You Don’t Have to Break to Take a Break: Self-Care Simplified

#122 - You don't have to take a break (EDITED)

Thu, Mar 06, 2025 12:18PM • 15:34

00:00

Emma, do you want to live a life of freedom and adventure? Are you wanting more than the daily grind? Me too. Welcome to the Emma Lovell, show a place where we talk about living a life you love. Now I'm your host, Emma Lovell, and my number one value is freedom. I've spent the last 14 years running a business and traveling the world, and now I take my husband and toddler along for the adventure too. It's possible, and I know you can create a life doing what you truly love as well. This podcast will inspire, motivate and encourage you to go after your dreams, to create a life you love and to live it now, not wait for a time and or someday in the future, I'll be sharing episodes weekly about how I harmonize business travel and self care. I'll also bring on incredible guests to share their journeys, the wins, the challenges, and how they're creating a life they love. Let's jump in and get dreaming. This is a space for you to manifest a life you love.

01:03

I would like to acknowledge and recognize Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the first peoples of this place, now known as Australia. I am grateful for the continuing care of the land, waterways and skies where I work, live, listen, learn and play from here on, you can bear country and from wherever you are listening, I pay my respects to the elders past and present.

01:25

Welcome to the Emma Lovell show. I am so excited to be with you today and talking about something I'm really passionate about, and that is that you do not have to break in order to take a break. The importance of self care. And I had this reminder today, actually, because I was writing some responses to a media shout out, and it was about when you've had a major life thing, and it sort of changed your direction. And for me, that was my

02:00

breaking my back. So I broke my back in 2009

02:05

and that was the biggest lesson in self care that I've ever had. And it's something that stayed with me forever. And it's, it's how I started my book. It's, oh, it was very early on in my book

02:19

about, yeah, what happened with that incident? So

02:23

I think the lesson that came I'll tell the story very abridged, but I was at the University Games in threadb in 2009 competing in snowboarding, as you do, and I probably hadn't been taking care of myself that week.

02:40

I had a lot on in my life, a lot of work, a lot of uni

02:45

work, hard, party hard. We were there. We would play very hard and have late nights and drink too much and all those things. And I hadn't really been practicing, I hadn't been training. And then it was the day of the competition, and I was in the freestyle competition, and you have to go off jumps. I hadn't been practicing jumps. I skipped the first two short, smaller jumps, and then just told myself to man up and just have a go at the final jump in the practice round. And hit it, got in the air, realized I had made a mistake,

03:22

instinctively decided to stick my legs out in front with my board out, and landed,

03:28

falling probably about two meters, and landed on the knuckle of the jump, which is like a hard, compacted mound of snow. And I

03:36

just had this moment of stillness, and went, please God, don't let this be it.

03:42

And then I screamed very, very loud, very primal, very blood curdling, because the pain was instant. I knew 100% done something, but I didn't know how bad at that stage. So, long story short, I had broken two vertebrae in my back. I spent eight days in hospital, and was then wearing a back brace for 10 weeks, and then about eight months of rehabilitation.

04:08

I'm actually though, surprisingly, after all of that, I can totally walk fine. I'm climbed a mountain about 18 months later, the largest free standing mountain the world I've I was snowboarding nine months later, again, and,

04:23

yeah, I'm really physically fine. I

04:27

was apparently miles off in terms of a spinal injury, but

04:31

you know, still a lot to go through. And breaking your back for your first bony body is pretty, pretty impressive. But the thing I'm grateful for is that it taught me to slow down. It taught me to

04:44

rest, and that I had to rest in order to recover, and it gave me the time and space to think about what I wanted for my future. And that was the time when I realized that I wanted to

04:57

run my business, or I had wanted to do that for a number of.

05:00

Years, but there was no way I had time or space to do that. So it actually gave me the time to do that, you know, while I was lying around in a back brace. And at home, I kind of got used to and enjoyed saying people, oh no, I can't come out because I have to rest. So I used it as an excuse at the time, instead of just, you know, realizing that I was tired or didn't want to do something, I had a very valid excuse,

05:25

but I've carried that forward into my into my life. But I definitely think that the message is coming louder and clearer now than it ever has, and especially when, you know, sometimes I'm thinking, Oh, wouldn't it be nice to just go to hospital like that time, like, Would it be nice if I just had a little accident, little injury? Nothing terrible, nothing life changing, but, you know, not my back again, but something like that, so that I could have a rest in a hospital bed. And if I think like that, I go, oh gosh, okay,

05:56

maybe we need to have a break. So, yeah, taking breaks instead of breaking and I didn't listen or learn initially, because I had that lovely period of slowing down. But then I started my business, and that was wonderful. And then I started running another business, and then I moved to Melbourne, and then I

06:15

just did lots of things, and then I basically had a bit of a I didn't move to Melbourne. Then I moved to Melbourne the following year. But anyway, went to Melbourne for a visit. I remember that, but I basically had a, I don't know, panic attack, and a bit of a mentee bee. We now call it burnout, but,

06:33

yeah, a break of a different sort. And it was a mental break, and that was far worse than the physical break in that nobody can see that you've got this thing happening in your mind and you're not well.

06:47

But I was just as

06:52

deep, debilitated, debilitated, debilitated. That's the word I want. I was just as debilitated because I was not able to function. I wasn't able to work. I took six weeks off work. I had no motivation, no energy, and it took everything out of me. And I think we're seeing that so much now we know about burnout, and it's a horrible thing, because it's like, you're not so like, you're not sick, you're not injured, you're not you know, I guess surface level, looking or seeming unwell, but you just have no energy. You have feel exasperated. You don't feel inspired.

