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Comments. Before we go into today's topic, I have some announcements. Let me jump back into my notes. Okay, the first announcement is book club will be Thursday, May fourth at 11 AM Mountain Time or 1 PM Eastern. The book we're reading this month or this time around is called Forget Having It All by A me Westervel. I'm pretty sure. But in the event section above in the side of the group, go ahead and you can find out more details about the book, about the book club. You do not have to belong to the book club. It's not like the secret club that we have with Inside Mons of that Case. Just because you're a member of this group, you also have access to that book club. So all you need to do is just get the book, whether you buy it, go to the library. I downloaded it. I think I downloaded it through Libby or Kindle or however, and I've been reading it. It's super interesting. It's a dive into American motherhood and why we have it all wrong. I'm only a few chapters into it, but we will meet on May fourth to discuss it and to just have a conversation about the book.
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And even if you don't read the whole book, definitely plan on coming to because you'll be able to engage in the questions and in the discussions, regardless of how far you get in the book. So come out to that on May fourth. Details in the event section. Now, I also am planning a fun Mother's Day event, a quizzo, which what that is, is a trivia game, and we're going to do it virtual so that you can all participate. And during COVID, my extended family, I'm in Montana. Most of my family is on the East Coast. My cousin joined from California and another one from Florida every once in a while. But every week we met via Zoom. And my one cousin who's in Pennsylvania, she's a quizzo master, and she's really good at it. And she facilitated the whole quizzo night, and it was super fun. And it's just trivia. You do not have to know trivia. You don't have to be good at it, I promise. Because trust me, I am not good at trivia. I can get maybe one answer on jeopardy. I'm just not that good at trivia. I'm not really fluid in pop culture.
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But what it is, it's all different categories like sports, animals, general knowledge, pop culture, entertainment, just different categories. There'll be a category like... I'm leaving it to my cousin to come up with the thing, but we're going to do a Mother's Day theme. So there may be a round or two where we focus on mom things. And even though Moms Without Caves is about being who you are outside of your roles, role as mom, learning to be more than just a mom. But this is Mother's Day, so we are going to in celebration for Mother's Day. That's why I want to hold this fun event. And it is super fun. It's super fun. Quizzes, again, that they do in bars and stuff. Like I said, you do not have to be a trivial minister to come out, have fun, and there will be prizes, too. So be sure to vote on what time works best for you. I've got a couple of different... I've got a poll going on inside the group, and I will link to that post or that to that poll after I get done filming this video. But be sure to vote.
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Be sure to vote and come on out. Plan to come on out. But if you vote, then I'll keep you posted as to when we actually do that. I'll tag you in any kinds of when I do create the event. I just want to get a date now or down first. So it'll be that week before Mother's Day. I pick some night time. So that way, even if you're working during the day, you'll be able to come because it's going to be a fun time. All right. And then the Reclaim Your Me Time challenge. These are a lot of announcements, sorry. And if you're on my email list, you'll be getting an email about these things too coming up in the next few days. The Reclaim Your Me Time challenge will be the week of May 22nd. It was going to be that week in the May eighth, but because I want to do the quiz, though, one of those nights, I want to be able to have time. I don't want you to be bombarded with all these posts about each of these things. So I'm spacing it out. I'm pushing back the challenge so that you can commit to coming to the quiz o night, which will be that week of the May eighth.
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So I'm pushing back Reclaim Your Me Time challenge to May 22nd. So it's going to be that week. So be on the lookout for the registration when I open up registration, which will be two weeks before that. But again, if you are on my email list, you'll be in the know. And tag and change the notifications within this group as well, because then, and you do that by I think you click the three dots up there or whatever at the top of the group to change the notifications to be notified whenever there are posts happening in this group. And then finally, I'm going to be holding a Summer Self Care Master class, and that will be held June first. So that will be just like our other master classes. I've done holiday master classes, I've done one on stress, I've done the workshop on sleep. It's going to be just an hour long master class, and that will be on June first. So be on the lookout for that too. So those are the things. Book club on May fourth, Mother's Day quiz. Vote for the day that works best for you. Reclaim Your Me challenge starting May 22nd, and Summer Self Care Master class June first.
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Just some dates to keep in mind. Save the date. All right, let's dive into why can't we just say no? Today is going to be all about setting boundaries and learning how to say no, because only when you can learn to say no to other things will you be able to learn to say yes to yourself? It's basic science, so basic principles right there. You've got it. In order to make time for yourself, in order to put yourself on your to do list, you have to get comfortable with being able to say no to other things, other people. I asked earlier in the group, now I can't find my live, of course, to be able to see comments, but I asked early on in the week, who do you struggle with saying no to the most? And the theme or the majority of you answered that you struggle with saying no more to extended family or to people that are outside of your little circle. You feel pretty comfortable saying no to your husband and to your kids, but you struggle to say no to other people. And today we're going to just dive into that and find out why do we struggle with saying no, and what are the consequences of not being able to set those boundaries, not being able to say no.
