How to practice self care. Choosing YOU!

Melissa Bright: 0:00

Hello, everyone, and welcome to this week's episode of the bright side of life. I am of course your host, Melissa bright. If you have not yet subscribed to the podcast, please be sure to do so on your favorite listening platform so you never miss an episode. And if you just love, love, love the podcast so much. And you would like to support the show, you can do so by writing a review on the website, sharing your favorite episodes on social media and with friends and family. Or lastly, you can make donations by going to the donate page on the website. Whatever you choose to do, however you choose to support the podcast, I am very grateful. And also you can do all of that stuff right on the bright side of life podcast.com. And today we are doing a solo episode, I want to say Happy, Happy International Women's Day that was actually yesterday, because this episode is coming out on a Wednesday. So I just want to say Happy Happy Day to all you lovely lovely women out there. So today, self care day, how to choose us. That is what I'm going to be talking about on today's podcast, it is something that is so very, very important to me, it is a very important topic that I love to talk about. Because it is a journey that I have been on for like the last two years to really find myself confidence back my self worth, so on and so forth. So today, I'm going to be giving you tips and tricks about how we can love ourselves. What does it mean for self care? What are things that we can do to start practicing self love and self care, talking about all the different types of self care. That's what we are going to be talking about. And I wanted to announce this because I don't know if you guys know. But I am trying really, really, really hard to have all of my episodes also on YouTube. So I am recording every single time I have a guest on I do have a, I have a video version of that. So if you guys would like to go check out the video versions, this one is also one, you can go to YouTube and search the bright side of life podcast or you can click the link in the show notes and all the episodes. So going forward, that is my new goal to have a YouTube version as well. So you guys can see the guest. And that's what you want to do is see the video. Now we have that option. So let's jump right in. Welcome to The Bright Side of Life, a podcast where people share their personal stories of struggles, pain and grief. But through all of that, they are still able to find the joys in life. What is self love, and what is self care in the most simplest way that I can put it, it's appreciating ourselves, knowing that we matter, right? Because oftentimes, we put everybody in front of us, we put our kids ahead of us, we put our spouses ahead of us, we bought our animals, you know, whatever it is, and sometimes we are the very last ones that get taken care of. So it's simply appreciating our selves, right. Now, I want to talk about the different types. And I actually have this book, if you can see on if you're watching on YouTube, there's this awesome book, it's called choose you I actually got it from five below. And it's a great like little, it's a guided self care journal made just for you. But it has a little bit of information in the front. And so we are going to go over right now, the six types of self care which I didn't even realize that there was all these different types. But there are because we got to take care of different parts. First, I'm going to tell you what the six parts of six types of self care if you are not driving, please feel free to jot these down in a notebook. So you know, oh, today I want to take care of this type of self care and so on and so forth. The first type of self care is emotional self care. And this includes taking care of for taking time for your emotions or doing pleasurable activities, such as talking to a friend watching a funny movie, dancing, going to therapy, you need to take care of your emotions so you can experience positive feelings more often or more strongly than negative ones. And so you're prepared to handle the emotional challenges that life throws at you. And you know, I had just gotten this book the other day and me and my boyfriend went and watch the movie, jackass. That's my dog. I'm sorry, hang on, leave it to a dog Leave it to a dog to bark. Okay, so me and my boyfriend went to go watch the movie, jackass. And I actually did that. For him. That was something that I knew he wanted to go see, it was so great to not have my phone out for two and a half hours that we watched the movie. And it really helped me almost like regroup or just not be looking at my phone not worrying about what I need to do to clean the house at home or anything like that. It was just awesome to unplug more or less for those two and a half hours and just laugh my butt off at a funny movie. So that's what they're meaning by that. Another one. Another type of self care is mental self care. And that is doing something many mentally stimulating, such as playing a game doing a puzzle, or doing something that allows you to take care of your mental state. This is like using affirmations or practicing kindness to