Adult Timeouts and Habit Stacks: A Real Talk on Self-Care with Stephanie Wall Morrow

What if self-care isn't about bubble baths and spa days, but about planning, habit stacking, and finally feeling like you have your life together?

In this episode, Megs sits down with Stephanie Wall Murrow, founder of the Self-Care Circle, to talk about her late ADHD diagnosis at 37, how postpartum anxiety led her to finally get answers, and how she turned a career in audiology business development, yoga, and mindfulness into coaching that actually meets ADHD brains where they are.

Stephanie reframes what self-care really means; think meal prep, laying your clothes out the night before, scheduling rest on your calendar, and giving yourself an "adult timeout" before you burn out. She and Megs dig into habit stacking, morning routines, body doubling, and why tiny accessible steps beat big dramatic overhauls every single time.

If you've ever felt like self-care is one more thing you're failing at, this episode will change how you see it. Practical, warm, and full of real talk. This one is worth a listen.

Stephanie Wall Murrow is the founder of the Self-Care Circle and a coach who helps people recognize where mental overload is quietly getting in the way, not in obvious ways, but in the small moments that build up over time. After working with over 1,000 businesses and 9,000 individuals, she knows exactly how it feels to start one thing, switch to another, lose track of what mattered most, and end the day more drained than when it started. Her work blends mindfulness, accountability, and practical self-care tools to help you feel clear, focused, and more in control of how you move through your day. 

Find Stephanie at myselfcarecircle.com 

@myselfcarecircle on Instagram 

Free guide: ADHD-friendly clarity and focus

TIME MARKERS

1:09 — Stephanie shares how her ADHD journey began as a high-achieving, constantly tired student 

7:01 — Shifting from "what if" to "what now" — reframing the diagnosis as an explanation 

11:34 — Accountability tools, body doubling, and how she coaches clients with ADHD 

15:31 — Habit stacking and building morning routines that actually stick 

20:37 — Practical self-care: meal prep, laying clothes out, finances, and planning ahead 

25:58 — Why habits — not magic — are what create lasting change 

29:24 — Embracing the messy middle without shame 

30:41 — Habit stacking specifically for self-care routines 

31:43 — Putting self-care on the calendar like any other commitment 

32:38 — The "adult timeout" — what it is and why it works 

35:36 — Schedule it or burn out: making rest non-negotiable 

39:10 — Pick one tiny thing and start there 

43:50 — The curiosity-first approach and a five-star self-check-in 

44:41 — Modeling self-care for your kids 

Would you like to learn more about hiring Megs as your ADHD coach? Start here> The Perfect Place to Start

The Community is OPEN! Join right here: Organizing an ADHD Brain

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Transcript

– Stephanie shares how her ADHD journey began

– Shifting from "what if" to "what now"

– Habit stacking and building morning routines that actually stick

– Practical self-care: meal prep, laying clothes out, finances, and planning ahead

