E36: Self-Care That’s Not Selfish

Most women don’t ignore their needs on purpose.
They’ve just learned to tolerate putting themselves last… and call it normal.

In this episode, we’re breaking down what self-care actually looks like in midlife and why it has nothing to do with being selfish.

You’ll learn:

•  Why your energy feels off (even when life looks “fine”) 
•  The patterns that quietly drain your body over time 
•  What balanced care actually looks like (without extremes) 
•  How to stop neglecting yourself without guilt 

This is your reminder:

You don’t need more discipline.
You need to stop tolerating a version of your life that’s draining you.

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Most women can restore their energy when they see the patterns that are draining them. If you're ready to see changes, download the Energy Pattern Audit and get your capacity back.

Transcript

Neglecting your needs isn't responsibility

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I am going to take a guess that you have been taught to neglect your needs and call it responsibility. But it's costing you your energy, your health, sometimes your identity. Most women don't neglect their health on purpose. They do it in small ways every day, and they call it responsibility. And over time, that becomes exhaustion, weight gain, and feeling disconnected with your own life. Today I'm breaking down what self-care actually looks like in midlife, and you won't even have to feel guilty. Welcome to Unmute Your Midlife. I'm Joyce, a nurse-turned midlife strategist. This is where midlife gets explained and standards get raised. Think of every episode like your strategic briefing. You'll leave knowing exactly what to observe, what to adjust, and what to implement next. Midlife is not a decline. It's a leadership test. So let's begin. So if a perfect stranger looked at my social media, she might think I was just obsessed with aging and fitness. I'm actually not. It's not something I obsess over because it's just part of my daily routine. It's a habit. Although some mornings, when that alarm goes off at 4:50 a.m., it's less of a habit and more of a choice. But there's many sides to my life, my priorities and my daily routine. But on social media, I tend to only share about the things that I'm helping other women navigate. That aside, I see so many women tolerating a version of their life that leaves them running on empty or sets them up for failure in their future. If you feel guilty, spending time on your health and wellness, or even on your appearance, I want you to leave that guilt behind today. Because every woman, I think, needs to put a healthy balanced amount of attention on her body. And I'll explain exactly what I mean today in detail. I'll even contrast some examples of what balanced versus unbalanced looks like. So don't hit fast forward yet or you'll miss it. From what I've seen as a nurse, I will say with great confidence that it's so much easier to maintain health now than to try and fix it or regain it later. Yes, terrible illnesses and diseases do strike people through no fault of their own. And if that's you, please do not feel any condemnation from me today. I'm a caregiver. I see no value in blaming someone for their healthcare needs. My dad would always say an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. And he wasn't wrong. I also believe that the body is a gift from God, and the degree that I'm willing to take care of my body is the degree to which I honor the one who gave it to me. I have one life and one body, and I want to honor God with both of them. Plus, I love my family, and taking care of my health now shows them that I'm doing what I can to be fully present with them now and later, and to try not to be a burden to them later. Again, no condemnation if you're in a phase of life where you have a lot of needs. So I was deep in thought this week about my grandmother. She died about five years ago. I loved her dearly. She had heart and lung failure. She lived to the ripe old age of 85. But in her 40s, when she went through menopause, she was told she couldn't have hormone therapy because there was this risk of breast cancer. Of course, now we know that that research that they were basing that advice on was faulty. But as a result of losing all of her estrogen and not getting any kind of replacement, she lost the protective benefits of estrogen. So she developed heart disease. She developed insulin resistance, which later turned into type 2 diabetes. We didn't know the name of it back then, but she obviously had musculoskeletal syndrome of menopause because she had disc degeneration, severe osteoporosis, and she ended up having multiple joint surgeries, back surgeries, fusions. But I will say my grandmother was very vigilant with her diabetes care. She followed her diet, usually. She she loved going to curves for her workouts. I don't know if anyone from the 90s remembers that fitness club. She checked her blood sugar every day. She got her A1C into the ideal range and kept it there. She never said, oh well, this is just my life. I'll just sit back and wait for them to invent a pill to cure me. She was an active participant in maintaining her health and maintaining her longevity as well as she could with what she had. And because of that, she was able to keep her independence until she died. She was still getting around, driving a car, going to the grocery store until