is hard to have motivation to do anything at all you like you will lay there and you say I just want to sleep. I just want to lay here. I don't want to get up. I don't want to get dressed. I don't want to do my hair. I don't even want to brush my teeth. I don't want to eat any food or if I do eat food, it's going to be something that's completely, you know, horrible for me. And it's not going to be nutritious, and then I'm gonna feel even worse after that.
And when it comes to the kids, are you just sort of forcing yourself to force just forcing yourself to do everything and I
had anger or had a lot of anger with having to do things
Welcome back. Well come back to another episode until the wheels fall off. I am Matt. I'm Paige started off with a little plug here. If you notice, you're watching us on YouTube. Got on our new merch. Longtime longtime coming it's been forever because we've been super picky about it. But we've got merch available on our website to fo.com We've got a few sweatshirts up there limited run there's not a whole lot of them available Get them while they're
hot. We've also got a bunch of stickers and I would say we've got safely plenty of stickers
Yeah,
just I love stickers completely. I love ice out your water bottle like pages got down over here. It's more stickers that thing you shake a stick and I want more. But if you're a fan of the show of pan the fan the podcast for you'd like to support us it's a great way to do it. Grab a couple stickers and if you do you get a sweatshirt or a sticker. We would love to see these things in action. So tag us mentioned us we would love to repost it and show everyone how awesome you
know I've worn this shirt like four days in a row now it's solid but I take it off and on off and on because I don't I'm a weirdo. I don't like to wash my clothes every time I wear them. You
want to know my house is dirty one of my secrets shames What if I buy a sweatshirt and the first time I wear it I'm just feeling myself like I really liked the way this thing fits and looks. I just love it. I will not wash it. I have a sweatshirt in my closet that is about four or five years old and it's never been washed. I should just blinking at me. Oh,
what?
Yeah, Kid you not which one? I'm not telling you. Oh shit. Yeah.
Is it hang me? Yeah, it's
hanging. And I've only worn it a few times because I love it so much. I'm like I just wanted to stay this way forever because I know as soon as I wash it it's gonna get destroyed because I'm a terrible washer has nothing to do with you. It's just It's just what what washing will do to a perfectly like balanced sweatshirt, but these wash Awesome. That's what I was gonna say. So we've owned these various sweatshirts for years now. And they've been through
the wash. They've been abused and worn out these specific ones but the brand Yeah, the brand. is one of those deals where like you fought you come across the perfect sweatshirt. This was a years ago, I think I don't think we started the podcast yet. I was like, if we ever get merch, it's going on these. Yeah. And so we did. Yeah. So you're buying anyway. Yeah. Also, it is beginning of the year, and we're just talking about, it's still the beginning of the year, we're a week into this,
oh my gosh, I feel like it's almost February or something. We're
still early in this thing.
That's brilliant. That holidays, throw your whole brain off our our topic today
is going to be self care. But along those lines, it's the beginning of it's January, right, everyone's looking to make some changes in your life. You've heard us mention it before. And we're not going to stop because we believe in the effectiveness of our new course you can find out more by going to our website, or going to independently strong.com It is
comprehensive. It is research back designed by a professional therapist also has the real world experience of two people that have walked through this and walked others through it. It is amazing. I can't say enough about it. wheelies get a discount wheelies 75. You can get 75% off for limited time. I don't know how much longer we're going to keep it that way. But it's amazing. Some of the reviews that are coming back from some of the first students that have gone through the
course it's phenomenal. I mean, it literally had us in tears. Yeah. Because you think, okay, we believe this is great. And then to hear it from other people and to hear how changed life changing it has been it's just it's amazing. Here to hear people say that they could have saved, you know, 1000s and 1000s of dollars and years in therapy, if something like this would have been around. It's just it's that's exactly what we're after. Yep. It's exactly what we're after. To help people. It's life
changing. So let's get started today, talking about self care. This is a topic that I feel is so generic, that we've almost lost. We've almost lost the meaning of the word in it as a whole like what is self care? Yes, people use it. vaguely, I think and it's used a lot to cover basically anything, but we're gonna get a little more specific about it. And we're going to talk about gentle self care is our version of self care.
Well, yea or nay it's like, I know a lot of you who listen might be in survival mode, and you might be struggling really hard. You're thinking, you see all this stuff online that says New year new me? And it's like, how do I do this? How do I make a routine when I'm just trying to freaking get out of bed? You know, and I've, I've been there, I want you all to know that I've been
there. I know the feeling. I know how difficult it is to take care of yourself, when you're just trying to survive, and we're going to help you get started on that today. Survival
Mode is something that I hear mentioned a lot like people are like, I'm just in survival mode. What does survival mode look like? What is it like for you? And what do you how do you generally see this play out like your Oh,
for me, like I was depressed, I had anxiety, I had panic attacks. And the my survival mode was just literally waking up and being able to feed my children and clothe my children. There was no, you know, like, there wasn't emotional connection very much. There wasn't anything like that. I wasn't taking care of myself physically or emotionally, like, survival in survival mode is really just when you're constantly triggered. Is
it also sort of this state of mind where each day runs into the next and you can't remember what day it is? It's almost like a depression, right? Yeah. Depression was in there. Yeah. Depression is part of it. Yes. For most people. Yes. Yeah. It's tough. I've been in survival mode, but it was a little different. Yeah. For you. I think it's much more common for especially like young mothers to go through this.
