Promoting Guilt-Free Self Care || WBWL Ep 62

This is a previous livestream I did back in 2022 for any parents or business owners who feel a sense of guilt for giving time and energy back to themselves.

It’s for those “yes” people that overly give to their spouse, kids, and those around them and often suffer physically and mentally for doing so.

This gives different principles and mindset strategies to be healthier, promote better habits around taking care of ‘you’ without guilt, anxiety, or stress.

It defines what self-care truly is: not an ongoing battle in your own head about refueling your cup with what you need but accepting the unrelenting permission to do so.

Transcript

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As you guys know from the title, we'll be talking about how to master and really accept and emphasize guilt free self care and do it with ease. So what we're going to do today is something really exciting and something that a topic that I find that's really dear to my heart. Because I know how many people know, they know what to do. They know that they need to walk more. They know that they need to move more. They know that they need to do some sort of things that are going to help them health wise, but they don't really know how to actually integrate it into practice. Or maybe they feel guilty about putting themselves first for a change, right? It's always the kids come first. It's always my clients come first. It's always my business and the things that I do at work. That has to come first because that puts money on the table or that puts food on the table, right? Money actually supplies that, but there's never really enough time to actually take care of me or you, right? Now, if you're really, if you're really thinking about that and you're like, man I'm always thinking about how to take care of myself. But, and I actually know what to do, it's just about how to really put that into practice and how to make that a non negotiable. So if you've ever felt like that, like there's, you're always short on time, you always got to sacrifice yourself for the sake of others. You're always putting your work first or you always have to put food on the table and it's really just, there's never enough time to take care of Sarah and George and John and take care of yourself as a person. Say I in the comments. Okay, just the letter I easy. I enter right. Okay, so this is something that I actually used to struggle with to for so for myself. I was always a person that really sacrificed a lot I actually grew up. I didn't grow up destitute, I got God, God gave me a blessing and. He blessed me with really great parents. I had my mom, she's a stay at home mom. She didn't give it to work because my dad actually made pretty good money. And so I always got the things that I needed, but I think that because my parents were so giving to me, I always wanted to give more of myself too. So I found a liking and an expertise really early in age learning about nutrition and exercise and strength training and just learning how to take care of my health. I think I was, I felt like I was ahead of the game relative to my college. Even my high school classmates back in high school, I knew how to strength train even college. I felt like I had a really good knack for understanding the body and how to strengthen it and how to lose weight properly. I knew a lot of those things. But because I feel like since I sacrificed so much of like my knowledge and because I knew so many things I wanted to give more of that, but little did I know that even though I was giving a lot of my, my, my knowledge and things to people. I really wasn't getting a lot of return and I wasn't giving myself the necessary time or effort to take care of myself. And not just that, if you guys didn't know, like I went through a couple of car accidents, one car accident. I was driving like 80 miles an hour. So my wheels spin 90 miles an hour in front of me. So one of my wheels, I literally saw it come, on my right side, it was going towards the opposite lanes. And I was like, Whoa, am I just driving with three wheels? And all of a sudden, boom, car started spinning super fast. The fastest I've ever spun in my entire life. ran straight into the island, right? And then I got into another car accident. And I think a lot of those things left me in a place where I had a lot of chronic neck pain neck pain that started from my neck, usually spread up into the skull, spread down into other parts of my body. And even this in my hands tingled. I had a lot of low back pain. Sometimes I would have to pull off the side of the freeway because I really just couldn't sit. For a long period of time, I could only sit for 20 minutes and my pain would become pretty excruciating and debilitating. For some of you guys that are in the Pain Relief Strength and Mobility group if you're here and you're new to this group, I would love for you to express your thoughts and, we're all here to support each other, but say new into the comments. That way I can see who are