Stop feeling exhausted; start by prioritizing self-care

Are you exhausted? 

When I say “exhausted,” I don’t just mean being physically tired. Are you mentally, emotionally, and spiritually exhausted, too? This kind of exhaustion makes every part of living feel hard and heavy. 

Everyone seems to be exhausted, especially us women. It doesn’t take much to understand why as we near the second anniversary of a worldwide pandemic. (We feel stressed, overwhelmed, and overworked, most of the time with little support.)

If you’re feeling exhausted, know you’re not alone! (I’ve been there with you, too!) But, there’s one thing that we can control that makes us feel less exhausted and more like ourselves:

Self-care.

We all know that there are major societal changes needed to better support women, especially those that act as care-givers. But, in the meantime we can’t wait. We have to start by better caring for ourselves. 

Listen to learn about the three-types of self-care you need in your life, and how to overcome the most common self-care hurdles.

No matter your situation, you can stop feeling so “exhausted” and start feeling more like yourself!

About a few other things...

Reclaim your creative power and rediscover who you actually are! If you’re ready to come back home to yourself, to be able to say that you know who you are and what matters to you, take my foundation course, “Finding Me.” It’s OK that you’ve lost parts of yourself along the way; but as you learn to anchor back into who you are and align your life to what matters to you, you’ll find that you have more strength, more fulfilment, and more creativity to bring to your important roles and responsibilities.

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TRANSCRIPT

Are you worn out in ways you've never experienced before? I have a solution for you. Welcome to About Progress. I'm Monica Packer, a regular mom and recovering perfectionist who when covered the truest model to dramatic, but lasting, personal growth it's progress made practical. Join us to leave the extremes behind and instead learn how to do something to grow in ways that stick.

This past week, I had a friend tell me that she is more exhausted than she's ever been before. Normally, she's a go-getter type of woman. She loves to do projects in and around her house, she makes everything fun for her kids. She has these creative instincts that she loves to follow, and yet that kind of person is gone.

And lately she's just been struggling to even have the energy she needs to get out of bed and feel like her usual self. There's been a few instances like this, where I have felt bone weary tired. One was when we were smack dab in the middle of a botched kitchen renovation. And I was about a month away from delivering our fourth child.

And we left our complete shell of a kitchen in the middle of winter, which took up half of our tiny home in California at the time, and by the way, this is Northern California, so there is a winter there, and we went to spend Christmas with my family in Utah. And once there, I practically slept for days, days.

Another time where I experienced that bone weary tiredness was after our initial move to Utah. This was early on into COVID and that, that whole spiral of events led us to quickly prepare and sell our house within a month's time and pack and leave all on our own. And then once we finally got settled in my parents' basement, I found that each time I sat down to read a book to one of my kids or write an email, I immediately fell asleep.

And most recently, just a few weeks ago, I felt that bone weary tired reappea. We were finally in our renovated house and so grateful to be there. But after a few months of constant unpacking, organizing, and trying to do life and be a mom in the process, I hit a wall and I hit it hard. Now, I shared how tired I was, but I didn't just say physically.

With each of these instances and with my friend and her experience that she shared, this type of exhaustion went beyond the physical. It was physical, but it was also mental, emotional, and spiritual exhaustion, where every part of my life and her life, and probably your life, felt hard and heavy. And I felt too weak to properly carry on.

Is this you right now? Then you are not alone because women are exhausted and it does not take much to really understand why. You know, every single person on earth has been affected by the worldwide pandemic that is now quickly approaching the two year anniversary. But all the research right now is showing that women, especially, have borne the brunt of it.

I'm going to read you a quote from an article. "Studies have shown that the complexities of balancing home, work, and caregiving responsibilities during the pandemic has fallen disproportionately on women." And this was from Dr. Leena Mittal, the chief of the women's mental health division of the department of psychiatry at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.