Yes, those who have children. And you have somebody who's struggling, if your partner is struggling with an addiction, or alcoholism, and you have children, like you're having to take care of yourself, your children and your partner, like it's a lot of on your mental load on your mental health.
I'm gonna derail us for just one second, and shout out all the moms out there. That's awesome. Father's two that are really involved? Yes. Oh, yeah. There's some dads that had go through this, too. Oh, yeah. Recently, I was able to take some time off of work about I think it was about 45 days that I was out, okay. And I was home with you this entire time. And I, our kids just so happened to get sick and go on Christmas break and Thanksgiving break during this time. So they were
home? The majority of this? Yes. And they're at ages now that are pretty easy. They're pretty independent. They're hungry. Make yourself some ramen noodles, right? Like they do that kind of stuff. Yeah. But I would have these moments of reflection when I was sitting there thinking what it must be like for a mother on any given day, with all this going on, to wake up. And to have not just their self to take care of which
often comes second. Or last, which we're going to talk about more but the emotional labor that is associated with all the decisions that have to be made on any given day. I am a like our marriage has operated where I've been the one that goes to work pages page works, don't get me wrong, she works work sort of hats off, but I have the traditional like go to work from like, nine to five type deal come home and you're at home dealing with the kids stuff, as well as all the other stuff we
have going on. And it's it's easy to get detached from what it takes to run a home and what it takes and I women have been, you know, screaming about this for years and rightfully so, like, listen to us like this is getting crazy. This is a lot. And it is because there are day like days were like today from three o'clock. 330 to five o'clock. We didn't have a lot going on. Like I was just kind of chatting with people and kind of hanging out. We'd have fun at your job since Yeah, at work and
my job. Yeah. You don't get any of that here. No, any of it. There's always something that needs to be done someone that needs your attention, something that some shore of some sort like laundry is the devil. Yeah, it never stops, never stops the hills with that man piles outside their office right now our studio. Yeah, you're right. I can see it out there out there. But yeah, it's just, it's
nonstop. And I just want to shout out all the moms that are not just out there and healthy relationships doing doing the thing, but the ones especially that are in this doing it Yeah, I got a small taste of what that was like, over the course of almost two months. And it's a lot like the emotional labor of all the decisions that have to be made and having to know where everything is and what time everything starts. And when you gotta pick people up and the
kids got their own lives. They got their own stuff going on. They need to they need to vent they have, you know, going through puberty and like there's all kinds of crazy stuff going on here. What do you what do you give me that? Look, I just don't like it when
you throw that out there. I don't know why I
went through puberty you went through period. I
know. I know. I know normalize puberty, I get it.
I get it was crazy. I know. Life is so simple that all of a sudden that's like in the course of a week everything changes and all of a sudden, like your emotions are heightened and everything matters and
Okay, yeah, we're getting off track. I just want to shout. I think that's great. That's great. So whenever I was in my survival mode, our kids were three and five. Yeah, yeah, they were five, three and five. And I mean, you were sober. You were working your program. You were doing just fine, but I I was not this was like me when I hit my rock bottom of realizing that I
needed help too. And not just, it wasn't just because you got sober, you know, everything was going to be perfect this is when I realized, oh shit, you know something's wrong, I got to do something. So I was in survival mode. And I had no idea how to take care of myself. I was barely hanging on by thread. And I know a lot of our listeners are out there. feeling this way
right now. And I also want you to know, if you're looking at social media, and you're seeing a lot of these highlight reels, and you're feeling triggered by it or you feel like you see these people who are working out or they have fit bodies, or they look happy and healthy, and it's triggering for you. You're not alone. It's okay. I've been there before. And I'm in a totally different place now. And I want you to know that there's hope at the end of this.
There is there is you know, I was just thinking about this. When I got sober I think if it did anything at all, it sort of delayed what was already happening, because when I was in active addiction, you were still in survival mode. You were in that place. Yes, very much. So maybe even worse. And then I got sober and it's almost like it was like a band aid in a lot of ways because it was never really addressed. And they just came back to haunt you. Never really. Wow.
Sorry. Yeah, okay. I don't know why this is so hard. Yeah, so when you were inactive addiction I was in survival mode been to. But I didn't realize how bad it was. I was just detaching from it all.
Yeah, it was really tough. I mean, you're,
and then when you got sober. It was kind of like a band aid. It was a band aid. Oh, and I was like, everything's okay. And I'm like, but I knew deep down that something wasn't right.
Yeah. Like you could tell yourself that but it wasn't really okay. Yeah, I was like,
oh, yeah, everything's gonna be great. And then few years later, like, no, then I really hit a rock bottom.
Yeah, it's like that old saying emotions buried alive. Never Die. Yeah, I
just never heard you say that out loud. That's all maybe I have it just hit me differently. So okay, let's get back into this. Sorry.
It is always okay to cry.
