Episode 035: Self-Care is Necessary

No need to whine, it's Whiny Palooza! Have some wine and join us on the Whiny Palooza podcast with Rebecca Green.

Welcome to the Whiny Palooza podcast. I'm your host, Rebecca Green. I'm a wife, mother of 3, and licensed clinical social worker. I also have 3 fur babies at home too. My passion has always been to help children and their families. I always dreamed of being a wife and a mother. Parents are always learning through their struggles, failures, and successes and joys. I am no stranger to this wild ride of parenting, and I know behind every great parent lies a team of supportive friends and family. I want to be part of your support system. I want you to know that you are not alone. We are in this parenting world together. Join me every week for insightful discussions with experts on parenting and marriage, as well as as other parents who have found the secret to successes in parenthood. You'll learn tips and tricks to make life with your family better than ever. I hope you will follow along with me while we dive into what it takes to achieve a happy family.

Hello everyone, happy Whiny Palooza Wednesday. No need to whine, it's Whiny Palooza Wednesday. Have some wine and join us on the Winey Blues on Wednesday with the Green Family. Cha-cha chicken!

Cha-cha chicken!

Thank you, honey! You're the best singer. Happy Wednesday. It has been— my kids are off this week. I don't know about you, so I think some kids already had off. We are so lucky because It's been so nice out.

Yeah.

So we lucked out in that the Buffalo weather— if you don't know about Buffalo, it's unpredictable. Buffalo is— I call Buffalo bipolar, especially in the spring, and it never really decides what kind of weather it's going to stick with. So it could snow tomorrow. And so this week, while the kids are off, it's been beautiful. And we were outside and the kids were roller skating and skateboarding, and we just dragged them in around 8:30 at night. So the This was a fun day. It was a fun week. And Seth took time off.

Yes, I took most of the week off.

So Seth has been home with us doing fun adventures.

Lots of adventures.

And I know you have to work tomorrow, boo-hoo, but—

I'll be back on Friday.

Maybe on Friday we could do something fun. So the week, so the topic this week is self-care is necessary. And the reason why I went with this topic is because the April challenge was the self-care challenge. And in the Whiny Clues of Mom group, posted for 5 days. I posted about self-care and then everyone who commented told me how they took care of themselves that day. So what did they do for self-care for the day? So for those of you who joined me in the 5-day challenge and commented for 5 days, first of all, thank you everyone for participating.

It was so much fun. She was so excited. She was, it was like fervent-tomato. Hanukkah, Christmas, like she was all excited every day about what people were posting. It's very cute.

Yeah, I don't know why I'm loving these challenges so much, but I'm having so much fun and I love giving prizes. I was motivated to write about self-care and as we talk about self-care, if I had felt that I needed a break, I need to be able to say it's okay to take a break this week. It doesn't even have to be a week that my kids are off. I could just tell you guys one week, you know what, I'm going to take care of myself and I'm just going to take a week off and I'll be back next week.

Sometimes writing helps you take care of yourself. It's one of your coping skills.

So, so most weeks I'm excited to write, excited to talk about it, and I go with it. So this week I was like, you know what, I really want to sit down and spend time writing about this, so let's do it. So I did not take the week off. So self-care is necessary, and I am guilty of taking a long time to figure out how necessary it is. And Seth understands what I'm gonna explain. I feel really bad because I used to think that Seth was selfish and I did get accused of that. I would be like, what are you doing?

Like, for taking care of myself, trying to take care of myself in the midst of the chaos. Nerve of me.

So I used to think that he was being selfish and I'm going to admit that I would see some of my friends who were really good at taking care of themselves, whether it was exercise, friends' nights out, whatever it was. I used to be like, man, they're really self-involved and self-focused and shouldn't they be home with their kids?

I'm so proud of how far you've come.

I have come so far from that lady who used to think that. And now I totally understand. And it took me 12 years. It took me 12 years of parenting is my estimate. Do you agree with that?

That's probably right. I wasn't really keeping track as to when the light bulb went off.