some of the new people that are watching this. So if you're, if you've been here for just maybe the past month or the past 30 days or so, say new, if you're a veteran, say veteran, because I would love to cheer you on as well and say, Hey, you've been watching me for a long period of time. But so just going back to my story, I was giving a lot of myself. But I, I was giving a lot of myself, sacrificing time and taking on like my friends and my family members as, as almost like my clients, but I wasn't even paying, I wasn't even like charging anything for it and I was just giving things away, car accident after car accident, and then all of a sudden it's like I was left in my own pains. I was the one that needed help, but because I was so used to giving a lot of myself and my knowledge, I really had nowhere to go. So I didn't have any inclination or, nor did I have a sense of how to really emphasize self care and make it a non negotiable. Now, if you break down the word non negotiable is something that I really used with like my clients and the Pain Free Academy and my clients here in San Francisco, I say, Hey, exercise and certain things. Now that you're working with me, it's a non negotiable, that means that it's by contract that you're writing like a verbal contract to me that like me and you are working together, and that the things that I provide to you. Those are the things are going to be helping you to live a pain free life and to get stronger and move better. But it's a non negotiable. You don't say I'm too busy. I'm too tired. You don't say those types of things. These types of things become a non negotiable. But see, now you're thinking like Dr. J, if you're You know, like I have a busy life, I work 40 hours, I take care of my kids is either 10 years old, 2 years old, I have infants, I have a lot of people that depend on me so you're telling me that I need to make exercise non negotiable when I barely even have time for myself. And that's what we're going through today. Today is all about self care. S L E S E L F C A R E. What is self care? So for many of you, you might be thinking self care is actually, it's quite easy. It's quite easy to really define it. It's like when you care for yourself, just switch the words. Self care is when you care for yourself. And it's self care will come in many different forms, depending on what helps you, I can tell you based on my expertise, what are specific exercises specific routines that you can integrate into your life. And that's what I do with my clients but for you, you might already have a little bit of a ballpark kind of number of interventions or treatments that you've done that really help you a lot you know that it helps you. but it's like you don't use it enough, right? You don't have that sense of how to really integrate self care into your life, okay? So look at take those things, take those interventions and those things that have really helped you health wise, and I would like for you to list maybe at least one or two down below. I'd love to see in the comments. And just let you know as I'm looking up and down, like I'm looking at the people that are watching right now. But if you don't mind, tell me in your mind, what are some of the self care things that you either currently do right now, or you feel like you don't have the time to do. Let me know in the comments. Okay, we're all here. We're all family. So I would love to know, is it meditation? Is it going out for a walk? Is it something like, hey, go out with your friends for a glass of wine or get a glass or a a bottle of beer. So let me know, because even though, yes, there's certain things about alcohol and like alcohol is not the best thing for you, right? But nothing's too good. Nothing's good for you in excess, right? Even exercise in excess leads to injury. If your version of self care is going out with your friends for a movie and popcorn and chips and soda and whatnot, I'm not judging. Okay, because that is your self care. That, that's what you need to give to yourself. But let me know in the comments, like what are some of those things that you absolutely love? Okay. We'd love to hear it. So some of you guys said meditation. Okay. And I'm just looking into the comments and do I have meditation? Who else is here right now? Who else is live and who else would like to share a little bit about what is their version of self care? Okay, you guys, there's probably no, no question about what some of my self care things are. So if you're following me on Flex with Dr. J and that I post thousands of exercises, I'm not just posting for the purpose of here's a couple exercises for neck pain. I preach what I teach. Every single thing that I do and that I post is all things that I preach. I am an open book. Ask my friends, ask my family, ask my clients. That every little thing that I post that I talk about are things that I'm not lying about those are things that I actually practice, I emphasize in my life and I make these a non negotiable. And one thing that I'm really good at is self care