Ever feel like traditional self-care advice just doesn't fit your neurodiverse needs? This episode is a must-listen as we rethink rigid self-care routines and focus on tuning into our body's signals to create a more personalized approach. By understanding and honoring our unique needs, we can break negative cycles and enhance our well-being.
In this podcast I highlight the importance of self-awareness and self-compassion as foundational steps to truly enjoying life and career again. Whether you're adjusting to a new job schedule or simply seeking a more authentic self-care routine, this episode offers practical, effective strategies to help you grow.
_________ Need help applying this to your life? Ready for more strategies like this, but personalized to YOU? Set up your free consult and let’s talk about your unique situation and how coaching can help: https://getcoached.jennyhobbsmd.com/consult _________
Everything on this podcast and website is for informational purposes only and should not be used as medical advice. Views are our own, and do not necessarily represent those of our past or present employers or colleagues.
Ever feel like traditional self-care advice just doesn't fit your neurodiverse needs? This episode is a must-listen as we rethink rigid self-care routines and focus on tuning into our body's signals to create a more personalized approach. By understanding and honoring our unique needs, we can break negative cycles and enhance our well-being.
In this podcast I highlight the importance of self-awareness and self-compassion as foundational steps to truly enjoying life and career again. Whether you're adjusting to a new job schedule or simply seeking a more authentic self-care routine, this episode offers practical, effective strategies to help you grow.
_________ Need help applying this to your life? Ready for more strategies like this, but personalized to YOU? Set up your free consult and let’s talk about your unique situation and how coaching can help: https://getcoached.jennyhobbsmd.com/consult _________
Everything on this podcast and website is for informational purposes only and should not be used as medical advice. Views are our own, and do not necessarily represent those of our past or present employers or colleagues.
Speaker 1:
Welcome to Rethink your Rules with Jenny Hobbs MD. A fresh perspective on relationships, success and happiness for high achieving moms.
Speaker 2:
Hey, there it's Jenny. Welcome back to another episode of Rethink your Rules. I'm back here live this week and I am a day late, but it's actually perfect because I'm recording this on Friday and the topic today is going to be a really powerful self-coaching question, which is one you can use this weekend. It's actually great for weekends when you're with your family and things, so I'm excited to share that and I think it's be really timely for you. Before I get into that, though, I do want to say that I hope you enjoyed our NeuroSpicy month that we did, where we reposted some podcasts I've done in the past, all about ADHD and physicians and women and my personal experience. I hope you really enjoyed that and women in my personal experience. I hope you really enjoyed that. And if you did enjoy that, don't forget that you can still access the conference where I spoke about those issues just last week.
Speaker 2:
So, as I mentioned, when I was posting those over the past month, during NeuroSpicy Month, I was actually invited to give a talk about ADHD and physicians and my own personal experience as part of a continuing medical education conference, and the conference was actually free what was being, what was being produced live online, so hopefully you caught it when it was free, but if not, you can still access all of that for a pretty nominal fee. I think it's like $149 for the entire conference and all the resources, and I think there were probably nine hours of CME or so there. So I do encourage you to check it out. I had a blast giving my talk and also just being there to interact with so many other neurodiverse voices in medicine and healthcare. And this CME program that I worked with to do this the company that invited me is pretty cool because it's actual high quality CME from really great clinicians, but it's technically open to anyone.
Speaker 2:
You don't have to be a doctor to experience it. It's online, it's very accessible, and so I think, even if you aren't a physician, if you are someone who works with physicians, maybe you're a physician leader or an administration somewhere. Or if you aren't a physician, if you are someone who works with physicians, maybe you're a physician leader or an administration somewhere. Or if you work with patients in any capacity who may, you know, at times have neurodiversity that's diagnosed or undiagnosed, any anyone who is interested in being more neurodiversity, affirming understanding more about how ADHD and autism present in unusual places, like in women or things like that. There was so much great content there and I'll give my little plug on my topic that's near and dear to my heart, which is, if you are someone who is a leader in medicine so you're a physician leader or you're an administrator who works with physicians in the hospital or in the clinic I strongly encourage you to check it out, because I truly believe that many physicians have undiagnosed neurodiversity and it leads to a lot of behavioral referrals and this sort of like concept that these physicians are just narcissistic bullies, and I understand where that comes from and historically I can certainly see where that has been a huge problem in medicine.
