Self Care for Extremely Busy People

[00:00:00] overwork is underrated and many, many, many of us extremely busy women are over-producing. Yeah, extremely busy because we have not yet understood that. Good enough is good enough. We have, I mean, for me, my old tape was. And I’ll get to that question about professional support. That’s a really good question, but for me, the tape was, you know, always overdue because you got to work twice as hard as everybody else because you’re kind of flawed.

Oh my God. It turns out this is so wrong. It’s so wrong. Not true at all. What is true is I was actually presenting a pretty good body of work to the world

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Hi everybody. Thanks for joining me tonight. And I’m really excited to bring my guest Suzanne falter. We’re going to be talking about self care for extremely busy with. And it looked like a lot of people said they were going to come tonight. I know that there’s maybe they were all extremely busy and couldn’t make it at night now, but I see that there are some people watching.

[00:02:00] So if you could put post a comment and let me know where you’re tuning in from, that would be great. And hi, Makita, thank you for watching and. So tonight, this is what we’re talking about. Like, if you’re extremely busy woman, how do you take care of yourself? And actually for me, I thought that once I retired, I would not be extremely busy and that I would be easily able to take care of myself and it didn’t happen automatically.

It’s like, I thought that my job was keeping me busy and then I had to really look at myself. It wasn’t my job. It was how. I was reacting to the job, the thoughts I had about the job. And so looking at ourselves I think is really 

and for those of you who don’t know me, mine is my name is Emily Harmon. I’m the host of this, a onward live show. And then I repurpose it into the onward podcast and I’m a retired executive with [00:03:00] the Navy, also a retired Naval officer. And just a few weeks ago, I became a certified professional coach and I’m definitely living a life that I love living now.

And I hope you are too. And that’s why I bring guests like Suzanne on to talk about how they’re living a life that they’re, that they love. And some of the tips they have, and we can all learn from them. I’ve done almost 200 of these shows and I have. From every single one of my guests. So Suzanne, I’m getting ready to bring her in.

Susanna’s my guest tonight. And she discovered the healing power of self care back in 2012 when she lost her daughter teal. And I’m so glad that we met Suzanne, I’m excited to have you. Oh, thanks. Thanks Emily. Thanks for having me and congrats on getting the certification. That is big stuff to be a real coach.

So yeah, it really is, you know, I practiced I did some [00:04:00] sessions with my roommate from college about a year ago. And then today I coached her on something and she’s like, wow. I see, she said you were a good coach a year ago, but I can really tell that your coach and it felt good to do that, to help her.

I think your background makes you particularly suited to be a coach because, you know, you’ve told me a little about what you did in the service. It’s important. Anyway, thanks for having me here. Okay. So I am ostensibly the self-care expert and the hilarious thing about it is I had terrible. Terrible self care for decades, which could be why it became a focus for me.

And essentially I had the bottom drop out of my life in 2012. I had been in working, you know, 14 hour days as a marketing coach and really burning out and had to close my business down because it just. [00:05:00] Completely overwhelming me and my business partner. And we put the whole thing away. We, we said, okay, we’re just going to go separate directions and do something different.

I really didn’t know what it was. I had no money in the bank, which was great. So I was just going to stop and try to get my, get a grip. I was also in a really dysfunctional relationship and I had just moved in with this person when the relationship ended. So I suddenly lost the new home. And I was, I was basically reduced to driving around the bay area when my belongings in my car, trying to figure out where I wanted to live, because I was kind of new to the bay area.

I didn’t really know anything. I had just gotten a car for the first time in the city. I was just, I knew I didn’t want to live in San Francisco cause I’d tried. That did care for it. So here I was with this life suddenly empty of all of these major pieces. And my daughter teal who was 22 at the time had come to live in San Francisco to be near [00:06:00] me.

We had moved from the east coast and she’d gotten her own place and she was finding work and, you know, settling in. And I took her to dinner one night and a couple hours later. She was acting a little weird at dinner, but I didn’t think about it too much. And a few hours later, I got a call from the hospital that she was in critical condition that she’d had a cardiac arrest.

Too, in fact. And when I got to the hospital, nobody knew why this had happened. And to this day, nobody knows why this happened, but basically she collapsed in a locked bathroom. Her roommate found her after 30 minutes, she had extensive brain damage and she couldn’t survive it. So w she was on life support and we had to take her off of life support after six days.

Now, many things happened as a result of that. One being that because of the way she died, her organs were donated and a young woman, her [00:07:00] age got her heart and I have become connected to that young woman and her mother who are friends of mine. And it is extraordinary, just extraordinary. And thank you to those who were expressing sympathy.

I really appreciate it because the thing about a crisis. It’s an incredible learning opportunity if you allow it. And the night of Till’s collapse, I went into the hospital room where she was, and I saw her all stretched out on this bed with all this wrapping and tubes and wires and monitors. And, and I I knew she was, I just knew that she was going to die and not only did I know she was going to die.