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And then I'm going to share with you some strategies for setting boundaries and saying no. And then I'm also going to share with you a free resource that I have that I think would be helpful to you if you struggle with saying no. I think I have allergies. For the past week, all I've been doing is I've had this tickle in my throat that I've taken Robitocin, I've taken cold medicine and nothing is helping. I took allergy medicine and it also didn't help. But that might be the medicine. But that's the only thing I have is this cough, nothing else. Do you find yourself constantly saying yes to others, even when you really don't want to. To carve out time for yourself and to meet your needs, because that's what we're trying to do here is to identify, yes, you have needs. You've been so busy taking care of everyone else's needs that you put your own needs on the back burner or in the background. Now that we are working on intentionally asking ourselves, what do we need? We need to be able to have time to meet those needs. And we've got two choices.
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It comes down to we can remove some of the current commitments. When you look at your schedule and it's like, wow, there's just so much stuff on it. We can work on eliminating some of those things, eliminating, automating and delegating some of those things, and we can decline incoming requests for commitment. So people asking us to do things or us volunteering to do things. Anything additional to our calendar or to our task list, we have to eliminate things that are on the task list or deal with them. Plus, we have to eliminate things coming in. And that means we need to say no when things are requested of us because we have limited resources, we have limited time, we have limited energy, and limited resources. So we need to be able to learn to protect them. But we also need, underlying that, is we need to learn that we are worthy of protecting them. We need to treat our time as finite because it is. So often when you're saying yes to everything, that underlying belief is that you have all the time in the world when in reality we really do not have all that time.
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Time is finite for us, for our spouses, for our kids. Time is finite. We really need to switch that and shift that belief and realize and recognize that our time is finite and that it deserves to be protected. Why do we struggle with saying no? What is these societal expectations and pressures to be selfless? Like the sacrifice mentality, sacrificing yourself for your family, sacrificing yourself for other people's needs, like sacrificing your own needs, saying no to us so that we can say yes to everyone else. And it is this pressure that comes right on. I just told you about the book that we've been reading that we're working on to discuss on May fourth that forget having it all. It talks a lot about these societal expectations that have been placed on modern mothers. And we have ingrained these beliefs. We've ingrained these expectations so that we ourselves feel guilty when we're not meeting them. And it's all about that sacrifice mentality and being a martyr and being like a badge of honor to be busy, to be putting everyone else needs, to be running your kids around to a million different activities, to making sure that they're wearing the latest clothes.
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All of these things that we as a society have perpetuated have really set us back, have really created a lot of stress and overwhelm in our lives. And so being aware of what these expectations are is going to make a huge difference in being able to challenge them and go against them. There's also that guilt and fear of judgment from others, which I wasn't surprised when I did that poll in the group and it came out that most of us struggle with being able to say no to those, like the extended family, neighbors, friends. We tend to say yes, even when we don't want to say yes. It's because we have this fear of judgment. We want people to like us. That is like a psychologically innate need. We want that sense of belonging. We want people to like us. And so that is why we tend to say yes, even though we don't want to. And like I mentioned, it's not even the request that people ask us. I was volunteering all over the town. I was on boards and I was leaders, like the leader of Girl Scouts and the leader of Friends of the World.
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It wasn't even that... Well, people did ask me to step up. But even above and beyond that, being home room mom, things that you volunteer for because you feel like that's going to make me liked. And even if it's unconsciously, even if it's... I was just having a conversation the other day about that push and pull of making cupcakes for your kid's school. And you may struggle with like, well, my kid's going to benefit from this. But yet, which tends to happen. It's like, okay, I'll do it. I'll do it. Even though you are crunch for time, again, thinking that you have all this time in the world when really you don't. And you've got this push and pull. Instead of coming up with a different solution, which we'll get to in a minute, I'll use that an example. But we're split. We're torn between wanting to do it for our kids and then also saying no, because we don't have the time. When we aren't saying no, when we're continually saying yes to everything, it can lead straight to burnout. You may feel resentful, resentment in your relationships. You won't have the time to practice self care, which is what we talk about a lot in this group.
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You won't have time to pursue your passions. If it's been so long, if you've been saying yes to so many different things, you probably don't even know what it is that you like anymore or what your passions are, what you value. Those things, because you put them on the back burner, your own needs, they've blurred into the background. When you start being able to say no and get more comfortable with that and being able to protect your own time, energy and resources, you'll have time to explore what that is and you'll start feeling alive again. You'll start feeling like yourself. Over commitment has also been shown, been linked to a whole number of issues, including burnout, sleep problems, diabetes, inflammatory diseases like autoimmune illnesses, cardiovascular diseases. This is real stuff, guys. This is stuff that can kill you, really. Nobody else is more responsible for your life than you are, which means it's super important for you to recognize what you can do in order to protect yourself against all of these issues and diseases and illnesses. So how do you say no? What are some strategies that you can use? So it is super important to be self aware, to increase your self awareness, identifying personal values.
