Ep #331 Over 50 Self-Care

Jill:Welcome to The Run Your Best Life edition of the Not Your Average Runner Podcast. If you’re a GenX woman whose brain still feels like a member of the breakfast club but the person you see in the mirror is starting to look a lot like your parents, you are in the right place. I’m your host, Jill Angie and we’re gonna dive into all the weird shit Gen X women are facing right now, so you feel less alone and a lot more empowered. Are you ready? Let’s fucking go!

Well, hello, my fabulous friend. How are you today? I hope you’re well and that you are taking care of yourself. And speaking of taking care of yourself, I want to talk about self care in your 50s this week. In Run Your Best Life this month, we are focusing on self care. We such a great discussion about it the other day that I wanted to talk about it here too.

And I am not talking about the type of self care that’s like manis, pedis, facials, spa days, vacations, a glass of wine with friends after a long week. Now that is all great stuff. And I think it is very important to include pleasure and connection and joy in our lives. I am all for that. I get my nails done every two weeks. I go for a facial with my bestie every three months. It’s amazingly therapeutic and awesome.

But over the years I have come to think of self care as something completely and utterly different than that. It’s basically the stuff we do that’s not necessarily fun or pleasurable. But it makes the rest of our lives easier and allows us to truly enjoy all of those other fun things.

Self care to me is doing the things that you know, our sometimes can be a chore and a pain in the ass, but we hate doing it or we do hate doing it, but we appreciate the results and that is things like getting a colonoscopy or going to the dentist or paying your rent or your mortgage strength training for a lot of you. You know who you are. Avoiding foods that taste amazing but feel terrible in your body, right? That is self care. It’s like I’m gonna really, really like how this tastes, but I know I’m gonna feel so awful later, right? And as you kind of roll on into your 40s and 50s and 60s, these choices become more and more important to living your best life.

And I do think that self care looks a lot different at different points in our lives because when we’re younger self care is you know, learning the basic skills how to balance a checkbook how to cook how to do laundry. How to generally be a functioning human, right? This is something that we, we learn and hopefully we start learning it earlier rather than later. But, you know, this is, this is self care. It’s, it’s actually pretty easy stuff. It’s not complicated. It’s stuff that we, you know, when we’re older, we’ve mastered it. It’s kind of a non issue. But when we’re younger, that’s the hard stuff, right? For us to I mean it’s easy but it feels harder because it’s new and we’re learning how to do it and we’re realizing quickly If we don’t figure out these skills, we’re gonna we’re gonna suffer, right?

So that’s what it looks like kind of I think when you’re younger maybe in your teens in your 20s Maybe even in your early 30s. I don’t know. But when we’re a little older Then it becomes more like how to get along with people at work, right? How to how to hold a job how to succeed at a job how to maintain an apartment or a house, right? How to clean things how to keep your car maintained and you know eventually for some of us how to balance raising a family along with your own needs and figuring out what that looks like, right? So self care when you’re maybe under 40 looks a lot like that, like more basic life skills, but also more complex things, raising a family and sort of like creating, creating some sort of balance in your life so that again, you can live your best life.

And then of course in your 50s and older, well, it starts to look different again, right? For me, it’s getting regular blood tests and focusing on my health, like really focusing on my health now that I’m post menopausal. It’s acknowledging and managing my ADHD. It’s advocating for myself with my health care team. It’s knowing I need to be asleep no later than 10 p. m. to get a good night’s sleep. And yeah sometimes that means I miss out on things. It is Recognizing that actually I don’t love parties that they feel overwhelming to me and so it’s learning to leave early so I can have fun in small quantities and then, you know, leave without feeling drained and feeling like I’m going to have to recover for the next few days.

And also, it is deliberately creating space in my life to indulge in the activities that I love, that give me joy instead of just letting them fall by the wayside in favor of doing easy stuff that doesn’t matter to me as much, right? And I think of like you know scrolling on Facebook or like just kind of that mindless stuff that’s very easy for us to just sort of fall into. Like for me self care is now deliberately creating the space in my life to do the things I love that Maybe you require a little more effort, right? Like, I’ve started working on my first novel, and I just kind of, you know, I think about it all the time, have all these ideas, but I wasn’t taking action and instead, I’d be scrolling Facebook, and I thought, okay, this, my self care is going to actually be scheduling 20 minutes a day to write.

And once I did that, I’m like, oh, I’m actually writing. I’m actually really, really enjoying it. But you know that without that like conscious effort of saying I need to choose this over something that feels easy and comfortable, but it isn’t really giving me what I want. Like that is self care. It’s taking responsibility and ownership of your well being, right?

It is saying that me living my best life is important and that I am in charge of that, right? I cannot just wait for all the stars to align, for, you know, everybody else to magically start knowing what I need. It is taking that responsibility and ownership, and it starts with your thinking and your belief that you and only you are in charge of your physical and mental health.