I knew I would be dramatically changed by it. And that this was the moment that I needed to quit the crap and get on with living a life that honored her and honored my [00:08:00] abilities and who I actually was at the time. I was making all this money as an internet marketing coach, and I hated it. It was totally inauthentic work, which is one reason I burned out on it.

I thought money was more important than it turned. And I had found myself into a silly relationship that was just dumb. That’s like this person who had dumped me was, you know, so unstable. And then I got myself into another relationship that I totally wasn’t ready for. And the whole thing was just wrong, you know?

So I had to start over again and build a life of meaning from nothing at age 53. And I had to do it in a way that really honored til now a few words about teal. Teal was the opposite of her mother for all my workaholic behavior. She was a free spirit. She just believed in moving through the world in a very untethered way in which [00:09:00] she did it to earn a little money.

You know, be a waitress or she worked with a clipboard on the street, you know, collecting signatures for charities and getting paid for it. You know, something like that. And she was really a person who didn’t cast a huge shadow, but she exuded love and joy and she was very, very unconventional. She would make a little money.

Put the money in her pocket, go to the airport and pick a place to go and just go. And she’d have her backpack on her back and her little guitar and she’d get there. And she’d. Her way to a comfortable place to stay. And she’d go down on the street with a guitar and she’d start playing and singing because she was an amazing, amazing singer.

We can learn something from our children who are not like us, right. I’d say so alive. And I started paying attention after her death. I’ll tell you that. [00:10:00] One of the things she was really good at that I was pretty terrible at self care. I thought I was too busy for self-care. I thought self care. Oh sure.

Really important, but not that important. I thought that it was for other people, not me. I felt like work. Work was very adrenalizing and it made me feel alive and important. I’m wondering this person, Michelle, she said it’s like a drug. I love the feeling. I noticed that. Yeah. Well, per well put thank you, Michelle, because it is like a drug it’s like a drug.

That literally juices you up that I’ve heard people call it the emotional drugstore, because the adrenaline kick is literally addictive. It’s like being high on Coke, you know, not that I’ve done Coke, but you know what I’m saying? My sense of what that would be like, would it be. Really getting adrenalized and, you know, having [00:11:00] some success and you can really ride far on that.

Not to say we shouldn’t be successful, but we have to look at our motivations. Right. So I drifted away from myself and to the point where an after she died and I suddenly lost everything. I found myself living in a friend’s guestroom. And for two years I was unable to. But that was very, very helpful because a, I didn’t really know what work I’d be doing next to anyway, I hadn’t, I hadn’t F I hadn’t been self-employed at that point for 32 years, so it wasn’t like I was going to go immediately get a job and I had savings, so I didn’t necessarily have to, but I just didn’t work.

And it, because it didn’t work. I was listening to myself and I was tuning in, which is perhaps one of the very primary. Pieces of self care is beginning to pay attention to yourself. Of course, most of us are never going to do something as dramatic. It’s not worked for two years, [00:12:00] but in my case, it was helpful because I was grieving intensely and it really, really helped to not have anything to do, but grieve and recover.

That’s uncomfortable. How come you didn’t correct yourself from your feelings. And I don’t know that that’s really uncomfortable. Oh, Emily. I tried.

Oh yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Michelle. Here’s the thing. Here’s the thing. I find myself able now to really understand my needs so much better because I think one of the biggest problems I had was that I didn’t know what I did. I really didn’t know. I remember somebody saying to me, you know, what is it that you need?

Tell us what you need. And I said, I have no idea. And that was the truth. Now, if you ask me, I could probably tell you,

overwork is underrated and many, many, many of us extremely busy [00:13:00] women are over-producing. Yeah, extremely busy because we have not yet understood that. Good enough is good enough. We have, I mean, for me, my old tape was. And I’ll get to that question about professional support. That’s a really good question, but for me, the tape was, you know, always overdue because you got to work twice as hard as everybody else because you’re kind of flawed.

Oh my God. It turns out this is so wrong. It’s so wrong. Not true at all. What is true is I was actually presenting a pretty good body of work to the world. And to the question, did I seek professional support? Yes. I went to the local hospice and I used their therapy. Their free therapy hospices are great resources for people experiencing grief.

Cause you can get free counseling, free groups. I joined support group there. I did all kinds of [00:14:00] stuff and it was very, very helpful to me. Support groups were key. I mean, all this reflects on some real basics about self care. That I think are foundational, you know, really foundational. So what are some of the, well, first off, what is self care?

