23. Honoring Your Core Values in Relationships of Trust: 5 Part Transformation Series

Do we need to be everywhere doing everything? If you pause and consider your core values as a guide to help with your decisions, trusting becomes easier. You are allowed a point of view. God made us each unique for a reason. 

Your relationships with your partner, children, friends, extended family and in your business can be fulfilling if you are present. How can we be present as women,  mothers and business owners? Can we hold space and remain conscious when other people are unconscious?

Start with honoring your own core values. Make a decision to trust someone to guide you that has experienced a transformation using their own core values. Join a supportive community that understands all the demands of owning a business, serving others and being a mom.

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Transcript

Sarah Swift 0:10

Welcome to the Integrative Mother Experience Podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Swift, wife of twenty-eight years and mother of three teenagers. I want to have conversations about why so many mamas wearing multiple hats, working, serving others, or owning a business, especially in the beauty industry, feel like they need to choose between their work and their family, and they don't have enough quality time. We'll also uncover causes of overwhelm, lack of wellbeing, and joy. I'm here with over three decades of experience working in the beauty industry, owning several types of businesses starting in my early twenties, and sharing stories to help other mothers avoid that feeling of always missing out. I'm also here with solutions. Time is an asset that we can't get back. I can't wait to dive into these deep conversations. I hope you will join me Welcome back, beautiful mamas. Today is number five of the five-part transformation series. So it will round up our five-week series, and what we are going to discuss today is relationships of trust. So let's dive in. I'm going to start with something that I think you'll enjoy, and it is from Isaiah God promised if I put my trust in Him to bring justice in my life, He will pay back for all the unfair things that have happened to you." I think this is so incredibly powerful because when we hold on to things and we're not trusting that there is a divine way of your life unfolding, then we're living in fear, we're living in patterns, and we're not fully enjoying each day as it is. So I really wanted to start with this because I feel like it's so powerful, especially when you're going through something that's a bit out of the ordinary. But it truly can be just that little blurp in the day where you spill your coffee all over, or you're wearing a white outfit and you are eating spaghetti and you stain your shirt. It can be anything, but it is something that I come back to, and I really like it because as I've been personally dealing with some major life challenges, I have to stay grounded and I have to trust that I am doing the best that I can. I'm making wise decisions and that God has this. I don't have to carry it all, and when it becomes very difficult, he's carrying me. So the examples I'm going to dive into today, and I hope this is helpful for you, is the relationships and specifically by now you'll know that I like to talk about God and I like to talk about spiritual things. That is who I am. That is what I believe. That is part of my business, part of my podcast, really part of every aspect of my life. And I think this is just such a great way to think about it. I mentioned before The Big Leap, which is a book that I discovered not that long ago, and I really enjoyed it. And in the book, it talks about not being a doormat or closed off, and how each moment an open-mind approach and willing to love. And I think that this is just something so important to come back to because there's that balance between wanting to be giving and loving, and as mothers, I believe that we have that innate sense of nurturing, and being a mom for most, changes how you look at things. It definitely changes your lifestyle in every single way. And I'll speak for myself. I still want to be nurturing and giving, and I also happen to have chose a career where I am nurturing and giving in my career. And you have to make sure that when that is a large aspect at home, and in my case it's also in my career, and I'm guessing if you're listening to this podcast, you are also a salon owner or somebody in the service industry, because that is who I'm speaking to. And if you're not, you likely are close to somebody that is, and you may see how sometimes it can be a lot for one person, and needing to find that stillness and that grounding to recharge so that you don't become depleted. Because those of us that enjoy or have that natural innate sense of wanting to nurture We also need to fill our cup. It's part of it. So then when you're doing that, you're just basically bouncing around trying to please. I'm challenging you that you're going to take off all those masks and eliminate the roles and say that you want to be able to choose and know that it's okay that if you want to live a certain lifestyle, it is your choice. If you have a business and you want to work with certain people that really light you up or really have the conversations that are fulfilling to you or maybe allow you the creativeness to do something in your role that makes you want to continue to do it again day in and day out. It's that allowing to see what really is there for you and then that's where we can give back from, and there's a lot of trust that's involved with that because it's really easy to get derailed and especially if we are listening to all the noise in the background. It's different personalities, different people that are called to do different things in their lives, and it's not what God has designed for you. We are each unique.