and I'm going to share with you guys a few interventions and a few different strategies on how to integrate more self care into your life so for some of you guys love it. Spending time with the dogs Gabrielle I love that. Chat Chaston I believe getting a haircut. Katie spending more time with my hobbies, meditation, getting more sleep, right? Who doesn't love an extra hour of sleep? Seriously, like Katie had a really good one. If you had the time now, if you're like a busy person, but if you had the time to take an hour nap, okay. And you had unrelenting permission from like your spouse and your family. And they're like, Take the nap, go out and go for a walk for the dog. Who would raise their hand to be like, yup, I'm going to take that right away. Say yup. In the comments, why you pee say yup. If you're like, I'm there. If I had the time, if I like if for example, I had all the time in the world and I had no family to take care of and had no responsibilities, I would love to take that hour nap. Or get that haircut, right? Or walk the dog, right? Who would take that, right? So you up in the comments. Okay. So self care to me, it's going to come in different forms. My self care, it's really no surprise. My self care comes in the form of strength training. It comes in the form of walking. I love to sprint up hills. Occasionally I take the 30 minute nap. That's not my best version of self care. I always like to be a productive person. I love to spread my knowledge with people. That's not really like a thing that fills up my cup, but I love to fill my own head with knowledge, right? I listened to a lot of podcasts, mindset, podcasts, health podcasts, financial podcasts. Everything that is going to really elevate the quality of my life. And maybe elevate the quality of your life. Cause the more that I can take in as far as like from podcasts and books that I read, the more that you guys benefit. So I'm really interested in this wellness practice, which is we practice and we habitually we do things that. That really interesting needle forward with our health. So let me just wrap you guys back in. You're like, okay, Dr. J. We've been here for 15 minutes. Where's this going right now? What do I need to do some guilt free self care? And you guys interested in learning about how to really optimize and really integrate self care? Into your life and not make it feel like you're like forcing yourself or it's making you feel guilty that you're like you're putting yourself first. If you're interested in learning how I do guilt free self care. Okay, go ahead and say I in the comments right say I in the comments. Okay, drop a if you haven't yet. Okay, but let's go ahead and talk about those strategies, right? It's not going to be necessarily tactics. It's I used to give my clients like tactics are little things like little hacks, right? I'm actually going to give you more principles today, how your mindset around health sorry, self care should be so that you really start to think it's actually okay to put me first, right? It's actually okay to say, Hey, like self care. Should be a part of my day. It should be a daily ritual equally as much as some of you guys probably brush your teeth one to two times a day, not judging if you only do once. Okay, I do twice. But if you brush your teeth, and that's part of your self care, because that's something that's already been integrated as a habit. Why can't we integrate some of the things that you guys just told me about? Gabriella says love podcast, right? Ruby says need nap, right? Katie says, I love to nap but yeah and some people are like, yeah, like, how do I give myself the unrelenting permission? Let me tell you, let me tell you this in just a little analogy here. All right, think of like a bow and arrow, okay? A bow and arrow, obviously, is you have your arrow, you have the bow, right? And what you do is you put one end of the bow, you put one end of the arrow, I'm sorry, you grab usually the feathery end, and what you do is you pull it back, right? You pull it back, you pull all the way back, and then you let it go. You pull it back, you let it go. And where does the arrow go? The arrow doesn't go down, it doesn't go backwards, the arrow goes forward, right? Now who here wants to move forward with their health? Who wants to progress their health? Okay, too many things in healthcare are promoted based on management or maintenance, right? You hear that word maintenance, you're like, oh yeah, I want to maintain my body. Probably some of you guys have said that to your, to yourself too. I want to maintain what I have. I want to maintain my good looks. I want to maintain my figure, or maybe you're trying to progress, but maintain is something that's been look, it's something that we look up to, many treatments. Physical therapy, chiropractic oh yeah, come here for maintenance, but maintenance management, as if you look at the definition, it actually just means staying the same, right? We want to move forward. Same thing like that bow and arrow. We want to move that bow and