[301] How To Care For Yourself When Life Feels Too Full

You can be wildly capable and still be running on 0%. That’s the tension we’re naming today: how so many of us show up for work, partners, kids, friends, and family without hesitation, while our own needs get whatever crumbs are left. When life feels like chaos, change, and constant responsibility, self-care doesn’t just slip, it disappears, and we start calling it “normal.” 

I’m sharing a grounding reframe that’s been hitting me hard lately: mothering yourself. Not a parenting talk, not a perfect-routine fantasy. It’s a way to ask, “If I were my own mom, what would I do for me right now?” Would I tell myself to go to bed instead of watching one more show? Would I actually eat something nourishing instead of pushing through on fumes? Would I problem-solve my stress, digestion, and sleep the same way I’d do for someone I love? We’ll get real about the mental load, the full-plate feeling, and why stopping can be the moment your body finally gets a chance to send warning signs. 

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Transcript

Nighttime Ritual And Better Boundaries

Overwhelm And The Self-Care Gap

The Practice Of Mothering Yourself

Real Self-Care In Five Minutes

Track Your Day And Add Kindness

Sisterhood Invite And Closing Message

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Welcome to Selfish Confidence, a place where we can connect and be real about how hardest to be your damn self. My name is Jess, and my goal is to help you build confidence and belief in yourself to live any life path you want, even if it's unconventional. It's time to flip off societal pressures and connect with women who've also felt on the outside by their life choices. We're here to encourage you to grab the mic and speak your truth. I know it can be scary, but we're in this together. Let's get started. Hello, hello, and welcome to this week's episode of the Selfish Confidence Podcast. It's Jess here, and I am so excited to sit down and hang out with you tonight. Or whenever you're listening to this, I am currently in night mode. Nighttime is the time that I get to take a break. Take a break and focus on some of the things that I've been really wanting to focus on. Honestly, since my son getting a little more, I don't know what structure I guess is the right word with his sleep, knowing that in the evening times I get time to like sit down and work and and podcast. And it's just been really helpful for me to have a bit more predictability in my schedule and also has helped me to turn my brain off. And well, obviously not off, but like I don't have to be in work mode during the day. I can be in parent mode when I can be and when I want to be. And then in the evening times I can turn on my work mode or I can turn on, you know, whatever mode that I need to because I was finding, especially in the beginning, this blurry overlap of all the modes at once, and just my brain was not working. It was, it was not. And I will say it's not always better now. My brain isn't always working much better. But I like that I don't have to worry or think about things as much in the daytime, and that I have this like predictable evening time to come and sit down and hang out with you and make a whole like ritual and vibe with it, which I love. I yeah, wasn't definitely wasn't doing well with like trying to turn my brain off of mom mode and into work mode and off work mode and into mom mode or having the two at the same time. We're in a season where my little guy is like grabbing my phone. If I pull up my laptop, he is on it, he wants it, right? So it just feels so much better to be able to divide things a little bit more. And maybe you can relate to that with things in your own life, with your job and with your family, with activities and crafts and you know, hobbies that you have and responsibilities that you have. Sometimes it's hard to turn your brain off of one and into others because so many are intertwined, like the spider web, all the time. And I can only imagine how that gets worse and busier with full-time jobs and extra kids and you know, more dogs, and remembering to feed them. It can be a lot. But I've been finding compartmentalizing things a little bit more in my head has made it a little bit easier. It's not perfect over here. I will tell you, you know that. I am never going to lie to you. But point is saying I'm sitting down drinking a little cup of sugar cookie tea. It is Christmas tea, yes, but I thought it would be a nice treat. And I'd be able to sit and get in the zone and hang out with you like I have been wanting to do. Like this is my ritual. This is my favorite time to just come and hang. And I oh I picture us like two girlfriends having tea or coffee on the couch with my fireplace on and just relaxing, probably with a dog on our laps and just having a moment to connect and to chat about whatever it is that's going on in our lives. And I hope that you feel that way too. I'd love to know how you listen to the podcast. If you can send me a message and just like you'd be like, Yeah, I listen to it when I'm driving to work, or I listen to it when