Self Care Is Not Selfish

Hey everyone it's Penny Rogers from our crazy adventures in autism land today we're going to

talk about self-care is not selfish taking care of yourself we often feel is selfish we think that

we have to put everybody's needs before our own it makes you a better mom makes you a better wife

makes you a better person if you take time out of your day to take care of yourself it doesn't

have to mean long bubble baths and five-day weekend getaways especially as

a I'm a special needs mom so that's never going to happen so I'm just gonna

show you some small changes in your life from how you can schedule better to

reading a few minutes a day you know just a couple things to go ahead and get

you get you rejuvenated and move it motivated to to finish the day because

some days you really do need motivation just to finish so let's move on and make

this the year of the best you so let's start out talking about why we need to

make time for self-care I love this meme it's been a rough week me in the middle

of a Tuesday because that's Mondays and Tuesdays are not my favorite days I

always feel better toward the end of the week when I kind of have a flow going so

So if I don't take time for self-care on Monday and Tuesday, I'll never get to Friday

It just happens that way. So we need to make time for self-care to motivate you to get through the day as I talked about earlier

Sometimes it's to motivate you to get through the week or through the lesson or whatever

you need to get through. It really helps motivate you to continue

It staves off depression and anxiety, two things that are pretty common in homeschooling

moms who or stay at home moms or moms in general because we have so many pressures on us that it's

it's really easy to get depressed if you if you don't take time out for yourself self-care gives

you a chance to breathe relax and regroup it helps you to see a situation and a clearer frame of mind

so that you can come up with solutions. And it helps put you in a better mood

which literally helps everyone around you. My family can tell you when I have not been taking time for myself

just based on my mood because I start to feel overwhelmed, which means I start to get snippy and I start to just be not a nice mom

And so that's when they know that they need to help. They need to remind me to do my self-care

So it is a vital essential part of a healthy mental health plan

And I'm hopeful that every one of you have a mental health plan that just are ways that you know that work for you to stave off the depression and the anxiety

Just to keep you have to keep you in a happy place

You don't have to be happy all the time because that's just not a reasonable goal

but there are things you should have a plan in place of things that you know

when you feel overwhelmed or depressed and things like that that can that can

sort of refocus you. Self-care will keep you happier and healthier and we all

want that we all want to be happy we all want to be healthy so that we can be here for our children and our families and we are just better people when we

take care of ourselves. So there's a reason why this particular slide is third before we even

talk about how to do self-care or what self-care looks like or how to get your family on board

We're going to talk about all of those things, what to do if you're single, but you have to do

this first. You have to remember that there's always going to be a to-do list. Every time I get

my to-do list done, there's a new to-do list because the week is over and it's time to start

again there's always going to be someone who wants or needs something from you either your spouse

your children your church your if you go to church your you know your peeps there's always

going to be someone who who wants your help but you have to absolutely stop and give yourself

permission to rest super tough for me I have to give myself I have to remind myself on Sundays

that if I don't take the day to rest, then it will not be a fun Monday, some Friday for the next week

So I force myself to rest on Sundays and watch football and have some family over after church so that we can we can eat together and things like that

But I try. I'm not always successful, but I try to take some time to rest that day

But you have to have to have to give yourself permission to do that

So once you once you learn how to give yourself permission to rest, self-care will pretty much take care of itself because you've done the major hurdle

Everything the people can wait. The to do list can wait. Everything can wait

Your mental health cannot. And if you don't rest, you will get overwhelmed and burnt out

and then you are of no use to anyone. So that's why I say to everyone that it's essential that you do some sort of self-care

because if you're overwhelmed and exhausted and burnt out, you're not helping your family

You're not helping your husband. You're not helping your friends. You can't help anybody at that point

And no one wants to be around you. So the number one thing you're going to do is you're going to give yourself permission to rest

at least one day a week, I suggest. But if you can't do a whole day in a week, just give yourself permission to rest, you know, for five minutes on a day or whatever

But just it's a whole, it's a mental, it's a mental roadblock that most people have that you always have to be doing something

So take some time to decide that you're going to, you're going to rest and it's okay

so now that we have permission to rest let's talk about what self-care looks like let's stop

believing the myth that self-care has to be long weekends away from your children three hour bubble

baths everybody needs to leave you alone just just for hours and hours on end because if you

have young children if you have special needs children if you have you know an actual family

that's that's just it's not feasible to to do that and self-care is not going to help you if

you only do it like once a year which is what a long weekend once or twice a year and um who has

time for three hour bubble baths I don't know about you but every time I'm in the bubble bath

all I can think about is my to-do list and how I'm wasting time so it doesn't have to be those

things to take care of you the best self-care routine is simple just some simple things that

we're going to talk about in a little bit that you're able to do on a regular basis like read a

book you know just we're gonna something simple that rejuvenates you that that just relaxes you

and helps reset don't under don't underestimate the power of simple things making a powerful

difference you know a great simple thing would be having your kids do the dishes one night even

though they don't do it right and you're probably going to have to rewash them the next day