Speaker 2:
So I don't want to downplay that. But I also think that we are all very quick to jump to that explanation when a physician behaves in a way we don't like or don't understand, and I think sometimes there's actually an undiagnosed neurodiversity there and the physician doesn't know they have it and we don't know they have it, and it's becomes a lot of shame and guilt and punishment, um, as part of our solution for that which actually backfires when the problem is someone not understanding that their brain works a little differently and how to actually give themselves some compassion and grace and work on that, and that's kind of that's what I talked about in my talk. But we we talked a lot about that and, um, again, I think anyone can benefit. So if you work with physicians and we also talked a lot about kids we had actual clinicians there who diagnose and treat autistic kids and ADHD kids in their practices. So, again, really excellent information for anyone who's interested in those topics. Okay, so my preamble was a little longer than I expected, but I just wanted to make sure that you know that the information is still up there, still available. The link will be in the show notes. I do get some sort of nominal percentage of the nominal fee for that if you sign up through my link, so I always appreciate that. But at the same time, it's really just mostly fun for you to get to experience what I got to experience. And last thing I'll say about that is that I am super pumped to bring some of the speakers that I collaborated with on that conference here on the podcast to interview and talk with. So I hope you'll be looking forward to that. Okay, with that out of the way, let's talk about today's topic Self-coaching power question that I want you to adopt for yourself is this what do I need here?
Speaker 2:
Okay, I know I always say this, I know it sounds too simple. There's one thing I have found is that the things that sound simple are often the most important things that we are skipping, and skipping them is leading to a lot of our problems. Okay, and I tell you this because I've worked with a lot of very smart, accomplished women who literally never asked themselves this question, and we often find after working together, that that is at the root of a lot of the frustration and struggles they have. So give me a chance here to explain why I think this is deceptively. It sounds simple, but it's not. It's very powerful and actually can be quite hard, so quite difficult, to do in practice. So the question, what do I need here is part of the first step of the calm method that I've talked about before, which is connecting with compassion, connecting with yourself with compassion.
Speaker 2:
So whenever you find yourself in a situation where you feel kind of unsettled or icky so maybe you don't even know what the feeling is you just find yourself sort of it's you can tell something's off and you're like am I tired, Am I bored, Am I stressed. Am I overwhelmed? Am I angry, Right when that comes up? Okay, Most of us have this. What it really is is a strong emotion in your body, but most of us are not great at recognizing or naming that emotion. We kind of just go straight past it to kind of reacting and responding to it. And another way you may know if this is a problem for you is if you know things happen and then you find yourself maybe snapping at people or yelling at them or making, you know, eating a whole container of ice cream, right, or something, making decisions that later you regret, right, A lot of times the problem is because you have to back way up and figure out what was that big emotion at the beginning that I was reacting to in a way that caused all these problems for me, that I was reacting to in a way that caused all these problems for me, and you really can't sort of stop that cycle and feel better until you back all the way up to the beginning.
Speaker 2:
And this that's why this is part of my first step for everyone is to actually connect with yourself with compassion and specifically connect with your body and your emotional state. Okay, and again, I know you're rolling your eyes here, right? Notice that my second step in the calm method is to assess your thoughts and then we move on from there and that's the part everyone wants to do, because it's assessing your thoughts, it's thought work. It feels very cognitive and I think we all know that as high achieving moms, right, Especially if we work in medicine or STEM fields, I mean, we like to be in the cognitive realm. It's very comfortable for us, so that's part of why we skip ahead, or we skip ahead and then my clients, when they come to a session they want to talk about how do I solve this problem and how I do all this cognitive thought work, which is great and it's changed my life. Thought work is amazing. I actually enjoy starting there with people because it is so accessible for most of us.
Speaker 2:
But all that, to say, the part that is not so easy is actually starting with the first step first, which is connecting with yourself with compassion, and that question what do I need here? And truly answering it for yourself for just a couple seconds before you respond or make a decision or whatever, will change your life. And I want to say, when I bring a self-coaching power question to these podcasts. Part of how I choose them is because I listen to my clients when they come back to me after we work together and they come back for another session and I'll ask them how did it go this week? Or what can we celebrate, and often they'll say, oh, this thing you said last week or this phrase we came up last week, so helpful, right. And so I noticed which things people tell me are the most helpful that we, that we work on together, and this one comes up a lot. This question, what do I need here? Comes up all the time. Okay, so that's how I know you're probably not doing it either, Because my clients and I work together, sometimes for a while before we realize like this is the missing piece. So promise me that you will try asking yourself this what do I need here? And I'll give you a couple examples.
