Season 9 Episode 5: What Self-Care Is and Isn’t with Jamie McFaden

Is self-care a part of your strategy for success? Do you know what self-care is? And what it isn’t? Self-care specialist Jamie McFaden joins Master Certified Life Coach Melissa Wiggins for this week’s podcast to walk you through the small steps you can take each day. Steps that take 

20 minutes or less, but can rewire our brains and the messages we can take in so we can show up in the world better. 

Jaime says self-care isn’t a solo mission. Take off your badge of hyper independence – we don’t have to do it alone. We all need support with your six pillars:  Mental, Physical, Emotional, Spiritual, Social, Financial.  Pick one area, build your team, reach out, and start to see your own value. Self-care is your #1 form of healthcare. Grab a cuppa and listen in as these former people-pleasers share what they’ve learned to help you change the script.

Remember to follow the WAVE: Wellbeing, Awareness, Vision, Energy

READ Jaime’s Bestselling Book: WAVES of Self-Care

LISTEN to Jaime’s Self-Care Secrets Podcast 

FOLLOW Jamie on IG: @jaimemcfaden

LEARN MORE at JaimeMcfaden.com

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Melissa Wiggins: Welcome to Coaching and a Cup of Tea with Mummabear. It is season nine. And I am so excited to have Jamie McFaden. Which by the way, your name just sounds like a supermodel. It's just like Jamie McFaden's here with us. It's just so professional. Like I don't know, I love it. I love your name. And I love your story and your energy. Like you're I got goosebumps. You laugh these can't see what I'm looking at. But it's like a ray of frickin sunshine. And you're just a joy to be around and your backdrops adorable. But tell us the listeners a little bit about you and your work and what you're going to talk to us about today.

Jaime McFaden  Oh, well, thank you so much for that beautifully warm introduction. And just you yourself are a ray of sunshine. So I know your audience knows this right now. But it's an honor to be here. So thank you so much for having me. 

Find the FULL Transcript Here: Season 9 Episode 5: What Self-Care Is and Isn't with Jamie McFaden

Transcript

Melissa Wiggins  00:44

Welcome to Coaching and a Cup of Tea with Mummabear. It is season nine. And I am so excited to have Jamie McFaden. Which by the way, your name just sounds like a supermodel. It's just like Jamie McFaden's here with us. It's just so professional. Like I don't know, I love it. I love your name. And I love your story and your energy. Like you're I got goosebumps. You laugh these can't see what I'm looking at. But it's like a ray of frickin sunshine. And you're just a joy to be around and your backdrops adorable. But tell us the listeners a little bit about you and your work and what you're going to talk to us about today.

Jaime McFaden  01:30

Oh, well, thank you so much for that beautifully warm introduction. And just you yourself are a ray of sunshine. So I know your audience knows this right now. But it's an honor to be here. So thank you so much for having me. And yeah, so my name is Jamie and I'm a self care specialist by trade, I am Mama Bear, and just absolutely love supporting busy women of the world to make time to put themselves first on the priority list. So that's what we are hoping to talk about today are loving self care specialists.

Melissa Wiggins
Let's go. I love that that and I'm here for it. And, you know, we talked a little bit before we started recording. So we're just going to like dive right into it. One of the things that you are so passionate about is like you said, helping mummbears, most of my listeners are mummabears. And they are also women who are badass and doing all of the things and trying to, you know, live a big, bold, beautiful life.

Melissa Wiggins  02:33

And that's what we're here for on this podcast. And you advocate for that. And I feel like one of the things that I love about your message is sort of adding self care as a strategy for success. Right? Like it has to be a part of the strategy for success. Yeah. And so before this, we were like, Okay, well, you have been for a very long time and are open about being a single mom and raised your child as well as this beautiful business that allows you know, women to take care of themselves and teachers from home. What do you say to someone who's listening, and they're like, alright, Coaching a Cup of Tea with Mummabear, that sounds great. This sort of self care can be a part of your strategy, and you want to like slap me right now? Because you're thinking, I'm a single mom, how do I do that? Like, what does that even look like? And you just speak about it so beautifully. And I would just love for you to dig into that a little bit?

