160.Merry and Mindful, Taking Time for Yourself During the Holiday Season. Holiday Self-Care Tips With Erica Diamond

Wrapping up the year with a bang! Our latest podcast episode features Erica Diamond. She is a certified life coach and yoga teacher, and she's talking to us about self-care during the holidays, during tumultuous times.

Erica Diamond is passionate advocate for women's self-care and mental well-being. Erica shared her personal journey from a young entrepreneur experiencing burnout to becoming a certified life coach, yoga, and meditation instructor. Her story is a testament to the importance of self-care and setting boundaries.

With the holiday season upon us, Erica offered advice on navigating family dynamics and the stress that often accompanies this time of year. She reiterated the significance of boundaries and self-care to manage potentially triggering situations.

What You’ll Learn From this Episode:

• Find out practical tips for incorporating self-care into your daily routine, such as walking, drinking water, and practicing breathing exercises.
• Learn about the ripple effect of self-care and how it can positively impact your relationships with others.
• Find out how to impart the value of self-care to your children and overcome challenges in teaching them.

"You take care of yourself, you take care of the world." - Erica Diamond

Topics Covered:

01:21 - Erica shares her journey of becoming an entrepreneur and experiencing burnout.

04:50 - The importance of mind-body connection and the role of yoga and meditation in her life.The conversation shifts to the guilt some people feel about practicing self-care during difficult times.

16:28 - Prioritize self-care and not wait for the "right time" to start.Practical tips for starting a self-care routine, including walking, drinking water, and practicing breathing exercises.

00:22:00 - List of 10 things to leave behind in 2023, including negativity, self-doubt, and judgmental attitudes.The importance of setting boundaries during the holidays and practicing empathy towards difficult family members.

28:22 - Erica emphasizes the ripple effect of self-care and how it positively impacts relationships and the world.The challenges of imparting self-care to children and the importance of being a role model.

37:17 - Erica reflects on her own upbringing and the impact it had on her self-care journey.

39:50 - Erica encourages listeners to reach out to her on Instagram and shares her handle.

Connect with Erica Diamond:

• Instagram: @ericadiamond
• Website: https://ericadiamond.com/ 

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Transcript

Adrienne Youdim:

Well, Erica, I am so thrilled to have you. You are going to be our last podcast of the year. So how appropriate.

Erica Diamond:

I'm so thrilled to be here with you, Adrianne. I have my coffee and I can't wait to chat today. So excited.

Adrienne Youdim:

Well, I would love if you could just start with how did you get into this space? Everyone has a story and I'm curious what brought you here.

Erica Diamond:

So it's so funny. It's, it's kind of like a full circle moment. So at 24 years old, I became an entrepreneur. I was living at home. Don't laugh. I'd saved up $5,000 working. I started this company out of my parents' basement. And after two years, so by the time I was 26, we were a profit hot 50 company. One of Canada's 50 emerging growth companies. I was the only female CEO on the list. I was top 30 under 30 entrepreneur. Our company was growing by the day and about two and a half years in, we were growing and I was slowly, quietly burning out. I was all consumed. I was newly married. I had no kids at this time. And I was just, I was not like in my body. I wasn't feeling proper. And I felt, I didn't know that the word was burnout. I didn't know what it was. And my mom is a therapist and she looked at me and she said, Erica, Something's up. You need to get help. Health and wellness have always been a part of my life. It was the way my mom raised me, and I'm so grateful. And so Sandra was a therapist at the gym that I used to work out with, and I loved her. And I said, Sandra, would you see me? I'm not feeling like myself. And she said, of course. And so when I went into therapy with Sandra, what she explained to me was, she said, Erica, you're the successful entrepreneur. And you love it. You love what you do. No one is telling you to stop what you're doing or throw water on your flame or dull your shine. Instead, you need to create boundaries and you need to complement this with a calming lifestyle. So basically trying to teach me that I didn't have to change who I was, I needed a toolbox. And so she suggested I tried yoga and meditation. And so 26 years old, Steve became my non-negotiable to myself as an entrepreneur. Steve came to my house twice a week and he taught me what happens when I step on a yoga mat and I breathe and I practiced present moment living. And so he helped me course correct with Sandra. And so therapy and yoga meditation literally changed my life. And so I continued to be this entrepreneur while always keeping these habits. I was always mentoring women in business along the way. Ended up selling the company. We got acquired seven years later. It was a beautiful experience. I stayed home and then started my second company. all that over time. And so I started mentoring women and then loved that and said, you know what, I really want to start coaching women. And then about six years ago, always kept doing yoga and meditation. And I said, you know what, I want to work, I want to marry working with people's minds and working with their bodies. And so I want to get certified for yoga and meditation. And so to be able to marry kind of the life coaching, the self care piece and, and the, you know, the physical, spiritual, So that is how I have been always mentoring women, coaching women, got certified in life coaching, yoga, meditation. And so that's where we're here. And I am obsessed with helping women prioritize their self-care so that they can avoid burnout, experience more calm, more joy, and less stress in their days. They can thrive. They can live in purpose and passion. And that's my mission. And so in a nutshell, it was pretty long. I don't know, but that's how I got here.