I'm folding my clothes or taking the dog for a walk. Like, I'd love to know what your ritual is when it comes to listening to the selfish confidence podcast. And yeah, for me, it's hanging out and relaxing. My dog is always here. For some reason, when I'm downstairs, she has to be here too. So we're hanging out. It's just me and my polygirl, my cup of tea, and you here. So I'm excited to dive into today's topic. I've been thinking about this topic a lot lately. And last night we had our very first connect her call in the Selfish Sisterhood, the brand new Selfish Sisterhood, with the foundation being all about connection, finding your people, finding someone that you can lean on, your new bestie, your new biz partner, whatever it is that you're looking for, having a space that you know you can come to and be 100% authentically you, and that be celebrated and that be loved. And everyone's just excited to see the real you in this space. And so last night we had our first connector call. This is a virtual call where you can come and have these conversations. And where it was the very first one, I wanted to have everyone do an introduction. And one of the questions I asked was if you could describe the current season that you're in in one word, what would that word be? And we had some words that came up like rest and healing, and also a lot of chaos and stress and change and so many different seasons that people are in, but the same theme kept coming up of overwhelm and a lot on our plates, a lot more on our plates than we anticipated in this season, and evolution and change and all these really beautiful things, and also just a lot of unknowns, a lot of uncertainty is what seemed to keep coming up. And oftentimes in these seasons of overwhelm and change and chaos, chaos came up so many times, was there often being a lack of self-care. There often being not enough time in the day for us to take care of ourselves. Not enough time in the day to get everything done. If you're barely getting work done, you're barely getting home life done, you're definitely not putting yourself on the front burner there on that superheat. You are often putting yourself on that back burner, on the low simmer pot, the one that just never gets used on our stove, because you just don't have time. You don't have the same kind of 24 hours in a day. I've also been thinking about that a lot where people say, like, we all have the same 24 hours in a day. We do not. Uh, especially as women, we know we do not all have the same 24 hours in a day. And so figuring out how to fit all of these things that we want to do and need to do in a 24-hour chunk is just not working. And it really got me thinking in how, especially as women, but many of us show up for everybody else. No, we don't even question it, right? Since becoming a parent, I know that I have to feed my kid nourishing food, and I have to help him to take a bath every day, and help to make sure he doesn't fall down the stairs and make sure that things are taken care of that you know you don't even question. You don't even think about. You just know what you need to do to take care of someone else. And this goes in so many areas of our life. Think about work and how you show up for work and you do the things that you say you're gonna do, and the thing that, you know, Johnny from department down the road also called you and put on your plate, so you're gonna get it done because you know it needs to get done. And also when your parents call you and they need you to show up and help you with this thing, like you're gonna do it because that's part of, you know, who you are and what you do. You take care of everyone and you just fit all of these pieces onto this massively full plate already, and things start to fall off because you're like, I just can't keep up with this plate. I've always called this like the Chinese food buffet, where you just like want to add one more chicken ball on the top of the plate. But if you do, you're risking something falling off. Maybe even that chicken ball, even though you want it so badly, it's going to fall on the ground and you're gonna be sad, wasting food, you know? All these things that we've been thinking about when it comes to our very full plates. That we forget the most important piece is taking care of ourselves. We've heard it so many times. You can't pour from an empty cup, we know that. But our cups are freaking drained, they are more than empty. That battery pack is on 0%, and there is just not much time to recharge it. I've been feeling that a lot this week, especially with the time change. I keep seeing I wear an ultra human ring and I keep seeing every day a deficit in my sleep because I'm going to bed late or I'm waking up super early and I'm missing these windows of getting the care in that I need to take for myself because we're just so busy doing so many other things. And I think it's become normalized that we just keep going, that we don't stop to question what we're actually doing and start to take care of ourselves because we're just so busy. We don't have time to stop. And if we stop, that's when we get sick, that's when everything