Join us on this episode where Cali & Barb talk through how YOU CAN MAKE SELF-CARE A PRIORITY in your life and how to avoid the pitfalls of forgetting to give it to yourself daily. Spend a quick 20 minutes as they share wisdom and experience on how to build more resilient and sticky self-care habits, get more out of the practice while giving you some new ideas to work with.
Self-care is how we keep our batteries charged and maintain a healthy perspective on our lives. Self-care is something that builds us up and when we run into a deficit of it, our lives slowly become draining and eventually overwhelming as we try to battle through losing our sense of wellness.
Remember no one else may notice if you skip that yoga class, take time to read a book, or take that walk in the sunshine… but your body, mind, and spirit will definitely experience the lack of time being invested in your personal sense of wellbeing.
Join us on this episode where Cali & Barb talk through how YOU CAN MAKE SELF-CARE A PRIORITY in your life and how to avoid the pitfalls of forgetting to give it to yourself daily. Spend a quick 20 minutes as they share wisdom and experience on how to build more resilient and sticky self-care habits, get more out of the practice while giving you some new ideas to work with.
Self-care is how we keep our batteries charged and maintain a healthy perspective on our lives. Self-care is something that builds us up and when we run into a deficit of it, our lives slowly become draining and eventually overwhelming as we try to battle through losing our sense of wellness.
Remember no one else may notice if you skip that yoga class, take time to read a book, or take that walk in the sunshine… but your body, mind, and spirit will definitely experience the lack of time being invested in your personal sense of wellbeing.
Cali 0:01
self care is something that you get to define for yourself. And you can change it up as your life changes and as your needs change. Take a moment and just kind of write down three things you can do for self care for yourself, we're not going to do all the self care items at once. We're gonna start with one thing, five minutes at a time. It's a great start. And let's be grateful and encouraging towards ourselves as we begin to do that.
Barb 0:28
Hi, and welcome to today's episode of clarity Cafe Podcast. I'm Barb and I'm here with Matt, clarity, sister, Kelly. And today we're going to talk about self care. We've talked about this topic before, but it's such a big juicy one, we're going to take a deeper dive today into some of the questions of why we have sometimes blockages or difficulties making our own self care a priority. Why do we sometimes make it the first thing that we give up all the expectations that we have around ourselves in the world, and the expectations that we have for ourselves care. So before we dive in, just a quick moment to once again express our gratitude for all the interaction that we're having with you on social and through the podcast reviews, etc, we look forward to more and more input. We're especially excited about the topics that we've had suggestions that you guys would want to hear about, look for some of those episodes coming soon. And keep those suggestions coming. So self care and making our own self care a priority. It seems obvious that that is a really important thing, because we all we talked about, you know, put your mask on first, if you're going to take care of other people, you need to take care of yourself. But I know that I've had a tendency over the years, if I'm very busy, be like I can give that one up today I can sacrifice that piece of self care whether that's doing a yoga practice, or taking the time to make a nourishing lunch for myself, whatever those things are, that are my self care items. If I'm really busy, I think Oh, no one else will notice if I don't do this. But guess who's the most important person that notices that me. One of the things I've found with habits is that if you don't do them for a day or two, they become a lot more difficult to do once you have the momentum going. And the key of all this stuff for me is regular practice. And that regular practice doesn't have to be a great big practice like an hour or two, it can be a small practice of a minute or two. So lots of things to unpack in this sort of opening to this conversation about self care. What's happening with you, in terms of self care this week? Kelly, are you? Are you feeling good about that topic.
Cali 2:55
I love this topic. And it's always something that's a refining practice, not necessarily something that I think for me is ever fully achieved. But I wanted to take a step back before we kind of dive into my story and just do a few definitions. So I heard you refer to put your mask on first. And for those of you who've been on a plane and had the safety conversation they're talking about, you know, when those oxygen masks drop down, if you've got someone next to you, whether it's a stranger or child or someone that needs help, please put your oxygen mask on first and then put on everyone else's. So when we think about that analogy for this, it really helps when we operate in the world with our own oxygen first. So wanted to just take a step back and sort of give a little more context to that comment. And prior to this podcast, we looked up the dictionary definition of self care, it gave us a chuckle because it was so simple. It said self care, definition, care for oneself, which is not very helpful, but also meaning incredibly helpful. Because what is self care for me, bar, self care for you may be different. And for our listeners and our clarity, fam, each one of us may have a different sense of what self care is. And that can evolve and change over time, depending on what we're needing. So I love the ability to define self care for ourselves and say that this is not necessarily just about, do these five things that self care, and it's the same for everybody. Now, it's much more nuanced and we get to define it. And as we're listening and discovering and going on this journey in this conversation today, just let's be open to new information that might come up for us about ways that we can give self care and when When I say open up to new information, yeah, it could be something Barbara and I say, or it can also be that quiet voice inside your inner wisdom, your inner intuition that says, Wow, I, I really could use some downtime. I'd like to read a book for 15 minutes a day. Or I'd like to stretch while I'm in the shower, because I'm super stiff in the morning, or night. And it's really helpful to unwind the body before my next thing. So see what comes up. As we talk about this.
