#92 "Reclaim Your Mornings: Self-Care for Parents: How to Start Your Day with Peace and Purpose"

#ParentingTeens #SelfCare #MindfulParenting #WTFPodcast #MorningRoutine #PositiveParenting #MentalWellness #ParentingAdvice

 The Power of Self-Care for Parents

 In this episode of the WTF solo series, part of the Parenting Teens Advice Redefined podcast, Cheryl dives into the essential topic of self-care and its profound impact on parenting and personal well-being. Discover how dedicating just a few minutes each day to self-care can transform your life, reduce stress, and enhance your ability to connect with your teens. Cheryl shares practical tips and personal insights on meditation, journaling, goal setting, and more, to help you start your day with intention and positivity. Tune in to learn how to create a morning routine that nurtures your soul and sets the tone for a peaceful and productive day.

Speaker 1
00:06 - 00:44
Welcome, welcome, welcome to another episode of WTF, the solo series off of the Parenting Teens Advice Redefined podcast. This is Welcome to Friday, WTF, not what you think. Well, maybe sometimes what you think, but technically it's Welcome to Friday. If you've been hanging around my podcast for a while, you know that on Wednesdays we drop episodes with lots of interviews with experts on different topics, different issues relating to teens, teen issues, parent issues.

Speaker 1
00:45 - 00:59
And, you know, sometimes I just really want to share a little additional space where I can kind of throw my two cents in when I have an interview. It's harder to do that. The show is about them. So WTF is a new mini solo series where I can keep it real.

Speaker 1
01:00 - 01:09
And it's not just about parenting teens. It's getting to know me. It's talking about things that are going on in the world. And it's also a space for you to interact with me.

Speaker 1
01:09 - 01:36
So if you want to DM me or email me, message me somehow, If you have questions about what happens on the podcast, if you have topics that you would really like me to talk about either on the Parenting Teens podcast or the WTF podcast, I'm really happy to do that. I'm happy to take an entire episode and just answer your questions because you have to know that if you have the question, everyone else has the question. We've all heard that one before and it's very true.

Speaker 1
01:38 - 02:16
So today, I really wanna start off with a very important topic that I know everyone hears about all the time, and that is self-care. And I wanna know how this is actually fitting into your life, if it is at all, and how ridiculously important it is. And it might just sound like something else to do. And it is, but if you're too busy to do it, if your life is so crazy and hectic that you can't find five minutes for self-care, then you know you need it more than ever.

Speaker 1
02:17 - 02:45
So I'd love to ask, first of all, when is the first time or even the last time your day started with just you? Not your phone, not your to-do list, not your drama, not your boss's emails, not one more text from your mom. Because here's the truth. When you start your day off already reacting, then you stay in reaction mode all day long.

Speaker 1
02:46 - 03:12
And that is, I'm telling you, a surefire way to burnout, resentment, and feeling like you are living someone else's life. So today, we're going to talk about self-caring up. I mean, a bubble bath is great, but not the bubble bath kind, the kind that will bring you back to you. If you're a mom, if you're a human, chances are you have heard taking care of yourself counts more than you can ever know.

Speaker 1
03:12 - 03:32
And it's so true. But do you know Why? Here's what I see time and time again when I'm talking to my coaching clients and I'm talking to consulting clients. When moms don't have even five minutes to check in with themselves, everything just feels louder.

Speaker 1
03:33 - 04:14
Your teen's sarcasm feels a little harder. Your partner's not helping or silence feels even louder or heavier and your inner critic is on full blast. But if you take like that sliver of time just to regulate, to reflect, to reconnect with you, the noise gets a little quieter and you can actually parent or get on with your day from your values, not from a stress response. So I'm gonna offer you five ways without needing a trip to Bali to really start to try to connect with yourself.

Speaker 1
04:14 - 04:47
And again, I now have got it up to an hour, sometimes an hour and a half in the morning, which means getting up at five or 5.30. And it's gone on for years for me, but it started with six minutes, two minutes of journaling, two minutes of meditation, two minutes of reading, or just visualizing. And as I started to notice the benefits of the six minutes, well, then I found 10. then I found 20.

Speaker 1
04:47 - 04:58
And that went on from there. And I bounced back between different ways to do it. Sometimes it was just a meditation. Then I really enjoyed doing visualization.

Speaker 1
04:58 - 05:19
Then I really enjoyed doing journaling. And I really enjoyed doing some reading that was just reading that was just about Self-development something I really wanted to learn about and it didn't have to be I'm sitting down to read an entire book that gets really overwhelming So it's can I read one page? Can I journal two sentences? Can I meditate for 30 seconds?

