Self care means looking after yourself

Self Care

Fri, Oct 13, 2023 4: 48PM • 14:40

Fri, Oct 13, 2023 4: SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Fri, Oct 13, 2023 4: care, people, boundaries, talk, love, lovely, travel, lovell, share, choosing, nails, hosting, life, week, india, incredible, retreat, recognise, husband, emma

00: 01

00: 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 your business and travelling the world. And now I take my husband and toddler along for the adventure to 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 retirement or someday in the future. I'll be sharing episodes weekly about how I harmonise business travel and self care. I'll also bring on incredible guests to share their journeys, the winds, 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: 04

01: I would like to acknowledge and recognise 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 Eugen bear country and from wherever you are listening, I pay my respects to the elders past and present.

01: 30

01: Welcome to another episode of the podcast. Today we're gonna talk about self care. Now, this is a word that's kind of bandied around a lot. And, you know, what is self care? And what does it look like. And to me, self care means

01: 51

01: choosing you, it means choosing you.

01: 55

01: And putting yourself first and everybody's version of self care is going to look different. And that is fine.

02: 04

02: I think it's sort of ended up being about getting your nails done, or going away by yourself or going on a retreat, which obviously I advocate for. But I don't think it even has to be as dramatic as that it can be something so simple. And I was talking to a wonderful colleague and client

02: 26

02: speaking to my colleague and coach and client the other day, leaves Ellis about self care. And I said one of the things that I see her do so beautifully is every night she makes herself a chai or a cup of cacao before bed. And it's this ritual that she has. And she makes it properly on the stove with a with a saucepan and is this beautiful organic product. And it's it's the whole ritual and the whole routine. And then she sits there enjoys that before she goes to bed. And I see her do this when I stay with her. And she invites me to take part and it's just such a beautiful and loving thing to make time and space for yourself. And I think that's ultimately what self care is.

03: 11

03: But yeah, it's coming up a lot in terms of the business world because there's a lot of burnout going on. And that's not a new thing. It's been around for a long time. We just now know what it is and recognise the signs of it. And I guess what the theory is, is if we practice self care, if we take care of ourselves, then we can avoid burnout. But I think there's always gonna be times were like, it's been the answer. My chair is very squeaky. It's very annoying. So I'm getting to a better position to those listening at home. I think that there's always going to be times where life is busy. And it really, really frustrates me, I hate the word busy. But it really, really frustrates me when I'm in one of those seasons. And there's a lot on and that's just the way it is. And people are telling you just take care of yourself. Just be kind to yourself, just do this. Just do that. Because you know, that's really helpful when you're in the thick of overwhelm, to have someone tell you what you should and could do. And there are just times where you know, if you've got a big event on if you're about to do a launch, if you're at the final stages of a project. I don't know if the life then stories in a spanner. Like I had recently I had two friends pass away in the space of three weeks, two dear girlfriends, on opposite sides of the world, passed away from breast cancer. And it was shocking. Both of them was shocking. Even though I knew they were sick even though it had been a few years. I just expected that they would get better again, and they both news came quite suddenly. And it was devastating. And that was in the midst of travelling for eight weeks straight to different cities, taking part in events hosting events hosting photoshoots

05: 00

05: launching my business brand new business brand working under my own name Emma Lovell that happened in the middle of it and what what can I do?

05: 08

05: What I could do is cancelled things that didn't feel good. I could pull out of events and activities, that doesn't always feel good. But what I could do is create some more space. And so where I could in order to talk people about it, but it was like, Don't you worry, I'm doing all the things and one of the biggest self care things I've learned in the past few years that I have to do and when things are feeling overwhelming is sleep. The first self care thing is sleep, get more sleep, prioritise, sleep, go to bed, do whatever I need to do to help me get to sleep this leaving my phone in the other room, taking some I do take some melatonin, or some magnesium, drinking a tea, whatever it is having a bath, if that's possible, or a hot shower, if that's all I can do for getting into bed earlier. And getting enough rest helps me

05: 59

05: Hey, lovely, I want to open the door to incredible opportunities for you on an all inclusive luxury retreat exclusively for leaders who are ready to attract the work and life they want. Join me for five inspiring nights in incredible India for the first ever international rest and receive retreat hosted in Kerala, India, by me from the 12th to the 17th of November 2023. Disconnect your senses and immerse in this exotic culture while reconnecting with yourself. Share this luxurious experience with 12 amazing women and you'll form connections and memories to last a lifetime. I can't undersell or overestimate the incredible power of the magic of India. And I want to share it with you get all the details via the show notes. But you can also head to my website, Emma lovell.au, forward slash rest hyphen, receive hyphen India, I would love to see there. And I'm happy to have a chat. If this is peeking your interest at all. Please come along and experience the magic of rest and receive.