I know. That's the people. That's that one thing. That's the codependent in me say I'm sorry for having emotion.
Emotions. All right.
Okay. So if y'all had to take a break for a moment, that's okay. What's going on
on other side of this microphone? Yeah. Crazy. Carly,
what's crazy? Okay, what
just happened was we were talking and then Paige had an emotional reaction to what we were talking about. Yeah. Which is normal. We're talking about heavy stuff here. Yeah. I think that a lot of listeners have probably had moments where they were cleaning or something like that. And we've said something and it did the same thing to them. Yeah. Totally related. Yeah. And okay. Yeah.
Okay, so when I hit rock bottom, I just, I knew that something had to change. So it's really hard to make life changing decisions when you're in survival mode. But you hit a point, you hit a point where you're just like, I can't do this anymore. Something has to be done. I have to be there for my family. I need to be there for myself. What do I do? Yeah,
did you get to a place where you were just you finally just said like, eff it?
I did. I did. I think I read something on depression. And this is when I first learned about neuroplasticity. The first time I ever heard about that, where it's like, okay, you can rewire your brain with new habits. And it can help you get out of your funk. And I was like, I don't know why I remember that. But I just it clicked for me. It was like, Okay, I've got to do something. And then obviously, you told me I have to get do something. Are you gonna leave me with the kid? It's not
the way it went down. God, you always make that sound so bad, don't
it's not a bad thing. I told you that you saved me when you did that. It seems
like such an audacious thing for me to ask if someone considering what I did,
it doesn't matter. It's because you knew how to set boundaries better than I did in our marriage. And I think that's beautiful. There's nothing wrong with that. I learned something from it. I
like to remember things a little more loving than that. It was loving. That's all it was loving as well.
But either way, I decided to take a chance. And I'm gonna say the first year of me actually starting to take care of myself was really, really hard. It's not easy. self care is not meant to be easy. It is doing the hard thing and having the benefits later on in life.
Before we're talking about what the hard things are, and like what self care is, what does it feel like to be in survival mode? And what are some of the habits that someone in survival mode has? Like what are you doing in survival mode when it comes to neglecting yourself care? Getting up, it's very hard to get into bed. So it's just tough to get up and have any kind of motivation to do anything. It's
hard to have motivation to do Anything at all you like you will lay there and you say I just want to sleep, I just want to lay here, I don't want to get up, I don't want to get dressed, I don't want to do my hair, I don't even want to brush my teeth. I don't want to eat any food. Or if I do eat food, it's going to be something that's completely, you know, horrible for me, and it's not going to be nutritious, and then I'm going to feel even worse after that.
And when it comes to the kids are you just sort of forcing yourself to force just forcing yourself to do everything.
And I had anger, I had a lot of anger with having to do things.
So it's it's characterized by forcing yourself to do things that you should be the you need to do, which is it should but you need to do and then being really quick to indulge in ways that are harmful. Yes. So some people even for spouses, they could go through bouts of heavy drinking, or drug use, or binge watching TV or scrolling or any of these things that give us that dopamine kick junk food. Got that Taco Bell got that McDonald's? McDonald's fries, you know, all that good stuff.
Did I have to say that? Yeah, those are her favorite. Which by the way, if you leave them out, they will look the same, like 20 years later. Yeah, wild, it's disgusting oil or whatever. But yeah, still eating a meal. But occasionally, occasionally, right? But anyway, so it becomes really easy to neglect your health and to give in to those, those cravings, and it becomes harder and harder to do the things that you shouldn't be doing. And you're literally forcing yourself to put one foot
in front of the other. Yes, that's what survival mode feels like. Yes.
And it feels like nothing is getting done. Feels like everything is just piling on. And in
those moments, it's like, it's impossible to think about doing something else. Even if you know you need to. It's like yeah, I can't fathom like getting up tomorrow and exercising. No, that's not happening. There's just no way. No, like, I don't have it in me, I don't have the will to get up and do anything like
No, and there's a feeling in your body that just exhausts you, you just feel exhausted and you feel angry and you feel sometimes you feel numb to though. And that's another thing. Like you'll get to a place where you just feel nothing. And then you just don't want to do anything. You're just like, I'm just existing at this point. Yeah, it's
scary. It is scary. It's scary. And I can relate this to being I've gone through periods of depression in my life outside of addiction. And I know what you're describing, obviously, I haven't been in your position watching someone like me act act the way I did, and the abuse that goes along with that. But I know what it's like to feel just hopeless. And the thought of doing something different is scary. And would you say it's relatable? In some ways? It's almost a comfortable place to be yes.
It's the familiar. You're familiar with it. And when when that's scary, because you're like, I I'm just comfortable here, but I'm comfortable in the discomfort. And I've said that multiple times on our podcast and built being comfortable in the discomfort. Yeah, because it's what you know. Yeah.
So we're not going to sit here and give you some big rah rah speech about New Year New you take charge of your life make drastic changes to all this stuff. Like there might be some of that some hints of it some undertones of it of you, if you will. But I think what we've done here is pages done an excellent job of setting the stage for what it feels like to be in this position. And to understand that you have to start small Yes, and that it's gentle self care, in the beginning. It is it's little
things right? It's
not having a you know, five task routine every day that's going to completely change your life. It just it just doesn't work. That way.