I don't have a moment that the light bulb went out, but Max was born—

Well, you have to do self-care so it doesn't go out.

Yeah, that's a good point. Max was born 14 years ago. I quit my job and threw myself into motherhood and really thought that that meant giving my 100% of myself to my kids and started to learn that you can't forget about your marriage. Your marriage comes first because it's how you got the kids, right?

In most cases, marriage comes first. A lot of the time.

It's how, yeah. It's how you get the kids. But more importantly is taking care of your marriage and having a stable marriage is so good for your kids. Your kids want you to take care of your marriage. Your kids want you to have a happy marriage, and it's their stability and grounding. So I'm not going to go off onto a marital tangent. I see you refocusing me. But I was throwing myself too much into my kids, started to realize I was neglecting my marriage too much, started to— I think started to give you more attention, not as much as you— I mean, not as many dates as we would like. We still haven't gone on vacation together, which I did tell you we would do. But I still was neglecting myself. So I started to realize that I was getting super reactive. And was feeling really burned out and I realized that if I don't take care of myself and I don't fill my own cup, I can't fill anyone else's and I can't take care of other people if I don't take care of myself. I started to realize that self-care is like the opposite of selfish. I used to think it was selfish and now I realize that I need it to be a good person for all of you, to be a good person for my family, for my friends, for my work and my work is actually part of my self-care because it's something that I'm doing for all of you, but also for me because it's good for me. So I went from the mother who thought I had to give my kids 100% to the mother who realized that giving my kids 100% was not good for them and was not good for me, and realized so much about self-care that I wanted to share with you. And I also realized that I thought it was like this big giant thing. Like, I don't have hours to spend on taking care of myself. Well, it can be 5 minutes. And I didn't know that. I didn't know that going upstairs and doing some breathing was going to make me feel so much better to come downstairs and be with my family. I didn't know that making myself a cup of coffee and sitting down with it and just like being was— yes, I didn't realize that labeling that as self-care. And I think that we don't realize that it can take you 5 or 10 minutes. And I know that there's so many people who are probably going to watch this and say, listen, I don't have time. My barrier is time. And I'm going to tell you, I promise you that you have 5 or 10 minutes in your day to do something for yourself. And you deserve it, and your family deserves it, and your work deserves it. Because I can write so much better for you if I'm in a good state of mind.

Absolutely.

And I also listened to a really good podcast about self-care, uh, Rachel Bailey, um, Long Game Parenting. Is that the name, Seth? Does that sound familiar? I think the title is Long Game Parenting. I'm so used to typing in Rachel Bailey to find her, but, um, she talked about how what we look for we find. So she said, you know, maybe we see the yellow, you see yellow all over the room, like I see yellow there and yellow there and yellow there. And she said, what if I tell you to look for orange? Go find the orange and then you can find it. So if you're looking for self-care, you will find it. If you are looking in your day for the time, you will find it. One of my biggest recommendations is pay attention to how much you're on social media. Because I paid attention this morning and was actually annoyed with how long I took on it. I was working, but how much of that time was working and how much of that time was scrolling? And if I take that time back to myself, I mean, maybe scrolling social media is your self-care, but if you would rather do something else, my first recommendation is take that away, take it out of your life. No, to get cut back is what I mean.

We want you on social media so you can watch her.

I want you to connect with people on social media. That's part of self-care. Social self-care is social media. But if that's not what you're looking for, if you're looking for 30 minutes to exercise, then put it away and know that you can find time if you want to. So in my discovery this week of researching self-care, I loved that I found that there's so many categories that I didn't even know about. And if you know about this, please tell me because this is all new. Some of this is new to me. I didn't know that there was financial self-care and I didn't know that there was work self-care. That was another one. And Seth and I are going to talk about that in a minute. But I would love to hear if you took part in the challenge. I would love to hear what was your favorite self-care that you did for yourself over the 5 days. Or maybe what is something that you learned? And if you didn't take part, I would still love to hear from you. What is your favorite self-care? Because maybe you'll give me an idea. Maybe you'll give someone else an idea. How do you find time? And have you learned anything about self-care recently? So I'm going to tell you about the categories and stuff that I've learned. Can we talk about work first so we can talk about my fabulous husband?

