Is toxic self care mantra ruining your progress to loving your job again?

In today's episode I am going to talk about how toxic self care mentality can stop you from getting to the root cause of hating your job.

 In this episode we discuss:

• What is toxic self care
• How it is a form of numbing out
• How it stops you from moving forward
• What self care you should actually do instead to have a more enjoyable job

Show notes and the transcript can be found here: https://michellekevill.com/podcast

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Transcript

00:00

Hello, everyone, I hope you're well. And if not, I got you at least you are here. My name is Michelle Kevill. And I help high achieving corporate women feel passionate about their job again. And welcome to today's episode, I'm also feeling a lot better. I don't know if you've been following me on Instagram, which if you haven't come follow me there, it's great. I give you lots of fun tips. And sometimes I share funny little tic TOCs that I find, I've been going through a lot of my autoimmune condition just decided to flare up and cause a whole heap of like hormonal imbalances, it was not fun. I'm on the tail end of that today. And I'm feeling so much better. But what I wanted to talk to you about, which is I have talked a little bit about it, I like touched on it in previous episodes, but not in detail. And that is something called toxic self care. Check out my fuck self improvement episode because it does touch on this. But I really wanted to go in on it because I have been seeing this with some of my clients like my newer clients that are starting to work with me. And a lot of people that are having discovery calls, and I kind of just like I've gone through everything. And it's really just to highlight that kind of being sold a little bit of a lie, like like trying to be like tinfoil hat here, when it comes to feeling better. And I think what I have seen is if society can sell something to you, they will sell something to you. Not that there's anything wrong with doing fun self care activities, but it's also looking at, is this shit helping you genuinely feel better? Is it helping you show up at your job? Like not wanting to cry in the bathroom between meetings? Is it potentially some of the activities that you're doing a bit of a band aid solution? And that's what I wanted to have a chat about today. And that is is your sort of your self care stuff, actually, are you using it to really just buffer away from everything that you're going on at the moment, but the difference and if again, if you've heard myself talk about like numbing out and you know, stuff, it doesn't feel as good like when you like order takeaway and you like maybe like you eat a ton of food or drink it and alcohol stuff that's like morally good, you can like buffer and numb out on that as well. And what I'm seeing happening, especially new people that are coming in for the worryfree weekend's program, which is four weeks one on one, free coaching with me mastering how to like really take back your weekends and actually let go work and like be present. There is so much like, I call it like toxic self care, toxic self care that is coming out in the woodwork that people are trying to do to feel better. And ultimately, what is then happening is people are getting angry at themselves because they're like, but I'm doing all the things I'm, you know, doing all the good stuff. And I still hate everything. And it's like, yeah, that makes complete sense to me, because you're not addressing the root cause you're doing a band aid solution. What you're doing is you're numbing yet frankly, we're on the subject of rotary weekends. If you follow me, I'll go on about it. I love helping y'all. You can check out the show notes and sign up with me. You can even just have a chat with me to see if you're a good fit for the program. I do love giving you like that one on one support. Just a little taste tester to see if like coaching is right for you. But going out on the actual episode today, here is what is likely happening for you if you saw this episode, or you're a regular listener, and you're like, Oh, I am doing that. And I'm just I'm gonna be really blunt, like fucking yoga, and bubble baths and long walks and exercise isn't going to make you happy in your job. Now are some aspects of it going to make you feel better? Yes. aspects of it like exercising obviously increases like serotonin and dopamine, which helps our ability to cope. Is that going to be useful? Yes. But if you are not addressing the real deeper reason as to why you keep freaking out every time you go to work every time a project fails every time you want to try communicate your needs, but you can't. And you wonder what like, why is this happening? It's because you're not addressing a deep fear that you have internally you're not addressing root thoughts that you have, they come out and they start to play around. And what frustrates me is because people you know and it's not the people who are coming to me saying that I'm frustrated with them I'm frustrated with like society, because it is really sold like I see it on tick tock now all the time I talk about it again with like the self improvement episode. It's like this whole like lifestyle and it's like drinking matcha tea and like going for walks and stuff like that. That's lovely to do. And if you like to do that, that is totally fine. But I think people think of it as like, coins in like a jar or something like that. Like if I put enough if I do Have fun self care activities that will buffer from the fact that I hate my fucking job. But it doesn't, because you go back like it, it alleviates some of it. I won't doubt that, especially when it comes to like exercise. But there is a thing called over exercise as well. I say that because I did that actually about three, six years ago. And I realized I was really using it like I would be so confused as to why I was having like these genuine breakdowns and meltdowns. And it's because I was just like, Yeah, I'll just get my dopamine hit and feel really happy and like great. And I weren't going into persists any of my actual emotions. So for me, if you've heard my story, I used to be an absolute workaholic, so I wouldn't have to deal with my feelings. And then it just moved to exercise and I would shift and change and stuff like that. The self care activities I sold you as like, they're gonna be great. You're gonna feel amazing. It's the best thing you can do for you also this whole like, what can you do for you? What can you do that is like, so genuine and special. And just for you, again, are trying to be a dick. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. It is just frustrating. Because it is the same thing as bike when it comes to numbing out. You can numb out with good things. And people then because the problem is you do the thing and you feel good about yourself, right? Because it's a right and just thing almost right, like exercising, or taking yourself out for like a really long walk or something like that. It's like yeah, this was like a good thing I did for myself. And you're doing all these things on the weekend. You're trying to fill your weekend with all this stuff. Because it's like, yep, this will help. Like, this is definitely going to be the right things it's going to like this is going to fix all my problems. And it's like, it will help but it will not alleviate the drama going on inside your brain. It will not change all those shitty thoughts that you have about yourself. Doesn't matter how many fun things you do. If you hate yourself you hate yourself at sounds terrible. I feel like over the episodes of this podcast, I've just become more and more direct with y'all. I'm just like, if you hate yourself, you hate yourself. The only difference between the fun self care activities and the stuff that you like, you know get picky about like if you binge tick tock or Doom scroll or if you like you know eat a ton of takeaway or drink it on alcohol is that is not seen as productive in society. It's not seen as like valuable. So it's you get like that feeling of guilt afterwards. But when you do this type of stuff, you get a kind of like, oh, yeah, like, that's not too bad. Like is what I did during my weekend was like all this fun stuff. But it's not changing anything. Is still feeling like shit. You're still hating it. You're still like stressed out, you're still freaking out. Do I say this? Because I really want you to be mindful of this. And if so to like, then you get into a state where you're shaming yourself for like, oh, I bought myself a coffee Am I using it to buffer away from like reality and crap like that? I don't doubt I play video games. I don't doubt I use that sometimes to buffer out a reality. I'm just just be fucking aware of it, that you can use anything in this world to numb out even if it feels really good. And I'm really starting to see with some of the new people coming in that like, there really is this focus of, I've done all this stuff. I'm doing all the self help. You can even do thought work too much like you can even do what I teach too much.

