Episode 5 Transcript

Arivee Vargas: Hi I'm Arivee Vargas. I believe we're all so powerful beyond our wildest imaginations. We have the ability to overcome the fears, self-doubt, negative beliefs and all the other roadblocks that hold us back from having the life and career we really want and deserve. That's why I created the Humble Rising podcast. 

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I want to help you get clear on what a joyful and fulfilling life and career looks like for you. And help you go after it with all you have. Each week, we'll talk to badass inspirational women sharing their journeys. We’ll dig into their successes, their failures, challenges, the different shifts, and their careers in their personal lives and so much more. Be inspired, get motivated, and get ready to rise. This is the Humble Rising Podcast. 

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Hello friends. You know how we take care of ourselves mentally, spiritually, emotionally, physically is so incredibly important. And you've heard me talk about self-care before, but I wanted to dig a little bit deeper here in this episode of you. So, I've been. I've been thinking about how we really do self-care and what it means like anyone else I love getting a great pedicure or manicure and massage, you know, massage pre-COVID times, right. And for me working out gives me that amazing rush of endorphins, especially after a really challenging workout. But many of us only think of self-care as temporary feelings of pleasure and relaxation, and I believe it's even more than a momentary rush of. Oh, I just did that. When you crush a workout, or you do something new. That you couldn't do a month before. To me, it's also more than maintaining a gratitude or meditation or journaling practice. Those are for sure all important and honestly, I've seen it have long lasting positive effects on people, including myself. But research shows you really have to do those almost daily and it has to be a real practice over a long period of time for it to make a difference. And many of you share with me that it's challenging to implement things like this daily. I mean, my practice really helps me be less reactive, especially with the kids and things that get under my skin. Generally, it doesn't mean I don't have my moments, but they are far less than they used to be. And so when something happens, there's a space between the trigger. And my response as opposed to me having an immediate reaction. Right. And they're not being that space because when you're in immediate reaction mode, you can say and do things that you don't mean and it's highly unlikely you're being who you really wanna be in that moment. Right. But I was thinking, you know, what, if you don't do the daily journaling, a gratitude practice or meditation practice? And for the record, I will acknowledge and admit that I've had trouble getting into meditation, right? I do. I usually do some breathing exercises like two to three minutes each throughout the day, and I have a gratitude practice. And you could do. You could probably do a gratitude practice that you just take a minute before you get out of bed in the morning, and you tell yourself three things you're grateful for. And in that moment, and it can be as simple as that. So, you couldn't really get it down to just a minute a day. But to me, when I think about self-care generally, if you take out those kinds of daily practices of meditation, journaling and gratitude and other practices as well. You know. 

Self-care is first doing an audit of how you you, how you talk to yourself every day, right? It's a check on yourself can be really hard in ourselves, especially when you've been a high performer. And have climbed or on your way to reaching the titles that a company, what we traditionally think of as career success, right. And I say traditionally because as you know from this podcast and me, I think of career success, I think it has little to do with title and more about what you contribute. You know how you feel about what you contribute like, are you contributing your gifts and adding real value that you are in any position to give. Do you help others climb the ladder you've climbed? Do you reach behind you to pull those along? Are you doing something that lights you up and all those things, and we'll get into that in another episode? But regardless, we can treat ourselves and talk to ourselves pretty harshly. And we think sometimes we think anyway that being hard on ourselves has brought us this far. Right. This is why we're successful. But I think we're confusing things. Maybe yes, there's a fear of failure. There's a fear of, you know, I'm gonna be. I'm gonna get found out. Right. That you're not as smart or as “good”. As people say you are. And you may use that to propel you forward. And maybe you have feelings of needing to prove and please right, which honestly, if it's to prove to yourself. That you can do something you haven't done, or no one like you has done. I I don't think that crosses the line into an unhealthy state. But oftentimes what I see with clients is they think that being hard on themselves. Is more what has allowed them to have success. I think it's less that and more that they've learned how to be resilient, to fight through challenges and push themselves to do what they believe they're capable of, to know they can figure it out, they can adapt and end more, right? Because to do all those things you had to tell yourself that you could do it. And that's that's talking to yourself in a motivating and encouraging way, telling yourself you suck. You're stupid and you'll never be this or that or you'll never be as smart as so and so. Well, I'm willing to bet. That's not the dominating thought in your head. You may make a mistake and say some hard things to yourself, but you bounce back, right? So, like enter resilience, enter learning. This is what learning is about, right, enter progress. 