yourself. Mentally, you need to keep your mind stimulated engaged in in a positive place. So you can handle your day to day tasks with ease confidence and less mental stress. The next one, surprise, surprise, physical self care. This is taking care of your body. And that might include whatever activities you like to do that includes exercise, eating, well stretching or yoga. When you take care of yourself physically, you ensure that you stay healthy and you have the energy to complete your daily tasks. Practical self care is typically about what you need to do in a more logistical sense, such as decluttering, tackling something on your to do list are making doctor's appointments. When you complete these daily self care activities and tasks that are more practical in nature, you may feel calm, more calm, in control, satisfied and accomplished. social self care uses friends and other people to help you maintain relationships, feel connected to others and take care of yourself. This includes and engaging in activities that include others, others or allow you to be social, like a night out with friends a date night or talking on the phone. When you have these needs met, you'll likely feel happier, more secure and loved. And then the last one is spiritual self care. This will depend on your spiritual beliefs, but it might include meditation, going to church or praying, when you practice, practice spiritual self care, you feel more connected to a higher power, and therefore more grounded, and secure. So I think I said the beginning I was going to go through the six of them and list them and I did not do that. So let me do that. Now. The six types of self care, we have emotional self care, mental self care, physical self care, practical self care, social, and then spiritual self care. So those are the four are those are the six ones. Now, here's an important thing, that a lot of people are probably yelling at me right now, Melissa, how do I time how do I have time for self care, I don't have time to take a day off or to take a couple hours to go to a spa or to go to get a massage. And that's why I wanted to tell you and show you those six types already is that doesn't have to be the form of self care canopy. Of course it can be. But we know now that there are so many different types, and this is going to be dependent upon you and what you enjoy, you might not like getting massages at all my boyfriend does not enjoy them, he does not want to be touched by a stranger. So that would not be his form of self care. So something that I have started doing every single morning and I have now done this where it is a habit I have formed it into a habit I do not miss it ever. Now every single day and if you follow me on social media and you watch my videos or anything, you know that I am always writing a gratitude journal every single day. I have this little journal, I don't have it here it's in my room. And my routine is I go get my coffee, and I take a few sips of my coffee and I start writing down however many things I'm grateful for. I personally try to fill up the whole page because I do feel that there could be that many things that you're grateful for small things, whatever they are. And that has now became my self care morning routine. I start my day with gratitude and writing down all those things. That takes me all of three minutes to do but it is something now I don't skip a morning on it that is like myself care morning routine. I don't you know my boyfriend's watching the news or whatever that is my time for myself care that in the morning. And then there there can be other Other things throughout the day that we do to take care of ourselves. I guess I also want to say, you know, self love and self care. They can be, they can be different because caring is like what you're going to do to take care of those things where self love is like something you might struggle with. Personally, I don't know if that makes sense. I hope that makes sense to you guys. But for instance, let me give you an example. I for a long time, have struggled with self love, because one of the ways I struggled with it is because of the way that I was raised. And my dad was very much, he was very, very hard on us. And everything that we did just didn't seem to be good enough for him. And that right there can give any kid a complex and then that kid grows up to be an adult. And then they actually are a perfectionist, which is what I was everything that I did, if it was not perfect. If it did not go above and beyond what it had to be this goes all the way from working out to, you know, my podcast, anything I it had to be perfect. So that was one of the ways that I struggled with self love, because I always felt that anything that I did, it had to be perfect. And if it wasn't, then I wasn't worthy of success or whatever it might be. The next thing that I lost my self worth, and self love, I guess you could say was losing my mom. And, you know, I really tried to put this into words in the best way that I can explain it is whenever you lose your mom at the age of 25, you really think that you have your shit together, when in fact, like I didn't have my shit together. And I really needed my mom to learn about so many