Ep #39: Self-Care

You are listening to the Weight Loss for Successful Women podcast with Shannan Christiansen, episode number 39.

Welcome to Weight Loss for Successful Women, a podcast for women who are ready to break the diet cycle and end their struggle with weight for good. Here’s your host, Fortune 100 executive and Certified Life Coach, Shannan Christiansen.

Hello loves. Welcome back to the show. So excited to be back with you ladies today. We are going to talk about self-care and what it really is. And you know ladies, it’s such a buzzword, but I really believe in it. And so, I can’t wait to share with all of you what I’ve learned about it.

But before we get into the show, as always, I want to give a listener shout-out to Mary Bishop. She wrote, “I truly enjoy listening to these podcasts to have someone that understands and has all the love to share is amazing. Thank you for being that person.” Thank you so much, MJ. It means a lot to me that you love this and you’re listening.

Thank you to all the ladies who have taken the time to leave a review. I really appreciate it. Loves, I am not sure if you are like me, but I’ve had all the emotions lately. With everything this year, I have felt frustration, confusion, shame, guilt, anger. I mean, I’ve had the good ones too, joy and happiness, but loves, I have felt exhausted.

I know that my ladies are feeling it too. My ladies in The Society have been struggling. I’ve heard it in my coaching calls. I know that this year has felt heavy. I’ve seen all the memes about starting this year over, canceling it, and all the things.

But loves, every painful event, situation, it gives us an opportunity to look inward. An opportunity to look at our own thoughts and beliefs. It gives us a chance to show up, be courageous, and build resiliency. When we look at our thoughts and beliefs, we can look at all the corners of our minds.

It helps to shine a light on them. Then loves, we can change. By looking inward, being quiet, still, we come back to ourselves. It gives us the space to love and take care of ourselves like we have never done before. And it leads me right into self-care.

When I used to think of self-care, I would think of massages, pedicures. I would think of shopping or buying something to “make me happy.” I thought of these external things that would give me just a moment of happiness. But I’ve learned so much more about self-care. Self-care comes from the inside.

The definition of self-care is the practice of taking action to preserve or improve one’s own health. The practice of taking an active role and protecting one’s own wellbeing and happiness, in particular, during periods of stress. It is learning to take care of ourselves, loving ourselves. And it is all an inside job.

There are many myths, loves, about self-care that we women have. Things like we have to take care of everyone else or it’s selfish to invest in myself. We have learned that taking care of ourselves is selfish and it goes back to these thoughts that we have that we’re not enough, that we do not matter.

But loves, before you can take care of anyone else, you must take care of you. I want to repeat that again. Before you can take care of anyone else, you must take care of you. Loves, self-care is so important right now. It’s so important that we take care of our mental health, physical health, and emotional health.

We cannot be the change in the world if we are depleted and exhausted because when we’re depleted and exhausted, you know loves what we do. We overeat, we gain weight, and we use food to push down all of our emotions. We are so worried about our next food fix that we use all of our brain power on beating ourselves up, obsessing about the next diet we’re going to try, and how we need to be better.

And when we do this, we cannot show up as our best selves. I know loves, I did this most of my life. Self-care is more than taking a bath. And I love a good bath, but it is a daily practice of going inward to take care of yourself. The important part of this is to make a plan of how you can incorporate one to two things into your everyday routine.

Self-care is not saved for the weekends or vacations. I want to give you some simple action steps that you can do to create your own self-care plan. The first step is being aware of your thoughts and how they’re driving your action. Our brain is always on. There are so many thoughts a day going through our beautiful brains.

I find that mental exhaustion is harder on me than physical exhaustion. Reflection work is about getting all of the negative, limiting, and sabotaging thoughts out of our heads. I do this work every day. Reflection work is an important tool in weight loss and in becoming our best selves.

Reflection work is simple. Every day just take five minutes to write down any limiting, negative, or sabotaging thoughts that you have. When you start to notice the thoughts, then you can decide if you want to keep thinking those thoughts or if you want to change them.

The second step is looking for ways to fuel that beautiful body of yours with food that fuels it more than non-fuel food. Eating food that fuels you is a fundamental of self-care. Third, my love, rest. It is so important. Rest your mind and your body. Disconnect from our phones and media. Meditate if you’d like. Even if it’s just five minutes of sitting in silence.

I take phone breaks every day. It’s where I put my phone up and I don’t look at it anymore. It’s a way to focus inward and not on all the things in our outer world. Sleep is so important. It’s where we rejuvenate and repair our bodies. If we do not rest our minds and get enough sleep, we will feel exhausted, physically and mentally.

Now the three steps I just gave are three of my fundamentals, which you can learn in my free course if you’ve not taken it yet. Go to bflycoaching.com/free-course. Another step to self-care is through connection. Connection is so important, love.

I watch my ladies in the Transform Society connect with each other every day in their accountability groups. They support and love each other. This connection, this community, I believe is one of our basic needs. To laugh with someone, to talk, to hug, even if it’s a virtual hug is so important in self-care.

Look for ways to connect with people you love in a meaningful way every day. I know so many of you wait until the weekends, but I want to challenge you to create a plan of self-care that you can incorporate into your daily life, even if you just start with five to 10 minutes a day.

Self-care can seem like a buzzword, but love, it’s not. It is vital to take care of ourselves mentally and physically. You are worth this time. You are worth the investment, love.

The transformational questions, number one, what does your self-care look like right now? Number two, how can you add one to two things in every day for you? Number three, what does your self-care plan look like? So good loves, bye for now.

If you love this work and want to go deeper, take my free course. You can learn more about it at bflycoaching.com/free-course. Bye for now, loves.

Thank you for listening to this episode of Weight Loss for Successful Women. If you love what you heard today and want to learn more, come over to bflycoaching.com. That’s B – F – L – Y coaching dot com. See you next week!