37. The 3 Habits That Saved Me During a Hard Season
We all go through hard seasons and we all cope with them differently. This episode give you Jess's 3 habits that helped her get through a hard season and how to apply them in our lives. You'll learn about nonnegotiables (something she works on with every client) and what her current recommended read is.
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Speaker 1:
0:09
Hello, friend, and welcome to Sturdy Girl, a podcast focused on strength, not size, where you will hear conversations around flexible body image, cultivating confidence and being a resilient human in both body and mind. Sturdy Girl is the podcast where we shift the focus away from your appearance and on to living the big, rad life you deserve. I'm your host, jess Heiss, dropping episodes every Friday, as we help you make the most of your Sturdy Girl summer. That is, reclaiming body confidence, wearing the swimsuit and doing the kinds of activities you want without letting your body or appearance hold you back. Hello, my Sturdy friends, and welcome to episode 37 of Sturdy Girl. Happy Friday, happy August, happy two-thirds the way through summer or, if you're some of my friends whose kids are already starting school, happy almost fall. I'm not ready. I'm still wearing my Sturdy Girl summer shirt. We still have some Sturdy Girl Summer shirt. We still have some Sturdy Girl Summer shirts. If you are interested in getting one, which I highly recommend, if you use the code SGSUMMER, you're going to save some money, so get your shirts while we still have them. We've sold out in a few sizes but still have some left, so get yours while we still have them. We're already working on fall designs.
Speaker 1:
1:26
I will tell you, as a podcast host, a coach, the apparel side of things is a whole nother world that I just haven't even scratched the surface of. When I look at brands that launch designs every single month, this launch culture is so overwhelming to me because I'm like how do they do that? Obviously, I know they have a team and it's just me and Blake at this point, right, but still I don't know if I'm a fan of the launch culture. I want people to have rad shirts that say Sturdy Girl on them and live their Sturdy Girl life. That's my mission. But to push launches all the time seems overwhelming. But anyways, get your sturdy girl merch, it's still there. We'll start bringing back sweatshirts when the weather gets cool, but right now, I mean, it's 90 every day here, so happy, still summer.
Speaker 1:
2:14
But this episode, okay. I had about three other outlines for this episode today and after a few client conversations, chats with friends, I realized that this is the episode that was needed, because I asked myself what do we need to hear this week? And here it is Three habits that saved me during a hard season. Because, I'll be honest, this last month has felt like a hard ass season in and of itself. I won't bore you with the specifics, but there are seasons that come up that challenge you in different areas and you roll with them. You figure out how to keep going.
Speaker 1:
2:49
It's easy to let so many things go and be running on doing the absolute bare minimum, especially when things out of the norm get thrown our way, and so the point of this is to say, like these aren't the things that are going to fix your situation, whatever hard thing or things you're going through. This is how do we maintain some semblance of feeling like ourselves, maintain some level of taking care of ourselves and reminding ourselves what is important to us? Originally, when I thought about what I wanted to talk about this week, I wanted to say three things that saved me, instead of three habits, and I was going to jokingly say, actually seriously say, bubbly water, barbells and dark chocolate, because you know your girl loves bubbly water. Don't know if you guys knew I love dark chocolate, but I do. And barbells that is a given and explaining it from this things perspective, barbells have served a very specific purpose in this season and it's not just the exercise piece and it hasn't been to get stronger. It is a reminder to myself that I am capable of doing hard things. It is that self-efficacy piece. It is okay. No matter what else is going on in my life, I can still pick up some heavy shit off the ground and put it down again. Is it as heavy as I've lifted in my life? No, but that heaviness is relative and it's a really great reminder of my capabilities. So have barbells served a very important purpose in the last month? 100 percent. And I encourage you, if you are not a lifter, that there is something to be said for learning those skills of basic strength training. Movement in and of itself could be a whole part of this as a habit that helps with stress management, that helps with mental health. Right, there is research to support that. Get out on a walk, lift some weights, whatever modality. But that's not what I want to talk about. I'm going to get myself totally segued here. These tips in this episode aren't specific to body image or confidence or necessarily that self-efficacy piece. It's more along the lines of how the heck do I tune back into being and feeling like myself when life feels wild and overwhelming and out of my control in so many areas when stress is high? So let's get into this a little bit.