Jaime McFaden  03:29

Well, thank you. And yes, it is certainly the thing I am obsessed with most passionate about. And I would consider myself a very expert researcher in terms of all things self care related. So to rewind a little bit, oftentimes self care is Miss read. And we are conditioned from a very young age specifically as women to believe that self care is what I call shoreline or surface self care, right? So it's getting our hair done, our nails done putting makeup on, we kind of think of it as just this very exterior kind of look. And self care is so much deeper than that. And so I've decided to literally rip the layers of the onion and teach women kind of from the inside out. How can we cultivate this deep internal love for ourselves through very small practices, 20 minutes or less a day of rewiring our brain and our message that we're telling ourselves so that we can literally show up in the world better. And the number one thing I'd say is, this is the biggest this is I wrote a book on this is the biggest lie we're told is self care is about yourself doing it for yourself by yourself. It's this solo mission. And that's a bunch of baloney. It is all about a village and it's about just like we say for our children creating a village. We need to have support and as women the more that we can start to show up for ourselves and actually speak out and say, 'Oh, I'm looking for an accountability partner here', 'oh, I need help with my finances.' Once we start to call in and cultivate that energy, a village shows up, and we have an opportunity to take better care of ourselves. And then we can show up better in the world. So that's where we're at.

Melissa Wiggins  05:16

I love it. And also, I would like to add that it's a bestselling book. And we'll make sure that it's in the show notes for everybody to go and read and buy, like amazing, such good work. 

Jaime McFaden  05:26

Thank you.

Melissa Wiggins  05:26

I love that idea. I just want to pause for a second and be like, 'yes, rip the band aid off, peel back the layers of the onion.' And also this is not a solo mission. Thank if rate, because I'm telling you all there are a lot of things in life that really do feel like Jamie, this is a soul mission. I'm on my own with this. Like, I can't really reach out to someone. I mean, a lot of a lot of my clients and a lot of people, you know, they'll write in and say, you know, they feel lonely, right like the that there's a struggle to push into asking someone for help. What would you say to someone who's listening? They're like, okay, it's not a solo mission. I get that, like, Where do I even start, Jamie?

