Self-Care in Advance

In this episode, I’m sharing a rough day I had when something totally unexpected threw me off. I won’t go into details (to respect my son’s privacy), but I was left feeling embarrassed and powerless. Ever been there?

This led me to the idea of self-care in advance—basically, planning ahead for those stressful moments we know are coming, like IEP meetings or doctor’s appointments. I talk about how prepping for these events can make a huge difference, even if it’s as simple as planning an easy dinner or giving yourself a break. 

Listen and learn how planning your self-care before chaos hits is a game changer! 

Connect with Kara, host of The Special Needs Mom Podcast:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thespecialneedsmompodcast/
Website: https://www.kararyska.com/

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Transcript

 Hi, I'm Kara, life coach, wife and mom to four incredible and unique children. It wasn't all that long ago that my son received a diagnosis that had my world come crashing down. I lacked the ability to see past the circumstances, which felt impossible. And the dreams I once had for my life and family felt destroyed. 

Fast forward past many years of surviving and not at all thriving, and you'll see a mom who trusts that she can handle anything that comes her way and has access to the power and confidence that once felt so lacking.  I created the special needs mom podcast to create connection and community with moms who find themselves feeling trapped and with no one who really understands. 

My intention is to spark the flair of possibility. In your own life and rekindle your ability to dream. This isn't a podcast about your special needs child. This is a podcast about you.  If you are a mom who feels anxious, alone, or stuck, then you are in the right place. Welcome.

   Hello. And welcome to the Special Needs Mom Podcast. This is Kara, your host, and I am glad you're here.  So I want to share a little story, a little personal story. I often like to start episodes with a story from a day in the life. And this story is about yesterday.  Yesterday was  a hard day.  Something happened right in the morning.

When I was getting settled in for my day,  my normal routine is kind of get the kids off to school  and then just settle everything.  And this day happened to be a day of podcasting and I was like really excited to get settled in for it. And this thing totally caught me off guard. I don't like being surprised for the record. 

So this behaviorally based incident, like I said, was one I didn't see coming and due to the nature of it, it happened to be quite public.  You'll notice I'm being very vague. I'm not saying what the thing is that happened. It's very intentional. I'm not just trying to be a very poor storyteller,  but my goal is to protect the privacy of my own son, Levi, and to share my story, right?

So I had this experience, which was very upsetting  and  it actually doesn't matter really at all exactly what he did or didn't do

 because you very likely, and I really hope haven't had This particular experience that I had,  and you have one that's very unique to you.  Maybe it's medical, maybe it's behavioral. It doesn't really matter. The point is we are all being asked to jump through immense emotional, mental, and physical hurdles. 

So back to my story. I was surprised. I was embarrassed.  And wow, I felt powerless.  Like I said, I did not see this thing coming. Like it really, really,  it still surprises me. So naturally, I didn't anticipate it. So I could not have defended it.  And after the main event had passed,  I was trying to resettle. 

And I was left with myself and the day that I had planned.  It was very evident to me I was not going to go on with business as usual . I was going to need to walk this one off a little bit.  Actually, a walk would have been great, but I didn't do that.

It was like really hot. So my nervous system was like, Ooh, it was like trying to figure out, are we okay? Are we not okay? This, this didn't feel okay. We don't really know what to do. We are not okay.  And so I tended to myself. And for me in that particular moment, I needed to emotionally process the experience.

And so I just wrote, I literally just wrote down everything that happened and allowing myself to kind of have the emotional release. That I really couldn't have had in the moment because I was You know, just my instinct was to hold it all together, which I'm sure is a lot of the experience that y'all have is like  when you're trying to do some of the things that your kids require you to do,

it's just not a great time to break down crying.  So I just wrote down all the things and allowed me to  kind of express more of why this was upsetting and what was going on for me. Emotionally. And while I'd love to say, Oh man, I did that and I was back to feeling amazing and I recorded this episode, it did not go that way.

It was, there was no poof, there was no magic. It was what I needed and I was still left with the impact of what happened. I felt thin, not like skinny thin, but like thin, like I just didn't have a lot of depth  depleted and I just had to go with it. So I went on and kind of just muttered through my day.

Really didn't ask myself to do a lot of higher thinking things. I kind of did like boring paperwork stuff. We always have that, right?  Always have that to go back to. And so here we are today. I've got a little more distance on it, a good night's sleep. And if I'm fully honest, a half a carton of Ben and Jerry's ice cream.

