Be Well: How to Tap Into Your Self-Care Mindset

For many, self-care calls for treating yourself to a facial or maybe even massage but there are methods that go beyond spa-day treatments. Jeanette Bronee, author of <i>The Self-Care Mindset, </i>joined Cheddar News to break down exactly what self-care is and ways people implement techniques into their lives.&nbsp;&nbsp;

beWell

May is mental health awareness month and one way to tap into your mental health is to take a holistic approach to self care. Yeah, but self care really isn't just face mask and bubble bath. So today we're going to bring you ways to tap into a self care mindset. Joining us now is culture strategist, keynote speaker and author of the self care mindset, Jene, you're here to break down. So talk to me what really is self care if it's not, you know, my bubble baths and all that? Yes. Well, that's the problem, right? We tend to think that it's time out for ourselves. But what if instead it's what a support system that helps us get through the day and face the challenges that we're facing all the time instead of what we do after work to recover from all those challenges. And so I think of it as how do we support ourselves all day long so that we can think and we can engage better with ourselves and others and therefore make better decisions and show up at our best cells, whatever that looks like at this moment based on what we so we need to just completely reframe how we're thinking about it. I, I believe we do. I think we have self care all wrong. OK. Well, you know, I heard you speak as a keynote speaker at the conference a few months ago and it was really hard for a lot of these people in supply and the chain to demand to get around that concept. How can we change the conversation around what self care means to us to get people who are always on the go go go trying to make that next deadline. You know, part of what I always hear is yes, but I don't have time, right? Because we think of self care as something that takes time and costs money, which essentially means it's only for the privileged, right? If we can think of it that way, right? The people who have time and money. And so if we're thinking of it as a support system and a mindset that we have running in the background all the time, essentially the way the mind works is that we are asking ourselves questions all the time. Those questions are not always very productive. And so we're actually saving time when we have a self care mindset. So it's not about, oh, I need a break. Sometimes we do. I agree. We need more pauses throughout the day, but sometimes we just need to give the mind a little space and grace. Recognize what are my thoughts really doing in here. Are they working against me or are they working for me? And how can I have a conversation with myself that affects the conversation I have with other people and therefore how we make better decisions together. That's something we can do at work all the time. And that is about that relationship we have with ourselves. I like that space and grace. I know I try to give myself grace, but I'm not really sure that it works. So how do we set ourselves up to have this mindset when we begin a day? One of the things I love to do is to ask myself not only how I start the day, but before I start anything, what do I need right now so that I can whatever it is that's needed of me. So for example, being here, what do I need so that I can be fully present? What do I need when I start my day? I ask myself, I tune in for a moment with my body. I listen and say, how am I in there right now? I'm a little stiff and itchy. OK. What do I need? So that? But I feel a little bit more flexible and able to move around. Oh, I need to stretch a little bit. So there's this inner dialogue that we can have with ourselves that are very self caring that says, hey, what do I need so that I can right now, face whatever it is we're facing instead of just saying, oh my God. I feel so stiff. Ok. Well, I don't have time right now. I can wait. It's a completely different opposite way of looking at this support system that it is to take care of ourselves all day long. And that really goes hand in hand with one of the things you talk about in your book. Power pausing, explain how we can get to that place where we know when we need to do it and how we actually do it. Power pausing. I love power pausing because that there I call them, there's three power pauses, right? So I think of it as the gap in time like that power pauses, that gap in time where we can just step back for a moment before we lean back in. And so that's the shift again, right? We think of self care is taking time out. I think of it as being present. And so you literally do that like before you came in the studio, you're like, wait a minute. Yeah. OK. Let's go. Let's literally stop. Yes. Yeah. It's a little bit like an athlete. You will never see an athlete just come running in and then do their thing. You would always see them just center themselves for a moment, come back home inside and just, ok, I'm ready, like take a breath, right? So what do you do in that pause? Or you do try to actively do nothing, partly do nothing, partly take a breath. Because when you're taking a breath and focusing on the breath, you're actually not able to also think at the same time because you're following the breath in that moment. And one of the things I like to do, if you need to, to slow down and lower the stress is to breathe in through your nose and breathe out long and slow and really pay attention to the exhale. Because when you're paying attention to the exhale, the nervous system starts calm down. If you need more energy, it's more paying attention to the inhale. OK. And so in that moment, we can pause for just a moment, give a little bit of space and allow the nervous system to calm down. So that's one pause, right? That's that physical pause. Or maybe we need a glass of water, maybe we need to get some food. You know, we need to remember the basics here. You know, we have a tendency to just push through instead of remembering the real basics that we not over thinking it. We're gonna keep practicing that breath on the commercial break. Yes. And then there's the emotional power pause where we just check in and say, hey, how am I, how am I feeling in there? And if we're feeling a little anxious, we can now then move to the next stage that says, OK, what do I need so that I can feel more in control, right? I love it. Thank you so much. We appreciate your time. Thank you.