7:06

An important question I want to ask are what are your core values? And what are your core values today? Not what were your core values a decade ago or several decades ago. What do you value today? And that might be several, and it might be just a few. This leads into the next thing that I want to talk about, which is having a point of view.

Sarah Swift 7:34

One of my mentors has brought up this education multiple times in the last year, and she specializes in this point of view rather than having a niche. And I think it's really interesting because I would say that my salon business is definitely niched, and that has worked very well for me in the last five years. It has turned that business into something that I look really forward to interacting in, and it really feels fulfilling to me, and the best that I think that it's ever been, as far as alignment. For the lifestyle I want, for the types of conversations and people that I want to interact with, and the type of work that really lights me up and makes me feel fulfilled at the end of my working day. And after doing that type of work for over three decades, it's really amazing to see that you can niche in a certain industry, and that can bring an entire new level of fulfillment, and you don't have to serve everyone. That was exhausting for me, and I felt very out of alignment doing that. It wasn't how God made me, and it was pulling me away from my core values, which was to be a wife and a mother and enjoy that lifestyle. And really, as an entrepreneur, when I went into that world, it really was about creating a life that I got to choose. So back to what I've talked about several episodes ago, I get to. There are a lot of responsibilities when you have your own business, and you don't have a lot of the traditional benefits. But the whole purpose of doing it is so you get to choose. And if you lose insight on that, then I think you're missing the point because being a business owner, you do have a lot of responsibilities And they do pile on quite quickly. And unless you have hired help and you're delegating those tasks out, I have found that I could easily work seven days a week. And quite honestly, now with two businesses, that would be very easy for me to do because the work is always there. There's so many different roles and tasks that could use-- I don't want to use the word need, but that could use attention, is how I'm going to put it. So if you're starting with what are my core values and you have a point of view, and in my business, the Integrative Mother Experience, both on my podcast and in my Experience course, I do have very strong point of views. And this, this is what I built my business on. And I'm coming from decades of experience, both as a business owner and a mom, and sharing what I have found that doesn't work and what does work based on my core values. Now, everybody's going to have a little bit of a unique caveat to that because we are all designed different. We all have different core values. And so this is just an example of how to build that strong foundation. You're going to start there. And it really starts with choosing And you're choosing around those values now, the values that you cherish. So what I like to think about is, don't tell me, show me. Because we've talked about this in previous episodes, too, the shoulding, and the shoulding that you get from all aspects. I think women in general do get a lot of shoulding, and mothers especially have shoulding if they are in multiple roles because there are different core values, and there's different opinions on how to raise children and what, quote unquote, women should do" as far as a career, not a career, or choosing both. How many hours should you work? It's really interesting how it's so opinion-based, and if you get wrapped up in that perception of what you should do, you're really losing insight on what you're here to do and what your core values are. What I always ask is, are you present when someone's speaking? Because if you start with that, then I think you can really get a grasp on what someone is saying. You're looking in their eyes. If you don't have the ability to look in their eyes, then at least just pause and listen to what they're saying. And can you do this with your partner and your children fully? Can you do this when you have a phone conversation? Can you really allow the other person the chance to say what they need to say and engage in a reciprocal conversation, asking more questions, not interrupting to interject your experience? So if somebody is saying, "I went to the latest movie," and you're quickly interrupting and telling your experience because you just saw that movie and you're so excited to talk about it as well, you're not fully present listening to that other person. You're using your own life experience quickly in this example to bring it back to you. And being fully present, it's really something that is, for some people, very difficult. There are certain people that I think don't even realize that they quickly bring everything back to themselves, and they make other people around them feel unseen and unheard. And when you ask questions back in a conversation And the person feels seen and heard, hopefully they will feel that attention that you're giving them and it will