[00:00:00] You are listening to episode 242 of the Peaceful Mind Podcast.
Welcome to the Peaceful Mind Podcast, a place for creating the peace of mind you need to be the best mom you were created by God to be.
If you want to bring more balance, more joy, and more peace to your motherhood, This is the place for you. I'm your host, certified life coach at Catholic Mom, Danielle Thienel. In the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, let's get started.
Hi mamas, welcome back to the podcast. I'm so glad you're here, especially when the subject today is about self care. Now I'm hoping if you saw the title of this podcast your mind didn't just go like, Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. Here's that self care thing again.
It's kind of like what I feel when we hear things you know, talk to us about goals or being a busy mom or self care, like it kind of goes into that category where you. [00:01:00] We might hear so much about it that we become a little bit numb to it. However, I know it is so essential to helping you become the mom that you want to be to enjoy your motherhood, to enjoy your life, to feel more peace and balance in your life.
Self care is going to need to be a component. And I think that this subject isn't new for any of you here listening. It's not that you haven't probably heard podcasts about it or read books about it. Just overall in general, in the mom kind of like groups and forums, like it's always kind of that underlining like, Oh, you need to take better care of yourself.
But today I'm going to talk about making a self care routine stick for you. Because oftentimes I'm seeing that it just kind of goes in like little blips. Like there might be this, this like small amount of time when you're like, Oh [00:02:00] yeah, this is important. I need to do this. And then life will throw you a certain circumstance and and then we kind of wean off and then it's hard to kind of get back on.
So I want to talk today about what I know that could be helpful to you if you are someone who is already, I hope you're already open to the idea that , taking better care of yourself, doing things that really fill you up, bring you joy, and just things that really cater to you to support your mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual wellbeing.
That's what kind of wraps up into the whole taking care of yourself that if you already are open, you know, to saying like, yes, this is a good thing. I do want to be able to have more me time or self care time. I want to focus on what is ultimately going to be something that helps you [00:03:00] develop the habit of it. Have it be something that, again, I'm using the word that sticks, that stays around, that is not like fleeting or, you know, once when we're at our dire straits, we decide to get back into self care.
So where I want to start today is to say that one of the things that will not have you maintaining a self care routine is if you are carrying around this belief that self care is in some way selfish. If you were told that, if you were shown that and heard that in some form or fashion you are not going to be able, no matter how hard you try to create a self care routine and to maintain it.
If your true subconscious and deep belief is that I shouldn't be taking this time for [00:04:00] myself, that it is selfish to do so, that I should be focusing my energies and time on caring for other people. And I say that with a caveat of, I don't at all disagree that we shouldn't be in service of others or be focusing on others.
But what I know is that this definition of selfish. That we may have built up in our heads is oftentimes false because the definition of selfish is if we are doing something at the expense of others. And I don't believe that any self care a mom takes for herself is ever like coming from this intentional place of being at the expense of others.
I want this support or I want you to be able to continually uphold this routine of self care for yourself and make it a priority. But what will not have your self care routine stick is if you believe that [00:05:00] it's selfish or that it doesn't deserve a place in your priorities. Maybe it's an afterthought.
I wanted to start out this podcast when it's first comes out, it'll be in the early fall. And at this point, most of us have our kids if they're not adult children, if they are, they're back in school. And I know so many times moms have come off of this busy summer when they have more time with that they're spending with their children, maybe less time on themselves.
They're all like, I can't wait to go back to my self care routine or I can't, I'll take better care of myself or I'll do this something for me once the kids are in school. And so this is where I placed this episode at this time of year when it first comes out because I want you to just check in on that.
Were you someone who said once school starts, I'll get in my routine, I'll take better care of myself. And has that happened? Do you feel like you have a routine and that it is sticking [00:06:00] around? Maybe not. If you are still carrying around this belief that it's selfish or it doesn't deserve a priority in your time.
So that's one thing I want to bring to your awareness today that could be sabotaging your routine from sticking around. Okay. The second thing that I want to offer you is that if you don't even know what constitutes self care for you, then you're going to have a hard time with it sticking.
So I just want to ask you, like, what do you believe? I don't know. I'm going to say like, what are the 10 things that if all of a sudden, let's say all the tasks that you have were already completed and finished and because oftentimes our brain tells us that that has to happen first before we take time to care for ourselves.