Barb 5:39
There's a couple of great points in there that occurred to me one is the put your mask on first, that self care really as important as oxygen. To us, it's a basic part of our life force. And that as people, you can look around and see the people that take know that folks that take care of themselves have a lot more to give to other people and a lot more energy. And just ability to kind of get through the day and every day is different. Some days, you may only need a minute or two. And it may look like whatever your self care routine looks like whether that's breathing exercises, or going outside and getting a couple minutes of sun, taking a walk around the block during your break, all those kinds of things. It can be something very small, and then other days, you may need more. And the other point is that I know for myself, sometimes if I think about doing some self care, there's a little guilt aspect, a little that little guilt voice that comes in and says you know, but you have all these other things to do. And so just always remembering, wow, this is an extremely important thing, this is as important as oxygen to my well being. And really being present to that. This is going to make me be able to be who I want in the world and move forward with my day. It's not a selfish thing at all, which is one of the other things we talked about on our previous podcast about self care. But I think it's worth repeating because of something that is one of the ways that we sabotage ourselves from giving ourselves the care that we deserve. And that we need.
Cali 7:15
So couple of tricks and tips, and we're just talking about right is don't expect to have a perfect picture on self care. So we want to kind of define what self care is for ourselves knowing it can change. And we don't have to do it all at once, right, like five minutes at a time, great start. And it might be five minutes a time once a day. And then it might be five minutes a time three times a day, or whatever that number is just being free with ourselves to just incorporate these little rituals into our day. So that then they can become habits. And so habits, there's so many books out there, and so many studies and a lot of perspectives. But the beautiful thing about a habit is once it's ingrained, it's something that we tend to do with a lot less effort. So if we have a lot less effort on it, we have the ability to engage in the self care activities, will the benefit of not piling it all on at once and saying I'm going to do seven self care things, you know, once every two hours, no benefit of not having a perfect picture of perfectionism around it, and allowing us to say I'm going to try one. And when that's a habit, I'm going to do too. And when that's a habit, I'm gonna do three. What that does for us, is it gives us the ability to not have so much effort in in adding these things. And we get to have more success. Because it's not, if I don't do the seven things, I'm a failure. It's I did one thing, one day, I did it again the next repeat that until it becomes habit, you do it with ease, there's no more effort in it, we add another one in. And now the other ones on automatic, right. So the new ones, the only thing that's going to take bandwidth to incorporate. And so you can see as we start to stack these little self care items on that, there's a way to do it that makes it overwhelming and adding more stress into our lives. And there's a way to do it that simplifies it makes us feel really good for the accomplishments that we have. And then we can continue to build and support ourselves and maintain that loving kind, inner dialogue and relationship with ourselves.
Barb 9:42
We're creating that foundation, and from a foundation of a minute or two of self care can become five minutes and some days might be 20 minutes or even more. But we've now got this foundation to build on. One thing to kind of keep an eye on out, I found from me and in observing other people is that when there's a change in your life, it could be a small change or a big change, we can suddenly lose a little track of our habits and our self care. For instance, you switch to a new job, now your hours a little bit different. So you have a little more time to commute, now you're back in the office or you're not in the office, all those changes can affect those habits. And so having an awareness of, I'm going to make sure I carry my good habits, my self care into whatever new environment. And a great big example of that would be, oh, I've added a new member to the family, whether that be a puppy, or a kitten, or a baby, all of a sudden, there's more beings to take care of in your space. And so you're busy being a caregiver, and also just having a new project at work or whatever all the new things that come in, being able to keep track of those habits, as you were saying, having them be effortless, is so valuable. And being able to translate those into a new environment. So they're things that we can build on. As we move forward into different phases of our life, I look back on some of my favorite things to do ourselves for self care, things that I started doing for myself, many years ago, whether that was you know, studying Tai Chi, I might not do my Tai Chi practice every day. In fact, I don't aspire to that because I have other practices I'm doing. But I still have that one. And I know I can do a two minute version of it. Or I can do a 20 minute version of it. And I always have that because I built that habit, and built that good base of knowing that's always a safe place for me to go. To take care of myself.
