Self Care is not just about pampering yourself with an occasional massage or pedicure, self care is about the way you mentally care for yourself. When you take care of your mental health internally, it shows externally. Listen to find out how!
Self Care is not just about pampering yourself with an occasional massage or pedicure, self care is about the way you mentally care for yourself. When you take care of your mental health internally, it shows externally. Listen to find out how!
You're listening to the modern Mormon, episode number six. Hey there, I'm Kami Satterlee. And I'm the modern Mormon. I'm an Advanced Certified life coach who's dropped the all or nothing approach to life, and religion. I can't wait to show you how. I've got you, girl. Let's go. Hello, beautiful souls. It is the prettiest day here in Boise, Idaho. Aside from all the smoke in the air, it is like such a love hate though because it makes the sun look so pretty. It's orange and red. And just to click, it's on fire. So I just got done with a coaching call. And so I decided to just do kind of a last minute podcast on self care. And I felt like it was needed, and it was needed in the church. And it's needed for moms and basically everybody that I am speaking to today. So self care is super important. Because when we are taking care of ourselves, we are also showing ourselves that we love ourselves. And if we are loving ourselves, that is showing up in all the different areas of our life, and our relationships. And the way we parent and the way we show up for our job, how successful we are, it all comes down to our thoughts about ourselves, our capabilities, our confidence, all of that. So self care is the most important thing. When we have a disconnect with ourselves, and we are not loving ourselves. Sometimes it can be hard to pinpoint that. Because when we don't like ourselves, we don't want to be with ourselves. And when we don't want to be with ourselves, we aren't having that awareness. And we are not allowing ourselves to be in our own minds. So this is why when we are feeling out of place, if we're feeling like we're not connecting, we're disconnected with ourselves, it's important to talk with other people about this, because this will help bring the awareness in your own brain. This is why therapy, and coaching is so beneficial. We're connecting and at the same time, we're kind of examining ourselves is what it does. So by doing this, you get a chance to what I like to call be the watcher of your brain. And this is done with the support of somebody else. So sometimes it can be really scary going inside your own head. That's why a coach is there to say, no matter what comes up like I got you, it's gonna be fine. When we don't attend to our brain, this resorts in negativity. If you feel you're in a dark place, it's because you haven't been paying attention and managing your brain. So your brain is it's kind of like a toddler, it's running around with a sharpie, it's running wild all around your house. It's colored black all over the place. And once you start paying attention to it, it's like your higher brain puts the cap on the marker, and then puts your primitive brain in timeout. Your primitive brain is your lower brain, the one that likes to keep you spinning in thoughts like you're not good enough, you're never going to be able to do that. You can never measure up, you're not worthy enough, basically, your lower brain what it's doing, it's not trying to make you feel terrible. It's just trying to keep you safe. So by saying those things, it's going to stop you from really putting yourself out there and stepping out of your comfort zone. So your prefrontal cortex, your front brain is the one that's more intentional. It's the one that is future focused, the one that wants you to hit your goals, the one that wants to accomplish more, okay, and that's the one that we want to start using. So as your prefrontal brain begins to be intentional, again, with its true desires, it's like taking a magic eraser to all that marker and negativity around your house. I personally like to include God, meditation, repentance, those things. To move the process speed the process up, move it along a little bit quicker. But you can also do it by managing your brain. And it's so interesting, because sometimes our lower brain can disguise itself. It's so sneaky, it is intelligent. Obviously, it's your brain, it knows exactly what to say and do to get you to do or not do something. So sometimes it can say things that sound like self care, but it's not exactly that. It's, I'm doing everything I need a break. I can't do it all. Everyone relies on me. Mom's done, I'm tapping out. When we are not taking care of ourselves mentally, spiritually and physically. We become the See, or the circumstance in our children's brain, our explosions, our depression, our outbursts, and reactions become their life events. Our children then get to form a thought about that which becomes the results in their own lives. So this like blew my mind because first of all, we are not responsible for our children's emotions, but at the same time, we are creating the things in their life that they then get to have thoughts about if we are not managing our brain and being intentional. How can we expect our children to how can we expect them to become the healthy humans that we desire? People like to say mothers should be selfless mothers should put their kids before for themselves, mothers should be stay at home moms and not work. You know what I say? mothers should do what they need physically, mentally, socially, spiritually and successfully. Walking around being miserable. And claiming it's love is teaching your children to mask their own emotions, and that they're responsible for other people's emotions. I feel like throughout the years, this has gotten lost, self care has gotten lost throughout the church. They don't ever really talk about self care as much as they talk about other things. Like mothers should be doing certain things. Wives should be doing certain things, you should read your scriptures, you should say your prayers, you should do all of these things religiously and spiritually. But we never talk about are you mothers and wives, and women in general, doing the things that make you happy? Are you intentionally deciding what that is? I was coaching a lady the other day, and we were talking about her future self, and what that looked like. And she said, she wanted to be a mom