The Air We Breathe: Finding Well-Being That Works for You

Taking My Own Advice and Taking a Mental Health Break with Health Coach Heather Sayers Lehman

• Heather Sayers Lehman, MS, NBC-HWC, NASM-CPT, CSCS, CIEC, CWP • Season 2 • Episode 60

Share episode

Send us a text

I'm in a whirlwind of change, peeps. 

After an exhausting journey juggling content creation, business management, and an overwhelming move from Phoenix to Southern California, I decided to take a step back to reevaluate my priorities.

In this episode, I open up about the emotional and physical toll of these transitions and the liberating decision to step away from social media and other commitments.

I share insights on the importance of offloading stressors, encouraging you to reflect on your own life and consider what burdens you might release to find peace and balance.

I hope to inspire you to engage in self-reflection, highlighting the personal and communal benefits of nurturing your best self.

From temporarily dodging stressors to making permanent changes for improved well-being, my reflections aim to motivate you to prioritize self-care.

Join me for a down-to-earth chat and don't forget to take care of yourself as you tackle life's ups and downs. ❤️

…..

Don’t know how to start effectively journaling? 📖

Download your free 3D Journaling Guide here: https://heathersayerslehman.com/journal/


Ready to improve your self-care game? 💕

Download 3 Foundational Meta-Skills for Healthy Living that Lasts here: https://heathersayerslehman.com/meta-skills/


Trying to figure out if a program or activity will actually promote healthy behavior change? 🙋🏻‍♀️

Download Keys to Promoting Health Sustaining Behaviors here: https://overcomingu.com/white-paper/


Looking for a personal health coach, well-being speaker, or health education for employees? 🙌🏼

Visit https://heathersayerslehman.com/work-with-me/ for more information.


Need support overcoming emotional eating? Work through my guidebook, Don’t Eat It. DEAL With It! Second Edition: Your Guidebook on How to STOP Eating Your Emotions, to create a healthier relationship with food. ✍🏼


Follow below for consistent info on creating healthy habits without rules, obsession, or exhaustion: ✅

Newsletter: https://heathersayerslehman.com/subscribe/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/heathersayerslehman/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/heathersayerslehman





Speaker 1:

Hey everyone, it's Heather Sayers-Layman and I've got a bit of a different episode today. No fancy intro, no fancy outro, no professional editing, so bear with me if it doesn't sound great. I just wanted to pop on and say that I'm taking a break from the podcast. I have so much going on and listen to this. I decided to take my own advice. I know, I know, I know, but I have been struggling with time and struggling with motivations, struggling with content.

Speaker 1:

We are in the midst of moving. So we are moving from Phoenix to Southern California and our house has been on the market for four days maybe and if you have ever put a house on the market, you know all of the work that goes into that, which means getting rid of a lot of my stuff. Apparently, I had way too much stuff, which is also why I'm covered in plants here in my office, because I had to bring so many plants from home into the office. Apparently, too many plants, they don't show well. So anyway, so we have that move going on. We're not exactly sure where we're landing. We have a very good idea of where we would like to land, but a lot depends on what happens with our house. So that has been a whole thing and I'm actually going to take a break from self-employment and get a job, which I'm pretty excited about.

Speaker 1:

I have had jobs, but really since 2000,. I have only worked for, I guess, four years for somebody else. I'm tired, I'm tired y'all, and I am looking forward to doing a job where I can just do a job. That's one piece of self-employment. That's such a challenge because you do everything. When I had a gym it's not that I just have to write workouts I had to hire people and do all of the financials, create the marketing plan, the sales strategy, do the TV appearances and make sure my clients were really happy and they were signing up again. It was so much work. And also, if the toilet overflows, that's my job as well. So the same with Overcoming you. I have great people that I work with, including Laura, who has been on the show before, and creating the courses, fun Marketing, selling, doing all of the IT and marketing and selling has just been so much more of my job recently. And I don't mind marketing, I don't mind selling, I don't mind creating content, I don't mind doing customer support, I mind doing them all at once, all of the time. So I have been looking at different positions and I'm pretty excited about some of the options that I'm looking at. Perhaps, after my break, I can come back and tell you what I'm actually doing and what I am really hoping by taking this break and being able to focus on moving and also finishing up projects. We're working on a new sleep course, so Laura has been manning the helm with that, so we'll have a new four-week sleep course, which I'm very excited about as somebody who has struggled with sleep, putting together all of these resources for people to help with their sleep, because, oh my gosh, don't we all feel awful when we are not well rested. So we've got that going on.

