Cori (00:00):
Welcome to the Redefining Strength Podcast. Everything you need to succeed on your health and fitness journey. Even the stuff you don’t want to hear. Self-care, self-love that TLC, we all need to de-stress, unwind, take care of ourselves. It’s not just bubble bass and manicures and pedicures, which can be really fun. It’s so much more and sometimes it’s tough love. So I’m super excited to be joined by Susa to discuss tough love, self-care, and all the other nuance to it. So Susa, thank you for joining me today.

Susa (00:34):
It’s a pleasure to be here always.

Cori (00:36):
So let’s really dive into what does self-love mean? Because as I said, it can be sometimes tough love even.

Susa (00:43):
Yeah, I always think about, people think about if I say about I’m going to take some time for myself, they think I’m going to take a bubble bath, I’m going to go for a massage. And like you said, it’s all fun and pleasure, but I actually think at the end of the day it’s taking care of yourself on a consistent basis. I always think about when clients actually sign up for your program, especially the one-on-one or any of the other programs that you have, that’s already a sign of self-care because you are taking action to actually become better or put better habits in place. So that to me is what is important. And I think that took me quite a while to realize that self-care is actually when you actually stand back and you start making yourself a priority. I think that is where we as, especially if you’re younger and you have small children where you don’t realize that I always joke and I say, when I was taking care of my kids, I thought self-care was if I could go to the bathroom by myself for five minutes, that was self-care, just having that little bit.

(01:42):
But it’s more than that for sure.

Cori (01:44):
It’s taking the time for ourselves, but it’s also prioritizing our goals, our needs. It’s recognizing what we deserve in this life. So off of that, when we’re thinking about who needs self-care and self-love, it’s kind of all of us, isn’t it?

Susa (02:03):
It’s all of us. And I think people that really lose the self-care aspect is in this. I was saying when you’re busy raising a family, I think that’s one, you’re just running on fumes to get everything done. I think that’s the first one. I think a professional, somebody in a professional job always is putting everybody else in front of themselves because they need to work on this business or they need to work on this career goal. I think if you go through major life changes, moving menopause, changing jobs, anything big, divorce, anything like that, these big majors, there’s times when you really need to stand back a little bit and really take order of what’s going on in your life and am I really taking care of myself? Am I really putting myself first in this? And I think it’s putting yourself first on a consistent basis. It’s not just putting yourself first for Friday afternoon. It’s getting to a place where you know that you prioritize certain things is non-negotiable to yourself.

Cori (03:01):
I love that you said it’s prioritizing yourself and things that are non-negotiable to you because it’s not just the relaxing things, right? It’s owning who and what you are and what you want out of this life and what really takes care of you, which if we’re thinking about self-love, self-care, and some of those situations, it might be prioritizing your workouts, it might be prioritizing your meal prep, it might be prioritizing the bubble bath, but it’s not just those activities that are relaxing and fun all the time that are truly self-love and self-care.

Susa (03:31):
I think the biggest self-care for me, I would say it’s the biggest, but one of the one that for me is non-negotiable is actually doesn’t matter how tired I’m, how bad my sleep was the night before, I get up at a certain time in the morning and I go to the gym and I do my workout, that is almost a non-negotiable for me. It has to be really something big that will take me out of that. So for me, it’s the first thing is I never say no to a workout. It doesn’t matter how tired I am, how hard my day was, how early my day start. I would always show up. I always think like just go and foam roll, just foam roll, do some stretching. And that usually will go into a little bit more and that might not be the day that I’m going to deadlift my personal best. It might be the day that I’m going to deadlift the worst deadlift weight that I’ve ever deadlifted, but it’s still better than sitting on the couch. That’s my philosophy in life. So I think that to me is the first one thing that you never say no to a workout. You always show up for your workouts. It must be something very crucial before you don’t show up for a workout.

Cori (04:35):
And I think it’s interesting you use that example because when we think about that, you might think, oh, well, isn’t the self-care and the self-love giving yourself grace to skip the workout on a bad day? But you’re framing it in a different way. And I think that’s where me bringing up tough love at the beginning was such hopefully a key perspective shift when we think about self-love because you’re doing something that’s ultimately better and more loving to yourself than saying, oh no, I can just sit on the couch. Because at the end of the workout you always feel really good. You’re also prioritizing all that you know that your body can achieve what you really want out of your body and your life in the future as well. So we have to remember that truly caring about ourself isn’t always giving ourselves grace or that short-term benefit. It’s sometimes being a little hard on ourselves to know that we deserve more in the future too.

