What Fills YOUR Soul?

In this episode, explore the importance of creating a personal “protocol” to guide where your time and energy go. 

Here are 3 key takeaways:

• Self-awareness starts with knowing your worth and aligned energy. Notice what connects you to your soul—whether that’s through faith, a sense of being loved, or a core value like peace or authenticity. Begin with the understanding that you are seen, known, and loved, then identify what values matter most to you.
• Notice what depletes you and create small, meaningful habits.
  We all experience things that weaken our connection to aligned energy: worry, rage, shame, or just plain busyness. Real change comes from noticing these moments and designing very small, doable steps to restore your energy—like listening to your favorite song, going for a walk, or saying no to extra responsibilities.
• Build your own soul care toolbox—there’s no one-size-fits-all.
  Try writing down 1–3 practical tools that fill your soul, whether it’s an artist date, a cozy “resting tree” spot, or a new weekly rhythm. 

This episode encourages you to customize your self-care, celebrate what works for you (even if it doesn’t look like someone else’s routine), and regularly revisit these tools to keep your energy and joy high.

Links 

• Join Kelly's Group Coaching Program
• Join Kelly’s Free community on Skool

 Let's connect.

I am cheering for you!

Transcript

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Welcome to the Live a Vibrant Life podcast. I'm life coach Kelly Tibbetts, and each week I'll be here to encourage and equip you with the tools you need to grow in self-awareness and invest your best energy in your dreams and your purpose. I believe self-awareness changes everything. Let's get started. Today we're talking about the importance of caring for your soul, of having a protocol, which is a way to define in advance where you want your time and energy to go so that you honor those decisions because your results are important. Rest with purpose-filled work that's important is going to fill your soul. You're gonna care for your soul by resting and doing purpose-filled work. Making sure there's time for joy and play, fun, is how you're going to fill your soul with sunshine. You might describe rest and joy differently, but that's the word I'm choosing to use. Today we're gonna land with what are the actual tools that you're going to use all year. This is not just a summer toolbox. This is a lifelong toolbox. What are you going to decide in advance fills your soul with sunshine? So let's begin where you connect to your soul. For me, it is through Christ. I love the verse from John 15:5, where God has intended that we stay connected to Him. So what connects you to your soul? How do you even notice that? How do you notice when you are in aligned energy or you've moved out of aligned energy? I think for almost every single human, we notice when we are seen and known and loved and accepted. I had an experience this weekend where I was able to look somebody in the eye and speak that over them. "You are 100% loved, made on purpose, for a purpose, and currently the way you're breathing in and breathing out is so very valuable. Nothing more is needed." And I literally saw their face relax. Now we're gonna attract to us who we are. We always wish it was like, "Oh, I, I want what I want," but what we really attract to ourselves is who we are. Close your eyes, put your hand on your heart, take those deep breaths. Do you know that you are seen and known and loved and accepted? That's the starting point. That's the energy that you'll send out. But what other values are important to you? For some people it's peace. For some people it's satisfaction, authenticity, energy. Can you name one value that's important to you? Let's capture that right now. And then we want to notice the difference between that value, that aligned energy, and what weakens the connection, what weakens joy, love, acceptance, peace. For some it's worry. Worry and dread are going into the future and thinking about all the possibilities of what we don't want in life, and we allow our brains to run around and create an energy that moves us out of alignment. For some of us, it's rage. Rage is not anger. Anger is a feeling that our body gives us when there's a boundary that's been crossed. Rage is when we move away from believing that the light in me should see and honor the light in one another. So you're driving along and somebody's car comes in front of you and you no longer see the value of the life in that car. You're just filled with rage. Not only was a boundary crossed, you lost your insight into the value of the people in that car. So some people, you're noticing what moves you away from connection is worry, for some it's rage, and for some it's shame. And shame is saying there's something that's not 100% loved, valuable, perfect already in you. And so yeah, none of us are going to be able to think and do and feel every single thing completely perfectly. That's part of being human. How human of us. So you might not be a perfect daughter, mother, friend, employee, but that doesn't mean you're not still valuable, precious, loved. And so shame moves us away from the truth of that. And so what weakens the connection for your alignment? Is it worry? Is it rage? Is it shame? Is it something else? Sometimes it's just busyness. It's just running at such a rate we don't stop and pause, notice our thoughts because they're creating the feelings and the actions that are moving us away from the results we want Sometimes you just forget who you are. I love power verses from scripture, but maybe there's a power verse from a song or a book that you love. Take a moment right now and see if you can notice what aligned energy is, what's that word, what's that value, and then what weakens the connection for you to your aligned energy. And the good news is we have the agency to maintain and strengthen these connections ourselves. So we need to notice, decide, and then create small action steps to stay in aligned energy. And we do that by filling our own soul with sunshine. For some of us, it might be something as simple as putting on a really good song and dancing around the house. For somebody else, it might be going for a walk in the woods with a dear friend and having an important conversation. Do you know what you could do this week that's so small it's actually possible for you to do it? One of my favorite coaches right now on Instagram shared something this morning that I thought was really helpful. We often as humans want to start with the very big, dramatic next step, but what could we do that's really small? And his phrases for helping me stay in those small action steps are start where you are. Just notice where you actually are. Then use what you have. Have you ever done this like I've done before? You open a closet, it's a great mess. Instead of starting where we are and using what we have, you think your first step is to go to the store and get a bunch of containers. The same is true for life coaching. Instead of starting where we are and noticing what we actually have, we think we need another book or another course or something outside of ourselves instead of just noticing, "Here's what aligned energy looks like for me. Here's what it looks like when I'm not in alignment. What's one small thing I could do to get back into alignment? I don't have to go on a two-week vacation. I could read a book in the sunshine." So what do you need when your emotional energy is no longer