CONNECT with Sheila Botelho Podcast

Setting New Boundaries That Align with Your Vision | Ep 451

• Sheila Botelho

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The end of the year is the perfect time to slow down, reflect, and reassess where we’re pouring our energy—and where we might be leaking it. In today’s solo chat, I’m sharing a deeply personal reflection about a pattern that resurfaced for me this year: over-functioning. It’s a habit many of us fall into, especially as nurturers and helpers, but it often comes at the cost of our well-being and goals.


I’ll take you back to the roots of this pattern, sharing how childhood experiences shaped my need to “fix” others in order to feel safe. While I’ve done years of healing and growth around this, life has a way of presenting us with opportunities to revisit what we thought we’d moved past. A powerful insight reminded me that boundaries are not about controlling others—they’re about showing up for yourself with clarity and intention.


As we move into a new year, this is your permission slip to reflect, reset, and move forward with aligned, intentional action.



PS: Thanks so much for listening. I would love your review! If you enjoy what I share in this episode, rate, Review & Subscribe on Apple Podcasts:

https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/connect-with-sheila-botelho/id1527363160 I would really appreciate it. Thanks!

Sheila:

This is the power of community and having my beautiful community and business besties as well to hold me to that standard that I've set for myself and to remind me no, you're good, it's okay. You're okay to move forward and do the things that you're meant to do and that you're wanting to do for yourself this year. So this all happens when we sit down and we reflect. So are you making space to reflect on all you've achieved this year and on how you're doing, how you're approaching your life? Hi, welcome to the Connect with Sheila Botelho podcast. I'm an entrepreneur, self-care strategist and creator of the Season's Self-Care app. I'm committed to helping you reconnect to your purpose, elevate your wellbeing and build your version of a happy, successful life. Welcome back.

Sheila:

This day is all about reflection. I have been deep in reflection mode this December and it's something I intentionally do every year and it almost feels really good. It's a practice that I build into my life because, if we think about it, nature's slowing down. The seasons are showing us what rest and restoration look like and, even though our business lives, our family schedules and the hustle of December seems to speed everything up, there is still this sense of like. Rest is on its way to us, and so this reflection time keeps me really grounded. It ensures that I'm not in constant perpetual motion, because we all know how easy it is to let the years slip by without noticing what's working, what isn't, and what we want to carry into the new year. And so, for the rest of this month, my solo chats are going to focus on reflections from the last decade, specifically in the online business space.

Sheila:

Now, if you've listened before, you may know that I've been in business since the mid-1990s. In those days, it was all in person. I was driving everywhere to meet people, I was hosting hotel and home meetings and connecting over phone calls, and so when social media entered the scene, I was deep in motherhood and I really chose to embrace that season fully. And so, when social media entered the scene, I was deep in motherhood and I really chose to embrace that season fully. And so it wasn't until 2014, after about a year, maybe even a year and a half of grieving the loss of my sister that I took a deep look at how I could show up differently, and I knew I could not rely solely on in-person connections anymore. I really had to adapt, and so the online space became my focus, and what a journey it has been, from content creation to coaching, podcasting, building programs.

Sheila:

I have learned lessons that have shaped me into who I am today, and so, on today's episode and throughout the rest of the year, I'll be sharing some of those reflections, and my hope is that these lessons inspire you as you look ahead to your next season, because here's the truth we don't need to have it all figured out, you just need to take the next best step, and, as Yoda wisely said, there is no try, there is only do. Really, let's think about this You're either doing something or you're not. When we're thinking about something, planning something in our brain, that's a little bit of the doing. It's not trying, though, right. There is no in-between. So let's focus on action small, intentional steps that align with your dreams, honor your loves and, most importantly, honor you. So these episodes are going to vary in length. Today is going to be a little shorter because I feel like it's just a tidbit, and so today I want to share with you one of the reflections that has reinforced a practice that got away from me until recently this year, and it has to do with boundaries. Hello, how are you with your boundaries.