Cali 11:45
Hmm. Yeah, safety, right. So self care can be a space that returns us from the overstimulated world that we live in back to, oh, yeah, I'm cool. Everything's cool. And so I love that concept, when we apply it and add the perspective of putting on your own oxygen mask first on that airplane, because if I don't have oxygen, or I'm slowly depleting myself constantly, how I react to the rest of the world, is going to be from that place of not feeling safe and not feeling like my basic needs are taken care of. So when we, when we go to work, or we go to, you know, walk into a meeting, or you know, whatever it is, relate with people we care about, if I haven't eaten properly, or like all day, or on and off, or I've kind of eaten not very great food for my body. Or I've had a situation where me begging to go to the bathroom. And frankly, I just stepped out and jacked up and I haven't been doing it, you know, and I'm super stressed out, you know, or I I'm, maybe work too long at a project at the computer and my shoulders are just so stiff. And so rather than getting ahead of that in the morning, and stretching while I'm in the shower, I'm just kind of trying to throw that to the background. Well, if you take blood sugar changes up and down from eating, you take needing to go to the bathroom, or not needing to go about their mark, you know, anywhere on the spectrum of toilet needs there. And then you pile on, you know, just all of these other things. What can end up happening is is how we relate is super stressed. And Barbara reminds me of that podcast that we did that. It's like it's not what you're saying. It's how you're saying it?
Barb 13:32
Mm hmm. Yeah, where did the energy that comes across is however, whatever's inside there, and that's super stressed, I didn't eat right. I didn't take care of myself. It definitely comes across for sure.
Cali 13:43
Yeah. And so then that goes back to why can't we say, you know, here's the five things you need to do for self care. And it's going to apply to everyone? Well, because it's a nuanced conversation. You know, Barb, maybe your shoulders aren't totally stiff from working on the computer too long, or, you know, maybe, you know, someone else took, took a walk, and they're doing their physical exercise, but it's mental self care they need or, you know, every person's going to have different things. And what I need right now, in my personal habits is different than what I needed a month ago. For me, and you'd ask about my self care space, is that I recognize that it changes and that it's important that I call out when I do a body scan head to toe, how am I feeling? You know, I can say, Oh, got a little tension here in the body, or, Wow, I feel like super dehydrated or, you know, so sounds like I'm going to pick up a couple of self care items, hitting the basics, right? Maybe that's just simple as water and standing up for five minutes of every hour that we're sitting at a computer. So it's fun to say what comes up for you. Take a moment and just reflect on. If there were just like two things that you could help your body with, like five minutes at a time, what would it be? And what would it look like to be able to do that self care and give it to yourself?
Barb 15:16
Hmm, that's a wonderful exercise in one thing I'll say about that is that, what I have found is that first thing in the morning, before sort of the busyness of the day begins doing a little gratitude meditation, that's a really wonderful form of self care that I found very useful. And know a lot of folks who find that useful as well, that kind of helps set up space to be able to have that awareness. If I'm not going to have any other time during the day, because I know I'm going to be really busy, I want to make sure that I grab that moment and take care of myself, I'll tell a little story I myself this morning, I've got kind of a sore finger. Because a couple nights ago, I was overly ambitious and catching a rather heavy door. And it didn't agree with my interpretation of how good a handle I had on it. You know, sometimes the material world just kind of does that to you. And I was like, Oh, ouch, my fingers in the door, this is gonna be sore. And yes, indeed, it is sore. So I had this thought of, well, I have because of this particular finger, I gotta be careful not to do this, and this and this. So I started with this limiting thought of, I can't do this. Then I said, Wait a minute, let me change that around. If I can't go grab those weights and do my five mins of weight training just to get my muscles warmed up, or I can't, you know, pick up the teacup, the way that I want to pick it up normally, let me figure out a way to be able to do that and still do the thing I wanted to do, because there's always a way to work around the circumstances, if I just have a little awareness about it. So that was kind of part of my exercise this morning of Yep, fingers still sore, how am I going to take care of myself with this and still get everything I need to get done, done and that I want to get done. So those little things are always going to come up maybe not as dramatic as this mean, no blood blister on my finger. But there's always going to be those things that are going to come up during the day that will give that part of your brain that you know, willing to listen to it an excuse not to do yourself care. So extra important to see that acknowledge it be gentle with a voice and say, now I'm gonna go take a couple breaths and do a body scan. Because even just the act of that becoming aware, and getting back in your body is a form of self care. Very powerful one,