– Why habits — not magic — are what create lasting change

– Embracing the messy middle without shame

– Habit stacking specifically for self-care routines

– Putting self-care on the calendar like any other commitment

– The "adult timeout" — what it is and why it works

– Schedule it or burn out: making rest non-negotiable

– Pick one tiny thing and start there

– The curiosity-first approach and a five-star self-check-in

– Modeling self-care for your kids

Audio Only - All Participants 0:39

Welcome back to the show. I'm so excited to introduce you to my new friend Stephanie Wall Murrow from the Self-Care Circle. She's a mom, she's a teacher, she's a coach. Like So many of us with A DHD, she wears. Multiple hats and today, I'm so excited to chat with you. Stephanie, welcome to the show. Thank you. It's so exciting to be here. I am pumped to chat with you today a little bit about self-care. That's something that. You know, Quite a bit about, but first, tell us a little bit about your own A DHD journey. Yeah. That's always a story I love to hear from people. And I feel like with females in particular, it is not linear. There might have been a couple of points that were in a straight line and then things went way off one way and describing it as a journey. Definitely hits the nail on the head there. I grew up in a family of educators and so I was very used to hearing about things like this, and learning about how kids learn differently and how teachers and schools and education will accommodate for that, to meet the student where they were at. And growing up I was very. I would say type A extrovert, super achiever. Was third in my class, was director of student activities. Did all kinds of things in school, wearing all kinds of hats with sports and drama and choir and athletics and, just all of the things that were really fun to me. And that kind of continued as I went to college, went to grad school. And I just, I always did well, but I was always tired. And there were days where it was just the mental fog is what it seemed, or I think now it's easier in the device era that we're in, we all see that battery monitor and we're going like, oh, it's getting low. I better grab my charger. So I always had a lot of feelings like that and I just thought oh this is probably just how most people feel, not knowing anything any different, so to speak. And fast forward, I'm a grownup. I'm doing the career thing. I had a job where I traveled, which is really awesome and really exciting. Still love to travel, like we'll go on any trip. Even if you want to go to the middle of nowhere in Nebraska, I'm in. I had my first son was pretty typical, in terms of like pregnancy and like becoming a mom and learning all kinds of different new things of how to take care of this tiny human being that you're responsible for. And then I did the same thing again, three years later, had my daughter and I'd been through some trauma. Leading up to that pregnancy, couple of car accidents, just some other, odd things. And for me it was just like, oh, okay, it's just one more thing that have as a life challenge. And I was in my follow-up appointment after my C-section with my daughter, just getting cleared to go back and out, and lift things and all the things that you know, you can't do after a C-section. And I was talking to my doctor who is hilarious. Love him. If I could clone him and take him around in my pocket just to make me laugh, I would do that. And he goes, I think that you have postpartum anxiety. And I said, what is that? I've never heard of that. I've only heard of postpartum depression. That's always what I've been on the lookout for. I've had friends that have dealt with it. I can see how rough it's been. Like what am I dealing with here? And he goes that's not my area of expertise. I'm gonna refer you to someone that just deals with this like she is. Completely focused on women's health. And so I go see her and I'm the person that's like, let's draw all the resources that we have at something. Like, why not? They're available to us, it can help us. And so she's asking me these series of questions and I'm going back through different phases of my life and. Things are popping up and I'm going, huh, okay. Okay. And so through the appointment she leaves and she goes, have you ever had an A DH ADHD evaluation? And she goes let's get you set up for that. Let's see what happens. She goes, I think something's going on there for sure. With the way that my practice and my business operates, like I don't do that part of it, but if you end up having it, we're gonna treat that. We're gonna treat this anxiety that you're dealing with and I find that we, with most patients. That have a DHD, it's not just that, like it might be paired with another thing, it might be paired with more than one thing. And so I had this. I guess for me, I love comedy, so like I'm having this comedic situation in my life where I'm like, okay, people have told me that it's more challenging to go from one kid to two kid than it is to go from not having kids, to having a kid. I'm like maybe this is part of my challenge. I don't know. And my husband seemed to have like child amnesia at the time because he kept going. Why does she do this? Why does she do this? And I'm like he did this. Do you not remember? It was only three years ago. Like it wasn't that long ago. We're doing all these things trying to make light of it, and just going through the day to day and then all of a sudden I was like, oh, you have a DHD. And I was like, that's really weird because what I have known about diagnosis, and treatment, like all of my friends that had it. Like years ago. And so it was just a thing that they grew up with and along the way had different tools for their toolbox that they developed or, bought it Home Depot and, figured it out. And I thought, huh, what do you do now when you're 37 years old and. You thought you'd been doing really well, but gosh, like what could have that been like, what could have been easier? And there's no rewind button, right? So there wasn't really a lot of time that I wanted to dedicate to like dwell on it, but I did wanna reflect and go, what could I have learned so that moving forward it can be easier for me? But also easier for me to help other people, right? Because so much of what I've always done in my life is tied to what I can do to help support somebody else. And so I wanted to make that a part of what my journey was going to be now knowing exactly what I was diagnosed with. That's incredible. You mentioned something not to do with you, but it triggered something that I thought of go to Home Depot and buy your tool. Oh my gosh. A DHD is like you can go out there and there is a Home Depot of tools Yeah, you can choose from to help you in