Sheila:

So, as many things that come up in our lives where we struggle, or bad habits or ways of being that maybe are not aligned fully with who we want to be, like our future self a lot of these things can stem from our childhood, and I've alluded in a past episode to the mental health journey that my father was on and how, as a child, it impacted me deeply, of course, and so at an early age, in order to feel safe in an uncertain environment, you have to be able to feel safe in an uncertain environment. I learned that things felt better if I could make people smile, if I could be helpful. I took other people's well-being and how they felt on at a really young age. Maybe you can relate to this. Over many years of spiritual healing and personal growth practices, I've overcome a lot in this area, and yet it still rears its head from time to time, and I really found that it began to come up with some people that I care deeply for this year, who, from the outside looking in, it may seem they really have no control over their health circumstances, and so I began to over-function and put my priorities lower on the list, emotionally and practically, in order to ease the situation for them, and doing it from a place of love.

Sheila:

And it wasn't about necessarily all outward action, it was inner impact. It was distracting right, it was distracting me from doing the things that I really wanted to do, from the energy that required me to do the things that I want to do. I mean, when you think about this journey of entrepreneurship and you are, it's self-sourced energy. That's why our wellbeing eating well, sleeping well, moving our bodies, getting into nature is so incredibly important, because so much energy is involved with taking an idea from your brain and actually getting it out into the world, marketing it, selling it, delivering it and really carrying and holding happy, happy clients. And so the emotional toll of that experience, this year particularly, has impacted that.

Sheila:

And so I found myself needing to rethink some boundaries. And everything shows up at the perfect time because over the years, specifically the last five years of my work in doing inner nervous system healing from some beautiful people Tal Darden, sarah Tacey I learned that either or thinking is a trauma response, but even so, I was embodying this notion that in order to truly help, I had to abandon my plans when it wasn't even true. I could do my thing for me, care for myself, which I was taking care of myself. But, like the inner life, like having an inner emotional boundary, a mental boundary to really be able to drop in and do what I need to do, I could have done that and still held space and still shown up and still been there in practical ways. I could have done that and still held space and still shown up and still been there in practical ways. So this reflection is serving me now so that I don't carry this behavior into the new year.

Sheila:

And, of course, like I said, another thing showed up for me, and that was a psychologist that I really respect, psychotherapist actually, terry Cole, author of Boundary Boss, and she has another book out now. She said you can't create boundaries with narcissists, you can only create boundaries within yourself. And now, while my situation is not necessarily a narcissistic situation, it hit me because what I took from that was. What I took from that was I need to set the boundary with me. No one is telling me to feel a certain way, no one is telling me to abandon the things that are important to me because they're going through things. If anything, they don't want that right, they don't want to be a burden, and so, for me, I realized oh, it was just a reminder. My boundaries are what I need to create for myself, and so I invite that into your sphere of thinking and planning for the year.

Sheila:

How will this impact you? Is this something that you struggle with? If you are a heart-centered person, I'm sure it is something that you struggle with. It may show up in different ways for you. I just want you to know it's something we all are working on, and this is the power of community and having my beautiful community and business besties as well to hold me to the standard that I've set for myself and to remind me no, you're good, it's okay. You're okay to move forward and do the things that you're meant to do and that you're wanting to do for yourself this year. So this all happens when we sit down and we reflect. So are you making space to reflect on all you've achieved this year and on how you're doing, how you're approaching your life? Something that my clients are finding really helpful is something special that I created recently, and I'm confident that it will be helpful to you as well, because it really has you ground into time with yourself. So I invite you to download the Embodied Success Method to help you plan your goals for the year ahead from the inside out, helping you build from a place of alignment, and it's a fabulous way to create space for better things than you can imagine to unfold. There's a meditation in there. It's a free offering for you. It's in the show notes. Check it out.

Sheila:

Thank you so much for taking the space to listen to this episode. Perhaps the title intrigued you and so perhaps this is something that you're dealing with too, and I just want you to know. You've got this. You can prioritize you and guess what Everyone else benefits when you do that too. As a heart-centered person, I know it's important to hear that, and even if it isn't benefiting anyone else, this is your work to do. You have a specific mission in this world to do, and so stop putting it off, stop putting it last. This is a message for me and it's a message for you. So take this as your gentle nudge Reflect. It doesn't have to look exactly how you envision it in your mind, but take the space and just start. I'd love to hear what comes up for you this week and what you end up doing. Send me a message in the show notes. Tell me, and I'm just so grateful for you. Thank you for listening. Have a beautiful rest of your week. Big blessings you.