You, I think you mean like treat yourself to some chocolate and take a bath. Oh, Emily, you know, that’s not what I’m talking about. The thing about the basics. The thing about the basics. It is not the, you know, bandaid slapped on the wall, the gaping wound, which will come off shortly because it’s gushing blood not to be graphic, but it is about making the shifts in your life that will bring you deeper into self care and deeper sort of self resonance singing back into yourself because here’s the [00:15:00] deal when you’re.

You are given a beautiful internal wiring that tells you what you need when you need it. It tells you when your boundaries are violated, it tells you when you’re very moved and touched, it tells you when you need, you know, food or rest or exercise, it tells you all these things. But we override, we override like crazy and because we’re so busy, overriding, we can’t ever hear our own natural messages and the natural messages are there and yearning to be connected with.

And they will guide us towards building a resonant life that actually fits us. So, yes, I completely agree. And Michelle says, you know, it it’s, self-care saying no, it’s you know, to have having boundaries. So what do you, how do you do? Yeah. Well, number one is understanding your [00:16:00] needs. As I was saying, I think that was like the first thing I had to really learn.

And I came up short on needs for long time. I really couldn’t say, but I began a practice of asking myself every day, what do you need? Right. What do you need right now? And you know, it’s like a simple little question, but it’s very, very, very great question to ask yourself. And when you do ask yourself that you find little messages will drop themselves into your consciousness and you might even treat.

Running into somebody who’s strangely helpful with this thing I need called a new apartment or a new life or whatever, you know, things happen for unexplainable reasons. And it’s because we are clear on our intention and I’m sure Emily and your work intention is a major, major thing, right? You can’t have an intention that’s honest and aligned unless you know what you is.

And number two is to set boundaries. Now I’ve been a big people pleaser in my life. I [00:17:00] really wanted to let everybody feel good around me because I’m a sensitive person and I care about people, but what that did was it overrode my own needs. So you know, especially if you’ve grown up in a dysfunctional family with an addictive parent or abusive parent or parent who is chronically ill, you may have been the kid who took care of it.

Your boundaries may have been violated from an early, early age. The F you are not treated like a child. You were treated like an adult, or you may have been transgressed in other ways, and you may have poor boundaries as an adult, or you find yourself unable to say, no, I, you know, a perfect example of this is working for an employer who expects you to stay late every day, because it’s just part of the.

Now I worked in advertising where work begins about 5:00 PM, you know, and back in the back of the day, we worked in ad agencies and you were expected to stay till 10 and eat pizza every night and, you know, overwork [00:18:00] for 12 hours a day or more. And it was just insane. It was a crazy, crazy way to live. But we were always afraid to say no, because, you know, we were just like junior copywriters or whatever.

So you know, having it firm boundaries at work and at home, being able to firmly request that people do not do things they’re doing that naturally bother you, that really, really get under your skin or that make it difficult for you to meet your needs. That’s really important. And number three, which is kind of a corollary to that is to ask for the help that you need.

It’s so easy to just believe you don’t need help. I was my story. My story was I’m fine. I’m fine. I got this. Don’t worry. I got this. Oh, no, no, it’s fine. I was, I was working so hard, but I couldn’t see myself coming or going. [00:19:00] And I really thought that I had to do everything right. I had that belief that if I didn’t do myself, catastrophe would strike, you know, or that other people’s agendas were far more important than mine, et cetera, et cetera.

And we’re not supposed to be here to live a life. That is fine. Yeah, no, fine is fine. Is not the point. Yeah. Yeah. That she, you know, some, if sometimes if you speak out, you might need, you might, you might need to change a career. You might need to change a job. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, that’s the thing it’s like, most of us are very change resistant because what we have is comfortable, even when it’s painful, it’s oddly comfortable.

And I believe tick not Han said. You know, the, the beautiful Vietnamese, Buddhist monk who recently died, he [00:20:00] said that we choose discomfort because it is comfortable because it is what we know. And when you are given the opportunity to truly have your needs met, the first experience is often one of disbelief or of a strange dismay or a feeling of, ah, this is not enough.

Somehow this is I’m suspicious of this. Or I feel guilty about this. I can’t tell you how many extremely busy women feel guilty around self care. Yes, for sure. Yeah. I mean, it’s, it’s really important to be able to be present with what’s happening and tell the darn truth about it, because then you get to number four on my little list of basics, which is to take out.

But you can’t take action until you really realistically have assessed what’s going on. If [00:21:00] you’re in a chronically stressful job or relationship, you need to be honest about it. Now I was in such a relationship. But I kept pretending it was fine because only, you know, a few months earlier, I had arrived in San Francisco and left my marriage and moved across the country and started all over again with nothing.

And I was looking for my anchor, you know, I was looking for my place to rebuild my life and I just chose the first thing that came along rather than assessing it for what it was, which was crazy town. And you know, when you take action, And you actually make the changes that need to be made. Then you can claim some power in the situation.