Okay, and that’s what I mean by well being – it’s physical and mental health, and that doesn’t mean, when I say physical health, I don’t mean like you’re the healthiest person on the planet. I mean that you are aware of what your challenges might be, and you’re taking responsibility. The steps that you can, right, to kind of keep your physical health where, you know, as close to where you want it to be as possible, right? And the same thing with mental health.

And it is also, self care is also understanding that you are the best judge of what you can It is necessary to maintain your physical and mental health now. Yes, you may consult with doctors and specialists and coaches and all of that stuff, but you are still the authority so it is taking that ownership of your own actions to support your well being.

So I have been, obviously, I have been noodling a lot about these things lately for myself and for people around me, right? People that are in my coaching group and family and yada yada yada. So I’ve been noodling a lot and I’ve realized that while self care looks like it is a bunch of actions, right? We would say, what is self care?

Well, it is doing things A, B, and C, right? Really, at its core, self care is actually a mindset. It is a way of thinking, right? Because our thoughts drive our feelings and our actions, right? Our thoughts and feelings drive our actions, if you could say it, to say it a different way. And so, the actions are the result of what we are thinking and feeling.

So really self care is that mindset rather than a set of actions. And I want to show you share three examples from my own life today, because I think you’re going to be able to relate to all of them, but they, each of these examples sort of demonstrates a different way of how self care is truly a mindset and not a bunch of actions.

So last week on the podcast I talked about getting a CPAP and how I put off taking that action for years and years and years, right? So notice the action was getting a CPAP and I was putting it off actually, the action was putting off taking getting the CPAP And the reason why is because I was feeling embarrassed and I was thinking. Oh, what are other people gonna think of me, right? So I had thoughts and feelings about the CPAP and it drove me to not get it for many years and instead of deciding that my health was more important than other people’s opinions, I just avoided it and I had years of terrible sleep as a result. And then once I decided that my health was the most important thing, what other people thought became irrelevant and strangely enough, instead of feeling embarrassed about it I’ve been telling everybody.

I mean I put it on the fucking podcast last week I’m telling all my friends i’m like you guys The CPAP therapy is amazing! I I am it is so beautiful to get a good night’s sleep and I am I feel like I am just telling everybody suddenly when I used to be so embarrassed because it has made such a major change in my life and you know and I missed out on it because I was embarrassed and I’m like maybe other people are embarrassed, maybe I should talk to them about it.

The same thing with going on statins. Okay, I’ve resisted going on statins for years. I’ve had a high cholesterol for as long as I could remember. It runs in my family Whether I am eating a perfect health heart heart healthy diet or not, whether I’m fat or smaller, my cholesterol has always been high. My mom weighed 120 pounds and was obsessed with her health and she also had high cholesterol, right?

it is a genetic thing with us, but really the reason I avoided going on statins to lower my cholesterol was that I thought people were gonna judge me, right? And the funny thing is nobody’s going to know besides me and my doctor and Andy and of course you now. But still I had all of these thoughts that everybody would think, listen, you should just lose weight and eat better and this problem will go away. Shame on you for not taking care of yourself, right?

I had all those thoughts. So I resisted going on the statins and then around the time I was thinking about getting a sleep study. I thought Okay, Jill. What is more important, your health or other people’s opinions? And that was an easy one to answer, so six months later, I’ve been on statins for six months, my cholesterol is in a ridiculously healthy range, my doctor is so happy, and I’m like, oh, why did I resist that for so long?

So, again, the, the thoughts that were driving me not taking action were, you know, or the feelings, right? We’re feeling embarrassed and worried about what people would think of me. And once I shifted my thinking to my health is the most important thing, what other people thought became irrelevant and I started taking action and I started seeing the results that I want to see.

And again, we’ve talked about this a lot on the show how your actions are results of your thoughts and feelings and I think self care is really such a great example of that because feeling embarrassed or guilty or ashamed keeps you from doing the things that are going to improve your life. All right, so self care starts with the way you think and feel

So here’s another example I went away last weekend to hang out with some high school friends that I have not seen in almost 20 years And I mean, I graduated from high school in 1985. So we did see each other, you know, in the early two thousands, but but it’s been, it’s been a hot minute and you know, they know me as the party girl- always up for drinks, always up for hanging out, lots of fun. Now that’s not really me. I’m more of an early to bed, one glass of wine, do not like big parties kind of girl.

That’s who I am now. And so we’re all hanging out. And it was, it was, This is four of us, right? It’s me and three friends and one of my friends brought some wine. She brought a bottle of Prosecco because she knows I love Prosecco and she was filling glasses up. And this was, you know, on, on in the evening and we had been hanging out all day and I’d had a drink at lunch.

And when she brought, you know, when she offered to fill a glass of wine for me, I said, oh, no, none for me. Thanks. And she kind of stopped and she said, “wow, that is not the Jill I remember.” And I said, “yeah, this is who I am now.” Right? I don’t like how I feel when I drink more than one drink at a time. It feels like ass, right, in my body. I don’t stay up late and that is how I take care of myself.

