Badass Bites: How to Recharge Like a Badass

Episode Description:
Are you craving a reset? In this mini Badass Bites episode, I share what it really means to pause, recharge, and reconnect with your intuition. After 13 years of pushing through nonstop education and goals, I’m finally learning to slow down, protect my energy, and honor rest as a vital part of transformation.

If you’re navigating perimenopause, menopause, hormone shifts, weight loss, or burnout, this conversation is for you. You’ll hear how I’m tuning into my body, releasing the pressure of “busy,” and finding alignment through gentle movement, meditation, and nervous system regulation.

Because rest isn’t lazy—it’s the medicine your hormones, health, and mindset have been craving.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

• Why rest is essential for hormone health, inflammation, and weight loss
• How “busyness” can be a trauma response (and what to do about it)
• Practical ways to recharge: walks, yoga, meditation, and saying yes to joy
• How to listen to your intuition and honor your body’s cues
• Why giving yourself permission to pause can be the most powerful reset

Let’s Connect:

• Instagram & Facebook: @caressardunphy
  
  
• Website: aisforavocados.com

Timeline Recap:

00:00 Introduction to Badass Bites

01:24 Reflecting on Exhaustion and Overwork

02:56 Navigating Uncertainty and Rest

04:25 Embracing Rest and Self-Care

05:12 Understanding the Need for Rest

06:37 Reprogramming the Busy Mindset

08:48 The Ongoing Journey of Healing

09:50 Conclusion and Invitation to Connect

Transcript

Speaker: 0:04

Hello, my little bad asses. Caressa Dunphy, registered dietitan and host of the podcast, badass, thriving, and end of season one. I said I was taking some time to rest and realign, and so I'm gonna call these little mini segments the Badass Bites because I am not. Fully coming back to recording big podcasts right now, but I'm doing some work around rest and resetting and realigning and I thought, you know what? I'm on my little walk this morning. I've got some thoughts that I'd love to share with you guys and just keep it kinda. Lowkey casual. We're having our little morning walk together and just chatting like friends do. So in this interim, in between season one and season two, which I haven't designed yet, I haven't created yet, I haven't even strategized any of that content yet. I'm just gonna take you along with me on my little rest and reset journey and realignment. So here's where my head's at. The season one episode was last week, so this is the very next Friday, I am walking instead and not strategizing like I said. So here's my thoughts. Here's where I'm at. I am so fucking exhausted that even a nine and a half hour sleep that I had last night. It just didn't even cut it, and that's been pretty true this whole week of the exhaustion of just realizing how hard I have pushed myself that I feel like I'm on the edge of getting a cold. I'm on the edge of getting my period. I don't know, but it's that kind of like my body is so drained and it just makes sense that because I have been working towards my credentials and my master's education and all of that hard for the last 13 years is the goal I set for myself. 21 years ago at 17, I went into the military for education benefits, and this is the first time I have paused that I have actually come up for air. And not just, you know, taking a couple weeks off or a couple months off or anything like that, but actually, I don't know what's next for me. And this morning I was doing my meditation and something just hit me a little bit differently than an awareness I had of. This time is usually when I'm starting my next term. This is normally when I'm starting my next load of classes, and so I was like, I'm not going to school for the first time in 13 years. This feels weird. But then this morning, the realization I. This week I should have been starting my PhD. And the grief that hit me was just astounding because I was accepted into a PhD program. But because of our current economy and the lack of federal funding, that's also impacting research. It's also impacting any incoming doctoral students for a lot of sciences because. Those are usually budget items within research grants and proposals are doctoral students funding. And so it's just this really odd time where I'm also just like, wow, I am not going to school. I'm not starting a, my next thing, and I have applications out for some dietitan positions, but I haven't heard back yet. And so it's just this really hard time of I don't know what I'm doing with my free time, I'm resting and resetting in a way where I'm like really protecting my time. And what I want to go and do right now, so I'm walking for my exercises, I'm doing gentle movements like yoga or some core work, but like I am not even lifting weights right now. Like for me, that just sounds. So much effort because again, I'm so drained and I'm in this weird little pocket of time that I'm like, you know what? What feels good to me? What feels like joy? What feels like a whole body? Yes. That's how I'm filtering things right now. Still got kids stuff. I gotta get my kids out to go and do their things. But in my free time right now, I'm organizing my house. I'm going through my closets and I'm just purging stuff. And I'm like, why do I have this, you know? And I'm just binge listening Harry Potter audio books. 