become reciprocal. Now this doesn't always happen and in trusting relationships, if it's someone that you want to build a stronger relationship with or you will continue to have a relationship with this person whether it's in your business or in your family or maybe it's in like a mom group or a school sports group that you're just connected to these people and you really didn't have a choice on it, you can certainly choose to interact less with them if you're just noticing that this is an unconscious pattern that just keeps happening and even when you're present it doesn't tend to shift. But I have personally noticed when I hold space for someone when they're doing this, and I had this experience this week in fact, it was a very unpleasant experience unfortunately, but there were several of us and we were witnessing this man being completely in a pattern of fear and unconscious behavior. He was avoiding eye contact and he was speaking to someone that wasn't speaking to him. Really almost trying to pick a fight essentially and it was really quite interesting to watch. I wanted to use the word scary, because it, it did create a little bit of fear for us. But what I did in the situation is I spoke calmly and directly and then approached him with eye contact and you could watch him relax and diffuse and several times after walking away he unconsciously came back and tried to reengage again and it was just so fascinating to watch. And I say fascinating because- He was going back to places in his life that had nothing to do what was going on in the current moment. So clearly he was reliving something that he was associating with himself and it had nothing to do with the situation going on. And after it was all said and done, I said to my family members, "Wow, that was so powerful to watch it unfold." He actually apologized and it just was so interesting. It could have went a completely different direction for sure had I not interjected in the calm, conscious way that I did. And I've unfortunately seen way too many experiences like this in my lifetime where it went in the other direction and thought about it after and just thought, Wow, that person is just an angry person," or, "Wow, that person doesn't know how to control their temper," or even, "Wow, that person interjected themself into something that had nothing to do with them and watch how terrible that unfolded." But I chose to interject in a conscious way, and I think the feeling of trust on his end was seen by the calm way that I was explaining the situation and then diffused it. So moving on, I want to also ask, are you able to forgive someone that is truly sorry and shows you that? This is so interesting because if you are in a trustworthy relationship, you're not replaying the patterns or talking about the past or repeating private conversations to others. It's a trustworthy relationship, and you can have that eye contact, and you can have that living in the moment of this is what's going on right now. And I think that's so important, especially when you're with someone for a really long period of time in any kind of relationship. This can involve many different types of relationships. And not to assume. Assumption can be a very dangerous thing. And so assuming either way, assuming that you know what someone is thinking and they haven't even said that, or on the other end of the spectrum, putting your self-worth in someone else's hands, assuming that it's going to be a safe place. And that is unfortunately not always true. So trusting relationships show patterns of trust over time. And I think that we can really see the red flags when we realize that people have had this pattern of repeating everybody else's business, for example. So I'm not going to consider a trustworthy relationship with someone that repeatedly tells me everybody else's business because that is showing me that that person isn't even aware that they're just airing out dirty laundry. Let's put it that way. And so I'm not going to trust them with anything that's important to me because I can see this unconscious pattern, and I don't want to be the recipient of that and probably am because if this is a pattern that they're doing often, they probably don't even realize it. And the other thing is the ideas of roles. And this one I think is just so interesting because as roles of mothers and women in the way that society has changed over the last few decades, I look at the ideas and the assumptions that people have for women and mothers. And we get to decide based on our values if you have the courage to be yourself and not to compare and not to pretend. So when you desire something and you're following it, especially when you feel like this is God's desire for me and I don't need the validation of others to follow this desire, it's a very different path. And I think that comparing comes from the need to feel validated. So for example, if someone is feeling that they aren't quite sure if staying home with their children full-time is fulfilling or the right decision for them, sometimes you will notice and hear comparing in the negative aspect of comparing to women that have fully chosen a career and have chosen to not be home with their children. And I see it on the opposite end of the spectrum when I hear people that have