Ashley Brown 0:00 [Intro]
Routines my absolute favorite word, but you either love them or you're working on getting there. And either way, I strongly believe routines can be a springboard for improving your home, yourself and your life. I'm Ashley Brown. And this is the routine and things podcast, and each episode, I'll share practical tips and simple ways for you to consistently live your happiest life, one routine at a time. Trust me, you're going to want to keep listening, because you're well on your way to getting and staying happy.
Ashley Brown 0:49
Before we get into today's episode, have you ever wondered which routine is the best for you to start right now, if you are unsure of which routine will best meet the needs of your home and life at this very moment, you now have a way to find out. I've created for you a very simple and free routine assessment that will help you identify which routine you really need most right now, to take this quick assessment that will point you in the right direction and get you started with the right routine. Click the link in the show notes or head to routineandthings.com. Alright, let's go ahead and get into today's episode.
Ashley Brown 1:26
Hey, girl, Hey, welcome back to the podcast. I'm your host, Ashley Brown. And I'm super excited for you to be here today. We're chatting about self freaking care. The reason why I had it freakin in there because of all of the routine buckets, I share about out of all five, actually about five routine buckets, cooking, cleaning, children, planning and self care. Self Care is always always the one that most of us struggle with. And when I say most of us, I mean us women. In this community, many of us struggle with the self care routine caring for ourselves, investing in ourselves, paying attention to ourselves, right. And when I hear that, I don't like hearing that, to be perfectly honest. But I know it's real. And I know it happens because it happened to me. And even sometimes now I have to like slow down and be like, are you taking care of you? Ashley , yes, I have conversations with myself. And so I'm like, are you taking care of you? And if you're not girl today, today, because if not, we can build up so much frustration and anxiety and overwhelm from not paying attention to ourselves and given ourselves the love that we are given to everyone around us. Right?
Ashley Brown 2:53
So I want to talk about today how you can take the first step to changing this if you feel as if you are not caring for yourself like you know you want to and like you know, is going to be beneficial for you to thrive and be your best self, then let's talk about it. Today, I'm gonna share with you what that first step can be. Because the thing about it is it's not like, it's not like you don't know that self care is important. You're a smart chick, like, you know, self care is important. We've been hearing it through the internet world for some years now, right, that big Hot Topic of self care, self care for women's self care for moms. Because if you're a mom, like that's been very heavy as well. So it's not that we don't know, it's not that you don't know. But knowing the importance doesn't always mean that you're going to take action, it doesn't always lead to you taking action just because you know something, right?
Ashley Brown 3:49
Sometimes we can know things and not take action towards them. And so if you haven't been taking action, I want to share what can help you take the first step towards caring for yourself on a more consistent basis. Not just caring for yourself every once in a blue moon. Mama that's not going to work. Home girl that's not going to work. You taking care of yourself on a consistent basis is what's going to work for you. What's going to keep you feeling like life is manageable, what's going to help you to feel like your best self on your favorite day. Okay. So I want to share what that what that looks like.
Ashley Brown 4:27
The first thing, the first step in general is to identify what's getting in your way. Something is getting in your way. Right and you can feel it something is there blocking you from consistently caring for yourself. Right because if you're not caring for yourself, it's not that you don't want to. There's some type of block there. And I will say many times it is a mental block. It's not a physical block. A lot of times we think oh it's because I lack the time. I don't have the time to care. For myself, or we feel like Oh, the things that I want to do, I don't have the money to care for myself. But many times, it's not external things that lead us to not caring for ourselves. That's not the first thing is usually a mental block somewhere that leads us to not caring for ourselves. Because there are small things that you can do in terms of self care that don't take up a lot of time.
Ashley Brown 5:20
But you may not be doing those things, or you can do free self care activities, but you may not be doing them. And so if that's the case, then something else is blocking you. And more than likely that is a mental block is something that is mentally like you're thinking about that is stopping you from caring for yourself, and they're stalling your progress towards self care. So I want to talk about the common roadblocks that prevent us from caring for ourselves. And these all have been me at some point. And I still have to be careful to not go into these mental blocks, or just road blocks in general. The first one is guilt. Wooh lets talking about some guilt today? guilt that if I care for myself, then I'm not taking care of my kids. Because it's specifically for mamas, if I'm taking care of myself, my children are going to be neglected, is selfish of me to take care of myself. If you have that thought that thought is real, that conditioning, that messaging of the world that women that care for themselves are selfish women, that moms who care for themselves are selfish moms.
Ashley Brown 6:39
Bump that, no, that's messaging that's trying to get you to do for others around you, and neglect yourself because they have something to gain. No, no, we don't do that over here. So guilt is real. But why do you feel guilty? Because I'm pretty sure you're not neglecting those around you because you care for yourself. Or the guilt many times creeps up, especially if you're a working mom that aren't around your children all the time are constantly the guilt is I'm not really around my children much. So when I have time to be around my kids, I should be around my kids, we will say, Oh, I should be doing this. I said before anytime should comes out your mouth stop pause and question. Because should what you should be doing? I mean, we should be doing a whole bunch of stuff. Right? But not really. So that guilt can creep in. Right? It creeped in with me when it's like, oh, yeah, the weekends come and I'm like, Oh my gosh, like I get to spend time with my kids.
