A (0:00)

I am a work in progress, friends. I am not perfect. I am learning and growing and expanding as I go. But I believe that the more accountability that we have to take stock of what no longer serves us and really have people that see that in us and honor those non negotiables, the more that we can do it for others.

B (0:19)

Welcome to the Influencer podcast. I'm your host, Julie Solomon. If you found yourself here, it means you are ready to unleash the powerful visionary that lives inside you, turning you into an authentic leader who creates influence, impact and change. Let's get started.

A (0:41)

Hello, friends, and welcome to another episode of the podcast. I'm excited to dive in today. I recently celebrated my 41st birthday and as I was reflecting on this past year, my growth, my energy, what I've talked about, tolerated, what I'm no longer available for, this truth, this one truth really kept rising to the surface. And that is that your tolerance will always be met by the energy of which you are giving out and what you are really available for. And it's really about this idea of just raising your standard in your business and your life, in your relationships. And when you do that, all of those things will rise to meet you or they'll fall away. And this realization hit me hard. Not because it was new, but because it finally landed in me. And I felt it in a much deeper way. You know those moments when something clicks not in your mind, but in your body and when you can't unsee what you've seen, you feel it in your bones. And that is really what happened. I started to take stock and really look at some of the dynamics in my life, specifically in my business and in my relationships. And I had to get radically honest with myself. There are dynamics in my business and I've been talking about this over the last year and a half. And so that needed to change. And I'm going to be doing an entirely other episode on just that. But today's episode, I wanted to talk about the relationships that I started recognizing that I was holding onto. Out of comfort, out of history, even compassion, but not necessarily alignment. And that's what today's episode is about. Why I am no longer available for certain dynamics and why raising your standard when it comes to relationships is the key to everything that it is that you want. And how I've been using this truth to start to curate a new energy and a different energy as I step into this next year, this 41st year of my life and this new season of leadership and identity and intimacy. So with that, let's get started. Over the past few months, I have been noticing a quiet pattern. It's subtle moments, just emotional mismatches, conversations that leave me more drained than nourished. And I just couldn't ignore it anymore. I realized that there were some relationships, collaborations, partnerships in my life that I, some of which that I have carried for years that just aren't aligned with the woman that I am now. And some of it was really hard to see at first. There were connections rooted in history and shared seasons in, well, you were there then kind of moments. And for a while that felt like enough. But when I really started paying attention, I noticed something. I was often the one in these relationships, in these dynamics that was anchoring the space. And what I mean by that, the one holding more, the one navigating conversations that felt heavier than they needed to be. The one offering emotional support when all I really wanted was, was space, presence, connection and ease. And I don't say that from a place of superiority or ego. I really say that from a place of self awareness. I have done a lot of work on myself over this past decade and really over the last few years, just deepening more into that work. It's deep work, it's messy work, it's unsexy work. I've been doing it on my business, on my marriage, on my leadership, on the way that I mother, on my relationship to money, to this work that I do, to visibility, to identity, to friendships. And I've just come to this point where I no longer have the tolerance, have the desire to be surrounded by people who haven't done their own version of the work. It doesn't mean it has to look like mine. But there needs to be something, some level of emotional responsibility, awareness, spiritual maturity, self honoring in their own path and journey. Because otherwise the dynamic just becomes lopsided. And I have found myself in situations where the conversations always circle back to not necessarily someone else's drama, but someone else's problem or challenge or thing that they were trying to fix. Or where the energy in the room got. Got heavy or got very focused on one thing or one person or one idea really fast. Or where I felt like I had to kind of dim my presence, dim my peace, dim my bigness of my vision, or even sidestep my joy just to make sure that no one else felt uncomfortable. And here's the thing. There is a difference between presence and projection, between being real and just dumping. And I realized something that I have spent years cultivating and creating such a safe Energy in friendships, in my business, with my team, with my family, even online, that sometimes that can mean that people can get a little too comfortable bringing their unprocessed chaos to the doorstep. And especially if you are someone who maybe in your past has allowed that, it's easy to maybe want to continue to allow that door to be open because you don't want to seem harsh or unkind or too much. But over this last