I Wrote a New Ebook: Self-Love During Stressful Times is Here!

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A few weeks ago I hosted a free online workshop about how to maintain and even amp up our self-love when life is busy and stressful. When we're focused on getting ready for the holidays, going balls to the wall on a big deadline, or experiencing some sort of difficulty, it's easy to let our self-care fall by the wayside and get bogged down in feelings of not being good enough. But these are the time when we most need to wrap ourselves up in love and adoration - and that's totally possible.

The workshop was such a great opportunity to chat with a lot of you and share my top tips, strategies, practices, and exercises for taking care of and loving ourselves during life's stressful, hectic periods. But sharing this information with you made me want to dive even deeper into the topic than a single hour could allow. So I've rolled all of that content into a 30-page ebook that covers everything I talked about in the webinar in greater detail, as well as some other strategies that I didn't have time to get to.

It includes simple practices that only take a couple of minutes to implement, as well as easy exercises you can use to prepare for any stressful situations you might be anticipating (going home for the holidays, anyone?!)

For me, self-love means treating myself with loving kindness, meeting my needs, and infusing my life with joy, much the way I would with a friend, lover, or family member. 

But it’s different in that ultimately, we need to put ourselves first. This can be a difficult concept for many of us as we’ve been trained to prioritize the needs of others and it’s engrained in us that being selfless is a noble virtue. Our very identity as a person, and most especially as a woman, can be completely caught up in this idea of being the nurturer. Of putting others first. 

But if you’re reading this, I trust that you already understand the importance of self-love. Of putting on your oxygen mask first. Of giving form your overflow. 

And yet, it can be so difficult to live from this place of self-love. Especially when life gets busy and stressful, taking care of ourselves is often the first thing we forget about. 

Yet we don't start treating our friends and family members horribly during those more challenging times. We still take time to nurture our relationships. Even if we don't have time for long, leisurely dinners and hang outs. I make sure to kiss my husband everyday and tell him that I love him, no matter how full my to-do list is or how anxious and stressed out I feel. I nurture my relationships every day because they’re important to me and that’s what it takes for them to thrive. 

In this ebook I’m going to share with you some ideas, tools, practices, and mindset shifts that you can use to treat yourself with loving kindness and amp up your self-love, even when life is moving at a mile a minute. 

This ebook is for you if:

  • You find it difficult to be kind to yourself when life gets stressful 
  • Your daily practice is the first thing to fall by the wayside when you’re busy 
  • You’re struggling to create a daily practice in the first place 

I'll be teaching you all about:

  • How to maintain or even amp up your self-love practice when life is moving at a mile a minute
  • Simple strategies for practicing self-love when you feel like you don't have a second to spare
  • Creating an intuitive relationship with self-care, so that even when our schedule is disrupted, we can still take care of our own needs
  • How to manage the difficult emotions that often come up around the holidays while showing ourselves loving kindness
  • Navigating setbacks with love and grace and getting back to our self-love practice when busyness pushes us off kilter

These are the strategies I use myself and it's my hope that they'll be just as transformative for you as they have been for me.

Next week I'm going to be sharing my favourite posts from 2015 but apart from that I'm taking a couple of weeks off to cuddle with my husband, spend time up north with my new family, and gorge myself on chocolate, so there won't be any new podcast episodes until January 8 when I talk to the incredible Kitty Cavalier. But I hope you'll pour through the archives and find some inspiration from these incredible women as you start preparing for the new year. Are you creating any resolutions or making plans for 2016? I'd love to hear!

Merry Christmas, kittens!

PRPD #21: Designing your life in 2016, “having it all,” & meditating in hotel bars with Jennifer Dziura.

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You can also find me on Spreaker, Player.FM, AudioBoom, & wherever fine podcasts are played.

Jen Dzirua is the founder of GetBullish.com and the annual Bullish Conference. I am a huge fan of her work and her no-bullshit approach to advice. Although the ways we express our beliefs around self-love are very, very different I found I learned so much from our interview. In this episode we chat extensively about designing your life in 2016, how to "have it all" as a parent, business owner, and woman of the world, why she resists the terms "self-love" and "self-care", how she accomplishes her own form of meditation in hotel bars, and how to order traditional cocktails like a pro. This will be my last interview of 2015 and it feels like the perfect one to round out the year.