kind of falls apart. I used to always think that it's like I got sick every time I stopped. It's so weird. I'd rest for a few minutes and then I'd get sick. It's because your body's only chance to give a sign or for you to even see the sign is when you stop. And it really messes with our whole system if you're go, go, go, go, go, go, go, which many of us are. And we don't notice the warning signs when we really need to start to take care of ourselves. I challenge you to look at your life right now, the chaos, the change, the evolution, whatever season you're going in. I challenge you to look at your pockets, look at what you're putting on your plate, and have you prioritize taking care of yourself in this season, even if it's like a mini, like I'm not saying you know, I am not the person to come on here and be like, you have to do 12 hours of self-care every day because that's what you know. We are realistic here, okay? I'm talking five minutes, I'm talking a nap if you need it, I'm talking giving yourself really nourishing food. And I had talked about this last night on the connector call. One of the things that I've been really thinking about is the idea of mothering yourself. And since becoming a parent, I see how much moms really do. And if you're listening to this and you're not a parent, this is not a parenting episode. This is not about being a mother, it's about mothering yourself. And it's really about putting that care back on yourselves. And some of the questions that I've been asking myself, it's like, okay, if I was my own mom, I know. So weird when you think about it like that. But if I was my own mom, what would I need right now? How would I take care of myself? How would I show up for myself? Like, we are showing up for every other person in our lives and forgetting the importance of showing up for ourselves. So I've been thinking about this concept of like mothering ourselves. And it actually came from an Oracle deck that I have called Work Your Light by Rebecca Campbell. And it's this beautiful pink deck. It is so freaking cute. And I used to get this card a lot. It's called the Star Mother card. Oh my gosh. And before I became a mom, I'd get this card and I'd roll my eyes and I'd be like, oh gosh, okay, another sigh that I'm supposed to have a baby. Like, get out of here. Like, I don't want a baby. And if you're uh this is your first time listening to this podcast episode or podcast at all, uh, for 10 plus years, my husband and I were married and we were never gonna have kids. We were child free by choice and thriving in it and loving it, and something just didn't feel too right. I spoke on a stage and said, I'm child free by choice, and da-da-da-da-da. And then I walked off the stage and I said, Ooh, something is not right here. And we started the process of talking more and opening the door and doing therapy in this idea of maybe we did want to become parents. And fast forward, we did. We have a son, he's 14 months now, he's great, we are loving it. But I used to get this card, the Star Mother card, and I would roll my eyes because I was just like, okay, how am I supposed to mother myself today? Like, okay, like, and the card actually has nothing to do about becoming a parent, it is all about teaching yourself and treating yourself with that love and respect like your mother would. And this card would trigger me something fierce. Oh man, every time I got this card, I was just like, okay, I hear you. I gotta take care of myself. But I'm gonna read to you. So if you're not familiar with Oracle decks, it is like a card deck and they have messages, and I just like shuffle them and ask, like, what do I need to hear today? And if a card pops out, great, that's the card that I go with, and I look in the little booklet and I read the message and see how I can apply it to whatever I'm going through that day. But here it says the star mother card, how can you mother yourself? You are more held than you could possibly imagine, loved and cherished so dearly, if you knew you would not spend one second of your life in separation, worry, or fear. Let the mother carry your burdens, let her rock away your fears, lay all of your worries, regrets, shame, and guilt on her altar. Please, please, sweet child, do not fear. You are love in motion. If you allow it, you're already healed. Let her remind you of your goodness, let her love away your fears. Your capacity to love and hold others is limited to your capacity to love and hold yourself. Be compassionate with your sweet body, mind, and soul. Treat yourself like the beautiful spirit that you truly are. Remind yourself that you are doing your best and try not to carry it all on your own. You have got this, and the mother has got you. Let her broad arms take away your burdens, let her lift the weight of the world off your shoulders. Forgive yourself, my dear sweet child of the earth. How can you mother yourself? Oh man. Even reading that now as a mother, I think so differently. Because we do that for our little ones. And maybe you do that for your pets or for your family or for your parents, whoever it is that you've been taking care of, your partner, right? And