other things. Examples I always throw out out is like taxes or like, Mom, how do you make this recipe? What was your old recipe that you and grandma used to make any of those like womanly things that I needed my mom for? I no longer had that. And I just had to figure it out on my own. And without having her reassurance of like, yeah, you're doing it right, Melissa, that always made me question things. So those two combined, I did struggle with self love. I don't want to say that it was like, flat out, like I hated myself. But I did struggle, I was extremely hard on myself. Um, so that's what I mean by like the self love stuff. So I really hope I'm not I really, really hope I'm not talking in circles. I apologize. If I am, I'm hoping it's all making sense. So I'm going to go over five things that you can do to start practicing self love. And please know that these are totally up to you. I'm just wanting to put out ideas for you. Okay, these are not things that you have to go by. But if you're like I don't even know where to start, Melissa. These are some ideas that you could start doing to start practicing self love. If you're one of the people that does struggle with this, for whatever reason, maybe it's a similar reason that I have or maybe it's another reason. But five things you can do to start practicing self love is thank you to better health for being our sponsor. If you guys think you might need to see a therapist better help is amazing. They are online, you can do it from the comfort of your own home, you have the options to message them, you can do a phone call, you can do a video chat, whatever you feel comfortable with doing. They have several different types of therapists if you need couples, or for marriage and family therapy, it's also available to individuals worldwide. Better help is a monthly subscription. So you're not paying per session and financial aid is available for those who qualify. So visit better help.com/bright side of life, that's better help.com/bright side of life, join over 500,000 people taking charge of their mental health with the help of an experienced professional. And for your first month you're going to receive 10% off by being a listener of the bright side of life. So let them know that I sent you by using the link better help.com forward slash bright side of life. The link will also be in the description section of this episode. Do not believe everything that you think your thoughts are not necessarily your reality. Okay. You might, and I'm very very guilty of this. My boyfriend will be the first one to tell you. So if I put on a shirt and I'm like, Oh my gosh, I look awful on this. This doesn't look good. I haven't been taken care of myself, like my mind will just start going down this rabbit hole right? And I will start believing these thoughts and No, we cannot. I had a friend coach John I was just on his podcast. He was telling me that He puts like little clouds around these these thoughts, okay, they're like little thought clouds. And he just lets them go freely, just as if clouds would, is as easily as they come into your mind, he just lets them go right kind of like bounce out like clouds, if that makes sense. So don't believe everything that you think, okay. And you can start each day by telling yourself something really positive about your self. This is so important to the process of self love, because we can be so damn mean to ourselves and pick ourselves apart for things that we have or haven't done. And so if we start each day with saying something positive, positive to ourselves, that can be really, really beneficial. And I'm going to actually take it one step further, and tell you a little story. And if you want to try this exercise, I think it's awesome. So I was just doing this beyond TV boot camp with Jen Gottlieb and Chris Winfield. And it was absolutely amazing. It one of our challenges that we had to do was we had to write a badass list. Our badass list included everything that we could remember, for as long as we have lived, okay, so if you could remember when you were five years old, and you did something badass till the time now, write down every single thing that you did, that you made you feel like a badass was that having your kid was that speaking at a conference was that running a marathon? So I want to challenge you to write your badass list. And when you go back and look at that, and you're like, holy crap, like, I've really done some amazing things like I should be super proud of myself. And then you can keep that in your notes like in your phone, you can go back and look at it. If you're ever feeling down on yourself. I just think it's awesome. It was so much fun writing my badass list. So I encourage you to do that. Okay, now I had to get my puppy dog because he won't stop barking again, this is what happens when I try to record when my boyfriend's not here. Hopefully he's okay. Something else. So I've done five, okay, I've done two things that you can do to start practicing self love. Something that has really, really worked well for me is trying something that scares you, guys, this is huge, huge, huge into, at least for me, it was when I say things that scare you, this does not mean jumping