In this episode we talk about:

  • Whether it's important to have "lady-centric" business advice
  • How having "money BFFs" and "money role models" can help you earn more without betraying your political beliefs
  • Why "work-life balance" doesn't necessarily apply in your twenties
  • How to maximize your leisure time and nurture relationships when you're going balls to the wall to build your career or achieve a big dream
  • The problem with how "self-care" is typically presented online and what helps Jen recharge
  • How she accomplishes her own form of meditation in hotel bars
  • Jen's favourite cocktail and how to order cocktails like a pro - which includes a simple trick that will help you do anything more confidently
  • What Jen's routines look like with so many projects on the go Lin the workplace
  • The approach she took to online dating in order to attract the right partner
  • Why "designing your year" is more effective than setting resolutions and what that looks like

Links mentioned:

Where to Find Jen:

Two Things You Need to Stop Saying to Take Control of Your Life.

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Just a short missive today to explain why I cut two simple phrases out of my vocabulary and why you should to if you want to live a more empowered life.

It all started with a message I received recently that said, "It's so nice that you have a blog. I don't have time for that sort of thing"

And my first, not-so-graceful reaction (which I kept to myself)? "Uh...fuck you."

That sort of comment, while not uncommon, is patronizing and belittling. It completely discounts the sacrifices I make and the hard work I put into my day.

But it got me thinking.

What do we really mean when we say we don't have time for something?

It comes down to one of two (potentially) difficult truths:

We don't really want it.

In which case, we need to give up the fantasy, delete, and move on.

But when it's a burning desire that we can't stop dreaming and talking about, yet we still say we don't have time for it, we need to accept:

We're not making it a priority.

To the guy who "doesn't have time to blog" I'd like to ask:

How many TV shows do you have time to watch each week?

How many hours of commuting do you sit mindlessly through?

How often do you have time for after work drinks with friends?

When we think about it this way, the idea that "we don't have time" is belittling to ourselves as well. It strips our power to achieve the things we want and live the life we desire.

A few months ago I was sat down with a group of girlfriends when one of them joked that she just doesn’t have time to “milk almonds” and the others readily agreed. Making fresh almond milk takes less than 10 minutes and easily fits into my weekly meal prep routine, even though I have a demanding schedule. The only difference is that I make it a priority, whereas others might not see the value in it (which is totally okay too!)

The same thing goes for the things we "can't afford." Sure everyone's budget has different limitations but again, it comes down to priorities. Sure, a personal yacht might not be in the cards right now but could you reprioritize your spending to make that trip you keep talking about a reality within the next year?

I have friends earning the exact same income as me who can afford dinners out and evenings of fancy cocktails on the regular. On the other hand, I almost never allow for these extravagances but I always have a cupboard stocked with fancy superfoods and I live in a beautiful, relatively expensive flat. 

I've recently changed the way I talk about these differences. Instead of saying I "can't afford" the cocktails, I now make sure to emphasize that they're not a priority for me right now. And it feels so much different. For ages I felt like I was always talking about the things I couldn't afford and it kept me stuck in a scarcity mentality. I was felt like I had less than everyone else.

Saying that I need to give cocktails a miss because I'm focusing on other priorities (namely leaving my day job and doing my own thing) feels empowering. It acknowledges the choice I have over how I spend my time and money. And those choices are how I express what's important to me. Of course these choices assume a certain level of privilege. But once our basic needs are met, how we use any surplus cash and hours is completely up to us.

I encourage you to sit down today and make a list of all the things you've been saying you can't afford or don't have time for.

For each one, ask yourself: is this a priority for me right now (ie. am I willing to make the necessary sacrifices that this will take)?

If not: start admitting it's not a priority. Delete the guilt. Move on.

Add to your list anything else that you want and start ranking them in terms of priority. Decide on the top ones that feel reasonable to focus on right now.

Once you've narrowed in on your top priorities it becomes easier to make the sacrifices required by them.

By shifting how you talk about those sacrifices (ie. something that's not a priority for you right now) you take yourself out of a place of lack and "can't have"s into a place of empowered choice.

So your mission for this week is simple: Cut “I can’t afford it” and “I don’t have time” out of your vocabulary. Refocus on your priorities and choose language that empowers you. See how it helps you feel differently about your calendar and bank balance. 

Join us in Girl Gang HQ to chat about what priorities we're each currently focusing on and how shifting our language is creating changes in how we feel.