And finally, in terms of self care, which you can see now we’re getting into a much bigger conversation about where does self-care live in your life for what, what, what is the breadth of it? Well, you build it into your day and this is [00:22:00] a simple thing it’s really about creating time and. So when you know that you need an hour at night to take a walk in nature, because that’s critical for yourself care.

One of the things you do is you go out there and you take that walk, but you put it in your calendar and it may mean you have to go see your employer and say, I’m sorry. I really have to go home at five every day. My health demands. You know, or my children had that something has shifted with my kids and I need to be there for them or whatever.

You’re going to tell them, tell them that you’re just not available after five o’clock and then you go take that walk. You don’t let everybody else take your time. Right. That’s for you. You know, I mean, we don’t have to spend hours on self care every day, but we do have to do a little self care every day.

And then the question becomes. What why, how, where, [00:23:00] and when will it fit in your calendar and you put it on your county, put it on your calendar. And it’s some of self care, like doing some inner work on yourself because we can, you know, if we keep having certain situations keep showing up in our lives, you know, at some point we’ve also got to look at ourselves.

I mean, I know for me, like I said, at the beginning of the show, I just knew that once I retired, my life was going to change because it was the job. Yeah, it wasn’t. Well, it was very funny. This question is coming up because I just did a podcast episode on my own show, about eight signposts of emotional self care, you know, the eight musts and those signposts of self care, emotional self care are very much about, you know, creating this container.

For the world. So you are not at the world’s back in call and having some perspective, good emotional self care, which can be [00:24:00] as it can be as inwardly focused as forgiving someone. You’re no longer speaking to it doesn’t mean you have to call them up, but just you you’re released that you release that resentment.

It might mean journaling your way through some old trauma. It might mean learning how to stand up and make a request. It might mean going to counseling with your spouse? I mean, it is definitely about an inside job, you know, and internal work because without that internal work we don’t grow. And one of my personal purposes in this life is to all of the work I’ve been doing for 40 years now, as a writer.

Gosh, I, my first podcast was 2005. So I guess that’s almost 20 years of podcasting has been about helping people to grow in the ways they’re meant to grow, because that is what life is. Life is a growth experience. [00:25:00] Yeah. You’re going to have a pin here that says, it says easy. Doesn’t change you. It’s just sitting here now.

I got it. Doesn’t. And yeah. And so this is your podcast self care for extremely busy women. Oh, thank you. Yeah. If people want to tune into that and listen to it. So, so this is more, more than time management, right? Yeah, no, you know, that’s, that’s the thing. And that’s the very first chapter of the book is about why this isn’t about time management because you can’t.

Time, manage your way in a dysfunctional life back to better self care. You can’t, you know, go home to the broken relationship and hope tonight’s tonight. It’ll change. You can’t, you know, continue to overwork for the overly demanding boss, figuring you’ll just get up at five instead of six, so you can fit in self care [00:26:00] because then your self-care will not be effective.

It’s going to be effective when it’s put into practice and a great deal of self care is about taking the steps you need to take to build a life that works for you. Yeah. I’m sorry to anybody who came on this broadcast hoping for quick tips. There are, there is one quick tip and the quick tip is ask yourself, what do I need right now?

And am I doing. And see if you know the answer and see if you even know the answer, right? Because I’d say the very first thing after that to do is start giving yourselves 20 minutes of downtime every day, where you do literally nothing. And you may find, you need to cry. You may need to sit there and sob for 20 minutes a day.

You know, you don’t have time for that. If you’re really busy, how do you have time? Oh, you just make it, you have to take it. You see, part of the reason [00:27:00] I wrote the book and created the podcast is so extremely busy women begin to prioritize themselves. So they begin to understand that they are worth it, that they are worth it.

That’s where we fall apart. We begin to believe we’re not really worth it. We’re just kind of, you know, Making time here kind of hanging out, going through life and other people are really worth it, but we’re not as worth it as other people, big flaw in the thinking there, because until you claim your space, You cannot be effective.

I think one of the things I really love to talk about and the subtitle of the book is to do less achieve more and live life you want. And the reason is because often we believe overwork and over striving and over providing and over-producing will bring us happiness. And what actually brings us into balance is letting go of that, which is [00:28:00] excessive.

We do not have to make perfect little veggie croquettes for our vegetable hating children. We do not have to, you know, write a dissertation when a simple two page paper is adequate. We just don’t and all that overdoing feeds not only our sense of stress and are overwhelmed, but. Puts us in a place where we really just start to hate our lives and the people around us.

It makes us resentful and angry and difficult to be with difficult to be with. I really, I really know the, when things start to settle out and your life comes into balance. Everything starts to work better. And the way to do that is to begin to practice actual self care example. I wanted to go to Hawaii for decades and I fought and here I live in California and it’s like, everybody in California, he goes to Hawaii sooner or [00:29:00] later, but I hadn’t, I hadn’t.