year and a half, I have gotten to this moment that a deepening of a boundary needed to be built in order for me to actually step into this next season of my life, into the highest identity of who I am. And it reminded me of something that a good friend of mine, Susie, said to me. She said to me, julie, your tolerance will always be met. If you set your bar low, people will meet it. If you raise your standard, people will rise or they'll just fall away. And that truth, that simple truth hit so hard because it made me really understand how I have grown certain dynamics in my life. Not because I'm better, but because I have done the work, because I have shed the skin, because I'm living in a different season now. I'm living from a different frequency now. I am living from a different level of identity and standard. And I think what really lands was how visibly out of sync I felt with some of the energy and residue, if you will, that was still showing up in various aspects of my life. And not that any of that is bad. I have been there. I have lived through so much of that, but I'm not there anymore. And I have realized that I no longer have the capacity or have the space to abandon myself in rooms where I just can't relate. And what I mean by relate is not that I need to agree with or quote, unquote, relate with every single idea that someone may have. That's completely unrealistic. What I'm talking about is being in rooms where I feel like I have to dim or carry or over function to. To keep the room cracking, to keep the friendship going, to keep the dynamic moving. And here's where this really lands. I am also at 41 years old, getting to a place in my life where I can't really be close with people. Places and things that don't hold themselves to that same level of integrity as it relates to their life, their. Their relationships and their business. And I have talked to some really close friends in my life about this and they are feeling the same way. I've talked to clients about this and they are feeling the same way. And so I knew that I had to bring it to the podcast because if I'm feeling it and I've got friends feeling it, and I've got clients feeling it, there's probably some of you that are feeling this. And here's the truth. Of course none of us are perfect. And thank God that we have deep connections where we can share the stuff. You know, sometimes you're going to be in a dynamic and it's like, hey, I've got a hundred percent today to give and you've got 10% or tomorrow I've got 20% to give and you've got 80% to give. There is so much unpredictability in business right now. 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Turn your big business idea into With Shopify on your side, sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at shopify.cominfluencer go to shopify.cominfluencer shopify.cominfluencer but it's kind of like if every time someone that you knew came over to your house and left their dirty can of Diet Coke sitting on your kitchen counter, maybe the first two or even five times you would say, okay, that's fine, I'll throw it away for you. But over time, little by little, it just gets to the point where you just want to say, my goodness, have enough awareness to not bring your trash to my house. You know what I mean? And that's what I'm talking about. This energetic trash, this toxic trash, this heaviness that can happen. And if you're going through something heavy, which we all do, we have to have that discernment to know right time, right place, if the space is open for it to drop in. And there has to be reciprocity in the dynamic, because not every table is a place that is safe enough to unload, that is ready to hear you unload, and that can actually hold the space for it. And sometimes you're just in a place where you want to be seen, mirrored, witnessed and held and expanded into your highest self. And so sometimes I think the most respectful thing that you can do for your relationships, for your business, for the energetic dynamics in which you find yourself in is to really make sure that you are suiting up and showing up as your highest self before you hand that over to someone else. Because there is a time and a place for everything. And that is key. And that is really what I have been feeling into, is that I have outgrown being the person, the codependent people pleasing person for others in certain dynamics to lean on when they haven't learned how to lean into themselves first. And we're not always going to get this right, but this makes me think about this idea of compatibility, not just in friendships, but in values, in integrity, in tolerance, in how you communicate and want to share your unique perspectives of the world. And it's just sometimes hard to relate to certain energies, certain rooms, certain people, certain dynamics that haven't met themselves at that place yet. And there was a part of me that for several years just kind of kept saying it's okay, even though I knew that it wasn't. Even though I knew that I had outgrown whatever energy that that was, I had done the work to shed that. And the part of me that over functioned just to kind of keep it going, the part of me that allowed dynamics and relationships to maybe orbit out of that, people pleasing, maybe even out of nostalgia, out of codependency rather than alignment, had just dissolved. Thank goodness for the work, it had dissolved. And it really came down to this idea, this small still voice that I started hearing a couple of years ago. And I think it had always been there. It just