in this week's episode, i'm sharing the importance of self-care and how to practice self-care when you're having a bad day.
welcome to small steps to self-love with bestselling mental health writer, shelby leigh! each episode covers a different mental health-related topic and has a "small step" or action for you to take on your self-love journey. tune in for today's small step about self-care and tag me on IG @shelbyleighpoetry if you share how the small step goes for you. i'd love to hear!
be sure to subscribe for more episodes like this! if you enjoy the podcast, leaving a rating and review is an incredible way to support the podcast and future episodes. thank you so much for listening.
self-care interview with authority magazine
be sure to subscribe for more episodes like this! if you enjoy the podcast, leaving a rating and review is an incredible way to support the podcast and future episodes. thank you so much for listening.
resources from shelby:
· check out Shelby’s mental health poetry books
· Free self-love poetry print
· Join the poetry club
connect with shelby:
· Instagram: @shelbyleighpoetry
· YouTube: Shelby Leigh Poetry
· TikTok: @shelbyleighpoetry
· Twitter: @shelbyleighpoet
Leave a voice message to be featured in future episodes!
Hello hello! Welcome back to another episode of small steps to self love. I'm Shelby Leigh, a mental health and self love writer and today I am not having a good day. I'm fine. A lot of like little minor things going wrong and it all just kind of seems to bundle up at once doesn’t it? Like you know those days where just a bunch of little things go wrong and it all just culminates at the span of a few hours and it seems like the world is against us and just everything is not great. So that's the type of day that I'm having and normally I prepare what I wanna talk about each episode and I wanted to talk about self-care today, and I'm gonna change the context to self-care on those bad days where all these things are going wrong. And I think that's what I want to talk about today I normally prepare something I normally have you know a few notes a little bit of an outline for each episode and I didn't get the chance to do that today 'cause i've been in different calls and meetings today. Even though I'm not having the best day I'm gonna go through anyway and I figured already you know this is a podcast about the ups and downs of self love and mental health so why not show you those days? Why not talk about that right?
Again, it's nothing major and I remind myself and something that I try to recommend to others and something that I try to recommend to myself is thinking about: will this matter tomorrow? Will this matter in two weeks? Will this matter in a month? Will this matter in a year? And of course if it will matter in a month or a year then it's something important of course. If that's something that maybe won't matter tomorrow then we have to let those things go and not hold on to that anger or that sadness. For me like one of the things today was just one of my systems that I use for my business not working and it costs me money when it doesn't work so that was irritating for me today. And then I got an e-mail that didn't make me happy either kind of just sent me into a bit of a spiral of sadness. And last week I had one of these days as well so kind of it just seems like it's like piling on right now right. Like everything is fine I'm healthy and overall happy and my family and friends are happy and healthy so there's nothing major. Nothing is an emergency.
So that's what I am reminding myself of on days like this but I did wanna talk about self-care and just taking care of our minds like days like this so I already mentioned one tip that is thinking about the severity of the situation and if it's going to matter tomorrow. And then the other thing is just rest if possible and stepping away from the situation I have a tendency to or something is not working like I wanted to just keep trying to make it work, to keep you know doing different things. This particular one was like sitting at my computer talking to customer service which is never fun and trying to resolve something that is gonna take a few days but I want it resolved right now. So just stepping away just giving myself an hour to breathe and relax. I just got back from lunch so I'm like OK starting mindset it's the afternoon so just trying to separate yourself if you can from this situation is very helpful. And I think doing some form of self-care which rest is definitely self-care and taking a break is definitely self-care, but doing something that really makes you happy and energizes you because I feel like being sad is so draining or being frustrated or angry or sad, especially when it's all piling on you at once it is so emotionally draining. It is physically draining and so resting is so important but I think also finding something that will reenergize you and put a smile on your face, even if it's just for a little bit is really helpful too.
So that's why I wanted to talk about self-care and the importance of self-care. I recently did an interview on myself care practices and routines, I'm going to link in the description box but I also wanted to share some of the things that I talked about in that interview because I had such a good time talking about it, so I wanted to share with you my perspective on self-care and some of the things that I personally do for self-care. A lot of it has to do with creativity and kind of listening to our bodies and our minds and pursuing the things that really bring us joy and energize us.
Why self-care matters:
Self-care will help you form a better relationship with yourself. It's a way to be mindful of and learn what you need to feel good mentally and physically. The times that I sit in journal in silence which is one of the ways I practice self-care, are times to connect with myself and listen to myself. It's so powerful to enjoy that stillness and enjoy a conversation with you and that leads to a better appreciation of your time and your mind. And even though it's unintentional my best ideas come in those quiet moments with myself so that is my perspective on self-care and what it can do for us and our minds and our bodies.
And I wanted to share a few things that I do for self-care. I already mentioned one of them which is journaling and i've definitely talked about that before there are definitely days where self-care falls lower on the priority list than it should. It can be hard to prioritize ourselves when we have other people in our lives, when we have work, family whatever is kind of taking priority but I think we got to make time for ourselves too and I think that's so important on happy days and on sad days to practice caring for ourselves. So as you may know one of my absolute favorite daily habits is journaling it's so healing to get things out on the page so I do prompts every day I do a little bit of journaling about my day and I kind of use it to track how I'm feeling and notice those periods of happiness versus sadness or what seems to trigger those bad days and then the tools that i've used to help on those bad days so I think that's a really really valuable tool.
I also love getting outside word being active I know not everyone can or enjoys doing that for me being in nature is really inspiring but it also just takes my mind off of my problems even if it's not a small problem just being out naturally kind of grounds me and reminds me of how huge this universe is and how all I am it kind of just helps me take my mind off of it for a little bit that connects me with nature.