08:31

I call it intellectualizing you can I do it most I only realize probably a good maybe five months ago that I was doing this. My coach actually called me out and and she was like, Michelle, you intellectualize everything, it is a coping mechanism for you. Because you need to feel like in control. You need to like, understand and like, put all your feelings and thoughts in a box. And I sat there like, oh my god, I totally do that. Instead of just feeling shit and feeling your feelings or accepting that maybe there's no reason for why you feel crappy that day. And you just need to feel the feelings. And I know I bang on about this, like probably every episode about feeling your feelings, but it is the fucking secret and yet it is so hard for people to do, including me sometimes. And I'm the Vulcan coach, okay. Because in a world where we can like numb out with anything in a world where it is so easy to feel better really quickly. Of course, no one's going to want to feel like shit. And the problem with that is if you're not feeling your feelings, like it's like you're still buffering on the weekend and you come to your corporate job when you fucking hate it. You're just like, oh my god, I can't do this. You're having those breakdowns in between meetings, you are freaking out in crying. You are feeling so overwhelmed and exhausted, or a lot of you. You're actually trying to fill in this self care while you are absolutely exhausted and you want to like just sleep. I'm not saying that Like, you know, doing nice things like yogurt, etc. Of course, that's totally fine. But it's just interesting what I it's almost like this like, it's like a real comas productivity kind of mindset, right? It's like, oh, but I gotta, I gotta like, I just got to fill up a time with like, relaxing things to do so I can like de stress, like, do all the things to de stress, here's the thing, no one's actually telling you how to de stress. No one tells you that they tell you little band aid solutions, and Tocheri wrong. So I know there'll be people out there like what exercise and yoga? Yeah, okay, I get it. There are is evidence around it, I do it myself. 100%. Yes. All the you know, physical movement, that is important. It helps you it. But if you keep again, if you keep coming back to work, and you're absolutely hating it, and you are addressing your thoughts, you're not addressing what you're really thinking, I'm not talking about the surface level thought of I hate my job, I'm talking about the real deeper reason, if you ask why. Or why is that a problem to that you challenge yourself on why you actually hate your job and why it's so stressful. Really understanding that at a deeper level, like what you make that mean, if you fail on a project, because what's happening for a lot of you is you're not realizing how much of this is deep rooted fears that you have about failing about making a mistake. And you're not even recognizing that this has been playing out for years as a way of thinking, his way of operating you learned in childhood you learnt as a kid, and you are replaying it in the corporate world, you will just reap the amount of like I said, there's no time. When you go to work, you're not a robot, you bring your whole self including or your frickin trauma, or your baggage, all of that comes with you and it does play out. And if you're not addressing it, what you do is you make work hard for yourself. Or because I've had people who have been in genuinely, not the best work environments for them, you make it even worse, you don't even kind of you take everything on board, like everything is happening around you. And of course, we're humans, we're going to do that. But it's like you ruminate on it. you overthink it, you don't even get let yourself get to a place where you can think rationally and think what is it that I want to do. Because I tell everyone, you got two options. You can do thought work on it, to work with your thoughts and work with your emotions, etc. Or you can just set a boundary, ie you can just change the circumstance then just totally allowed. But you want to get yourself to a place where you can actually make that decision. So what I want you to do is to start like if this is something that is popping up for you, where it's like I'm doing the lowest self care, I'm still crappy on the weekends, I want you to start taking stock of what you're doing on the weekends. What are you filling up your time with? From that I want you to look at it and be like, right? Is this something that I can use to numb out and not feel guilty about? That is the key thing. Because so many of you when you tell me around like you know, alcohol, Netflix, whatever the guilt automatically comes in. It's like, oh, yeah, I shouldn't be doing that. But for the other stuff, I'm like, It's not saying that you should feel guilty. But it's so interesting, because of the way it's been sold to us. Right. And because you do genuinely feel good. And it doesn't really, you know, it's not affected, you know, exercises