Okay.

I'm not going to throw you under the bus.

You're allowed to.

We're going to do—

I don't think—

I don't want to call it an intervention.

I probably could use one.

If Teyton was watching, she would help me right now. But, um, okay. So in different categories of your life, there is different type of self-care for yourself. And in the, in the realm of work, setting boundaries, is one of the biggest things you can do for yourself. Taking breaks in your day is something you can do for yourself. But I wanna back up to boundaries because I think in the last year, boundaries have gotten really fuzzy because so many people have been working at home. But I think that, you know, the boundaries between work and home get fuzzy when you work at home and if you don't have like set hours. But I think even before the last year, Seth was working a lot at home. And I would laugh because he would say, "I'll be home early. I'll be home at 4." And I was like, "Oh, whatever." Like, I learned that that probably meant he had a couple phone calls he was gonna do from home, which I still love having him home. So I would— I love that you do stuff at home when you can so that we can see your handsome face.

Well, thank you. Yes, I'd be the first to admit the boundaries that don't do or don't don't exist for me, and it's my own fault. It's not that, you know, my, my staff isn't texting me on my week, on my week off. It's me going on purpose and checking email multiple times a day, or me going and working on stuff so that it's done ahead of time for next week. So those are my choices that I need to work on.

Well, and I also am not communicating with you and Like, for example, if we're taking a walk and you're working, you mean replying to, sending to, or replying to a text message?

Yes. I did not know that there was a rule that I was not allowed to check those. I won't do it again. Um, and your excuse is you're always checking yours to make sure that it's not the kids from home texting you, but I will not, I will not check mine.

I will tell you that I do not reply to anyone when we are— Seth and I took a long walk together with the dog today. It was wonderful. It was nice out. I loved it. Um, I do not answer my text messages when we're walking together. I do, however, check my phone because unfortunately there have been times our girls have been fighting.

Yes, we need to come home early from our walk or tell them we'll be home in a minute. Yeah, so I— yes, I will respect that boundary. I was unaware of it, but it makes total sense.

I— well, and we haven't issues tend to stem from communication and we haven't communicated about it. But I just want you to take care of yourself. And I think that we need to pay attention to what's working for us and what's not working for us. And I think that you need to say to yourself, is what I'm doing working for me? Is, is working here and there through the days while I'm home working for me? Or do I need days where I'm doing no work? And is doing no work realistic when you own a few businesses?

Right. I think my previous solution, like for the walks, I just didn't bring my phone and then I couldn't check anything. And I think that worked better for you and made me more present. And I apologize that I brought my phone today. So that one's on me. I wasn't thinking in terms of, you know what, I will, I will do an experiment and do a day of no computer, no work at all. And we'll see how it goes.

Interesting.

I'll do it Friday.

I just want you to take care of yourself. And if— I'm happy. And what I like is I like that you love work. I think that you enjoy it most of the time. I just want you to check in with yourself on if what you're doing is working.

It is working for me, but I think your idea of more, you know, a disconnect day would certainly be even more awesome.

Well, and I have done so much learning about working at home, and I have learned from multiple people that you should not be working in your bedroom, if you didn't know that. And unfortunately, my desk is in my bedroom. And I think that one of the things that will be good for both of us is on our list of things we're doing to our house, we are going to make an office downstairs to get it out of my mind and out of my bedroom, I think will be good for both of us. And, um, I should not be sleeping next to where I work. So that's— so psychologically, that's not the best thing that I'm doing.

But, um, I felt much better when I went back to the office months ago and put my laptop, when I work at home, in the kitchen table and got it out of the bedroom because I was having issues because there was no psychological separation because I would get up first thing and go to the laptop in our bedroom or jump on before bed, and neither of those were a good idea.