that loved cooking and cleaning and doing all the things that mothers and wives do. And I asked her why. And she said, because I want my children and my husband to feel love. So I explained to her that they feel love based off of their thoughts, you cannot make them feel love that is on them, not you no matter what you do, or don't do. But I feel like this is so common among women in the church is we're trying to earn our way to heaven, we're trying to earn our way to worthiness of a mother, we're trying to earn our way to feel like we are good enough for our husbands. And if we're doing anything out of obligation, the result we're going to create is not the one that we actually want. We can still want to clean and cook and do those things. But if it's being fueled by obligation, and not by our own desires, then we are not creating the life for us or other people around us that we actually desire. This is where the self care comes in. And it's so interesting. If I asked my clients, are you taking care of yourself? They respond with the checklist? Well, I should be working out more, I could eat a little bit better. Yeah, I'm, you know, doing the things in the day that moms and wives do. And then I have to stop them and say no, are you taking care of yourself with your beliefs, your desires, your intentions, and a lot of them don't even know what that looks like. Because they've spent so much time stuck in these brain loops, these thought loops about taking care of others, that as soon as they can get it all perfect. As soon as they can just be the best mother and best wife, then all of a sudden, they will have a different emotion and they will suddenly love themselves. It doesn't actually work like that. It actually is the opposite. The more you take care of yourself, the more you love yourself, the more you stop beating yourself up and stop saying negative things to yourself in the mirror and wishing things were different. The more that you truly love yourself, then that is the time that it starts to expand to the things outside of you. So I want to talk about three things that you can do. And you can refer back to this whenever you are wondering if you are actually taking care of yourself or not. So number one, speak to yourself the way you would speak to a child, don't speak negatively about yourself and call it being humble. That's not doing yourself, your mind or your body any favors. If you have a hard time with this, then simply just look in the mirror. And don't say anything negative about yourself. Start there. If you can't find anything positive to say, just simply state the facts. I have a body. There's my thighs. Just keep it factual. By doing this, it takes your brain out of constantly coming up with something negative, just out of habit, because that's what it's always been trained to do. It's conditioned to just instantly say something negative. The second thing I want you to do when it comes to self care is to check in as weird as it sounds. I love to do this in the mirror. I like to look at myself and say, Hey, girl, what do you need? You seem a little down? Are you moving your body daily? Are you fueling it with foods that keep you naturally energized? If not, all right, that's fine. Not a big deal. But do you want to be doing that? Are you paying attention to your emotions and allowing them so if I'm tired, and I'm constantly telling myself, I'm not allowed to take a nap I have too much to do. That's not going to benefit anybody including myself. So if I'm tired, am I allowing myself breaks and naps if that is what my body and my mind need. And the third thing is to listen and then take action. If your brain is feeling overwhelmed, you might be putting your own needs aside trying to fit in everybody else's. Listen to what your mind and body are telling you. Make sure to stay focused, future focused. If we are just going to listen to our lower brain all the time. We're going to end up doing nothing all day. And then wondering why we can't get anything done. We do this by dropping the shame, you need to rest, rest was zero guilt. And then when you get up, it's time to work. If you're getting up and saying it wasn't enough, putting blame on everybody else and everything around you as to why you can't get things done in the day that's on you. It's time to manage your brain and get organized in your life. This is your lower brain trying to keep you lazy. Remember, self care does not mean stepping aside from everything that you're supposed to be doing in life, to just pamper yourself, it means Are you listening to your thoughts and your desires? Are you acting on them? Are you taking action? Are you just sitting around waiting for something different to happen in your life waiting for things to be better, but then not doing anything to make them better? It's so interesting, when it comes to our children. We want our children to grow up and be these super successful, super humbled, you know, go getters that are feel accomplished and love themselves and all these things. And yet, are we doing those things? Like truly, when you sit back? Are you successful? And by successful? I mean, are you actually actively pursuing your goals? Are you staying healthy? Are you fueling your body? Are you moving your body every day? You know, we tell our kids to do their homework? Are you doing your homework? Are you accomplishing the things in the day that you actually wanted to? Did you ever get around to organizing that closet like you wanted? Probably not. And if you're anything like me, but every now and then as moms, we see that in ourselves, we see that we're not measuring up. And instead of changing our thought process and actually getting to work and trying to be better, we shame ourselves. And the second we shame ourselves, we stay put, we stay stuck in all of these negative behaviors, and we never progress. Self Care starts with awareness. It starts with looking at your brain, looking at what you view all day long, looking at what you think about who you're becoming. A lot of women and especially women, I coach view, self care as being selfish. And what I teach them. And what's so interesting about this is that as human beings, we all have needs like even as a mom and a wife, you're still a human, and you have specific needs. And sometimes those needs can be filled externally by our job, the people we're around, the things we do in the day, our accomplishments, whatever that is, but also the things that are not able to