Ashley Brown 7:50
And then I'm like, Oh, I got business stuff to do, though. Or I'm going to ask a cousin to come watch them for four hours. So I can go out with my friends for lunch. And then that guilt start creeping in like but, No, you ain't seen them all week, though Ash. Right, that guilt can start creeping up. But the thing about it is, is we're not just here to serve our children. We're not just here to serve those around us. I mean, let's be real. That's not that's not why God put us here. To just serve everybody around us. Really? That's the meaning of life. Wow. Right. So I want for you to start to really question when that guilt pops up. What is in that? What are you making that mean? What story? Are you telling yourself about that guilt? What story? Are you telling yourself about going out with your bestie? Instead of hanging out with your kids? What story? Are you telling yourself about having a massage versus being with your partner? What story are you telling yourself? Because I promise you, you taking time out for yourself is only a benefit to those around you. So guilt is the first roadblock.
Ashley Brown 9:03
Okay, I'm gonna get off my high horse and we're gonna move on to the next one. The second common block is a lack of prioritization. Right putting others in things before yourself. We are quick to do that as women. Oh, man. Especially as mama's we are quick to put our children before us so quick. It's like an instant reaction I do think somewhat is instinctual, just by nature. Right? But that constant always putting the children before us, especially when it's not in a dire urgent situation. We have to sometimes like think about that, like, Is it like how are we prioritizing self? Right, how are we prioritizing self? Yes, in all circumstances and situations, we're not going to be able to choose us before our children choose us before our spouse depending on what's going on or choose us, you know, instead of our partner sometimes that's not going to be able to happen, but or however, in some cases, it may need to happen, in some cases, is absolutely okay for us to prioritize.
Ashley Brown 10:12
So before our kids, our partner our family members, is okay. Because what's the best outcome for them is us prioritizing ourselves in this moment, in this day at this time, right? So a lack of prioritization can definitely steer us off course, with consistently caring for ourselves. And if you can prioritize self, in some degree consistently, I promise you, you will feel better in your life. The third roadblock is a lack of motivation. I talked about motivation. In the previous episode, episode zero, 90, it was what is your motivation tendency, I talked about lack of motivation. And sometimes when it comes to self care, it can be a lack of motivation, let's be real it can be, especially when it comes the lack of motivation comes from being overwhelmed or stressed or a high anxiety, we can feel like our energy is being sucked through all of that, right? When you are overwhelmed, your energy is being depleted. And so you don't really have motivation at that point in time, because your energy isn't there.
Ashley Brown 11:19
So that leads us to not caring for ourselves appropriately. And if this is your Roadblock, what can you do to spark that motivation? Because I'm telling you, it is things that you can do to spark motivation. You may need to decompress, you may need to do something that helps with that. So go back to the episode if you haven't listened to zero 90 and see what is your motivation tendency, because if this is the reason why you have not been caring for yourself, or you even think it is the episode I think will really help you. And then lastly, the roadblock could be overthinking, which leads to no decision being made. Where my overthinker at, I'm raising my hand behind this mic. Where am I overthinkers? You know, we will get into our head. Oh my gosh, sometimes I question God like God, why are you making me such a heady person? Because this is freaking tiring. Right, like, just in your head? And no, it's not gonna help. Right?
Ashley Brown 12:27
Oh, I want to care for myself. But I didn't do the laundry. And if I don't do the laundry, then there's and then if there's and then there's, and then we'll just keep going and going. By the time you know, we done talk to ourselves for 10 minutes straight, thought about 15 million excuses. 15 million reasons why we can't care for ourselves. And no decision has been made. That does not help. Right. And so this could be your roadblock that you overthink, every time you go to care for yourself, you start to make up reasons. And I'm telling you, the reasons could be that they could be valid, and many times they are valid. But that doesn't negate the fact that you need self care that you need to prioritize self in that moment. Many times in our life things are not that urgent, that we need to do them on the spot we make ourselves believe they are, but they're not when really was more urgent is a meeting with ourselves is intentional time with you, is really what's the urgent matter.
Ashley Brown 13:36
But we'll put everything goes before that we go down that overthinking path. And so if this is you know to catch yourself when you're going down that path and just make a decision. If you want to care for yourself. Just say I'm caring for myself at this time of day. And that's that. When your brain wants to start pulling you towards that overthinking, stop it. Pause, take a deep breath, make a decision. So those are some common roadblocks guilt, lack of prioritization, lack of motivation, overthinking which ones trip you up when it comes to self care, because this is your first step, diagnose the problem that leads you to not consistently caring for yourself because this is the first step, the identification, what's wrong here, what's happening here, and then charting a different path. Once you can identify what your roadblock or blocks are. The second step is working through the block.
Ashley Brown 14:34
So can you reframe in some type of way? Can you make up a different type of story that you're telling yourself a more positive story? Can you rethink things? Can you get creative? Can you gain motivation in some way? So if you're wanting or needing to care for yourself consistently in this moment, and you've been thinking about this for quite a bit of time, identify what's getting in your way and begin to do something about it because you have the power I want to do so I promise you. We're wrapping up this episode today. And my routine wisdom is what I've said before about self care and I will always say this. Self Care is the best care. Period. Point Blank self care is the best care. care for yourself. Girl is important. We need you you need you. Okay, you need you.
Ashley Brown 15:26
Thank you for joining me. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast if you haven't already. Also rate and review the show is so easy to do. Give it five stars. And also write a thoughtful review. Oh my gosh, I would love to hear from you. And share this episode with someone that you feel may need it today a friend, a coworker, your mama. Right, share it today. And I'm just so thankful that you are a part of this community. As always continue to enjoy wherever you are, whatever you're doing, stay happy, and I will talk to you next week.
Ashley Brown 16:03 [Outro]
Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed today's episode, take a screenshot and share it on social I would love to know you're listening. And for tools to help you start maintain and enjoy your routines. Be sure to head to routineandthings.com. Here's to staying happy.