Self-care Series and Solutions Wrap-Up

Keywords: self-care, what is self-care, examples of self-care

Hey lady. Welcome back to the show today. We are going to wrap up with our self-care series and we’re going to review all the things that we’ve learned over the past episodes and just kind of have everything in one in one in one, one sitting essentially. So come on and listen in. If you want to really figure out what we’ve talked about over the last couple podcasts, when it comes to self-care, before we start the episode, I want to remind you that I have a free Facebook community, the whole health empowerment project, Facebook group, it’s totally free. And it’s new. So I would love to have you there. It is a space for women who are busy and for women who feel like they want to make their health a priority, but maybe they just don’t know where to go. And it’s even for somebody, if you’re starting to feel empowered to make real change when it comes to your health. So hop on over to the free Facebook community, the whole health empowerment project. And I will see you there. Thank you so much.

Over the last few podcasts episodes. We have been really diving deep into south care. So, I decided to, as we wrap up this topic, when it comes to self-care, I wanted to put all the things that we’ve learned into one episode. Yeah. When we talk about self-care, I think one of the things to remember as we go through the, this episode is that, you know, everybody has a different example of what self-care is to them. For some people, you know, it may be journaling for some people, it may mean just, you know, going for a quick walk or having a quick stretch. And that’s okay. I, I feel like, you know, as I was yesterday teaching and one of my groups and one of the lovely women that I, you know, that we were coaching through was talking about how self-care that it’s very hyped and she’s totally right.

And I think it kind of puts all these categories of like, this is what self-care is. And so I want to remind you that it doesn’t, whatever’s in the media. It doesn’t matter as self-care is individualized to what works for you and there’s no right or wrong when it comes to self-care. It’s just, whatever is going to give you the space to allow you to discover what’s important to you because self-care is the practice of taking as a liberate action to preserve or improve either your physical, emotional, or mental health, or maybe the self-care that you do today may, you know, help to improve two of those or three of those things. It’s really up to you. And there’s no right or wrong self-care is meant to be any practice that is going to, you know, let you reconnect with yourself and discover what brings you contentment and what helps bring you happiness. And really it helps you pay attention to what’s important to you.

Self-care is important because it really, I think the me thing what’s with it is that it helps to refuel you. And so for a lot of us, it is basically this hustle and bustle culture of going, going, going. And so, self-care, I think if you think of it as a practice that allows you to slow down and reconnect and give yourself the fuel that your body needs to, you know, become more in touch with who you are and what you want. When we talk about fuel, I know a lot of times we talk about nourishing your body. So, it usually tends to be food, but self-care is an important in this sense, because if you keep going and going and going, it’s going to be hard to, to really feel and experience all the feelings that you’re, that you’re trying to run away from when you’re not doing self-care, right?

Self-care will allow you to feel connected and hopefully you get to a place when you practice it enough that you feel like you’re able to live in the moment a little bit more, and that you won’t need to run away or escape from your life because you’re giving yourself the nourishment and the space that it needs to really recognize how you’re feeling and that’s what self-care does. So, when we’re talking about the benefits of self-care, a few would be improved, emotional health. You know, people that practice self-care or regularly are less susceptible to feelings of anger, anxiety, and depression, practicing self-care allows us to feel vulnerable. You’ll notice that you’re probably much better able to cope with your feelings and in relationships that you have when you feel like you’re taking the space for yourself, and you may even feel better rested, and you may feel much calmer than you would when you’re running and running and running and taking no time to yourself, the consequences of no self-care are you are tired or stressed or burnt out or over extend it.

And, you know, I know that you all know what that means and how that feels, and it feels terrible, right? And why self-care is important is because it’s very difficult to get to a place that you make your health a priority. When you feel anxious, when you feel depressed, when you feel burnt out, when you feel unmotivated, when you feel like you have no time for yourself, you feel overextended. All of those things will make it difficult for you to, you know, eat the way that you want, or maybe you work out today when you’ve planned that for yourself. But if you are not taking time for yourself, you may not. You know, if you’re not doing practicing self-care, you may not take the time to exercise today because something else may be more important. I think remembering that you’re truly be able to take care of your health and what your, you know, what your health goals are when you feel calm and when you feel connected and when you feel like you have time for yourself.