Yes. I will say one of my coping strategies is if I do remember something before bed, I get it down so that I can get it out of my mind and brain dump. You like that term. I do. So we're going to talk about a few more categories and then we're going to give away to the giveaway. So when we think of self-care, we think of physical right away. I think that's what most of us think about. We think about exercise, you know, the, the stuff that we're doing to take care of our bodies. And one of the things I think I tend to do good with getting some exercise into each day, I think where I was failing, struggling, was I started to realize I was making everyone else food and I wasn't making myself food and I wasn't taking care of myself. And, you know, I need a nutritious lunch, too, not just my family.

Yes.

So I have stopped making myself healthy meals and taking better care of myself. And sleep. I'm glad I wrote that down because I almost forgot that. I think that when I talk to mothers sleep is one of the things that is hugely neglected. And I think that a lot of moms that I talk to stay up super late to get work done, have alone time, etc., which I totally understand. But I mean, I think the recommended amount of sleep is like 7 or 8 hours a night. I forgot to look that up before this. But yes, taking care of ourselves is getting enough sleep. And I know I'm the first person to admit that I'm super cranky if I don't get a good night's sleep. I think some people do better.

Yes, some people get by better on less sleep, I've heard.

Emotional self-care is another one, and I think that one of the ways that I do this is my journaling. Therapy is on this list. I think talking to a friend is kind of fuzzy between social self-care and emotional self-care. At the same time, talking to you, I'm a talker.

Unless I make it worse.

Oh, don't say that. I think that my advice for that, to all the wives and husbands, is to label what you need when you're talking, which we learned. We learned that I needed to say, let me just Let me just vent. I'm not to the problem-solving part yet because men like to problem-solve. And I don't mean to be sexist because I'm sure there's women who love to problem-solve. Stereotyping. I think that sometimes you just need a really good listener. Obviously, if you're just venting over and over again and not solving anything, you're not going to get anywhere. So the listener might get frustrated. So at some point, problem-solving is good.

Taking some action.

OK. The social is huge for women, like huge, giant. You heard if you listened to Mommy Burnout last week, the number one way that women take care of themselves is by face-to-face contact with friends. So make a date and don't feel guilty and make time for it. And even if you're tired, go. No excuses. Social media counts, boundaries counts, having boundaries with people in your life, which, um, some of us are better at than others. Seth is probably better at it than me.

Um, you're nicer than I am.

Well, we balance each other out, and you taught me.

So she's the angel on the shoulder, I'm the devil apparently.

No, no, you're super nice, but you, um I don't know. You just are better at boundaries and better at setting limits and—

Okay.

Right. Right. Okay. Spiritual.

My—

I was thinking when I wrote down spiritual self-care, the first thing that came to my mind was the sacred space that my brother put in his bedroom. He has like that, like, little nook off of his bedroom. And is that where he was making it or was he making it on the third floor? Do you remember? He was making himself a sacred meditation place to meditate, to make it peaceful. And I love that idea. And if I can create that space somewhere right now, my brand new couch is giving me that sacred space. And I, I love to just like lay back and meditate on my new couch. And I didn't realize that buying yourself something like that is self-care. Huge, giant had no idea. My couch, my 10-year-old couch was falling apart and I was putting off buying a new couch because we have 3 kids and 3 pets. And I was like, I am going to put this off as long as I can. And we recently purchased a new couch and we are all loving it so much. And I love to lay down in it. I love to watch movies in it with my family. And I was like, oh my God, find yourself stuff like this is self-care.

Yeah, absolutely.

But I had no idea. So spiritual goes so much further. There's so many ways. The meditation, attending services. We've been having a lot of services on Zoom.

Prayer.