We know that, right? We've also known that there has been a mass exodus of women in the workforce, as we've primarily taken on childcare and virtual learning and homeschooling throughout the past two years, especially, there's been more moves than normal, job loss, job change, scary financial unknowns.

There's been sickness, loss of loved ones and heightened rounds of unexpected change. And through it all, we have experienced long periods of isolation. We've carried heavy burdens with few to no options for support. And we have faced nearly constant unknowns. It is no wonder that we are struggling to cope.

My friends who are in the medical field say that the psych wards have been full to capacity. I just read a recent report that alcohol consumption in women has experienced a dramatic uptake. Heavy drinking days for women are up 41% since the start of the pandemic. And I see daily in my DMS and in my neighborhood women, we're all struggling to keep ourselves afloat. Who has room to thrive when you're barely surviving?

Make no mistake though. As women, we are strong, we do not shirk from our responsibilities. We aren't shy from fighting for our families and for our communities. But we aren't superhuman. We do have limits and those limits have been tested and crossed over and over, especially the last few years. So what are we to do? Point fingers, demand someone somewhere, figure this out and make things right?

Well, sure. I mean, I believe in using our voices to highlight needed change and to make that change happen, but to be honest with you, that level of societal, and even just familial support and change, is going to take too long and we can't afford to wait and neither can our families and our responsibilities that are connected to us.

So my message today for you women who are listening, who are so exhausted is to not wait for that change to happen. We have to make that change happen for ourselves. And the first place I would like you to start is with self care. What do you think of when I say that, that phrase self care? Well, my immediate reactions in the past would be those that involved a lot of time or money, like long luxurious bubble baths, going to the spa, which I don't think I've ever done in my life, getting a cute outfit and having the night off.

Those are all great. But that's not only what self care is. I remember early on in my motherhood that there were some women in my local little neighborhood who invited me to come out and get lunch with them. And then after lunch, they were going to go get their manicures and pedicures and it sounded great.

But at the time I did not have the time. I did not have the money, and I did not have the support for this. And when I say support, I mean, someone couldn't be there to care for my child, I mean, Brad was working. I was it. And in that moment, it kind of eliminated this right to self care because I thought, well, if that's what self care is then I can't do it.

Sign me out because it's not possible for me. These forms of pampering are one type of self care. But even for those who have the time and the money and the support, even those kinds of self care cannot be done regularly. Instead of it just being a one-time event or something that demands a lot of time or money, self care instead needs to be more regularly integrated into our lives.

So if it's not pampering 24/7, if it's not like the Kardashian level of taking care of ourselves, what is self-care then? My short definition of self-care is that self care is how we show love and respect to ourselves. Just like we do for anyone who we truly care for, we act the part in small and simple and regular ways, you know, love is a verb and to truly love others, you also have to act that part to yourself.

So self-care is how we show love and respect to ourselves. I think there are three levels to self care: basic, indulgent, and deep. I'm going to break these down for you. The basic level are just the fundamental ways that we show up for ourselves on a day-to-day basis. And they usually involve supportive habits, such as showering, wearing clean clothes, getting in some joyful movement, sleep, eating, feeding yourself, right?

So those are basic forms of self care. The indulgent level are some of the ones I described about my friends that had done that earlier, painting her nails, going to dinner, getting yourself a treat, taking the night off. Those are more indulgent forms of self care.

And that deep level of self care involves things that go well, deep, they go deeper. It can involve things like journaling, meditation, something that requires a little bit more emotional energy. I want to be really clear about these levels. Every single one of them is neutral. One of them is not better than the other.

We're not going to shame the people who choose to paint their nails and make them seem less than the people who choose meditation. It's not about one being better. Okay. But there is one truth I want you to own about these three levels of self care. If you don't have some basic self-care happening on a consistent basis, the indulgent and the deep levels of self-care will only act as temporary bandaids.

