Confidently Beautiful with Ciera

Is Your Self-Care Nourishing or Numbing?

• Ciera • Episode 81

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Have you ever finished a "self-care" session only to feel just as drained as when you started? That's because not all self-care actually cares for the self.

In this revealing exploration of what true self-care means, I unpack the crucial distinction between practices that genuinely nourish us versus those that merely numb us from our stresses. As women and especially as mothers, our time for self-care is precious—yet we often default to activities that provide only temporary escape rather than genuine restoration.

The truth is that scrolling social media, binge-shopping, or mindlessly consuming content might feel good in the moment, but these activities rarely refill our depleted cups. Meanwhile, practices like intentional movement, time in nature, creative expression, and mindful routines can transform not just how we feel in the moment, but how we show up in our relationships, careers, and parenting journeys.

I share my personal nourishing self-care favorites—from my non-negotiable skincare routine that helps me "wash the day away" to yoga sessions that ground both body and mind. I also offer practical questions to help you evaluate your own self-care habits: Does this leave me energized or drained? Am I escaping or truly restoring myself? Will this choice help my future self?

This isn't about eliminating all forms of "numbing" activities—balance matters! But when we consciously choose practices that align with our deeper needs and values, we build lasting confidence and resilience that benefit every area of our lives. I challenge you to prioritize at least one nourishing practice this week, and share your experience with me on Instagram @confidently.beautiful.podcast.

Your future self deserves the kind of care that doesn't just help you survive the day, but helps you thrive in your life. Let's discover what that looks like for you.

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Speaker 1:

you're listening to confidently beautiful with sierra a podcast to help you stay confidently beautiful, because we all have confidence inside us. We just need to bring it out and I'm here to show you how body image, dreams, parenting, style, personality and more here we cover it all. Get ready to stay confidently beautiful. When was the last time you slowed down and really cared for you? Skincare isn't just about products. It's about self-care. Washing your face at night can be the simplest way to wash the day away. My favorite skincare line is Beauty Society. It's clean, effective and makes your nightly routine feel like a little spa moment. You can shop my favorites at beautysocietycom slash, sierra Lancaster, or just click the link in the show notes. Give your skin the love it deserves. You are worth it. Welcome back to the podcast. I am your host, sierra Lancaster, and I am so happy that you took this time to tune in. Ciara Lancaster, and I am so happy that you took this time to tune in. I encourage you, while you're listening to this episode, to do something that's going to help you to walk away feeling a little bit more confident and a little bit better about yourself. So that could be painting your nails. That could be writing a note to a friend to make you feel more confident in your friend life. That might mean putting in your AirPods, listening to me as you're walking and getting some exercise and some sunshine and movement Whatever it looks like for you. Whatever area of your life you are needing a little confidence boost in. Do something to help you feel a little bit more confident in that area. As we're talking today. That goes right in perfectly to what we are going to be talking about today.

Speaker 1:

Today's episode is all about self-care. Is your self-care nourishing or numbing? Which one is it doing for you? Here's the truth. Self-care isn't always self-care. Sometimes it's healing, sometimes it's hiding. So which one are you really practicing? Because the healing side of self-care, the nourishing side of self-care, is the real, true self-care and where you are going to see the biggest benefit and the biggest results. Why does self-care matter Like? Because it helps us to feel like our best selves in more areas than just like the selfish area of our life. It helps with our relationships, it helps with our careers. It helps with our home life. It helps with our friendships relationships. It helps with our careers, it helps with our home life, it helps with our friendships, whatever area of your life that you feel like you are maybe lacking a little in. You are not going to be able to fully show up in that area without self-care, without true nourishing self-care.

Speaker 1:

In this episode we are going to talk about different self-care ways and the difference between nourishing self-care and numbing self-care, my personal favorite ways to use self-care and what I do. We will also cover some common ways that many moms use to give themselves some self-care. We will conclude the episode with some questions that you can ask yourself, and I hope that you will walk away from this episode feeling a little bit more encouraged the next time you have a moment for self-care, to think what is really going to help me during this moment of self-care. As moms and women, our time for self-care is so limited, but we want to make it count. So, whatever time that we have for self-care, we want to make sure that it is nourishing. It is helping us. It is helping us feel like the most confident selves that we have for self-care. We want to make sure that it is nourishing. It is helping us. It is helping us feel like the most confident selves that we can. So nourishing self-care. What do I mean by this? I mean like something where you are. You spend your time doing this and your energy doing this and you walk away feeling replenished. You walk away feeling like a revival of energy, newfound confidence, something that will be long term and sustaining you for a long period of time.