But if you let them do the dishes so that you can read a chapter in your book, you're able to reset and refocus and it's okay

So don't underestimate that simple things like that can help you to be a better mom or a better person

And small things done consistently lead to better results than two times of year getting a long weekend away or getting a three hour bubble bath every other month

So if you can do small things on a regular basis like daily, you will have a much better result than trying to cram a whole year's worth of self-care into a weekend or three hours or five hours, whatever you get

So now that we know what self-care looks like, we've given ourselves permission to rest, we know why we should do self-care, let's talk about getting our family involved

You don't necessarily need your family's permission to do it. So that's not what I'm what I'm trying to say here

I'm just saying that if your family is on board with making sure that

That self-care is a priority for you that they will help to remind you to do it

Remember I said earlier that my family can can sort of tell when I not been taking care of myself because I get real snippy and I angry all the time and things like that so they know

they know I need to go into the library and drink my coffee one morning and not ask me a gazillion

questions. So my family is on board with reminding me to take care of myself. That happened because

I did not take care of myself and I ended up in the hospital and I was of no use to anyone

You know sitting at the hospital for for three four or five days

and then when I came home, I was pretty sick so I Went all the way to the I I decided self-care wasn't important and then I went all the way to the opposite extreme and didn't do any

self-care and it ended up costing me my health and and didn't do anyone any good

which sort of opened my eyes to sort of try to find a balance

between self-care and taking care of my family. So I like to, my family knows

that a happy mama means a happy family. Everybody knows that. So you might just need to gently remind them

that by doing this makes mom happy, and if mom's happy, then the day's going to flow better

You should encourage them to make self-care a priority for themselves as well

So your children learn self-care by watching you. And you need to be making sure that they're seeing it and that they're learning how to take care of themselves as well

We can always tell on our kids when they've had too much. It's easy

You know, they all get whiny. They get, you know, you know all the cues. So those are great times to remind them, hey, it's super loud in here

Maybe you want to just step out and take care of you for a minute and take a big deep breath and relax because it's really loud in here for you

And that's okay. So we teach our kids that it's okay to do that by showing them that it's okay to do that

So I like to brainstorm ideas with my family to show what self-care looks like

We have a, we call it a bucket list on our chalkboard where we all put things up there that we want to do for whatever season it is

And it's a great way to bond as a family. But it's also a great way to sneak in some self-care in there because you may be like, hey, I want to read Oliver Twist this season

And so your family already knows that that's a goal for you. So they'll try to help you achieve it

and in helping you achieve it, they also help you take care of yourself

So you sort of kill two birds with one stone with that

When my family helped me to take care of myself, at the beginning I had to be like obnoxious about thanking them

so that they saw that it was important. So if your children let you drink your coffee for five minutes alone

make sure you say hey thanks for letting me drink my coffee so that I could sort of reboot for the

day so that they can see that it's important and then they'll do little tasks like that

to help you out. Involve your children and your family, your husband, in meal planning, taking

care of the house, cooking, things that we always think of as moms that make our lives easier but

really it makes the family's life easier so the family should be doing it. So take a look at

some things that you're doing yourself that you might could delegate to other people or you might

could involve the rest of the family in doing as well and you can you know make fun family memories

and you can take care of yourself at the same time. Let's talk about what if you're single

Every time I harp, which I tend to do on my Facebook page or in my groups about self-care

for moms, because I really believe it's important for moms, especially special needs moms to

be doing. Every time that I mention it, hey, what have you done for yourself today

Or what does self-care mean to you? I get the response. I'm a single mom

I can't do anything. I don't have time. No one will take my children

No one will. Self-care is non-existent because it's only me. But if you are a single mom and the only person taking care of your family, then it's even more important that you make self-care a priority because you will burn out faster and it will lead to major health problems, poor mental health, burnout, fatigue, exhaustion, you name it

If left unchecked and that doesn't do anyone in your family any good

So my answer to to that question every time I hear it. I'm single. I don't have time for self-care is you don't have time

You can't not put self-care into your time. It's it's not even a choice if you're single you have to make it a priority or

or your children, they're going to suffer, and no one wants to see their children suffer