Speaker 1:
5:05
I work with my clients a lot on setting non-negotiables. These are things that you want to do daily without fail. They are simply not negotiable. They're not big things. They're usually small tasks, small actions. So every week in my check-ins with my clients, I ask what are your one to three non-negotiables for the week, and these can be as simple as I want to drink 100 ounces of water a day, I'm aiming for four servings of plants a day to floss every day, to make my bed every day. Whatever type of habit you know is going to support your focus for that week. It needs to be small to make it something that you can do regularly With these non-negotiables. These are along the lines, like I said, supporting your focus for the week. This means, if you know that work is going to be hectic, or family life or coordinating all the things on everyone's schedule in your home, can you set the non-negotiable to put out everything you can for breakfast the next morning at the end of each day. That's one less stress you have getting ready for the day with everyone's busy schedules, little things like that. What are your non-negotiables? Come what may, you get those done.
Speaker 1:
6:13
So if you take nothing else away from this episode, let it be this Consider incorporating non-negotiables into your daily routine, choosing one to three things you could do each day to feel more like yourself. I will say for me and maybe this is too much of a confession, but when stress gets high, when maybe mental health isn't as great because of the things that are going on, I make my number one non-negotiable taking a shower every single day, because I can't tell you why. But showers, the thought of wanting to shower, let alone wash my hair or shave my legs, it is the first thing to go out the window. When I'm stressed Like why would I want to do that? I don't even care, I just want to go to bed. Or when you get up in the morning to convince yourself to get up, if you're like I'm just going to skip the shower, it's so easy to do. So there's some context of my easiest non-negotiable in some weeks. Do it in a way to support yourself. And maybe these next three habits that I'm about to talk about can be a consideration for your one to three weekly non-negotiables.
Speaker 1:
7:14
But here's what saved me during this hard season. Number one a daily check-in with myself. You can approach this so many ways. I'm going to talk about this from a way that it helped me. You can make this fit for you. For me, it's setting a 10-minute timer. It is reconnecting to my body and my brain. It is pen to paper 10 minutes to ask myself how am I actually doing? What am I feeling, what do I need? That reconnection piece, it's a chance for me to come back to myself. In a sense, if you've been a human doing all day long, there is a point where you need to transition into a human being. It reminds me a lot of the concept of groundedness. Think like a tree with its roots firmly in place.
Speaker 1:
7:58
Coming back to center and journaling out the feels and truly getting curious about how my body is doing can be really helpful because, like I said, when we are a human doing all day long, we often don't take the time to key into how we are feeling. How is our body? Are we tired? Do we need to go to bed earlier? Do we actually need movement? Have we eaten enough? Tuning into those cues, it takes all the noise of the day and allows you to take a big, deep breath, to just be present, which is often the hardest thing to do when we have a million things on our plate.
Speaker 1:
8:35
So, as I say, this hey, number one thing, number one habit that saved me is daily check-in with myself. There is a piece of mindfulness to this right, and mindfulness can be a buzzword, can get eye rolls, but I just mean this simply in the point of how well, actually, lady, you've been taking garbage care of me. And here's the things I need, because we can hear those things and tune into the sense of wow. We have been running on fumes to try and get things done without tuning back into ourselves. So that has been the number one most helpful thing for me. And I will tell you do I do this every day? Absolutely not. The goal is every day, and I'll say worst case.
Speaker 1:
9:22
But if there is a time when I'm just not going to pull out the journal, I'm not going to do this right before bed, which is typically when I do it. Some people may feel better doing this in the morning, but if I don't put pen to paper, I at least run through the mental checklist of how am I doing? Can we slow our roll for a second? Our thoughts have been really loud, the noise of the day we are in bed or it's first thing in the morning, how am I feeling? How do I want to feel? What can I do about the way I'm feeling right now? To take care of myself? That's simply. All this is is just that, quieting the noise at least for a couple minutes a day.
