Ep 4: Upgrading Your Utility Belt

Apple Podcasts | Spotify

Podcast Experts:

When Self-Care Felt Impossible

Sherri‑Lee Woycik - Facebook Ads Expert / Founder, Social Media Minder / Business Coach Empowering Women) / Author & Speaker

Imani Evans - Transformation Coach / Trauma Recovery Strategist / Barrier Breaker / Artist / Unicorn. Author.

Rita Garnto - Self‑Care Educator / Stress‑Reduction Specialist / Founder & CEO, Simple Self‑Care by Rita / Former Respiratory & Massage Therapist / Author (Simple Self‑Care Saved Me!)

Deb Crowe - Self‑Care Guru / Former Neuro‑Trauma Case Manager (1990–2013) / Chair‑Yoga Leader for Seniors & Disability / Heart‑Centered Leadership Coach & Professor / Author (The Heart‑Centered Leadership Playbook)

Lisa Marie Grantham - Business Coach / Lifestyle & Spiritual Teacher / Founder, The Goddess Lifestyle Plan® / Holistic Health & Metaphysical Expert (20+ yrs) / Best‑Selling Author

Stacy Brookman - Resilience & Leadership Coach / Life‑Storytelling Expert & Podcast Host / 35 Years Corporate Experience / Founder, Real Life Resilience / MBA & Certified Life Coach

Henrietta Szovati - Life Strategist & Leadership Coach / Former Corporate Climber & Neuroscience Enthusiast / Writer & Retreat Host / Author – “HeartSmart: One Woman’s Journey from Her Head to Her Heart”

Sherri Lee: "I used to hear, especially on social media people talking about, oh, I'm going away for the weekend with the girlfriends. I'm going to a spa retreat for the weekend, or I'm going to Vegas for the weekend and self-care a few years ago looked like these big, huge, massive, expensive outings that we needed to do, and I thought that's great, but I need a babysitter every time I leave the house. I don't have family or friends here that'll take the kids for the weekend, so I have to pay somebody to stay with my kids every weekend. I have to be able to pay for that event, right? Like it was just like, oh my God, who can do that? So I did nothing."

Why do the people who care for everyone else struggle so much with caring for themselves? If self-care feels selfish or you can't stick with it, this episode explains the hidden barrier that stops helpers from resting.

The solution is completely different from what you'd expect.

Sherri Lee: "And then one day I blew up and it was like two o'clock in the afternoon and I went. That's it. I can't be around anybody anymore. I can't. I was stomped off in a temper tantrum, went upstairs to my bedroom and turned on the TV Dr. Phil was on, and I sat on the floor and stretched a little bit, and I played a game on my phone and Dr. Phil was playing in the background and all of a sudden I felt this huge breath come over me and I took a deep breath and then I exhaled and I thought, oh, I feel better. Wait a minute.

That five minutes was self-care.

And I had this aha. It doesn't have to cost money to take care of yourself. It doesn't have to take a day. It doesn't have to be a weekend away from your kids. If you take five minutes a day with the right mindset, you can make doing dishes, self-care, it changed everything when I realized self-care was a mindset, not an activity."

The Five-Minute Breakthrough

Imani: "When I would ask women what self-care meant, they would say oh, I get my nails done, and I got a massage the other day and I was like, oh, wow. This is so sad. We're so confused those things are wonderful, but those are luxury care items, right? And that's great. But I define self-care as the consistent and ongoing practice of attending to yourself in the six institutes or principles of wellness, and that's the social, mental, physical, emotional, spiritual, and financial."

Self-Care vs. Luxury Care

Taniya: "I love my tea and my cake. Very English, but I. Sipping that tea, having that five, 10 minutes just sipping the tea, tasting the tea, taking my time. I'm not a tea person that just stands and does the cooking and drinks my tea. I have to sit down and have it with my cake. And you are right, it rejuvenates you. It makes you back to the present, back to your thoughts, your feelings."

Sherri Lee: "Only if you sit and enjoy that tea and cake. With a focus to it refilling you if you're having your tea and cake and making a to-do list and thinking about all the things you need to be doing. Then it's not self-care."

The Tea and Cake Revelation

Start With One Thing

Rita: "How many times, Tanya have you thought tomorrow I'm gonna start eating better, so I'm gonna give up sugar and I'm just gonna eat every, anything that's green and I'm going to work out for two hours and I'm gonna do this, and this. So the first day you're like, woo. And by the second day you're like, I don't know about this. And third day it's forget this. This is just way too much. Start with one thing. that's my philosophy of one, pick one thing to change, add to your schedule. Just start with one."

Deb: "You have to have a stringent morning routine, and you can't waver from it. So for me, it's getting up early, having that quiet time for myself. I meditate. I get my exercise done. And the first thing that I do when I am doing both of those is hydrating because we're 75% water and most people wanna jump out of bed and have a coffee. You've just slept for X amount of hours and you actually are a little bit dehydrated when you wake up. So you start the day with water."

Sacred Morning Practices

Lisa Marie: "For me it begins with a sacred practice or a prayer in the morning. And it does not need to be formal. And I'm always trying to cultivate more love and compassion within my heart, not only for others, but for myself most importantly 'cause I could be a little hard on myself, I shut my eyes, I take a deep breath and I say, show me and use me. To make the world a better place to be of service to this world. And I go on with my day, less than one minute is my prayer, but I hand my life my day over to the divine to use me in any way. That will be of service to the world."

