Self Care vs. Soul Care During a Pandemic

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December 2, 2020 - Episode #43 - Self Care vs. Soul Care During a Pandemic
That dreaded word, pandemic. Our world continues in fear as we search for truth vs. fiction.  Today I'm getting real about the virus, my families personal experience with the virus and some thoughts on how we can truly protect ourselves.  

Here is the harsh reality.  Everything in me just wanted to "sound off" during this podcast about how this pandemic has been handled, but honestly; that's not going to help anyone.  And censorship is real! So I'm being very careful so you can hear this podcast and it doesn't get shut down!

This is a very heated topic and we are talking Self Care vs. Soul Care During a Pandemic.

As we unpack the challenges of how we manage the self-care of our body, mind and soul, you will hear practical tips that need to be implemented even when we are not in a pandemic.  We discuss immune function, mindfulness and the need for connection and soul care.  

If you are a parent, this one is definitely for you.  As we work and seek to take care of our families, so often self care and soul care fall to the side.  These simple, practical tips will encourage and empower you.  

My friends...please don't forget your FREE gift! The Holiday Survival Guide - Beat Stress, Combat Cravings and Stay Joyful in the Season.  You will LOVE this! Very easy and realistic tips to help you truly thrive during this stressful season instead of just survive.  In that guide, there is a special link to book a 1-hour, virtual coaching call at a HUGE discount.  $48 off!  There is a limited quantity of these available and they are going fast!  Access your Holiday Survival Guide and Holiday Coaching Special at bit.ly/2020holidaysurvivalguide

Here are the podcast links that I referenced during the episode:
How Fear, Anger, Stress and Bitterness affect our Health
https://www.inspirehealthyharmony.com/fear-anger-stress-and-bitterness.html#/
​
I'm Scared of Getting Sick - Ways to Boost your Body's Immunity
https://www.inspirehealthyharmony.com/boosting-immunity.html#/

​Read Full Transcript below
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​Where else to listen:  (note: Google is only available on android devices)

FULL TRANSCRIPT

December 2, 2020 - Episode #43 - Self Care vs. Soul Care During a Pandemic

That word, that dreaded word. That was not really, even in our vocabulary that was, we never, ever talked about. And now we hear with such frequency, we're sick and tired of that one word because of what all it represents and the devastating effect on our life. That word… pandemic! I’m sick and tired of it. Our world continues in fear as we search for truth versus fiction. So today I'm getting real about the virus, my family's personal experience with the virus and some thoughts on how we can truly protect ourselves, not just from this, but from everything else as well. We're talking self care versus soul care during a pandemic. That's our discussion today on Healthy Harmony. Hey there. Welcome to the Healthy Harmony podcast. I'm Jennifer Pickett, your host, your health coach, your friend. If you're ready to tap into the healthiest version of you. So you can live life with confidence and intentional harmony; then my friend you're in the right place. As a Dietitian turned Functional Medicine Health Coach, I'm here to walk beside you and show you how to take control of your complete health body, mind, and soul.

It's the holidays and it's the holidays during a pandemic. But you know, it seems like every year we set out and we just had these grand intentions, we had the intention to truly thrive during the holiday season. Yet it seems like we always default back to just trying to survive before we know it is January 1st and we find ourselves a burned out, stressed out wreck with extra weight. So I have a gift for you and you're going to absolutely love it. This free gift is a holiday survival guide to help you beat stress, combat cravings, and stay joyful this season to download your free gift, head to bit.ly/2020holidaysurvivalguide.

I will link this in the show notes, so you can just click on it right there and you can download that survival guide. It is exactly what you're looking for. Here's what I think you will love even more in that holiday survival guide. I am offering a holiday special. It is $48 off of a virtual coaching call with me so that you can get that personalized, customized help that you're looking for. That's a one hour coaching session and it's $48 off right now that my friend, let me tell you, I release this last week. Those are already going quickly, and there's only a few left limited quantity and limited time. So you do need to act quickly. So to get that limited holiday offer and that holiday survival guide, please go to Bitly forward slash 2020 holiday survival guide. Now let's get right to it.

This topic today makes me nervous and I'll tell you why. Not because I don't like to give my opinion. I do, especially when it comes to health, I feel very passionate about the subject. And I just want to apologize to you listeners. Unfortunately, the Southern accent gets worse when I'm feeling very passionate about a subject or when I'm very upset. So we'll just see how this goes. And unfortunately my sound editor can not do anything about toning down the accent. I apologize. So the topic just makes me nervous for a lot of reasons, but mainly because censorship is very, very real and very present. I have tried to put this podcast off. I have avoided it. I have procrastinated and at the last minute I'm recording it. And I'm going to be very, very careful. I'm going to speak in very general terms because the reality is that this is something that needs to be focused on even when we're not in the middle of a freaking pandemic.

So as much as I want to sit here and give my very strong thoughts and opinions, and as much as I want to just go off and ask, where is the science and the common sense? You know what I realize that's not going to help us. So I'm going to speak in general terms and just offer some suggestions that are going to help you right now during this pandemic, but also for years to come, when it comes to supporting your body. So the reality is when we look at the body, your body is absolutely magnificent. It is incredible, but it needs support. It needs care. So we have that word and that word gets so, so overused self-care. And if you're listening to me and you're a parent, you have a job, you've got kids that you are trying to educate either. You know, whether they're in learning from home or going to school or whatever that looks right, it looks like right now, everything's in chaos.