Susa (05:25):
Yeah, I agree. I always think about myself when the alarm goes off in the morning and there’s really mornings, and I always say to people, I’m a personal trainer and believe me, it doesn’t come easy because you’re a personal trainer to go and work out. They still, we can talk about discipline and motivation in a bit. There’s still some drive that you need to put into for yourself to get up and go and do it, but I always think about what will my future self feel like? Nobody leaves a gym or a, if you put in a hundred percent effort, 50% or only 15% effort because at that moment that was the best you could do in that moment. And I think that is what you need to ask yourself. Is this going to benefit myself in the future? And the answer will always be yes. So I think that is important to remember.

Cori (06:16):
Yeah, I was going to say that’s taking care of you and you’re thinking about the future benefits because you deserve it. I mean that is the exact thing of giving love to yourself, right?

Susa (06:27):
Yeah, exactly. And I think what ties in with this is actually how much time we spend. And if you have that ability on your phone, actually switch it on to see how much time do you spend scrolling through Facebook and Instagram? And I’m guilty here as well because I love watching all those little videos of the funny stuff and the cats and the dogs and whatever. So definitely. But you can get so sucked in with this so easily. And sometimes you feel like yesterday I had a long day, I started at 5:00 AM yesterday morning with the first meeting, so it was a long day. So around three, four o’clock, I was like, oh my gosh, all I want to do is just sit on the couch. And I was like, no, I can sit here for an hour and scroll through my phone. Well, I can actually do something that’s going to benefit me.

(07:12):
And I ended up watering my garden and deadheading it. And that to me was a sign of, okay, this is so much better because I ended up feeling productive. I was less tired when I came out of the sunshine. I felt like I accomplished more than just scrolling through my phone. And believe me, it does happen. I do scroll through the phone and then I’m like, oh my gosh, an hour just went by. But I think it’s just rethinking what you want to do in that moment, just giving yourself that ten second or one minute. We always talk about when you feel a craving coming and just wait that one minute, walk away from that craving and see if it doesn’t pass. And it’s the same with just going like, oh, I need a break now.

Cori (07:49):
Sometimes the things that feel the hardest to start end up feeling the best, and I would argue not even sometimes, almost all the time, I mean you do, you’re taking care of yourself. You feel stronger for having done it, more confident for having done it, more productive. If you think about those words to use to describe yourself, that’s what we all want. We want a lot of those words that come out of doing the hard thing. They don’t come out of going and getting the manicure pedicure. And don’t get me wrong, I love doing that and it’s fun going with friends and you’re relaxing and it’s enjoyment with other people. So that is a stress relief and that is taking care of yourself because you do need those things. But so often when we think about who we want to become, all those adjectives we’re using to describe ourself, come out of doing sort of the hard habits or giving ourselves a little tough love and doing the things that we don’t want to do in the moment that ultimately after we feel so much better for doing. And if you think about that as loving yourself because you believe in yourself, if you think about all the adjectives you want to be, you’d probably change what you’re doing for self-love.

Susa (08:50):
Yeah, definitely. Especially difficult night. You’re almost better off sleeping for 20 minutes than scrolling through your phone, taking that 20 minute power nap. You might wake up and feel more refresh and then be ready to go and do a walk or do some of your projects that need to be done. So just really prioritizing what do I really need in this moment? What is going to benefit me the best in this moment? I think something else that we can tie into that is I talk a lot about food prep. When people think about food prep, they think they need to do these little, when you open up these TikTok videos and people open up the fridge and these little glass containers or standing like that, and that’s not what food prep is about. Food prep is going to the grocery store on a regular basis, loading up your cart with lean protein sources, good fruit and vegetables.

(09:47):
I don’t even make a list. I literally walk into the store, I walk, oh, this looks good, this looks good. Okay, I’m going to do that. And then taking the time to food prep, food that’s going to fit in your goals, that’s also part of self-care. And when we talk about food prep, you don’t need to do these little boxes of food that, I mean, please, if I could do that, that will be amazing. But I think at the end of the day, it’s just like batch cook, a tray of chicken thighs, batch cook, some ground Turkey batch cook, some stir fried vegetables, cut up your fruit. So when you have a day where you tie it, you can just open up the fruit and go like, oh, I can weigh off my four ounces of this and my 20 ounces of that, or whatever the case may be. So there is food available and it’s prioritizing that and you don’t need to do it on a Sunday or a Saturday, especially on the summertime now we want to be out hiking and hiking. So look at your schedule and go like, okay, I’ve got two hours here on a Tuesday. I’m going to do it Tuesday night or Tuesday morning or whatever fits for you. And that’s part of self-care.