So if you're single and you don't need to know all about getting your family involved

which you still do, because if you're single and you're a mom, you have children, so you have a

family, you can do all those same things to get your kids involved without having the spouse to

do it too. But you have to remember that taking care of you is pretty important too, because you

are the only the only person that they have so it's pretty they really want to keep you around

so you can get them on board with helping you out if you um our kids want to help us they just they

always do so you just say hey i need help with this and um and then go on now you might have to

relax your standards i talk about that as well um if my kids are helping me out i try not to

critique them. I'm not always successful at that, but I try to take the job as done when they've

done it, unless it's like a horrible job and they really do need to go back and redo it. But

if they're trying to help me, I try not to critique. So you do have to lower your standards

a bit there, but if you're single, you have to have a self-care plan

Now we get to the big part. I talked about earlier about getting your family involved

or single what does self-care look like now I'm going to show you how to keep it simple

because simple self-care as I said earlier done on a regular basis trumps big self-care done once

or twice a year so when I asked in my Facebook group for some self-care tips that other people

did so that I could put them up here in addition to mine here are some examples they gave me

the first one's actually mine hiding out in the bathroom or in a closet for a few minutes

I take some deep breaths. I mindlessly scroll through Facebook on my phone or Instagram

I find my secret stash of chocolate and have a piece. Just a few minutes enough for me to to sort of not no one needs me at that particular moment

Passing out screens to the kids so you can read a chapter in your book or take a few minutes for you

we often feel guilty because our kids have some sort of digital device in their hand and we think

that we should be entertaining or teaching or doing something with them at all times. There is

no shame in your game if you pass out a screen, a tablet, a phone, an iPad to your kids so that

they can watch um paw patrol or door the explorer or whatever they watch um you know those crazy

game playthroughs that kids watch anything there's there's nothing wrong with with letting them watch

that so that you can you can read you can sit down and relax and read a book or just sit down

relax and again mindlessly score through facebook or twitter or whatever but just sort of you know

recharge you. Going for a walk is a great way to do self-care. Throw the kids in their strollers and

walk if you can. This one's mine too. Sitting in the car for a few minutes just to listen to the

silence. Yep, my family often walks in to the house when we get back and I will sit in the car

for several minutes after just to because it quiet and because I could take a deep breath and I can sort of recharge and reset before I walk into the house and and and you know hear my name again 150 times so I highly recommend sitting in

the car if you have older children I have older children when Logan and Madison were younger

especially Logan with this autism I would not have been able to sit in the car and just send

them in the house so if you happen to be coming home if you have smaller children with your husband

or your sister or whatever who can get the kids out and sort of bring them in the house while you

while you sit in the car and answer a text message or look at your email or whatever

and just just listen to the sounds of silence that would be great but I'm able to do that now

even when it's just me and the children because my children are much older so that works for me

It may not work for you. Taking a shower, brushing your hair and teeth and maybe putting on makeup, on a good day I get makeup on. The power of a shower, oh that rhymes, cannot be understated. Just having a shower with clean clothes and your hair brushed and your teeth aren't furry will make you a new person

so if that means you have to get a shower before your um your spousely use for the day then try to

make that a priority to do that so that you can be up and showered and you just feel better we all

know that if the days we get up and we take a shower and we put on nice clothes and maybe put

on our makeup and fix our hair we get so much more done don't we because we just we feel empowered

so that is an absolute amazing way to do self-care because it makes you feel

better and anything that makes you feel better can be considered self-care one

person suggested and I had never even thought of this but it's a great idea to

step outside and just look up at the Sun breathe the fresh air well don't look

like directly into the Sun just you know sort of like feel the sun on your face

I don't want you to go blind because that's not self-care breathe the fresh

share and just you know make a quick mental list of things that you're that you're grateful for

sometimes many times we need to remind ourselves that um okay so now that we know all we've talked

about getting our families involved what if we're single now let's talk about the actual self-care

ideas um this this slide is going to be all about simple ideas i asked um i asked in my facebook

group for some ideas that that they did that were simple because simple simple ideas done regularly

trump um you know going away trump just doing self-care as i said before a couple times

a year so we want to keep it simple so that way you're you're more likely to do it so um my

personal favorite hiding out in the bathroom or stepping into a closet my coat closet works

beautifully for this for a few minutes just to take a couple deep breaths sometimes I stand in

the coat closet yes and mindlessly scroll through Facebook or check my email or answer a text or

don't tell my children I have chocolate hidden in there but I do make it a point to keep the coat