Speaker 1:

But the podcast is really interesting because it's just kind of like coming on and talking and talking about stuff. Deanna is the lovely podcast editor that edits everything and chippy, chops things down and probably makes me sound better than I actually do in real life. One thing that comes along with a podcast is social media, and if you have heard me talk about it, you know I left Facebook in 2017, never missed it, not a once, and just did Instagram kind of my family, really, vacation with friends, dumb things, my pets, my plants or you know something really interesting. Like me, repotting a plant, like that is kind of the limit of what I want to do with social media. But when you have a podcast, you have to promote it somehow. And this combination of the election and obviously like some of this is my own responsibility because, you know, you see blips and clips and things that I'm just like I don't want to see any of this. This is stressing me out. So being able to step back from social media is going to be really nice.

Speaker 1:

And again, like this is one of those things where I talk about, you know, taking my own advice, when we are overloaded, what can we offload? When something is stressing us out, in what way can we not encounter that on a regular basis? So pretty rudimentary things, but sometimes it takes a minute, especially for those of us who do work in the world where they support other people to make changes, to make my own changes. So here I am working those pieces out about and I was even thinking about it this morning too accounts that I like, but it just I can feel the uh when I see posts because in different reasons, it just stresses me out and I don't. So those are kind of like the big things.

Speaker 1:

And another thing that I'd say it's like it's just chock full of privilege and doing things that I find enjoyable and joyful and what would we say Kind of lights me up and when I am really overloaded, something that I find enjoyable like doing the podcast, ceases to light me up and it becomes like another thing. And yeah, in a perfect world we wouldn't have to do things that we find overwhelming, but such is life. So I think that, of the pieces that I have been not listening to very well, I hope that this is an opportunity for you to ask yourself some questions and listen to yourself. Am I doing anything? Certainly that I'm just doing? I don't. It's not a have to, because, again, I was a single parent for a long time and then there were a lot of have tos and because we needed groceries and to pay the electric bill and to buy new shoes. So I'm definitely not talking about those things that we use to support ourself in our both fundamental ways.

Speaker 1:

But is there anything that you're doing that you could just drop and be just as happy? So that can be even something that maybe started off as a hobby and started off as fun, and then it's just not as happy. So that can be even something that maybe started off as a hobby and started off as fun, and then it's just not as fun anymore. Is that something that you can step back from and say to yourself I'm not like, it's not a face tattoo, I'm not never going to do it again, but right now just isn't the time for me, I'm not feeling it, I don't really want to do it. Is there something like that for you? And I think, especially with the holidays right around the corner, are there some pieces and parts that, if you've got stress that there are some things that you can be like not right now, and I think not right now is a really great way to think about it as well, because, again, it doesn't have to be. I'm never doing this Because.

Speaker 1:

Will I come back to the pod, like? I sure hope so, and I hope that I'll have more bandwidth and have time to think about topics that I'm pretty jazzed about or people I really want to talk to. Yeah, so, other than that, there's also the question that you can ask for yourself Is there something in social media that is just not it? Do I need to trim back my time, cut out some people that I follow, and I was talking to my sister recently because she follows people that are selling a lot of stuff which I do not Like. If you have an MLM like, no, and if you've ever reached out to me to sell some of your MLM stuff like I don't even know your name anymore. She was talking about like how much she didn't like it and I was like I don't follow anybody like that because I just don't want it. There are other things that I could trim. So for you, is there anything on your social media that you're just like? No, because I can think of some things that I really like and people I really like.

Speaker 1:

Because I follow some people who who are debunkers. So they are looking at a lot of the nonsense, things that are not evidence-based, people that are not qualified to talk about what they're talking about, people that are just full of it and trying to make a profit. In short, and I follow debunking accounts. But now I'm finding like I don't want to see what they're debunking accounts, but now I'm finding like I don't want to see what they're debunking because sometimes I don't even want to know. I feel like I could be a happy content person without knowing that these banana things are out there, because if, when I'm coaching, somebody is running across that and they're struggling to know, is this real, is this not real, I'll address it then. But there's so many things that I don't want to see and some of it is so hateful. Also, I follow one account that kind of debunks, a lot of conspiracy theories, and that's so much of it that I'm like I didn't need to know that people think this, that people are out here doing that. I just would rather live in a bit of a bubble for right now.