Cori (10:50):
It’s owning your schedule, your priorities, and then planning around them, realizing that habits don’t have to be done in just one form and there can be the balance of fueling your goals and foods you enjoy. And I love that you can go into the store and just buy anything and see what looks good. I’m exactly the opposite. I need my list, otherwise I’m going to forget something and then I’m not going to end up having it and then I’m not going to be able to make the meals I need. So I always have a list of these are the things I’m out of, this is what I need to get just so I always have it on hand. And that’s why I buy a lot of frozen too, so that I do forget something. There’s always there, but it’s finding the habits and the variations that really work for us.

(11:27):
And then I’ll even go a step further, and it’s not just meal prep, it’s even tracking your food to learn how to fuel. Because so often we think tracking restrictive, cutting out, but instead if we sort of shift our mindset with some of these habits to recognize that we’re doing a lot of these things to learn about what we need so that we can feel our best, they feel a little less like chores. And instead we see the value in the investment of time and energy for ourselves. And I think that’s also another key point, recognizing that we deserve to invest in ourselves financially, energy learning, all these different things. Even failing is an investment in our own learning experience and we don’t value that enough I think.

Susa (12:09):
Yeah, and coming back to the tracking when you said the failure is something that I would encourage a lot is that you need to track in advance. That’s how you get good at it. So if we don’t track in advance and something comes over your way and in your mind think that it was loan calories and then you track it afterwards and not, that’s how you learn. Because at the end of the day, if you didn’t do that, you’re not going to be like, okay, next time I need to do a little bit more planning. And everything just falls back to the self-care prioritizing yourself. And when I say prioritizing yourself, I’m not like teaching your husband and your kids and everybody else around you. That’s what I’m saying is I just think it’s sitting down on a Sunday or on a Saturday and scheduling your week for yourself.

(12:58):
When am I going to do my workouts? I’m actually going to do my workouts, this and this. This is where it’s going to work. And that’s you’re not going to move that you are scheduling and this is the time that I can actually do some food prep or some grocery shopping or this is time that I’m going to spend with my husband or my children, I’m going to go walk. You really have to plan. It’s not just planning your food, it’s planning your week in advance and not just doing everything on the fly when you think that you need to do. It’s when it’s not working.

Cori (13:26):
And off of that two sort of images that are analogies that come to mind is a put your oxygen mask on first. You’re not grabbing away the oxygen mask from somebody else, but you’re putting yours on first so that you can make sure you can help others with theirs because if you can’t breathe, you can’t help other people. And then on top of that, it’s also sort of thinking about it as a gas tank. If you end up on empty by the side of the road, you’re having to walk to go get gas and everybody is in the car just stuck there. Versus if you pulled over and got gas before it hit completely empty, you could keep moving forward with your road trip and keep everybody happy, but you have to take care of yourself in order to be able to take care of other people. But it’s hard to break the mindset, break the patterns we’ve already created, which are probably sometimes the opposite of this. So how would you recommend someone go about getting into a routine with new self-care habits?

Susa (14:21):
So I think the best thing is what I’ve just said is really sitting down and scheduling. We will schedule in a doctor’s appointment, we’ll schedule in our dentist’s appointment, we’ll schedule in all these other things. So why are you not scheduling in the stuff that’s going to make you reach your goals because it’s just part of this whole thing that needs to happen for this week that’s ahead of you. So for me, I think the most important thing is scheduling, scheduling as much as you can. The other thing is thinking about discipline and motivation is working on discipline because at the end of the day, it’s discipline that’s going to get you to the gym or get you to eat the food that’s in your fridge when the motivation is lacking. So it’s these things that you need to work on and you don’t need to over all your whole life in one go, it’s the small building one stone on top of the other.

(15:13):
You have to remember a thousand baby steps still gets you to the mile or the kilometer. It might just take a little bit longer, but you’re still going to get to the end of the road. And it is by building these scheduling in your habits. I mean I literally schedule in stuff like my breaks. So what happens is we sit down, we start working, and you get so busy my alarm goes off and my alarm says, go for a walk, sister. I even schedule, we’ve got this phone now, this technology that can help help. And you just have to make it a priority to that little bit of time on a Sunday evening or a little bit of time in the evening before you go to bed. So instead of scrolling your phone, relock your food for the next day, schedule out your day, look at your day, what’s my day? You look like, okay, this is what I’m going to the gym, this is what I’m going to do. So I think that is one of the most important things is to schedule it out.