your life. And as far as the what if scenario. Mm-hmm. That is something we can all so much relate to. And thank you for sharing that because one more person saying it just validates it that much more. Yeah. And then once we put the what if behind us, we start to say what now? So what is now, what are you doing with your life? With the diagnosis and journey, it's it's been very. Interesting and also rewarding because I feel like it's been a spider web of stickiness in a good way. That just keeps growing and. At the beginning, I just wanted to learn about it, so I had this fabulous coach. I think that's part of what inspired me, to wanna formally coach people that have it or think they have it, and are wondering what to do. So I continued on with my day job. I, was very corporate America. I worked in business development in the field of audiology, which I loved because treating a patient with hearing loss doesn't just treat the patient. It also treats their family. Their coworkers, all of the people that they're communicating with all day long on a regular basis. And so I kept along with that because that was something that I knew. I got to the joking part where it was like, I feel like I could do this job in in a coma, right? I loved helping the providers. I loved helping the people in the practice that support the providers and take care of the patients in a number of different ways. And so that was a way to keep my battery really charged. And then the journey expanded from there. When I had my diagnosis, I had already been teaching yoga. For three years. And that was something that I had practiced for a long time. It was interesting when I was pregnant with my son, I was having a hard time finding prenatal yoga classes. And I live in Atlanta, right in the city, like great metro area, lots of resources, great yoga scene, and I found myself not being able to easily find a prenatal class. And I was trying to figure out, what do I do? Because this is something I love to do and there's all of these different schools of thought of what you can do and can't do with physical exercise in general when you're pregnant. And the fact that I was spending more time driving to classes than I was being in actual classes when I was pregnant with my son, let me go, okay, I'm gonna be the person that teaches this son. I will learn that. And I loved coming out of a class and seeing how great people felt. It was like the stories that I would see with patients that were being treated. With the clients that I work with, that we're the actual providers and I thought this feels good. Like how can I do more of this? And I know how great I feel when I come out of a yoga class. So to be able to give that to people, that's pretty awesome. So it just kept expanding from there. And since the day job was on autopilot, so to speak, that left me with enough energy to pursue other interests. And that ended up going from one yoga teacher training to two to three, to a meditation training, to a Pilates training, and I got more and more into it. And it was interesting because that kind of started spreading over to what I was doing in business. And so I found myself working on so many different things that focused on mindfulness and presence and just ways to be realistic in a world that moves faster than ever, a DHD types love, right? There's that constant stimulation, but that the downside of what goes along with it is that constant on, it's the energy drain, it's the interruptions from the notifications. The notifications are turned off on my devices to the point of if somebody isn't dying and needs me, those are the only people that are gonna find me because there's just way too many things that could distract me with the way that my brain works. And so as I'm watching all of these things weave together and form the spiderweb and then let it get bigger and bigger. That led to me coaching and consulting on a couple of individual projects. That kind of led to the design of my business, of me looking at as much as I love what I'm doing in corporate America as much as the outcome for that as a business person was gratifying because not a lot of business people have that type of satisfaction. I just kept thinking. There's gotta be something where I could make a bigger impact and something that would make me feel better every day. And some days I felt good all day. Some days there might be like an hour where I was like, nah. It reminded me of one of your recent episodes where the guest was talking about this like cloud over her head and I could pet myself up, I could do something to gear shift, and move into a better mode. But I was like, nobody wants to feel crappy. Like nobody wants to feel meh, just like average, or mediocre. So what could I do to make myself feel better? That would also help other people. And so that's when I really got into the coaching aspect of it. And I love to support people not just to give them more tools and resources but also because sometimes people just need a buddy. It's like the workout partner. I'll probably still have a personal trainer for the rest of my life. I don't need it from a technical standpoint, but I need it from, Hey, you're only on my schedule once this week. We normally do it two or three times what's going on? Or when they look at My Fitness Pale and go you did really good overall this week, but did you really need to eat the death by chocolate dessert? That thing was crazy. Like you sent me a picture of it. That was like Food network. I'm like, funny you should mention that because when I travel, I love to use the Food Network app and go, huh, what's good around here? And if, it's one of those one in Rome situations, that's what I'm gonna do. But I, I started watching these areas of accountability with myself and others and I thought, okay, I think there's something to this where finding the right combination of helping someone grow and evolve. With that accountability balance and that like support and buddy system, I think that's the sweet spot. And so I was testing my friends as Guinea pigs similar people like myself, high achievers to do a lot of things, get very excited about all of the different things. And so I essentially birthed a coaching program right out of that. And here I am. That's beautiful. There were so many things in there. I just loved everything that you said because I resonated with so much of it. You talked about having a personal trainer, even though that's what you do. And one of my good friends, Mare, always talks about how coaches need coaches. Yeah. And teachers need teachers because, just because there's something that you know well enough to be able to teach, you do need someone to remind you of those things on your hard days. Like my friend Kendall said, with the