And so that’s why that’s why self-care is so important, because it just gives you that space that you can feel like you have more control of your life. And by default, than feeling like you can do these little things that when you’re not taking time for yourself, you may feel like are impossible to do, or that may feel like, like, you know, not even important. So having that space of, you know, taking time for yourself is going to help value to be able to reconnect and to be able to tell, take your health goals yeah. Make them a priority because you feel like you’re doing something for yourself and you’re not going to feel so overextended when we’ve talked about self-care in this series, we’ve talked about comfortable self-care and uncomfortable self-care. And some of the things that I mentioned when we talk about comfortable self-care would be Manny’s and Petty’s and massages, and, you know, putting away your phone at night pick, keeping up with doctor’s appointments, listening to music.

I know that’s a big one and keeping a gratitude journal to reconnect with what you have. Some of the forms of uncomfortable, soft care that we’ve talked about in this series are things that may take longer to become a habit. And they also may be things where you may need to reach out to a mental health professional, to do a little bit more digging them, because they may have been things that we’ve been doing for a long time. And so it’s trying to undo some of those, and you just may need a little bit more support to get you to the place that you feel, you know, better able to make these changes. So, when we talk about the uncomfortable self-care, it could be things like establishing boundaries. That’s something that’s probably, you’re going to have to probably do that a few times before you get to that feeling that you feel like it’s actually providing you some space.

And then it’s part of the, self-care saying no to something that you can’t squeeze in receiving compliment and realizing that, you know, you are not perfect. And that happens. I think that self-acceptance and loving yourself for who you are in that exact moment without judging. That’s, that’s a really hard thing to do. And for, you know, when we talk about self-care, I think we’re usually referring to the things that we do one time, and then we’re done, and we feel better. But when we talk about the uncomfortable self-care, it’s usually things that take a little longer, and that may be uncomfortable to do, because I think all of us want that, you know, that feeling of loving herself all the time and having acceptance of who you are all the time without judgment, but that takes a lot of practice to do.

And so it’s not something that you’re just going to be like, okay, I feel like this today. At least it may not. And so it may require, it may require help first to get there. And it may, it may, and it may take much longer to be a habit than just going to get a manager petty. And to remind you that both are perfectly fine, but both are examples of self-care and no matter what you know, or what your idea of self-care is, it doesn’t matter. It’s just, what’s important to you. And it’s, what’s going to help you achieve that space that you need. And knowing that it doesn’t somebody else’s idea of self-care is going to be completely different than your idea of self-care. And that’s okay. We’re all unique individuals. We all have different households. We all grew up in different ways.

So there’s going to be different things that nourish us and eat us to feeling content then what maybe your friend is doing. So whatever works for you is perfectly fine. We’ve also talked about some of the common excuses we use when it comes to a non-performing, self-care the four that we’ve discussed. And again, you can go back to previous episodes if you want to really dive in the episodes are, I think, numbers 73 through 76. And so this was the end of that. We’ve talked about the excuses that I don’t have enough time. That was excused. Number one, and that I make myself a priority later when life slows down and it’s crazy, less crazy and less busy. And we’ve talked about how to challenge this, this excuse, like, you know, do you really not have enough time? And is there a way if you looked back at all this time that you’re spending on social media all day long, and if, even if you’re able to create, you know, five or 10 minutes of space and off of social media or off of something else, like TV that you’re spending your time doing, maybe that five or 10 minutes a day will give you a little bit more space and allow you to reconnect with yourself.

Excuse number two was I’m too tired and this excuse is important because again, we are in this hustle driven culture, and you may feel different kinds of tired. It might be physical exhaustion or emotional exhaustion, or it might be both. And so we talked about ways to challenge this excuse by examining your lifestyle and picking a time of the day that you felt most energized to do the thing that you thought like would get you to a place that you feel contentment and that you were taking care of yourself. We talked about excuse number three, which was it’s too hard. And that I don’t think I can do it. I’m not that disciplined. And having the acknowledgement that any new behavior that you do is going to be hard. It’s not going to be easy, and it may not feel that easy. I think when we talked about like the self-care ideas, it’s very easy to do the things that are easier for us at the beginning.