Rita: "I set boundaries so my girls know that 7.30-8.00 pm, mom's done, so I'm gonna be on the couch. And it's mom's time, I've cooked, I've worked, I've done all this. I've helped 'em, with their homework. But then that's like my time, my cutoff is so setting boundaries."

Setting Boundaries at Home

Deb: "I play Scrabble just to keep my mind busy and it's another really great strategy for cognitive fatigue. And it's fun because you're thinking, but you're not. Thinking to refer something to someone, you're just thinking to have fun in a leisurely pursuit."

Taniya: "But the lies we tell ourselves, sometimes they almost become imperceptible we say it so much to ourselves. I'm not good enough. I'm not worthy."

Stacy: "Or for the people listening here, if I can only help this next person, or if I can only help these more people, I will be worthy. If I can only work harder, if I can only expand the hours in my day to help other people. If I can only do that, then I will be."

Taniya: "Relax, you can never, you never feel deserving of that holiday, of that time off of that time with your family with your friends. You never feel deserving because you're constantly trying to prove. It's sometimes a gradual thing that when you start rerecording that self talk. It then becomes that you stop telling that lie to yourself and gradually it becomes a different self talk."

The Lies We Tell Ourselves

Deb: "Everything we do is about metacognition. Metacognition is thinking about the way you think and the only way you get out of your own way is to fix your habits of thinking, and you just can't be listening to the negative talk because negative talk, what happens is over time. All of those thoughts and that verbal expression that causes dis-ease in your body. I share with my clients, if you keep thinking and speaking like that, that's where all these illnesses creep in. And again, it's looking inward and taking all that advice that you would give to a client, but giving it back to yourself. It's the hardest. For health professionals to do. And we're our own worst enemy. And once you master that, you don't go back to it. You have to do exactly like you tell your clients."

Thinking About How You Think

Rita: "Some days I feel like I'm still not good enough, so I have mantras such as I love and approve of myself, which I'll repeat over and over again. Yesterday was a day that I said that a lot. I am worthy, I deserve it."

Daily Mantras for Tough Days

Taniya: "I remember one of my old managers, she actually said, Taniya, you are a superwoman. Why are you trying to be a superhero? You don't need to save the world. And I thought, yeah, that's true. But that there was always a part of me that thought if I save the world, I'm okay. I'll be good enough and the worst thing is about these brilliant social workers and healthcare professionals is on the outside people regard them as heroes. It's the the self-talk that we do. If we started regarding ourselves as enough, forget about brilliant or super or whatever. Just enough. It then makes you switch your way of being with the rest of the world and how they are with you."

From Superhero to Enough

Imani: "And so for social sometimes we can get so wrapped up, become workaholics, and all we do is the work and we forget to play and have fun just for the purpose of fun, laughter your mental, how are you challenging yourself? Are you still being stimulated mentally? Do you have those kinds of intellectual challenges that lift you up? Physical do you work out? Are you, are you caring for yourself in that way? Massages could go in that category, especially if you are intending to make it an ongoing and consistent, because those would be the key words in the definition of self-care. Consistent and ongoing emotional. How you're getting that, your spiritual and your financial, and that can be one that we skip, because we say that. It isn't about the money and money isn't everything. Unfortunately, our world functions in an element of capitalism and consumerism. And so money becomes an issue. And so how you manage that also, helps manage your self care. So that it is not a crisis. So it is about creating a savings plan that allows me to take a vacation, so it could be as simple as that too."

The Six Pillars of True Self-Care

Henrietta: "So the only structured thing I do is I make a date with myself once a week. And I go by myself. It doesn't have to be anything big. Sometimes I just go to Central London, have a nice meal, go for a gallery, go for a film. I do something that has nothing to do with anything that I'm doing. And guess what? Every time I do that, I come back refreshed. I get some more ideas. I might have a solution for what I'm working on. And it just gives me that space of not worrying about what I do. It's about who I am, and it helps me nurture myself. And it's wonderful to be with my husband to go out with the children as a family, community. My clients friends. Wonderful. But that's sacred alone time. It's just pure time of enjoying what I have in my life, enjoying what I'm doing, and that helped me to come around the idea of self respect, because for me that was a big learning. I didn't grow up respecting myself very much, and I think that always leads to burnout because when you don't have a healthy self respect, you want to be doing more and more to prove to other people that you"

Sacred Alone Time

Deb: "Self-care is not selfish because Women predominantly have guilt and fear and shame, and I just want to get that message out there that if you don't put yourself first with self care and realize that it's not selfish when you do that and you. Commit to that mindset. The rest of your life just kind of falls into where it needs to be. And it, and it's so true."

Self-Care Is Not Selfish

Your takeaway: Self-care is a mindset, not an activity. It starts with giving yourself permission to rest because you deserve care. Self-care without self-compassion just becomes another checklist. But when you're genuinely kind to yourself, that's when real change happens.

Start with one thing. Maybe it's telling yourself, "I am enough." You don't need perfect self-care. You just need to believe you're worth caring for.

You deserve care simply because you exist.

Next episode: How your self-care routine might actually be exhausting you — when wellness becomes just another thing you have to perform perfectly.

Subscribe at dancingwithdarknessbook.com