Why Prioritising Yourself Isn't Selfish

The Podcast Episode I talked about (shorter version):

https://open.spotify.com/episode/2ME75Q1LePPzjqhbXWzUkB?si=eff9d7a77a9b4253

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello. Today I'm going to be talking about the ripple effect of focusing on yourself and focusing on your health and fitness in particular. And I think this links kind of hand in hand with the topic of mum guilt. Um I was going to do a podcast all about just mum guilt, but do you know what I see it showing up in people that okay, maybe they're not, maybe they are mums. Like I can think of one person who's a mum, but they are later in in their parenting journey with adult kids and then also looking after um their aging parents as well. And I see it in people who are single, um, just you know don't have a family yet, um, but I think a lot if if if you are wired in this way, um if this is just kind of how your default programming is set up in your brain, you might experience these feelings of guilt for taking care of yourself. I know I used to feel it when I was a coach. Um, even when I, you know, I didn't have kids. Um, so I think I I want to speak to all of it, but I will be using a parenting lens because I think it illustrates it really beautifully. And um, and I know again most of my clients are mums, but there's there's a couple that aren't, and I just I think it's a relevant topic for all of us. So the first thing that I think is well, the first thing is counselling and therapy is a thing, and that's where I had to go to uh to unpack some of the reasons why I was never putting myself first. And so I'm just putting that out there, like I'm not saying I'm gonna fix your entire uh uncomfiness, if you like, about taking time to take care of yourself in this podcast. But alongside that, I think there was a couple of really sort of practical visual examples that really helped me to shift these this narrative. So the first example that really helped me, and this was something that I picked up from a podcast which was about Mum Guilt, and it was on the Motherkind podcast, which is a really cool podcast. Um, and I will link that in the description. I'll try and link the particular episode. Um I'm just gonna write a note now so I don't forget. Um because I I edit my I don't really edit. I I record and upload my own podcasts because I'm a one-woman band. So I'm just gonna be honest and say I wrote a note on my notes so I don't forget because otherwise I'll be like, I'll do that, and then you'll look in the description, there'll be nothing there. So one of the guests was talking about how she had been running around trying to be the perfect mum, thinking that if she did everything for her kids, her kids would grow up to take care of themselves because she's always she'd always taken care of them. And there was an experience in her life where she actually realized, no, they are copying what I do, and that's how they'll treat themselves. So her main discovery was your kids will not treat themselves how you treat them, they will treat themselves how you treat you. And I just want to like quickly jump in there first, because I think sometimes we can go, oh my god, that needs means I need to be perfect, that's so much pressure. How am I ever going to, oh, so that means I had a bad day, so that means they're gonna look at me and just no. If anything, it's the opposite, right? If anything, I mean there's so many layers that I could jump off with this, but I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna chip them away like bullet points, chip them away, because I think this is such a this this lens, this like putting on these glasses and looking through these lenses at this kind of feeling I was having, which just made all the difference to me. So we all have uh if we look at the way that we were brought up, let's say you come from a family who didn't exercise, you didn't know about healthy food, you didn't have access to you know, weights, you didn't really go, you didn't have access to a park, you didn't run around, your parents, for whatever reason, weren't into it, weren't able to do it, didn't know about it, didn't have time, didn't have money, I don't know, whatever reason it is. If you are someone who now exercises, even a little bit, even you go for a walk once a week, you go for a walk with your kids, you teach your kids about why vegetables are good for us. You've already broken a cycle and you've already taught them something that like that wasn't gonna be their default. You have already done such a positive action for them, even in the tiniest, tiniest way, so you probably don't even think about. Because I think as our generations progress, like it's just natural that you know, in the like I don't exactly know what decade, but let's say like in the 50s, people thought smoking was good for you. We now know it's not, but we probably take that for granted, right? Like we probably take for granted that the things that we know now are not the things that were always the case. Like it's quite it takes a lot of effort to make these new habits in your life. Like if you, like I said, if you're someone who's who didn't come from a family who exercise, but you actually exercise and your kids see you exercise or they know that you exercise, you've already done so much to shape their health and their life in the future. And I think that's really cool. I think it's just this thing where every single positive action, like every single action that you take, is so much more positive than you can even know. And I actually think that kind of takes the pressure off in a way, because you don't have to be perfect, you just have to do what you're doing anyway, and know that when you take half hour to do your at-home workout, or you come to one of my sessions and bring your kids, you're not taking away from their childhood, you're not taking away from their fun, you are adding to their life, you are adding to their understanding of what it means to take care of your body, and they're gonna see it, and they may not take any notice. But what I've noticed with a lot of my clients, and definitely with my family, is when I start to train, it's not long until my daughter it well, it wasn't long until my daughter wanted to do the same. She wanted to pick up the weights, she wanted to copy what I was doing. If I'm doing lunges, she's gonna try and copy me now. And she's not even two yet, so I didn't have to pressure her, I didn't have to force her, I didn't have