To illustrate that I I'm thinking about this episode I did years ago with Natalie Norton on how to get out of a funk. And Natalie's been through some major trauma in her life, but she's also been through just these depressive, exhausting, and you know, phases that we've all been through and that we go through and when I asked her to share what is something that women can do, where do they start?

She said it starts with showering. It starts with basic ways of caring for yourself. And through her big traumas and her little traumas, that's where she started. It started with the basics. So to help you figure out what self-care can look like for you, because by the way, it is so individual it's so about you and what feels right to you.

I'm going to give you a couple questions to consider. What do you need right now? What do you want in your life? What feelings are missing for you and what obstacles are you facing to accessing caring for yourself?

To help you with this I've actually got some great voicemails that were sent in from some progressors who called in about this very topic.

Okay. I am so excited to share with you three call-ins from progressors and their own struggles with self care. I know you are going to relate to at least one of these women, if not all three.

"Hi Monica I am calling in about self care and a stumbling block I have there. You hear a lot about self care now. And I just don't, haven't found what's right for me, that really fills my bucket. Like I enjoy exercise, but I don't, I do it more for health. It doesn't necessarily fill my bucket and like, I can get a massage, I could take it bath. I could soak in a hot tub, but I don't feel like any of those t ingsh necessarily fill me up the way that I feel like self care is supposed to. So I guess what is the goal? What should I be trying to accomplish with my self-care and maybe some more ideas on what to do for self care? I, I guess some of those things also, I have a hard time doing, just because I have so much to do. I don't want to take time away from it to do those things. And instead I ended up continuing to work or falling into the pit of Instagram. So any help would be great. Thanks!

 I really connected with the way that this progressor is feeling when you are launching into finally learning how to care for yourself the overwhelm is real, especially not knowing where to start in the sea of 'shoulds'. And it sounds like she has some basic things covered there, which is awesome. But here's two guiding principles I would advise this progressor, and you who can relate in how to start with self care.

First, we want to do a good job of eliminating the 'shoulds,' while some of the 'shoulds' can be chosen, like maybe you don't love to go for a jog and it feels kind of like a 'should' sometimes, but when you choose it, because of the results that it creates for you with like peace and feeling more calm and energized, then that can be more chosen. But most of the time when we are starting at the beginning and feeling the overwhelm, it's also because we're neck deep in the 'shoulds'.

So what are those for you with self care? What do you think self care should look like? And as part of that, the overwhelm sneaks in, when we also think self-care has to be this monumental thing that requires a lot of time, or money, or energy, or all three. I want you to think about how you can start small with self care by making it doable.

To help this progressor, and those of you, here are some ways that you can start small. These are just some general ideas I have for you: a 20 minute walk, listening to your favorite album from your teenage years, hand lettering, reading a magazine you love, calling a friend, completing an adult coloring book while watching your favorite show, putting on a face mask, taking a friend out to dinner, meditating to a track that you love, massaging lotion on your hands, trying on a new lipstick, playing an audio book you love while driving around, cooking a meal that you love to eat for dinner. Those are just a few examples. Now, those might not apply to all of you. So instead, what I want you to do is to practice caring for yourself in moments, especially if you're still feeling the overwhelm, like I still don't know where to start.

Start by looking for moments, moments where you can do something to care for yourself, to show care and love and respect for yourself. Not all, not nothing. And as you're looking for these moments, this is where you are creating an opportunity for you to explore what self care works for you. You can bring back some things you used to do in your spare time as a kid.

I mean, mine would include climbing trees. I don't know if I could do that anymore, but it definitely would include reading or drawing. So as you are looking for moments, do it with curiosity, and you will find ways to connect back to yourself on all of those levels of self care, indulgent, and deep levels.

And you'll get more information about the basic ways that you can more regularly support yourself with habits too. And that will come with time. None of this will happen overnight. So start small, look for moments. Now about the numbing issue that that Progressor brought up, you're not alone on that. Here's what another listener had to bring up about numbing among other obstacles that are getting in the way of her self care.