Speaker 1:

Let's see what was the last part I just talked about. As you can tell, I made zero notes for this the social media piece, not doing some things. If you're paying attention, you're sitting there like Heather. There's one more thing. Yeah, of course I can't think of it because I'm following my own advice and this is also my life now, in the early 50s of like, what was I talking about? And it's kind of funny because my dad I talked about him a few episodes ago because he has cognitive decline and he will say that exact thing and he'll get so frustrated and I'm like dad. I'm literally 24 years younger than you, and that is my day is being like what, what was I talking about? What was I doing?

Speaker 1:

So, anyway, as that pertains to self-care offloading some stuff and cleaning up what I'm seeing and that also opens the door to embracing some things that I would like to do more of which is reading, and I've got to make time for that. So I've got to dump some things and see if there is anything else right now that sparks joy. Right now, the things that make me happy have been cleaning things out of my home. They're selling them or donating them and starting to get packed up, because I am super psyched to leave Arizona only because it's like living on the sun. It's so hot, it's so hot, it's so hot. And we have gone to California for such a long time because it's close, for such a long time because it's close and I love the weather and I just am ready to be at a place where I could walk my dogs in the summer, because you really can't do that here. It's too hot for their little paws on the pavement. So that's kind of it in a nutshell. So when you hear from me again, you'll be like, oh, is she so inspired? Is she so energized? Is she so curious about her topic? We would hope so did. Um.

Speaker 1:

Sub stack has become like such a great way for, again, people to communicate and I just it's too much. It is too much and part of it is my fault because I haven't taken the time to kind of curate my feed so that it's not Armageddon. Armageddon, you know, like here's the worst of the worst of the worst, and it's largely like just super negative. Here's what sucks, here's who sucks, here's what's going to suck. And again, I could take time to trim that down, because there are such great writers that I like to follow and I just don't need to be there If there's something that I really want to read. I really want to start getting back to books and an actual paper book. So that's one thing. I've chosen to unsubscribe to a lot of them. I just unsubscribed from emails and took the app off my phone, and I will be taking Instagram off my phone here shortly as well. Thanks for listening, certainly thanks.

Speaker 1:

It's been a year and a half, I think, that I've been doing this podcast and it's been quite a learning curve because I didn't know. I didn't know it would be so much work, surprise. But it has been fun because I have gotten to talk to people that, honestly, I wouldn't ever have the chance to talk to and I've learned so much the chance to talk to and I've learned so much and I feel really content in my own personal journey to well-being. When I started this podcast, I was struggling a lot more because I was still kind of fresher and eating disorder recovery more fresh. Well, I'll just keep saying fresher. I was fresher from leaving behind the clean eating and a lot of stuff and it was harder and that's kind of the good news.

Speaker 1:

I feel better about where I am in my journey away from that stuff and just being content. Eating is so much easier. I mean, I have traveled a lot recently and it is no sweat, yeah, and I couldn't be happier. I couldn't be more grateful, because if you've ever been in a place where you're like anxious, like oh my gosh, there's nothing to eat, I am, you know, freaking out. I guess I have to bring my own stuff, like this whole thing. I've got to look up the restaurant, I've got to look at their menu and luckily I don't have any actual medical restrictions. I used to have a lot of mental restrictions, so I am lucky in that.

Speaker 1:

But the journey has gotten a lot easier and I do hope you'll go back and listen to some of the episodes if you ever missed any of them or if you're newer to the podcast to take the time to listen to a lot of the conversations, because there are people who are so dedicated to their craft and put in the time to constantly put out content and my hat is off because that's hard, it is really hard and there are people that I have really enjoyed their content, that have really put in the work to make a name for themselves.

Speaker 1:

So I do hope that you will listen to them in those episodes because I think having those more positive voices about your body voices about your body, your body image, weight, health, mental health is so important.

Speaker 1:

I feel like I've been saying goodbye, well now for 20 minutes and just saying like, and that's it. Oh, one other thing, but this is also kind of a day in the life of my brain, so hopefully for yourself, you will continue to take care of yourself. Hopefully this gives you a little food for thought about, oh you know, what might be helpful for me, and whether it's ducking and dodging some things just until the election is over, if it's ducking and dodging things until your next birthday, or if it's just dumping some things because they're not serving you mentally, physically, emotionally, then I wholeheartedly encourage that introspection and action. I know it's very challenging, but it's certainly also very worth it to feel like you are doing the things to be your best self for yourself and for your family, friends, community. So with that I will sign off and hopefully you will hear from me shortly. Take care everybody.