aligned? What do you need when you're physically exhausted or when you're mentally depleted? Those are different things, and they need different tools. Sometimes we need to be with people, sometimes we need to be alone. So let's just take one moment and see if you can notice one small action step that's important to you, and that's why it's important, and write it down, and let's see if we can find a time and a place for that action step I think filling your soul means bringing energy. I think when we give more energy than we have, we end up overwhelmed, depleted, exhausted, frustrated, resentful, all of the energy we don't wanna be in. So how can we then fill our soul, align our energy mentally, physically, emotionally, and socially? We have to notice what works for us, and I wish I could just give you a list and say, "This is what works for everyone," but it's just too nuanced for that. So for some people, when your mental energy's depleted, finding something small to do physically, go for a walk, do some stretching, that helps restore your mental energy. Maybe it's coloring, shutting off all kinds of electronics. Whatever it is that you're noticing, begin to write them down. We're gonna notice and then make some decisions for our mental, physical, and emotional energy. This works sometimes. This works almost all the time. I don't find this helpful. One of the best gifts we give ourselves as we grow in self-awareness is to notice that we're all different. What works for us may not work for somebody else, and vice versa. So you may have listened to a podcast or gone to a talk before where somebody said, "This is the exact thing you need to do," and you tried, and it didn't work for you. I know when I was a young mom, there was a lot of people out there that I looked up to and respected who said, every single day needs to begin with a Bible study first thing in the morning." And it didn't work for me because I had three small children, and their energy was where I needed to put my time. And I wish I knew that then. Instead, I just made myself feel really bad that I wasn't getting up and studying the Bible first thing in the morning while I had little children. So what works for me might be different than what works for you, and it might be different from what the people that you are in relationship with need. So that might be your just first decision. I'm noticing this is true for me, and maybe it wouldn't even serve this person over here. Maybe they have their own toolbox. And that's what we're creating today, a toolbox, a way that you can just simply, in your notes app, in a journal that you have hanging around, um, maybe in a piece of art that you hang in your living room, a way for you to remember, if I do more of this, I feel energized and aligned, and if I forget to do it or I do a bunch of things that deplete me and make me feel resentful, that's not best for me. I want to do more of what fills me and have tools available for when I become exhausted, overwhelmed, and depleted. Do you think you can notice right now an activity or maybe a non-activity, a decision where you're only gonna do something three days a week and you're gonna take two days away, a responsibility that you wanna do more of or less of, a rhythm you wanna create in your life? I listen to podcasts pretty much any time I'm in my car, and one of the podcasts I was listening to, the woman was realizing in this stage of her life she was gonna decide to do work one week on and then take a whole week off to recover. And I can't imagine ever thinking that thought when I was younger, that there were things I was gonna do for one week and then not do again for a whole week. But if it's something that truly depletes you, is there a way to create a rhythm that serves you, where you do more or less of it in order to create better energy balance? And so finally, let's do what we came here to do today and decide on some tools that are going to help you practice your soul care. Because if your soul is full of life, and joy, and peace, and energy, that's what you're going to send out and ripple into the world. We don't need more people, who are overwhelmed, frustrated, confused, resentful. That's the wrong energy to be sending out. So do you have a resting tree? Is there a place in your home or outside your home where when you go there, it's almost like your body just relaxes? Maybe you sigh and smile. Can you name that place? Might be a chair in a corner of your house, and you keep accidentally putting your laundry there, and you can't even sit on it. Maybe that would be your decision today. When was your last artist date, or would you like to decide to take one in the week or two coming up? Where would you like to go? What would you like to do Is there a way for you to have some mindful play or a no-agenda play? It's always so interesting for me when I'm coaching somebody and they realize they're just so tired, and at the same time, their human brain is saying, "You would feel better if you just did this work." And that's rarely true. Usually, when you're tired, you need to rest and then find something that's full of joy, and then go do the purpose-filled work. Could you do the work you're doing a little lower, a little slower? Instead of doing five things, could you do two simply because you're tired and you want to restore your energy? Could you notice when something's important but not urgent and decide to schedule it? Those are the things that get dropped. When something's urgent, you're gonna stop and do it. But when it's important, like writing your book, like going to see that country you've always wanted to go to, like creating a community of people that you want to lead, it's important but not urgent, and if you don't find a way to make a time and a place and a schedule, it will always drop to the bottom of our to-do list. And then finally, is there any photo you have of young you, two, three, four-year-old you? So that when you start to say things like, "Boy, you're so lazy, and you never finish anything," could you look at that sweet face and realize we shouldn't talk to ourselves that way? You would never hold a brand-new baby and say, "Well, there's no value in you today. All you're doing is breathing in and breathing out." You hold them and understand the incredible preciousness of life. That's the energy we want to bring to ourselves. So let's finish our time together by taking out any kind of way for you to collect your information, your notes app, your journal, this workbook, and write down one to three practical tools you could write down right now that you want to add to your toolbox. Maybe you're deciding every single Saturday morning, I want to go for a walk and then go get a coffee because it fills my soul with sunshine. Maybe you want to decide that on Tuesday nights you're going to bed 30 minutes earlier, you're going to do all the skincare and bring a book with you simply to bring more energy and joy back into your life. Can you pick one to three small things, write them down, and place them in a way that you could access it as you remember it? We'll talk again soon. Thank you for joining the Live a Vibrant Life podcast. I hope our time together encouraged you and will equip you with the tools you need to move into the vibrant life you desire. I'm here to help you live a brave, creative, purpose-filled life. And if you'd like to learn more, you can follow me on Instagram or Facebook, Kelly Tibbits Life Coach, or visit my website, kellytibbitts.com. I look forward to connecting again soon