And then the third thing is I love creativity it really is something that energizes me creative writing creative things with my business whether it's this podcast even. I think it's so important to have these creative routines and kind of treat it as a priority in your life if you have a passionate creative passion or it doesn't even have to be something that considered creative. Maybe you're more of like a numbers person math or science person honoring that and having that to go to on bad days so for me like I very much make it a priority to write and read or which are two things that bring me joy creatively and so I make it like a ceremony almost it's a process for me.
I like my candle I have my comfy reading chair next to a bookshelf where I can easily pick some books off the shelf and my journal and my favorite pens and they're all there that makes it easy for me to pursue those passions to just have it right there and then I don't have an excuse to not do it. It's just there for me and i'll have to rummage around searching for these things I have this space that I know and love and go too often so I think that's really really important as well. And it's such a great way to practice that self-care and I think that when we don't practice self-care and we're just kind of robots going through the day not taking time for ourselves getting you know things down on their To Do List, caring for others and not caring for ourselves it can just feel like we're floating through the day, and almost mindlessly not really being present in the moment, not being present with ourselves.
Time is the most important thing that we have is the most precious thing that we have and not appreciating our time and not appreciating ourselves at that time and how we spend our time is not something we wanna look back and wish that we had spent more time not working or not pursuing something that we wanted to pursue. That’s just one more reason why I think self-care is just so important on a daily basis even if you're like nowhere near a daily basis, which they are definitely weeks where I it falls down on the priority list. There are a lot of things that are busy with my work and so it can be hard to make that a priority so I definitely recommend starting small and blocking off a little bit of time in your calendar really making an effort like setting reminders on your phone or on your calendar or whatever you use for some sort of planning for your day organizing your week.
Setting aside that time I have to physically like put things on my calendar if I want to actually remember to do them and so that's how I organize myself and maybe I know a different way it works better for you but I think that it is so important to set aside a little bit of time each day then maybe you start with a few times a week versus every single day if that's not feasible for you right now or if that seems like a huge jump for you right now that's what I would recommend starting with.
How our listeners practice self-care:
And then I also asked my audience we haven't done this in a couple of weeks but I asked my audience what they do for self-care on a bad day so I wanted to share some answers from all of you as well. I ask these regularly on Instagram so if you wanna be maybe featured in a future episode follow me on Instagram and I post these questions in my story.
So the first person actually is so in tune with me and what I love they said that they blast happy music and dance they also said they clean the house which is not so much what I enjoy doing I don't like cleaning at all, but blasting happy music and dancing is definitely a joy for me so that definitely helps.
Make coffee get under a blanket put on a comfort show or movie and curl up with a book. Absolutely I definitely find tedious helpful whenever I'm having a bad day I'm like let me just wash this fictional world it will help me get my mind off of things right take a long bath someone said on my bad days I just go to my mom and hug her that's really sweet I hug is helpful sheet myself to new book or snack it's the small things for me just taking that time for myself yes absolutely.
Cuddle cats are my dog go for a walk listen to my favorite music any affection from an animal or a person is helpful tremendously helpful hide myself in solitude so this is kind of the opposite of what the previous person said hide myself in solitude to order my thoughts by focusing on something external poetry films etc.
Yeah so definitely I think that it's important to recognize if we're always just keeping things in and bundling things in to ourselves that can be really hard on our mental health to even if we are turning to poetry to lot things out which is something that I definitely do it's also really really important to speak to other people to find that support system a friend or a family member or just a loved one and talking about it I think is really helpful as well. But I definitely rely on those internal thoughts and talking with myself and writing code straight on those days too so I definitely can relate to that.
Have a good cry and right absolutely good cry really can help clear the head and then the last person said usually a walk in nature to try and clear my mind absolutely we talked about nature and that's something that's pretty big for me as well so I'm glad that people have what what works for them in terms of self-care on bad days or good days too. I think it's important regardless of how you're feeling.
Poems from changing with the tides.
So I always read a poem or two so I again like I said I normally play in these episodes out a little bit more so I don't even have a plan of what column would be good for this exact conversation I'm gonna look through and take out a piece that I think will resonate with you on this topic. “happiness lives in a little room in my heart and some days it prefers the curtains drawn shut. (and i've learned that's okay.) That's page 57 of changing with the tides and I remember writing this and thinking that no one would understand or think that it's weird. I don't know I guess just the concept I was hoping people would understand what I was going for but it's basically just those days that happiness is nowhere to be found it's just a bad day that it's OK to give ourselves rest that our heart needs rest our mind our bodies I need rest and that's OK that's an OK thing to close off for the day or a few days and open up when we're ready and that the happiness will come back soon that's what that was about but I think that one is a little bit fitting with what we're talking about today.
“I chase storms without fear because I know the dark clouds will eventually lead to blue skies.” That's page 71 that changing with the tides I'm just reading a couple really short ones today but I think that that one also is a good one for today because right now it's like dark clouds right? It's like you know the dark days the stormy skies and it can seem like there will never be a blue sky again then that we were just like living in this darkness in cloudy skies and rain and Thunder but the sky will clear and there will be blue skies again and it may take time. It may come soon, it may take a while that we have to keep pushing and keep moving forward.
Small Step:
As always in every episode I give you a small step to take on yourself love journey. And I really want you to focus on self-care this week. I want you to take those actions we talked about, setting a reminder for yourself 10 minutes a day, half hour a day and do something that makes your mind and body feel good. If it's going on a walk, if it's watching your favorite show and you haven't been able to do that in a while, it's been so busy. If it is talking to a friend, if it is writing and journaling and talking to yourself and clearing your mind that way, if it is dancing around your house or your apartment and blasting music, whatever it is take that time. Really make that a focus for yourself this week and I will talk to you in next weeks episode. Have a wonderful wonderful week with self love and compassion and kindness. Thank you for listening.