So, when I say being harder on yourself, I I mean, we don't cut ourselves slack. We want everything to go as planned. And we want to be at 100 plus percent all the time. We wanna get everything done. We want to be great leaders. We wanna be great parents, friends, partners, colleagues. And when we feel like we fall short, we get down ourselves. And I'm guilty of this too, right? And we can't shake that feeling of it just wasn't enough today. Totally ignoring or forgetting all the stuff that you did do. Who you supported, who you took care of and the positive impact you likely had on someone, right, they you'll never know? Sometimes you'll never know the impact you had on someone until, like years later, maybe they'll come and tell you, right? But one of the most effective strategies that I've used and seen work for others when things get difficult, or you feel like. You haven't gotten anything done, but you did, or you feel like you're not at your best is to ask yourself. You really gotta take a moment and ask yourself. How would I speak to a friend in this moment? So, if a friend came to you and shared how hard something has been for her, what would you say to her? You know you have to treat yourself like that friend. You have to be there for yourself. Like you'd be there for her. You wouldn't say suck it up and get over it. At least you know I'd. I'd hope not. I hope you wouldn't say that. I mean, there is a difference between tough love and having no empathy, and you'd have more empathy with a friend and use honest but kinder words, right? 

So self-care is also about giving yourself what you need in a given moment. And this is important because it takes some of the overwhelm and pressure out of instilling a daily practice of the same time every day, right? But all of us can get overwhelmed and stressed and upset. You know we're human. And the pandemic has tested us and frankly, everything going on has tested us. In very deep and forever changing ways. No matter how good we get at managing our minds and our responses to stress, we have moments where we can lose ourselves a bit. I mean, we can lose it. And we have to get it together somehow, right? And it's in those moments that you need to be your own friend and ask yourself, what do I need in this moment? 

So yesterday I was struggling with the fact that I couldn't do much because my pregnancy has been difficult in the last couple of weeks with a lot of discomfort and I was feeling frustrated to say the least and emotional. You know, I couldn't do much with the kids. Um, I couldn't concentrate on some work. I really wanted to finish. I wasn't feeling like myself and I was I was tired of being tired. I was so done, and my husband noticed the look on my face and said, “Just a few more days of it, a few more days.” And that's exactly what I needed to be telling myself in that moment. I needed to tell myself, hey, you can't change what's happening right now and that this is uncomfortable, but it's a few more days, so you just gotta. It's gonna get there. And I wanna make a note here that you know you can be grateful for a blessing. Be excited about that. And we totally frustrated and pissed off at the same time, and that's how I had been feeling. But then I asked myself, OK. What do I need to do for myself in this moment? So, what I did was I went to lie down. And that's exactly what I needed my husband put the kids to bed. My daughter, miraculously, my 3-year-old put herself to sleep. She ended up in her room later, but at least she got the first part down without my help. I really just needed to rest and stop pressuring myself to, you know, get things done. I needed to stop. I needed that for me. Even if the kids needed me for bedtime, I needed me. And that was gonna be the priority. 

So, understanding and giving yourself what you need. Whether it's what you need to do. Or say to yourself or both right is self-care. It doesn't have to be a 30-minute journaling or meditation session, although it can be, and that can be really powerful overtime. It's caring for yourself and moments that are really tough and difficult and then resetting or. At least not going down a path of more frustration, stressed and overwhelmed. And you, you know what I'm talking about, right? It's like you go down that thought train to nowhere good. And you just keep spinning the same thing. Spinning the same story and one thought leads to another and another. And you have trouble stopping at all, right? It's in the tiniest moments, seconds and minutes in our daily lives where a self-care really matters and makes a really, really, really big difference. We really have to put attention to those moments throughout our day, right. We have to have the ability to understand that we have the power to do that, and the more you try to do it. But you notice those moments to take a minute. You pause, which I need. In this moment. The more you do that, the more you try it, the more impacts you'll feel it has. So, when you're struggling, you're having a tough time. Ask yourself. What do I need to do or say or both to myself right now, to take care of myself in this moment? It really can't hurt to try it. 

So, I hope this was helpful and gave you another tool in your toolkit. For navigating. What is life? This is the everyday of life. This isn't the, you know, these aren't the highlight reels on Instagram. This is real life. And, you know, keep taking care of yourselves and the ways that serve you best. Remember. You are the only one that knows how to do that. You're the only one living your life, comparing yourself to someone else is not gonna be helpful. Let me know in the comments what you're doing for self-care, though I would love to hear what's working for you and what you're trying. Catch you all next time. 

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Thanks so much for listening. Don't forget to subscribe to this podcast so you don't miss an episode. If you want my weekly doses of inspiration and motivation, click the link and the show notes to subscribe. And if you've been asking yourself how to figure out that next step in your career, I've got my career clarity guide, just for you. Check out the show notes for the link until next time my friends keep digging deep and keep stepping into how incredibly powerful you are.