to do anything. She just was curious, and it's not like I'm saying, right, we need to work out, right, get down, do 10 reps. No, no, no, no. She's just seeing it, and it's just lodging as a lodging in her brain as a normal thing that we do. I have seen it with nearly every client, I've seen it with nearly every client that they just do their thing, and the kids, by osmosis, they kind of just absorb this idea that taking care of your body and lifting weights and going for walks is just something that you do. And the kids aren't thinking, oh god, like, oh you know, I wish that mum didn't do this and she may okay, maybe they're like, Oh, I want to I want to play the games, and you're like, No, I need to work out. I I get that there can be that point of friction sometime, but I also think we put so much pressure on ourselves to not doing anything for ourselves, thinking that if we're just perfect, then and perfect meaning self-sacrificing, kind of like a martyr, kind of that's definitely what I can go into if I'm not careful anyway. Like, kind of just like, don't worry about me, I'll just, you know, survive on scraps because I'm doing everything for you. But I I'm not sure if our kids see it that way. I'm not sure if they feel that it's a negative if we take time for ourselves. I think actually, as they grow up, they start to engage in that lifestyle and they want to join in and they do see it as a positive. So the other thing I've got a note here just written is like my daughter didn't start copying my lunges. She doesn't currently do lunges, but she tries to do like little squats, and it's very cute, and she tries to lift these like one kilo weights, and she actually can, which is cool. She didn't copy me because I trained for five times a week for 60 minutes. She saw it once and she saw it again. Like it doesn't take much to start changing or inspiring changes in the people around you. So I think with mums, we get a lot of like I just feel so bad for taking time to myself. That means that I'm a bad mum, I should be doing everything for my kids. And I think there's a thing I just outlined of like, actually, it's good for them in the future, and it's good for them to see this. I think there's the other side of it where I know I get really grumpy if I don't take time for myself. So I remember when I started playing football again when she was little and I felt so bad because um I was like, oh, I can't leave her, you know, she's too young, and I just gotta be with her every single minute. Didn't help but I saw some kind of some kind of podcast influencer woman being like, if you're away from your kids for this amount of time, then you're like they're gonna not have a secure attachment, and that freaks me right out. I can say I'm pretty sure that's not the case because I haven't seen anyone who's put their kid in nursery who you know and mine in nursery now. I haven't seen anyone who's put their kid in nursery or gone for a run and their kids like not got a secure attachment. Like, if anything, nothing changed. They have the same amazing bond that they always had, and the kids, you know, really enjoy nursery, or they really enjoy time with the other parent or the grandparents when you're out for a run, you know. Um not the centre of her universe as much as I feel like I should be. Um so uh where am I at? I completely lost what I was saying. That's right. So taking care of yourself is it's also kind to the people around you because you have more capacity to show up for them. Um, and I know that like a lot of the time we've got to fight for that time, haven't we? We've got to like carve out that time and defend it with our lives to be able to go if it if it involves childcare. And even if it doesn't, I remember like doing workouts and having to like breastfeed halfway through, or you know, even if you're bottle feeding, you know, having to feed them halfway through and then having to change a nappy, and you're like, God, this is taking me so long. But that 10 minutes that you get done, that that time that you're investing in yourself, it means that your core might be strong enough to throw them up in the air without leaking, and then you don't want to, you know, if you're in pain, you're not gonna want to do those things with them. Um if you do manage to get some time to relax and do your breathing exercises, then it means that you are more put together when it comes to them having a meltdown or a tantrum. So I think that part of it is more understood, but I think it's the part of the like the physical time away, which or the physical time when you're not directly engaging with them that I struggled with more. So then if we think about like the ripple effect to people that aren't your children, um I think it's just sometimes like we're so if you have caring responsibilities, you can feel like it's so hard to take time away from that because you feel like you owe that person everything. And seeing someone else who prioritizes themselves, and you know, and still is you know, it doesn't take away from the fact that you're a caring person or you've got like caring responsibilities or anything like that, but seeing that it can be done and that the whole world doesn't shatter around you can be really it can give a lot of confidence, I think. Like I think just knowing that you can do it and it will be okay. Sometimes you've got to see it to believe it. Um, and then if you do it and you believe it, that's like a whole nother thing where you're like, Oh, I was really, really worried that this wasn't gonna go well, but I actually did it and it's fine. Like, I can be a bit like that with resting, like I'll be like really needing like some like you know, a nap or something, and I'll be like, Oh, I'm going for a nap. My husband would be like, Yeah, cool, I like that's fine. I said you should go for a nap anyway, like two hours ago. And I'm like, Yeah, okay, well, I am going for one, okay, cool. So that bye, and then I come back and I'm like, Literally, everything's fine, like everything is actually fine. Um I know that's not everybody's experience, like I know sometimes people get grief for like taking time for themselves, and I think that's a whole different issue. But I think if you're in a dynamic where you do have access to the rest or the taking care of yourself, and it just is you that's blocking it. I think that's kind of where I'm more getting at. Um, and at the same time, like, you know, if you go to a baby class and you're thinking, I know a lot of the the hesitation