Speaker 1:
9:55
So there's thing number one. Number two and again I am human. I say these things as here are habits, not things that I did every single day during this hard season. But number two is prioritizing sleep above all else. Has my sleep been great? No, but making sure that I'm in bed with the lights out at a time that allows me the opportunity to sleep at least seven and a half hours. So notice my words here giving myself the opportunity to sleep seven and a half hours. There is a fantastic book called why we Sleep and they talk about sleep opportunity. So when we say, okay, we need to aim for at least seven hours of sleep a night, we need to give ourselves the opportunity for more than that. So getting in bed and with seven and a half hours, eight hours to give yourself at least the seven hours sleep.
Speaker 1:
10:41
One big piece of this was forcing myself not to continue giving up sleep for books, you guys. I love to read so so much. One, two, three books a week. I will shirk sleep in a heartbeat to finish a good book. If I'm sucked into a story, especially like murder mysteries and thrillers, my God, it's hard to put them down. Reading in and of itself is not a bad thing, but in this season where I know I need more sleep, I know I'm pushing myself past. When I need to, we put the book down, we put the Kindle down. When I sleep enough, I can tell how much better I handle stress, processing emotions, and I don't tend to feel the pull to raid the kitchen for all the carbs as often.
Speaker 1:
11:21
I try to keep that focus on, like I said, sleeping at least seven hours a night. That was the main thing. But some of the other sleep hygiene practices and again these are all in that why we Sleep book. So you know if you're into reading that one is a good one. It's pretty dense, it can be dry at times, but the information in it was fantastic. There's my plug for my book of the week. But some other sleep hygiene practices are going to bed and getting up within 30 minutes of the same time each day. I fail at this so hard I try, but there's just something to be said about being able to like, roll over and cuddle for an extra hour on the weekends. Sorry to my friends that listen, that have kids, because I know that sleeping in is not a thing for you anymore, apologies.
Speaker 1:
12:01
Another thing is having as dark of a room as possible or wearing a sleep mask along the lines of light, avoiding screen time for at least 30 minutes before bedtime and going back to reading. I still haven't figured out if my Kindle paperweight counts as screen time, but I still read before bed. Cutting off caffeine by a certain point in the day, I think it's at least four to six hours before bedtime. For me it's noon. If I drink coffee past noon, I'm done, for I'm wide awake at 2am and it's not fun. And then, lastly, keeping the room cool. I think the temperature was like 64 degrees or something like that, and thinking about it still being summertime and still being hot, I feel like it's a very privileged thing to be like keep your room cool in the summertime because we have AC, we have a massive power bill, but our bedroom is on the second floor and even with great heating cooling system, the upstairs is always hotter. So there's that, okay.
Speaker 1:
12:54
So that's point number two, prioritizing sleep. Understanding the importance, we inherently already know this, and so I feel silly bringing it up, but it is one of those things that tends to go out the window. Especially high stress times, it's sometimes hard to sleep at all, it's hard to turn off the brain, and that's where maybe that daily check-in before bed and then giving yourself the opportunity to sleep more can be helpful. But I don't want to be dismissive. Sleep can be hard when you're stressed.
Speaker 1:
13:21
And then habit number three is spending time with humans who fill my cup and actually reaching out to them. When stress gets high, it is so easy to pull back and not reach out to humans that love you the most. I'm 100% guilty of this. I don't ever want to burden others or seem like a big baby who can't manage her stress. I avoid calling and maybe I avoid texting friends that I know would listen. I know that care, but there's only so much that you can fit in a day sometimes.