Speaker 1
05:20 - 05:42
I? can guarantee that you can find let's say start with your six minutes and if you start with meditation and And a lot of people just can't, cannot sit still. And I was like that for a long time. And the only way I could do it is either two minutes, and I had to keep saying to myself, breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out.

Speaker 1
05:42 - 05:57
Otherwise, my grocery shopping list was popping into my head. Or the next thing I had to do was popping into my head. But if you could just sit and do three deep belly breaths before you even get out of bed. Your alarm goes off.

Speaker 1
05:58 - 06:05
Click it. Three breaths. That's it. Or you could go on to Insight Timer.

Speaker 1
06:05 - 06:19
I'm going to put all of these resources in the show notes. Insight Timer, I use all the time as well. And it's free and you can pick anything you want. You can pick a meditation that's two minutes long, 20 minutes long.

Speaker 1
06:19 - 06:24
You can pick a meditation based on what you want. Is it anxiety? Do I just want to breathe? Do I want quiet?

Speaker 1
06:24 - 06:48
Do I just want to hear a babbling brook or birds chirping? You can pick that. You can have a guided meditation of someone who takes you right through from beginning to end of the meditation so that you're hearing their voice and not your voice. You know, you can even start with a meditation doesn't have to be sitting still.

Speaker 1
06:48 - 06:58
A meditation could be a walk around the block, but it's noticing. It's noticing what you hear. It's noticing how you feel. It's noticing your feet on the ground.

Speaker 1
06:58 - 07:14
It's not, again, walking around the block, but doing an inner list of what you need to do for the rest of the day. I also find Journaling is really cool. And if you're not a writer, who cares? You don't have to be a writer.

Speaker 1
07:15 - 07:31
You can just do a couple of prompts. And it's the funny thing is that neurological connection between pen, paper, and writing things out. And sometimes we can journal if we are super stressed. We're just having the worst day ever.

Speaker 1
07:31 - 07:50
We had a terrible night's sleep. You could just journal all of that out. I had a horrible night's sleep, and I think it's because of this, and the stress of going to bed like this, and I don't wanna go through my day, but getting it out on paper releases the stress because it's no longer within your body. You're not holding that stress.

Speaker 1
07:51 - 08:16
So it's really important to get it out somehow, and if journaling helps, you can even start off with a couple of prompts. What's one thing I wanna release today? Is it the stress from the conversation I had with a colleague yesterday? Is it knowing my kid's birthday's coming up and I don't have the money to give him what he wants?

Speaker 1
08:16 - 08:29
Or there's a weekend coming and you know you're gonna have the same argument over curfew. Do you wanna let that go? What do you wanna release that day? Or what do you need more of?

Speaker 1
08:29 - 08:44
Like, I need more. Help in the kitchen. I need more time to go to bed a little bit earlier. I need five minutes to talk to my best friend on the phone.

Speaker 1
08:44 - 08:52
What do you need more of? And this is something that you can do. Remember, two minutes. Two minutes.

Speaker 1
08:52 - 09:34
You have your coffee, and your pen, and your journal, and two minutes. When you consume, what you consume and what you do in that first 30 to 60 minutes in the morning can really set the tone for your day. And I want to talk about, if you can grab a book, it doesn't matter, it can be a magazine, a self-help magazine, a yoga magazine, it doesn't matter what it is. but if you can consume something that makes you feel better in that first 30 to 60 minutes of the day, you can spend six minutes doing your self-care, but if you can hold off on any external input, and you know I'm talking about your phone right now.

Speaker 1
09:35 - 09:54
So if you could pick up a magazine on self-care or just read one page of a book you are dying to read, maybe it's a Mel Robbins book or a Brene Brown book, And you know there's 300 pages in this book and it's too overwhelming to think that you're gonna sit down and read a book. Can you read one page? Can you read two pages?

Speaker 1
09:56 - 10:24
It takes five minutes maybe? And then your brain says to you, wow, you committed to doing some self-care today and you did it. And now your brain's like, huh, good for me, high five me, I can do this again. I really want to talk about, and I've noticed this so much and it took me a long time to figure out, is what the phone does first thing in the morning.

Speaker 1
10:25 - 10:39
When you're scrolling anytime through the day, the reason most of us scroll is it gives us a quick dopamine hit. You've heard that before. It's superficial, it's unsustainable, but it's a dopamine hit. And that's what social media does.

Speaker 1
10:39 - 11:02
It's a delivery system. And scrolling through this, Your phone and your social media first thing in the morning does give you a dopamine hit. You trick your brain now into seeking stimulation as opposed to connecting with yourself. Your internal motivation decreases because your reward system is already fed up.