Cori (16:08):
I think you hit on a lot of key things there. The pause, right? You have to add in that time to pause and reflect and plan. And when you have that little pause that really is key, but you’re also changing your environment to create that pause by those different reminders. And so we have to remember that part of what creates action is the environment we set ourselves up in. Because so much of how we go about habits is unconsciously repeated even. And so the more we change that environment, the more we break just sort of the unconscious pattern we’re already repeating and we bring awareness to it. So changing the environment, creating that power of pause or that time to pause and really reflect on what we need. I would even say it’s recognizing what creates discipline, which is momentum. And momentum is built through actions.

(16:56):
And you hit on this with even just inching forward, you’re still moving forward, but if you remember momentum really creates that motivation. The more you do, the more you do that can go the other way. The first time we don’t do something. So as much as we might be like, well, I can’t get in my full workout, and then we just say, well, what’s the point of doing anything that’s still five minute pause keeps the momentum going in the right direction. So sometimes what feels even silly to do because it’s so little or not enough or whatever else we want to put on it that’s negative, that can be enough just to create the mindset of I did something and that something keeps the momentum going in this direction versus doing nothing. Even if it’s literally a 32nd or one minute difference could be the difference between doing more of less and doing more of more.

Susa (17:46):
Yeah, always think about the fact that if youve out on the couch and you binge watch a Netflix series, how do you feel compared to, I mean, it’s not easy to turn off that Netflix because you anxiously want to see what the next episode is going to hold, but you’re going to feel so much better at the end of the day when you actually turn it off, go for a walk, do a little bit of food prep and then maybe watch one more show before you go to bed or something like that. It’s like you say, just taking that moment to reflect on what I always say when I go to bed on a Sunday night, I want to think about the past week and I don’t want to feel like, I want to feel like, yes, it was a good week, I did it. So I always think for every action there’s a reaction and what is that reaction? What reaction do I want? Do I want the yes or do I want that sucked? So it’s thinking about that when you start changing habits and planning ahead and putting yourself first.

Cori (18:44):
It’s also recognizing that you do create all the adjectives about yourself through going through the hard, but also the relaxing times are so much fun because of the hard things we’ve also pushed through. And in sort of recognizing that you like some of those hard habits that really are tough love and then you appreciate those good times a little bit more versus if every day is legendary, no day is legendary. And so the more we can recognize, hey, I’m doing some of these habits that my future self will really appreciate, you’re creating even that person who appreciates some of the other more relaxing, more fun aspects, even more because of the hard. So I know that’s a weird thing, but it’s recognizing that so much of what we do is prioritizing ourselves, realizing all that we deserve, and then putting that investment into the self-care, our person piggy bank, so to speak.

Susa (19:41):
And when you say all of this, I’m thinking about when I started prioritizing myself. So I always think about a client one day said to me, it’s easy for me because I’m in the profession and I want to say to them, it’s just as hard for everybody else. So when I started with self-care, when I really made the realization that I need to take care of me, I was a practicing attorney with a busy practice. I had children, I had a household, I had all of this, and I had to rethink my entire diary every day. Where am I going to fit the clients in? Because if I want to go for lunchtime, then I can’t see clients afterwards. And it took some shoveling and people had to get used to this new routine, but at the end of the day here I’m snow. I’m 60, 15 years later and it’s still just odd. And it was hard. It was hard and it’s still hard some days, some mornings I don’t want to go and some afternoons I don’t want to go and some evenings I don’t want to go for a walk after dinner. But it’s just building on those habits day by day by day and just putting yourself out and saying, I can do this. I’ve done harder stuff in my life than this and just keep going.

Cori (20:53):
We don’t always want to do what we should, even when it’s a fun thing or even when it’s something we’ve literally done for every day of our life, brushing our teeth. There are our days at the end of the night where I just don’t even want to brush my teeth, but I do. And I mean that doesn’t take very long. It’s something I’ve done every day for as long as I can remember. I would almost argue basically our entire lives, we don’t always want to do what we should, but when we really value ourself and our goals, if we think about it this way, we do those things because of that value. And so there is no higher form of self appreciation than that, and that’s

Susa (21:31):
Hard. Yeah, I agree. And I mean we all will go through phases where we lack that. I can look back at times last year where I lacked that, and then you can actually look at what happened when I wasn’t taking care of myself. And then it’s sitting down having a hard conversation with yourself and going get your stuff in order here. It’s time to do that. Self-care again of prioritizing your workout, prioritizing your food prep, prioritizing your grocery shopping, prioritizing your walks, just make those non-negotiables. It’s just how it has to be for you to move on because I always think we do chase looking good and is important. I mean, all of us want to put on our dresses and look nice and put on our shorts and have confidence, but at the end of the day, you want to feel good. And as we age, feeling good, almost overpower the looking good part because as we age, we want to be able to kick the ball with our kids and we want to be able to run outside with our grandchildren and be on the bike and go out hiking and stuff.

