Transcript
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Welcome back to the women's mental health podcast.
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I'm randy.
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I'm And I'm Jess.
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And we are two licensed psychotherapists, and this is a safe space where we talk about mental health, well being, and strategies for coping with life's challenges.
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And how all of this is normal, and you are not alone.
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Today's episode is all about something we can benefit from micro self care, especially on busy days.
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These are quick, simple things.
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We can incorporate easily into our day to day routines to keep our mental health in check, especially when life gets busy.
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Hectic.
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And it's getting hectic right now.
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It is so hectic.
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It just feels like self care can be this big thing that we make it.
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We have to do this all huge time consuming.
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Yeah, it needs to be on the calendar.
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Bougie.
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Yeah,
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spend
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all this money.
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And we just don't have it.
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So we're going to share some easy tips and different ways that we can build these into our lives daily.
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So find us in more information.
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on womensmentalhealthpodcast.
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com.
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Have you ever had
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these thoughts?
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What exactly is micro self care?
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How can I incorporate micro self care into my hectic workday?
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Can you suggest a quick self care activity for a busy mom?
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I'm too tired for self care after work or after my day.
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What can I do?
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What are some examples of emotional micro self care?
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Is it possible to practice self care in the workplace during my workday?
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Yes, it is actually.
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I've got a couple.
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How can I remember to practice
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self care
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when I'm busy?
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Can micro self care help with my stress?
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What if I feel guilty taking time for
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myself?
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How can I make micro self care a habit?
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I like that.
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Let's make it a habit.
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Let's do it.
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So let's start with defining micro self care.
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So what is it, Jess?
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Micro self care is about the small, manageable self care practices that we can fit into even our busiest of days.
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These aren't hour long meditations, it's not spa days, it's not two hour bubble bath, but they're little things that take a minute to do.
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To breathe deeply, stretching, or even savoring a cup of tea without distraction.
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Oh, gosh, I love some good tea in the winter.
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I do.
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I love hot cocoa, especially during the winter.
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Or an apple cider, like warm apple cider.
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This is about breaking down self care into manageable, but bite sized, little mini bite sized pieces.
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I imagine those little tiny mini Snickers.
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I was imagining little tiny Reese's Pieces.
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Oh, how funny.
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Yours are even smaller.
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Mine's They have the mini Skittles.
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Have you seen them?
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They're like little tiny little little baby bite sized.
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Okay.
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Yeah.
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For example, if you're swamped with work and only have a minute, you can do a quick grounding exercise or a quick breathing technique to help center yourself.
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And these things, while many might not seem like a lot at first, But like we've said with anything in life, small things add up to big things.
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And with those things, you feel more balanced and you feel more present.
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Oh, that's like, when you're trying to get your steps in, you can park a little further away.
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So that way, instead of getting that, you walk a little bit more or you're like, let's do a walking meeting because I need to get my steps in today versus sitting.
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And so it's just adding little, oops, I'm hitting things today.
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It's just adding little pieces over and over.
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Okay.
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This Microsoft Care, it became really popular and it's becoming really popular because most of us are so busy and so fast paced and full of distractions.
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Do you know how many times I hear, I hate to say this, but COVID was really good for me.
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Yeah, because people took time to be with themselves.
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Yes, they got to go on walks They weren't forced to go do all this stuff.
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So I hear that so much
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Because like with smartphones and with social media, we're constantly like plugged in to things and many of us have that So many roles that we take on, whether at work, at home, socially, a mother, daughter, friend, whatever you are, it can feel overwhelming.
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Exactly, and so many people don't have time for the traditional self care.
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It's hard to take an afternoon off or do a long yoga class.
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In fact, I've got like three minutes sometimes in between clients and I will do a couple of stretches I can't do a whole hour But I will do stretches or I make sure that I get up and I walk around my kitchen island I literally will get out of my office, I'll go walk around my kitchen island, grab my cheese and my soda, and then I come back, but I make sure Your cheese stick.
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My cheese stick.
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Because that's all we're eating is
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a cheese stick.
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Cheese stick and a Diet Coke.
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It's better than nothing.
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That's the mindset that we have with this.