So  that's yesterday.  Now,  

  Why am I telling you all this? Well, it's because sometimes, as y'all know, we have to pivot. And I plan ahead about three months. Is where I'd like to have in terms of kind of having the show thought out.   It always changes, but in this particular place, it just didn't feel quite right to record the episode I had planned and it's an episode I'm really excited about.

It's about our identities as a special needs mom, how we lose them. And the good news here is there's an and and how we regain them and  how we find our way back to you. I mean, I know it sounds a little corny, but that's essentially you know, your identity, AKA you.  So  that will, will be coming.

So don't you worry. It's still on my post it in my office and it's not going anywhere, but we have this one added in. So today what I wanted to talk about is a very simple concept. It felt like a simple concept because. You know,  pretty much all of the concepts I talk about on the show are actually very simple.

But what I want to emphasize is that does not mean they're easy. So while this is a simple, simple concept, I want to acknowledge that it's not always easy.  And so  that's why we're talking about it. We're talking about it because I think leaning into these things that You know, for many different reasons aren't easy, but have the potential of making a huge impact for us.

I think it's worth conversation. So what is this concept?  Well,  self care  in advance. So the emphasis on this is the in advance part.  Like I said, it's actually very straightforward. So self care in advance. You're like, wow, that's not very mind blowing, Kara. You're right. It's not. And it's not that easy to care for ourselves.

We all know this.  So self care is a million things. We're not going to go into a deep dive into self care as a conversation today. I'm going to simply define it by. Having self care be something that we do or don't do to meet our mental, physical, or emotional needs. And then the emphasis is the in advance part.

I'll explain more about what I mean by that in advance piece in a little bit as I keep going into this episode.

 As I mentioned, we're not going to do a deep dive into the concepts and aspects of self care, but really the way that we approach planning and providing ourselves what we need.  Now, when I say that my prediction is that you hit up against a wall as, well, I can't have what I want and need because.

insert the difficulties of your life and your child here.  So I totally get an honor that , that's where I'm like, this is simple, but it's not easy.  And so. I do have other episodes that lean more into the actual conversation about self care and like how that can look and how it actually, even though I'm defining it as doing or not doing, it doesn't mean that we're having to add more things to our to do list to care for ourselves.

Actually, I want to emphasize the not doing something, but also there's many, many, many things. See, I couldn't stop talking about it. I couldn't stop myself. I couldn't stop talking about what it looks like to care for ourselves.  There's many things that do not require extra time.  money to care for ourselves.

So if you feel stuck, go listen to those episodes and help yourself get unstuck.  Okay, so why this advanced thing? What am I talking about? Why advance?  Interestingly enough, we use different parts of our brain for different types of planning and decisions.  Our prefrontal cortex, that's like the front forehead area of our brain, That helps with what we would call higher level thinking, decision making, executive function planning.

I'm not going to go into the detail here of like the brain stuff because I actually totally geek out and all that stuff. But my guess is you probably don't. And so I will have that on the we do a little bit more extensive show notes on my blog. website. And so you can go ahead and look at that. If you're like, I want all the science, Kara, I'll have a lot of paragraphs for you there. 

So  I'm going to really simplify this concept and say, okay,  planning ahead. Like even the day before when we're thinking and planning ahead and making decisions, I'm going to call that aspect, the architect. Okay, so the architect takes into account all the things.

It looks at the lay of the land, the weather, the things that are coming its way, and it makes a good plan,  a well thought out plan,  right?  Versus what I'm going to call your now brain.  Really simplifying it. Does it feel good now? Yes. Okay. I want it then.  That's the really simplified version. Again, the science version  is going to be on my website.

If I eat this mac and cheese, I will feel better now.  Who cares? And this is the, it doesn't think this way, but it's like, who cares if the next hour or day after I'll have a headache cause I don't eat gluten.  I want it now. It feels good now.   And I'll have you pay attention that easy usually feels good in the moment.

 Okay.  What we're looking at. Why in advance? Okay. Your architect versus your now.

So  very predictably, your architect's going to make different choices for you than your now brain. Now, when we really. careful here  to recognize that we're not saying the architect is good and the now is bad.  What I'm saying is that if you want to care for yourself at a very well thought out intentional way, then your now brain's probably not your,  strongest strategy.

So this conversation, this episode is about giving your architect a little time to shine a little time to do her thing.  And sometimes  you're not going to have access to the architect if you're like in the hospital and  in a survival state. Your now brain's your girl.  Let's let her shine too and let her do her thing when she is necessary. 