Speaker 2:
So lately I've switched to a new job, which was a really good move for me in so many ways. But one thing about my new job is that I now work more shifts than I did before, so I work more hours. And remember, I work as a nighttime doc, so I work my five nights in a row and then I have 10 nights off, right, which is pretty, still a pretty awesome schedule, if you ask me. But what I've noticed is that, you know, before I would only really work two to three nights in a row, and now that I work five nights in a row, I find that I'm very tired the next couple days, days when I get home, more so than I used to be, and particularly I I'm very tired in the morning, which makes sense, right. It's like a little harder for my system to shift back to being awake in the mornings because I'm spending a little bit more time on the night schedule. Totally makes sense, right.
Speaker 2:
But you know, I have this little business here that I love and clients that I love and kids that I love and need things, and a husband and a family and my own, you know, personal stuff and health care and whatever. So usually I get home and I'm the next morning after I've gotten home and gone to bed and everything. I'm so tired and I'll think I have so many things I want to do, I need to do and I just it's very hard for me to get enough sleep in those first couple of days, Cause I want to get up and get all the things done, Okay. And I say all this to say that, um, I have had to practice asking myself on those days, a couple days after my work stretch, when I'm working on my business or working on family things, and I'll find I'm not doing a great job of what I'm doing.
Speaker 2:
I'm either having a hard time getting clarity on my work, I'm putting off things I need to do, I'm maybe a little bit more irritable about phone calls and things like that. I'm feeling really sort of blah and unmotivated about things I need to do. I'm maybe a little bit more irritable about phone calls and things like that. I'm feeling really sort of blah and unmotivated about things I'm normally motivated about and I sometimes will kind of just keep pushing through that. And then lately I've stopped and said wait, what do I need here? And my answer is you can probably guess it sleep. I need to sleep. I mean, my family and I were all very sick for several months. I'm at a new job which is always more emotionally exhausting, right, All the things. I need sleep, and I will. So I, you know, I'm coaching myself here, just like you guys. So I'll ask myself, okay, like, what do I need here? What's going on here, what's wrong here, you know, and then it's okay, I'm just tired and I need sleep, Totally makes sense.
Speaker 2:
It is so hard for me to actually honor what I need of sleep and not immediately move on to but I should, you know, work out or go to the grocery store or pick my kids up from school or you know any of another million things on my mind. And I think that is one reason that this sounds simple but it's actually something we don't do very often is because even if we do kind of for a moment notice, gosh, I need sleep or I need a break, or I need, you know, whatever I miss my friends, I need time without my kids, whatever we might kind of really transiently notice it. But we are so used to just immediately brushing past that and going on to all the things that we need to do, and that kind of comes back to the five unspoken rules that I've talked about. A lot right, Like so we are more used to deciding what we're going to do based on our unspoken rules of things like perfectionism and people pleasing and hustle right and hyper rationality or logical. So no, well, it would make more sense to return all these emails that are late or I need to, you know, get all these things done on my to do list, or if I say no to that thing and stay home and sleep, then, like you know, this other person will be upset. So your people pleasing self is, it's kind of triggered by that right.
Speaker 2:
So it feels very uncomfortable to actually ask yourself what do I need? As your first question, before you worry about what other people want or what you should do or what's right to do, If you really just connect with yourself first. That for most of us and I would argue, especially if you are a woman or a person of color or a neurodiverse person you've had messages throughout your entire life that, like, what you want and need is not actually the priority. Other things are more important. You're supposed to sort of subvert yourself a little bit, and so it feels wrong to ignore all those other things and just focus on what you need, right. It feels very uncomfortable and so we often brush right past that question and just move on to the stuff. That feels more comfortable, in a way, and more familiar, right. So I think that's a lot of the nuance there that we often aren't aware of is that we aren't even just connecting with ourselves and our body and noticing what we need, and then we certainly have a hard time honoring it and letting ourselves be uncomfortable.
Speaker 2:
Be be experienced the discomfort of potentially other people not understanding or being behind or having to apologize later, whatever. Not letting not, you know, letting something go right, Like I have to let things go to in order to sleep, which feels wrong Cause I'm a perfectionist and a people pleaser and I want to grow this business and I know it will grow more if I work harder. That's what I tell myself, Right? So it's very hard to look over all that and just be like, no, I need to sleep and I'm going to honor my need to sleep, Okay. So I want you to ask yourself that I've had clients as well where just stopping to ask that question has really helped them to. You know, take a deep breath and let something go, Like I'm not going to worry about getting all this stuff perfectly ready for our trip. I need to take care of me first, and I will. I will figure it out later, Right? Or my, I'm going to ask for help and ask someone to help me do that, Um.