fully chosen their career and they're making negative comments about women that are staying home with their children. I think it's really interesting, but I think it's very dangerous when you're doing this type of comparing because you don't know the inner desire that God put on that woman's heart. And when you're doing the comparison based on your own lack, it becomes judgment, and that doesn't build a trusting relationship. So when I decided that I truly wanted to build my life and my businesses around my family, I did feel pressure when I would get questions from certain people about when was this going to happen or what I was doing and how many hours I was working. And it was just It was really interesting because it was this lack of understanding because there's such a norm in society to do one extreme or the other, and I'm coming from this point of view that I'm sharing in my new business of integrating both. We can have quality time in our careers if we so choose and not miss out on the quality time with our family and children if that's what we prioritize. And how we prioritize that is individual. And the way that I have built my businesses is very unique to me, and it is working out very, very well, and I can show by just being the example that this is aligned to me. And I don't have to apologize to anyone that doesn't understand that or is in judgment of that because they believe something different. They can have their point of view, and that is fine. That is up to each individual. When I say quality time, if you don't feel like you have enough quality time, it just simply starts with a decision. That's what it starts with. It's the decision to take one step forward, to find someone that can guide you, that's been there before, to find a community to support you that understands that we're all uniquely different and we have different gifts. It also means saying no more often, and it means fully saying yes when you mean it. And the people around you that know your yes means yes and that you're all in when you say yes, you're going to be there, you're going to be present, will really appreciate it. And what I've noticed is I'm getting less negative feedback as I'm saying no to a lot of things. And I'm saying no to a lot of things because I want to be fully present where I am right now. And I have a lot of things, a lot of moving parts going on right now, and not everybody's going to understand that. And I also don't want to explain it to everyone. So maybe they would understand it if I explained it, but I just don't feel the need to explain it to everyone. I'm involved in a lot of different communities and groups, and I could be piling more things on my plate than I than I already have and choose to on a daily basis if I allowed it. And so being present is the number one thing that I think is the foundation of a trustworthy relationship. Being present with that person and it's being reciprocal and you're feeling it back from them. I thought it was also important to end with something that I read recently in a book that I've been referred to for quite some time now by several people, and it's called The Body Keeps Score. And in the book, it is talking about how the body keeps score and people can learn to control and change their behavior, but only if they feel safe enough to experiment with new solutions. I think that's really interesting when I look at the behavior of the man in the story that I told you about that happened earlier. He obviously felt safe when I created a different situation for him, and so he didn't feel like he was in fight or flight anymore. And I think also the managing of relationships that's included in this book, I thought that was really interesting because it talks about the solution isn't just suppressing unpleasant emotions and troublesome behaviors because of faulty thinking. It's also including joyful engagement. So the solution involves play, and that is what I've been speaking to for a very long time, that joy and fulfillment come from having this solid foundation. And if you don't have that solid foundation, you're just in, in reactive mode all the time. So you can relax when the message that you receive from other people is, "You're safe with me." And you're also holding space for other people in trustworthy relationships that you want to feel safe with you. That reciprocity, that's being truly heard and seen. So I'm going to end with a quote from a book that I read to my son every night. We've been doing this for years. We call it The Orange Book, and it's a book by Sarah Young And it says, "Hold my hand with joy in your heart, trusting that I never leave your side." Thank you so much for joining me today. If you found this episode helpful, please follow or subscribe to the Integrative Mother Experience. That way you won't miss out on future episodes. Feel free to share it with another mom if you think that it would be helpful. You can also start today by grabbing my free checklist or joining my free private Time Mama community, which is on my website, theintegrativemotherexperience.com. Scroll down, enter your name and email, and you will start receiving the information right away to start connecting with other moms. Follow me on Instagram. You can DM me there @timewithsarahswift. Have a joy-filled day.