So I said, okay, we’re going to Hawaii. We finally did it. And I kept worrying that if I went to Hawaii for two weeks and I didn’t want. My income would drop. And I was, you know, it was on my mind, but I was like, now, come on, you’ve just got to do this. And at the time we were negotiating the deal on my self care book, and I had been offered a particular amount of money, which I had accepted, and that’s what the contract was signed.

And while I was on that two week vacation, I picked up the phone one day and it was my agents saying I had sold the audio book rights for the same amount of money that I’d sold the book. And that was just like, wow. I didn’t even know that was possible. I was shocked. So by going on vacation and doing nothing, I’m doing air quotes here.

I actually made more money. Like substantial amounts. I was shocked. And, and the best thing about that was that [00:30:00] it really underlined what I’ve been talking about, which was the need to give yourself downtime critical, critical, critical, and not just kind of lying in a dark room, but being in a place that provides mental stimulation and soothing soothing is very simple.

That’s so true. I have learned that too. I was working with a coach about a year and a half ago, and she’s like, well, what if Emily, your life could be more, you could feel more in flow, which is when you don’t even notice time passing because you just love what you’re doing. You could feel more in flow.

You wouldn’t be pushing and working hard and. You’d get more done and make more money and find more clients I’m like, is that even possible? And it’s like, but you have to have the faith in yourself and the faith in the process, the faith in the laws of the universe that that’s, what’s [00:31:00] going to happen.

But there’s so many people like you that can share a story like. You know, I was just talking to my, a yoga instructor Kashi, and she was telling me that she had gone on a seven week vacation and she had the same concern. How can I leave my business for seven weeks? You know, where’s the income going to be?

And when she came back, she’d made more money than if she had not gone on vacation. I just love that because the truth. It’s all about being present to what our needs are, what our needs are. And, you know, I have a little bit of belief in magic. I think that when you tune into your needs, the universe shifts a bit and says, okay, we’ll give that person a break.

It’s the relentless pounding and slaving and worrying and pushing and the negative inward spiral that goes on, you know, where you start to create. Slip [00:32:00] from a positive place, into deeper and deeper anxiety and despair. That is what erodes our self-care and that’s when self-care really is needed. And it’s the self care of rest of stopping and doing nothing of, like I said, a few minutes ago.

And I see some of you picked up on a downtime and soothing and soothing can be anything you want it to be. When’s the last time you consciously created a soothing experience for yourself. I’d love to see any texts on that. You know, especially if you haven’t even thrown in a text in this conversation, when is the last time that you created an intentionally soothing experience?

And I’m curious to know if people want to share what that was because self-soothing is, it’s like a. Knowing what your needs are for me, I find incredibly self-soothing [00:33:00] to bake or to make a beautiful, a pot of applesauce or pear sauce, or to make a, some fun dish. In my instance, You know, I’m a little cooking, I’m a cooking nerd.

You know, I would not be soothing to me. I know other people are like, you’re crazy. Yeah. But I feel in control. I’m like, this is my command center. Oh, cuddling with your dog. I just did that today. I’ve got a German shepherd puppies, like would like to climb on my head, but yes, I hear you about that.

Cuddling with my dog. I like it to sit on the couch with my dog, cuddling with her, and then having a a cup of hot tea and re reading a book or just meditating or listening to quiet music. And I’m going to tell you when I retired, I was not capable of doing that. I was not capable. I would be thinking of, I got to do this, I got to do that.

I got, I made more work for myself. I’ve got to [00:34:00] push and do this and that and that. And I didn’t know, I used to go camping actually with my kids on the way I was a single parent. I would take them camping on the weekends. And I really was able to relax when I did that because they didn’t see the laundry, didn’t see all this stuff.

And then that had to be done. And then. I was talking to a coach about this. And she said, you can find that peace, even in your house, you can create that. And I didn’t, I didn’t know that I could, but I can, now I can relax in my house, but I, I mean, I’m telling you, I was like really you know, thought that this would happen naturally and it didn’t, I had to work on it, but I’m still, that’s real interesting.

Your comment about about the camping. If there is research. That 20 minutes in nature in a park or, you know, any place like that. 20 minutes is the equivalent for relaxing your central nervous system of [00:35:00] two hours of walking or being in a city environment. ’cause, you know, the Japanese have a whole, a ritual.

They call tree bathing, forest fading and walking, walking through the forest. You know, there is something there. And I go into that. We have beautiful parks here in Oakland, and there’s one the Redwood regional park, and it’s just filled with old redwoods and you go down these trails along these creeks and things.

You don’t have any idea you’re in a city and my whole system just, just really relaxes. And so do that without like music blaring in your ears or listening, just simple, touch the tree, feel the energy from the tree. That’s right. Yeah, I always was. I felt like I had to be doing more than one thing at a time, you know?