arrow forward, right? When we fling it, we want the arrow to go as far as possible. And that's essentially what we want to do with our health. So think about it this way, though. If from here today, you do not let yourself go for that walk with your dog or take that half hour now, if you don't give yourself that unrelenting permission to perform self care, that is like you not even pulling the bow back. Okay, you're not even pulling it back, you're just keeping the arrow exactly where it is. But when, for example, you decide to practice it even just a little bit, even after today, you're like, you know what I'm Katie, I'm George, I am going to do my best to pull that bow back just a little bit right because what we need to do in life is we need to pull back right, we need to take a step back and we need to relax, we need to take that deep breath that we haven't been because we're all just You know, we're all just crazy, right? We're all just hold our breath and just get work done, right? Just get project A done, project B done, project C done. Keep going. Put the kids down. Okay. Let me get a little more things done. Okay. Two hours later. Now I'm pooped. Now my body's in pain. Now I can go to sleep. Okay, that's not self care, that's survival. That's not self care, that's survival. Write that down. That's not self care, you're just surviving, you're just hanging by a string. You're just hanging by a string. You're just waiting for that string to snap, right? You're just waiting for that string to snap until something really catastrophic happens, right? Yeah, I know that some of you guys have probably had family members that have been in that situation, right? Sometimes it's spontaneous, right? The heart attacks, genetics, right? Sometimes you can't control that, but sometimes we can control those things. The stress the letter the lesser exercises that we should have done, right? The exercises that we should have been consistent with, right? We start to get pneumonia and all these other diseases and all these, we start to get really stressed out and we start to go into depression, right? It's because we're not pulling back. We're not pulling that arrow for further and further enough. Okay. So when you decide to give yourself that unrelenting permission to pull it all the way back, you don't have to do it every time, but just one day for one hour for half an hour, tell your spouse, tell your kids, Hey, this is me time, right? This is me time. I know. Usually I'm doing something I'm cleaning or I'm putting things away. I'm doing the laundry. I know that I'm usually at 7 PM and usually doing something right. But what you want to think about now is. Hey, hon. Hey, daughter. Hey, son. I need to take a little step back. Okay. It's just a little reset by it. Just, mommy, daddy. No, I just need to hit that reset button. Just need to hit the reset button. Half hour. That's all I need. Just start off with even five minutes, even if you're busy and like you can't give yourself half hour, give yourself five minutes, give yourself that permission. You deserve it. You deserve it. Okay. You've been putting yourself last for far enough. You should put yourself first for a change. Put yourself even second, right? If you're, if you have a family of five, you're usually putting yourself fifth. Put yourself second, right? Put yourself somewhere closer so that you can do something conducive for your health. You can start to practice this on a daily basis and you can start to really pull that arrow back and give What your body, what your mind, what your spirits needs, which is self care. Okay. So like I said, I, when people decide to hire me and they decide to work with me, I give them tools. I'm like, everything that I give you is meant to progress you in some way. So I'm going to give you the self care tools. I'm going to give you a customized routine. I'm going to give you things that are integrated into your life. And then we're going to apply it, right? And I'm going to check in on you and I'm going to keep you accountable, right? But if you're just doing this alone, you felt like you've been doing this alone you can always grab an accountability partner. But, start practicing this self care, right? We can only make things more perfect and we can only progress. Things if we decide to practice it, right? We're practicing many different things. We're probably really good at certain things like our job. We're really good at being mom or dad, but we're not really being good at taking care of ourself. Do you guys agree with that? You guys agree with sometimes the fact that like we were good at really contributing to the needs of other. We're really good at it. We're an expert at sacrificing yourself. But as far as taking care of me, Okay. And you're like, Hey, I haven't been taken care of me. Okay. And you agree with that. Say agree. Okay. Agree. Agree that you have not been giving yourself the unrelenting permission to be a better version of yourself by pulling that back. And let me just explain to you in a different