be filled externally. What happens with that? Well, they need to be filled internally. And if we are not managing our brains, and we're not taking care of ourselves, then we're putting it on other people. That's when we become really needy. And nobody likes to be around somebody that's needy. There was a time in my life where I owned a dance studio. And through having that studio, I felt accomplished, I felt successful. I was surrounded by people all day, I felt, you know, alive and excited to be around humans. I would hold a dance recital at the end of the year. And I would get lots of feedback and comments that I was doing a really great job. And so I had a lot of validation about myself, like, Oh, yay, I'm awesome. But the second I became a stay at home mom, all the sudden, I looked around and I didn't have the people, my husband worked a lot and was gone. And I was very lonely. And now I needed to get that validation from something else. But it wasn't there. I didn't have that external source to do that. So I became super depressed. And I felt like I lost myself. And I was sad. And then I felt like I wasn't showing up as the mom I wanted to be and, and then I was showing up super needy, and then I wasn't being the wife I wanted to be. And it was all just compounding and layering all of these negative emotions about myself and my capabilities. And I basically became my very thought my result was that I had lost myself. This is why self care is so important. Because when those external things aren't there, you have to look internally. And if you haven't managed your brain and you haven't found that validation within yourself, then you're going to be pretty lost. Self Care is not selfish. In fact, it's the complete opposite. When we take care of ourselves, then we are able to serve other people. We're able to serve them authentically. When I feel good about myself and I'm taking care of myself than the time I spend with my children. I'm fully present. I am not wishing I was somewhere else my mind isn't elsewhere. I'm able to fully be there with them in that moment. Working on myself has done wonders for my kids letting go of my fears that I used to carry around and truly just doing what I desire has helped me show up as the mom I want to be I used to serve serve serve serve and later on resent resent resent present, my kids, my husband, my life, all of it wasn't serving anybody. Now, when I take care of my kids, I'm able to do things that I want to do. And because I'm choosing to do it, when I have the awareness because I know who I am inside, when I wasn't taking care of myself, I didn't know who I was, I was running on default. I didn't even know who I want it to be, which is doing the things all day long. So when I talk about the first steps in self care, it starts with just listening to yourself and being the watcher of your own brain. When you do that, then you can intentionally start speaking to yourself kindly, like the first step that I had talked about. So my husband has a real estate business and it is busy it is go, go go. And I tell him all the time, if you would take care of yourself, it will show in all the other areas within your business. The more you take care of yourself, the more organized you get, the more organized you get, the happier you are, the happier you are, the more mentally available you become to not just your family, your relationships, your relationships with everyone and within your business. You focus on each one of them and their needs, because you've already got you It's like putting the error, the oxygen mask on at the plane, they tell you put yours on first before you put your kids on for a reason. I feel like as women in the church, we kind of have this way of speaking bad about ourselves and talking to ourselves internally in such a negative way and hopes that we will become better because of it. I used to do this growing up, I thought the more I beat myself up, then the better I was in God's eyes. Like the more that I realized I was never going to measure up in my brain. That meant that I would work harder. No wonder I never had a good relationship with God. I wasn't even following his first commandment. Thou shalt love the Lord with all thine heart. Well, as I'm teaching and coaching in order for you to love, you need to love yourself first. I was hating myself and beating myself up and then trying to turn around and say thank you, God for this wonderful life, that I have this wonderful body that I absolutely hate, and talk crap about myself all day long. No wonder there was a disconnect. So when the crap hit the fan in my life, God was actually easy to let go. In my brain, I didn't think it was easy because of all the guilt and shame I was carrying around. But that guilt and shame wasn't stemmed from my relationship with him. It was stemmed from the shame and the relationship with myself. The fact that I should have a relationship with him is what I kept telling myself. When I say it took me 15 years to come back to the church when I was 15 years and active. I realize it is because for the past 15 years, I didn't like who I was inside. I wasn't taking care of myself the way that I now know how to I wasn't managing my brain. I wasn't intentionally choosing the things I wanted to be focused on. I was running on default. I could never understand why religion, spirituality never clicked for me, I could never understand why I personally felt nothing when I would pray and try and have a relationship with God. Now I realized it was because I didn't have a full connection with myself. I wasn't taking care of myself in that way and managing my own brain. So when I finally learned how to do that, through coaching, it was instant. Now all of a sudden, I was able to do that and have a relationship with God, which then obviously led me back to the church. So there's so many of us in the church, especially women, who are almost limiting their relationship with God, they are not building it because of their thoughts about themselves and the fact that they're not taking care of themselves, and they're always putting themselves last. The more that you can fully love yourself, the more that you can fully love, appreciate and grow your relationship with your Father in heaven. If you're ready to drop the all or nothing in your life, then I would be honored to be your life coach. Head over to the modern mormon.com to start your journey in becoming the confident authentic and best version of you.