Speaker 2:
Another example, actually I heard on a podcast I was listening to and this is a fun podcast. If, again, if you're interested in neurodiversity and things like that it's called divergent conversations I'll put a link in the show notes. But one episode there um, the host, who is one of the hosts, who has autism and ADHD and is a um neuropsychologist, um PhD, she was interviewing another person in that field who has ADHD. Okay, and so it was really interesting because they were kind of comparing stories of like having both autism and ADHD versus just ADHD and they were comparing their experiences. And these are really really smart women I absolutely respect. They're both PhDs, they're very respected in their fields and I learn a lot from them all the time.
Speaker 2:
And they were talking about this experience of, you know, having a difficult conversation with someone and they kind of you know you get frustrated, they say unkind things to you, you get frustrated and you often kind of retort back and respond in a way that later you kind of regret because it's maybe hurtful or angry or things like that or angry or things like that. And so one of these people was talking about her experience of just noticing that this person says unkind words to me and then I feel in my body, oh, like my heart's pounding. I've got this like whooshing in my ears. I feel like it's like this. She was kind of describing the physical experience of being in fight or flight, right, and she was saying that one of the things she's realized as a presumably middle-aged like myself, you know, one of the things she realized at this stage in her life was those three seconds to actually notice the physical sensations in my body that come up when this person says these words, right, heart pounding, all this stuff. To notice all of that and observe it for herself. Give herself those three seconds before she responds. And she was saying it helped her to respond in such a better way that she was more proud of. Okay, and they were both talking about how that really is.
Speaker 2:
The foundation of self-care. Is that first step to kind of get attuned to what's going on in your own body and understanding what's happening in my body and what do I need here, right. And it was so interesting because I thought they're describing like the first step of my calm method that I hear the same thing from my clients that like here I am a middle age adult with my own kids and like I'm just realizing how powerful it is to actually pause for a minute and ask get in tune with what's going on in my own body and what I need, Right? So these are really smart, brilliant women, all my clients, these women on this podcast and we still have to actively remind ourselves and notice how valuable this is. Okay, so there's so many places this can show up for you, but the main thing is just to notice when you're you know again, when you're responding or you're acting in a way that you don't love or you're feeling like this sort of just, you start to just notice this like icky feeling in your body of discomfort, like to pause, and actually, you know you can start with what that person on the podcast said, which was like you could start like naming what the emotion feels like in your body. Right, that's one really great tool.
Speaker 2:
That's also part of my first step connect with yourself. Or you can also just ask, like, what do I need here? Or another way to kind of get at it is like what's wrong? Like actually asking yourself, like you would if a friend came to you in tears or your kid came to you in tears. You know what would you say? You might, you know like, oh, what's wrong, sweetie, what's wrong? Love, Like you can literally say that to yourself, like what's wrong, and actually listen to yourself. Okay, I know it sounds really cheesy like you're crazy person talking to yourself, but I want you to trust me, because everyone who actually does this it gets past their out of their own way about it tells me how much it changes their life. Okay, so that's what self-compassion is and I love the point on this podcast, again from Divergent Conversations which I will share in the show notes. But they also made the connection that this step getting attuned to what's going on in your body, asking what you need and honoring that first is actually the first step of self-care.
Speaker 2:
It's the basis of self-care and what I think is so cool about that is that I think many of us have some difficulty with the term self-care because so often it feels like self-care when you hear about it. It's like you need to exercise and eat right and meditate and all this stuff and it's like, yeah, those things would help me. But sometimes it feels like another thing on my to-do list or someone just telling me what to do or another obligation, right, or it's just hard to make the time and effort and you know, especially if you are a person with ADHD or autism or something, it can be really hard to even have the ability and the executive function to plan a workout routine or, you know, set up the time to go do the meditation or whatever. So, or, or even to folk I guess I should say, set up the time to go do like a massage, but then to maybe dedicate the time to meditate when you have ADHD and you're busy and overwhelmed, right? So not that those things again aren't things that we would all benefit from, but remembering that if you start from, here's a list of things you should do that help people right, that are good for you.
Speaker 2:
That's going to feel a bit like a chore or an obligation, right, and that's why I think a lot of us the concept of self-care kind of backfires right and actually increases our stress. But if, instead, you back up a step and you just start with what do I need here and get in a tune with what's going on in your body, what feels right to your body, and you start practicing that right, Then the self-care could be a natural outgrowth of that and it's going to be more specific and unique to what you actually need in that moment, it's going to be a lot more effective and it's not going to feel like I have to do this. It's like what do I need, what do I want? That's another question. I have my clients. Sometimes that works a little better, depending where they are in their life.