And then the more we practice self-care, we can do the things that are uncomfortable, because we are able to reconnect with ourselves in a way that we don’t always need the easy hits. Right? So for instance, think about a time when your life has been really crazy and really hectic. The last thing you probably want to do is, oh, let me go and start establishing boundaries. Sure. That may be something that’s in the back of your mind, but it might be easier to give you the space to go and get a massage or to go for a walk that might be your first line of defense to get the space that you need. And so it’s, the more you practice those things, then eventually the harder things like establishing boundaries will become more important to you. And you may feel stronger mentally to be able to do those things.

So again, it’s not, you know, if you need to do something easier at the beginning to kind of give you the win and to give you the strength that you need to get to a place that you can really establish boundaries and do the harder things, then that’s great. So, you know, you’re not, you’re never going to know what works for you, unless you try it. And, you know, and I think in some of that, I’m, we’re taking care of ourselves and doing self-care. There may be even some negative self-talk in there that we need to really, you know, go through and challenge in all of this. When it comes to our health journey, you’d be surprised at how many people like, you know, especially when it comes to weight loss. It’s not so simple. At least I don’t believe it is about calories in calories out.

Sure. That does play a piece of it, but there’s a lot of negative self-talk and a lot of emotional trauma. And, you know, a lot of things that people carry around and eating is a very easy way to be able to relieve that feeling at the beginning. And so, you know, practicing self-care is a way that you can start to really reconnect with any of the limiting beliefs that you’re telling yourself. For most of us, we don’t even know what we’re telling her. So I was because it’s probably in our brain and it’s in there all the time. And we never really like tease out what it actually is because we’re just going, going and going. But we challenged that excuse with really just, you know, talking about consistency and how consistency will help. And that, you know, that motivation, you know, it’s going to come and go because that’s what happens.

It’s not going to be consistent all of the time, but the more connected you are with what you want and that you’re taking the time to give yourself what it needs, the easier it will be to stick with it, any routine. And the more apt you’re going to be able to stick with the behavior that you want. And we talked about the last excuse, which was feeling bad or feeling guilty for putting yourself first and really knowing that self-care is, is not a selfish thing to do. It’s actually selfish not to do it and not to take care of yourself because the only way to really reconnect and restore relationship with others is to first have a relationship and have the space and time to do the things for you first that are going to get you to a place that you can then feel comfortable, that you’re able to give, you know, it’s like giving to yourself first, before you can give to other people.

And so, you know, how do you start making yourself a priority? And basically it’s, you know, just knowing that you a are worth taking the time to make yourself a priority and then practicing small and doing one small thing either, either each day or, you know, every few days, or at least weekly, and really just being consistent with that. And again, it can be whatever it is that works real life. And the self-care that you start with today can be as simple as, you know, getting out of bed and stretching. I have, I think their episodes for, let me go back and look here, I have two episodes. One is on self-care and that’s with Dr. Nancy McGuire. And she goes through and talks all about soft care and just a simple exercise or a breathing exercise that you can do that is reconnecting with yourself.

And that is a way of practicing self-care, that’s an episode four and, and a lot of the literature out there when we talk about, self-care mentioned meditation for quieting, your busy mind. And so I was able to have Jim boy, well one here and she does yoga and meditation. And so that episode is number 48, if you’re more interested in doing meditation. So it’s just whatever works for you. And it might be something starting small, like writing in a gratitude journal. It might be learning how to breathe in a way that calms you when you’re feeling really anxious, it could be anything. It’s just a way that you have the space to give yourself what you need. And really the other thing is to schedule it right, because change doesn’t happen magically in order to make that happen, you may need to schedule it down and make a plan for how you’re going to achieve this goal.