cloud over your head. Yeah. Yeah. And I have and people sometimes think this is ironic, but it's just like you said coaches need coaches. Teachers need teachers. I have a business coach. Do I need one? Probably not. I, in my business development role, I essentially was a business coach for more than 15 years. But I thought it was such a great resource to have because I'm going under this new endeavor. And there are some things that I haven't done in a long time, or I haven't done in that way. So how could I match up the stuff that I already knew I was good at and add in these new things just in another way that makes. Things easier. And that's, that's something that I say all the time what can we do to make it easier? What can we do to make it simpler? Life is complicated enough, but when you have a brain that operates the way that we operate, that's not how the majority of things are set up in the world. And so between having to dedicate more energy to it or to mask, which obviously I was doing for 37 years, if I was able to be as successful as I was, that's enough to deal with, right? Nobody wants things to be more complicated. Nobody wakes up in the morning and goes geez, I hope everything could be really hard today. So me having a business coach and me having personal trainer like that is my way of making those things easy. Whether it is one of those days that it's hard or whether it's just you need somebody, essentially, I guess it's almost like body doubling, right? Like people with A DHD do really well when they're working alongside someone else. But when I learned about the body doubling concept, I thought wow, that was why I used to love study dates. I would have so much fun hanging out with a friend and we might not even be studying for the same test or working on the same project, but like just having that meetup to go sit in the library, the coffee shop, and work on things together, that was always something that I would look forward to and always enjoy doing'cause how I'm wired. Beautiful. I just recently started these community events in January. And I had these lovely people show up the first time. There were so many people, and we were talking about all kinds of different tools in our toolbox. And then the second time I was sharing a story about how I'm trying to do one load of laundry every single day. And every time I get into the groove of it, there's a day that I'm like. I forget about it. It's not on my list of things to do. Happens. Something happens and one of the women who had been there the first time. Goes, oh, you had mentioned habit stacking, what have you tried habit stacking? Yes. I love that.'Cause we have so many tools, we have so much knowledge that oftentimes we can't step outside to see the gap in our own life. Yeah. And so having a coach when you are a coach is so valuable because they help you. Learned so much about yourself and and how awesome is that, like from your perspective and her perspective, the fact that she could teach that to you, like that showed that whatever way you explained it to her, that landed with her well enough for her to commit it to memory. To be able to teach it back. That's the ultimate, right? And with the way that we're wired with an A DHD brain, the habit stacking sometimes seems like that's the only way to make something happen when it's new. And that's something I talk about with my kids. And they're young enough that they get it. And we're working on a a new habit stack right now for the morning routine because as one of my friends says she's a pediatrician, she goes, doesn't matter how old you are, everyone is still a kid in the morning. They're trying to. Get out the door to go to school, even if they're not in school anymore,'cause they're a grownup. It's still that same mentality of what do I need to do? And I'm not awake yet. You're chugging the coffee as an adult and you're still going this isn't working, and she just, she point blank just says getting outta the house in the morning. That's not easy for anyone. Doesn't matter what time you're going, so what habits can you stack? What could you do the night before to make it easier? Like a lot of the things that we recognize work well with A DHD. Yeah, those things work well. With a lot of brains, but it's harder for us to get started in the beginning. Yes. I wanna talk about your self-care circle. Yeah. Because self-care has been a buzzword for a while. Very buzzy. Self-care sounds amazing. I love taking care of myself or the idea of it and taking a bubble bath or going to get a massage. There's also a negative connotation to it in that what does it even mean and is self-care? Are you really able to pause long enough to actually get that in? So can you tell us your perspective on self-care and. After that, I wanna dive into the messy middle of it because yeah. We know just because you know what it is or how to implement doesn't mean that then it's all perfect from there. So part of the reason why I wanted to include that term in the name of my business, and it is it's part of one of my programs, one of my membership programs, it was coming from this place where. Yes, it was buzzy, like it was buzzy enough to the point where people recognized the term. But for me it was also something that other people helped me recognize was so impactful for myself. And at the time, this was during the COVID shutdown, right? So my husband and I were walking one day and it was like so new to shut down. We were going. Are we even allowed to be out walking? Like we have this great walking trail from the house and we're walking and we're like, I don't know, we're gonna get in trouble. And we were talking about it and I had asked him, I said like obviously we're in this weird, bizarre situation, right? Who knows what we're gonna look back on, in 10 years and think of this, but like in the meantime, what are you doing to take care of yourself? And so I had, for years I'd had colleagues asking me and other parents, they were like, I don't understand how you do all of this. And so they would start to ask questions and peel back the layers of the onion and they would say something like I have a job and like I can't even make it to the gym to work out. But you're there not only getting your workouts in, but you're also teaching a couple of classes. I said yeah, like that's just fun for me, right? That never seems like work. It's another way to help me recharge my battery. Or one mom said to me, she goes, wait a minute. You like. I didn't even know that you had a full-time job where you traveled.'cause I see you at school regularly and I'm just like why wouldn't I be at school regularly? Like I wanna volunteer, I wanna do this, I wanna do that. She goes, I guess I just figured if you were working all the