Yeah. Well, and, and, you know, [00:36:00] that’s another thing is we’re very, we, we, instead of having sort of self care activities in our life or emotionally present activities, we are always under the pressure. To engage with 18 forms of information coming at us all the time and the degree to which we’re on phones and screens is pretty unhealthy.

Generally that’s cross society at this point in the U S and I’m sure elsewhere. And what that does, is it distracts you from yourself? So you can’t hear yourself think because you’re too busy, you know, reaching for your phone, first thing in the morning, as soon as you open your eyes or compulsively checking news feeds or social media, or, you know, I mean okay.

Wordle is pretty quick. I’ve got to play Wordle, not a complete person. And it’s very, very important to remember that all of this information [00:37:00] impacts. And we are particularly inclined to multitask and both social media and multitasking are heavily stressful to our nervous systems. So I did a show in my podcast with a doctor named Dr.

Sharona. Abramowitz, who’s a psychiatrist about how to care for your nervousness. How to care for your nervous system. And she’s also an integrative doctor and she said, one of the things she really recommends to her patients is to drink really good quality camomile tea at the end of the day. Just simple, simple things like this, you know?

Yeah. So, oh, your dog hates it when you work. Yeah. That’s kind of challenging. Well, here’s an example. I think this is self care. Tell me what you think, Suzanne. I lived here, my parents and I think you all know who have parents. Sometimes you can get triggered by your parents. So something happened, [00:38:00] something happened where I got triggered and.

I caught myself and I had to, I just had to leave because I wasn’t able at the time, cause I had this P pleasing personality to speak up about how it really feeling. I had to remove myself from the situation to better get control of my feelings. And I’ve been on your show talking about mental fitness.

Basically. I was hard jacked by my sat a tour and my hand was on the hot stove. I am pissed and my hand was on there. Then I did not want to respond to my parents from that state. Right. My dad, especially. So I left on the way home, what I really wanted to do. And I’m not an alcoholic or anything I don’t eat, but I don’t have alcohol in my house.

So I wanted to get some wine and just sit on the couch and vege. And then I thought, Nope, not going to do that. So then I wanted to like, watch Netflix. Nope, not gonna do [00:39:00] that. I just sat and felt the feelings and I journaled that’s both care. That’s self care right there. That’s such a great example for so many reasons, because when we let emotions take us on the downward spiral, we do two things.

We allow them to move through us, which could be very easily. But we can also become obsessive about them. And when you become obsessed about them, it goes from being a healthy release to being a fixation and something that is far too dominant at the moment. It prevents you from doing something. My dear daughter, teal used to talk about, which was just being.

Yeah, you were just being, and you were just being with your feelings. And this is what I meant by distraction as a perfect example. Cause you know, reaching for the Netflix and the Vino is convenient and we live in an ever more stressful world every day. I mean the, you know, [00:40:00] Proverbial historic screws are being turned all over the world.

So we are becoming more and more and more stressed by what we read and this relentless newsfeed that is the internet. So and by the events themselves, of course. So I just want to really stress that self-care is removal sometimes. And when you are in a situation where somebody is verbally abusive, Or you feel unsafe or you feel you’re uncertain what to do removing yourself is a darn good place to start because then you can hear yourself think sitting down with your journal.

Just fantastic. I journaled my way through many, many, many moments where I felt, you know, there was conflict with somebody and I really had to get clear on what was the right. And your guidance is always there. It’s waiting for you to tune in. It just has to tap into it. Sometimes that’s talking to a friend, sometimes it’s journaling, sometimes it’s meditating, you know, [00:41:00] and then, and then what I did is I, I wrote up what I wanted to say, because as a pleaser, I send times just retreat and I withdraw and I’m quiet and the pattern would be.

To see them again and act like everything’s fine and it’s never done. And so I went back two to three days later. It took me that long and I still wasn’t completely in a compassionate mode, but I went back to talk about my feelings about it, because with them, because I was leading on a two week trip and I didn’t want to leave.

With bad feelings, but I expressed, you know, why I did what I did, why I reacted the way I did. I took responsibility for, for my reaction and my feelings. And we were able, I was able to talk about it. I didn’t, my dad didn’t say much, but still I think it’s progress because the old Emily would have gone right back into that pattern of putting up with it.[00:42:00] 

And that’s a boundary I’m not going to. I’m not going to go into detail. It was just the way he reacted to something I said. And so I’m not that that hurt me. I felt hurt. And I’m just telling you that I felt hurt. And before I would have just shoved those feelings under the rug, that’s a huge step for me.

Yeah. It’s, it’s what I love about it too. Is your clarity on the importance of it? Even if you didn’t get the big apology or the big response or whatever we might be looking at. Doesn’t mean that wasn’t a personally helpful experience. Yeah. So I really acknowledged that. I don’t want to call out a little comment here from Nikita, who said I meditate every morning and walk daily to girl Trek, which sounds like a really cool podcast.

