[00:00:00] In this episode, we'll dive into why self care often feels impossible and what you can do to change that. Welcome to Take Out Therapy, a podcast helping empathic executives learn stress reduction Self compassion and emotional intelligence skills for more work life balance and inner peace. I'm Rebecca Hunter, a therapist who specializes in helping high achievers break free from anxiety and overwhelm.

If you're ready to stop overthinking, let go of people pleasing and truly thrive, you're in the right place. Thanks for listening. Let's get to work.

Well, hello there, friend. I'm so happy you're here for today's session because I know you want to take better care of yourself and you know you should, but somehow it just doesn't happen.

Life takes over, your energy drains and you start to suffer. I know. Today, you're going to learn the surprising ways poor self care affects your mind, [00:01:00] your body, and your soul. A simple yet powerful framework for creating a sustainable self care routine and how to make tiny daily habits that can lead to massive changes in your life.

Today, you'll walk away with practical, easy to implement strategies to care for your mind. body and soul, so you can stop surviving and start thriving. Doesn't that sound great? And then if after this session, you're feeling ready to take the next step, let's turn your mental health goals into a plan.

Click the link in the show notes to book a free 30 minute strategy call with me. Together, you and I will create a clear, actionable roadmap to help you feel calmer. More balanced and in charge of your life.

Here's the thing. I know you want to take better care of yourself, but your life is probably bananas and you don't really see how that can possibly happen. I know you know it's [00:02:00] important, but it's really hard to figure out where to put the actions that are required to help things stay sane. Right. And what tends to happen for me and probably for you as well is you pick up little sicknesses or illnesses, right?

Your body starts to feel kind of crappy. You totally feel out of balance, meaning One area of your life just takes over the rest of the areas of your life, especially when we get anxious, like anxiety loves to run the show. And what happens is eventually life starts to feel like a grind. You're not thriving, right?

far from it. You're in survival mode. So I want to help you today to kind of get out of survival mode because here's the deal. When you don't take care of yourself in a well rounded, sustainable way, and I'm going to get into that, the impacts are real. Poor self [00:03:00] care leads to a somewhat fractured relationship with yourself, right?

Because when we don't do what we say we want to do, when we don't do what we know we want to do, we kind of feel at odds with ourself and our behavior or lack thereof, right? And then, you know, go on the internets and find a solution for that. And they're all overly complicated that basically put a bunch of new crap on your plate when you don't even have time for simple things.

This totally adds to your frustration. I know it. I talk to people all the time about this. The thing is. And the real problem, as I see it, in terms of the brain body connection, is that when we don't prioritize our self care and we don't join with ourselves in a relationship that includes nurturing and caring about ourself, we're unintentionally [00:04:00] training our brain To value comfort over care, over nurturance, over progress, right?

And we're unintentionally teaching our brain that we need noise instead of peace, right? So we get into this cycle of just being completely out of balance. If you want a peaceful, balanced life yourself. needs care. And I used to always talk about how this whole, like, self care, trend is such BS because we should be providing a minimal level of maintenance to our bodies and our minds and our, our self, our intangible soul of our self all the time.

Again, if you want a peaceful, balanced life, your self Mind needs care. Your mind needs maintenance and [00:05:00] calm. It needs actually maintenance being discipline. Your mind needs discipline or else it will run your life as you well know, my friend, your mind needs to learn about what calm looks like, feels like, in your life so that it can return to that, right?

Your body.

Needs you to listen to it, friend. It needs your attention. It needs your nurturance. It needs nourishment in all these different ways, from the head to the toes, from the skin to the insides, right? And your soul. That deepest part of you, you know, the you of you, yourself, self, your soul needs resonance, right? It means for life to feel like yours, choiceful, like it's. Yes, it needs [00:06:00] resonance and your soul also needs connection because if you're just motoring on through like a machine in survival mode, you're not connecting to yourself often enough or deep enough and that can create a lot of problems.

So today I want to dive into some simple strategies to help you build a sustainable self care routine that supports your very healthiest self. You know why? Because you deserve it my friend and because nobody's taught you how to do this in a simple way Why is everything so complicated? I don't know.

Here's my story

I was thinking back on my early days as a social worker and just between you and I, I took terrible. care of myself. First of all, I was always anxious and I wanted to do a good job. And so those two things together are a terrible combination. They lead to over delivering, right? People [00:07:00] pleasing and frankly, absorbing everybody else's energy, which I'm going to talk about next week.

I completely burned out. Here's how it happened. Here's what I did. In 2009, I got so sick that I ended up in the hospital for a week. I literally had to stop everything and rebuild my life from the ground up.

