#269: Self-Care For Women [RERUN]

going to a yoga class. So I basically made a list. Not only that, I also wrote down what it was really costing because at the end of the day, if I looked at your spending and your budget allocations, you probably or even your credit card statement, I would probably find that in there. I think it's just you are doing a lot of this stuff. Maybe you just. Not giving it as much weight. So the first step in all of this is, what is it that you're already doing? I broke it down into two categories. What is the paid activities, such as the ones that I just named, that I am already involved, how often I'm doing those? And then the second was, what are some of the free things that I am doing unintentionally, but I'm doing them because somebody hasn't mentioned somebody I've read something somewhere. So what are those three things? I'll give you a few examples if you can't think of any just yet. For example, running in the morning, right? Journaling for five minutes per day, going to bed before 10 o'clock, or reading a book before I fall asleep. Some of these things, or all of these things, do not cost me money. They do cost me time. So free, in essence, of not costing you dollars, I also created a self care worksheet that I'd love for you to get your hands on. Happy to share it with you. So find me on Instagram at money, boss, parent, and send me a DM with the comment, self care, and I'll share that worksheet with you. Very simple. It's gonna walk you through, listing all of these things, helping you identify your budget. So then when we do go back to the target of maybe five to 10% of your income on the monthly basis. I want to know if you're surprised that you actually are spending that much of your budget, or maybe you're not, and that's totally okay. Maybe you're on the 5% range versus the 10% or maybe you're spending more than than you actually thought. So I am excited for you to to get your hands on this. I think it's going to open up your eyes for things that might be worth while for you to consider in context of the overall self care. I also want to focus a little bit of time today and talk to you about how do we manage time for self care? Because not only the objective, for the most part, for our busy lives, is that okay? How do we allocate financial resources? But as you're growing, growing your family, planning your careers, doing life time is of an essence, and one of the things that I have recently been focusing on is, how do I maximize the time that I have, somehow that's becoming more of a commodity for me, and life is measured in that. And so how, because I want to have the best time that I can allocate for these activities, I had to sit down and think a little bit about what does that mean to have time for self care. So I want to share just a couple of things with you on this on this section, I want you to do the same kind of exercise as you did with the financial part. Look at what time commitments you already have, like, open up your calendar. I'm a calendar focus person. I block my calendar all the time. I color code activities, personal stuff is on it. I know it's a mess. Cassie from Main Street here, kind of goes crazy, pulling her hair, trying to schedule appointments for me, and I apologize for that, but it helps me see my days. It helps me see what's going on. It includes my work, my family responsibilities, activities I'm doing with Liam, and in my personal obligation. So like, look at your calendar. I am of a belief is that if it's not scheduled, it is not going to happen. And so if you're thinking about that, or you're you know, have been thinking that, okay, one of these days I'm gonna go get a massage, one of these days I'm gonna go out for a walk. That is probably a good indicator that you need to put this on your calendar. So scheduling self care time is, is probably one of the first things that you should take away from this conversation, and also too, by the way, in the self care worksheet that I just mentioned to you, I have a monthly schedule that you can just use to map out in advance. And I think looking one month out in advance is a really good starting practice. What happened over time for me, even though I still put these things on a calendar, I made a lot of these appointments or blocks, recurring blocks, like, you know that maybe once a month you're going to get a massage, or maybe you get them more often. You know you're going to be running or doing some kind of exercise. You know that maybe taking a yoga class is something that you do regularly. Set that up for yourself. Let that be an automatic pilot, because everything else can fall into place. And so it's sort of this magical trick of automating things so that the time finds itself, and you kind of get away from this excuse of, I don't have time to do this stuff, so assess the time. Time commitments and your calendar where from where you are now, I know if you if you have to find people to help you watch your kids delegate other responsibilities, maybe it's grocery shopping or whatever it is. It is one of those things that you get to decide ahead of time. So hopefully that calendar template will help you put the time that's necessary for you to really, really, really get this done. One resource that I found really helpful, and I'm going through this training again. It is called time genius course by one of the famous business teachers advocates