 So let's not judge ourselves for letting the now brain do the thing. The point here is that we don't want to over use that part, the now part. We want to actually  give both an opportunity to do what they do best. So our architects looking out for our,   long term benefit,  our highest priorities, our intentions, our dreams, our desires,   Our now brain is just keeping us comfy and consoled. 

 Okay. So going back to the big concept here, the concept being self care in advance,  again,  self care being defined as doing or not doing something to meet your mental, physical, Or emotional needs. I might add spiritual to that, but we're going to keep it simple. We're going to just going to go with three, meaning  that you add whatever you want to your needs.

 I'm talking specifically about events or situations that you can predict or prepare for that would benefit from a higher level of care for yourself,  AKA self care.   So examples  might  include would be IEP meetings, transferring of your child or children to a co parent or a different household, getting your child to school, picking them up from school.

Of course, medical appointments. Side note as I was preparing for this episode, I realized that we have four specialists and or hospital appointments in the next six days.  So that's a lot.  We'll talk about that later. Paperwork,  dealing with insurance.  behaviors. And some of these I want to make a note of.

You may not be able to predict exactly when a behavior is going to happen, but you may be very able to predict that a behavior will happen.  So that's a little different, but also you can apply the same concept so that you have The support that you need at the ready  when you need it.  We don't want to rely on the now brain to give you that support.

It's actually very ineffective at supporting you at a high level in those stressful situations.  Like your evening routine,  finishing the day,  that's something you can predict that you may need some care.  for at that time. And this is where in advance can come in.  So notice all these things have a potential for some sort of additional mental, physical, or emotional lift.



If we know these things will happen, what do we say we want to do? Or not do to meet these needs.  So let's look at this in the wild. I always think , it's fun to actually look at specific examples to kind of help our brain start to  visualize and see what this could look like for ourselves,  medical appointments.

As I mentioned, we have a hot,  a hot week coming in  and.  So, these are likely actually pretty regular for a lot of you, like as in like, Oh, like I got this. I'm good at this. It's like maybe you don't recognize how actually mentally, physically, or emotionally taxing they are, but , I want you to actually go back and realize, no,  this is something that is very taxing for all the different reasons could be just driving in traffic that has a load that has an impact  finding care for your other children.

You know, worrying about your other children while you're at appointments. Like there is so much involved here. So I want you to consider that  these are situations that are really, really great for needing extra care for yourself. 

  

So acknowledging the time investment and the potential overwhelm and all of the things I mentioned before,  and acknowledging the toll, the load that they have you carry will then help you address those needs specifically. So the self care in advance that I would be looking at for myself will be an attempt to address all these things.

So like for me, there's a huge time commitment in getting to these appointments because our hospital is like 45 minutes away.  And  On Friday, so it's going to take a long time to get home. Like it's 45 minutes there, but it's going to be like at least an hour to get home. It's a big time commitment away from my kids.

So there's impacts in terms of who's going to make dinner, who's going to care for these kids,    when I get home, they're going to all have needs, which means that there's not a lot of space for my needs at that time. And so my in advance is going to be really looking, okay, when and how can I meet my needs in terms of just having quiet period.

So me visualizing what that's going to look like and then creating it is the name of the game here.  So some brainstorm things I listed out that could be part of the self care in advance would be planned for a meal out versus a homemade meal,   arranged to have an easy meal at home. Like that literally I just have to warm up,  maybe ask your husband or even a friend or family member to take care of dinner.

Hey, can you have dinner ready when I get home? I expect to get home at five o'clock and it'd be really amazing if it's nutritious. 

Okay. So it's just making a request.

  Take items off your schedule for the next day or week. So recognizing this is a heavy lift, having that many appointments in a small amount of time, and maybe this is your regular, right? You're like, yeah, I care. I do that every week. Great. And what's the care that you need in advance to make that work for you longterm? 

So for me, what I'm going to be looking at is, okay, what can we take off the schedule  that is going to help allow me. To recover from the intensity  of this next week.  And the other thing that might help me is what I'm looking at. It's like I might schedule  some therapy for myself to process all the things that may or may not come up at these appointments. 

Okay, let's look at another thing. IEP meetings. These are juicy. There's so much involved in here in terms of the logistics, but also the emotional impact of IEP meetings.  I don't know. This makes me kind of smile. Years ago, I had planned to go to the batting cages directly after. The IEP meeting, because our school happens to be right next to a batting cage.

I had childcare set up and I said, Hey hubby, we're going to go hit some things after this appointment. I think clearly I was at a time where I anticipated  having some, it sounds like anger ready to process. Was it effective in processing my anger? I'm not sure, but it was a little bit fun, so I'm glad I tried it. 