Cali 17:36
you know, it's interesting, Barb, cuz a couple episodes ago, we were talking about decision making and how to make decisions, the little decisions, take those off our daily plate so that we have points if we only had so many points to spend in a day on making decisions, how to get the little ones handled, and some of the medium ones handled so that we have points to make, or use and apply towards these big life decisions that are really important and often get ignored or neglected. But I think that perspective can actually be used in self care as well, from a perspective of how many points Am I putting in the bank, you know, put the money in the bank, if I am constantly focusing on self care and replenishing from taking that drink of water to standing up and stretching for five minutes to listening to a podcast to listening to an audio book that really helps me if I'm doing those things, what happens is I'm replenishing and storing a lot of energy within my body, that then I can choose to kind of turn around and put out in different ways maybe being very present for a friend or a topic that I think is so fun, holidays and obligations. And if we're giving to ourselves on a regular basis, then we've kind of stored up self care to where when we get to the holidays. A it's not as difficult to give ourselves, you know, five minutes here five minutes there be we're not coming from a place where we already feel so depleted that we're desperate and we start snapping at people or we can't set boundaries, or we're struggling to say no. And see, you know, it makes it a lot easier to just give ourselves freedom and permission to go take care of ourselves amidst everything that might be going on and kind of pulling at us. The other
Barb 19:37
thing that I was thinking of as you were talking about that is by taking that time and doing those things, there is a ripple effect, because the people around us will then have freedom to do that for themselves. Like hey, I need to take a minute here to fall talk to you in a few minutes. That's awesome. That gives that person a chance to do that as well. You know giving ourselves permission actually gives our whole community permission. And what if we all did a little bit of self care, you know, the power of that to transform, every interaction is so big, so,
Cali 20:10
so powerful. Absolutely,
Barb 20:12
especially during the holidays, when people are stressed. Whatever holidays, those are, whether those are Fourth of July holidays, or Memorial Day holidays, or the solstice or whatever, those times when you know, people tend to, they're fun. And there also tends to be levels of stress associated with that. So being able to do that I remember going to family reunion years and years ago on a beautiful lake and there was a doc and I got ready to go out on the dock and do a little bit of yoga and, and then I realized, oh, there's like 16 people here, let me see how many of them I can get to follow me out there on the dock. And, you know, I got almost all of them, except for the ones that were still sleeping or cooking breakfast. And wow, that changed the whole day, even though we only did it for about 10 minutes. But just the fact that we came together as a community and did something good for ourselves was really powerful. So whether you're at work, or whether you're at play or at Holiday, you know, taking that minute for yourself. And if someone wants to know what you're doing, tell them yeah, I'm taking a minute, they might find that they can take a minute as well.
Cali 21:17
Yeah. So just to recap, you know, self care is something that you get to define for yourself, and you can change it up as your life changes and as your needs change. So take a moment and just kind of write down three things you can do for self care for yourself, and then reflect on whatever you might have some really great self care habits and just, you know, also reflect on is that something that you're giving up first thing? Or is that a non negotiable? And is that how you want it to be and making a habit of self care so that it becomes automatic and easy is obviously a real homerun of something to implement. And then not expecting perfection, right, we're not going to do all the self care items at once. We're gonna start with one thing, five minutes at a time. It's a great start. And let's be grateful and encouraging towards ourselves as we begin to do that. On our next episode, we are going to talk about vulnerability, and how that's really powerful. If you haven't already taken the time to review our podcast, please take a moment we're looking for reviews and shares and our entire next season which we've got one more episode in this season. But our entire next season is going to be filled with requests from all of our listeners. So we are so excited for season five. And every single topic for that season has come from a direct DM or for a question for our listeners. We've got, I would say 70% of those already marked out and listed down but you know what? If you haven't already, go ahead and go on any of our social channels clarity Cafe podcast or an Insta we're on Facebook and you can find us there and DM us request some podcasts and we will try to fit it into Season Five and if not, maybe we'll put down season six. So until our next episode, we want you to take what works from this podcast want you to leave what doesn't and until next time, be well