07: 06

07: I also blocked out my calendar. So self care is choosing yourself first. So instead of allowing people to book into my calendar and doing things on when people other people wanted to do it, I put the boundaries in for the start of the week when I was home and said no, I have to focus on my business and whatever I need to do and catch up. So that I can be available to socialise and travel at the end of the week and do the work that I need to do in person. That's self care, putting in boundaries, self care, eating good food, which again, when you're travelling, sometimes the back and forth, you're in and out airports, choosing healthy making healthy choices and eating good food can go out the window, so I drink a little less coffee. But you know, maybe drink a little less alcohol, choose vegetables where possible. And that can be a way that can be self care, eating good food, it's not always an easy thing for me, I don't find nutrition and those things easy, but I know that when I do it, I feel better, or I don't feel crap.

08: 02

08: But I think self care was something that was foreign to my mother's generation. And even I would say women working 15 years ago, what I see seeing was a lot of martyrdom and a lot of self sacrifice. And I want to learn from that in do the opposite. And that's no blame or judgement. That's the time that is what you were thought everybody else did. But I have seen time and time again people suffer for that. And I don't want to do that and I don't want to resent my husband and resent my son and resent my clients and resent all those around me because I'm not putting boundaries in place and I'm not putting myself first and so I have been told that this is something I do well

08: 45

08: and you know I do go and get massages I do get my hair blow dried I do get my nails done.

08: 51

08: Consistently that's more so I don't have an anxiety anxious habit of biting the skin near my nails. It's delightful I know. But having them done it means it's one less thing to think about every three weeks or so I get it done and then I don't have to worry about like my nails. My hair the same getting my hair blow dried. If I get it done once a week, it's so much easier to manage. It lasts me longer and it is a nice bit of time for me

09: 17

09: going to the gym now I have a personal virtual trainer doing that making making time for that where I can and squeezed in and 20 minute workout today. So that was lovely. Going for a walk. That's one of my lovely favourite lovely easy self care wins is going for a walk going on walk for all by myself. Whatever I need to do in that time calling a friend can be self care, you know, reaching out having conversation, talking about where you're at or talking about what you is going on or just going and being in a different world. I just I really encourage you to maybe write down three things that you do that are just for you. You know, and it could be baths or massages or cup of warm milk at the end of the day. It could be going on a rich

10: 00

10: Read or going to a spa for the day, it could be spending time with your friends, you know, going out for a night with the girls, or the guys having that time for my husband self care is playing games, playing video games. And he does Warhammer with his friend and I'm like, That's awesome. I call him a nerd. But I really admire that he does it because that's his thing. And we all can have our thing that is putting ourselves first and choosing yourself. And you always always feel better when you do it, you know, again, talking about husband going to the gym, he's always better off once he's gone. And we're in a better place when we're both doing things for ourselves. And so it's something that I not only asked for, for myself, I advocate for both of us to have, especially now that we are parents, we have a toddler. And you know, I asked people to help I ask people to take him and spend time with him. His grandparents have time with him. It's not babysitting, it's spending time with him. I asked friends sometimes to maybe have a playdate with him so that if I need to do something for myself, I can. I have friends who have you have children who are in their teens who have never gone away for a night from them, or they've never gone away for a weekend. And I know that I am privileged. But I make choices. And I have hard conversations and I have boundaries. And I asked for what I need.

11: 28

11: You know, and that's not again, it's not about money, it's not about paying for the nails and paying for the hair and paying for the massages. I've said self care is saying I need you to take 10 in the morning so that I can have extra sleep because I'm just not coping. I need someone to help help me get some shopping done. So I can cook some good food or we can eat some good food. Can we eat more vegetables? Like that's me asking for help and asking for what I need to take care of myself. So it's really lovely that people have recognised that I do that? Well, I don't I still have times where it's hard. I still have times where everything gets in the way. And then I slip into my work and I slip into what other people are doing. And then I remember again, my boundaries and a message on the wall that says your boundaries are as much for others people's safety as they are for yours, defend them without hesitation or guilt. And I just think as well with boundaries, it's saying no to their needs, so that you can say yes to yours, saying no, a small no for a greater Yes. Saying yes to you first, putting your things in the calendar first, and then building everybody else's things around it. And there are seasons of life where we are needed more. And we're a time when my sons needed me more. But I've always always been able to build in time to sleep, time to eat well time to do something that I love. And I think this weekend, I'm really hoping I can go horse riding

13: 00

13: is something that I can do for me go and see the horse, go pat the horse, have some time doing something that I enjoy and love. That's self care. And for me travel is the ultimate self care. I get so much inspiration, I get so many ideas. I get so much joy. And it's why it's a huge part of my life. And probably my biggest act of self care is prioritising the travel

13: 25

13: and getting to do that. So with my husband and son as well I do it alone. I do it my husband son, I do it in multiple ways. But that is that is ultimate self care for me is getting the time to be free, to explore, to be inspired, to be motivated to dream and to wander and to have new experiences. So as I said, I really encourage you to write down three things that are self care that can be very simple things that could be very big things, bigger things or more involved things a simple thing and a medium.

13: 57

13: Thank you for listening lovely want

14: 00

14: you to dream big but as done creating a life you learn today. If you love what you're hearing, don't forget to follow and rate on Spotify and rate review and subscribe on iTunes. It helps others more about the past and get motivated and inspired. To talk to you want to stay connected not doing I'm enjoying the live life if you love group on Facebook, or connect with me on Instagram. Emma Lovell, from you name is my website right? 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