We can talk morning routines. Now we talked about it. I was I didn't want to jump in if you already had this outlined, but morning routines for me have become almost a meme from people, the morning routines that people will have it's like oh, I got up at 4am and I made myself I squeezed all this fresh juice and I meditated for 45 minutes and then I did yoga for 30 minutes and then I went for a run must be nice. Like where can people find the time for this? So just stuff the influencer say
it's their job their influencers. It's paid to do that a word
about influencers and social media is that it is a performance right people say this crap because it's always the most drastic opinions that get the most attention. Yes. And the most the sexiest stuff gets the most attention it's not the stuff like this right. So this mean I
think but there's also the other side of you know, self indulgence there are really a lot of influencers on there that was the other side the other side so we meet in the middle Yeah, let's be we meet in the middle we be real we're real. We were real about this. I had to think I like seriously just stopped in my tracks for a moment. But yeah, we we're going to help you with like just being real about your social I mean, your your self care. Like what
what is it? What does it look like for somebody who is struggling so hard to do anything?
Yeah, we're gonna meet you where you're at. Yep. And we're gonna talk about things that you're actually capable of doing today today, we're not going to tell you to start doing back squats at 250. No, tomorrow, because that's what you should do right? Now we're gonna start small. So
I just want to talk about mine what I did, let's do this talk about myself. That's the best way my self care journey is what it's been six years in the making. And let's say that things did not happen overnight. Yeah. But what happened that started it was the rock bottom and making a decision to change. That's where you got to start.
Question What question about and I get this question a lot, too. About rock bottom? Yes. Is rock bottom necessary? In order to make changes do you have to get there?
I don't think so. But I'm not sure. Because I don't I don't know. Everybody's rock bottom looks different
thing about rock bottom is that it's really all about perspective. Right? Yeah, it's
what your rock bottom is.
Exactly. So my answer to this? Not that anyone asked it. But
my answer to you ask that question just so you could answer it. It's
kind of I wanted to give a perspective of it, because I wanted your opinion on it. But rock bottom is the point at which you decide to stop digging. Yes, I am what is called a high bottom drug addict. Yeah, a high bottom. A low bottom is someone that you've probably seen these people, they've, they've been to jail multiple times, like five, six times, they've been to, you know, seven, eight rehabs, they've, they've lost multiple families and jobs and all that stuff. And then they decided to
get sober. Their bottom is low, because they had to experience a ton of consequences. These people have really, really high pain tolerances. I have a really, really low pain tolerance. I don't believe that. But okay. And so I didn't have to lose everything. I didn't have to do everything that people said. You have to do like old timers in AAA. would tell people, if you still have your watch, you don't belong in here. You're not done yet. They'd say
stuff like that. Oh, yeah. Like if you still have a wristwatch, you don't belong in here. Yeah, okay. Well, that's bull. The way I see it now is that if you're in the seat, you've earned the seat doing something, right, it means you're doing something bottom is bottom to you. And it's all I can say is that your rock bottom is whatever you decide it to be, it is your right, it is a decision we make.
I made the decision, when I got sober, that I didn't have to lose it all before I saw that this was not getting any better. I think what's important, the realization you have at rock bottom is the pattern that exists. And if you can identify the pattern that I'm headed on a downward trajectory, then you just make the reasonable assumption that I'm likely to continue on that same pattern unless I do something different. And that's what gets you out. Yeah, that's the decision you
make. So like you were talking about your decision. Do you remember the like the day that this happened?
I don't remember the day I remember the moment it was in our bedroom, and I decided to make a change. I don't I couldn't tell where to come from it. It was what I was talking about the neuroplasticity thing. So you'd read something I read came across something in your life, I came across something and it just changed my perspective on everything. So I just decided to make a change.
Something I will say about rock bottom before we move on is a lot of things lead up to that point. There's a lot of I don't know, like for me, I know for you were in the same place. It's sort of like your emotions are swirling around inside of you. And you start to you'll have moments of hope. And then it'll be crushed. But then you start to get really hopeful about those small moments of hope. And then you at some point, you have this crazy thought that I could do this.
I mean, I could
I could make the change. Why not me? And when that thought happens if you've had that thought seize that moment. Yeah, that's crucial. Yeah, it's crucial. Like there's a texture of your mind in that moment. And if you don't act on it, then you're likely not to see it again for quite some time. Right? So just act on it. So you've you've read something and it's like, damn, I can do this. Yeah, I'd say that your your rock bottom is not that it wasn't powerful. But it's like
mine. It's kind of a lame story.
It's like yeah, okay.
I mean for every one of us there's like five others which
was the boundary you set to because I was scared that I was like, Oh crap, this is here I might lose my family which I don't get my shit together. I might lose my family another
testament to the power of boundaries and how they can influence people for positive change and protect absolutely and protect Yes, which is what the really for to protect you but sometimes they can influence people to make positive changes. Yep.