So your first thought is I don't have time for self care. Like that's ridiculous because we had these very unrealistic notions of what self care is. We think it involves trips to the spa or running a marathon or this like picture perfect clean diet that, you know, the, the picture of the food is just Instagram worthy. We had these notions of self care. And our first response is I don't have time for that. There's people counting on me, but the reality is that we have to take care of our health so that we can take care of those that we love mama's right now is not the time for you to be struggling with no energy and being tired and just struggling with depression and anxiety. And I know so many of you are, so are there some ways that we can incorporate some realistic, self-care some common sense, self care so that we can continue to move forward.

 I will tell you this. As we look at the big picture and this magnificent body, it was designed by an amazing Creator and it is intricate! It is astounding, but I'll tell you this. After working for 24 years in healthcare, and so many people and seeing the effects of disease on the body, the body can only put up with so much for so long. You can not expect to abuse the body for years and years, and years and years. And then to have it function the way it was designed to function.

Now I consider myself like, okay, at self care, I mean, I'm a health coach for the love. Now I will tell you because I've got 24 years of experience and I've got the degrees and I've got the education and the training and all of that good stuff. I will tell you, I definitely feel more guilty than anyone else when they have gotten off track. And I've certainly learned from my mistakes in this area. And I've learned so much from my clients who have trusted me with their health. So when it comes to self care, it's something I'm very mindful of. I'm aware of, I try really hard and you can imagine my surprise, my shock when I was diagnosed with coronavirus this summer, I tested positive this July. Now I know where I got it from. I got it from my husband. But here's an interesting fact. He tested negative, even though he had every symptom in the book. That's right. He tested negative. I tested positive. I had very, very, very little, like mild, almost nothing symptoms at the beginning felt like allergies, some head congestion. And that was only a one day. The next day I felt better. The third day when I actually got tested, like felt great. No worries at all. I even made this mistake of joking around with the tele-health doctor and the person administering the test just about how good I felt. I mean, I should not have ever joked. I totally jinxed myself. But I was, I was shocked when I tested positive and I'm going to tell you, it really just, it depressed me. That is the biggest effect it had on me. It sent me into just a depression because not because of the virus itself, but, but I think I have in my head as a health coach and I've worked on my immune system, God knows I've worked on my immune system.

I was just sad and depressed that I got it in the first place because I have myself convinced that I should never get sick and I hardly ever get sick. But this time I got sick. Now my very mild symptoms developed into slightly more significant symptoms. It still wasn't awful. My main symptom is that I had no energy, so very tired. I mean, nothing. Now, I still like saw some clients online and I was still in school doing my functional medicine training at the time. So I was still getting stuff done. But let me tell you, I'd get a little bit done. And then I would get in bed and take a long nap. Watch Netflix. So little to no energy, no appetite. And I mean, none. I forced myself to eat something to eat something good because I was taking a lot of supplements, but I think what shocked me, I learned a few things through my experience.

First of all, I was shocked because when I got the diagnosis I shifted into that, okay, let's do this. What do I do mode? I get it done mode. What do I do? So my question, I started asking questions about what do I do? I was not given any instructions asked a specific instructions on supplementation, how much I should take. And they told me that we don't know, we can't answer that for you. And that was, that was very frustrating that literally the only instructions when I received a positive diagnosis was to quarantine. And that's it. Nothing else to look for now, I had a functional medicine doctor.

So as soon as I didn't get the answers there, I called my functional medicine doctor. Of course, they had a protocol and that protocol included some common sense things that boost the immune system like, Hey, remember you need to get some sleep. You've got to manage stress, cut back on sugar. And here's the supplements that we recommend that can help boost your overall immune system. Now I will tell you this, our healthcare practitioners, if you're a healthcare practitioner and you're listening to this, God bless you. You have worked your tail off and you've had unbelievable pressure on you. And you're not a standalone if you've got pressure from up above. So this has been chaotic to say the least. So when I say that part of my story, that wasn't given instructions, I'm not saying that negatively in any way, shape or form towards the doctor that I had. I do want to point out that everybody's experience is so very different, but this was very, very eye opening to me because I was like, okay, here's this dreaded thing that I was just diagnosed with, but I'm not given any instructions. How much sense does this make?

So that was my experience with this dreaded virus. And it just got me thinking we need to talk more about this. We need to talk. We need to be talking more about our God given natural immunity. We need to be talking about our immune system. How do we boost our immune system? It's so important to talk about this. Your immune system is absolutely incredible. Let me just tell you, you were fighting stuff off all the time. You don't even know about your immune system, it’s that good!