closet pretty clear so that um if I just if I feel myself spiraling out of control I can just sort of

step in and push the coats to one side and take a minute. It works really well for me. Passing out

screens to your kids so that you can read a chapter in a book or take a few minutes to go to the

bathroom or, you know, make a sandwich or whatever you need to do is an excellent idea. We often think

as moms that we need to always be entertaining our children or teaching them or they shouldn't

have screens in their hands 24 7 and they shouldn't but there is no shame in letting

your child have a screen um your phone his ipad a tablet his kindle um and watching a youtube video

or paw patrol or whatever your child happens to to like to watch for a few minutes so that you can

take time for you um we're not you're not going to give your child the screen for six hours

unless it's a really good book i've been there done that um i sort of lost track of time there but

even if you do that it's better that you're that you're refreshed than that um that they spent you

know, 5, 10, 15 minutes, an hour on a screen on some sort of electronic. So don't feel bad in the

very least for doing that. We often, that's one thing that moms will always say, oh, I feel terrible

I let my child have my phone just so I could, you know, grocery shop in peace. Yeah, girl, you do what

you got to do. And don't, don't even look at what other people are, are judging you for. If it gets

you through the day then I'm all for it you could go for a walk you could throw the kids in the

stroller if you if you um if you can and go outside if the weather is nice and go for a walk

so that everybody sort of gets some fresh air you can this is my personal favorite sitting in the

car for a few minutes to revel in the silence when um when my children were much younger I of course

could not do this because you know i would need to have to help them out of their car seats and

what walk them in and logan had autism so he was a he was in a loper so he would just run at a

moment's notice so you had to hold his hand all the way in the house um so sitting in the car was

not an option unless my husband or my mom or someone was with me and and they got out and took

the kids in and I sort of laid back for a few minutes but after now that they're older

we can go where we need to go we can come back to um and park in the driveway and then they can

sort of walk themselves in and I could sit in the car for a few minutes and um just like in the coat

closet take some deep breaths check Facebook answer a text or an email or something that

that needs to be done so I if you can it's a great way to just just get a few minutes and

not hear any words and sometimes not hearing any words is a good thing

um the power of taking a shower every day is not to be not to be underrated we all know that when

we get up and we take a shower and we brush our hair and we brush our teeth and we put on some

makeup and we got cute clothes on we just we feel better we feel empowered we feel like we got we

got this and so you get more done you just do so if you can get a shower every day some days you

can't I acknowledge that especially if you have young children some days getting a shower is the

least of your concerns but getting I mean there's a lot to be said about getting a shower and brushing

your hair and teeth even if you don't put on makeup and even if you have on grungy sweats

you just feel better like I said so if that means you have to get a shower before your spouse leaves

for work, then then try to make that a priority. But that shower is going to turn your day around

I guarantee it. So try to make that like right up on top of your self-care list. I know it sounds

really silly to say, oh, my self-care today was I took a shower, but it really works. And it's a

simple thing you can do every single day to help set your day on the right course. One of my

Um, readers suggested that she just goes outside. She looks at the sun

Well, she doesn't look like directly in the sun. Don't do that because you'll go blind and that's not self-care

They, um, she feels the sun in her face. She takes a giant breath of fresh air and she reminds herself of two or three things

she's grateful for. Because sometimes when we're at the point of overwhelm or we're at the point of burnout

we have to remind ourselves that we're grateful for these children who just smeared their peanut butter sandwich all over the table

Or we're grateful for the child who just gagged and threw up over one garbanzo bean

Or we're grateful for the child who still hasn't finished her home school lessons for the day and it's eight o'clock at night

So sometimes you just need to make a mental list of things you grateful for to put yourself back in a good frame of mind You could get up before the children to ease into the day have some Bible study do some exercising This is so not me

I am not a morning person. So if you are a morning person, this will work for you

This would not work for me because I like to lay in bed and deny the daylight

My day, I am much more productive late at night. so for me it would work better to work after the children have gone to bed than it would be to try

to get up before them because then they just get a grumpy mama because I had to get up before them

so whatever works for you you can you know make it happen so after my children go to bed for the day

I try to read a chapter in my book before I go to bed some days I am just slap wore out and I just

good bid it's okay um exercise is always good whether you do it at night whether you do it

during the day whether it's that walk you took earlier just some sort of exercise

will always make you feel better it releases the endorphins in your body just makes you feel better

so exercise is an excellent self-care i'm not saying go to the i mean you can go to the gym

if you want to and leave your kids in the gym membership or the gym um nursery for a couple

hours by all means if they have that and it works for you do it but you know maybe doing you know

some cardio excuse me you know things like that whatever whatever works for you now here's something

that revolutionized my life say no to activities and obligations that you aren't able to do

with absolutely no regrets i have learned that when people say penny can you blah blah blah

