[On My Sleeve] How I'm Maintaining Healthy Habits While Life Feels Heavy

In this bonus episode of Isn't She Powerful, I’m sharing a more personal conversation about what it looks like to stay consistent with healthy habits during emotionally heavy seasons of life.

Life doesn’t pause when things feel hard. Stress, sadness, grief, overwhelm, anxiety, disappointment, and uncertainty can make even the smallest habits feel difficult. And when emotions are high, it’s easy to fall into the mindset of “I’ll start again when I feel better.”

But what if consistency wasn’t about being highly motivated… and instead about continuing to care for yourself even when life feels heavy?

In this episode, I share the phrase that has been grounding me lately and helping me continue taking action with things like nourishing meals, movement, routines, and self-care (even on difficult days). We talk about what sustainable consistency actually looks like, how to stop viewing hard seasons as “failures,” and how to support yourself without expecting perfection.

If you’ve been struggling to stay on track because life feels emotionally exhausting right now, this episode will remind you that small actions still matter and that taking care of yourself during hard times is one of the most powerful things you can do.

In this episode, we cover:

•  Staying consistent during emotionally difficult seasons 
•  How to take care of yourself when you feel sad or overwhelmed 
•  The mindset shift helping me stay grounded right now 
•  Why healthy habits matter even more during hard times 
•  Letting go of all-or-nothing thinking 
•  How to keep showing up without relying on motivation 
•  Giving yourself compassion while still taking action 
•  The power of small, sustainable habits 

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WORK WITH ME: 

• Seismic Shift: Group Health Coaching (code POWERFUL for 10% off)
• 1:1 Coaching

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💌 Connect With Laura:

1. Website: Health Coach for Teachers & Busy, Working Women
2. Instagram: LAURA B. | Teacher turned Health Coach | Podcaster🎙️ (@laura.b.healthy) • Instagram photos and videos
3. TikTok: Laura B. | Health Coach (@laura.b.healthy) | TikTok

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If this episode resonates with you, share it with a friend who also you know is going through a challenging time.

And if you haven’t already, be sure to follow the podcast so you never miss an episode designed to help you build a healthy lifestyle that actually fits your life.

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Topics: consistency, emotional eating, healthy habits, mindset shifts, motivation, self care, routines, all-or-nothing thinking, sustainable weight loss, wellness journey, habit building

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hey everyone, and welcome back to another on my sleeve episode for the Isn't She Powerful podcast. If you're new around here and you've never heard of an on my sleeve episode, you get one of these bonus episodes once a month. And these are the episodes where I, your host, Laura Be Healthy, come in and talk more about what's been going on in my life and my health journey so that you can understand that even though I've been doing this for over six years now, there's still challenges, there's still things that I'm working through. And this is an open diary to you of how I'm navigating these things in real time. Not the lessons that I learned and what I know on the other side of it, but in real time, here's what I got going on, here's what I'm doing that's helping, here's what I'm trying that's not helping. So I want to talk to you a little bit about some of the things that have been going on in my life in terms of personal things and how I'm navigating all of those things because I mentioned on I believe the last on my sleeve episode, or at least one a little while ago, that there had been some crazy things that had happened in my personal life in the last few months. And I want to talk today about how I've been navigating those things and how I'm maintaining healthy habits during this time. So, with all of that being said, I want to just go on and get into it. Welcome to the Isn't You Powerful Podcast. I'm your host, Laura B, health coach, educator, and founder of the Be Healthy Lifestyle.

SPEAKER_00 1:37

I'm here to bring you all of the health education and motivation so that you can sign off each week feeling equipped and empowered to tackle all of your health goals. Come along with me as I teach you the basics of healthy living so that you can help everyone in your life saying, Isn't she powerful?