And a few years ago, I would have just had the wine. Maybe a few glasses even because I didn’t want things to be awkward and I’m like, Oh, I’m the party girl. That’s what I’m supposed to do, right? I didn’t want people to think that I changed, that I wasn’t fun anymore.

And frankly, I think I’m way more fun when I’m well rested and sober because I’m able to think clearly and have deeper conversations. And I, my, sarcasm and snark is so much stronger when I’m well rested and sober. But either way, owning what I choose to do to take care of myself. Oh god. It felt so fucking good to just be like Oh, yeah, this is who I am now and just leave it at that.

And here’s the thing yeah sometimes people are gonna be disappointed when you start making different choices and it freaking sucks when people are disappointed in you .But that is just part of self care because you can, you can have other people be disappointed in you or you can feel disappointed in yourself and you can feel crappy, right?

So doing what you know is best, even if there are uncomfortable things that will come out of it. Is, right, that is a thought like I do, I do what’s best for me, even if people are going to be disappointed in me is a thought. It’s a belief system that is part of self care. All right. And again, this is not me saying y’all should stop drinking or y’all should go on statins or, or any of that.

Right. My point here is I am figuring out what is best for me and when it bumps up against the image. that I think other people have of me or the way I want to present myself, I’m deciding to choose my well being over other people’s opinions, right? And so I want you to start thinking about what does that mean for you.

Now, my final self care example comes in a group text. So earlier this year, Andy and I went on vacation with two other couples. We knew one of the couples really well. The other couple, we actually we had met them once, but we really, you know, didn’t know them. But the six of us, we had an absolute blast.

And now we all have a group text for making plans together. And the morning that I’m recording this, the wife of the couple that we didn’t know so well said, “Hey, we’re going to go to this music festival in September. The Offspring are heading, headlining it. We should make it a group outing. Let’s go, let’s do this.” And my immediate thought. That was hard no. I was like, my days of going to like music all day music festivals where it’s just like headbanging bands and stuff. Those days are long gone. I do like a good concert, but I’m more of a like, hey, let’s let’s go see the Dave Matthews band or Styx, right? Or Lizzo, of course.

But my days of really going to those kinds of events, like these music festivals where there’s gonna be like a lot of really, like thrash metal, hard rock bands and stuff, Those are gone. They’re gone. And I’m not going to this one, right? But, here’s what gets interesting. Instead of saying, no thanks, Just saying, Oh yeah, thanks for the offer, but no, I found myself trying to come up with a way of saying no, that didn’t require me to actually say no, I don’t want to go.

I’m like, Oh, maybe I’ll just say that we’ll think about it and then, and then just not get back to them. Or maybe I’ll come up with a reason that I can’t go and just be like, Oh, we’re busy that day. And I ended up responding with something vague and also honestly, kind of left the door open to like, maybe so that it didn’t sound too much like, no, I don’t want to go.

And I agonized over this for probably 15, 20 minutes before I finally responded. Then my friend’s husband of the couple that I know, we know really well, he responded with literally just, “I’m out.” And I just like, I saw that. I’m like, whoa. Cause he said exactly what I was thinking without any justification or explanation.

Just know. Not, I mean, I would, I probably would have said no, thank you, but it was just like, I’m out no, and I realized this is another type of self care just saying no and not feeling like I need to be nice or let somebody down gently or have a good reason that, Oh, I really wish I could, but I can’t because reasons, right?

Just saying no and not overthinking it because I think that’s where the stress comes in, the frustration, it’s the overthinking because we have this belief I can’t just say no because it’s rude or I can’t just say no, I have to let them down gently. We have this belief that I can’t just say no and that overthinking that comes out of that is exhausting and you don’t have time for that.

So I think self care is also being really clear on your boundaries and knowing that instead of spending 15 minutes hemming and hawing about how to say no in the nicest possible way, just fucking say no. And you could say, no, thanks. There. There’s your polite. No, thank you. And then just leave it at that.

Right. And so I think like self care is so much more than just a bunch of actions, right? It is our belief, our knowing that we are worth, that we are worth it, that we are worth being treated, treating ourselves with respect and compassion and kindness. Yes. Right? And like when you have that belief, you make different choices or you make choices that are in alignment with that belief.

And so here’s what we’re doing this month in Run Your Best Life. We are making self care mission statements, which is basically, again, a belief system that drives your decision making around your well being. And my mission statement is very short, it is one sentence. I take exceptional care of my body and mind.

That is all, is not a list of activities. It is knowing that if I make most of my decisions based on that one statement, that I will actually be living my best life. So this week, I am challenging you to make your own self care mission statement. And if you are so inclined, I would love to have you share it with me at support@notyouraveragerunner.Com. Cause what I want to do is put together maybe a little Instagram post with lots of different self care mission statements so that we can start having this conversation about what does self care really mean. All right. So that is it for this week, my friend. I hope you have an awesome week. Stay safe.

I love you and get your ass out there and self care. All right, my friends, I’ll talk to you later.

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