So my self care journey started with going to therapy. So that's part of the mental mental self care. I was gonna say we have five categories of self care. physical, mental, social, spiritual and emotional. We dig into those into another part. But I wanted to say that I started with my mental. I started reading a book every morning, from change your thoughts change your life, the Dow. And I started journaling every morning. So those were like my three main things that I
started doing. And it wasn't a lot. It wasn't like, you know, completely changing my life and changing my routine. It was routine, it was baby steps to take me to the next direction. And if there were times that I felt like, oh, I don't want to do this, I did it anyway, because it was still small. It wasn't
too big, how much time in your day to just take
20 minutes if that to
journal to read, and read.
And then and then I started in therapy once a week. Yep. And then once I started getting into kind of the groove of that I started to practice meditation. And I would do 10 minutes of meditation. And meditation was very hard for me, very hard for me, because I was I had a panic attack, I had panic disorder. And when I would start meditating it, I would start breathing. And I was start freaking out because I would feel different. I know that
sounds so weird. And it sounds like, what are you doing, but I've read all about it, that there's a thing that happens when you meditate, if you haven't done it before, if you've had trauma, it's really hard to make your breath regularly. Thank you. You knew what I was saying. You read my mind can read your mind. Yeah. So I practice that. And I told myself, okay, you know what this is. This is important. I've read this works. So I'm going to keep
doing it. And then a little bit later on, I started on my physical health, just a little bit, I took I took the kids to a gym that had childcare, because I needed to take time for myself at the gym and let somebody else take care of my kiddos. But I didn't have a set schedule to go. It was just like, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna try and do this. And I remember I went and worked out and tried to get my endorphins up, and it didn't
work. And I talked to my therapist about it, I was like, I worked out and I still feel like shit. And she's like, it's just this part of it. It's part I still had to rewire my brain, it wasn't gonna happen with one workout. I like
how you said you didn't commit to a certain amount of time in the gym, or certain amount of days in the gym or certain workouts in the gym. Usually, I'm gonna get my body moving on the days that I can get my body moving. And that's how it starts. It starts small sort of, it's like it's sort of like on your own terms in the beginning. It is I think that's important. It's a it's an important distinction from that and from what Instagram influencer will tell you, and that you need this workout
program. You need all this crazy food and the supplements and all this stuff. And this This is you stick to this every day and you're gonna get better. It's like biting off more than you can chew early on.
I could not do that until I got my mental health in check.
So for you the fifth the the mental piece came first. Yes. It did for me too. I spent the first year of sobriety doing nothing but focusing on my mental health and my spiritual health. Yes, I gained y'all I gained at least 80 pounds. My dad's two years sober. You did funny story. I used to wear Spanx. That's not a joke. That's when you decided oh, shit. My rock bottom for fitness. Fitness. Never forget it. I got so big that I became really self
conscious about my Manboobs. And I bought Spanx, which I didn't even know that they made for men, but I was like, Oh, this is a game changer. Let's just looks all tight and slim. And I could wear the shirts I couldn't wear before. And then we were at your parents house for Thanksgiving. And I went to go buy a football jersey, cowboys jersey. Someone told me today they sent me a message. They were like, Hey, by the way the Cowboys said your podcast with the Cowboys. Yeah,
that was so funny. Sit back, watch this great. I don't mind it. But anyway, it was in that moment that I was like, I had this like out of body experience. And I was like, I just I just bought Spanx so I could wear a football jersey.
I was pregnant with them, Joe, I
was like, oh my god, that was Thanksgiving Day. Yeah. It wasn't until March that I really did something about it. But that was the moment that I was like, Oh, something has to change, right? Something's got to change. You
got your mental health together. First.
I had to. I had to and I've always said like you can think yourself in the right way or you can act yourself in the right thing. I do believe that I do believe that you can act yourself into right thing. What I mean by that there will be days where you your mind is just not cooperating and you cannot find positivity anywhere. You can't find the bright side you
can't find gratitude. What I learned through the school of hard knocks is that when I forced myself to do the thing I didn't want to do that I was Avoiding that suddenly my mind came around and I found the gratitude. I found the positive thinking and I found all those things. But I think that was at a certain point that I could do that early on. I don't think that had been possible. I think it would, maybe it would, it would have worked temporarily.
Yeah, but not for a while. I do think that you have to get your mind right. And then you the body comes after
that. Yeah. But I did still work on my body while I was working on my mental piece, but it wasn't balls to the wall. You know, it wasn't small. I wasn't trying to lose weight. I wasn't trying to get fit. I was just trying to do it for my mental health. You know, I was just trying to get my body moving. I would even take the kids for a walk in the stroller, you know, simple things like that just to do something. And like I said, it wasn't a routine. What
you do on as far as diet goes in those early days, early early days, so I've
always had Well, I wouldn't say always because I guess when we were younger, we did eat like shit. But
no, no, here's why corrupted. This poor girl You really did grew up in a home where her mother cooked and cooked healthy.
We didn't have sodas in our house. We didn't have like junk. I mean, we'd have snacks and stuff. But it wasn't we rarely ate out. My mom cooked home cooked meals and they were healthy. I was raised with healthy food. And then who you met me and it's like, come to the dark side. Oh, yeah. You introduced me to Taco Bell. And we would eat that every day after high school. Yeah, remember that?