"Hi, this is Melissa from Utah and a self care scenario that I find myself facing frequently is not really knowing what will be helpful as self care for me? I have two toddlers and a newborn, and I, by the time I find time for myself to have any self care I'm exhausted and sometimes self care for me is just laying on the couch and scrolling through my phone, but I never feel completely fulfilled in anything that I try to use as self-care. I mean, everybody talks about, you know, taking a nap, take a shower, eat something. But part of me kind of feels like those are just basic needs. There has to be, I, I feel like there needs to be something more fulfilling for me to, some sort of way to create or to, to feel like I'm contributing, not just resting. I think as my self care always turns back to resting. And I think sometimes I find myself wanting more, wanting something that adds to my life instead of just providing that downtime, which is important. But anyways, that's my self-care scenario. I keep facing is I'm having trouble coming up with things that actually feel fulfilling for me in a self care way. And thank you, Monica, for all that you do."

Melissa, thank you so much for calling in. And I just want to say, oh boy, this is still fresh on my mind. My youngest is four, but I started all of what I'm, what I'm doing right now with my life in the very phase that you are in right now. This is when I feel like the lack of energy is the biggest obstacle to true self care because instead of doing something that really creates, on any level that you need, the care for yourself, that you're looking for, we instead resort to what requires low energy, which is numbing behavior.

Numbing behavior is not self care. Numbing behavior is a sign that you need to take better care of yourself. Whenever I find myself lost in my phone and it being just one of those things, like I can't control and it's just happening, or other numbing behaviors, even like some people numb through doing organizing things, and being more productive.

And it might look like binging, Netflix, or being in some wormhole on YouTube or some other social media thing. Numbing behaviors shows me, and it can show you, that I need to take better care of myself. It's simply a sign. It's not something to shame myself over. It's just a sign that I need to take better care of myself.

Self-care can easily get mistaken for escaping. Numbing behavior is where we're trying to avoid negative feelings, like the crushing responsibilities we're facing and the stress that comes with that. But when we engage in numbing behavior to avoid those negative feelings, guess what happens? Those negative feelings are still there.

It doesn't work. That's why escaping isn't self-care because you can't escape the negative feelings or the person that you've become, or the insecurities you face, they will find you, they will find you. So when you're thinking about self care, instead of asking yourself, how can I escape? What I want you to switch it to is, "How can I show up?"

"How can I take care of myself in the ways I need so that I can show up to face these things better?" As part of that, start with the feelings, Melissa. Focus on what feelings you want to feel in your day-to-day life, so that you can show up better. And I love that you are already getting in tune with this, you're kind of figuring out what's working for you.

My biggest form of self care when I started really taking care of myself, was my DSL over five years ago. And just like you were saying, Melissa, for me I didn't need rest, I needed more, I needed more fulfillment in my life and it sounds like that's where you're feeling right now. And as I've worked on my DSL, it was the ultimate act of self care.

Even though it didn't look like "rest" or the indulgent kind of behavior or self care, it was more about going deep and learning and studying in ways that I'd definitely not thought were self care before. There are seasons with this, you know, sometimes I've needed total rest and my self-care looks more indulgent.

Other times I need to feel more supported in my basic habits so that I have the energy I need to show up. And other times I have to go deep because those are the parts of myself that are being undernourished spiritually or emotionally or mentally. So let your needs guide you and let your desired emotions guide you to so that you can work towards caring for yourself outside of numbing. And for more ideas on that, you can go back to what we just shared with the first call in.

Now the next progressor to call in shared something that I think is maybe the ultimate obstacle to self-care.