time, you wouldn't be able to do that. I was like, no, I have a full-time job. It's 40 plus hours a week. I travel every week. Sometimes it's an overnight or conference, and she goes, wait a minute, but you do all this stuff with the PTO and you just. Formed a nonprofit for kids and you teach yoga, like I don't like, do you sleep? And I was like, yeah. And so I started looking at more of these things and these questions I would get from people. And I thought, you know what? If I was not literally blocking and tacking my calendar to be able to find these moments of self-care that I knew were healthy. And fulfilling from a lot of different angles. I don't think any of this other stuff would be happening period, let alone going through it and not feeling like I'm just in execution mode. And I started doing something that I did in the business world. I would do a lot of schedule analysis, so I was like going back through my calendar and going wow, okay. That might not have seemed like self-care, but it definitely was. So I started digging a little bit deeper and going, wow, there's a lot of things that to me are self-care, but wouldn't necessarily come up with what someone might associate with it. I can't just drop what I'm doing and go to a spa for a day. I feel like the bubble bath like is another stereotypical one, right? It's what do I do if I don't have a bathtub, right? Like I just have a shower. So I was looking at all these different things and I wanted to make sure that in the way that I would communicate it with people that it wasn't coming up as cheesy or stereotypical I'm fortunate enough that at least once a year I go on a yoga retreat to some. Amazing place that, is totally unplugged. It's not like your day to day. That's probably I would call my extravagant, self care. But what's accessible to people, right? And what actually seems real. One of the projects I have, in the works right now is putting this in paper form.'cause I talk about it so much with people, but it's like a self-care checklist. And one side is, what is something that you and many people think of as self-care, and there's a list of options and check off what lands with you. And then the other side is here are other things that you might not think of as self-care, but they absolutely are. Things like meal planning, so that if you did, a little bit of prep work or if you throw something in the crockpot at the beginning of the day, all of a sudden you have these meals and so you're not hangry. You've got enough fuel.'cause to me the body's like an engine, right? Like you're not gonna forget to gas up or charge your car. Another one that I talk a lot about that people don't think of as self-care is managing your finances and not just paying your bills, but looking at okay, what's going on now? What's going on long-term? And so a story that I'll share with a lot of people is that my husband's in the automotive industry and it's a very volatile industry. So as soon as there's repeated headlines about interest rates changing or the economy or tariff, which is the one we've been hearing about for the last year plus the joke is okay, how much longer am I gonna have a job? And, he gets laid off and he, always goes back. But that's a thing that for most families like that could break. And we were talking to somebody one day and she goes. Wait a minute. So he just regularly ends up in times where he just doesn't work for months. I go, yeah, like I think the longest time was like maybe 18 months. And she's what? How? I don't understand. Like you just don't have a whole income like that for 18 months. And I said, yeah, the fortunately. And some of these, since our kids are young, that's time where they can spend with him. It's almost a different kind of maternity or paternity leave for parents. But if I had not been such a planner from that aspect, from. A very young age, then that could be major crisis time and, that could break a person or a family or put you in these pickles of a situation that, weren't just perplexing but could be crippling. So I like to think about, what are the things that one can do that. Will relieve stress that could, minimize or mitigate the risk factors for anxiety even if you don't have, anxiety diagnosis, so to speak. That's just something that humans go through, right? The mind moves at a much faster rate of speed than the body does. So those thoughts can go very quickly out of control. And it could be something like planning ahead for your upcoming vacation so that when you get on vacation, you're not figuring out what to do or maybe coming out of vacation going, man, it would've been really nice if we would've been able to do this and this. So I'm definitely a big planner, in all aspects of life. But I guess it's the reflection of looking at what are the things that you do for yourself that make you feel good. That could be anything from, lighting you up to the point of just giddy excitement to something that is renewing, recharging, restoring or is it something that sets you up for success later on because you're not going to be stressed or overthinking or scrambling? I don't know which one of my parents taught me. It could have been both of them, but. Lay your clothes out the night before, like just have that ready, like how you'd have your school bag packed, and ready to go, like so that when you go to walk out the door, you've got everything you need in your school bag. And so I lay out my clothes every night. If I don't lay out my clothes, it's because I have zero plans the next day. And maybe I have decided today's gonna be like a do nothing day and. Maybe I'll end up doing something and maybe I'll sit on the couch and just read magazines and chill out. I don't know. But little things like that we don't often think of as self care, but they absolutely are self care. I wanna remark on how your parents taught you and how you've been practicing this for a very long time. Yeah. Clearly it's a habit, right? I, and I know some of my listeners are gonna be like, she does what? Because Yeah, these are all things. That have developed over time, that you've been practicing your entire, not only childhood, but into adulthood. And they were tools that were given to you by people who knew that you were gonna need them in adulthood. I wanna recognize that because that's important. That means that everyone who is listening is capable of it. Absolutely, and they're going to be at a different part in the journey. I say that because I don't lay my clothes out the night before, and I'm like that's a good idea. Do I want that to become my next habit as I'm working on these other things? You've got these incredible ways to plan. I have this incredible client I've been working with, and we often think about all these other women