(22:37):
And in the long term, this is what we’re working towards. We’re working towards being graceful at 70 and 80 and 90 if we’re to get that old, do not be ill and sick and not be able to move, and this is what you’re doing. This self care is not about, oh, I want to look better and I want to do this. That’s all good goals. But if you have to think of the long future path, why you’re doing the self-care, because at the end of the day, we live in such a stress environment, there’s so much outside stress coming onto us that we need to take that course and take care of ourselves.

Cori (23:12):
Yeah, it’s not just even physical, it’s also the mental aspect of taking care of ourselves and recognizing that when we’re doing these things, we’re helping ourself become stronger, feel better, be more confident, conquer different challenges. And it’s not just physically but mentally that all of these things are paying off, which is why that pause to reflect, and I would even argue one self-care activity we don’t do enough of is giving ourselves grace instead of creating guilt. Like, oh, I wasn’t good at self-care in this point. I wasn’t good at tracking my food. I wasn’t good at my workouts. Okay, you’re human, and guess what? You’re never going to be fixed in terms of you’re never not going to mess up. But one thing that you can do to show yourself some love is to give yourself more grace. And this doesn’t mean letting yourself off the hook and always making these excuse, oh, well, it’s just one. Right? There’s a negative to giving ourself too much grace, but it’s also recognizing that guilt doesn’t serve us. And so one of the best TLC things we can do for ourselves is to just not create guilt and instead see it as that learning experience and reflection and knowing even then that as much as we try not to create the guilt where at some point going to create the guilt and how can we just learn from it to move forward faster even then, but it’s the mental too.

Susa (24:26):
Yeah, definitely. You one time said it’s a long time ago you said you carry on the next day as if yesterday never happened. And that is really how you give yourself the grace is you just go on. I mean like don’t slash all three of the tires, you slashed one, so let’s put on the spare wheel and let’s go. It’s really just continuing on building, looking back, reflecting, digging into your whys. Why am I doing this? Why do I want this? Just keeping all of that in the forefront, and that’s how you take care of yourself.

Cori (24:59):
Why do I deserve this even? Why am I worth this investment of time, energy, money, habit, change, hard, whatever else it is? Why am I worth this? And also owning you deserve it.

Susa (25:11):
Yeah, definitely. You deserve everything. You have this one life to live and it needs to be your best life that you can do. And so it is going out there and grabbing every day and doing the best you can in that day. And like I say, not every day’s best is the same. Every day’s best looks different, but it has to be the best for that day. So I think that is important to remember as well.

Cori (25:34):
I’m almost like, I just almost want to be like, that’s it, mic drop. But I do want a little wrap up for everybody. So just highlighting a few key points if someone’s like, okay, I’m starting to understand that self-care is not just bubble bass, so what can I do and how can I implement something today and build those better self-love habits?

Susa (25:53):
Okay, so I think the first thing is scheduling schedule. Your workout schedule when you’re going to do your grocery shopping schedule, when you’re going to do your food break schedule where I’m going to make time for myself this week. So scheduling is the magic word for me, and it’s sitting down and taking some time and thinking of what in my life is stealing my time, what in my life is taking away that I can’t get to the stuff that I need to do to prioritize myself? Because if we sit down and we actually look at what is stealing our energy and our time, we can actually probably cost out another hour of our day and it’s taking some time to reflect on what have been doing I do better. What is that 1% habit, scheduling self-care that I can do better in this week coming? So scheduling I think is priority for everything that you want to do.

Cori (26:55):
Well, I love it. Thank you Susa so much for joining me and sharing all those great tips. And again, guys, remember self-care is some of those stress management things, the relaxing things, the fun things, but it’s also sometimes giving ourselves a little bit of tough love to do the hard thing now, which our future self will appreciate. So thank you Susa for joining me. I.

*Note: This transcript is autogenerated there may be some unintended errors.