Jack in the Box sign? Leaving the parking lot. Yeah.
I had my license for like a month. At that point. She
spilled a drink and her the cup holder. I was in the passenger seat. She was driving she spilled the drinks in the cup holder. She was looking down as she was hurting out of the parking lot onto this big road and kept looking down while turning and just hit the gas. We jumped a curb and ran smooth and one of those Jack in the Box signs that was huge. It was like the size of the car. And it said like two tacos tonight. Nonsense. Yep. And destroyed it. Yep. It was like inside the car.
Yep. That happened. When we were about 17
Yeah. So anyway, I gained a lot of weight when Matt was an active addiction. And when I even with with Sydney I did but during when I started with my self care, I would start small with just cooking healthy it was not like I die
every meal though. No, like, I'm gonna eat a healthy meal today. Right? One of my meals will be healthy, right? That's a start, right?
Or I'm not going to snack today. Or I'm going to drink some water today, like extra water today. You know, I didn't track everything. I know, I had tried like Weight Watchers a little bit and it's up and down. You know, I wasn't ready for that. Or it wasn't sustainable. And then I would do weird diets with you. Because you were on like paleo. You tried all this stuff. And I was just like, you know, I'm not I just not ready to do this. But I would do it
occasionally. You know, I knew that I needed to eat healthy, but it wasn't every meal all the time. I wasn't
ready for that. Gentle self care. Gentle, gentle in the beginning. It was like dinner will be healthy tonight. We will eat
all or something. Yeah, all their sweat. I
learned an E to him. Yeah, this is an all or something thing, which we'll get to in just a moment. Okay. Okay, cool. Where are we going?
I also worked on my spiritual self care during those times. So this, all of this stuff took three to four years. I liked
that you framed it with the timing like that, because I think a lot of people, obviously we all want change now. Yeah, it's like, I gotta make some changes, like yesterday. And then so we sort of put on paper, everything that we need to change and we try to do it all today. You're saying it's okay. It's okay to take the time. It's okay. And it's okay. If this
process takes years. Yes. It's, it's actually I would say healthy and normal, that you're not trying to do too much that you know is going to fail, you're you're gonna burn out. caveat there. There are some people that are at that stage, because we're talking to people that are obviously we're talking to, we don't know, there's there's stages. We know this listeners, we know that there's some people that are at the point where like, I'm ready to go hard, right?
There might be somebody who's like, I'm ready. What do I do now? And then that's when like your, your, even your emotional, self care can comes in, come into play where you're setting boundaries, and you're giving yourself compassion and you're taking action with detaching and you're, you know, doing all these other things that are really, really hard. Yeah, you might not be ready to do that. If you're in survival mode. You have to build up that self esteem first by doing
things for yourself. What does spiritual self care look like for you? That would be my meditation and learning about the Dow. That was something that I was just huge for me. I started praying. I didn't do that for a long time. And you really helped me in all
of that. The spiritual stuff. That was part of my because it was
part of your recovery. And I was like, you know, why not? Why not? You know. And that's when I really started to get more in touch with nature, you know, with my panic attacks and looking at the tree grounding and all that grounding and all that stuff. Yeah. So that's, that's part of that. Again, I practiced this all the time, I made time to do it, because I knew that if nothing changes, if nothing changes, so I had to make a change. Yeah,
and the spiritual piece, I think, is one that if we're talking spiritual self care, if you're a person that, you know, has a spiritual background. Let's say that you grew up going to church or something like that, like you, you know, the avenues to, to that place, not just to church, but to a relationship with whatever deity you believe you believe in whatever religious body you belong to, you can say a quick prayer. If, if that's, that's
Peace to you. And that takes all of I don't know, 30 seconds. Yeah, that's, that's a small, gentle start. Right? For us. We like started from absolute scratch. Absolute scratch, and we've talked about this on an episode before about the importance of a spiritual life. I'm not saying anyone has to be spiritual, what we're saying is that it was really beneficial for us. I
just think the universe a lot of the times, you know, yeah, that's where I find my gratitude is in my spirituality. Yeah, it's huge for that. We have a total episode on that, if you want to go down, I don't want to go down that path too much. Okay. But it is important for self care if that's what you want to if you spirituality looks like so many different things. But, and then therapy, so I did therapy once a week. Oh, I didn't say that. I was on medication. Early on you were I
was. I was on medication early on, for my anxiety and for my panic attack. So I had two medications. And the only reason I got on these medications is because I needed to learn new coping skills. I wanted them to be a bridge. Yes. So I would, I took them with therapy, went to therapy for a few months. I don't know, it wasn't even that long. And I decided, You know what, I'm going to start getting off with these now. And I got
off of them. But that was a form of self care for me, because I knew that I had to do it in order to get through what I was going through at the moment. But I wanted to get off of them. Because I'm I'm a skills before pills kind of girl. Yeah. And I'm grateful. I haven't been on that medication for a long time. But I had to change my brain in order to
get off of those. Yeah, it was an excellent bridge for you. Yeah.
