know, doing and, um, outward activity.

We need a place to recharge. So we all deserve that really, um, regenerative home environment space that feels good for everyone in your home. So please let me know any other questions you have or any follow up questions to this topic. If you go to the website, mysolluna.com, there is a tab for podcast questions. So please let me know anything and everything that I can support you in. We answer questions around the four cornerstones, which is pretty much everything around lifestyle and I look forward to connecting with you more.

I also wanted to mention that we’ve started a circle, uh, which feels like the, you know, this deep core circle of the Solluna family, which is for anyone that is a subscriber to any of our products. We’re starting to do live zooms every month. We did one this morning and it was amazing to be together and take questions and meditate and talk a little bit around what’s going on this month and any particular month. So if you’re interested in that, you can check out more information on our website as well. So I’ll be back here Monday for our next interview show. Until then, sending you so much love and support and gratitude and see you back here soon. Namaste.