Jaime McFaden  06:13

I love this question. And I get asked this question very often because specifically busy burnt out moms are the worst at this truly, and need it the most. We feel we like we need to take on everything, we need to take care of everyone, we need to show up even when we're sleep deprived, haven't eaten, you know what, whether it's the kids, the pets, the spouse, the the job, anything else that's pulling all of our energy. And at the end of the day, truly, if we just take a moment to really sit with that and think for ourselves, okay, if I'm not taking care of myself, am I actually showing up as my most authentic self? Absolutely not A and B, if I start taking better care of myself, what is that going to mean? For everyone else? Well, it's going to mean that you are taking less energy from everybody else. And it's going to mean that you actually have more to give. So if you're looking at, Okay, I'm ready to make a change, I don't know where to start. And I don't want to do this alone. So I'm not really sure where to go. The first step I would say is, and this is I'm going to share my wave system with everyone on the call. Because I think it's so important. It's such an easy, easy word to remember wave like ocean wa v. And it's somewhere this like the starting point. So I want you to think about your life right now. If you're listening right now, think about one area of your life that you want better self care that you want to really take more time and energy to put into your bucket. So you have more to give. So for example, you could say your physical health, you could say your sleep, you could say you want to change careers, whatever it is, but think of something right now as you're listening. And then I want you to look at the Wave System. So here's the four parts. Step one is well being it is not up for me or Melissa or anyone else to tell you. What you need to do to be well, it is up to you right now to decide for yourself and claim and declare, this is what it means to be well. So if you're saying, Okay, I'm not sleeping anymore, because I've got babies and dogs and this and that. Well guess what that means that you're going to declare right now it means to be well in my life, that I get a solid seven hours of sleep every night, and I have a great sleep ritual, boom, okay, cool. Now you know what it means to be well, then you go to the A in the wave system, which is awareness, this one, we have to give ourselves the love that we give to everyone else. Because we do that we give all this love. And then we're really tough on ourselves. So this is the chance where we get to give ourselves grace, and meet ourselves where we're at. So the awareness is key. I can't tell you more times than not I've got literally celebrity clients and people who have all the things in the family and that money in the this. And then they're not happy and they're taken SSRI medications and this because they can't deal with their brain. And when I really think back I go, Well, what is it that you need? And at that moment, most times, I don't even know I'm so busy with all these things. I haven't even stopped. They don't we need to slow down and bring some awareness to what does it mean to be? Well, we identify that as the well being than awareness. What are we currently doing? Look at your day to day, dissect your week a little bit, look at yesterday, look at the day before, are you scheduling so much stuff in your calendar that you literally have no time for yourself because that's not going to do yourself or anyone else any good. So bring awareness to it. Once we have awareness, then we can go to the V which is vision, create a vision, right? Whether it's a vision board, paint a frickin picture, get your paintbrush out, draw a sketch, write it down as a brain dump. However, it works for you to visualize what you would need to do get granular write down little baby steps that like okay, well if I need to get better sleep, that means I probably have to turn my phone off earlier or I have to put the dog in the other room or I have to get my kid to bed early like start to ask yourself the questions. What would I need to do? Where do I need support? who is good at this right start to think about the people you know. Like when I'm looking for something, I go to the people that are good at something that I'm not good at. And I reach out and say, Hey, I really want to work on my sleep. And I know that's something you get quality sleep, can you tell me a little bit about what you do. And when we start to do that, we create the vision. Last but not least, the E and the wave system is energy, energy is at the forefront of everything. We are energy, energy cannot be created nor destroyed, I believe in quantum physics. So if you think of your own energy, we have a limited supply each day, let's say, and it's the most valuable resource we have. So where the heck are you putting your energy, if you're trying to get good sleep, and you're chugging three cups of coffee at 3pm, good luck, and that wine later in the day, that's not going to help you. So start to really look at the mirror. And love that. That idea, honestly, even just a smidge smidge of the idea of what it means for you to be well, and then start to take those baby steps. So that was a long winded answer.

Melissa Wiggins  10:57

And we will detail the WAVE all in the show notes because it's so good. When I read over your notes preparing for this, I was like, 'oh my god, the best.' The best advice I've ever been given in my life is always the simple things. So I love that idea of thinking of it like a wave. I love what it symbolizes. The whole time. I was just thinking like, awareness, awareness, awareness, right? It is. And I want you if you're listening, and you feel a little bit triggered, right? Where maybe you hear the word like 3pm coffees, or you hear wine at night. Just know, it comes from a place of where we've done all of these things. 

Jaime McFaden  11:37

Oh, yeah, right. Oh, I was the worst. I was the worst at this.

Melissa Wiggins  11:44

Yes. And we learn how to do them. And that's why you Jamie have the ability to a figure out what the solutions are and be teach them right. Like coach them, mentor them like you have that from experience. So when Jamie's asking you these questions, and I suggest you listen to this episode, at least twice and write down those questions when you do that, think of a place of like, I'm data mining, right? I'm literally looking for data. That's all I'm doing the beginning, I'm trying to figure out, do I do this? Do I get good sleep? Do I have coffee after noon? Do I feel like I can't take the edge off without a glass of wine. No shame, no guilt, literally finding the information. That's it.