we show up for them so fiercely that we forget to take care of ourselves in that same love and that same care, that unconditional love that no matter what you do, I am gonna love you. And we do not do that for ourselves. We are so freaking hard on ourselves. I feel so emotional as I say that because we are even the littlest thing, like our washing machine just broke, and you can be like, oh, I should have done this or I should have done that. Like you can put these extra layers on yourself, these burdens on yourself that have nothing to do with you. Your mother would never do that. And yeah, I don't know your mom. I don't know your relationship with your mom. So I want you to put that completely aside. It's not actually how your mother would have treated you or anything, okay? I want you to just think of yourself right now as the mother and show up for yourself as the mother. Love yourself so fiercely. Give yourself so much grace. Treat yourself with so much respect, nourish your body with love. We are often just beating ourselves up, not giving ourselves anything other than the leftover crumbs, the leftover crusts of the sandwiches. Am I right? The leftover chicken nuggets on the plate, the you know, second thought lunch or dinner, you know, whatever's left over, I'll just take note. Like we need to start giving ourselves the care. And believe me when I say I get the chaos and the craziness on our plates that even thinking about adding one more thing to your plate is absolutely terrifying because you're just like, I don't have it in me, but we got to start with nourishing the mother first. And believe me, I know how uncomfortable that is. Starting with nourishing the mother first, ha, right? Moms are on the back burner. They are, again, the back simmer pot that we have not touched in so long. It's probably gotten a little gross, right? We are putting ourselves way last. I know so many of my clients, so many people in the sisterhood who are putting their jobs above absolutely everything in their life, or putting in taking care of people above everyone else, like above themselves for sure. We are last. But that's what has to change. In order for you to start to feel better, in order for you to start to care for yourself and care for the season that you're in, you need to show up in this unconditional energy, in this love that you have never showed to yourself before. And so if you were your own mother, if you were your own mother, how would you be showing up for yourself? What would you do? And this thought really came up earlier this week when my little guy was experiencing some diaper issues, okay? He was having some really full diapers, and I started to question, okay, like what are we feeding him? Why is this happening? And you go through all the problem-solving ways just to figure out what it is that's bothering his stomach, what it is that he's going through. Is it viral? Is it something he's eating? And all we did was switch his milk and everything has been a lot better, but we don't often problem solve for that for ourselves, right? I know that I have a lactose issue, okay? But I'm still gonna grab that ice cream cone. But when it comes to him knowing he has a lactose issue, I'm probably not gonna give him that ice cream, right? And we just don't give ourselves the same respect that we do to the people we love. We gotta be at the top of the list. We are the most important person in our lives, and yet we are not taking our care of ourselves the same way that we would the important people that we love. And just imagine if everyone started to take care of themselves the way that we're thinking about, right? And this mothering technique, this mothering love. Like if everyone started doing that, the world would really be a more beautiful place. I really think the energy would shift. I think the matriarch is like the best gift that we can give the world, and that comes from that care, that feminine energy, that extra little bit of love that the world needs right now. And also, the more that we love ourselves, the more that we take care of ourselves, the more that we nourish our body, the more that we focus on whatever it is that we need, the better we can care for the rest of the world. When I go to bed early, right? Time change week has kicked my butt. When I go to bed early and I give myself that extra rest, I know that I can care for my family better the next day. I can care for myself better. I have that little extra energy that's gonna help me to show up in a brand new and better way. We don't always prioritize our rest. And I can say that because I also put on an extra episode of the Mormon wise, okay? Instead of getting to sleep a little bit earlier, right? We're binging on our phones and watching TV, and we know if we were mothering ourselves, we'd just turn that TV off and say, get your butt to bed. You need the rest. You're gonna be cranky tomorrow. But we don't do that for ourselves. We notice what other people need, and sometimes we forget what we need, and that's what needs to shift right now. And so I challenge you. What is it that you need? If you were your own mother, how would you