SPEAKER_01 2:05

If you follow me on Instagram as well as listen to the podcast, then you may have seen my post where I talked about the things that had been going on in my personal life in terms of death recently. I've had a lot of really challenging times come up recently with people passing away that I cared deeply about. I had a client pass away, and then a few days later I found out that a friend of mine had passed away, and then I went on a couple vacations, and it was like I went from this low, low, low point of crying myself to sleep every night and feeling so upset at what had happened to then being on vacation and celebrating my sister for her birthday and my husband for his birthday, and it was a very much a big mix of emotions and a lot for the nervous system to process. And then shortly after that, my papa, he is one of my favorite people in the world. My grandparents did a lot of helping to raise my sister and I because we would go over to their house after school every single day, and we would eat dinner with them sometimes, and they were kind of like our built-in babysitters and and co-parents and all the things, right? And so I'm really close with my grandparents and my papa, he had a surgery for cancer. He's been battling it for quite some time now, and every time it would go away, it would keep coming back. So even though he's 81, they decided he was in good enough health to be able to do a surgery. He did well through the surgery, and then a week later had some complications and had to be airlifted back to the hospital. And he's been there for over four weeks at this point, five weeks total, including right after the surgery. And so it has been kind of a lot of emotional distress and constant worrying and thinking about him and kind of jumping every time I get an unexpected phone call. So my nervous system over the last two months, three months almost, has been really shaken up. And I still don't feel good. I still feel like I am sad. I still feel like I'm struggling every day just to keep going and to keep putting a smile on my face, and I show up for the moments that I need to show up, right? Like I've spoken at multiple events, three events I've spoken at since I've had these uh events start occurring. And on for those events, I'm showing up and I'm putting on a happy face and I feel so good in the moment. And then as soon as they're over, I kind of just crash a little bit and I feel really sad for a while after the events. And same thing with you know, coaching with my clients. I'm showing up for them. I I'm I'm I'm fully there for my clients, but on the back end in the evenings and on the downtime, I just don't feel like myself, and I don't know when I'm gonna start feeling like myself again. It's not like I feel really angry or or anything anymore. I just feel sad, you know. I just feel I just don't feel like myself. So, what I wanted to talk about in this episode was how I'm maintaining healthy habits while dealing with all of this emotional turbulence. That's what I've been calling it emotional turbulence because one one minute my life is really happy. I'm on the highest of highs, I'm going on trips and celebrating people and feeling really happy and speaking at events and doing all of these things that are really fun and really exciting. And then the next minute I'm sad and and there's you know bad things happening. And so I wanted to talk a little bit about how I'm maintaining healthy habits while dealing with this emotional turbulence. One of the things that has stuck out to me the most is my best friend is a mental health therapist, and she said something to me recently that has really stuck with me. If you are somewhere where you can safely do this, I want you to close your eyes right now. I want you to imagine what your life would look like and feel like if food didn't feel so hard for you anymore. You weren't constantly wondering, what are we gonna eat? When are we gonna eat it? What are we having for dinner tonight? You weren't always thinking, I should eat that, I shouldn't eat this. If I eat this, I'm bad, I have to eat this, I have to stay away from that. You trust yourself around food. You have the energy that you need to get through the day, and you're no longer starting over every single Monday. You just live your life and your habits support that instead of being another added stressor. This is exactly what we build inside of my group coaching program, Seismic Shift. Working with me isn't about starting another diet or starting over from scratch. It's about creating healthy habits that fit your real life so that you can actually stick to them. Imagine being consistent without white-knuckling it through the day and relying on willpower. Imagine walking into your home and not feeling the urge to run to the pantry. And imagine being the version of you who just drinks her water and goes for her walks and takes care of herself, not because you have to, but because it's just who you are and it's just what you do. That is what seismic shift is here for. You can join me right now by heading to Behealthyhabits.com slash seismic dash shift or visiting the link down in the show notes. Again, that's behealthyhabits.com slash seismic dash shift, or simply go down into the show notes and click the link there. And because I value my podcast listeners so much, you can use the code Powerful to