Don’t know it. But what I want to say is it sounds fun. And I have all chapter my book on the importance of fun, because fun is underrated. Yeah. Critically important. There’s actually a God. Who has a guy? Well, [00:43:00] he’s a medical researcher, he’s a doctor. And he has created an Institute that studies the impact of fun and leisure and recreation and why these are important and how they impact your nervous system and your, your wiring.

And of course, You know, we take fun for granted. Like I’m going to get to fun. Eventually. I’ll go out and drink a lot with my friends. That’ll be fun. It might be fun, but often fun is many types of things. And when we don’t have enough fun, we physically suffer. We physically suffer. I mean, is your vacation that you’re planning something fun or are you doing a dutiful visit to some elderly relatives and you really there to take care of them while they’re in surgery, you know, not fun.

Right. So get yourself some fun at the same time, whatever that may be. I love that. And now we’re going to ask about like accountability with another friend. That’s. I’m trying to practice self care, working on practicing [00:44:00] self care. Oh yeah. Buddies. I got a swimming buddy. My next door neighbor. We share a fence and we go swimming twice a week.

And I want to tell you. She got me into a swimming pool that is so beautiful that I didn’t even know existed near my home and outdoor pool and swimming in the sun. It’s so great. And because she’s there, I have to kind of show off a little and like swim more than I would if I was just by myself.

That’s the other thing about that buddies they show up. She’s like, I know I’m doing that too, so great. We have such a good time. Well after heals network. I love that title. Yeah. Yes. We have to have fun. So how do you keep it going? I mean, like, it might be, you’re able to like say I’m going to do this and I’m going to you have great intentions.

How do you keep it going? I have various little systems built into my life and I recommend this to people. I have an accountability buddy, who I email every morning and I tell. My work tasks I’m going to do, but I [00:45:00] also tell myself care tasks. And I noticed that when I don’t do myself care tasks on a repeated basis, it’s because I am feeling guilty or like, I can’t possibly fit that in.

And I have, you know, definitely got some stress in my life at times, and I have to be very clear that I deserve self-care and that I deserve to take time for myself. These are things. Really are important. And you know, obviously we’re talking about it for a whole hour here, so you get the drift. But the, but the point is that when I get off track, I get back on track and you allow yourself to make a few mistakes.

And the other thing you do is you learn to experiment with all of this because we may think, oh, great. I know I’m going to want to be in, you know, ballet bar exercises. Because I love [00:46:00] ballet bar, but you haven’t been for 30 years and you get into belly artists, most excruciating thing you’ve ever done in your life.

Sounds like probably not now for ballet bar. You know, you speak from experience that, but I say it was, it was a bunch of very young women and me. So I, what I notice is when I hold life as an experiment, like everything’s worth. You know, going to Italy for vacation, worth a try. I might love it. I might be overwhelmed by the language issue for me.

If I don’t speak Italian, you know, we give it a shot and it doesn’t matter if it isn’t perfect or if it isn’t great or it isn’t what we expect, what matters is that we took a dive in and we experimented with it and we learned so much. Yeah, I love that. And you’ve got a Facebook group too. I’m going to put the link up here.

Ah, yeah, that Facebook group is [00:47:00] really interesting. It’s a lot of women 55,000 now. And they all came together in the most magical way. It had been this group that had steadily built over about three years to 10,000. And then one morning I woke up in 2,700 people wanted to join it, and I had no idea why they just were there and they weren’t one person, 2,700 times through some tech glitch and it wasn’t 2,700 fake profiles.

Yeah. 2,700 extremely busy women who wanted self care. And then they came and, and for about six weeks we had in about six weeks, we had a hundred thousand women who wanted to join this group. And I had to rush out and suddenly bring in a crew of moderators and, and really learn very quickly how to manage this.

And in the end 55,000, we’d let. Well, 45,000 and they have [00:48:00] stayed and it is a beautiful group full of women who help each other with deep and vulnerable questions. Sometimes it’s about how do I set a boundary with this guy at work? Sometimes it’s about. You know where should I go on vacation on the east coast?

You know, it’s like they’re picking the broader context for self care. And often people are talking about why do I feel so guilty or, you know, really reassuring each other about the validity of wanting self care. Oh, I love that. I mean, I think it’s important to realize we’re not alone. You know, we sit there and they think these thoughts, we think, oh, if I share that with you, people think I’m crazy.

And then you share it and 10, 10 million other people say, yeah, I thought the same thing. So we’re not alone for sure. No. Yeah. So anyway, if you would like to join the Facebook group, there’s a link there and you just drop in that. You found me through Emily and. [00:49:00] That’d be great. And then you’re also, you have this freebie that you’re giving out three.