What would you do with that extra half hour, extra hour, right? Do you [00:07:00] even know what it is that when you do it, you feel, you know, filled up, you feel, you feel good about yourself. You feel rested, rejuvenated, relaxed. You feel more calm. What are those activities, self care activities that work for you?
Where you then feel your best. And I find this to be one of the biggest roadblocks to moms upholding a self care routine because they in the moment, like randomly pick something or they just haven't stopped enough and taken any time to really decide for themselves, Oh, these are the things that really bring me joy.
So, and I want you to know it is different. For every mom, right? Even just one mom saying like, Oh, for me to go on a walk by myself, listen to a podcast or take, [00:08:00] you know, a few deep breaths outside, listen to some fun tunes while I'm on my walk. Like they could be like, I love that. That fills me up or rejuvenates me.
And other moms would be like, yeah, a walk does not do that for me. Right? Maybe their mind goes racing on walks or maybe they're too busy thinking that they should be doing something else. Maybe some other mom wants, you know, some uninterrupted time to read a book. There are just so many options and I want you to be like, just because other people do these certain activities, like maybe a massage or getting your nails done, that is not something that you like, like to do or that is really kind of, you know, relaxing or filling up for you.
Knowing what that is for you is going to help so much in your chances of having a self care routine that sticks. Just on a side note, knowing this about [00:09:00] many of the moms that I work with, I have created what I call a self care toolkit.
And within that, it has a list that I've generated for you. I've already kind of curated a hundred ideas that you could use for a self for self care. And so if you're interested in that, I will include a link in the show notes for you to be able to click and and purchase that toolkit.
And I love that you know, I've curated these ideas for you. Now, not all of them you're going to look and like, yeah, that's not really one that I like. But if you can go through and find 10, then have that list somewhere so that when you do find yourself with an extra hour, maybe your child napped a little bit longer, or maybe you're in the car and you're waiting for the children to get out of school or something like that.
You just can take these opportunities and you will have this [00:10:00] list and be able to use those moments. So for this one, if you want a self care routine that sticks, you first have to know what it is for you personally that, that makes up the routine that you feel the activities that are really self loving to you and takes care of that spiritual, physical, emotional, and mental wellbeing.
Okay. The next thing I want to offer you on how to develop a self care routine that sticks is to know that you want to see this as a habit you're building.
Okay. When you are looking at self care as something that you want to do long term, not just when your kids are small, not just waiting and holding, you know, starting that habit once they're, you know, moved out of the home or something like that. Can you say, like, this is something I want to do for the longterm. I want [00:11:00] to make it more of something that is just part of my life.
And if so, with any kind of habit, it will take this kind of tough process challenging period of time where you might start and your brain is literally going to reject it at first saying like, what's going on here? You shouldn't be spending your time on this. You have so many other things to do. Look at the pile of dishes, look at the pile of laundry, that kind of thing.
What we want to do is know like, okay, a habit it's not necessarily easy at first because like I talk about here on the podcast often, our brains are looking for things to not change, for them to stay status, for things to stay status quo.
And so brains, when you make a decision, you're going to do something new, something different, it's going to have a little freak out. But with any habit. It's hard at first, and it takes [00:12:00] practice, and it takes overcoming that lower part of your brain, that kind of lizard survival part, the one that's telling you to again, to not, you know, change things up.
It's gonna, you're gonna have to hear. And hear that resistance to your brain at first, like with the example of brushing your teeth, right? It's now something you just is natural. It's part of you. You don't even skip it. It's there twice a day. And It's just, you don't even have any mind drama over it.
It's like, no, what I do is I brush my teeth twice a day. And I want that to be for you when it comes to self care, like, no, this is just something I do on a regular basis and I have built it to be a habit. And. I don't give too much any mind drama to it. I am just someone who cares for myself. So instead of it being just sprinkled [00:13:00] in now and then, I would like for you, if you want it to stick, to adopt this thought that this is like a long term habit I'm building.
Okay. The next thing that will help you have your self care routine stick is if you look at this as not a goal to be perfect at. Okay. Just like in all things, we're looking for progress. I'm looking to take moms who, who have a hard time keeping self care, something regular. I'm helping moms who aren't even doing any self care whatsoever.