Adrienne Youdim:

I love it. And I love, we talk about mind body connection all the time on this podcast, trying to kind of put aside the myth or the notion that the mind and the body are separate, something that is so common in, you know, unfortunately, medical practice, but trying to bring that together. So I love that you bring it up. And I also, I also want to piggyback on this point that things were really good for you, right? And I think a lot of times when things are good for us, we don't recognize that need. And it kind of piggybacks towards something we were talking about before we started, which is there's so much going on in the world right now. There's so much heaviness and distress and sadness. And I think for people who are relatively doing well, right, there's this guilt or this feeling like, how can they engage in self-care? How can they talk about self-care? How can they even talk about their distress when their level of distress, of course, doesn't match those, you know, that are suffering even more. And so I would love for you to talk a little bit more about almost like the permission and the necessity

Erica Diamond:

um to do that right absolutely so even someone like me who is so strict and intentional with her boundaries i find myself daily being taken off course i am an empath i feel the world very deeply and i know that my audience does as well and so we're all feeling it no matter who you pray to, who you believe in, whatever, we, we are empaths, and nobody wants to be living in a time of war, like, let's call it what it is, it's a time of war. And so how do we go to Christmas parties or holiday parties, right, where there's music and dancing, when people are dying, like, how do we give ourselves? How do we detach? How do we stay present in our lives? So this is what I say, and I teach this in my in my course in my coaching program for women busy to bliss. Other people's pain, you know, sometimes we have this idea that it's like a competition, you think you have it bad? Well, I have this. Or, you know, we have this kind of one upmanship on our pain. And it's so destructive. The fact that what's happening in the Middle East, doesn't minimize what you are going through. And so you have your own life. Maybe you have marital strife. Maybe you have financial difficulties right now. Maybe you're struggling with a child. Maybe you have a sick parent. It doesn't minimize your own pain. So we are allowed to both, on a polarized scale, sit in our own pain, even though, God forbid, we don't have a threat of dying right now. So even though we don't have that imminent threat, we are allowed to sit in our own pain and own our pain. right so we're at the same time we're allowed to give ourselves permission for joy so both we are allowed both they are both a reality we are allowed to be empathetic and feel what's happening and we are allowed to live our lives i think it's really important that we compartmentalize what we're seeing because if not it can It's like these whispers, I always say, if your body could talk to you, what would it say to you? Right? And so we want to listen to the whispers and notice if we're starting to really feel this in a way that's not safe for us, or that's really not serving us. And so I'll say, how are you doing in the five pillars of well being? How are you sleeping right now? You may notice your sleep is affected. How are you eating right now, you may notice like you're reaching for sugar, you're eating like shit, shall I say for let's say, right? Eating Howard. So the five pillars are how we're eating, how we're sleeping, how we're moving. If you're not sleeping well, you may be too tired to move your body. So you're not exercising. It's like what I'm living with my kids right now during exam time. It's like instead of taking care of themselves, I'm trying to teach them to take care of themselves. They're going the other way because they're stressed. So they want to study and then they don't exercise and that becomes so pay attention. How are you eating, sleeping, moving, managing stress, you may feel that you're not pulling on your Breath work, breathing, meditation, mindfulness, you know, all ways to calm stress. And the last thing is connecting socially. So pay attention to are you isolating, are you not making time for friends, going for a walk with a girlfriend. It's important to listen. It's important to check in with ourselves because the world is really heavy, but I would love as a certified life coach to give you permission to own joy when it presents itself and to not minimize what you're going through or gaslight yourself into saying, well, what I have is, is nothing in comparison. No, what you have is your stuff. And so you owe it to yourself to deal with your stuff. It's important.