Jaime McFaden  12:33

Exactly. If we can, if we can start to learn to, it's gonna sound silly in a way, but objectify our self care path a little bit more and at the same time, really look at it. The opposite of that is look at it from a lens of imagine this is your child. Imagine this is your favorite, I do an exercise with clients. And I say close your eyes, take three deep breaths and think about your favorite person in the whole wide world. Who do you love the most, nine times out of 10 Guess what people say? Their kid, their spouse, their nobody really says themselves. And if we started to take a little more of that energy to put into ourselves, if we can start to recognize that wherever you're at right now is a beautiful place because it's where you are. Every everything you've done up until this point led you right here, you're listening to this podcast, you're having a cup of tea with us, and talking about self care and really self care if we as a collective community could start coming together to and that's where I tell anyone send me a DM reach out to me, I do my best to respond and be a part of the community as much as I can. Because I was the worst at this, I did not take care of myself to the point that I ended up in a hospital when I was 11 years old, I was a complete people pleaser. I was the epitome of you know, a woman that was living in a world with male dominated things and then I became hyper independent and to the degree where it's taken me all these years even after becoming a single mother to go okay, where do I need some support so I want to share that with everyone so you know, wherever you're at right now is a beautiful place when you can start to look at it from the lens of kind of re parenting yourself from a place of loving yourself the way you do your children or even even your pet like who do you love the most love yourself? Give yourself a little bit of that today.

Melissa Wiggins  14:31

I love that. I love as well, like again, with the the awareness right like your awareness sort of let you know you're a people pleaser. Then like you knew that you became this hyper independent person and know that you've done the work we know because I also was a people pleaser that the hyper independence comes from self protection right? We become the self independent don't need anyone I would have said years ago I'm like the most independent person you will ever meet. And I, to a certain extent, had to move away from that being like a badge of honor to like exactly what you're prophesizing No, like this idea of it being like a group project, right? Like College, make it like a fraud. Let's move into more of that, so that we don't become these hyper independent women who don't feel filled up inside or inside or outside don't match because we're protecting ourselves from friendship, from relationships from putting ourselves out there.

Jaime McFaden  15:41

Hmm. And that you just hit the nail on the head. Because for so many women, moms, business owners, anyone that I personally work with, the ones that are the most independent of all, on the outside, they have this thick skin, right? They've got the or they got the shredded abs, or they've got the you know, beautiful this and, and all these these things. But then you ask deep down, do you feel joy? Do you feel happiness? Do you feel fulfilled? Do you feel loved? Do you feel worthy? And believe it or not many, many, many? if not most, will say no. And so my my kind of question is because I get very philosophical and deep and that's who I am as a person is, why aren't we questioning this more? Right? Why aren't we asking ourselves because we have this deep inner knowing whether we want to believe it or not. But we're so clouded with the noise of every day, that that's why awareness is so key. Because when we start to, like, half the time, when I first meet, if more than half, maybe 90%, I meet with a client, and I asked them, you know, Hey, how are you? And how are you feeling today? And usually I get met with like, wow, nobody really asks me that because it's the busy moms that were taking care of everyone else. And then when we dive a little deeper of what would it look like for you to feel really, really well inside? What would that be like nine times out of 10 someone starts crying because they really just haven't felt like they had that safe space to look at that. Right. And so I think when we can start to destigmatize, like it doesn't need to be scary. And there are going to be scary stuff. I've had to face all my own stuff. And I will continue to face all my own stuff. But knowing that I don't have to do it alone, knowing that I have a village. So when you want to create your village, you want to think of think of people in your life that you know, you feel good around when you talk with them. People that inspire you, people like Melissa, people, like myself, start getting involved, and putting yourself in somewhat uncomfortable situations, because it might be your first time stepping into it. But the minute you start doing it, it's just like going to the gym, you put the reps in and all of a sudden, now you're feeling better now you're now you're making other friends at the gym. Now you're not hanging out with the people that are getting sloshed drunk after work. And instead, you're going to Pilates class, like and it's you start to evolve, and it's a baby step process.