Speaker 1:

Numbing self-care is activities that are more of a distraction, like you just want to just distract yourself from thinking about something or doing something. You're trying to avoid something or just temporarily give yourself like that little temporary soothing feeling, but it doesn't actually refill your cup in the long run. Some examples of numbing self-care would be like your endless scrolling on your phone. Maybe you just get like this junk food binge and you just eat all the treats that you can find. Or you just go on a shopping spree, online shopping. Or you go to Target and you just shop. Neither one of these are necessarily bad forms of self-care. Sometimes we do just want to sit and scroll for 20 minutes. Sometimes we do want to load up on the cute Halloween clothes and the fall sweaters. My Amazon wishlist is just growing with all of the cute fall sweaters, so those aren't necessarily a bad thing. But sometimes numbing is only going to help us for the moment. But if we can focus on more nourishing self-care, that is the self-care that is going to help us, to help us long term, and help us to feel charged instead of drained.

Speaker 1:

Some personal favorites for my ways that I like to use nourishing self-care is. One of them is yoga. This is one that I don't do as often as I want to. For a while I was in a really good routine of going to a yoga class once, sometimes twice a week, and I have fallen out of that habit and I miss it. I'm craving it. I was doing it at the beginning of the year and as the year just got busier and we got into summer, I just got busier and I've fallen out of that habit. So that is one as I sat down and was writing my favorite things to do, that, as I sat down and was writing my favorite things to do, that's one that I am personally going to try and get back to. One thing that I do try and do regularly is movement. Most weekday mornings I try and go for a walk, but if I could get back to that yoga, oh, that would be nourishing to me. That is my nourishment of self-care for my body, but also for my mind and my calmness and my confidence. And, yeah, I am definitely going to have to get back to doing yoga. So I love yoga or any type of movement.

Speaker 1:

My skincare routine is one that I religiously do every single night and it only takes me like. I mean, it could take me if I wanted to do like a full on face mask and do like a whole bunch of stuff. It could take me like 20 to 25 minutes if I wanted it to. But even just doing like a four or five minute nightly skincare routine, it does so much for me. I sleep so much better. So that's my long term. It's me long-term. I just feel better washing away the day. I washed the day away off my face and it just feels so much better. Even on days when I do not wear makeup, I notice a difference. If I don't take the time to do my skincare, I don't feel as good. I just don't feel as good and I don't get that moment of just like it really is, as if I'm just like washing the day away and and it just does so much for me. So my skincare routine is huge for me. My favorite skincare line is Beauty Society. I will include a link in the show notes below, but it is top notch. It is my favorite. I love it so much.

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Another one for me is sunshine and fresh air. I love it so much. Another one for me is sunshine and fresh air. Nature is just a huge reset for me. I am much more of a beach girl than a woodsy type of girl, but either one will do If I can just get outside, and that's why I love living in the desert. It's usually always warm here, so no matter what time of year, I can get outside and feel that sunshine on my face, and it does wonders for me. So that is a goal that I have every day is to try and get outside for at least a few minutes every single day and get that fresh air.

Speaker 1:

Another one for me that is nourishing for my soul is audiobooks. I love to just feed my mind with like joyful books, whether it is something that is like just fiction and just fun to listen to and read, or if it's something that's more self-help related that can help me to be my best self. I've recently gotten into listening to like household management books, like house cleaning books, organization books, and that has been so fun for me to do when I am doing the never-ending boring, repetitive house chores. So when I'm doing laundry, when I'm cleaning bathrooms, whatever I'm doing like that has been so good for me to listen to those while I am doing those chores. Some books that I am really loving right now so like one of the like fiction, just like fun listen to books is she Wouldn't Change a Thing by Sarah Adlika, I think is how you say it. It's just a novel. It's really good. It has a little bit of mystery to it, but it's also just a really fun listen. So that is like my fun go-to listen right now.

Speaker 1:

The organizing and home management ones that I have been loving are by Dana K White. The favorite one of hers that I have listened to is how to Manage your Home Without Losing your Mind. This one was so good for me. I really loved this one. But her other book that I really enjoyed listening to was Decluttering at the Speed of Life. I thought this one was a fun read. It wasn't nearly as satisfying and as fun for me to listen to as how to manage your home without losing your mind, but I have loved those and it has made my act of cleaning the house and doing all the boring things a little bit more exciting and a little bit more like self-care. Another one that I am in the middle of listening to that I really liked is the book called Asking for a Friend. This is by Kara Chen. So those are just some books that I am reading right now that I have really been loving, if you want to give them a try.