P. S. I had two little kids. So all the things were going on at the same time. During my recovery, I started implementing these tiny Really intentional self care habits. These little actions that in the long run shifted my physical health. They calmed my busy, busy mind. And really, frankly, healed my anxiety and mostly reconnected me to myself.

These actions that I'm going to talk with you about, they put me in a relationship to myself. And once you're in a relationship to yourself, [00:08:00] you ain't getting out of it. It's a permanent thing. A relationship to yourself is a lifelong endeavor. And so based on what I was learning in my master's program and my first experience in therapist trainings, I gathered all this information and I started just doing these little actions.

now. I thank goodness have the skills required through this self care work to protect my energy. I don't go into sessions and absorb other people's stuff. That would never work long term, right? I, I have learned to set rock solid boundaries, both like logistical boundaries and emotional boundaries and mental boundaries.

I set boundaries that include my body, my mind, and my soul. And That has really, really helped me maintain a healthier, more balanced life. I'll tell you, it's not perfect. I'm always improving things here and there, and [00:09:00] I'm not really looking for perfection. Again, I'm just looking to be in a healthy relationship with myself.

So I'll share some of those strategies with you today, and hopefully you'll tell me what you think when you review my podcast. that would be really helpful. I really like coming up with simple, easy ways for you to improve your mental health.

And so today I came up with this simple self care framework called reset. How about that? Okay. Watch her go. I'm going to go through these five letters, R E S E T, to help you understand what you need to do in order to create your own simple self care framework.

The first step is reflect. You need to reflect on the big picture. I think sometimes when we get really stressed out in our lives, we start like zoning in on these tiny little things like my husband's really annoying. He's a real problem. He needs to carry some of the [00:10:00] load. Right. Or we have to get some help in here.

We got to get it cleaner. But, but, but, but we start like trying to problem solve before we look at the big picture, back up the truck, friend, reflect on the big picture, evaluate all of your needs, the needs of your mind. What does your mind need? The needs of your body and the needs of yourself, right?

I always like starting with this macro view. Ask, what does each area of my life need to feel balanced and fulfilled? Right? So that's the kind of first step is to like, look at the big picture of your life. See what's happening in these different areas. And then the second step is E, evaluate your needs.

Okay, so you want to now go into the little, the smaller picture. Go into the life of your mind. How's it doing, How are you [00:11:00] doing mentally? How is your mind operating? Is it like on high? Is it on high rotation? Is it pretty chill in there? Is there enough? Discipline. Are you overwhelmed? Are you calm?

Are you distracted? Evaluate the needs of your mind. If you're sort of saying, okay, well, Rebecca, my mind like literally never shuts up, then that's a good evaluation that we can deal with. Okay. So that's all I'm saying is like, look at these little areas, the mind, the body, the self, and evaluate what's going on and what would work.

Better. The body. Evaluate the health of your body. What, what does your body need? How is your body impacting your mental health? Does your body need rest? Does it need to move? Right? Or, does it need to be nurtured, cared for, and nourished? Evaluate the [00:12:00] needs of yourself, your soul, your deepest part that's so intangible, but that is everything of you, right? When I do this, I think, how's my relationship with myself going? How, how does my life feel to me? Does it resonate? Am I being supportive? Am I being kind to myself? Evaluate what's happening in your relationship with yourself. You're going to get so much information here. And just jot some things down in each of these areas as you make this simple self care plan.

And then the third step is simplify. Don't get complicated. Simplify your plan with one action. Choose one. Actionable step for each area. For example, if your mind really seems like it's super busy and running your life and go, go, go, try a short breathing [00:13:00] exercise or start journaling some of your thoughts, right?

Practice a little bit of mindfulness. That is a whole area of work that's devoted to disciplining our mind so it doesn't run our life. Remember. Remember, friend, this mind you have, it's just an organ of your body. It's not your compass. It doesn't know everything. It hardly knows anything. It just talks a lot.

That's for sure. Right? So choose one simple step that you can take most days or some days that will help your mind to slow down, to calm down, to, be less busy. How about your body? Could you pick a one action based on what you figured out when you evaluated your needs? For example, if your body feels like it needs more rest, which many of my clients [00:14:00] experience because they're anxious, right?

And the anxious body loves to go, go, go. That's how we stay in an anxiety cycle. So if that's you, then slow, slow, slow. Maybe do a quick stretch a few times a week, maybe drink a little more water, my friend, or eat a nourishing protein filled or whatever the nutrients that you need the most snack, right?