are great for you. So of course it's going to, you know, not know, kind of bad effect. You don't even notice it, you don't take stock of it. You just keep living your life this way, not knowing why you are when you're at work, you're like so emotional. You know what self care thing I want you to actually do and stop cooperating. I want you to just spend five minutes 10 minutes if you can, but if you can't five minutes, I want you to sit there doing nothing. I want you to do a body scan from the top of your head all the way through your body. And I want you to notice what comes up. I want you to notice what sensations you feel. Now a lot of you will not do that. And a lot of you are like, What the fuck, I don't want to know no thank you. Because feelings will come up. And when you that's the key thing. When you process those feelings when you allow them to come up, you build trust with yourself. And those feelings don't become as scary anymore because you are actually feeling them and you are not avoiding them. And when those feelings can come up, guess what can also come up but you have about yourself about certain situations. Now I'm not talking about surface level bullshit. Like I hate my job. I'm talking about deep level crap sitting inside your head, playing around adding more fuel to the fire in your life. You will not realize how much worse we make our jobs and things etc. Especially when she is hitting a fan. Just because we're thinking How many of you with your community can fall asleep because this used to be me? Kuna park just before you wake up, but you don't really like you're not fully aware yet of everything going on, but you feel calm, right? And then the minute your brain switches on, you start to remember who you are, what you do, etc. All that anxiety comes in. That is all to do with your thinking. Because when you start thinking, then that is creating a fear response within you. What you want to do is again, this is why I say to everyone, you really got to start basics feelings. It's the same reason I started with this podcast. It's especially for people who were like me and interleave loved intellectualized stuff. You want to manage this shit? Fuck, start with feeling your feelings. Please start incorporating this into your self care. I know I'm banging on about it. And again, God, I sound so differently. gonna listen to some of my earlier episodes. I sound so direct. I'm just like, guys gotta feel your feelings for God's sakes. I'll keep going on about it. But it has been so beneficial for me. It has what has gotten me through the hardest times in my life and has avoided breakdowns and probably the last, what are the three years since I found this work? My God, I should have probably had, like, eight, proper, intense melt down breakdowns. I didn't because I know how to work with my body. I know how to allow feelings to come through. And by the way, I'm not saying this to berate you, because I know it's hard. Do you think that I am just here, like sitting there feeling my feelings every day and it's so good because I'm just feeling sad, and I'm letting it be there. You think I like literally haven't like they're gonna think I was buffering with my whole autoimmune condition. And like emotions are talking about this whole time emotions are house fire, you do do things you run away from the house fire or you pour gasoline on yourself, my my, my, my i was i pouring gasoline on myself and just like aggravating it so much. It's hard, I get it, I'm there with you. I totally understand. The difference I have for myself now is like, I kind of know what I'm doing it like I kind of sit there. And it's almost like I'm like, I know, I'm now going out. I know what I'm doing. And you know, I keep doing it is going to come bite me even greater. And I just need to, you know, come on when you take a step back. And I start slowly I start with like, five minutes if I have to just allowing that to be there. And by the way, it's not going to feel great. It's not going to feel fun. You might feel sad, yes. Because you're actually for a split second, not distracting yourself. Whether it's positive or negative self care, I don't give a shit. And you're just letting all that emotion come out to the surface. Well, humans are great at repressing that stuff, we really are to do what we need to do. And we can keep repressing that as long as we know we want to and then again, you come out to work or whatever it is or a project failed and then it all comes up to the surface. Because that's the only time you will let it out. So you want to avoid that you want to let it out more regularly. That is all for today's episode, a bit of a ranty one, but I think it's an important one. It is a reminder for all of you, especially the regular listeners. At the end of the day, you got to go back to basics. You got to go back to your roots and that is letting emotions come out. Trust me you do this even like this five minutes each day, my god the changes you will see in yourself. Alright, I'll see you next week.