17: self-care when you feel drained

With the holidays coming up, we are focused a lot on other people, buying them gifts, cooking for our family. It can bring up a lot of hard emotions for those who are missing family or don’t have a good relationship with family, and we can end up giving a lot and leaving nothing for ourselves.

In this episode of small steps to self-love, Shelby talks about the importance of self-care during this time, and challenges you to practice compassion and self-care so you aren't left empty.

If you are looking for a quick dose of inspiration, listen to this episode!

welcome to small steps to self-love with bestselling mental health writer, shelby leigh!

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Transcript

Welcome back to another episode of small steps to self love. Im Shelby Leigh, host and mental health writer and today we're talking about self compassion and showing yourself kindness especially during the holiday season.

The holidays are coming up in the US, Thanksgiving is next week and it is a time of giving. It is a time of being thankful for what we have and with the holidays in December coming up too it is time of really giving and showing other people kindness and compassion, donating to charity, buying presents for your friends and family and loved ones, cooking for our families.

It can also bring up a lot of hard emotions around family if you aren't close with your family or you're missing loved ones during the holidays. There's a lot of pressure around the holidays to call family and call friends and catch up with them and get the right presents for everybody, and we can quickly fall to the bottom of our To Do List during this season and forget about ourselves.

And so today I want to just share a reminder with you: we know that being kind and compassionate and getting things for other people and seeing their reaction, all of that feels so good and it's amazing for our self love too. It's a wonderful thing to do, it makes us feel good it makes the other person feel appreciated, it's just a win win situation all around, so why don't we do it more for ourselves too?

Because it can feel selfish. I feel like that sometimes, like why would I spend this money on myself when I could do something for someone else? Or why am I spending this time on myself when I have other people that I could be spending my time on? But treating ourselves with kindness and compassion is incredible for our self love too. It reconnects you with yourself, makes you remember what you love and what you enjoy. It is rest and we need rest especially in such a busy holiday time.

I want you to firstly think about what is something that you can do that brings you rest and re energizes you and doesn't make you feel kind of tired and drained like you are pouring into other people but will refill your cup?

Small Step

World kindness day was just a few days ago and again we're talking about kindness to others and doing things for others and so for this week's small step, I want you to show kindness to someone else and to yourself. A small random act of kindness to a loved one, to a stranger but you also have to refill your own cup. You give to others; you have to give to yourself and do something for yourself too.

It doesn't need to be spending a ton of money or a ton of time on anything. It can be treating yourself to a nap during the day whenever you normally don't take the time to, or watching a yoga video on youtube and taking 30 minutes to yourself to relax. Maybe it's cooking your favorite meal or buying yourself flowers at the store something small, a random act of kindness for yourself and a loved one or a stranger. And I don't even think of it as selfish to treat yourself to spend time on yourself it's not. It is refilling your own cup at a time where it can be very very busy and hectic and draining for a lot of us so this holiday season we were getting ahead of it we're going to focus on ourselves and our own self-care during this time and beyond of course so that by the end of the holiday season when it is the new year we are not feeling so drained and fatigued from it all.

I want to give you a reminder from page 87 of changing with the tides, my mental health poetry book. This is a short one but one that I love.

Be still. Breathe. The earth will continue to spin even if you are not pushing it.

Doesn't it sometimes feel like we are truly pushing the earth? Like we are carrying the earth on our shoulders with how much we have on our plates? If we stop we feel like our lives are going to crumble if we take time off work if we are constantly moving toward our next goal or accomplishment. The earth will continue to spin. Your life will continue to go on. Your loved ones will be fine. Take a break take a moment to yourself. Pause. Breathe. Do a meditation class. It will be OK. This is your reminder that everything will be OK.

Listener Shoutout

I wanted to give a shout out to a listener this week whose name is Laura I'm not going to read her full message because it's private but I wanted to share that they recently discovered this podcast and are working their way through the episodes from the beginning. “your words are really helping me and i've been brought to tears several times already listening to your writing thank you for all that you do.” So thank you to Laura a listener of small steps to self love for sharing that with me because it made me really happy and definitely refilled my cup and made me really energized for the new episodes and finishing off this year strong with this podcast.

And I definitely would love to give you a shout out if you do leave a review.

I hope that you will take some time over the next week over the coming weeks and months as we get into the holidays to slow down, remember that the world will continue to spin. Remember that you can give and give and give to others, you can only give so much until you are empty and you need to be refilled. So doing it along the way, rather than giving giving giving giving giving and then feeling so drained and fatigued and empty that you burn out, you don't want to feel empty.

We want to feel like we are receiving as well we don't want that. There's a better way so be sure to keep yourself in mind. Remember how amazing it feels to treat others with kindness and compassion and give to others and do that same thing to yourself. It's going to feel amazing to get to yourself as well and it is not selfish for spending time on yourself either.

Next week's episode is going to be out on Wednesday because Thursday is a holiday in the US so a day early for you to listen to if you'd like and if you have a moment to leave a quick rating or review on these quick episodes of the podcast I would love to hear what you think. So that is today's episode. Thank you for listening and have a wonderful week filled with self love and compassion and kindness i'll talk to you next week.