Prayer. And a lot of women that I've been listening to on podcasts are talking about Bible study. So many ways to take care of yourself spiritually. Personal self-care. Seth is really good at this one. Hobbies, creativity, goals. He's got personal self-care, self-care nailed. Do something that brings you joy. And when we're making goals, remember to actually be specific and evaluate them. And when you achieve them, give yourself a new goal because growing is really good self-care. Your space. I didn't know this. Space. Your space is self-care. Sitting in my garden is spiritual. Yes. Oh my gosh. So many people find— is that Kristen? Kristen loves her garden. She loves to garden. She will text me and say, I'm going to go spend time in my garden. And my mother loves her time in her garden. I am not there yet. Maybe one day I will find it.

You are missing the garden part of sitting in the garden, right?

Well, and I will tell you that flowers are self-care. Like buying— I buy myself like potted flowers to beautify my home and beautify my space. And that is self-care.

And see, you gotta tell me that next time you want to go waste money in Home Depot on flowers. Say it's an investment in self-care.

It is an investment, but I don't go crazy. I don't need to go crazy. And your space in your home is self-care. Having a safe and clean environment. And I didn't realize this, but having a clean house is self-care. Cleaning your house—

except for the stress it takes you to get there.

Getting your—

well, not— it just depends how you view it. Like, I have come—

cleaning is self-care, honey. You could actually be happy about cleaning.

I think that Kristen would say that she's happy when she's cleaning.

Kristen, is that true? Promise. I'd love to hear.

People will tell you they love to clean. And getting your family involved and giving them chores and giving them jobs, that is self-care too. Get the family involved.

I had 2 out of 3 helping set the table tonight.

I came home, I stopped by to see my friend, and yes, she says that cleaning, cleaning, um, is— she enjoys to clean. I came home to— I love cleaning and organizing. It does make me happy. Kristen and Laura and Rivki, the three of them.

Alex Baldi.

Oh, Alex loves cleaning and organizing. Okay, so Alex, Kristen, Laura, Rivki, four friends love to organize and clean their house. Are any of you— do any of you want to come to my house?

You know what, you haven't gotten enough of the cleaning fix cleaning your own houses. We'd be happy to write you a check.

Okay, so calling the cleaning lady, which we will do, is self— well, I don't have her number.

Okay, I will text these cleaning people.

You have to give me their number.

I'm happy to. I'm scared, but I'm happy to.

You found them.

I did find them.

Hiring help is self-care. Yes, I do not enjoy cleaning. I do not get anything out of it. I get a lot out of the results. So for me, it's about the journey, honey, not the destination. So I would rather spend hours writing and make money and pay the cleaning lady.

That's a good trade. I'll take that trade.

I didn't know, Seth, I didn't know that financial stuff was self-care. Did you know that?

What are we defining as financial stuff?

Savings.

Oh yeah.

Budgeting.

Yeah.

Paying bills.

That's real financial planning stuff.

Having boundaries. So it has to do with our conversation because we talked, we were just talking outside about the list of stuff, the list of stuff that you said we want to do to the house. Okay, if you— we will talk, not right now, but this is not just for me. So if everything is just for me, we're not going to do it. But are you good with our house just the way it is? Do you want to just leave it how it is?

No, never. It's terrible. I must do change everything after I bought it.

Okay, well, it's been 8 years.

Oh my God, time to do it all over again.

No, so, so here's the deal. Will you let me talk?

Yes.

Um, I agree, knowing when to outsource tasks is my new favorite form of self-care.

That's Alex.

Yes, Alex, completely 100% agree, 100%. Um, okay, so back to our list.

Yes.

So I am actually going to write out a list of things that I want to do to our house. I will discuss them with Seth. I will see if Seth has any interest in them. I am not going to spend a ton of money on stuff that he's not interested in. But we were talking about steps, like step 1. What did you say step 1 was? Paint. No, but before the paint, you said something else. Okay. Well, we painted the outside. Yes. So we're talking about painting the family room. We bought— oh, you said we bought the new couch. We're gonna paint the family room. There's things that we want to do to our house, and you said step by step. Yes, we'll do that, but we're having boundaries. We're not doing all 10 things. We're, we're taking our time and budgeting.

Yeah.

And that's a financial planner.

Yes.