And then do you want to talk about the physical part? Sure. Let's get into it. And how we are totally different than what I we were talking about. Yeah. So for those who are ready to like, really go hard. Um, we, I started to work on my physical self two years ago. So that was like four years into all of this when my mental, my mental capacity was finally there. And I was able to actually have something that was for me a program that was very structured. So that's when we
joined to him. And it was exercising, meal plans, all this stuff. I mean, it's a lot, but I wouldn't, I wouldn't have been mentally ready for it. You know, if I was in survival mode. Yeah.
I took a slightly different path. I joined a CrossFit gym. I think when it comes to exercise at all, I encourage people to get involved with the community when it comes to your fitness, because pain shared his pain lesson. It's no different than what goes on to say that to him. So like my CrossFit box was great for that. Yeah, there were people there who were really encouraging and they motivated me, they without realizing a lot of days, they
were there. My reason for getting out of bed was the accountability that was there kind of built in to the support system. It was it was greatness. I did that for years and years and years. And I kind of went off on my own did a bunch of other things. And then yeah, I hopped on each one with you for a little bit, dabbled and still kind of my own thing, but starts, I was at a place where I was ready to make a change. And I jumped in. I mean, both feet,
just like in it. I was to the point where like, I couldn't walk the next day kind of stuff like I was in that place. But I don't know, I don't think I would have been ready that first year. Yeah, not even close. Just like you wouldn't have been ready at some point when you're in survival mode. Yeah. So I just I just want people to know, like, be gentle with yourself. I mean, be firm, but be gentle. Right? We're always going to talk on both sides here. So be firm with yourself that you do
need to make changes. And they can be small. So be gentle when you can say they can be small, but be firm, when you say I have to make some changes, something has to give here. And so if you're eating three fast food meals a day, let's do two. Yeah, let's try to let's start to eat a little bit better and have a conscious mind that we're going to improve on this when we're ready.
Yeah, I think there's a book called atomic habits. I don't know if you read it. Did you read it? No. I started reading it. But it was a little bit past where I where I was like, I don't think it was beneficial for me in the moment but I do think that our lives nurses might benefit from it. It just could be a resource for them. I've
heard a lot of good things about it. I've actually had a discussion with a guy for like three hours him telling me about the book. Yeah, all the sounds totally.
Right, right. We're just very, like, you know, I took off my Apple watch, like, I don't track things. I don't do things like that because it was too overstimulating. For me, I like to kind of go at the beat of my own drum. That makes sense. And I think that we get really overstimulated with things that are on social media, and we get triggered by people posting things. And we're like, oh, we gotta be like that. So we've got to stop comparing ourselves to everybody. And what they're
doing. Yeah, it's all show, folks. Yeah, yeah. And we don't have to have all of these trackers like, it is nice. We did have that. What did we just put on our phone? For social media screens in? Yeah, that's a great, great way to to help with your mental. I
caught myself trying to open apps today. Like eight times, right. So what am I doing? Yeah, yes. Yes. That was more productive, though.
Yeah, it was. It's great. I love it. And I'm not like I said, I'm not a huge app person with stuff like that. But this one is amazing. Yeah.
So shout out to the wheelie told us about that. Yes. Yes, yes. Yes.
Thank you so much. Okay, um,
when it comes to self care, self care, a lot of times people will say I needed to take care of this as a distraction. Okay, or I needed to get away. Uh, huh. What are your thoughts on self care as a distraction?
Um, so I think that distractions are good whenever we are in basic li panic mode. So distractions for me would be grounding techniques, breathing techniques. If you're having something that's really triggering, then yes, you need a distraction to calm your body down. But if you're distracting yourself from the problems within your relationship, or within your life, by doing all these self care things, it's almost like a band aid. I guess,
I would say that's when self care becomes self indulgence. Okay. Because self indulgence is bias, design. Distraction. I'm going to indulge, I'm going to be selfish for a moment, which is a good thing. Good, selfish. I'm gonna go get my I'm gonna go. I don't know, for me, like, what do I do? I don't do a whole lot of self indulgence. Do I?
You eat a gallon of ice cream.
I'll eat a gallon ice cream. There you go. I'll eat the whole gallon there, actually, I think, okay. I'll be almost the whole half now. Okay. Okay. But yeah, like, it's not self care and self indulgence, I need to distraction I've been, you know, I take care of myself most of the time. And I just need to get away time and place for that. There's time there's Yeah, is warranted. It's valid, there's a time and place for it.