who seemingly have it together and are able to do all of these things like you are doing that you are volunteering, and then you're also able to teach classes and work a full-time job. You are a superwoman, the way that you handle it, and then also take care of yourself. And if we're looking at you and comparing ourselves, we can sometimes say, I'm not good enough. Or I'm not there. But that's not what this is about. You've been working on this for a very long time and business owners too, right? We can sometimes compare ourselves to people who have hundreds of thousands of followers, or they've got these incredible websites, but again, we're not equating the amount of time that we've put in. So I wanna put that out there because You are this bright, shining star that can light the way for some of us who don't feel like it's possible. But you have practiced and you have gotten there. Can you tell us about the messy middle of change and how you Yeah. Help people understand what their own self-care is. Yeah. And that I do wanna clarify. I am not Superwoman, I don't wanna be Superwoman. Superheroes are big in our house right now. My daughter wants to know why is the Iron Man and why is there no Iron Girl? And so apparently she's gonna make that a thing. I don't know if there'll be a movie. But, I think it's easy. As we hear these different things and get these different ideas, it's easy to go oh my God, why didn't I ever do that? My current version of that in my business is being in a career For years, my audience was essentially LinkedIn.'cause I was a business person and that's where I was focused. And so from scratch, I started my email list just back in October and I'm beating myself up the other day.'cause I'm like, I only have 200 subscribers. And it wasn't for me about oh, I need a million subscribers. It was like. I can't share good things with people, if I don't have a way, vehicle to get them there. And so the whole quote of what is it? Comparison is the thief of joy. That is something that I feel like comes up all the time. Everybody is starting from somewhere. There's always something that is able to be added that will help to make things easier. And that doesn't matter if you are like flat out in, 10 feet of mess in the middle or if you're messy at times. It's okay to be messy and in fact, to me that shows that you have a full life. My husband was going on and on the other day about how messy our house is, and I just said to him. This is the sign that life is happening, right? Like life is clearly being lived here in this house with, a lot of people in and out of it all day long. And a puppy like clearly there's going to be mess. It is a puppy, right? So I think the first thing is just embrace wherever you're at, whatever that happens to look like with the day, with the time, with the situation, because resisting it or trying to beat yourself up, it, it's frustrating. To me, it's just, it's a waste of energy. And I think once you can embrace that of this is where I'm at, then it's a lot easier to figure out what to do next. If we were to use self-care as the example you might be prioritizing it, you might be doing something every single day for yourself, even if it's for five minutes, right? Maybe you do it here and there and you know that it feels better, but it's not happening. Like, how do I make it happen? That's where this middle comes in, right? And so I think the habit stacking is a great thing. You brush your teeth every day. Is there something that you could do while you're brushing your teeth that's self-care? I don't know, maybe it's just breathing right? Focus on your breath. Just bringing your attention to your breath, that's gonna help settle your nervous system, that's gonna make you feel better. Might not even feel like you're practicing self-care. But if you're brushing your teeth and you're focusing on your breath, the science is just gonna make you feel better.'cause your body's gonna be going through it. Is it, instead of slamming my morning coffee or tea, could I just sit down and have it and just be in that space for five minutes? That's going to let you feel less rushed. And again, it's just gonna go back to what's happening from a biology perspective. So wherever you're at, I would just say, what could you do to fit something in? Then see how that makes you feel. And then from there, that's where you notice the rhythms and you can get to the point where you're like, okay, I'm going to make this a thing for me. So in my world, if it gets put on the calendar, it gets done. So there's something on the calendar. In the beginning I always thought like having something on my calendar every day like that was really for me to just fit it in, right? Like how, almost kinda like a to-do list, so to speak. But what I noticed it became more so was like that's my commitment to myself. I commit to all kinds of other people for all kinds of other things. Why would I not commit the same way to myself, right? You only have one life. You only have one body. The oxygen mask analogy is something I use all the time on the airplane, right? They literally tell you in the safety video, put on your own oxygen mask or you're not gonna be able to help somebody else with theirs, right? And if somebody who's flown over a million miles in their life, like I still am constantly telling myself this because. I obviously haven't heard it enough times, so you know, what is your oxygen mask? Another one that I have is, when you really find yourself in the mask, put yourself in timeout. Like literally adult timeout. It's amazing. I discovered that if I went and hid in my pantry was how I described it during COVID, when all the kids are home and everybody's working from home and all these crazy things are happening, I discovered that if I went in my pantry, nobody knew where I was at, which was hilarious. I could hang out in my pantry. It's beautiful. It is my adult timeout spot that like I can go and nobody's gonna find me. And I don't know, I might scroll Instagram, I might listen to. An audio book might just sit there and do nothing and have a snack. Like it doesn't have to be this grand thing. And I feel like when we're right in the middle of that mess, that's where it gets tougher and more confusing because you're living it, right? Like you are in that moment. But that's okay. Like messy is good. Everybody's starting from somewhere. And like how, if you were gonna call an IT department, like what's the first thing they say? It's like one of two things. Did you reboot? Is your software up to date? We're the same way? So reboots are good. Like when you're stuck in it. How can you break that inertia? What can you do to reboot? Turn it off and turn it back on again? Go hide in your pantry. I used to hide in