So he's very good at this stuff.

Yeah.

And One of the things that I learned in the summit that I just attended is that even though my husband is a financial planner, I should know a lot more.

So a lot more than you do.

Yes. So let's put it on the list of stuff for you to talk to me about.

I would be happy to give you consultations with your financial advisor.

I did not realize that family time can be self-care. I will tell you, we watched Yes Day together.

Yes.

And we watched Raya the Dragon together this week.

Raya and the Last Dragon.

Raya and the Last Dragon. We watch family movie nights, our self-care. Family games are self-care. If, if you're getting joy from something and you're feeling rebooted and re-energized. Max was making fun of me because he was like, Mom, you get energized very differently than I do.

Yes.

He was like, you want to like do stuff and go and you get like energized going on a family adventure.

Yes.

He's like, I want to chill at home.

Yes.

So people get— people need self-care differently depending on the person. So I need to pay attention to what my family needs and I need to make sure that they're getting what they need and that I'm getting what I need.

Yes.

And I think I've done a great job taking care of my family and I think I am learning to take care of myself.

You did a good job this week. You really did.

Well, and I, you know, I think that that's because I learned that it's okay to make my family do what I want, hence getting a dog.

And I was like, okay, that was a couple of years ago, but that certainly counts as self-care.

Well, that was 2 years ago. I told you 2 years ago is when I started to discover self-care. And I realized that I didn't care that I was the only one in the house who wanted a dog. I said, you know what? I've been wanting a dog for 15 years. It's time. Seth agreed. I wouldn't have done it without his permission.

We have a difference of opinion on this one, but that's— I mean, in another vlog, so just skip and move on.

Okay, my point is it's okay to do stuff for yourself.

It's okay.

It's okay for me to do— it's okay to make my family go on a family adventure if that's what I need, as long as I'm also taking care of what they need.

Yeah.

So I'm going to end with the stuff that I've been doing lately to take care of myself.

Yeah.

And then we're going to do the drawing.

Yes. Comment with your own suggestions below.

My own list. This is my own latest list for you. Exercise, healthy meals, meditation, friend time, dates with Seth, family adventures, walks with Tanner, journaling, reading, and writing. And I've gotten really better at spending time reading. I think that's one of my newest things that I have spent more downtime reading, especially at night.

Yes.

Okay, um, girls, are one of you doing the drawing or am I doing it? Okay, Lily, come do the drawing and then you can close us out. So I screwed up. Last Friday was Shana James. If you missed it on my podcast, um, it's okay. Shana, my friend from childhood, was on my podcast and we talked about relationships and she is an expert and gave excellent suggestions. And this week, I believe, is finally the marital one that Seth and I did on Valentine's Day.

Well, it's awesome that you were so far ahead, but it took us months to get ourselves in there.

I seriously, but I can't, like, I need to try to, I'm going to try to keep up on who's coming up so that I can tell you. So wait, thank you for listening tonight or watching tonight. Thank you for reading the blog that was posted. And thank you for listening to the podcast. And I would love, love, love I would love if you would share my stuff, comment on my stuff, rate and review on my podcast is what I realize gets it shown to more people. So I would love that. And I appreciate you all. And I hope that you took something good away from tonight. And I'm so excited to give away a massage. Pick a name. Pick a name. Don't look. The winner is Dan Fervent-tomato. Oh my gosh.

Dan Fervent-tomato.

Give me a big hug. Diane, you are the only man who entered the contest and you won. And you followed the directions. And you followed the directions. So we put names of people who commented the 5 days in here, and we are so excited to give Diane a free massage at Destination Massage. I can't talk. Congratulations! Congratulations, Diane. Thank you everyone for participating. Thank you for watching Winey Palooza Wednesday with the Green Family. Ciao ciao, chicken! Thank you, baby.

Thank you for tuning in to the Winey Palooza podcast. If you like what you heard, please be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode. While you are there, leave a review. I love to hear your feedback. Thank you so much for listening. Until next time.

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