"Hi, Monica. I really appreciate your emphasis on self care. It's something that I've been giving a lot of thought to recently, I had planned on beginning the new year with an exercise program and better sleep habits. And here we are in February and I haven't implemented some of those things that I desperately need to and want to. It is really difficult to make self-care a priority when I work full time, have grown children and grandchildren and busy church service opportunities that I do enjoy, and just all of the other myriad demands. Feeling like I'm neglecting friendships, the list goes on and on, but yes, if you have tips or suggestions on how to make that self care a priority, I would welcome that learning from you and listening to your episode soon. Thank you so much for all that you do and have a great day."

To me, the biggest thing that I saw and what this progressor just said was the obstacle of not prioritizing self care, meaning it being the bottom of your list. And with that, I think there's this undercurrent of guilt that we attach to prioritizing our self-care. Okay. So you see how those are connected.

We don't prioritize it because we feel guilty about prioritizing ourselves. So to this, and to you and to me, I want you to believe me when I say that self-care is selfless. We don't want to be selfish. Right? And because of that, we deny ourselves in so many ways. And some of that is healthy. We don't want to walk around like sociopath and just do whatever we want and feel like.

We have real responsibilities. We have real people we care about. But in our pursuit of not being selfish, we go a whole other level in completely devoiding ourselves of a self. We are so uncared for that we don't even have a self to give from. So if you want to be more selfless, you need to prioritize giving to yourself.

For those of you who struggle, prioritizing self care think about what the effects are that you are currently living out because you are not prioritizing yourself. 'Cause I bet you they are real. Maybe you snap at people you love, maybe you don't have the energy you need to give. Maybe you are feeling so worn out that you're just a shell of yourself.

Here's what one woman wrote to me in a DM. She said, '"Stress is unparalleled right now. I have never been more needed for my children, parents, husband, mother-in-law, siblings, siblings-in-law, and nieces and nephews. And that is not including the professional demands right now. Self care feels impossible, but never more needed."

Boy, did I feel like she voiced what every woman in this community is facing. Here is one wonderful side effect of self-care, more consistent self-care. It's resilience. Self care helps you have the resilience you need to be the person you want and need to be for the people and the responsibilities you love the most.

You must prioritize caring for yourself so that you can show up for yourself and for others. In review, self care is what helps you be selfless. So women who are listening, we can do this. We can take steps and do something to better support ourselves so that we can show up as our true selves. For the responsibilities we care for most dearly.

I hope this episode gave you the hug and kick in the pants that you need to grow. Here's the progress pointers from this episode, and these are always the cliff notes version of the episode, which my go-getter newsletter subscribers get in a graphic form each week.

Number one, women are exhausted in all ways. We need to be better supported, but we have to start with what we can control through self care.

Two, self care is how we show love and respect to ourselves like we do anyone else we care for. It exists on three levels, basic indulgent and deep.

Number three, to start, look for moments to care for yourself instead of seeking escape, seek for ways you can show up and prioritize self care, so that you can have the resilience you need to be selfless.

Your do something challenge this week is to do something to care for yourself in one small way.

Just look for those moments. Look for the moments where you can insert caring for yourself. When you've done that, I would love to hear about it. You can send me an email. You can DM me. You can share about it on social media. And from those I get to share a progressor spotlight. This week, I'd like to spotlight a woman named Melissa who, after our episode on "Start Where You Are" aired a couple of weeks ago, she wrote this to me on Instagram.

She says, "This reminds me of something else you taught me. Just start. Even if you don't feel like you can do something 100% how you want, just start small and do something. This applies to my household cleaning weekly. I used to get so frustrated. It felt like I didn't have time to do it all at once. Now, I just start more often than not. I end up getting most of what I wanted to do done. And if not, at least I have a little momentum."

 I love how she shared about that and I hope you can try that on for size too. So thank you, Melissa. That comment so made my day. Before I go, was this episode helpful for you?

If so, here are two easy ways that you can support the show completely for free. Number one share about the show with somebody you love. And I would add someone who's in need of self-care right now. And the second way is to leave a rating and review on Apple podcasts or Spotify. That way we can reach more listeners.

Thank you so much for listening now. Go and do something with what you learned today.