'cause like my brain can't even take on anything deep and brainy right now. You know? I am, you know, connecting with some beautiful folks about podcasting what feels like play? What feels like things that feel nurturing to me? What is the ways that I can rest and rejuvenate while also staying aligned to whatever. Creative projects I still want to achieve, and it's just been weird as somebody who does know me personally, anybody who knows me on a personal level knows that I don't do well with sitting still for very long. And that was another epiphany I had earlier this week during meditation was that being busy is a trauma response. And I have been busy my whole fricking life because being told at a young age, being made to feel like I was not wanted, that I was not enough, and that I was always too much and I. Became a people pleaser and doing the little things, the busyness, the stuff that I thought would earn people's approval. And so for the first time in my life, I am trying my hardest to not be busy. I don't have. A whole syllabus and assignments that I have to get done. I don't have a bunch of crap that I need to go accomplish for right now. I really get to focus on what I say yes to. I really get to focus on what feels nurturing and wholesome, and it's just so interesting to me when I realized that my nervous system. Has, I've programmed it essentially to have to be busy and to now I have to take some deep breaths and some reprogramming and reset feels. Much needed, first of all, but also just feels really odd. And so I have to do work around being able to rest, and that looks like taking a lot more deep, meaningful breaths, a lot more meditation on what it means to feel rested, but also to tell myself. It is okay to rest. I am worthy of rest. I am worthy of being safe and rested. And so literally it feels like you are safe to rest. You are safe to be right. I don't need to do. I just need to be, oftentimes I'm doing some deep breaths and I'm oftentimes saying, I am safe. I am safe. I am safe. And so that has been an interesting journey as well, to. Explore anything with curiosity that comes up for me of why do I feel like this? So in taking away the judgment and the shame component of why aren't you doing these things, you know, but it's like the things, like I've been ingrained in me since a small child of, if I wasn't being busy when the biologics were around, then I. I wasn't doing the thing I needed to do to earn love and approval, and I catch myself doing that oftentimes, and it's like, no, I'm allowed to just sit and be. I don't need to go and do all the time if I feel like having a goddamn nap, I'm gonna go take a goddamn nap. Like if I need to go out for a walk, then I need to go out for a walk. If I need to say, you know, I'm protecting my energy and putting up some boundaries right now so that I can do that, like I'm going to hold those boundaries. Very clear and very kind. Right, and it's just one of those really interesting shifts that is happening for me on a personal level of you never actually finish doing all of your work, right? The actual internal work is what I'm referencing here of I can be healed. And I can talk about the shit that happened in my past, and there's gonna be stuff that comes up once in a while, and to recognize it and to hold it and to look at it with some curiosity and love and let it go, you know? And you have to keep. Working on that. It's not just, oh, I'm, I'm over it. You are never actually over it. And if people ever tell you that they are, they're probably not being honest with themselves. And I thought it was a one and done thing, like, I'm over it, I'm healed, I'm good. No far from it. And so I just invite you. Along on this rest and recharge and rejuvenate journey that I am working through myself, you know, we're humans. We're never completely done until the day we're done. And I just wanna be authentic and genuine and take you all along on the journey because. This is where I'm at. Like I'm not just hiding, I'm resting and I am feeling all sorts of ways. So I hope that that helped you in some way. Um, but again, I'm just gonna share these as. Things come up, in the interim between now and season two, and I hope that if anything resonated with you, you take it and you can hopefully apply it in some way to your life. I also love to just hear from you guys, so feel free to reach out. And please like and share and comment this podcast so that it can go out to other folks who also need to hear that they are also bad asses and that they are so amazing and that they can go out and thrive. All right, all my love you little bad asses. Go out there and make it a good one.