Adrienne Youdim:

Does that make sense? Yeah, I love how you said, how you kind of brought the concept of this and that, right, both. And I've talked about this a lot in my newsletters over the last few months, trying to reconcile what's going on in the world with our day to day lives. I almost want to say that even if people can't take that first bite to do these things for themselves, that it genuinely is the first bite in being able to be fully empathetic and present for others. And I think if we had a little bit of this both concept in our minds right now, right? Because these are complicated times and situations and we can have multiple truths be true, right? And so I think self-care really is maybe a doorway into and holding our pain and the pain of others being empathetic towards ourselves as a portal to being empathetic to others. And that really is like we need more of that right now, right?

Erica Diamond:

You so get it. I mean, you get it. Well said. It's not an or or but. it's a it's an end we can feel this way we can experience this we can we can hold other people's pain and we can hold our own you know so I think that was beautifully said I think it's and what's what's really wild right now is these really are unprecedented times I mean we have lived through 9-11, we've seen different kinds of maybe war-like situations. But this is really, generally war was kind of something that we knew that people lived. So I live in North America, as do you, you know, lived in, it was other parts of the world. We don't live with war here. It's far, yeah. It was far away, it was removed. And while we can empathize, it's in our back door. There's stuff, I mean, there's stuff going on. So it's entered our back door, our backyard, it's here. And so how do we deal with it? It's just, there's a lot of hate, very little tolerance. And that's what personally hurts me the most, because I'm such a lover and I'm a lover of all different people. I mean, I have friends of all different races, religions, backgrounds, and I check in with them and they check in with me. you know, I'm a very loving person. So for me, I just I every night I go to bed and I'm squashed. I'm like, I'm so discouraged as to what I see. I'm trying to be hopeful. But it is hard for someone like me who really feels a deeply I'm able to compartmentalize it. It's what I do. It's my line of work. So I do pretty well. But I'm human. And it hurts me a lot. So I've really upped my self-care now. Like I'm really intentional about moving my body, about meditating, about eating, like really taking care of myself and my children too, because our kids, our kids are the TikTok generation, right? So they are seeing a lot of stuff online and I need to help them unpack it. I need to make sure that they have the tools to process it and compartmentalize it as well.

Adrienne Youdim:

You know, you brought up 9-11 and just what came to mind is that we have we have been saying this, I feel like I hear people say we're living in a crazy time or this is a hard time. since the pandemic, right? It kind of feels like we've been hit with one hard time after another hard time after another hard time. And I bring that up because I also want to answer my own question or point of how do we do it in this moment? Because if we wait for the hard time to pass, you know, there's always something. In our personal lives, there's always something, you know, as mothers or as professionals or what have you. But even in the world, it feels like there's always something. And so this notion of waiting or, yeah, waiting for the right time really is a non-existent notion. It's like now, now is the time.

Erica Diamond:

 Do you mean now is the time to practice self, like now is the time to take care of ourselves before it becomes an eruption?

Adrienne Youdim:

Right, like instead of feeling like, oh, now is not the time because there is so much distress in the world and how can I be doing this now? You know, another kind of push is that, you know, we're kind of in this little flurry of things right now. And I think waiting is not an option.

Erica Diamond:

Well, I think what's important is all the time, we as human beings, by nature, wait until the full blown storm to take care of ourselves, right? Often people, they have the heart attack, and then they change. the doctor tells them they're now diabetic, now they cut out the sugar or now they make the lifestyle change. The goal is to, I always say to listen, and I think it was Oprah who coined the term to listen to the little whispers. It's to listen to your body. It's to know when you are starting to get out of alignment and it's to keep a consistent routine, to keep your body constantly in check. And I always say my prescription of self-care is 30 to 60 minutes a day. of whatever you deem pleasurable, and self-care generally is the first thing to go in stressful times. We, you know, when we need it the most, it's generally the time, as I said, my, you know, I look at my kids, they're in exams, my son's in science, my one son's in science, the other son's in college and business, and They're staying up, they're studying. Now's when they need to eat well the most. So they're staying up. So they're, they're inclined to eat not good, you know, not to make good choices. Then they don't sleep as much. They're stressed. So they don't have energy as I said to exercise. So the whole goal is to try and keep ourselves in homeostasis at all times. So that when something challenging comes around, we have the toolbox, we're living the life already. So I look at myself as an example. I've been thrown off. I always, self-care is part of my life. I eat, sleep, and breathe it. So when something like this has come along, I'm for sure thrown off, but it's not thrown off to the nth degree where I can't show up for work, for myself, for my family, I'm very much able to function because I don't wait until I'm in full-blown distress to course correct. I do it all the time. It's part of a consistent routine. So if you're watching this or listening to this, And you say, I'm feeling like crap, how long, like let's say I start to prioritize self-care and I create a self-care toolbox, how long until I start to feel better? So some numbers to keep in mind are it takes about 21 days to form a new habit and about 66 days up to six months for it to start to become more automatic. And the next question will be what happened when, okay, I've got this groove going, I'm feeling better, I'm eating well, what happens when I start to revert back to old habits? So this is where I will tell you a bad day doesn't mean it's a bad week or a bad month or a bad year. You give yourself permission and grace. to own what you did, however you fell off that wellness wagon, and give yourself permission to come back to the drawing board tomorrow. So it's never a perfect science. You will never perfectly take care of yourself. The day will never unfold as perfectly as you had hoped, but we must learn to be adaptable to change and to forgive ourselves when we fall off course and come back on.

Adrienne Youdim:

What I often say in my newsletters is you don't have to be perfect in order to be effective, right? Imperfect still allows for- Progress, right?

Erica Diamond:

And progress is not perfection, of course.

Adrienne Youdim:

Right. So for someone who's not in it like you, who doesn't have this groove and is listening to this and it sounds great, can you give some tips on like, how do you start when you're in the thick of it?

Erica Diamond:

Sure. So I would say if you're listening to this and you just you feel exhausted and tired and you're not taking care of yourself, I would offer you three simple things. Walking is number one. You can take 20 minutes, keep your running shoes at your desk. If you work in an office, if you don't work from home. Keep your running shoes at your desk. 20 minutes of walking a day. 20 minutes of a brisk walk will just change your life. I promise you, stay with it. See if you can do it. Grab a friend, walk your dog, walk to get a coffee. 20 minutes walking is powerful. You will feel better if you can incorporate a 20 minute walk. So 20 minute walk, water. A lot of us are walking around dehydrated. I don't have my bottle here, but I have it in the kitchen. I'd show it to you. I bought it on Amazon. It's like that whole thing. It's eight glasses of water, and it shows you by time 9 a.m., 11 a.m., 1 p.m., 3, so it tells you how much to drink in the day by 9 p.m. I keep it on my desk. Water. We start to feel funky when we're dehydrated. You're a doctor. You know this. So walking, water, and the third thing is any kind of breathing. So drink your water, walk. And I say two, if I can offer two simple, um, breathing ideas or breathing breaks is one is a simple box breath. And that is you inhale to the count of four through the nose. You hold it at the top to the count of four. You exhale through purse lips to the count of four. You hold at the bottom to the count of four. Try four to six rounds of that. I have my clients pencil it into their schedule and literally into their phones for 1030 in the morning, 330 in the afternoon. This will take you under 90 seconds. We all have 90 seconds to breathe. What this happens, what this does is over time, this rewires our brain for more calm. So a simple box breath, taking time to breathe, you will calm your central nervous system down. The other thing is the Dr. Andrew Weil 478 breath. If you feel like you're struggling with sleep, this is a great breathing sequence for insomnia or stress and anxiety. That's you inhale through the nose to the count of four, hold your breath to the count of seven, exhale the breath through the mouth to the count of eight. Same thing, four to six cycles. Notice the shift if you do this consistently over a period of three weeks. So those three things, if you can head out for a walk, you drink more water, if you could just start breathing. I guarantee you that will move the needle for you. It's just, it's just the research.

Adrienne Youdim:

I love that. It's very practical. Yes.

Erica Diamond:

And doable. Well, I'm all about, listen, you're not going to take someone who's overweight, has an exercise, smoking, eating like crap and, and make them look like, I don't know, who's whoever the Jane Fonda. I don't know. whoever, that's a blast to the past. Richard Simmons. I'm thinking like diet gurus. I don't know. Gwyneth Paltrow. I have no idea. Whoever you consider to be, um, you know, they're not, we need to start gradually, slowly. Otherwise it doesn't become sustainable. That's the other thing. If we just change our life. Oh, if we, we try and do everything instead of the small things, it'll never be sustainable. So I invite you to try those three things. Walking, water, breathing.