my closet. And it was brilliant behind the clothes. So the sound was muffled. Yeah. It's gonna muffle all the sound. Yeah.'cause in a DH ADHD brain, like they're gonna notice all the sound, and they're gonna zoom in and go what is that? It's something wrong. Do I need to do something? Oh, no, I don't. Okay, I'm now back here. But you're still having that reaction, so you know if you can find that sweet spot, literally, physically like cool. You've got that spot. I also think it's like a little bit fun, right? Hide and seek as a kid was fun. Fun is good for us. Have more fun. If things feel too messy, that could be a sign that maybe you're not having enough fun. I like that because fun is also self-care. And it is one thing you were talking about is how when it's messy, the messier it gets. Oftentimes I know for myself, that's when. I'm not thinking about myself or it's the first thing that I let go of because I'm like, I don't have time to, that is the common thing. I not only tell myself, but I hear others say yes. Now, after doing it so many times, I have reminded myself, I come back to it. I say, oh, Megan, you don't have time. Not to, you have no choice but to take care of yourself, can you speak to that a little bit? Because as you're talking, you're doing all of these things and you're finding ways that you're busy, but also that is baked in to your busyness. You don't get to be busy without taking care of yourself. So how does someone who is not used to taking care of yourself is never put themselves first and is now trying to bake that in? How do they do that? Yeah. Yeah. A couple of ideas. One is schedule it. Just put it on the calendar. That gives you the time, right? It also gives you something to look forward to, and you might not even have anything planned, right? But put 15 minutes on an hour, like whatever it is that you can fit in, you probably have a lot more time than you realize you're using time as the excuse, it's tougher to make that first step. There's all these productivity studies, and this was a conversation I would have regularly as a business coach, right? Like I'd want the owner of the business to pull all of their employees out and, do a development session for the day. And it might be training, it might be team building, it might be personal development, like whatever. It's investing in the business and it's investing in your people and it's lighting your people up. And they would say I like, I just don't think I can afford to do that. If I shut down the business, there's no revenue coming in. And my response would be like, you can't afford not to do this. You can't it's tough to get out of that mindset, and maybe that's the time where you're like, okay, I need to do. A complete reboot. Shut off all of the things, put yourself in a different space. I don't know, if it's available to you, go check into a hotel for a night. Put yourself into a different environment to be able to get a little bit more clarity and then figure out like what could that look like? Because the the reminder that I always have in the back of my head, it came from this book that I read in yoga teacher training. It's called When the Body Says No. And it's a little bit old school like I don't remember if it was written in the late eighties or early nineties. But the physician had chronicled all of these patients that he'd work with that had just chronic situations. And so many of those things came from. I kept forcing myself through the mess. I ran on the inertia and I just kept going and going, and then all of a sudden they'd end up with something that you know, was preventable. But now it was a part of their day-to-day life.'cause their body was literally going eh, no. Physical signs, right? If I'm at my computer too long, I notice my shoulders are like creeping up, or people get these tech neck syndromes like. When you're noticing something physically in the body that just isn't feeling good, that can be one of the easiest ways to shift, because you could get up, you could walk around, you could pause, you could take three cleansing breaths, like you could do something that's very simple. And with the way that our minds work it's usually that first step is the hardest. Once you get that going, all of a sudden the energy flywheel kicks in, you get that hit of dopamine and then all of a sudden you can keep going. But like that first thing can be a reason not to do stuff. And instead of thinking about what are the reasons not to think about, where are the reasons why I should, because in our society like you turn on the news, if there is a good news story, there's one thing at the end of a 60 minute broadcast that they talk about for maybe 30 seconds, right? We're conditioned and exposed to so many things being like negative or the reason, why we can't, what's the reason why you can and just do that and just see how that feels. If you're into journaling, write it down. The act of writing it down is gonna help you remember how that felt. And now you've also got something to refer back to on the days where you're like, man, I know I should be doing this and I wanna do it, but you're going how do I go to do it? What can I do to make it happen? Teeny tiny things like that done regularly are going to give you a whole different feeling about self-care. You mentioned so many incredible tools and so many incredible things to try to do, and I wanna speak to the ideas. Sometimes we have all of the ideas, but when it comes time to actually do something in the moment to take care of ourselves, it's like. So I encourage anyone listening now think about one thing that stood out to you. And it doesn't have to be perfect. It does not have to be something that is exemplary because sometimes we need to wait until the perfect thing is said or heard. But you said a couple things there like it's tiny. It is minuscule. Yeah. And it is one thing. And so pick one thing that stood out to you. And see what that looks like in the moment when you're either brushing your teeth or when your neck gets sore. Those are the things that make the difference is picking the thing like, okay, I'm just gonna try this, just this one thing, not the 80 things. Yeah.'cause that's huge. Yeah. And it's making sure that you're actually doing it right. Nobody can do this for you. And it is easy, like you said oh God, there was 80 things. Like all of those sounded good. What do I do? Or, oh yeah. Oh, the shoulder stress. Wait, I have that, but what was I supposed to do? If you cannot remember. Or maybe you have analysis paralysis.'cause there's so many ideas. Literally just type in or even hit the mic button so you don't have to type and just say, what can I do for myself when I feel tension in my shoulders? What can I do when I feel like my battery is