The False Start: Why Starting Self-Care Is Harder Than It Looks

Most of us have had the experience of really wanting to take better care of ourselves, and then watching it not quite take flight. We can think of this as a False Start. But what if the problem is about the set-up and what can be overlooked?

Come explore why starting is harder than it looks. Through two client stories and an honest look at what getting started actually requires, you'll come away with a different understanding of what a False Start is telling you.

Plus: a free guide to help you build the foundation before you begin.

What you'll learn:

• Why false starts are not a sign of failure, and what they're actually telling you
• The internal forces that make starting harder than it looks
• How understanding the complexity of starting can change everything about how you begin

📚 Resources Mentioned:

• The No False Starts Guide and In Your Hands Newsletter — sign-up here.

🔗 Full episode transcript

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💬 Email: quai[@]discoverspace.me

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Welcome in from Out of the Rain. I'm Quai and this is In Your Hand. Herbal Self-Care for Emotional Bodies, a podcast about the complexities of building your own wellness blueprint. I'm a psychotherapist and herbalist who brings the critical lens to the systems that both help and harm. I'll hold that tension with you as we explore plant remedies, trauma work, nervous system support, and building self-care foundations. And now for that awkward disclaimer I've gotta give you, this show is for educational purposes only and is not a replacement for therapy or personalized herbal care. The herbal remedies and practices discussed are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Please consult your healthcare provider for medical advice. Now let's begin. I cannot tell you how many times I've been in the flow of something that's like good for taking care of myself, whether that is moving my body in the way that feels right or avoiding foods that don't feel good for me. As I'm doing these things, I'm like, this is so great. I'm gonna be doing this forevermore. I'm gonna stick with it. And then something happens and you know I fall out of it. It always reminds me when that happens, when I'm trying to get back to it, that starting is really hard. Starting anything or reigniting anything where we have to do something to take care of ourselves is hard. It's it's more complicated than it often sounds. I see this in my work too, sitting with people around very specific pieces of self-care that they want to start. It's it can seem like, okay, I'm gonna take on this thing and I'm just gonna do it. But then when you go to do it, it's not that easy. I've also been having conversations with different people who are listening to the podcast and giving me some feedback. And this is one of the things that I'm hearing is that like getting started with this stuff is not easy. Let's get into the why of that right now.