started to kind of get louder. And the voice was telling me that I was going to start outgrowing a lot of things that no longer served me, a lot of things that had gotten me here, but they weren't going to get me where I was going. And that meant people, that meant business dynamics, that meant offers, that meant client, that meant team, that meant so many things. And in the beginning, I focused on the business because I could feel that so clearly. And so I started to reshift, unravel, do the work that I needed to do around the business to start really honoring and carrying the business and the type of client that I now do and that I will continue to do. But as we know, with most things, if it's wonky in your business, it's most likely wonky in other aspects of your life. It's not just going to show up in one area and not others. So. So it was also time for me to take stock of the energy, the friendships, the relationships, the partnerships, the lifestyle, the intimacy, all of it. So here's what I want to leave with you today. This shedding, really over the last year, but over the last couple of years has given me exactly what I needed, just not always in the third in the form of what I thought. I think that there have. There has been moments that the universe has used to show me, not harshly, but clearly, where I've compromised, where I've settled, where I've played small, where I've let things that felt so out of alignment to me slide, where I've held on to dynamics that no longer reflected who I am or what I value or how I want to show up in the world and really how I do show up in the world, how I do show up in the privacy of my home, how I do show up with clients. But it wasn't being reflected in every aspect of my life, and I could no longer hold that in balance. And I'm not mad about it. I am so grateful. Because now, guess what? When you change the script, the script changes. I get to raise the bar. And it has to begin with me. I get to raise the bar. And how I show up in these dynamics, in these relationships, in these friendships, in these various conversations, in these energies, I get to define what align relationships means to me, and I get to call in the relationships that meet me there. And I'M so grateful that I have been able to do this. Over the last couple of years, I have seen new relationships come in in my life that have just been so transformative. Relationships in friendships with other moms, relationships in my business with new team members, relationships with clients and new clients that are coming in deeper. Relationships with friends that where we can really meet each other at the same level. So here's what's now a non negotiable for me and I'm sharing it here on the podcast because I need you, if you are willing to hold me to this, because I am a work in progress. Friends, I am not perfect. I am learning and growing and expanding as I go. But I believe that the more accountability that we have to take stock of what no longer serves us and really have people that see that in us and honor those non negotiables, the more that we can do it for others. So I'm going to share this as just an energetic accountability that you, as the beautiful person that you are, as the energy that you carry to take time out of your day and out of your life to come and let me impart my experience, strength and hope onto you. I want to share this with you. And the non negotiable for me is first the spiritual maturity. It's not perfection, but it's that groundedness, that presence and that growth. Spiritual maturity is now no longer negotiable in my life, in my relationships and how I show up in my business and in my life. The other one is emotional stability. And what I mean by that is simply the ability to hold space without making it about anything else that is so important. I don't know about you, but if you've ever sat in conversation with someone and you're going through something really hard and you're just wanting to share and you're just wanting to process, right? And here they come with their thoughts and their ideas about how to fix and how to change and their perspectives. And you're sitting here thinking, I appreciate it, but at the same time I kind of don't because I didn't ask for that. I didn't ask for you to fix me. I'm just trying to share in a safe space. And so the emotional awareness and the emotional stability for people to do that, I think has become such a big non negotiable in my life because it just allows for space to be held in a way that honors the presence of what is without trying to fix or change anyone. The next thing is the lifestyle compatibility. I want to be around women who, who are doing life on purpose, who know what season that they're in and they are grounded in it. And man, it may not be perfect, they may need support, it might feel a little heavy along the way, but they are grounded and rooted in that purpose. And then the other thing is respect for energy and timing, knowing when it's your time to show up and share, and also when it's your time to witness and hold space. So if you've been feeling drained by certain energies, friendships, dynamics, client relationships, whatever it is, maybe it's not about fixing the dynamic. Maybe it's about raising your standard so that people can rise to meet it. Because your tolerance will always be met. And when you honor your non negotiables, you don't lose people, you just gain the right ones. So with that, thank you for being here and letting me share and I will see you same time, same place next week.