Can you watch my kids? Can you do my laundry? Can you, I'm just making things up. Can you make

brownies for 500 people for church after, for after church on Sunday? That if I can't do it

because I have, you know, therapies and homeschool and work and all that, that I just need to say

no, I'm sorry, I'm unable to do that at this moment and, and not feel bad in the very, very

least so learn how to control your calendar and to say no to things that are going to cause you

stress it's okay to say yes to some things but if it's going to stress you out and not

be beneficial to you in any way then learn to say no and just walk away without any without any

remorse so let's talk about some we talked about some simple ideas let's talk about some outside

the box ideas for self-care. Eating healthy meals is a great self-care option. It makes you feel

better. Your body feels better. It's okay to stop by KFC and bring that home on one night. If you

need to feed your family, that's okay. But obviously eating healthy meals on a regular basis will make

you feel better. Find your outlet like writing poetry or painting to make a point to do it

regularly when I say find your outlet it's something that you like to do so

painting would not be my outlet because it would stress me out so something that

you can sort of do mindlessly you crochet you can knit you can you know

blog whatever whatever you like to do but make a point to do it on a regular

basis meal planning freezer cooking and household organization can make a huge

difference in relieving your stress levels and self-care is essentially relieving your stress levels so that you can you can maintain a healthy

perspective so meal planning and freezer cooking for me work really well because

my daughter has danced six nights a week so knowing what I'm going to cook so I

don't have to think about it and having it so that I can take it out of the

freezer and put it right into the instant pot or right into the crackpot or right into the oven

just makes my day flow better so for me self-care is meal planning doing some freezer cooking on the

the weekend or whenever and um and maintaining my house so that those are things I don't have

to worry about on a regular basis turn on the music and dance like no one is watching

I can't dance like I pay for my girl to dance but I personally can't dance I can't sing either so

those are two things that I'm never going to do in public but if I need to burn off some steam and

just sort of you know do something crazy silly I will totally turn on the music and dance like no

one is watching when the kids were little I would have them dance with me it was so fun

I still have fond memories of that They just thought we were doing crazy dancing

But really we were just trying to Relieve the tension I will drive

Somewhere by myself And turn on the music And belt out Hamilton songs

Like nobody's business I'm sure that other people Driving the cars think I'm crazy

But I don't care I'm just It's for me So you know

ask Alexa or Google Home or whatever to tell you a joke and then laugh hysterically even if it's

crazy stupid most of those jokes are they're not great jokes but sometimes they're funny and

sometimes just getting out even a little giggle will help um will help change your mood I say

phone a friend but if someone phones me you better be dying I hate talking on the phone

so phone a friend if that's your jam or shoot a text to someone I'm more likely

to answer you if you shoot me a text or if I just need to point out that my

family is driving me crazy to my bestie I will totally shoot her a text so

whatever works for you do it and a random act of kindness again I apologize

of a terrible cold a random act of kindness will often um reset your perspective because it will

remind you that you really don't have it as bad as you think you do and that um and that you know

other people may have it worse or or you may you are far more blessed than you than you realize so

when I am just spiraling out of control I will I will try to do something for someone else

and it sounds really selfish to say this but I will do something for someone else so that it

helps me refocus my perspective and and makes me feel good so they get the benefit of me doing it

and I get the benefit of self-care. so there you have it I hope you've learned that self-care is not selfish at all that it doesn't

have to be it doesn't have to be this elaborate plan that you can do simple little things throughout

your day to take care of yourself but that it's highly important that you do something

I like to to recommend that you do something for you every single day if that's not if that's not

feasible then do something for you once a week or do something for you every other day but

make you a priority because when you take care of you then you also take care of your family

and your friends and your children and it makes you a better person so um

So I hope that's what you've learned. Feel free to leave comments and ask me questions. I'd love to answer them. If you go, I have a Rebooting You video series with workbook where I take you through 30 days of self-care so that you can, it sort of becomes a habit. You get to look at me on video, but I gave you a coupon code right here. You can use the coupon self-care to get $20 off. That would make it $15 for the video and the workbook

if that's too much and you still want to take it please shoot me a shoot me a message and and and

we can talk and I'm sure we can we can come up with an alternative but um that's how much I

believe in self-care I want everybody to to take time for them because it just it makes

it makes family so much better when when mom is better and taking care of herself makes mom better

so thanks for joining me today and have fun