SPEAKER_01 2:08

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 2:11

There are things happening internally when you try to start. Competing voices, real concerns, parts of you that have good reasons for hesitating that we often overlook. And then there are external realities that might be structural, but also might just be practicalities about things that are gonna make certain aspects of starting either challenging or maybe easier if they're configured in certain ways. And we often don't think about that. And until you actually look at those things, honestly, you're setting yourself up from the start for a shaky foundation. Beginnings matter. Beginnings are where we can actually build a foundation. Otherwise, we have false starts when we're trying to initiate something. Sometimes we can see them as bloopers. Part of being human. But sometimes they feel like failure, like discouragement, like evidence of something wrong with us. But what if there is another way to understand them? It's not laziness, it's not a lack of discipline. It's something that is more specific than that that tends to get in the way, and a lot of times this is overlooked. What if we understand them as human and as information? The false start tells us we need something more. So, with this in mind and with permission from a few clients, it makes me think about people I've worked with in my herbalism practice. And I want to tell you more about what this looks like when we don't have that something more. I want to start off with thinking about a few folks that I worked with who were trying to quit smoking. And I think about that example because it brings up something important that I think a lot of us can relate to, which is that there can be a sense of urgency in this case. It has been about health. And we can mistake our sense of urgency for our readiness. And not to say that we shouldn't move on something when it is really important to move on it, but there's still something to build in there. That urgency kind of fills us with this sense of like, I am definitely gonna do this. This is so important. And sometimes that is uh enough to push somebody into something. And oftentimes it doesn't work. Something gets skipped over. There's a foundation that needs to be built. And what I've noticed is that I work with someone, they talk about doing that, and then we have our next time that we're gonna meet. And it's like, oh, I like I tried, I like, you know, went through this half day where I didn't, and I didn't have my morning cigarette. And then I just, you know, by the end of that day, I did, and there's such shame. Um and I am thinking about somebody in particular, and I asked them a lot of questions about their relationship to smoking, and so many more things came to light about this. And we really needed to go through a process of um building some more foundation. I also think about another person I worked with who wanted to become more present in her life, and she was listening to a lot of podcasts, and I I've actually worked with a number of people, and I'm I'm laughing because I realize I'm recording a podcast and just how many people this is true for. Um, so, but with this particular person, she had a job where she had to be at three different places, oftentimes in the same day. So there was a lot of commuting that was happening. Um, and she also was doing some office work that was really quiet and isolated. And so there were these big chunks of time in her day where she was listening to podcasts and she recognized, like, I'm I'm listening to podcasts in a way that I'm like not even like if you ask me what happened from when I left one place and got to the next, like I'm so dazed because I'm not paying attention to any of that. And she wanted to have a different relationship to how she was moving through her days. So the first thing that she did was take off all of the apps from her phone. And I guess we could look at that as she was trying to make this change happen um or start a more presence, you know, a practice of more presence in her life through deprivation. And it worked for two weeks approximately. And I was able to talk to her about that in between, and she was so excited. She was like, I see like all these things that I've been missing, and it it felt really good to her. And then the podcast just crept back in, not in the same way, but it wasn't the presence that she was looking for. That started to slip away, and other things came in that were taking her out and replacing that. So I worked with her around looking at what exactly the change was that she was trying to make and exactly what it was she wanted to start because the first one was what we often have, which is a false start. We don't always know when a false start is happening because it can feel good and it can feel real. Sometimes in these false starts, there's learning that we can use and apply to the next time that we might try something, or maybe we need to make an adjustment in the thing that we're trying to bring into our life. But what I want you to know is that for a lot of people, and this person included, once there was more process around the start and building of a foundation, it changed things and it moved from a place of false start into something that was actually actionable and feasible. Most people have not given what it means to start something enough credit for how much complexity is actually in that. It's often treated like it's a decision, like I've decided to do this thing, so now I will do it. But starting is its own process with its own requirements. Those requirements are gonna feel different for what is specific to the thing that you're wanting to start, and also whatever's specific to you. So it really needs to be tailored to you and the particular circumstances that you find yourself in. So I think that this is something that matters all the time because oftentimes things are um changing in our lives, and we have to start things that are different than things that we've started in the past. So it's constantly evolving. And in this particular moment in time, there's a certain load on our systems. What's happening in the world right now, in terms of violence, people becoming less safe, urgent moral demands on our attention and hearts, our nervous systems are responding, and many of us want to show up for those needs, which takes something too. In this time, it's like self-care becomes even more important and harder at the same time. And starting something new for yourself in the middle of all of that requires something more than just good intentions. So I've been thinking about this from multiple perspectives, from my own experience, from the work that I do, and from conversations generated by the podcast. And I made something for exactly this. What's that? I created a free guide and an audio experience for you. It's an immersive, active listening journey with music, pacing, and intentional pauses to let what you're hearing land. The audio experience is about 15 minutes. It'll take you a little bit longer because there's places where you can pause and work through some reflections. It's made in the same spirit as this podcast. It also comes with a guidebook, and this isn't something you fill out after. You'll have it open while you listen. There's an audio guidance and this book holding what you're moving through visually and in writing. Images, space to reflect, space to write. The two work together so you're not just taking something in, you're working with it in real time, and it becomes yours as you go through it. What this guide does is take you into the reality of what starting actually involves, those specific things that tend to get in the way that most people have never had a chance to think about directly. And then it walks you through a self-evaluation so that by the end you have a clearer picture of what your specific situation actually calls for. Not a generic plan, but something tailored to where you're at and what you need. It's the thing that I wish existed when I kept finding myself back at the beginning. It distills some of the most powerful reflection work I walk people through when we work together. And it's not a replacement for that, but it's a taste of the kind of process that actually moves something. Think of this episode as the foundation and the guide as where you begin to build. So if you're trying to start something for yourself or this is resonating, this guide can support you. And I'm happy for you to check it out. You can get it just by signing up for my newsletter at personalcareblueprints.me backslash free offerings. That's personal care blueprints.me backslash free offerings. The newsletter is called In Your Hands, just like this podcast, but different. It comes out once a month and it's more intimate, more personal. Each edition has a short piece of writing, a glimpse into something from my daily life or practice, and the kind of small specific thing that connects to a bigger question about how we actually care for ourselves. Sometimes an herbal recipe, sometimes a resource that doesn't make it into the podcast. I hear back regularly that something in the writing shifted how someone was thinking about something. That's what I go for. If that sounds like something you want in your inbox, you can sign up. The link is in the show notes, and you'll immediately get the guide when you do that. Okay, let's bring this all together. Most of us have had this experience of wanting to do something to take better care of ourselves. And then it not exactly taking flight. I call that a false start. We oftentimes chalk this up to laziness or just being bad at follow-through, but that's not usually what's happening. Starting is its own process. It has its own requirements, and most people have never had the chance to look at those requirements directly. You know what's happening internally, the external realities, and what foundation actually needs to be in place in order for something to take hold. The start that didn't actually happen because it was a false start. We jumped in before laying the foundation. These false starts are akin to going to the grocery store before you have your ingredient list and wanting that meal to just happen. If you're not sure you have time or you're worried this becomes another thing, you start and don't finish. I hear that. The guide is 15 minutes of audio designed to be sat with when you're ready, and it's not asking you to commit to anything, just to understand something first. The foundation comes first, and now you have somewhere to start building. No false starts. Alright, I hope this leaves you in a better place. If this episode was useful, please share it with someone who might benefit. That's how the show grows and reaches people who need it. You can also subscribe to my newsletter for monthly insights on herbal self-care and building your wellness blueprint. The links in the show notes. If today's episode sparked a question or perspective you'd like to share, reach out, especially if you're speaking from lived experience or you're a practitioner working with similar themes. Take care, however, that looks for you today, and I leave you with birds I recorded on my city block to wherever you are.