in the space that I am in. Her name is Maria Forleo, and so if you Google time genius, you'll find her course. Now this is my second time taking it, and it's really interesting training that she's put together with recorded videos, worksheets and stuff that actually anyone. It's not a business course, it's really more of a personal so how do you become time genius? How do you go from being stressed out, overworked, overwhelmed, always kind of operating in this mode of where I don't have time for everything. If one more request comes my way, my plate is going to burst, and that would be it to go into transition of where time is on your side. You're in charge of your life. You get to decide. And so it's really, it's really helped me transform these things, the thoughts and thinking where I am looking at the at the schedule. I'm looking at my days, my weeks, from a completely different lens. So we actually interesting side note, we are going through this course with Main Street financial planning team, so all of my advisors are going through that and actually really enjoying it. So I highly, highly recommend for you to check that out. I can't, can't find any other resources of where time has been really

a topic discussed in that much detail. All right, my friends, I also wanted to share with you a list of resources that are going to help you enhance your self care. Now. These are resources that I am currently using, trying and experimenting with some of them. And so again, want to give you tools to get this started. So take them experiment and see what works for you. And two, I'd love to hear, what are you already doing that's really giving you awesome results. So I broke this down into a couple of apps that you can download on your phone, and then some books, journals and maybe some in person events. So a couple of apps. This is really new. It just started. Just started using it on recently. It's called fabulous. So it's an application you download it on your phone. And one thing that's that's cool about it, you actually can try it for free for 30 days, and it allows you to develop healthy habits and routines, including self care practices. So like, if we're talking about having that regimen that you follow day out in, day out, week in, week out, and then so forth. This is a really cool application that allows you to have a schedule all kinds of stuff. I mean, I'm just dipping my toes into it, but it sort of goes beyond just putting, you know, blocks of time on your calendar. So really, really recommend one thing with fabulous app is that it is a paid app, but they're giving you, like 30 days to try it for free. I don't even remember. I think it's something like $30 a year, something insignificant, at least, you know, looking out in this space of all kinds of tracking tools and devices. So highly recommend for you to check it out. For those of you who are into meditation and mindfulness, headspace, headspace has been around for a while. They've acquired a lot of interesting companies, and so it does allow you to have practices around meditation, whether you do it for five minutes before you go to bed, but really been an awesome tool, or sometimes during the day, if you just need to disconnect, pop your head headset on turn and they have all kinds of different meditation guides. Pop headset on and take care of your stress, and it's been a really awesome tool to help improve the quality of sleep. So highly recommend headspace. My newest thing that I'm trying out, too, and it's been a few months now, is aura ring. It's been an adjustment to constantly have it on my finger, but it's it's a device that tracks sleep. It tracks. Your stress levels, activity levels, menstrual cycle. So it's really awesome. And I it's funny, because every day I wake up in the morning and let the data sync because I sleep with it. So actually, for those of you who may have Apple Watch, a lot of these things are tracked by Apple Watch or other devices, but oura ring does a lot better quality of what they track. I don't I'm not doing it justice right now, describing it just for the sake of time, but I get really excited in the morning when I look and say, All right, I know I woke up once in the middle of the night. Let me look what time it was, and then it really does specifically tell you, because it's tracking your body temperature and heart rate. So it knows, you know, it's very interesting. It knows when you fall asleep and knows when you wake up, and all of those different sleep cycles that you go in. So I'm always curious in the morning to see that I have a good night's sleep, like it feels like I'm rested, or on the day when when you wake up, you're like, I can't get out of bed. What is happening? So because sleep these days is so precious, I really want to stay on the top of it. And then my last app for today I wanted to share is called My Fitness Pal. I've had this on my phone for ages, and it's a it's an application that allows to track your food, what you eating, your activity level. So like, if you're logging in your exercises, if you're you know whatever activity you do in running, jogging, lifting, weights, yoga, you can log all of that to to a degree of even including fasting time. So like, if you do an intermittent fasting and you're not eating breakfast in the morning, or whatever your schedule is, that's actually the tool to go to. So I feel like it kind of covers sort of a