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It's protein.
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It's
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protein.
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And I can't have a huge meal in three minutes, so I can eat a cheese stick.
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But I'll do it.
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And I go the long way, or if I really need to walk, I'll also go around the dining room table, and then I come back, so A, I've gotten some steps, I've got a little bit of movement, and I'm not just stuck there, and so it's about adding these little things
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up.
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this is like an answer to this modern problem where We don't have large blocks of time And so when we break it down into these small actions, we're making it more attainable We can access it.
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We can be more consistent than with it And it's something that you don't have to wait for the perfect time to do I feel like a lot of times we get in our heads and we're like it needs to be a certain Atmosphere it needs to be a certain time of the day like I need to have a new outfit to do this no we just You Do it.
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You give yourself, that one minute or that five minutes or that ten minutes and be like, okay I'm just gonna do it.
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I'm just gonna stretch.
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I'm just gonna breathe I'm just gonna walk outside and put my feet, you know in the grass Whatever that looks like and just be like I'm gonna do it right now on this moment
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So many of us wait for that perfect moment.
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You're right.
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An hour and I'm gonna wait Because we don't have a full Full hour together because the kids came in or because work called or because we have to run and grab the dogs from the vet, whatever it is.
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But you know what we can do is we can take 10 minutes.
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So why is this so important for women's mental health?
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As women, we are often the caregivers.
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We're not just caring for our children, but our partners, our parents, our friends.
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We are in this caregiving role and sometimes it feels very selfish or even impossible.
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And I'm going to say to carve out time for ourselves.
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We have this concept that we can carve out time or that we can make time or we can set aside time.
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That is not how time works.
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It does not grow on a tree in the backyard.
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I wish it did.
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I could go pluck time out of the air.
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It is not something and time is something I hear women all the time saying is I don't have time.
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I don't have time for that.
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I don't have time.
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And
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that's us putting our needs last.
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Yes.
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And sometimes we're like, well, I need a full hour of this so I can get replenished.
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No, I don't need a full hour.
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I need 10 minutes.
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Before I can go be a better person.
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Yeah, and those 10 minutes every day of the week, that's an hour of that.
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That adds up.
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Those little things add up.
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Yeah, sometimes I'll sit in my office, Randy, and I'll finish with my day, and I'm not ready to go outside yet.
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I'm not ready to go out into the kitchen.
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And so I'll stay in my office for 10 minutes.
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And they're like, oh, did somebody go over?
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Oh, yeah, I was just wrapping some stuff up.
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Nah, dude, I might be sitting there stretching or playing on Facebook.
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Sometimes I hide
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out in my car.
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I just don't get out of the car because I'm like in a little bubble.
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I'm either working or doing something or taking a break, because I don't want any other distractions.
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And I'm just like, this is my little safe zone.
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Cause I don't have a reading shack in the backyard though.
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I would love one, but it's giving myself like that safe space to just take a handful of minutes to kind of like check in with myself and reset because often we get to the point where we feel like we're going to break.
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Exactly.
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Gosh, one time when mine was like two, they were apparently in the garage and the garage was slightly open and I was in the driveway and I was in my car for five more minutes.
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It had been one of those days I wanted to finish a couple songs.
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Next thing I know, I see this little head popping underneath it.
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Mom's home! Mom's home! I'm all excited.
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I'm excited.
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And the next thing you know, the garage door's going up.
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Oh, what are you doing?
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Yep.
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Just got here.
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Yep.
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So then I decided I had to wait down the street when I needed that extra time.
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I'd be parked two houses down and then when I was ready, I would drive in.
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And so it's finding whatever you need to do to make that time.
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See here I am making time.
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We can't make time.
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We can't carve it.
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Just taking small moments to show up for ourselves.
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It reinforces that we are important too.
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We are important.
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We deserve to be cared for.
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We deserve to take care of ourselves.
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And this has an overall impact on our mental health, our physical health.
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Emotional, everything.
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Especially when we do it consistently.
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I am a better person when I take care of myself.
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It just, I'm Because like
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we've talked about this before, you cannot pour from an empty cup.
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You can't just give and give and give and give and get nothing back in return.