 What I'll add here is like sometimes the things that we think are going to meet our needs and help, they don't. Always fully do it, right? This is like the game we play and we keep trying. We don't stop.  Okay, another example is getting our child, children to school.  It's like a whole rodeo sometimes.

 As I was using this example, I was thinking of my friend Rachel, , Whose daughter loves the early morning. So she's getting up early. So like by the time she's getting her daughter to school, like she's left like almost a full day of like a work shift, if you will, if she was like, you know, working outside the home. 

And so what would self care in advance look like in this situation? Like the thing that I came up with is like, Oh man, like it's almost like if you consider that this is a full shift that you just worked, like  to go, you know, finish the process and give yourself a break. And to really kind of  pause and actually tend to your need.

But actually the self care in advance would look like creating space and time for you to do that. And maybe you even come up with a ritual of like, okay, when I get the kids to school, kid to school, whatever it is for you that I kind of go have a new start to my day where I make myself a cup of coffee or tea.

I take a break. Maybe even read something,  maybe read from a devotional and kind of recenter yourself, maybe do a meditation, maybe scroll on social media of mixed feelings on how like fruitful that would be in terms of actually like tending to yourself.

 So this is just kind of. Creating the space in advance for what you need. Again, anticipating that like your beat by the time that you get to this part of the day.  Okay. There could be like a million other  for this particular one. And I'd love for you to like text the show. So actually there's this cool new function that my podcasting host has where you can text me.

It is so fun to hear from you guys. So  I want to hear your ideas. And I can even go share them on the show. You have to tell me your name if you want credit for it. Cause  , the text people give you privacy, which I think is cool too.  Okay. Or here's the other thing is I think it'd be really great to hear where you get stuck.

So I've given  ideas  and ideas are great, but we're human beings. And it's usually not for lack of ideas that we don't do something.  So I want to review this real quick to kind of give a high, low summary of  what your next action steps are here. And then we're going to talk a little bit about this getting stuck piece. 

So in review. You're going to look ahead at your life and, or your schedule. You're going to anticipate the needs that you may have,  and you're going to create something to address your needs. You're going to tend to your needs.   The question would be, what decisions can you make now to plan for yourself in the future? 

Okay. And then once you see  what's next, then you go get her done.  Okay. Like I mentioned, we get stuck and what I want to acknowledge, it is normal to get stuck, right? It is normal for this to sometimes feel really hard. I know for myself, when I look at the schedule, it's really hard to take certain things off,  especially if I think that they are critical to my son's care.

So for an example, fitting physical therapy in.  Which I know is necessary,  but also when I recognize that physical therapy  is an option to take off. Like I don't have to do it to help him. It is beneficial and there's value to it. But recognizing there's also value to not  blindly, or I should say automatically, grabbing on and not letting go of something for fear that if I don't do it then, I'm  , he won't grow, he won't get better, et cetera.

 So again, I just want to acknowledge we get stuck here. It is normal to get stuck. This is actually where coaching is a very effective tool  for helping us. One, I really identify and get clear on where and why we get stuck, but more importantly, help us move past and through where we get stuck.  This is the part where it's like the most fun ever to see this happening in the coaching program or even with the individual clients I work with to see them move past where they normally get stuck and to really essentially change their life as a result of it.

it sounds so hyperbolic. It's not because actually when you do something that you weren't able to do before, it is life changing.  All right. And I do want to mention  that.  This program is open.  I used to run the program like years and years ago when I started it, I called it being mom together. And honestly, I still love that name. 

And the together aspect , is so important because doing this work together is,  I can't even explain why exactly, but it, it creates an exponential experience because we have the support, we have the community, we have the sisterhood and. It is just really, really amazing. And, you know, it also makes it more fun.

We get to laugh together. We get to cry together. It's all a togetherness that we all want.  And okay. So  it used to be called Being Mom Together. I evolved it and now it's kind of actually in an even another iteration where it is called Pathway to Peach Coaching Community.  And essentially  it's a  high level of support that is very reachable and accessible. 

So I've designed it so that it is within reach for  what I could say. Many of you, I can't say all of you, I don't know all of your individual situations, but the last person I spoke to about it and told her all the details, she was like, wow, it feels like it would be stupid not to join. Now. I never want anyone to feel stupid, but it was like, yes, I did it.

I did it because she saw the value. And it was like, of course, of course I would do this.  That's what I've been working to do is make it so that it feels like, of course I can say yes to this because  know that it will help me.

 Okay. So this community is currently open and we are ready to welcome you in.  And with that, we'll see you on the next episode.