way. You're probably like, Hey, like I can start with five minutes. Dr. J 30 minutes an hour. That's not feasible right now. Cool. No guilt at all. Okay, let's not let's take the guilt out of it. Okay, but think of it this way, right? Think of it this way. Think of besides the bow and arrow, the fact that you know that the further you pull that back, the more self care that you give, you can plunge yourself forward. But think of it this way. Right now, how many of you guys are pouring from an empty glass? Okay, how many guys are pouring from an empty glass, whether that's been a few weeks, months, even knew that for years since your kids were born? How many guys were pouring from an empty glass, a glass? Say glass right now in the comments. Okay, that you've had this glass, right? You've had this glass for a long time. You used to have 12 ounces of water in it. You used to be stay hydrated. You felt good when there is an actual glass. You feel like this glass right now. Okay. You feel like this glass right now where you're trying to pour water into different people's cups. Okay. You're trying to give more of yourself, but you can't. Okay. You can't. You're probably like, oh, gosh look at that. Like I only have a quarter ounce of water in here. You know what? Maybe I'll just take that quarter ounce of water and maybe I'll just divide that. So everyone gets one 16th of an ounce, right? You're only giving yourself one 16th of an ounce to your husband, your wife, your partner, you're giving one 16th of an ounce to your friends and your cousins. And the people that matter most to you. Think about it that way. Is that fair to them? And I'm not trying to guilt trip you at all, but in terms of giving others, A better life than you, right? Oftentimes we want to be examples. We want to be leaders to people like our the young people, right? The people that, that we can influence, right? We want to be an absolute influence health wise, finance wise. We want to set them up for success in many different ways. You want to give them a better life from what you had, but you're only giving them a 16th of an ounce of water, right? Is that enough to hydrate them? Is that enough? To give, okay. Cause you're trying to give yourself your all you're trying to give yourself your a hundred percent, but your a hundred percent is only a quarter ounce of water. Okay. So think of it this way. What if your Sunday morning is your meditation time? What if your Sunday morning is that time to start blessing yourself with that exercise routine that you've been putting off? What if you are able to finally pull that arrow back as damn far as you can and let yourself fly. And all of a sudden, Sunday starts to become Monday, right? Sunday. Then you're like, oh Sunday got a little momentum. I actually feel good. I feel like I have two ounces of water in my glass right now. And then Monday you practice it again. Now you have four ounces, right? Maybe they took maybe one ounce and maybe a three ounce, right? Three ounce, but three ounce is better than 16th of an ounce. And you start to supply yourself with more water. You're constantly. Pouring more water into your glass and now you're not pouring from an empty glass anymore. You're pouring from a full glass, right? You're able to show up as the parents, the leader, the business owner, you're able to show up as a person that you want to be, right? So just think of it that way, right? Learn from my mistakes. When I was giving so much of myself that I couldn't give any more of myself, when my health started going down, right? I got to a point where my health was At an all time low where I couldn't even sit in a car for 10 to 20 minutes, I couldn't participate in sports. I was not able to play the things that, play basketball and the things that really meant the most to me. I was not able to, give my all. Because I was like borderline falling asleep on my clients. I had so little energy. I was preaching pain relief. I was preaching how to live a healthier life. But I was being a hypocrite. I wasn't even taking care of my own health. I wasn't even taking care of myself. So my question to you guys is, are you going to keep running on MT? Are you going to continue to keep that bow and arrow exactly where it is, but not let it fly? Okay. If you're willing to let it fly and you're willing to do the work and you're willing to say to yourself I need to take at least a little tiny action steps. I need to take a little baby steps in the right direction and say to myself, I'm worth it. I'm worth it. I'm damn worth it. Okay. I am worth the time and energy to invest in myself so that I can do a better job taking care of the needs of others and giving more of myself, right? The more that you can fill up your glass, if your glass, this is a 12 ounce glass, you never know this 12 ounce glass could become a 20 ounce glass, right? Because you are stronger. You're showing up as a leader. You're meditating. You're going for your daily walks. You're on a good exercise routine. You're taking care of your mental