with coming to my classes is like, what if the baby cries or you know, and it's like, yeah, what if they do? I I went for I actually went for a run, uh joined the running club when I first went. I don't take my daughter with me anymore, generally, but when I first went, I went with the buggy, and I was like, Oh, you know, I'm just I was running further away from the group because she was crying, and I said, Oh, no, no, everyone tr probably tries to get away from their kids, and I've got a screaming baby. And one of the women just turned to me and went, babies cry, they do. And I was like, You don't know how much I needed to hear that. Like, I really just needed to hear someone go, Yeah, they do. And going back to the football example, when I went out and played football, and it was like the first time that I'd left my daughter for you know to two hours in the evening. It was bedtime, and I knew she was crying, and I felt really guilty. And I was like, you know, finish at eight o'clock, and if it went to 8.01, I'd be like, right, I'm gonna go home now. And then I found out that a lot of them were mums, and I don't know why I didn't think that already, but they were like, Yeah, I've got three kids at home, and it was just the validation of them just making it not a big deal, like the validation of them just being like, Yeah, I play football twice a week, of course I do, and it was just like oh, cool, like just like it can be such a big deal, and for me it was such a big deal, but seeing some people that are so casual about it just released a lot of pressure for me as well. Like it just released, and and then you know, like for example, being friends with them on Facebook and just seeing like oh, they do the kids, they coach their kids' football teams, and they're doing this, they're making birthday cakes, and then they still have time to go out and and play football. And like, I don't know for a from an from an overthinker, that is quite refreshing to see, anyway. So I'm I'm curious about like your experience, I'm curious about how you got to where you are. Like, I think some people for me anyway, it's it's like feels like a patchwork of trying to get my brain on board with taking time for myself, and I think for some people they just have no issue with it whatsoever, and I really think that's cool. Like, I think how cool would it be if and I do learn from clients sometimes, they're just like, Why would I feel bad about being here? And I'm just like, good, like there's even stuff that I can learn from them and from you. Like, I I think we're all different, and I think we we had uh I did this um mini retreat with a bunch of mums, and and the conversation turned to mum guilt, and I think it was really just healing in a way to hear everybody's different perspectives and just to hear like some people struggle with one thing and some people struggle with another thing, and some people don't struggle with that at all, and some people do, and everybody's so different, and like in a way, finding these frameworks to unravel what the thing is so that you feel like you can take care of yourself and do it confidently and know that even when I used to be in the gym coaching a client, there would be people that would come up to me and go, Oh, I was really nervous to work out, but I saw you training them and they kind of look like me, or they you know, it's silly things like they kind of dress a bit like me, or they oh I I know them from like a group I already go to, or like even um I thought the gym was only for really fit people, but I don't consider myself fit, and I saw someone else who you were training, and they have a really similar body shape to me, and they're killing it, and they look like they're having so much fun, and they they're obviously a beginner, and I can tell they're a beginner because they're a bit more cautious with the stuff, but they're doing it, that makes me feel like I can do it too. And I think that ripple effect is so powerful where you don't even know who's watching, like you don't know, your kids are watching, probably, but like you're you you don't even know who's watching. It could be your neighbor or someone that goes, Oh, you're really good at going out for walks, and you're like, Yeah, yeah, I guess I am, yeah. And they go, Oh like maybe I could come with you one day. Like, I just think as humans, we like to have evidence of like someone else who is like us who's doing it, whether that is someone who looks like you, someone who has the same job as you, someone who I don't know, lives near you. Um I think if we can be someone that shows up and does the thing and welcomes other people to it, we'll end up with a healthier world and a healthier community because we're giving people an uh what's it called, like a role model, kind of in a small way, it's a role model. And and I I don't have the evidence for this, but statistically I think, I mean who knows? I think when people see someone that is like near them in like uh relationship, so like if you see a random person on the internet doing something, you'll be like, that's cool, good for you, hopefully. Um, but if you see your friend doing something, they're so much closer to you that you're more likely to then do it yourself or be inspired by it. Or if you see, you know, someone who lives in the same town as you doing it, you go, oh, like there's some kind of relatability there, which I think works really well in our brains. So it's just sometimes about being the first, right? It's just sometimes about even if nobody around me is doing this, I'm gonna be the one. I'm gonna be the one to like take a step forward and do it, and and just noticing the ripple effect that you have on other people. It's not that you like you know, it's not that they have to do it, it's just like start with yourself, because that's really all you can do. And I think you'll be surprised by how many people are inspired by the actions that you're taking to take care of yourself. So I think that was a bit of a ramble. Um, I'm gonna honestly listen to it back and make sure it made sense. Um, but I would be so keen to hear about your thoughts on this. I I just I'm just intrigued, I guess, about learning about if people struggle with this, if they don't, if it's just a me thing, um, and kind of if you have any tips or anything for other people that are struggling to carve out the time for themselves or struggling with any kind of guilt around that. Thank you very much for listening, and I will see you on the next episode.