Adrienne Youdim:

And so relevant also to the new year and we're about to be maimed and attacked by the new year, new you nonsense. And so I like that this is also close and practical. So you gave us your five things, which are very similar to my five things. I think I even call it them pillars at some point. So we're very much aligned. But you also talk about leaving things behind. And there was a post you had recently on Instagram about what you were going to leave behind in 2023. I think doing and not, you know, not doing sometimes is just as powerful as doing. Can you talk about some of the things that you're leaving behind?

Erica Diamond:

Yes. Yes. I don't want to, I don't want to lose this. I'm going to pull out my phone. So I make sure you're listening. You have it. So I actually shared this yesterday. So the post said 10 things to leave behind in 2023. So I said, what are you leaving behind in 2023? And this is what I'm, I kind of gave you some ideas. I probably could have a list of a hundred things, but I kept it simple. So 10 things to leave behind in 2023. Negativity and pessimism. Procrastination. Toxic relationships. Self-doubt. Clutter. You don't realize how clutter is just, you know, really the anti-self-care. Fear of failure. What a big one. unhealthy habits, judgmental attitudes of both others and yourself, limiting beliefs, something I talk about every day, and excuses, right? No more excuses. Let's show up for ourselves. Let's have some accountability, right? And the way to get rid of excuses is just to show up small. Right? Not to show up big, show up small. Because if you tell yourself, if you haven't been exercising, you say, I'm going to go to the gym tomorrow for an hour and a half, then you're going to make excuses. Like I could, but if you just say, I'm going to walk over to my next to my bed, I'm going to roll out a yoga mat and I'm going to do a 10 minute stretch, 10 minutes, a beginner 10 minute stretch, right? You're more inclined to show up with very low. I would say like, sometimes we need the bar to be pretty low. That's how we get started. Not with a high bar, with a low bar. And then how do we feel? We get on the mat for five minutes. We breathe for five minutes. Oh shit, I feel better. I'm feeling a little better. I'm going to try that again tomorrow or the day after. So those are 10 ideas of things to leave. So as we start the new year, I am a sucker for a tabula rasa, for like a clean slate. And I use all sorts of dates as resets. I do love the idea of a new year to reset. I love a birthday as a chance to reset, new age, new chance to reset. I love a good reset because I think it's powerful to say, okay, we're going to sweep out the old stuff that hasn't been working and we're going to reset to move forward and we'll course correct what isn't working. So I am a sucker for a good reset. So I do love a new year. I do love a clean slate. Say, okay, you know what? No more. I've been eating like crap or I haven't been or I've been working. I have not been respecting my boundaries. I've been at my computer working till one in the morning as so many of my clients are when they come into my practice, they're, they're burnt out, they're so good at what they do. And they are, I mean, exhausted, they're really not taking care of themselves. So I want to get them out of their offices till one in the morning, I want to get them back on a self care routine, finding their passion and purpose beyond the office, you know, finding their identity, identity beyond being this successful lawyer or doctor or accountant or real estate agent or finance, you know, broker.

Adrienne Youdim:

 So take her mother or mother or.

Erica Diamond:

You know, however, whatever they're doing, whatever habits they've allowed into their lives, even as a mother, you know, doing too much for your kids. We all want to do for our kids, but, you know, not allowing our children. So burning yourself out where really your children can help at like two years old, they can walk their clothes to the hamper. Like just, you know, there's so much to unpack here. But those are some great buzz to answer your question some ideas for you if you're letting go of stuff in 2023 I hope you'll consider those. Yeah, I love those.

Adrienne Youdim:

So since we're in the midst of the holidays, and the holidays. You know, it can be fun and stressful for the same reasons. You know, family can be great and family can be also not great. And also the holidays is a time that brings up a lot of loss, you know, for people. So can you talk about maybe do you have some holiday tips or even, you know, what is your guidance to your clients during this time of year? What what do you hear coming up in your clients? And what is your what do you suggest?