Melissa Wiggins  18:02

I love that I say to my clients, you know, one thing to ask yourself is how do I feel before I spend time with this person? How would I feel during my time with them? And most importantly, how do I feel after it? You know, so often I think we, we don't question like you just beautifully described, we don't question. And I like question everything. I'm like the most annoying friend ever. Right? Like just my friends. They're like, Melissa, I'm like, but we should probably ask why.

Jaime McFaden  18:40

Yes.

Melissa Wiggins  18:41

My children, poor little children who you know, are growing up with the coach mom, like God bless them, you know, but like, I know, right? I love creating these emotionally intelligent men and women for the future. But it's true, if I don't question all of the things. And so when you are creating that village, I do think about questioning those people that you're around, like how you feel before how you feel during how you feel afterwards, asking yourself those questions will not only give you that data, mining information, but also create more of that awareness. And that leads that you talk about right, like, if I don't question I literally can't become aware.

Jaime McFaden  18:44

Right, right. 100% And I think that also goes back into reflection, where I've been a very busy body. Go, go go, you know, I've had been entrepreneurial minded person since the time I was little. And and I've always worked really hard and I've always worn that badge of honor. But it was very difficult. The most difficult challenge I faced in my life was to actually slow down. And the crazy part is once you slow down a little bit, and you take that time and you allow yourself the space to reflect and literally breathe. We breathe 10s of 1000s of times a day. And most of us aren't even aware of one of those breaths, that is one part of our system that we do with or without thinking about it. And that is what keeps us alive. And if we could just take a few conscious breaths while we start to question, okay, what is it that I need? Or if I'm feeling stuck or lost or depressed or anxious? What, what do I need right now to feel good. And just taking a few breaths on that you might be surprised of what comes to you because sometimes it could be literally drinking a glass of water, sometimes it's go outside and, and take a walk around the block. Sometimes it's put your darn phone down, because we're all attached to these things nonstop. And give yourself a little space. And grace. I think space and Grace are to two key components of everything I teach. And the other two things are, that my favorite two words in the world that I think could literally change everything is discipline, and kindness. And I think they're both equally as important. I think, if we could remember kindness, and it's not about being nice, it's not about doing it because of an expectation or you feel like you should. Kindness is literally just coming from your heart and sharing who you are in the world. To, to, to love from a place of love. And then discipline is, you know, these things aren't just gonna happen. You're not you look at anybody in the world. Think of someone you know, right now, look at Melissa, look at myself, anybody that's reached any level of success in their life, and it's a lifelong process. We've all had ups and downs, we've all failed a million times. But we have to have the discipline to keep going. And the discipline makes the difference, right? It's that it's that that little voice inside of us that knows like, I know, I really need this right now. But I don't really feel like doing it. But that takes practice. Like I was not discipline. I don't know about you, Melissa. But I was like the opposite of discipline. And now it's my favorite word.

Melissa Wiggins  21:50

Yeah, I love it. I am stuck on the like slowing down being the challenge, because that is like mostly my clients too. So I do a women's retreat a couple times a year. And I was laughing when you were holding your phone up, because one of the things that we do on retreat as we have a no phone policy, so there are no phones on retreat, and they literally give them to me and I keep them for three days. And I will kindly point out like, Did you see what you just did there? You made yourself important for an hour and I have chills all over my body. That is so hard for us to do.