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You are going to shatter.
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Or get snappy or say things that you don't want.
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And so it is okay to say, I need Five minutes.
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I need ten minutes.
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I need a half hour.
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And I've shared this before, my mom worked a very stressful, high level job.
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She would come home from her long commute and she would go into her bedroom and change.
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I didn't know at the time, but it would take ten minutes to an hour.
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I don't know.
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Yeah, and that was her That was her decompressing that she'd say as soon as I changed we could talk to her and the minute She walked out and she was changed.
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We could all attack her in the hallway,
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though Like I need this time to Yeah process and I used to do that too and I would come home from working with clients especially because I was in a high stress severely, mentally ill clients.
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I need an hour to just, whether that's cry, and let it all out.
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so that I wasn't bringing that into my home life and my kids I could process the day and let it go and be able to be like, okay, now I'm here.
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Now I'm present.
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I know.
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I love it.
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My family's always like, how was your day today?
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It was great! But I'm thinking I had to call CPS once, I had to do a safety plan, I was a little worried about the last one, but I'm like, oh, it's great, yeah, it's great, how was your day?
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Because I can't talk about it, let's do some practical tips for some other people, besides ourselves, on how they can incorporate the micro self care tips.
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So one of our favorites is a one minute deep breath.
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When you feel overwhelmed, take one minute to breathe in deeply through your nose on four counts.
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and then exhale for four counts.
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Just doing this simple act of deep breathing can help you feel more grounded and reduce your anxiety almost instantly.
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when you do this, I really want you to either do a superwoman pose.
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Or put your hands up on your head like a triangle, like you just ran a marathon.
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Yeah, yeah.
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do box breathing before.
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Well,
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yeah, box or triangle breathing.
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Yeah, when you do it like that, because what it does is it opens up your lungs.
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And if you could just do that no more than three times, really, because then you'll get lightheaded.
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But just do that and it will really all of a sudden change the scenario of whatever is happening.
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And if you do that a couple of times a day, set a reminder, put it on your watch.
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A lot of our watches will tell us to breathe, which is great.
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Just do that one minute and that is going to change your day.
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So this next one I love so much too.
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So let's talk about mindful sipping.
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we're not talking about vodka, okay?
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We're talking, we're not like mindfully sipping whiskey.
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We're talking about that cup of coffee or tea.
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Randi gave me this cool she had no, I don't know how she knew I wanted a teacup, like a teakettle.
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She gave me this.
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Oh yeah, for your office.
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Yeah, she gave me this beautiful iridescent tea kettle that I pull out every winter, because it's nice and cold in my office, it's like this whole display thing, and I put it on one of my pretty boards.
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I have a little tea cup with it, and I put my decaf tea in it, but it's always something that is just lovely, like a berry or, yes, it is, and then now I'm also getting my water, and I will pour from that, and I will just sip.
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From that.
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And I will take a moment while I'm doing it to not only just chug it, like I do my coffee, but to smell the tea.
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Because the aroma, like the essence, enjoying
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the flavor, like just taking that five minutes to just
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pause
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and.
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And be present in that moment of what you're doing.
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Yeah.
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And just the taste of it, because again, I don't, I, I has to be something yummy that I like and just really enjoying that moment, even if I'm with a client, I want to just, just have it there in my hand and enjoy it.
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And it's gotta be a pretty cup, by the way, it can't be an ugly cup.
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And it has to be a pretty cup.
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I'm holding a cup in my air.
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It's a pretty cup.
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Okay.
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Another tip during your work day would be every hour or so to get up and stretch, maybe look out the window, shift your position.
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Somehow a lot of us have these standing desks, lowering desks, just to shift it and move and maybe just acknowledge like a stretch to the sun, that is such a good, yeah,
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Yeah.
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Cause that helps it reduces tension, helps you clear your mind.
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That's why too, if you have an Apple watch, like it tells you, you need to get up and move.
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Like every so often.
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They all do.
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Yeah.
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Even like a Fitbit.
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A lot of times I ignore it.
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But, I'm like, okay, no, I need to get up and I need to move my body because that's going to help me throughout the day.