So ever, or don't even know if they had extra time, what they would do with it. And I'm trying to see like, can we make some progress towards adding more into your life, into your motherhood, like starting today, not next week. But even just after you're listening to this podcast, does it inspire [00:14:00] you to add something today that feels so very loving and caring?
You know, pick one of them. Is it part of your physical wellbeing that you're going to care for? Is it your mental? Is it your spiritual? Is it your emotional?
You are just going to aim for B minus. That's one of the tools where we are trying to aim for just doing a good enough job. If we're not after the perfect self care routine, we will help ourselves have our routine stick if we are looking to just be good like a good enough job. And so I would love for you to view self care as again, like a journey, not the destination of, I have to check off all these things and then I'm caring for myself.
Or the other way of saying, well, I won't do any until I get to this certain point in my life. And then I'll start. So. In this kind of tip that I'm offering [00:15:00] you to help make your self care routine stick, it is more about looking at just making any progress, adding any more to your life is going to be beneficial.
It's going to help you, your spouse, your children more than you can imagine. If you are someone who adopts that, yes a self care routine and continuing and making this a habit and having it stick is overall not just going to help me show up as my best, but it's surely going to overflow over into your families.
And the last thing that I want to bring up that I think is a real obstacle. And challenge for, for those out there who don't have a self care routine that sticks. And that is if you are someone who has a hard time recognizing your feelings and in [00:16:00] particular , is it hard for you? Does it not come natural for you to even know and realize when you're not feeling great?
This is just an indication that maybe there's this disconnect in your your emotional status, your emotional wellbeing. So one of the ways, like right now you can kind of check in for that, I would, I would say, are you aware of what your like top feelings are each day? And if not, then maybe that's something you want to start enacting that will help you open up to like getting some awareness and seeing maybe why you're not taking as good of care as that you would hope to.
So at the end of the day, it's as simply as just checking in and saying, if I had to write down three of the top feelings I felt today, what are they? And if you find yourself someone who is like, Oh, I was [00:17:00] frustrated today. I was annoyed or I got angry. Maybe, you felt disorganized. Maybe you felt sad, maybe felt disappointed.
Right. At the end of like a week of keeping track of this, you might be like, wow, I didn't realize that I wasn't feeling so great this week because sometimes we have actually been in a habit of feeling bad and and we've gotten good at just thinking that this is the way things are, or this is the way things should be, or this is just how they're going to be for a while.
Or you just make the habit of operating in those negative feelings. And you were not even aware that we're not feeling those positive feelings that we want to. So if you have a hard time recognizing when you don't feel good, then for sure you're not going to be somebody who enacts like a self care routine and one that stays along, stays around for a while.[00:18:00]
So and then on the other hand, if you are someone who does know when you don't feel good, I'm wondering, are you waiting too long? Are you waiting till it is like the depths of despair or defeat or you're at dread? Because I mean, there, we know in our busy mom life, we are going to have negative feelings in there.
And, on a daily basis, we might have half of the day feel good and half of the day not feel great. But are you someone who waits till it's like at an extreme? Like, are you at burnout before you even realize something's wrong? Because even a little bit of negative feelings might be that indications that hmm. When's the last time I've taken care of myself?
Okay. So I want to recap these five things that I think will help with your self care routine and having it stick around a little longer. And then I just want to tell you a little bit about what happened with my, one of my clients today. Okay. So the, [00:19:00] these five things that I sort of outlined in the episode is that, we want, in order to help ourselves have a self care routine that sticks, we want to be able to unravel any kind of belief that we have, that self care is selfish or that it doesn't deserve to be a priority in our life.
You also want to know that if it, you want to know what it is that It constitutes your own self care routine. You want to have a really good, clear, specific idea of the things you love to do. So when it's time to have self care or when some time presents itself, you will actually know what to choose and decide and pick as self care for yourself.
And then I want you to develop it as a habit to see it as that this is something you want to practice enough that you get to. So where it's just a part of who you are, you just build self care into your life. It's not something that you have [00:20:00] to you know, go in and out of that. You know that it's just who you are and that's, that's how life goes, that it's an important part for you to have in your life.
