Proven Not Perfect
Proven Not Perfect
Crafting a Balanced Life: Self-Care Strategies
Let’s talk practical tips: ever wondered how a physical calendar could revolutionize your self-care routine? I reveal my weekly habit of transferring tasks from my digital calendar to a physical one, a simple yet profound practice that brings clarity and reduces overwhelm. I’m eager to share these insights with you.
Drive, Ambition, Doing, Leading, Creating... all good until we forget about our own self-care. This Village of All-Stars pays it forward with transparency about misses and celebration in winning. We cover many topics and keep it 100. We are Proven Not Perfect™️
https://www.provennotperfect.com
Follow me on Instagram at: shontrapowell_provennotperfect
Check out Proven Not Perfect ™️ YouTube Channel as well. Join the community for ideas and events at www.provennotperfect.com.
I'd love to hear what you think!
Hey, proven Not Perfect. This is Shontra Powell. It's been a minute since I've talked to you and you know what it's actually been really good. I needed to press pause because, you know, I feel like I was in such a space of momentum around producing the podcast, doing the podcast, producing the podcast, doing the podcast and allowing myself or rather not allowing myself to hear and to be led. So I went on this journey of who am I talking to? How do I add more people to the village? How do I focus on more conversations? I started focusing on volume and in focusing on volume, I lost completely lost track of really what this was about for me. I lost track of my own center. I lost track of why so many of you tell me you tune in to Proven Not Perfect. In fact, I started as a solo podcaster and more people signed on and listened actively, repeatedly, as a solo podcaster. A good bit as well. Continue to listen to my guests, but what I hear from you is that you want to talk to me. So this is a season where, even when I'm talking to guests, I am not going to lose track of the conversation where it comes from and that's from my heart, with full integrity, just me, just you, just me, just you, hopefully sharing some things that inspire you and certainly benefiting from what happens. When we put things out there with the best intentions, I believe we get best things back. So that's where we are, so yeah. So I actually have no idea when I'm going to release this. It could be immediately, it could be, you know, in a little bit of time, I don't know. But for the moment I'm just leaning into the movement and the space to share and to express in the way that my heart's led to do so.
Shontra Powell :Today I want to talk to you about self-care, and that actually has a lot to do with the pause that I took At the start of the year. I literally went into a new leadership position that expanded my responsibility and expanded the draw on my energy and attention. So actually it didn't expand that at all. It actually took away from it. Okay, get the words right, sean Powell. So, um, so that was the start of the year, and if that were the only thing, that would probably have been manageable. But I also found myself in a caregiver role, needing to be available and supportive, and I don't at all regret, I don't at all find that disappointing in any way. I'm actually really proud of how I was led to just step up and move into the space. That was calling me, quite frankly, and it didn't call me without some real requirement of me showing up and showing up completely and fully, and I'm proud that I did that. But by the time I got to the month of April, your girl was spent, literally spent, had no more, no more cash in the bank, no more checks to cash Right.
Shontra Powell :And for me, even though I continue to say it's really important to do this podcast, it's really important to take the momentum that's in play and keep building on it. The you know the networking conversations that I were having they were falling flat. You know the the guests that I was like, okay, I'd like to have you on Um. I found them to be great conversations and great guests, but I did not find how they actually fit with the intention of this platform. So I am going to share some pretty amazing conversations, but I'm going to do those in full integrity of also having a conversation and focusing on what is coming up to me as important conversations to have with my audience.
Shontra Powell :So self-care we hear about this all the time. We're encouraged to do it all the time. And my question is what is self-care? I don't really think I've seen anybody actually just kind of spell it out what it is. So I guess it's really more of what is it to me, slash, what is it to you? And we may have the same definition. We may not have the same definition. I'd love to hear your definition.
Shontra Powell :But for me, I think self-care kind of gets back to my core, which, at the core, I believe in the harmony of mind, body and spirit. So for me self-care has an element of body, which is exercise and purposeful movement. I'll call it Mind. It definitely has an element of intellectual stimulation I will put meditation there as well and it certainly has a mixture of spirit and I'm going to call it personal integrity and groundedness and making sure that I feel that I am living as extensively as I'm called to live, because I have my center, I know my base, I feel grounded Even in this world of so much movement. I feel like I have a handle. So I think it's intention about all these things that makes it self-care for me. Have you even ever thought about what that definition means for you? I don't know If you haven't. I suggest that you just take a little bit of time and think about what does that definition look like for you, because I don't think it's the same for all of us. I know other people.