get 10% off for life. Let's make this the very last time that you ever start over. She said something to me recently that has really stuck with me. She said action is the antidote for anxiety. And that has just helped push me forward multiple times since she said that to me. Every time that I've been like, I just kind of want to stay in bed and just feel my feelings this morning. I just want to skip my meal. I don't want to get up and make any meal prep. I don't want to get up and cook a meal. I just want to lay here. I just want to be sad. And since she said that to me, I've realized that laying there and feeling sad is only making me feel worse. It's only allowing those feelings to grow. And I'm not saying that those feelings don't need to be felt. They of course need to be felt. And I'm feeling the feelings, trust me. But at the same time, if we wallow in them, that only makes our problems feel bigger and heavier. So I've been taking action. I've still been going to the gym. I've still been getting myself up in the mornings, getting myself ready, and going to my gym classes. When I'm there, generally I feel really good. There's been a couple classes that I've been like fighting back tears early on whenever all of the processing of the deaths were happening. It was really heavy and I was definitely holding back tears in some of those classes. But in general, I feel a lot better whenever I'm there and whenever I leave. It makes me feel really good to have moved my body. So I'm taking action in that way. I'm still getting up and cooking myself well-balanced meals, even though I don't want to sometimes. I know that whenever I'm eating junk food, I feel like junk. That's just the truth of it. If I'm not eating a well-balanced meal, something that has vegetables, something that has color, something that has protein to it. If I'm not eating those things and I'm just eating processed foods, bland bland foods in terms of the color of them, then I'm gonna be feeling gross on the inside. And I don't want that. I'm already feeling gross emotionally. I don't want my stomach to feel icky as well. It just makes me feel worse. And I know that because I spent a few days doing that. There was probably a week there where I was like, I'm not cooking anything, I can't be bothered to be in that kitchen, I feel too sad to do any of that. And that's fair, right? Like, I'm not mad at myself that I spent that time feeling those feelings. But as soon as I felt like I didn't want to feel gross anymore on the inside, I was like, I'm getting up and I'm doing something about it. Even though I didn't want to, even though my my body was saying, no, just lay here. This is too heavy, life's too heavy, the world is too heavy right now. Just like lay on the couch. I know that getting up and having a well-balanced meal is making me feel so much better. I would I I told you I'm still feeling sad, but I would be feeling even more sad if I didn't get myself up and get myself into the kitchen and have a well-balanced meal. Same thing goes with water. I've actually been increasing my water intake recently. I've I've been putting some flavor packets into my water again just because I feel like I I wasn't drinking anything. And so it was like, this is what it's gonna take in order for me to get that water down. So I'm drinking some raspberry lemonade water flavor packets from I think it's called true lemon or something like that. And I'm I'm just sucking those down because that's what is it takes sometimes. It just takes you going back to the roots. That was something that I did really early on in my journey before I really even started my weight loss journey. I was trying to shift away from drinking so much soda and sweet tea and into drinking water, and so I needed something with some flavor. I was one of those people who was like, water has no flavor, it tastes either it doesn't taste good or it tastes like nothing, and I want some flavor. And so I was drinking a lot of water flavor packets in the beginning of my journey, like beginning, beginning of my journey. And so I've kind of gone back to that a little bit, and it feels good, it feels nice to have a routine to fall back onto during this time. So don't be afraid to go back and try some things that work out for you in the past. If it worked then and it is gonna work now, then don't be afraid to try it. It's not a step back, it's just the next stepping stone in your journey for you. So don't be afraid to try something again that worked in the past for you. So the main thing that I've been doing is taking action, even though I don't really want to, even though it doesn't feel good to get up off the couch and do that thing the second that it's done, the either the second that I'm doing it or the second that it's over, I'm so thankful that I did it. You know, it's one of those things where we dread something so much. How many of you are these people where, and I'm this person so to my core, I will say yes to something, like let's say it's a birthday party for a friend. I'll say yes to it, I'll be excited about it. Then the day of the event will come and I'll be like, my god, that sounds terrible. I do not want to go do that. And I'll go anyway because I said I would be there. And then as soon as the party gets started, as soon as I walk in the door, I'm feeling good. And then when I leave, I'm like, I'm