out of a plane. And I know you guys have heard me talk about this a lot before. This means things that you are wanting you to accomplish. But your brain is trying to keep you safe and comfortable. And it's like why are you going to try that, Melissa, that is not going to work? You're going to not succeed at that. Why would you do that? Tell your brain to shut up. All it wants to do is to keep you safe and comfortable. It does not want you taking any of these risks. You have to do them anyway. Because the second that you do, and you realize, oh my god, I did not die. Oh my god, I did not fall flat on my face. Oh my god, I did not do this thing that I thought was going to happen. It didn't happen, right? And you keep doing those little things that scare you more and more. And then you keep impressing yourself. You're like, oh my gosh, I did that thing. Once I look at you, you did that thing. That has been one of the quickest, fastest ways for me to get myself love and my self worth back was to prove to myself that I can do these things. Something else I'm going to talk about Chris and John, again. They had mentioned in this bootcamp that all we have to do is to believe in ourselves just a little bit more than we don't just a little bit 51%. Okay. Can you believe in yourself? 51% more than you don't? That's just 1% more than you don't? And if you can, that is awesome. Because, guys, we're not supposed to be doing this stuff. With no fear, we are all going to be scared. Okay, we're all scared that something bad's gonna happen that it's not going to turn out the way it's supposed to be so on and so forth. But if you're like, what, maybe it could turn out a different way and maybe it could turn out really awesome. If you have that. That is going to get you so far. Okay. So I encourage you, if there is something right now that you have been wanting to try or have you been wanting to see, please, please, please go do it. Report back to me send me a message or something and say, oh my god, Melissa, I am so happy that I tried this. I was scared and it wasn't even that bad. Okay. Another thing. I think I pretty much have already named five. So don't believe everything you think start by telling yourself really positive you can make that badass list and you can try something that scares you. Another thing that you might not even thought of is if You're gonna if you would start making a gratitude list and what is the key to self love? That is being grateful for ourselves appreciating ourselves, saying, Melissa, I know you have been through so much in your life, but look how far you have come. That's appreciation that is being grateful for ourselves. Now, I'm not even going to act like this is not hard to do. And there is a reason why this is hard to do. Why is it so hard to practice self love? Why is this difficult? Difficult? No, I don't want to say practice practicing is easy. But it's hard to love ourselves sometimes. Because we compare ourselves to everything, at least I know, I do. Or if there's something that I'm insecure about, and maybe something somebody has that I compare, oh, my God, why am I not that successful? Why don't I have a million subscribers and 80,000 million downloads yet? I could really fall into that trap when I don't know their story. Why am I comparing myself to them? Maybe they weren't in the same position I was. So we compare, we compare on social media, we compare in everyday life, when we see our friends, that is going to not get us to self love. Okay, we compare, and we're too hard on ourselves, we seriously follow what society tells us is right. Not saying everybody does, but there are so many times where we these societal pressures of oh, you should be married by this time, or you should have already graduated or you should have this degree, or you should have this much money, or you should have this many kids or you should look a certain way, you should talk a certain way. All these things that society tells us is wrong, or is not the way it should be. And we start to feel that way. That's bullshit. It's bullshit. And it's hard. I won't lie. I have definitely felt times in my life where I'm like, Oh, my God. You know, I did things quite bass ackwards, if you will, I had my daughter when I was 16, I'm still not married. I'm not ashamed of that. I, I'm not ashamed of that. I'm actually quite proud of that, because I wasn't going to just marry the first person that came along in my life. But society that could really screw with some people, and they're like, Oh, my God, I was supposed to be married, or I'm supposed to have a kid by this age, so on and so forth. So that's why sometimes it can be so difficult to love ourselves. And when those thoughts come in, that's when I'm telling you do not believe everything that you think, don't believe all the bad thoughts. You have to start trying to train your brain, to tell yourself, tell yourself nice things, positive things, and not go down that cycle, not let that be your reality. That has been extremely, extremely powerful for me. So I also wanted to talk about three questions that we can ask ourselves on our journey to self love. And this one is really, really important. And I try to do this one