robust array of things that anyone can adapt Now, a couple of books that have been really instrumental in helping me think about self care on a different way, beyond just body needs, right, but more kind of entering a space of like, what does my mind need? What does my soul need? And so one book that I'm still using today, and it also comes with the journal. Is called, how are you really by Jenna culture, and it's a really interesting read. She it's it's more of a workbook. It's a book, but it kind of is accompanied by a workbook that allows you to go through sections of of of each of the book and really start to dig deep, like this is, this is one of those books where it's not just a read, but it's really helps you work through, what is it that where is where is it that you are now? How are you doing? And really asking that question in a much deeper way? So highly recommend that. And then something new that I am I just started reading this book actually, rather listening on my runs in the morning. It's called, called Untamed by Glenn and Doyle, and it's a really, it's a memoir, but it's also centered around self care and societal expectations that are set for women, particularly. And some of the some of the examples and lessons that Glennon is teaching are really phenomenal, and so it kind of makes you pause and think and reflect and adjust. So those are kind of like the two, two guides that I think I want to share with you to get you start reading. And then I mentioned this on the previous podcast as well, but, but the five minute reflection journal that Jenna also has the author of The How are you really book? I'll and I'll link these resources in the show notes. I've been really happy with that. It's a quick five minute gratitude type of journal. It's like one page you fill in a couple of you know, things that you are on your mind. Some days my my journaling is a little longer. Other days are there are shorter lines. But it gets me in this practice to come back, keep asking myself that question, how are you? How am I really today, like, honestly, if I had to peel all the layers of of everything that's going on, and, you know, you kind of ask that question a lot, right? You meet somebody on the street, or friend calls you, and you casually ask, How are how are you doing? But there's a lot more than that, so I love this journal to kind of continue the discussion of what the book was about. And then finally, I was thinking about two and I did actually participate in one of the events. But I want you to think about what kind of local workshops or events are happening in your area. Yeah, what I did earlier, at beginning of the year, and this is one site that I think is really good for finding lots of these activities, is meetup.com I did a vision board workshop. It was a really cool, cool event. Now, for my purposes, and, you know, work activities and just my nature, I think I love to go out meet new people. So this was networking events, slash, you know, working on creating your digital vision board. I, you know, if this was not kind of of an interest the topic, I probably would have not signed up for it, but it sort of came together. So, like, think about wellness centers. Like, what kind of activities can you do there? What events do they have? Workshops? Maybe there's retreats. And in all of it could be centered a lot around self care practices that you really are interested in doing and have time for time and money as well. Most of them probably don't cost as much. So check out meetup.com. I think you're gonna find a lot of interesting stuff. If it's virtual. That's that's great as well. I always welcome that. So there it is, my friends. I want to close with reminding you that as we celebrate an initial Women's Day, and it's actually rather interesting that this holiday, I grew up in Eastern Europe, and so March 8 has always been this, this kind it's the beginning of spring, and it's like this big celebration of women. And I always, I remember, like a common practice used to be, is that you give to your friends, you know, things, whatever, material things, or you buy flowers. Like, you know, when I was a kid, I would buy my mom flowers

or go pick them at the park. So wasn't I wasn't always a bad buying, but I remember this holiday kind of bringing this like, new excitement, new inspiration, and like new admiration for women all over the world, and I want to, like reaffirm our commitment to that, as well as prioritize self care, because it really is necessary for us to continue nurturing our well being. And so if we can get better at budgeting our time, our money more effectively, and then we can use all of these resources, we can be really empowering ourselves and everyone we love. So that's kind of where I'm sitting with this idea of self care. And this holiday is just an awesome reminder of it's not a luxury for for us to be practicing self care, it's really a necessity for us to be awesome women in this demanding world, but yet we are striving and we are killing it. Can't think of a better closing line. Thanks so much for tuning in. If you have a minute, please leave us a review. I love getting those notifications when you leave me your comments. If you find this these topics interesting, let me know if you want to hear something else being discussed on this podcast. I'd love to know as well. But until next time, remember you are the bosses of your own money.