show your self-care? A few things that I've been thinking about lately has been about cutting out some of these foods that I know trigger my digestion. I want to feel better, I want to move better. Okay, so what do I need to do? I need to nourish my body with food. That's really good. Since having my son, too, I've been cooking a lot more homemade meals, and it's just something that I didn't always prioritize, like cooking our own bread or making sure that we have really delicious meals and adding a lot more plants into our plates because I think it's great for him to have variety. It's great for us to have variety, right? The things that we do because we have to take care of other people, it still just blows my mind that we just never think to do it for ourselves. But I really think it's time that we change that. So, what do you need in this season? Maybe you need to take a few days off of work. If you can swing it, I highly recommend getting the rest that you need. Slowing down. It's not a bad thing to take some extra time to slow down, to give yourself the rest, give yourself the opportunity to care for yourself. If your kid was sick or your spouse was sick, you'd probably tell them to take the day off. And, you know, you'd probably also help them with getting their laundry done or getting them a meal or making sure that they're drinking water or getting electrolytes in. When we had the flu a few weeks ago, like I remember coming downstairs after Glenn was done, like actively being sick and passing him a clean pair of clothes and being like, You gotta change into these clothes, and you know, make sure you're getting your electrolytes in. And here's a banana. I don't always do that for myself. If I'm noticing that I'm feeling a little weak, it's not always My like go-to to be like, oh yeah, I should probably go get a snack and make sure it's a good balanced snack. No, no, I'm just gonna keep here. Like, I'll get something, I'll grab something on the go later. Like, we just don't give ourselves the same respect that we give other people. And again, I think I think it's time that it changes. And if you don't know where to start because you are just so far deep in taking care of everybody else and putting yourself on the back burner, the smallest thing that you can do is just first thing when you wake up in the morning, do something really simple for you. Go to the bathroom before you grab the baby. Like go pee, get a glass of water. You know, do something really simple for you. Light the candle that helps the home feel like the scent that you need. I often will go to the bathroom or wash my face, or actually that's not true. I'm gonna tell you, you know I'm truthful with you. My cat starts crying the second he hears the baby wake up. So the first thing I do in the morning is feed my cat. But then I come back to bed. P come back to bed and just take a few moments for myself to just breathe and be there and be present because I gotta ease into the day a little bit slower than the rest of the world, if I'm being totally honest with you. So I do feed the cat first. You know, he needs it. He is a Yankee guy, but what is the one thing that you can do for yourself in the morning before getting into the chaos of everything? And if you're a person who eyes open chaos is finding you, where can you find a pocket to take a minute or two to give yourself some care? And if you do not have a minute or two to give yourself some care, I need you to give yourself a lot more grace, a lot more love, a lot more patience on yourself. Because I think the people who have the fullest plates are the ones who are the hardest on themselves because you think it's not enough, I'm not doing enough, it's never gonna be enough, and that is just a lie that you are telling yourself that is making you feel like shit. You are doing enough. I had a client of mine write out absolutely everything she has been doing from the second her eyes open to the second her eyes close at the end of the night, and her list would shock you, and I bet yours would shock you too if you started to do this. Like, give yourself like one day, and you write down absolutely everything you do. If you want an eye-opening experience for how much you are caring for everybody else and not yourself, who I feel that one deep. I want you to start to make a list, note section of your phone, every single thing you do. I peed, I showered, I, you know, cooked breakfast, I did like every single thing you do. I washed the bottles, I, you know, made dinner, I did a diaper change, or like whatever it is. I want every single thing you did. I took the dog out for a walk, I, you know, worked out, I took a nap, whatever. I want you to like make a whole list. And you will be shocked at how much you do and how much you care for everybody else, and how much you are putting the rest of the world above your needs. Shift it just a little bit. I am not saying don't take care of other people because we have responsibilities, we have lives, we have things we have to do. I am definitely not being unrealistic here. But you could mother yourself a little bit more. You could give yourself a nourishing