Shontra Powell :Self-care is, quite frankly, retreating from the world in introspection and, whether that's through reading or writing or, quite frankly, just, you know, choosing to say no to some of the social invitations, right for a bit of time. For a bit of time, that might be the care that you need. But unless you are really clear thinking about that, I think you can find yourself in a space where you are not practicing self-care and thoughts about why it's important. I kind of think it goes with an order of importance. I think, actually, it rises in importance the older we get, right. So, you know, when we're young we have the ability to truly multitask, in a way that the older we get, even though we think we actually get better at this skill called multitasking, I actually think that's not a skill at all and I actually think we don't get better at it, we get worse at it. Right, like you're a kid, you can go from thing to thing to thing, full on energy, bouncing between all of it and feeling great. The older we get, the more I feel we need to center, because the more complex our life is, the more we actually, I think, need to center, need to get, still, need to tap in. I'll say a couple things too. I think one reason why it's important. You know I'll say a couple things too.
Shontra Powell :I think one reason why it's important the older we get, hormonally things are just changing, they're changing, they're shifting and you know the things that used to be easy, breezy for us of just going from thing to thing to thing. Now there are higher stakes that are at play. Whether you are caring for so many more folks than just yourself can increase that stress, increase that cortisol increase. You know that pull and stress on yourself in that regard. You know, I think it's the hormonal changes right, I mean, we read and study about stress and it's that high, high increase of cortisol that, quite frankly, can take away from all of the things that we're doing to physically be fit, right. In fact, you know, I've read that, you know you can spend so much time in the gym working hard and getting physically fit by way of exercise reps and if your stress level is constantly in fight or flight, you are absolutely not reaping the full rewards of that. In fact, you're probably going to even go the other direction. So I think hormonal changes is one reason why.
Shontra Powell :The other thing that I'm going to say is I feel like as we get older, we have less control over the space that we're keeping. So you know, I might have a calendar, a day plan that I say is going to look a certain way and I'm going to be exactly in certain places doing exactly certain things. Well, the reality is the older we get that spacekeeping man, if you figured out how to actually have that turn out the way you expected to good on you, you've got to share that with this community. But for most of us that spacekeeping gets more complicated. The older we get right their demands upwards, you know, with perhaps parents their demands below us, perhaps children their demands side by side with our peer group. One phone call can change an entire day, one email, one text message, and so our ability to actually keep the space. It's fleeting right.
Shontra Powell :So when you find yourself with space, it is so important that you honor that and you use it to full advantage. And that doesn't mean in the hustle, right, because sometimes we feel like when we have that space, we should use it in the hustle of doing something else. One more bit of work, one more duty of chores, one more, one more right? Maybe, just maybe you should just use it exhaling getting still. The last thing I believe for the why we need it more when we get older is space making. So, outside of space keeping, I call it space making because, seriously, when you take a good chunk of time to pour into your mind, body and spirit, you feel better and you feel more expansive. Seriously, you make space. So now that you've kept some space and you've made some space, you can really leverage your capacity to offer more to yourself, offer more to others around you, your loved ones, the world. You're in all the things right, you just are more available. So that's why I think you need it the older you get.
Shontra Powell :So just a couple of thoughts around how to do it how to do self-care in the simplest. How to do it? How to do self-care in the simplest, most cost-effective manner. Right, I think, walk in nature, and a lot of us do that. Right, a lot of us do a walk, some of us, walking is our exercise of choice and I love that for you, but I think also many of us that use walking as our exercise of choice. This is going to sound crazy for a podcaster to say, but I think you have earbuds in and go for a walk outside and just let the environment take over, from the insects to the birds, to the speeding cars, to the horns, honking, whatever is, and reconciling with your environment is a really good way to have sort of a moving meditation that I think will make some space.
Shontra Powell :The other thing that I'm going to say is purge, purge actively, all right, purge actively, all right. So, purging social media accounts occasionally, where you realize you followed some folks or some stuff that, quite frankly, aren't bringing you any joy, aren't making any space, aren't, you know, inspiring thought and energizing your intellect, right, well, unfollow, that's it, just unfollow. Purge that right Stagnant places around you. So we all have that closet, we all have those drawers. Open them up and throw stuff out, bag stuff up, get rid of it. Literally, take some time to do that and I think the purge is so good, so good y'all, so good for the space making. The last one I'll say is just organization, right, and we all know that the older we get, we forget about them notebooks that we relied upon at the start of every single school year, but there's nothing like a fresh, crisp notebook to open up a literal blank page and write and germ. Just a literal fresh page can be so healing.
Shontra Powell :The other thing I would say is a calendar. Buy a physical calendar. I know we all have the online calendars that we rely upon to ding and to ring and to flash in our faces, but I'm going to tell you this the practice of writing in my physical calendar even if I do it once a week to consolidate what I see in my online calendar it is such an excellent way to physically see what I'm demanding of myself and then to physically strike some stuff off the list. That's what I'm talking about striking off the list, because when we really stack it up and look at it in a black and white form, you would not wish that type of existence on your worst enemy. So why the heck are you doing it? That's what I'm talking about. All right, you guys, that's it. That's my solo podcast for today. It's all about self-care. I hope that you're well and you're blessed and you are taking care of yourself. Enjoy Proven, not perfect. Bye.