Speaker 1
11:03 - 11:21
You've already done what you need to do for your system by scrolling through social media. So your system needs a dopamine hit when it wakes up. Instead of getting a dopamine hit by meditation, journaling, reading something that's good for you. If you get that hit from your phone already, your brain no longer needs it.

Speaker 1
11:22 - 11:42
So now you've hit this baseline for stimulation, making everything else. What happens when you're scrolling? You're comparing yourself to the moms who wake up perfect and have nothing going on and they're making bacon and eggs every day for breakfast or vegan orange juice or whatever. You're comparing yourself to those women.

Speaker 1
11:42 - 11:58
You're comparing yourself to someone else's life. Comparison is a thief of joy. Let me tell you that right now. You're also exposing yourself to all the terrible news that comes through social media and might be some fake news.

Speaker 1
11:59 - 12:17
Let's just say that. But you're getting all this external input from very inauthentic, posts, very inauthentic media. And that's how you're starting your day. Is that really how you want to start your day?

Speaker 1
12:18 - 13:11
It also picking up your phone right away, it destroys your natural wake cycle. So when you wake up, you have a certain amount of time before the melatonin dominance kind of Drifts off as you wake up and your cortisol peak starts to hit so your your alertness starts to hit if you're grabbing your phone that blue light disrupts your circadian system, so Sleeping is harder and waking up properly in a natural way Has been eliminated so you're not only spiking your cortisol inauthentically or not naturally, but you're also increasing your anxiety, you're increasing brain fog, and you are increasing irritability. It also activates because of these news and posts and comparison problems.

Speaker 1
13:11 - 13:43
You are now activating your fight or flight stress response. So you're seeing bad news, very triggering headlines, you're comparing yourself with these curated lives, as I said, you're getting work notifications, you're getting messages that create some kind of urgency, now everything stops, now you have to start kicking into your messages, your email system, your text messages are coming through. If you think about that's how you're starting your day, How's the rest of your day going?

Speaker 1
13:45 - 14:16
It puts you into survival mode first thing in the morning The very first 30 or 60 minutes when you wake up. This is prime time for you for your intuition For your creativity and for your clarity and by grabbing your phone you're filling all that space with other people's energies other people's needs other people's voices and And if you're starting your day like that, how can the rest of your morning go? How can the rest of your day go?

Speaker 1
14:16 - 14:28
So let's talk about, I know, and I still have my phone beside my bed. And I have it because of emergencies. We all do that. None of us have a landline anymore.

Speaker 1
14:28 - 14:35
So what if my mom calls? What if the kids call? What if, what if, what if? So can you?

Speaker 1
14:36 - 14:57
put all your notifications on silent, and there's a way that your emergency contacts, your true emergency contacts, can break through your notifications. So if your mom calls, your kids call, maybe your best friend calls, they can break through that notification. Otherwise, it's silenced from 10 a.m. till 7 a.m.

Speaker 1
14:59 - 15:16
And then if you set your alarm for six, you decide you're going to do a long self-care morning, you're going to get really motivated, nothing is happening on your phone till seven. What? Oh my gosh, what a gentle way to start the day, like just gentle. I also want to talk about setting goals.

Speaker 1
15:16 - 15:36
So we've got meditation, we've got journaling, We've got goal setting. And when we are setting goals, and this can even be part of your journaling, it doesn't have to be these overwhelming big goals. Sometimes we look at these goals and think, yeah, okay, whatever. I can't even connect to that.

Speaker 1
15:37 - 15:55
But is there small goals you can connect to? Can you decide in the morning, oh my God, what would I really love today? What would I really love just this morning? Would I love to just finish my coffee?

Speaker 1
15:55 - 16:20
Would I love to have a quiet, gentle conversation with the people in my home? Would I love to see my kids standing at the door with their backpack and their lunch ready to go five minutes early? What would I love? And even though you've never experienced that, Is it because you don't visualize it?

Speaker 1
16:20 - 16:34
You don't put it out there. So can you make that even part of your visualization or your goals or your journal? I would just love this. And don't make it, I would love to not have an argument.

Speaker 1
16:34 - 16:47
I would love to not see a mess in the kitchen. Don't bring the negative stuff into this time for yourself. Bring only the positive stuff in. So I would love to just finish my coffee while it's still hot.

Speaker 1
16:47 - 17:18
I would love to walk into the kitchen and it's cleaned up from the lunch making fiasco this morning. I would love to, be able to listen to just some quiet music on the way to work and not have to recover from the ride to school, the drop off, the arguments. I just want a nice, quiet, peaceful ride to work. I want to have a really gentle conversation with the humans in my home.