health. You're getting the sleep that you need. You're walking your dogs, right? And then maybe this glass, maybe this 12 ounce glass that you thought you had becomes a 20 ounce glass. Maybe you come a pretty damn big hydro flask, right? You're a 40 ounce glass. Imagine. Imagine how much impact you can have on this world, how much impact you can have on your family, how much impact you can have on your colleagues and the people around you when you are filling up your glass and you're letting yourself fly, right? If you're down for that, if you're motivated right now and you're driven, right? Say fly in the comments, right? Let yourself fly, let it go. Give yourself that unrelenting permission to be a better version of yourself daily. And I promise you quality of life will increase the relationships around you will increase the ones that say, Whoa I respected Sarah. I always say Sarah I apologize if there's a Sarah in here, I don't mean to comment and say Sarah just a name that pops out, but you're like, Wow, Sarah mom wow Sarah. Was always a very sacrificing person. Sarah always gave her a hundred percent into everything. Sarah always put herself last, and she always gave her all to, to do things for me to help me out, to teach me things. Sarah was that person, right? But Sarah was always tired, right? Sarah was always lethargic. Sarah was always complaining about her back pain, right? Sarah got two hours of sleep, right? And she always woke up feeling really tired and really stiff and achy in the morning, right? Sarah was gaining weight. But you know what? Sarah had a great persona, right? Sarah was, Sarah will continue to be a person that sacrifices, right? But, okay, what Sarah can be and learn from Sarah Is that Sarah can show up as a better leader, right? Sarah can increase her capacity for doing things for other people because when Sarah decided to pull that arrow back when she's decided to not run on fumes anymore, when she decided to fill up her glass so that she can spread, she can pour more water into other people's glasses and give more of herself. Sarah is not just a person that sacrifices. Sarah is not just a humble person that puts herself last, but Sarah also shows up as a stronger, more resilient person. She is a more resilient and a more, a stronger, a more, a person that People respect even more because she can have more impact on other people, right? She's no longer running on fumes, but she's now able to spread her message to more people. She's able to influence people with her expertise and her love and her willingness, right? All these things as you can see that Sarah was running on fumes, and that was very admirable. That's very admirable Sarah, but when you can, when Sarah actually fills up her glass. She's showing up for the world. She's showing up as a leader. She's being a better version of herself. So this is the thing that I always say, whenever I work out, whenever I give myself care, I just say to my head, I sometimes say it out loud. My wife hates it. Okay. I don't know if she hates it, but she hears it from me all the time. Just say it out loud. I'm not even embarrassed. Just say, I just say 1 percent better daily. Every single day that I do something that's going to improve my health. I know that I am showing up better for you guys. I know that I am showing up for my clients better. And I know that I am always being a better version of myself now. And I say 1 percent better daily. How much more, how much stronger can I get? How much more mobile can I get? How much can I give of myself? And I can give more of myself. If after this call do even more self care, a repeated routine. And habit of self care will take you so much farther in life will prevent so many other catastrophic diseases from occurring, doesn't matter about your genetics doesn't matter that you know you have the busiest schedule in the world. Okay, because. If you're busy, though, you can always make self care a non negotiable, right? Because if you make self care a non negotiable, that busyness suddenly becomes less busy. You're actually able to manage your work better. You're able to show up better as an employee, and again, as a parent, a partner, a father, a mother. Okay I stress to you guys, the version of self care we're at that half hour mark, but I think I'm preaching to the choir right now. But what I want to say to you guys is. You all have the power. You all have the willing decision to be better health wise, and it's really up to you if you want to take that leap and make that decision for yourself. And that's really up to you. Okay, self care. It's not just caring for yourself don't put that generic definition of that anymore right when you just say care for yourself. Okay, you can easily can just pass that up right one one ear in and out the other. So think of it this way self care. is the unrelenting permission to put yourself first and to be a better version of yourself. Self care is giving yourself that unrelenting permission to take care of yourself and be a better version of yourself daily.