Speaker 1:
13:53
But here's the thing the people who are in your corner want to be there for you in the good seasons and the bad. They're willing to listen, they're willing to be that sounding board, that listening ear, the shoulder for you to cry on if you need to, the person to give you a hug. Being social might feel like a lot when you're going through a hard time. So that's why I specifically said spend time with people who fill your cup, not the people who are energy trains, who take a lot to be around, the ones that you vibe with. If you will, they're going to be happy to be that person or that presence for you when you need it To be that phone call, that text message, that private podcast of a 15-minute voice memo to tell them the crazy work situation going on, the family situation, whatever you're going through or figuring out. Oh, my god, I'm in my mid-30s and I feel like I'm having a a full on existential crisis and I don't know what to do next. And they're there to listen because they care about you, just like you are that person for other people. This is a reminder for myself as much as for you. There are people in your life, whether it's friends or whether it's a family, the people that care.
Speaker 1:
14:58
I had my dad recently call me and again remember hard season for the last month. He calls and he says hey, I'm just calling because I wanted to make sure your phone wasn't broken. And I laughed and he said because I haven't heard from you in a few weeks and I that's not normal and I wanted to make sure you were doing okay. And I hadn't even realized that I hadn't contacted him because I'm notorious for just sending fun little text messages and saying hi and love you, or pictures that I take, things that we're doing or where we're going. So no, your phone's not broken. You have people that love and care and support. You have a coffee, go for a walk, call them, voice, memo them. I would say, text them.
Speaker 1:
15:33
Maybe texting is a place to start, but there is something to be said about verbalizing, verbalizing the things that we're going through or the things that we are feeling, because oftentimes, just being able to verbalize it, they don't seem as big or as hard. Or maybe, when you say things out loud, you can start processing and suddenly go, oh my gosh, this might be a solution and our brains are so good at telling us that we need to handle things alone that we don't need to burden other people or add things to their plate. But we're wired for human connection and that sense of belonging is a basic human need. It really is, and that's something that I guess just an aside for me in this season. I am so fortunate to have this wonderful neighborhood.
Speaker 1:
16:15
We live on a cul-de-sac and we've been here three and a half years now and I would say in the last year and a half we have really connected with a handful of other families in our neighborhood where it has brought this sense of belonging. We have summertime wood-fired pizza oven nights, barbecues on holidays and we have little ones in the neighborhood that we get to basically be their aunt and uncle and I love it so much because we don't have kids yet. So, from the cool auntie perspective of I just had a really stressful day for 10 different reasons. And I'm coming home from work, just cup is empty, ready to be done with the day, and as I'm coming around the corner into my neighborhood, one of the little ones is outside with their parents and her face lights up when I see her and I'm like, okay, maybe things aren't so bad in the world. This sweet little girl is happy to see me, you know, and it's that sense of belonging to this community, but also sweet, cute faces melt your heart. So you have people in your world, utilize them, know that they care about you. That's my point.
Speaker 1:
17:16
So, summarizing these three habits this season for you might be difficult, and I never, ever am trying to talk down from whatever you may be going through, but these habits are meant as a support. You have number one, a daily check-in with yourself. So connecting back with yourself, and then skipping over Number three, connecting with others. These connection points are so important to give us a sense of, let's say, an anchor, a place, because when we get stressed and we push away or we pull away from things that matter, we're like a boat that's drifting. Have these anchors in place, connect with yourself, connect with others and then prioritize that piece of self-care, of that sleep every single night, because this season might be difficult, but that's just it. It's a season, it's not your entire life. Things might feel hard right now and none of what I said today is meant to take away from the emotions you're feeling, but do spend a moment or two thinking about what kind of non-negotiables you want to set during this time, things you know will help take care of you in the big picture, even though the last thing you want to do right now is make sure you drink enough water, sleep enough, take your daily shower, walk the dog every day, right, all of those things. But you are worthy of love and respect and care, no matter the season and no matter what is going on in your life. So that's it.
Speaker 1:
18:36
That is episode 37. That is what was on my heart this week for you to hear. I am a person in your corner. If you don't have someone that you feel like you can have an open conversation with, my DMs are open. There's a way to send a message through the podcast. Happy to talk, happy to listen. Friends, I hope you have a great weekend if you're listening to this on Friday, or a great day whenever you are listening to this. Remember there are Sturdy Girl shirts. Please at least check them out. I'm really proud of them. It's been such a labor of love. But otherwise, we'll catch you next Friday for another episode. Bye, friends.