so glad that I went to that. It was so much fun. It made me feel so good. That is how I kind of am in my health journey as well. And many of you are probably this way as well, where you're dreading doing something, you have all these good intentions. I'm gonna start meal prepping, I'm gonna start going to the gym, I'm gonna drink my water, and then the second that the time comes for you to do that thing, you're like, God, that sounds terrible. I don't want to get up off my couch, I don't want to do that, I want to have the easy food, I want to lay here. But as soon as it gets started and as soon as it's over, you're like, I'm so glad that I did that. So I want you to remember, action is the antidote for anxiety. Get yourself moving, whether that just be getting up and having a glass of water, whether that be getting up and going to the gym or whatever it may be, action is the antidote. So get yourself up and get yourself moving. Now, in full transparency, I will say that I haven't been doing a lot of things over the last few months. I have not been journaling. That is something that at the beginning of the year I was super good about. And I've wanted to build this habit for a long time. And honestly, there I have been good about having this habit in the past. Not to be it be something that I do every single day, but in the in the way of like I'm doing this consistently, whether that consistency be once a week, whether it be a few times a week, or whether it be daily, I'm doing it consistently. But in the last few months, I've had the nudge to journal a few times, and I've said, no, I don't, I don't want to, I don't want to put my brain through it. I don't want to do that. I don't want to write it down. I don't want, I just want to forget about it. And so I haven't been being very good about journaling or praying or talking to my angels, which is something that I also am pretty good about in general. However, I will say this week I did get into journaling a little bit more, and it felt good. It felt really good. I I I pulled out my journal and I kind of just wrote to my journal as if it was a person that I like writing a letter to a person who I was kind of updating on my life, and I just kind of let it all flow out of me, how I'm feeling, what happened, all the things, and it felt nice to just be able to get it out, and now I feel like I can kind of take the next step, right? Like I can I can get back into some of those habits that I had been avoiding for a little while. So I think when what I'm trying to get at with this is allow yourself to take the time, and if you're really just feeling like it's a no for me, then it's a no for you. But as soon as you start feeling some of those nudges, and listen to that because I woke up one day this week and I laid in my bed, and I and my first thought was you need to get up and you need to journal. And I didn't question it this time. I didn't say no, I didn't fight it, I just got up and I started journaling. And when as soon as I did, like I said, it felt like a relief. So listen to those intuitive nudges that you get because your intuition always, always, always knows what's best for you. I know my episodes lately have been kind of short, and I think that's just because I have been feeling kind of uninspired because of everything that's going on. Like I just don't have ideas. Like I'm normally the most creative person with so many ideas and so many things that I'm like, oh, I could talk about this and I should set share this with my people, and you know, I'm just not really feeling that lately. Uh, but so my episodes have been a little bit shorter, and I'm aware of that. But I hope that they have been hitting exactly where you guys need and giving you what you need to hear. And please don't forget that if there's anything you want me to talk about that I'm not talking about, there's a little button right at the top of the show notes. It says send us a text. You can click right there and send me a message and let me know what it is that you want me to talk about on the show. It would be helpful for me and it would also be helpful for you, right? So if you want to go down into the show notes, you have something specific, whether it just be a share, something that you're like, hey, this is kind of what's going on for me, and you don't necessarily have a question, but you just want to share, or if it's something that you do have a specific question about, I can get those text messages and then share an episode on the podcast directly about whatever it is that you guys need help with. I don't know where you're messaging me from. I don't know your name, I don't know your phone number. Like I know nothing about you unless you share something about you. Many people share their names because otherwise I don't I don't know you. Uh so you can leave it completely anonymous or you can share who you are. But either way, I appreciate you being here and tuning into the podcast each and every week. It means so very much to me. I adore this show and adore all of the people who are listening. I feel so honored to have a podcast that is so wide reaching and has so many amazing listeners. Thank you all for being here, and I can't wait to see you next week in another regular episode. Thank you so much. I can't wait to see you again next week. And always remember the more you know, the more you grow.