Speaker 2:
It's not even to just say what do I need here, Because even that can feel a little bit like pressure, right, but like what do I want here, what do I want to do? And I just loved that those two psychologists kind of brought this all together in this idea of the basis of self-care. The beginning of self-care is really noticing the emotion in your body, naming it to yourself, narrating what's going on, right, and I just love how that all kind of fits in with this idea of like what do I need here? What's wrong here? And again it sounds like it's gonna take a long time. It's a few seconds, honestly, or a minute or something. But it's a few seconds honestly, or a minute or something. And I don't even want to tell you this weekend that you have to go out and honor it when you notice what you need or what you want. Okay, Cause I don't want again that that can be hard, there can be difficulty, but I want you to give space for it in your own mind, to actually take the pause what do I need, what do I want, Before you think about what you should do or what would be best to do or the right thing to do, and name it to yourself.
Speaker 2:
And honestly, if you name it to yourself and you notice what's going on for you, I think often it becomes really easy to honor it because it just feels so true and you feel so seen and heard and then you just absolutely like want to honor it for yourself. But there are moments right when I'm like I uh, what I need is sleep, but I don't choose to do it because there's something I committed to do with my daughter, right, and I know that I'd rather do that with her and sleep later, but at least then I've been honest with myself and I also know I have a little pin in my mind like I need to make some time for sleep when it does work right. And the last concept that I think really ties in nicely here is the idea that self-care is not one size fits all. So that's true between you and other people, but it's also true for you. On different times, different days, different seasons of life, your self-care may look different. And if you're starting off by asking what do I need here and truly answering that, then you get to honor what self-care is for you in that moment in a more honest way.
Speaker 2:
If we're thinking that self-care has to be the way that it was for me 10 years ago, right, or whatever or that I have to be on some kind of plan where I meditate every day at this time, right, Whatever, even with your workouts, like I mean, it's great to have a schedule, it's great to have routines and plans, for sure. But just recognize that it's you want to start first with what works for you, and sometimes our own routines and schedules and plans for ourselves get in the way of that, because those of us that have a habit of being hustle harder perfectionists we can turn self-care into something that we hustle to do or that we act perfect about, and that's very self-defeating. That's not self-care. That is the rules that we have, that we've been trained to have. So what we want to do is start with the basis of self-care, dig underneath all those rules, ask and answer honestly what do I need here? What's going on here, Get in tune with your body and then be open-minded to whatever feels and sounds right and trust yourself and your body to know that in the moment. Okay, I'm telling you, it's so freeing.
Speaker 2:
And last thing, I just last resource I want to remind you of is I actually did a list of all different kinds of ways that you can do self-care in a very short period of time that are kind of thinking outside the box of what we traditionally think and that I did in a podcast last fall. It's called feel better in 10 minutes self-care for working moms who don't have time for it. I will link that in the show notes too. Um, it's from October 20th 2023. And I want to say I ended up with like 25 things on that list. But when you listen to that list, it's not all. You know the typical things. Some of them will sound familiar from other self care conversations, but I also just brought in kind of things that might seem silly or childish or whatever, but I just want you to listen to things like that and be okay doing stuff just because you want to.
Speaker 2:
In my experience, this is often the missing link for so many of us and it's accessible to anyone by just asking and answering this simple question right. So give it a try. Check out some of the resources that I posted here. What do I need here? What do I want here? Name, notice and describe the feeling in your body the best that you can.
Speaker 2:
Again, this is no pressure, and if you're able to honor what your brain tells you in that moment and if you can't, don't beat yourself up about it Just that self-awareness and that self-connection in that moment is the first step to self-care and self-compassion and honestly being able to enjoy your life again and your career again and all those things that I'm so passionate about helping you do. So I hope you do that this weekend. Let me know what comes up and, as always, I am here. If you want to set up a console and start working on this with me. See faster results. Really have me help you guide you through some of this. I'm here and I can't wait to chat with you. Have a great weekend.
Speaker 1:
Thanks for listening to Rethink your Rules with Jenny Hobbs MD. Would you like to learn more about how to apply this to your own life through personalized coaching with Jenny? Visit us on the web at JennyHobbsMDcom to schedule a free consultation. If you found value in what you heard today, please consider subscribing to the podcast and giving us a five-star rating so we can reach even more women like you.