Pack snacks like that's a simple one. action step for your body, right? Chair yoga or taking a walk at lunchtime. I mean, the people that I work with have tried so many very, very simple things that were incredibly impactful. And then you want to get down to the level of you, yourself, your soul, your relationship with yourself.

Once you evaluate what's going on there, you're gonna know what's needed. [00:15:00] Right? Maybe you need to be nicer to yourself. Maybe you need to start practicing a little grace or self compassion, which is actually a practice that you learn and practice self compassion. There are steps to that. They're not hard.

They're just weird and unfamiliar because we're all so used to being incredibly critical of ourselves all the time. So integrating one simple little action in your relationship with yourself. You know, I love mantras. When I'm really struggling in my relationship with myself, I evaluate what's going on and think of a little mantra that I can just say to myself when I notice that I'm being too harsh or hard on myself, right?

And it's usually something short and kind. And you know, mine for the longest time was, it's okay. I'm okay. And that to me felt really kind and loving and it was so, so [00:16:00] simple, massive shifts came out of that silly little mantra. And then the next step is E, engage. You know, it's all fun and dandy to sit down and make a little plan.

But the thing is, is if we don't engage in that plan with a level of commitment, then it's all going to go to hell in a handbasket. So what I want you to do is once you think of a simple action for each area of your life, mind, body, and self. I want you to write down your plan, put it on your calendar. If you're super duper busy, like most of us share it with someone in your life, perhaps your spouse is struggling too and you could help them.

That's the benefit of the buddy system, right? You want to engage with commitment, make your commitment visible. And actionable by integrating it into your [00:17:00] routine, that will help it to stick. And again, since you're only doing one little tiny thing in each area, it should be fairly manageable. I like to write things on Post-it notes.

It just helps me, like I have post-it notes in my bathroom and I have post-it notes by my bed on my bedside table. I have post-it notes in my office I have a shoulder thing. And so right now my very simple one, you know, one step action is just to stretch whenever I think of it. I just do a little stretch or I do a couple rotator cuff exercises.

Simple. actionable. Keep it top of mind by making it visual, right?And then the next step and the last step is try again. Now why would I say try again? Because you will fail. My friend, we all do. The brain is not on [00:18:00] board with us implementing new systems and trying new things.

No, no, no. Your brain is not invested at all in your personal growth. Your brain is invested in keeping your life exactly the same. So it knows what to do and it knows that you're safe. the problem with that framework is that the brain will just kind of do the same thing all the time, regardless of whether it's helpful or not.

So as you implement this self care plan, plan to fail. And then try again. When you slip up, just forgive yourself and restart. I don't think it's necessary for people to get super wrapped up in analyzing why they can't follow through. You can't follow through because you're human.

You have to override the system and that takes a lot of tries. So forgive yourself. And begin again. Here's the deal. Self care. It's a lifelong practice. It should [00:19:00] be mandatory, but it's for some reason our culture doesn't really value self care very much. We value the hustle and the grind, but not so much the nurturing and the nourishment, right?

Self care is a lifelong practice and the goal is progress. The goal is a little bit of shift. The goal is relationship building with ourself and building a relationship with our body and disconnecting from our mind a little bit. Progress is the goal, not perfection. So I hope this is helpful.

Experiment with these strategies. Tell me what you think. The benefits of consistent. Sustainable self care. I promise you, if you get a couple little things going, this will add up over time and you'll start getting more things going and you'll thank yourself for starting at all. My friend pick just one of them.

thing to try [00:20:00] today. whether it's a breathing exercise, a really quick stretch, or that very kind moment of self compassion. Yeah, you deserve it. You deserve to be in a relationship with yourself that feels like less of a tussle.

It will reduce your stress, reduce your anxiety, and help you motor on for the rest of time, my friend. I hope this helped. Thank you so much for spending your time with me today. I really appreciate you being here to do this work. You know, it matters because when you do your work, the people in your life will show up and do theirs too, most likely.

new episodes are released most Fridays, so be sure to subscribe and tune in. If you found this podcast helpful, please share it with someone you care about. And if you're feeling ready to take the next step, let's turn your mental health goals into a plan. I'm changing the way I work with people in 2025 to create [00:21:00] massive shifts in a short period of time.

Click the link in my show notes to book a free 30 minute strategy call with me. Together, you and I will create a clear, actionable roadmap to help you feel calmer, more capable and in control of your life. While this is a great educational resource, always get the level of support that you need for your situation.

Head to takeouttherapy. com to check out all of my resources. And until next time take really good care of yourself.