Erica Diamond:

So I'm going to start with the big B word, which is boundaries. So we're going to be gathering soon or people be gathering for holiday parties, for Christmas dinners, for all that stuff. And sometimes I mean, we gather with family and that doesn't mean we don't get to choose our family. So some of us or some people don't particularly love or get along or feel in alignment with family members. And it can be very triggering. It can trigger previous trauma. So I always say, If you're going to be seeing your family, aim to keep it short if you can, right? I mean, there's lots of, it's really important now, I think, as we gather to be taking care of yourself. So if you're going to a dinner with people you don't like already depleted, I always say this, there are certain people I have in my life, let's say, that when I'm depleted and tired, I have less patience for them, right? We all know that when we are waking up on an empty tank, if we haven't slept and we haven't refilled our cup, we are already starting on our reserve tank. So we're already gonna be annoyed, frustrated, triggered when we see these people during the holidays, right? So make sure you're intentionally practicing self-care, especially before heading into these gatherings or dinners, try and keep them short, take care of yourself before so you have a little bit more you know, empathy. It's another thing is try and go into this with a little bit of empathy, knowing that sometimes these people are struggling, these people that really tickle your funny bone and trigger you have their own stuff and crap that they're dealing with. So if you say and you come from the mindset of, um, Wow, they must be they're so angry, because they must be, you know, they must be really unhappy with themselves right now. And so then, all of a sudden, the compassionate place of you starts to open up, right, you start to lead with compassion, instead of anger, or resentment, or frustration. Right. So, you know, those are a few tips. Trying to think what else just like I said, just And then if it's so toxic for you, you always have the choice to just not see these people. If it's too much, if it's just, if these people are really terrible for your children, your spouse, your partner, you can just aim to tell them, listen, I'm just not up for gathering this year, you know? And so you can really put the brakes on it. You have that choice. I know it's really last resort, but you know, you do have that choice.

Adrienne Youdim:

It just goes back to the boundaries being, or even the self-care being an act of kindness to others. You know, we were talking earlier about what you do for yourself kind of manifesting into more empathy for others. It's kind of the same informing the relationship by doing the right thing for yourself so that you are not explosive or intolerant. in your interaction with others. It really is. It's such a full circle situation.

Erica Diamond:

You know, ripple effect, I say that all the time, you take care of yourself, you take care of the world. And I know that sounds cheesy, maybe, but it starts with you. Like that, again, that that tacky or whatever, like when there's a lack of cabin pressure, we put the masks on ourselves before our kids. It's the truth. If we make ourselves whole, we come to our marriage or our partnership as a much better partner. If I haven't taken care of myself, things that my husband do will piss me off or I'll be like, I'll explode over something small if I haven't taken care of myself. But if I've refilled my cup, if I've slept well, if I'm eating well, if I feel good, if I'm in passion and purpose, the little things don't bother me as much, right? And so when we take care of ourselves, we in turn conserve the world. Like we in turn have energy for our jobs, for our parents, for our siblings, for our kids, for our friends. We just, and that ripple effect is big. So really, you take care of yourself, you take care of the world. And I really, truly believe that.

Adrienne Youdim:

And we need it now more than ever. More than ever. More than ever. I wanted to touch on one other point, because, you know, these are all such important concepts that our generation was not taught. We weren't taught the value of it. We weren't taught how to do it.

Erica Diamond:

That's another post, by the way, Adrienne, that I just wrote. Things that we were not taught in school, right? And so we weren't taught self-care in school. We were not taught how to take care of ourselves, mental health strategies.

Adrienne Youdim:

That concept didn't even exist, much less the how. And so here we are now, many of us mothers and caretakers and you brought up your children and I have three children as well. I'm curious how you impart this on your children and what are the challenges and how do you overcome those challenges if you do?

Erica Diamond:

Great question. I really believe it starts with us as a beautiful role model. I think it's so important. My kids know, and believe me, when they want to eat, I don't, when they want to eat Kraft dinner or whatever, like processed food, like they have seen a mother take such beautiful care. And I'm like, I don't understand. I serve such beautiful food. I eat such beautiful food. They see me. So why are they not honoring their boundaries? I tell them you have to sleep. You know what I mean? And then I see moments of triumph or like, that, you know, my son will tell me, mom, okay, I think this breathing thing is hokey pokey, but I sat down before my exam and I did what you said. And I took five deep breaths and I felt so much better. So I really think you can never stop doing it, showing them, teaching them. And one day they're going to give it back to you. You're going to see them. I see it now. My boys are 17 and 20. And almost 17 and 20 and I see it right now like I just keep role modeling it to them and they just and then i'm like I don't understand all the times I don't understand that they're not doing what I'm showing them, but then they do, and then they start and then. And then it's a beautiful thing so I think the way it starts is by us we have the responsibility to take care of ourselves and show our children that we matter show our children that we're making time for cards or pickleball we shouldn't feel guilty to join you know the book club and. showing our kids that we take care of ourselves, that we exercise, that we eat well, that we make time for all the pillars of well-being, that we practice an abundance mindset, that we show resilience, that we tell them and explain to them, this bad thing or this frustrating thing happened to mommy today. I was really disappointed. You know what? This is what I'm going to do. It upset me. I'm going to understand why this happened, and then I'm going to move forward. I'm not going to stay stuck. I've constantly talked to my children. Always. My mom did it to me. My mom was a therapist. I was raised by two. I'm so grateful by two incredible human beings with, I mean, really good values. And I was taught and raised really well to honor myself, recognize myself, sleep when I'm tired, eat when I'm hungry, not give a shit what other people do or what other people in society do, to tune in, to listen to myself, to pave my own path, go my own way. And it really served. And I'm really trying to raise my kids that way and They, while I don't always see it all the time, right, based on how they've been raised or how I've taught them, I do see it happening more and more. So I think it's important that you own your failures, you show them how to deal with failure, like it, there's so much. There's so much, but it's so important. And that's how we raise the next generation. I think we show tolerance. We show love of other people. My kids know that I'm so open-minded and my heart is not hateful. And I always try and understand the other side. If someone sees something differently than me, they know that they've been raised by a very open-hearted woman and I want them to be open-minded. And I want them to be resilient. And I want them to take care of themselves. And I want them to honor their boundaries. And I want them to get rid of or move away from that scarcity mindset where like, I'm just not good at this, so I won't work at it. I'm better at this. I want them to have not the fixed mindset, but the growth mindset. I model it all the time. That is how we do it.

Adrienne Youdim:

And it's a practice, right? So I like that you acknowledge that you do the things all the time, and that they don't necessarily reciprocate or show that knowing. But then in a moment, right, they show a glimmer. And I do think it goes back to how you started, which was, you know, you had this great upbringing, great parents with great values. Not everyone can say that. And yet, And yet you had your moment of burnout. And so I think that's also important to point out that there's no, that this is universal. There's no shame in that, you know.

Erica Diamond:

And I want to just be honest. I was not in full-blown burnout. I was teetering. I don't want to make something that wasn't. I was not, I was on the brink. I would say I was definitely not in full-blown burnout at all. I don't want to make anything that it's not. But yes, for sure, for sure. And I think I got that. I saw a dad who worked really hard. So that was my role modeling as well. So that I think that's how that happened. Maybe he was not honoring his boundaries. And so that was probably my introduction to that working like a dog working to the bone. But again, I was lucky that I had my mom, the therapist, who was all about respecting boundaries, and my dad was all about the hard work and the grit and the tenacity and the motivation. So that's literally how I made my life. That's what I studied in school, psychology and business. I took them both with me. Um, so I just, yes, listen, stuff happens to the best of us, but that's why I think it's important. And I always say, when you know better, you do better. Like Maya Angelou made that quote, you know, said that. And so that's important that if we weren't, I always say, you may not have had this beautiful upbringing, but that's okay. Most of us, or most people have grown up behind the eight ball. It is never too late to course correct. It is never too late to change your life. It is never too late to adopt a new set of beliefs. to change, rewire your brain, adopt a new mindset of abundance mindset. It's never too late to change your mind and open your mind. Changing our minds of our beliefs is not a sign of weakness, it's a sign of strength. That you know what, I see it in a new way.

Adrienne Youdim:

Yeah. Well, there have been so many great pearls in this conversation. Is there anything that we didn't touch on or any last points that you would like to mention before we close?

Erica Diamond:

No, I think we, I think you asked such great questions. I'm sorry, I'm so passionate. I can talk about this topic all day long. I love that. Just that I love hearing how you're doing, like how people are doing during this time. So just reach out to me. I'm most active on Instagram. I'm ericadiamond on Instagram. If you listened to our podcast, come say hey in my DM and just let me know how. I always say not how are you doing, but how are you really doing when you add the really, it changes the conversation.

Adrienne Youdim:

Yeah, absolutely. And we will definitely post all that information in the show notes so that people know how to reach you. And this has been lovely. So thank you so much for spending the morning with me.

Erica Diamond:

Thank you so much, Adrianne. It was wonderful.