And then I want you to adopt this idea that it's always about not being perfect at it and that life will give us something that takes our attention away from our self care sometimes. Sometimes, but any kind of progress we can do to get back to To filling ourselves up, to bringing ourselves more joy, to caring for all of our wellbeing is so good.
And then last, just recognizing it. Can you be someone who is more in tune when you are feeling negative so that you can go to the self care in order to get yourself back to that positive place, that positive emotional state? And that takes being someone who's actually like stopping and evaluating and [00:21:00] saying, yes, this is, I'm not feeling great today and actually naming it.
And this is what's happening and saying, okay, maybe I want to pivot and do something that will fill me up. All right. And now I just want to say, I had a client that earlier today, and this is this is someone who I've been working with for a long time. And I would say that her brain definitely believes and sees the benefits of self care. And by the way, I really do believe that all of my clients who come getting coached and having you be someone who takes the time for yourself and works through challenges that you're having, that's already checking off the box. Of putting time and attention to your mental and emotional well being.
And so I totally see coaching as a form of self care. And so this particular client of mine, she had from the time I saw her last week till this week, I would probably say around [00:22:00] 10 negative circumstances that came into our life. Something that happened at work, something that was happening with her son, then something with her elderly mom, and then there was something with her husband and an illness.
So like we went through the thing and what she totally realized was that because she's someone who has a self care routine, one that has been very like it, it's definitely stuck. It sticks. It's been around. She was able because she had does it on a regular basis, she was able to handle those 10 what I would say negative events that happened in her life.
She was able to handle them with a sense of calm, a sense of confidence. A sense of giving herself grace and I would say a sense of clarity. It was so prevalent to me that in order for her to handle these things, she had to have already been taking care of herself, which she was. [00:23:00] And then what I love is that she recognized that those 10 events and all of the emotional and mental and physical energy that went in to actually handing handling them with that clarity and confidence was also depleting. herself at the same time.
Remember, she had already filled herself up so that when those events happened, it then depleted, which is not a problem. That's kind of how it goes. But thank goodness it was already, she was already filled up when they hit because if she had been already in a deficit when they hit, there's no way she could have handled them with the clarity and calmness and confidence that she did.
So here she is regularly filling herself up. She has a self care routine that sticks. Then life throws her those challenges and obstacles, which then takes her time and energy. And I can see the care of herself [00:24:00] depletes. But what the beautiful part is, is that. She so recognizes, okay, yes, now that happened, it's not a problem that it's depleted, but now I know what today should focus on.
And it was going back to what can I do today for myself to fill myself back up, to get myself feeling better, to make some deposits into that wellness of building my physical, emotional, spiritual, mental awareness. A wellness and that's exactly what we made a plan for her to, to just get right back up.
This is the example of when you have a self care routine, how we make it be something that is just part of you. And that is what I want for all of you moms. And let me just. I'll tell you before I go why that is. On the other side of you filling yourself up and taking beautiful care of yourself, [00:25:00] you then have the wherewithal to show up in a way in your life for your spouse, for your children, for your job, for your physical goals, for all of your goals.
In a way, that is what you're wishing and hoping for right now. You have the time and the energy to focus on and show up in the way that you hope to. And you just cannot do that from this place of lack, from this place of no energy from this place of just depletion, I guess. So that's how I want to look for self care to be again, I, I say the words fill up because that's the way my mind views it as like it's depleted or filled up.
All right, everyone. So I hope you found some, value. If you know a mom who's just kind of like overwhelmed at her wits end, maybe just, you can tell putting all of her focus and time and [00:26:00] effort into others and is, and is a little bit burnt out, definitely share this episode with her and I hope that out of some of the tips that maybe you've seen where you might need to do some shifts.
And as always, if this is not something you want to do on your own, I love to help you with this. When we get moms feeling better, we then do better and again. A good place to start would be that self care toolkit and you can check out the link here in the show notes. So for everyone, thank you so much for being here. I'm excited to talk to you again next week and until then, peace be with you always.
Thank you so much for tuning in to today's episode of The Peaceful Mind Podcast. If you found value in today's episode, I'd be so grateful if you could subscribe and leave a review. It not only supports the podcast, but ensures you don't miss out on future episodes, packed with insights and tools to to create peace of mind in your busy mom life.
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