Oh, it’s just, it’s just a little, a fun thing. It’s a little sort of a guide to exquisite self care kind of summarizes what we’ve talked about today here and, and adds a few little ideas and really you know, anything that comes out of my corner. It’s going to be dedicated to your soothing. And once you get the little freebie or whatever, every other week, I send out an easy that has.

Reflections on how I’m evolving with self care, which is something, you know, I’ve been working on this now for many years and it is really awesome growth process. And of course it includes links to the blogs and the podcasts that I do on a regular basis. It it’s just fun and joyful to really give yourself.

A life of happiness that you designed, that you [00:50:00] create, that you get behind and make very much your perfect situation. It doesn’t happen all at once, but it happens through intention and through clarity. And through being honest with you, Definitely just described mine my life the past three years. Right.

Well, that’s why we like each other, I believe for sure. So tell us when your podcast goes, do you do it live or do you do? No. My podcast is prerecorded and I drop a new episode every Tuesday. This week show is about emotional self care and you can find it on apple and Spotify. You can Google self care for extremely busy women podcast.

You go into apple and type in self care. It’s one of the first podcasts that pops up. And I don’t know. I think women in 30, 35 countries are listening to it now and some men [00:51:00] too, as a matter of fact, I just did a show on self care for extremely busy men, which was that I’m almost up to 200 shows and I’d never done that before, but I had a wonderful guest.

Ted Phaeton who say I’m a life coach and a meteorologist actually I’m an Emmy-winning meteorologist who’s, who was so insightful about what men need. And a lot of women shared it with their partners and now. Here’s the, all those guys who are listening to the show too. Curious, what is the difference between self care for men versus women?

Well, it is what you might think, which is that men are reluctant to really admit they need help with self-care because men are supposed to not have needs. None of us are supposed to have needs, but for different reasons, they’re supposed to be like the strong guy I’ve got you. Don’t worry about my needs.

And we’re supposed to be like, You know, I have needs, but you come first, but ignore my needs. It’s it’s, [00:52:00] it’s a model we’re redoing. So it is becoming rapidly way more accessible and acceptable for men to have to really give themselves abundance, self care. And, you know, it’s an inside job, just like it is with.

And you’re not weak. You’re not, you know, less of a man or less macho or whatever, because you are actively pursuing self care for yourself. And for some guys it’s also just go in the cave and shut the door. Right. Right. Right. Well, it’s amazing the legacy that your daughter teal has left. Oh yeah. I agree.

She wanted to be a healer. You know, this is the magic of this story. She wanted to be a hero. And she really believed that something was about to happen. That was going to give her a healing gift. And I always like, you know, just keep that in mind as I do this work because I feel it is the healing gift.

It is [00:53:00] Teal’s healing gift. And she left behind some journals with some wonderful insights in them that just have helped me really understand how to tune into myself and how to. Really bring my self care into a place where I can share it and touch other people and help them access, access their own self care.

Wow. Suzanne, thank you for being my guest. I really enjoyed this conversation and thank you to everybody who participated. Hi, Maria, Michelle. We had Don jet in here earlier. I might miss somebody, but I appreciate everybody that tuned in Sylvia. So thank you guys for watching and please share, this will be, you know, wherever you’re watching it, this will be, it’s a permanent link to this show.

So share it with others who were too busy to attend. Yeah. Right. Because it’s all an illusion in the end. We are, [00:54:00] we, we have time for whatever we really need that’s for sure. And thank you all. It was wonderful to meet you through this platform and thank you, Emily for a great, great. Thank you all for watching. I really appreciate it. And I’ll be online again. Next week. We’re gonna be talking about meditation. This guy is going to be amazing. 

Although for some self-care I am going to be taking several weeks off this. And not publishing a podcast. It’s like, oh my gosh, how could I do that? Are my viewers going to still come? Or the, is, are people going to still support me? Are they going to forget all about my show? So I’m saying, no, you guys, aren’t going to forget about the show.

You guys will support me in practicing self care and taking some time off so that I don’t have. I mean, I love doing these shows, but I also want to have like a couple of weeks out of the summer where I hang out with my grandson and my son and my daughter. And I don’t worry about taking a shower and putting on some kind of nice [00:55:00] shirt for an interview.

I’m just going to take a break. So it’s a little scary to me to be honest, but I’m doing it and you guys can do it too. It’s all practice self care together. All right, I’ll see you next Wednesday night at seven 30. Onward live is sponsored by Emily Harmon, coaching and consulting. Visit my website, Emily harman.com to learn more about me and my coaching programs.

I’d love to help you create a life you love living. Remember every adversity is our own personal university. Sometimes the lessons are difficult and we must learn from our experiences. Vulnerability is your super power. You are lovable and worthy, and we discuss these topics and more because professional is personal.

Thank you for joining us and engaging with me and my guests. I look for.