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What do you value? Maybe coming up with that decision tree to help you decide, what are you going to say yes to and what are you going to say no to? Actually writing down, what do you value? But you need to make time in order to do that, in order to sit down and journal and to even think, like I was talking about not in the middle of the night like I was doing last night, but actually setting aside time in your day to journal or to just think, to just hear your thoughts and to get in touch with who you are, to challenge yourself, to do things that you're not used to doing because that's how you're going to get to know yourself better. And then when it comes down to, there's actually like, you know that saying, just sleep on it? That's a viable thing because you're creating distance between the request and your answer. So actually, sleep on deeping on it, telling that person, Let me get back to you on that. That way that'll give you time to actually think about, do I want to do this? Maybe weigh it against that decision tree that you created, or talk to people, or really just journal about it.
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Really think if this is something that you can commit to before you actually give that person the answer, it'll allow that person to appreciate you more, like that you're not agreeing to something that you don't really want to do and that you will agree to things that you actually want to do. So telling somebody to sleep on it and creating that distance is one strategy that may be helpful. The second one is to use an empathy sandwich. What this means is you're going to sandwich your decline of the request in between two statements of empathy. And so, for example, somebody may, like the teacher or homeowner, we need a mom to make cupcakes for our class that party next week. Do you think you can make 24 cupcakes for us? Okay, first of all, you are over committed as it is. Using this example because I know that this is super common example and it will derail you when you're up at midnight trying to make these cupcakes, these pin trustworthy cupcakes. Here's a way or a recommendation of how to decline this recommendation, whether you sleep on it, right? You could sleep on it.
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But using the empathy sandwich, empathize. I know it's fun for the kids to have cupcakes for their parties. I remember Lucy saying that for the Halloween party, the class had adorable spider cupcakes. And I know that it is your job to let us other parents in on what's going on for the class. During that, you created some empathy. You acknowledged that they've been working, like this homeroom mom who requested this has been working hard at making sure that the class had fun, dot, dot, dot. Then you're going to politely decline. I'm sorry, but you do not have to say I'm sorry, but this is just one way. I'm sorry, but I do not have the time this week to make cupcakes for the class. Clear, direct, and to the point. Then you're going to follow that up with another empathy statement. I sure hope that the kids have a fun party and that you are able to find a parent who has the time to make the cupcakes. I know how hard you have been working this year as a home room mom, and I appreciate your dedication. So you've actually come up with a possible solution that you've been able to provide, leaving that person to have a decision to make.
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You have clearly defined or clearly stated what you cannot do, so you've been able to say no, but then you've also provided a possible solution and you've empathized with her. I did a podcast episode before about this, and I did an interview with Candice Smiley, and it's called No is a Complete Sentence. I'll link to that in the comments section, or if you're listening to this via podcast, it'll be in the show notes of today's episode. But I definitely recommend checking that out because that will dive more into using no and knowing that it is a complete sentence. Just to summarize, today we talked about why we struggle with saying no, we talked about the consequences of saying no, and I provided you a few strategies to make it easier to say no. So one is the idea of sleeping on it, and the second one is to use the empathy sandwich. I also have a resource that I would love for you to go and download. It's a cheat sheet about getting comfortable with saying no. You'll get ideas and tips for setting your boundaries that will make saying no easier for you. And that's at momswiththatcape.
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Com say no. And I'll throw that link as well in the comments and in the show notes. So check it out. Go download that resource. And if you're really struggling with setting boundaries and getting comfortable with saying no, I would love to hop on a call with you and share with you more about the Super Mom detox, which is my personalized coaching program where we do a deeper dive into setting boundaries. And it's completely personalized to what you are struggling with. And we cover lots more things, too, because it's all about hanging up your super mom cape. So in that program, we talk a lot about boundaries, but we also talk about self care and habit building and perfectionism, people pleasing, all of the things that are keeping you stuck in the state of overwhelm. We're going to work on hanging up that cape so that you can be the calm and present mom that you want to be. So if you're interested in that, momswiththatcapes. Com love yourself, schedule a call with me so that we can talk more about that program and I can see how I can serve you and help you hang up your cape.
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So that's it for today. I hope that you enjoyed this video or this episode. And if you have any questions about it, definitely let me know, shoot me an email, put it in the comments section if you're watching this in the Facebook group. And if you are not a member of the Facebook group, you're listening to this on the podcast and you want to come become a member or part of this amazing group of women who are all working on self care, self discovery, discovering themselves, taking care of themselves and just loving themselves where they are, then come join the Moms Without Capes Facebook group. I hope that you all have a great day and I look forward to seeing you in the group. All right, take care, everyone.