every, every time I'm challenged with something. So I'll tell you what it is. And then I'll explain are my goals, really what I want? Or are they imposed by society, or popular personalities? As right? That is something that I have asked myself time and time and time and time again. Because I might think I want something because somebody else has it, and they seem happy, or they seem successful. But is it really what Melissa would want? Is that really what I would want my life to look like? So ask yourself that? And if the answer is no, I don't really want that. That does not look like fun. I do not want to whatever the answer would be. So ask yourself, Is this really what Sara would want? Is this really what Leanna would want? Is this really what Mike would want? Ask yourself that. And this is another goal of mine this this this year. 2022 is how can I simplify my life and focus on what is truly important? truly important to you. Okay. Last year, I was trying to do a million 1000 100 things to try to make money to try to Well, the biggest part of it was to try to make money and I was being torn 5 million different directions. And I always felt like I could not catch up. I couldn't catch up to what I was trying to do. This year, I said, no, there are two things I'm focusing on this year. I'm focusing on growing my podcast, growing and monetizing my podcast. And I'm focusing on my boyfriend's business, who I help him with his painting business. Those are what I'm focusing on. Now, obviously, there's a lot more that goes into helping my boyfriend with his painting business and growing my podcast. But last year, I was trying to do so many other things. And that's what I'm focusing on this year, because I couldn't keep up and I just it made myself. I was like, Melissa, you can't do this. Like, you couldn't keep up with all this stuff. And it just made me feel like I wasn't doing enough when it's like, maybe you have too much shit on your plate. Why are you trying to do 85,000? Things? Melissa, like you don't need to do that. So how can you simplify your life and focus on what is important to you, your family, the people around you, whatever it is. And then the last thing I wanted to say is what is one thing that you could do today that your future self tomorrow would be proud of? And that's up to you to decide. That's not for me to that's not for me? To decide for you. That's something that you have to ask yourself, you know, what just popped in my head if you're trying to quit drinking soda, maybe today you drink one less Canna soda? Would tomorrow? Would you be proud of yourself for that? Hell yeah, you would be. So that's something. And with all the things I just said that I pray to God made sense to you, because I was kind of talking in circles. These are some ways that we can get back to loving ourselves, that we can get back to caring for ourselves. Because I know everyone is so busy, and we have so many things going on. But I'm going to tell you right now that you you are deserving of self love. You are deserving of self care. I don't care if you have 18 little kids running around and you have a husband, you still deserve time, you still deserve time for yourself. Whatever that is, if it's 10 minutes to read a book that you love, if it's going to take a bath, if it's going to see a funny movie, if it's going to listen to a podcast. Like if you're listening to this podcast right now, I'm going to consider that a form of self care. I would like to think it's a form of self care. I hope you do too. Okay, so I hope that this episode made sense to you. I hope you guys got some knowledge, some tips, some little nuggets about self care, and about self love. And I hope that you guys can apply them to your life. If there is something that you would like to tell me about that really helped you get back to self love self worth are something that you do for self care. I would love to hear it. I'm always all about hearing different ways. Because what might work for one person might not work for the other, I have realized I suck at journaling. I wish I could do journaling really good. But we're just journal in general, I can't write that much. My hand gets tired and I just don't want to. So I don't so now I just keep a gratitude journal. Maybe I'll get to that point. So just know. It's whatever works for you. It's whatever works for your schedule. Don't Don't think about like, oh, what Melissa is doing. If you don't want to write a gratitude journal don't I'm going to tell you practicing gratitude is extremely powerful. That can be a whole nother episode. Anyways, I digress. I want to say thank you. Thank you guys very, very much for listening to this episode. Once again, if you wanted to tell me how you do your self care how you got back to self love, feel free you guys can email me at the bright side of life podcast.com You guys can go follow me on socials and you can message me on there. Whatever you want to do, I would love to hear about it. And as you know guys, if you know anyone else that may need to hear these tips and tricks about self love and self care. Please please share this episode with them because you never know if this is the one that puts hope back in their heart.