But don't get caught in the trap where self care becomes like this over encompassing idea where you're just trying to distract yourself. Remember, the self care is getting us somewhere. It's taking us
somewhere. It's growing us. It's getting us out of the situation that we're in and focusing on the things that we can control it taking care of ourselves again, which is so needed when you're in a relationship where you're constantly focused on what everyone else is doing, and what's going on with them and what they're going to what decision they're going to make next. It is it's okay to be distracted sometimes. But self care is a little different. These are the more difficult
things general, more general. I mean, generally, I would say this the more difficult stuff. It's not really always the fun stuff. Yeah, therapy is not always fun. But you'll never leave a therapy session feeling like what that was a waste of
an hour. Know that you will leave like, Oh, you'll
leave feeling like, Oh my God, you're hitching a blender. I mean, there are days where you leave the gym and be like, that was torture, but you are going to feel better. And you'll be proud of yourself the next day for it. You're not going to be proud of yourself the next day after you eat a half gallon of ice cream. Right? So if that's that's my acid test, if I if I can be proud of myself the next day, then that was self care if I look back on it, and I go no
indulgent. Yeah. But then again, I think that when it comes to like, I don't know if some people like, get my hair done. I need to get my nails done. Well, taking care of your body. Yeah, I would argue this kind of a gray area. Self care thing. Yeah. grooming. Yeah, exactly. It's part of grooming yourself. Hygiene. Yeah, these are self care things. But mix that in with some of the more difficult stuff. Yes. Let's read a little bit. Let's let's go for a walk. Let's just try to eat a
healthier meal. Let's do some of this little stuff. That's not sexy. But you will be proud of yourself for later. The pride that you get whenever like truly feeling proud of yourself or doing something taking care of yourself. Yeah, is indescribable. In those moments where you feel lost and you feel down and out? That take a moment to feel pride within yourself. It almost reconnects you to this empowerment that was always there but we kind of lose track of it. We kind of lose sight of
it. it reconnects you and you will get fired up in those moments like there is fire inside you. You're still is Yeah. Yeah.
Well, our our group, our support group is discussing self care at the moment, and we're doing our accountability posts. And I think it's a great place for people to talk about self indulgence as well. Because like we said, with gentle self care, like at the beginning, you're still going to be doing some of that stuff. Because you're starting to do self care slowly, and you're putting it in there just a little bit at a time. That's great. So obviously,
there's a mixture of it. But I'll tell you this now, like Matt and I, we self indulge once a week about Yeah, if you think about it, like we do those kinds of things, just once a week, it's balanced for us the rest of the week, we are pretty much you know, what, maybe we do like two times a week. But most of the time, we're really like doing the hard things to get us to, you know, to benefit our lives later on. Yeah,
absolutely. And if, if you've enjoyed this conversation, if you've enjoyed our discussion here, the basis of a lot of this is inside of our course. Yep. And we've heard is, you've heard us mention the course now, independently strong. There is there are there are 10 modules within the course. One of them is a module on self care. And in the self care module, we're going to cover the things that we covered
right here. We are offering depth Yeah, in depth, like you're gonna get a full discussion, you're gonna see pages lovely face talking about this, you're gonna get worksheets. It's excellent. It's in the Duxton. Yeah, the doctors perspective on all this stuff. There's
some exercises in there to help you keep track of what you need to keep track of.
So from now, until we're gonna say, February 14 Valentine's Day, yeah, we're offering that part of the course, as a standalone course, for $50. To get a module, yeah, you may hear some things reference to other parts of the larger course that it came out of. Yeah. But we're just talking about self care here. Yes. Just
self care. So if you hear as mentioned something else, that's part of the other the other portion of the course, I think it's a good introduction to get people curious about what goes on in this course, which is life changing. I mean, freaking life.
It truly is. It's a great course. But I think it's really helpful to Yeah, I mean, I could talk all day long about self care, like, a lot of people don't realize the importance and the significance of it. And I just, I think it needs to be discussed more. And it needs to be discussed in a proper way. I guess you could say, because on social media, social media, it's making us feel crazy. So I think it's great that we pulled it out and give everybody an option to go in there and work on
it. Yeah, I don't think we're going to do a lot of this. I think it was just really relevant for the time of year that we're in. Yeah, absolutely. And we've got this in, we've got the self care movement in the community right now. So I think it's just fitting that it's it's available. It's out there. It's it's a wonderful introduction to the entire course. But it's very specific to what we're talking about here, especially this month when it comes to self care. Yeah. What is what isn't
how to go about it. You know, what are some examples? How do I get there? How do I track it? Like, all that stuff's included?
Yep. And give yourself grace. But remember, nothing changes. If nothing changes? Yep, firm
but gentle. Can Be gentle. You can make some small changes. And that is okay. Is if you're in survival mode, guys, these memes and this crap that these people post on the internet do not apply. They don't apply No. Like that stuff that they just say, people just say this crap because it gets likes and follows. But that doesn't get paid. They get paid or whatever. That's not relevant to what, what our listeners are going through, right? It's just not
no, it does not apply. Mr. muscle man has nothing to do with me right now. You don't know what my life looks like. Have you walked walk in my shoes for one day? And you'd be like, Oh, I'm sorry. I had mentioned it. You know? Yeah, yep. Yep. So okay. I think that's all we've got. Yes. Anything else we didn't cover? I feel like we're missing. Yeah. Oh, I feel like when we shut this off, and I go to bed, I'm gonna be like, the mom and home alone.
It's okay. Of course.
It's in the course. You're right. It's all there. We did. It's in the course. That's excellent. And check that out at independently strong.com. All right. Well, thank you all for being here with us. Thanks for joining us. Till next time. I'm Matt. I'm
Paige. We'll see you