07:31

Everything takes its toll. It feels harder. And there are costs and consequences to that,

07:39

physically, energetically, mentally, all of it was so draining, and at least with the broken back, I had a physical showing I had a back brace I wore that showed I was physically broken. It showed that I was not well, and people would then,

07:57

I guess,

07:59

recognize and acknowledge that I needed a break and I needed rest.

08:03

So I would choose a physical injury over a mental health or emotional injury or break anytime.

08:12

But the lessons from both of those situations where that self care has to come first, and

08:18

I've also learned through my journey of work and play, work, work, work, play, work, hard, play hard, live hard. That the thing that was missing in my years of living my pleasure life, which is the business and the leisure I would business hard and leisure hard, pleasure hard, was that I wasn't having the self care element. So it's like a Holy Trinity. You got the business, you got the business, you got the travel, you got the self care, you got the work, you got the leisure, you got the self care. Because without self care, you can't do any of it. So self care can look different to everyone. Self care can look like sleep. Self care can look like massages or going away on trips, travel and self care

09:01

for me, traveling is just so invigorating and inspiring. But you know, sometimes the travel is really taxing as well, so sometimes travel might mean going over and staying at a friend's house an hour away, just for a different view, for a different perspective.

09:21

When I do travel, making sure that the travel isn't so

09:26

strenuous, or, I don't know, draining as as,

09:34

yeah, it's not always lying around on

09:38

feet chairs in Fiji, and

09:41

I get bored of that too, but making sure that there's time and space and restfulness, I think it's about restful. So even sleep, you can get sleep, but you don't feel rested.

09:53

So my real goal with taking breaks is to feel rested. And I.

10:00

Don't nap so well, but I've now really taken to taking the 20 minute or the 30 minutes

10:08

just lie down with my eyes closed, with my arm. Ask on with a yoga nidra or a meditation on, just to give myself a break, especially when I'm not feeling creative. So in the middle of my day, things are all feeling a bit overwhelming, or I'm or feels like I'm moving through mud, and things aren't moving forward.

10:29

Take a break. That might mean going out of the balcony and stretching my arms. That might mean going for a walk. That might mean calling a friend. It might mean

10:38

lying on my bed listening to a meditation. You decide what is restful and restorative to you, and that is your self care. Some people that is going for a run, doing something really active, sometimes the gym can feel really great or a swim, but sometimes that's not what you need. And some, you know, rest for me, or can be sitting up with a girlfriend, talking late, and yes, I don't get as much sleep, but it's what I needed. So self care is figuring out what you need and how you're going to feel better and feel your best self, and doing those things regularly. So in my book The Art of pleasure at the back of

11:23

my self care chapter, actually have a list of ideas, and I've given you a bunch of those ideas today. Just choose a couple of things because we don't want to create a list. And I think I find that really hard with a bedtime routine, I think I end up creating a list for myself and creating more expectation. And so having a couple of things that you can you can go to as your go to for self care, that are your version of self care can be really great. So I'm going to challenge you to to write down on a post it or something where you can see it, three things that are self care to you, and that might be a massage or getting your nails done, that might be going for a run or doing something energetic. It might be naps. My husband, it's Naps. Naps. No, his self care is gaming or doing Warcraft with his friend. You know, you decide, but choosing those three things and doing them regularly, scheduling them in, scheduling them in as if they were a meeting or an appointment with someone else. Like be as accountable to yourself as you would to someone else. Write to me, message me, let me know what you're going to do.

12:31

It could be travel. It could be that you come on, by all means, one of my retreats, that might be something. But you know, we can't, as much as I would love to go on retreats all the time.

12:41

We can't have a massage all the time, so we need to have a mix, you know? So you might have your more elaborate self care. You might have your sort of, yeah, like self care that's done with someone else, say Emma sous or going to a float tank, or seeing a friend. And then you have a self care that's something that you do by yourself. And that could be meditation, yoga, reading, sleeping, eating, nourishing, food,

13:06

whatever you decide, but you have to. You have to prioritize self care, because without that, none of it works. None of it works. You will be a puddle on the floor.

13:18

But please do heed my advice. I've been there. I've been there physically broken. I've been there mentally broken. And it's not it's not fun, and it's not living a life that you love. So take a break. Plan a break. Plan some self care so that you don't break. Do it before. This is this is preventative. This is maintenance. This is ongoing. Self Care is

13:44

it's just part of life and is a very crucial element in living a life you love. I hope that my journey and my experiences have inspired you today. Take a break so that you don't break I'd love to hear from you, and hear what self care practices you're going to enact. You can reach out to me at Emma, at Emma lovell.au or find me on the socials at Emma lovell.au For everywhere. Thank you for listening today, and thank you to one of my dear friends, colleagues, clients, Nikki Ellis. I am recording this episode in her home. She is self care to me. She is my PT, so gym and fitness counsel, counsel,

14:29

confidant,

14:31

amazing to speak to as a friend, and also helpful with many, many wonderful tips about taking care and nourishing yourself as well. So thank you, Nicky, if you're listening, for having me. Alright, on to the next episode. Have a wonderful day. Thank you for listening. Lovell one. I hope this has inspired you to dream big and start creating a life you love today. If you love what you're hearing, don't forget to follow and rate on Spotify.

15:00

I and rate review and subscribe on iTunes. It helps other awesome people to find this podcast and get motivated and inspired as well. Want to stay connected, come and join the live a life you love group on Facebook or connect with me on Instagram. Emma lovell.au the same as my website, but all the details are in the show notes. Lovely. I'll see you next episode for more inspiration, motivation and freedom, seeking. Now go out there and live a life you love. You.