meal. Instead of grabbing that extra handful of mini eggs, you can grab an apple and some nuts. Or in the evening time, instead of watching one more episode of the Mormon Wives, you go to bed early. And maybe you also start to talk to yourself with a lot more kindness because I definitely talk to my son in the best words that I can, telling him every day like he's the greatest gift I ever had, right? Imagine looking yourself in the mirror and telling yourself that because it's the truth. You are the greatest gift you ever had. Today is the greatest gift you'll ever have. Another day, another breath. If it wasn't for you and your body and your soul, you wouldn't even be experiencing the earth right now, right? What a gift that is. So stop treating yourself like shit. Stop telling yourself that you're not doing enough, that you're not enough, that you are garbage because you are not. You are the greatest gift. And if you were your own mother, how would you want to be talked to? How would you want to be loved? How would you show yourself that unconditional energy and love that mothers, not all mothers, I know, but if you were a mother, how you would show it? And shift into that energy this week. Just shift it a little bit. Don't add too much to your plate. Don't be like, okay, I'm gonna mother myself and now I'm gonna run a marathon and I'm also gonna eat only plants and uh blah, blah, blah, blah. All these no, we're not talking about like going crazy here. I just want you to be kinder to yourself. Mother yourself in a way that feels like it's go adding to your life right now. And not adding to your plate, it's adding to your life, it's adding to your energy, it's adding to whatever it is that you need right now. Because sometimes we just need a little extra reminder, okay? And whenever I need the reminder, this is what I'm leaning my energy into. How can I mother myself right now? How can I give myself a little extra unconditional support and love in this season? Because yeah, we need it more than ever. When those words were coming out, like chaos and overwhelm, like, okay, we gots to be mothering ourselves a bit more. And yeah, if you're listening to this and you're like, okay, I like this idea of a connector call. Like, I want to meet my new bestie, I want to meet my new biz partner, I want to just like hang out with the girlies and go for brunch this Saturday coming up. If you're listening to this in real time, the 21st of March, we are having our first sisterhood brunch, our quarterly brunch where we get to come together in real life. So if you're in Halifax, Nova Scotia, it's an awesome time to join the sisterhood because you can see and hang out with the sisters in real life on Saturday. So, and if you're listening to this and you're like, I'm not anywhere near Halifax. Everything is also virtual. We have our virtual chat uh where we can come together once a month and have our connector call, but we also have an app where we can be chatting all the time. Even today, we're just talking about wins and you know what's going on in our lives and what's happening for March break. And we also have a mom's club. And in the mom's club, we were talking about like postpartum care items and like what would you put in your hospital bag and like whatever it is that you need. And these are two separate chats. If you're like, I don't want a feed about that. We have our sisterhood chat and then we also have our mom's club. They're totally separate, and it's just been really beautiful to see it all come to life, to see the new connections that are happening in there and the new people who are hopping in and the people who've been a part of the sisterhood for many years now. It's just so beautiful to see it all come to life. So, a couple weeks left to get founding sister rates at the end of March, they will go up to$33 a month. But right now they're$22 a month. Uh, there's also an annual rate where you can save a couple months off of your membership as well. So check out that. I'll put all the information in the show notes for you to be able to hop into that conversation because sometimes we just need a place where we can be 100% real and be like, hey, I am not mothering myself. This season is freaking hard. What are you guys doing for self-care? Do you have any suggestions? And I guarantee you there will be suggestions for days, whatever it is that you need, because this space is here to support you. It's a group of women who are actually going to show up for you because we need that. We need you to show up for us too. So I can't wait to see you in there and to see how you're mothering yourself. Uh, you deserve better. You deserve so much better than what you've been given yourself. So it's time, it's time, my sister, to give yourself a little extra love. I hope you have an amazing week, and I can't wait to talk to you soon. What's up, sis? I am so glad we could hang out today. If you love this episode, send it to a friend or share it on your social media and tag me so I can personally thank you for helping me sprinkle some confidence in the world. And don't forget, you are magic. Let's show the world your shine.