Speaker 1
17:20 - 17:36
I would love to sit outside for 10 minutes when I get home and have just a glass of water before I have to start cooking dinner. I just need that quiet time for a few minutes. That's what I would love. I would love that.

Speaker 1
17:37 - 17:49
How does that feel as opposed to, man, I just want to get through the day without an argument. Man, I just want to get to work without being late. I just want to get through the day without a call from the school. What would I love?

Speaker 1
17:50 - 18:32
Oh, that feels so different. I think that feels so different. When we do these things, not only are they a benefit to us, of course, but if you'll notice, really start to notice that when the triggers hit, that when those moments come where normally you'd be yelling, you'd be slamming a door, you'd be grounding everybody. Notice as you do these things, as you create this practice, huh, Well, that might've been a time where I exploded, but I didn't.

Speaker 1
18:33 - 18:53
I just took a breather. I responded instead of reacted. I didn't allow it to even trigger me at all. Like you start building up almost like this bubble, like this suit of armor that all the little things that would normally trigger you bounce off.

Speaker 1
18:54 - 19:19
And you don't realize it as an overnight. It just starts to become a part of who you are. And not only that, remember that our kids are never, almost never, listening to what we tell them to do. But they are always, always watching us.

Speaker 1
19:20 - 19:52
So if you're a teen, sees you maybe with a self-development book, maybe sees that you have a journal out and you're doing some writing in the morning, notices that your mornings are no longer you yelling for them to get up and hurry up and we're late and let's go. None of that is happening anymore. And it's almost like invisible and yet very noticeable.

Speaker 1
19:53 - 20:22
What better gift can we give ourselves and the people around us the gift of seeing what it's like to love ourselves, maybe even first? Because if we love ourselves first, we are teaching the people in our world to love themselves first. Maybe we are talking about Yoga. Maybe we're talking about just going for a walk.

Speaker 1
20:23 - 20:55
Maybe we're talking about just having a very calm environment and noticing it. And maybe you're noticing it before your kids are noticing. Can you even say, hmm, ever since I started getting up a few minutes early and reading or meditating or sitting outside and getting sunlight on my face, Ever since I did that, do you notice how different our mornings are? I'm curious.

Speaker 1
20:56 - 21:32
That's all you got to say, because then you start getting them thinking. And even if it doesn't affect anybody else in your world, it affects you. We have to find a way to slice off a little bit, a little bit of the day. doing exactly what we love and the energy you get from it, the creativity that comes from it, the patience, the calmness, all of it that comes from it is, you can't even compare it to something else.

Speaker 1
21:33 - 21:52
It's like a little mini holiday every morning. And it doesn't have to be overwhelming. It really doesn't. Can you, Challenge yourself to, Monday morning, I'm going to set my alarm 10 minutes early.

Speaker 1
21:53 - 22:03
And I'm not going to touch my phone. I'm just going to close my eyes. I'm going to take three deep breaths. I'm going to feel my body on my bed.

Speaker 1
22:03 - 22:15
I'm going to feel the weight. I'm going to feel the relaxing. I'm going to start my day with the most positive thought I can. I'm going to reach for that really good feeling thought.

Speaker 1
22:16 - 22:30
This is going to be the best day. This is going to be the quietest morning. This is going to be the calmest interaction I have with my family in the morning. This is going to start my day.

Speaker 1
22:30 - 22:47
And just see how it feels. You just never know how it's going to feel. But I promise, if you just do two minutes, three minutes, six minutes, just start with something. Just start.

Speaker 1
22:48 - 23:19
I can guarantee you, 30 days of six minutes will turn into 10 minutes, and then a half an hour, and then maybe even an hour. And that time to yourself, that quiet time, you start remembering, oh, I had a goal once that I kind of got lost in the shuffle of life. Maybe I can start looking at that again. Did I want to write a book?

Speaker 1
23:19 - 23:31
Maybe I could just write a journal page. Do I want to create some recipes? Well, maybe I'll create one recipe. Did I want to be a photographer?

Speaker 1
23:31 - 23:53
Well, maybe that book that I read is just about revisiting photography. Just find something that you love first thing in the morning and see how your day pans out. I really appreciate you being here for WTF. If this feels like home to you, please let me know.

Speaker 1
23:53 - 24:14
Please share this episode with anybody who you know is running around like that. chicken with their head cut off every day, all day. And I will see you on Wednesdays for Parenting Teens Advice Redefined, and I will see you next Friday for WTF. Remember, love yourself as much as you love your humans.

Speaker 1
24:14 - 24:21
Take a deep breath, enjoy your weekend, and thanks for being here. This is Cheryl, signing off.