drained and I need an energetic pick me up? Just throw that out there too, because if you give yourself more reasons not to do it, you're just gonna keep feeling ugh, right? I'm like, nobody wants to consistently feel that way. And if you do that over and over and over, it's gonna develop into something bigger. So just think small, think tiny, think accessible. The newsletter that I send out every Sunday night or Monday morning. Which is specifically timed based on like when the thing in the newsletter is going to help you. It is a simple exercise. It is something that you can do without equipment. It is like you can do it right here in the moment and it's something that you can do to make yourself feel better. I have a book coming out later this year that was essentially born from people going. How do I know it's gonna feel good for me? Like, how do I know what self-care is gonna feel like? And so it's 30 days to self-care and it's 30 different things that you can try so that by the time you've gone through them you can go, Ooh, these are the ones that really work for me. And how can I make that happen on a regular basis in a way that's realistic? Because I wanna feel good. I know I need to take care of myself, I wanna do that, but what can I do to actually make it work? That's awesome. I can't wait to see that book and yeah, I'm really excited. Congratulations. Thank you. One thing you said too is just noticing, that's another thing that is taking a step in the direction. Yeah. Of where you wanna go is simply noticing when your neck is tight and what triggered that. That is enough to start. Yeah. That happened for a reason. So now when you can figure that out. Now you can work on preventing that. Yeah. Which is also another way of taking care of yourself. Beautiful. This conversation has just been really awesome and I have so many ideas that I wanna incorporate back into my own life or just, yes. The reminder of. Having someone to nudge you to say, Hey, are you taking care of yourself? I've had friends who have asked me, what's one thing you could do to support yourself through this week or even the other day? I had just gotten my period and I had four clients that day, and I knew I wanted to be the best version of myself and my cramps were. Yeah, you're like, oh, someone's stabbing me in the stomach. Like how am I gonna show up in a way that's gonna make these other four people feel like not only I'm here, but like we're here to do the things that we know are gonna make ourselves feel good? Yes. And on that day, I put a heating pad on and I allowed myself to only have those four clients that I was working with. I didn't have any other pressure to do any other things. That was what I needed that day, and I decided in the beginning of the day and after I had worked with my clients, it was one of the best days. Yeah. I didn't feel pain anymore, and it was really a beautiful experience because I had That's such a great example of just you met yourself where you were at on that day. Yeah. Because we can't show up the same every day. You described that we're not going to be perfect and on and everything, but the more we take care of ourself, the more we could notice that. Amazing. What advice would you give to the audience for starting to explore what self-care could mean for them? Be curious, be curious. Just go do something, see what happens. Notice how it made you feel. You can even rate it on my kids love this one, like the five star review, right? Did you do something? Was that a zero star? Was it five stars? Just go do a little something. Doesn't have to be grand, doesn't have to be stereotypical self-care, but just go do it and see how you feel. And because every day is different and because you're gonna be meeting yourself where you're at, who cares what it looks like that day. Just go do it and see how you feel. And then from there, then you can figure out what to do next. But if you aren't curious enough to put yourself out there and just try whatever the first thing is, nothing's gonna change. Just go do it. See what happens. Sometimes when I don't want to put myself first because I'm used to taking care of everyone else, I then start to think of the perspective of what my girls will see and how they see me taking care of myself, and I want them to take care of themselves one day. Yeah. And so if I can demonstrate that now as their mom, that's something that they can see and start to adopt as they become moms themselves one day. Or they don't because they're empowered to make their own decisions. Yeah. They're figuring out what works for them. Exactly. We have this joke in my house that when it's nap time for me, like I'll be like, okay, if anybody needs me, just don't. And now when I get to the point where if anybody needs, they just answer. But for them, what that has led to at six and nine years old is they I guess they didn't understand the term. They were, figuring out their words. They're like, I need a piece of quiet. And I was like, oh, okay. So a lot of times I'll sit, I'm like, what do you guys wanna do tonight? It's Friday, right? What do you wanna do this weekend? I just would like to come up with something relaxing. I just wanna have a relaxed session. I'm like, okay, what does that look like to you? And it's different. But, setting that example for them. Lets them also set examples for other people. And it goes back to this vision that I get in my head so often of the spider web, right? Like you're showing it to your girls. They're gonna be able to help their friends that are their age, and who knows, like their friends might teach their parents something. It's just, it's this constant, positive energy transfer if you think about it. And we all just, we all need more positive energy no matter what type of brain we have and how it works. That's beautiful. So at the end, go find your piece of quiet. Yeah, I'm gonna use that. Isn't it great? I feel like might put that in a t-shirt or something. Please do put it that. When you have those days where you're like, yeah, I thought I bought this t-shirt'cause it would be like funny and it would make other people laugh. But today I am wearing it because when I look in the mirror, it's gonna remind me I need that piece of quiet. Yeah. I like that. I have a pillow in my room that says Inhale, exhale. Yes. And I tell people all the time as a yoga teacher. Every round of breath is an opportunity for you to begin again. Like you don't have to start over on Monday or on the first of the month or the beginning of the new year. Like every breath is an opportunity for you to begin again. That's amazing. Stephanie, thank you so much for joining us here today. Thank you. It's been great to be here. Absolutely. And I hope to talk to you again. Sounds good.