If you don’t have a plan, then you’re probably not going to be very likely in doing this particular habit that you want to every day to take care of yourself. And, you know, I think one of the things that we do is that we go on, or either our digital planner or our paper and pencil planner. And we plan on all these details of our life and all these doctor’s appointments, but we never plan anything in there for ourselves. And so as a result, we ended up, you know, not keeping those appointments and not keeping those things that were important enough for us to read it’s out in our planner. And we, but we wouldn’t do that with other appointments. If we’ve wrote something down we’re going to follow through, but it seems to be so much easier to not follow through on ourselves. And so just schedule it because then it will just be a way that you can follow through and be true to what you wanted and to honor through with what your intention was in terms of achieving or improving your health.

And then knowing, I think the biggest thing is knowing that, you know, whatever happens in the past or whatever you thought, like, you know, that, that forgiving yourself essentially for not putting yourself first in the past, because we’ve all done that we’ve had seasons. And maybe particularly right now, you’re in a season where you don’t feel like you’re taking that great of care of yourself, and you’re not making any time for yourself, but for giving yourself for that. And then just moving forward and doing it differently because that like, that like shame of, of not of not doing it, you don’t want to carry that around because it’s just going to continue. You not doing the behaviors, just let it go. There may never be a time for you to, to, to make the change, but any small change that you’re doing now to help you navigate and prioritize your health and your life as you enter into new seasons is going to be great.

And it’s going to be beneficial to you because it’s not an impossibility to have. Self-Care, it’s just knowing that you’re worthy of it and figuring out what it is that makes you feel connected and makes you feel like you’re taking the space for yourself and then practicing it so that you get that relief of like, yeah, I feel like I have the space and I’m calmer and then scheduling and figuring out how you’re going to keep doing that and then practicing it over and over and over again, so that it becomes an easier practice for you. And not that it’s something that’s so hard that you don’t want to take the time out to do every day. So I, I appreciate you listening during all of this soft care series. Again, I know that it’s not, I know that it’s like, you know, you don’t really want to spend the time and be like, oh, self-care, but I did a few episodes on it because I really wanted to emphasize the importance of it.

And again, I’m no expert in this. I only have taken self-care seriously over the last few years. And I’ve had a lot of, just a lot of that I wish that had I been practicing self-care I would’ve probably been able to deal with a lot better. And instead of running away or procrastinating or not dealing with my, had I been practicing self-care, I think I would have gotten to a place that I would have been able to really manage and sort and tease out what I was feeling instead of running away from my feelings. And so like you, and there’s something I can do about that now. So, I’m forgiving myself and moving on, but I think as a result of that, it’s important for me to remind you that self-care is important from my own experience. And you know, it’s not just that it’s important because I know that everybody knows that self-care is important.

Again, it is all the hype it’s everywhere. Self-Care. But what I want you to really take away from all of these episodes is that self-care is necessary when you’re trying to make your health a priority, because it’s very difficult to make your health a priority when you’re not taking care of yourself. And you’re feeling burnt out and unmotivated and overextended, you’re going to be much more apt to make health changes, especially health changes that stick when you are calmer and more connected. And like, you feel like you have time for yourself. So that was the whole reason for doing this whole series is to get you to a place that, you know, that self-care is important so that you can practice self-care and that you can get to the point that you’re ready to make the health changes that you desire.

Remember that, you know, you were all deserving of the love and respect that we provide to ourselves. So you don’t have to give all of that love to somebody else. You are deserving, and we want you, at least I want you to take that time and love on yourself because who else is going to do it? If you don’t take care of yourself, nobody, nobody else is going to do it. It’s up to you. And again, I’ll be more than happy to help you with that. I have this free Facebook community, and there’s other people in there that are just like you that want to make themselves to make themselves like important and to make all the things that you’ve been putting off all the health goals to really take a step in the direction that you’re starting to achieve them. So I hope that you enjoyed this series as much as I did creating it for you.

And thanks for listening. And I, you know, I just hope that you do something today that makes you feel loved, and that makes you feel like you’re taking time for yourself because you have been given this beautiful vessel which is your body and in order to be the most helpful and to be the best, and to provide you with a purpose that you really want, you must first take care of yourself to be able to help and you know, to help other people. So I hope you have a great I hope you guys have a great day and I will see you back here next week.

Show Notes
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