Speaker 1:

And another form of self-care that I am loving doing is my journaling. Journaling is so good for me and here is a little spoiler that I will share with my podcast listeners. If you are a journal person and you love to journal, you're going to want to make sure you are on my email list because I have something coming and I am so excited to be sharing it with you. It comes on. October 15th is when it will drop and it will be available for purchase, but think along the lines of journaling, you're going to want to be on my email list so that you can be one of the first to know, so make sure you join that. I will include a link in the show notes below, or you can just go to confidentlybeautifulwithsierracom. Journaling gives me clarity. It's just a really good grounding practice. I love to write what I'm grateful for. I love to write things that make me feel good. It's fun to go back and read what you wrote years later. So journaling is definitely a good form of self-care for me. That I love Some common popular self-care practices that are also nourishing, that a lot of people enjoy bubble baths or spa days.

Speaker 1:

Those can be really nourishing and just really relaxing. And another one that I know is really popular is taking a good nap. Sometimes that can feel like you are not doing self-care and you are not taking care of yourself, but I think that napping is a really good form of self-care, especially for moms, because how often do we take the time to just lay down and just relax completely and recharge our mind? I mean, our mind does so much recharging while we are sleeping, so I think napping is a really good form of self-care. Another form of self-care could actually be going and talking to someone going to therapy, going and talking to a professional to help you know how to manage your emotions and understand what, how your brain is thinking. This is, for sure, nourishing because it is going to help you long term.

Speaker 1:

I think that sometimes even Netflix or social media scrolling I know I said that those can be numbing. I think that those are really a quick default to numbing, but some ways that you can make them nourishing is maybe make your Netflix or your TV time a time that you are with your kids and you're having a family movie night like a fun experience, or you're with your husband and you're watching like a comedy or a rom-com that you have been wanting to watch, and making that time meaningful. I think that is how you can make those moments nourishing and not numbing. I think social media scrolling you could make nourishing and numbing, but I just like to stay away from this one because I think it's so easy to go into the numbing with social media scrolling. But if you really were like I want to scroll my phone, I don't think that it's necessarily a bad thing, because there are good things on social media.

Speaker 1:

One question that I have found myself as I find myself scrolling if I'm like, oh, how did I get here? Like what am I reading or what am I watching, I ask myself this one question Do I really care about this? And if the answer is no, I can swipe away or I can close out of it. If the answer is yes, then yeah, I can keep watching or I can keep reading, and because there is good content out there. But sometimes it is just brain mush that we don't need, or it's something that's going to cause anxiety or increase feelings that are negative and not going to be nourishing for us. So some questions to ask yourself. Is this practice leaving me feeling more energized or more drained? Am I escaping or am I truly restoring myself? Will this choice help my future self? Is this aligned with the version of me I want to become? Those are some questions that you can ask yourself as you are going to your times of self care and you can see if the thing that you are doing in that moment is actually nourishing you or numbing you.

Speaker 1:

It's okay to have both nourishing and numbing forms. I don't want you to walk away from this episode feeling like oh man, I always have to be something that's productive or something that is good. I think balance matters and I don't think that it's necessarily a bad thing. Like I said, it's not a bad thing if you want to just scroll on your phone for a little bit, but I think balance is where it comes into place. Probably don't want to scroll on your phone for hours, but if you want to take 15 minutes and scroll on your phone and watch cat videos or TikToks on how to make a ramen recipe whatever it is that you want to watch like, that's not necessarily going to like make your life any better, but I think that's okay to do, as long as you're just doing it in a healthy balance. So choose at least one nourishing practice to prioritize this week. So for me, like I said, I'm going to go back to my yoga practices. I may not be able to actually get in the gym right now. I'm going to at least try and do some yoga right before bed and trying to get back into that nourishing yoga practice.

Speaker 1:

When you choose nourishing self-care, you're not just taking care of yourself in that moment, but you're building your confidence, your resilience and your beauty in your everyday future life. So it's going to help future you to feel more confident and to feel better with yourself. I'd love to hear what your favorite nourishing self-care practice is. So DM me on Instagram at confidently beautiful podcast and share what your favorite things to do are. Or maybe share you doing a nourishing self-care practice on your stories and make sure you tag me so that I can see. I would love to see everyone's nourishing self-care practices and help to inspire each other to find something that is nourishing for you.

Speaker 1:

Thank you so much for listening. I hope that you enjoyed this episode. If you did not listen to the previous episode, episode 80, please go back and listen to it. It was such a good interview. It was with Camille Beckstrand. She is one of the co-founders of Mommy Tummy Fix and it was one of my favorite interviews that I have done so far, so it's a very good episode. Go back and listen to that if you haven't listened and, as always, if you found this helpful, I would love it more than anything if you could leave me a positive review. It helps others to find the podcast and it helps me to know what episodes are resonating with you and my listeners and what I should be doing more of. So stay confidently beautiful and I will talk to you next week. Thanks for listening. Connect with me on Instagram at confidentlybeautifulpodcast and share this episode with someone in your life who could use a little reminder of just how amazing they already are. Stay confidently beautiful.