Jaime McFaden  24:10

Hmm.  And that's where I want and I know you as well I feel this with between us like a soul connection here is we have to change the script, right? We have to rewrite this inner dialogue that we've been either conditioned or thought to believe or taught or just gotten used to as a bad behavioral pattern, right? Whatever it is, whether it's a phone like for me my thing is my phone's on Do Not Disturb 24/7 And people are like can't get a hold of you and I'm like well text me because when I see it then I can call you back like that's that has become a form of my self care and that's the thing is it isn't going to be a one size fits all and so you have to decide for yourself. What is it that you need? Sometimes when it comes to social self care, some of us need boundaries to say no and to learn how to do that in a way that feels okay and safe for us. Other ones that I work with are the opposite. And they're like, I need to actually put myself out there because I've now isolated myself so much as a busy mom. And I don't like feel like I have any connection to anyone. So it feels weird to just go out or go do this. So I think for anyone listening right now, the biggest, biggest thing that I hope you take away from this conversation is, number one, whether you believe it in this moment or not, whatever you're experiencing right now, because we're all always going through something. And the biggest takeaway, I'd say is to find a smidge within yourself to believe that you are worth it to believe that your value in this world on this planet in this lifetime, however you want to look at that, who you are, is just as valuable as who I am and who Melissa is. So we are in this together, we are connected and as as much as someone like, okay, like that's really you're getting into like the spiritual ideas, and maybe if you're not connected to that, but the reality is, we are all connected. And if you're not sure of that, then go walk on somewhere today, go walk outside and wave at somebody or smile at somebody and feel that connection. And the more that we start to realize that we aren't alone, and we take the stigma away, that it's scary, or that we don't have time or it's a luxury, or it's too expensive, or whatever else, these misconceptions, we've started to somehow believe about self care, similar to like the foods we eat, like, the FDA isn't worried about what you're getting at the grocery store. But it's up to you to bring the awareness to what you want to feed your own family. You have people like Melissa and I and there are many of us on this planet, who will continue to day in and day out, learn grow, rinse, repeat, have the discipline and then share and be a support be your team, build a team build your village and know that you are 100% worth it. And your life literally depends on it. Your self care is your number one form of health care. Number one, more than anything else.

Melissa Wiggins  27:03

Wow, your self care is your number one form of health care. Whew, wow, that's so powerful. Right? Hmm. I'm writing it down.

Jaime McFaden  27:16

Yeah, and it's true. I mean, there are six pillars of self care. So we you know, we have the wave system that I shared with you earlier, but I believe that there are six pillars that I go, I mean, everybody kind of can have their own feeling on that. And that's great. But for me, it's the mental, physical, emotional, spiritual, social, and financial. And it can be overwhelming. So don't think that I don't think of those things. But that's why when you break it up, and instead of trying to make a big, old, new year's resolution type deal to yourself, start to think of one area, just pick one area of your life, maybe it's your finances for the next 30 days. And reach out to someone that you know, that's good at it, and say, 'Hey, you're my friend, and I know you're good with finances, I'm trying to save some money, or whatever it is, can you teach me a few things and be my accountability partner?' You would be surprised at how many people in the world would love to help you. And think about how you would love to help someone else. We all have strengths. We all have opportunities to grow. So the more we can start to put it out there and share with each other, the better. And then of course, Melissa coaches, I coach. There are many people like us that have different programs. So go taste something, go check something out, go be a part of something that is bigger than you so you can start to really see your own value.

Melissa Wiggins  28:35

I love it so much. All right, lassies, this is a wrapping up of this episode, because we could literally talk forever. (laughter) But I am going to link all of your things, your podcast, your book, all of the things that you have available for people. And I would say that the homework for the listeners is to figure out what is their strength that they could give to someone else. Right? And then what is the thing that they feel like they need help with that they can ask someone for -  those two things.

Jaime McFaden  29:07

I love that. And yes, yes. Love it. Love it. And I just want to thank you so much and I can't wait to have you on my podcast and see you this weekend.

Melissa Wiggins  29:15

I can't believe we get to see each other well yeah, a couple days couple days and we will both be with Brooke Hemingway who is an incredible soul that we met in Texas and she's invited us to speak and inspire her people and so we will be there in Tampa, which is super close for me but not so close for you

Jaime McFaden  29:39

I know, I know...This is my first like solo mom trip in a long time. So I'm excited that I can't wait to see you and thanks again for having me here. And thank you to your audience and to your listeners for being a part of this today and making the time for this. Really, you just you just practiced self care right now.

Melissa Wiggins  29:54

So beautiful. I loved it so much. You're amazeballs. I adore you.