she became bedbound about 10 days before she died. Now she fatigued a lot easier in those later years. She had to have some help with the housework. She used her walker if she knew she was going to be out running errands. Personally, I'm very encouraged that she was mentally alert and strong until the very end. Because, you know, that means there's a chance for me. But reflecting back, I remember how she would always feel guilty about the idea that she might be a burden someday, that one of us or my grandpa would have to help her go to the bathroom or help her with a bed bath. She felt bad that her medications cost a lot of money. They could afford it. Between insurance and their pensions and their retirements and their Medicare, it wasn't a problem, the cost of the medications. And my grandpa loved her to the moon and back. He was willing to pay whatever it took so that she could feel good, so that she could feel healthy, that she could take a full breath. Why do we do that? As women, why do we think our needs don't matter? Why do we think that we aren't worth the price of an inhaler that helps us breathe better? But that's the trend I see with women, that we tend to be self-sacrificing, that we want to put everyone else's needs ahead of ours. And I know that in midlife, there's a tendency sometimes to use that also as an excuse to not do the hard work of taking care of ourselves because it's not easy getting up at five in the morning to go work out. It's not really fun to spend one of your days off planning the menu for the week and going to the grocery store and then coming back and cooking to meal prep when you could easily just go order some food off a pole and bring it home and eat it. But that's not healthy food. That's not food that's gonna serve me well in my later years. I also see sometimes we use putting everyone else first as a way to be almost invisible, to blend into the background so that no one notices how much we are struggling with the challenges of menopause. Anybody relate to that? Anybody see that in their friends and loved ones? Because I do. But hear me now. Your body has worth regardless of how attractive it is or how well it is functioning. You have worth at every phase of your life. You don't have to earn it, it's already there. You and your body are not separate entities. You are united. And both you and your body have dignity. Honoring your body and the gift that it is, it might look like giving it the proper fuel in, you know, what we eat and drink, giving it proper rest by getting enough sleep, by taking some downtime when you start to feel yourself getting run down, giving it the proper movement, whether that's just walking each day or going to lift weights at the gym or doing some body weight exercises at home, you're giving it the care that it needs to thrive. That's what balance looks like. You start to tip out of balance. When you hyperfocus on the superficial aspects, like every time you look at your body, you catch a reflection in the mirror or a storefront window, you start to immediately think about what needs to be fixed. That's not balance. You spend money that you don't really have to get procedures or enhancements that make you look like some vision of perfection you have in your head. That's not balance. You can tip to the other extreme when you ignore the needs of your body. So you start to avoid work and you become slovenly. You don't exercise, you don't walk, you don't move your body any more than you absolutely have to. You don't prioritize sleep, you don't allow yourself to have any downtime. That's not balance. You skip meals entirely. Or you try to get through the day on just caffeine and junk food, thinking that you'll take care of things properly later, when you have more time, when you have more energy. That's not balance. And later sometimes doesn't come. So our goal shouldn't be one extreme or the other. The goal is balance. It's implementing the things that we need to do today so that we can maintain our health for many years in the future. That is self-care that's not selfish. So to accomplish that, you don't need more discipline. You need to stop tolerating this version of your life that is draining you. Stop tolerating exhaustion, stop tolerating being last, stop tolerating feeling off, and stop tolerating this idea that you aren't valuable. If you go back to episode 33, I talked about how to stop overexplaining without losing your relationships. We're not trying to become selfish and self-centered. We're trying to do the right thing by ourselves, by the ones we love. And it's okay if we're always a work in progress. If today's episode hit you and you're realizing that you've been running on empty, I created something that shows you exactly where your energy is leaking in your day-to-day life. Call the Energy Pattern Audit. I'll leave a link in the show notes. And if you're hungry for more midlife empowerment, check out the video linked above. And I'll be back here next Monday with a brand new episode. So be sure to subscribe so that you don't miss it. Now, if this episode raised your standard, good. Go implement it. If you're ready for structured implementation, Unmute Your Midlife is where we do this kind of work. You can schedule a free unmute session put it by the best plan for you. And while you're here, click on whichever link the video pops up for more awesomeness. But I'll be back with more new stuff next week. Thanks for listening.