The human body and this intricate design. I'm gonna tell you. We know enough to know that we really don't know that much. So when we talk immune function, we're talking gut health. We're also talking inflammation and immune response, and there are so many things at work here. And that's why I love studying it. And that's, what's been so disappointing to me is that nobody's talking about boosting your own natural immunity, but I'll tell you just as a side note, the reason why I love studying about the human body, this magnificent human body points to a magnificent creator. And as we look at how body mind and soul goes together, and then we try to figure out, okay, how can I take care of myself? So my body is balanced and I feel good. And I feel like I'm equipped and empowered to fight things off, or at least recover and heal from things that my body faces.

I want you to remember something, you can't have a creation without a Creator. You can't have a design without a designer. You can't have art without an artist, and you can't have music without a musician.
You have this absolutely amazing body. And because life gets in the way it gets sluggish and burdened and toxic and overwhelmed. But here's the thing. We can turn that around and have benefits across the board, not just in fighting off the latest virus or whatever pandemic is going on. And I do think there'll probably be another one as soon as this one's figured out. So there are very specific ways to boost your immunity. I did a podcast on this earlier this year, and I want you to go back and listen to that podcast. In this I'm giving very detailed, specific instructions that include the stress management portion, supplementation, cutting back on sugar, but very specific ways, natural ways that you can boost your own God-given immune function, which by the way, we need to be doing no matter what a sad note.

And this is my soap box. So hear me loud and clear. The government does not care about your health. This is not about health. So even in the beginning, if we thought it was about our health, now we fully are aware. This is not about your health. It is just about money and politics and control. That's it. So now more than ever, it is absolutely imperative that you are your own best advocate and you take your health into your own hands. You be proactive. Do not wait for a doctor. Do not wait for a government official to put something on your radar. What can you do today to take care of yourself so that you're equipped and empowered to fight what comes your way or so that you can heal and recover after you face something.

Mamas, listen to me, you can't do it all. We try. Don't we, we try so hard. We try to do it all. We're exhausted. We're stressed out. We're burned out and we've got a smile on our dang face. Cause we're wearing a mask. We're not going to let anybody know that we're tired and stressed out. And we're a wreck. We're burning the candle at both ends and it's not working. This is decreasing our immunity. It's affecting our mental and emotional and spiritual health. Therefore it's affecting your physical health. It is so important to start practicing mindfulness, listen to your body, that term behind fullness. Sometimes it sounds a little bit kind of free, free or fancy yo, here's what it is. It's just listening to your body. You've heard me talk about this before your body is trying to give you signals and signs and tell you what it needs. We need to start listening.

And so many times when we think about self care, we just think in terms of extremes, we take this, this kind of all or nothing approach. If we go all in that lasts about two weeks or we get so overwhelmed. When we think about everything we need to do that, we don't do anything at all. Can we ditch that all or nothing approach? Can you think about what does my body truly need versus what am I turning to in the moment to just comfort myself or numb the pain? I know I've had to have some conversations with myself, some realization of, okay, Jennifer, you're comforting yourself. You've gotten off your rhythm, your routine, and you're watching way too much Netflix. And you're indulging in things that you don't need to be indulging in. Get back on track. And it's amazing what happens when we take it one step at a time when it changes at a time because we can't change everything at once.

So I call this common sense, self care, you know what you need to do now. Sometimes you need help connecting the dots. I can help you connect the dots, but you really know what you need to do. It's eating more vegetables, cut down on sugar, drink some water, sleep maintenance that stress, that common sense. Self-Care but sometimes when we think about everything we need to do, we get so stressed out and overwhelmed and we just can't handle it. So this is where I implement small and sticky changes, small meaning it's so little. It almost seems insignificant, sticky, meaning that changes so little. It's easy to stick with small and sticky changes. What are some small ones sticky changes that you can implement this week for self-care that will just make your body feel good. You can't change everything at one count at one time now that's self-care what about soul care?

I know before I thought self care and I just thought in terms of physical health, the exercise, the diet, you know, I mean elimination and hydration, all of that stuff. Okay. Self-care it wasn't until I hit what I would term, you know, just rock bottom for me, that, that I started, my eyes were open to, okay, what does my soul need? What does my soul crave? Because I'm treating my health like a checklist and it's not working. I feel like I'm doing everything right, but something's off. Something's not right. So I want you to ask yourself, what does your soul need? What does your soul truly crave for me? This is where my faith comes in. Am I connecting with my Creator? This is where I find my hope and my peace. But so often I am so distracted and I'm turning to everything else. I get stuck in the social media and the news trap. And then I'm amazed. I hop on my phone for copper or just to distract myself or to zone out. And I find myself stuck in that loop. And then when I get off the phone, I find myself just feeling depressed and overwhelmed.
It's so devastating and it's tough to get out of. So what do we need to do differently to give our soul the true nourishment that it needs. For me, it's spending time with my Creator, that quiet time with my cup of coffee, reading God's word praying, and just asking God for the strength for that day. Lord, give me what I need for today and just trying to trust him. And y'all, that is hard for me, that trust. Cause I want to figure it all out and I want to be in control and I'm not. And I think we're all seeing that this year, you know, this, this pandemic has had absolutely devastating mental and emotional effects. Like we were meant for connection and community. We were meant for friendships. We were meant to see each other's full face and smile with our whole face. And that's, there are so many devastating effects and I will not go off on that tangent because it is so sad to me. And it is so scary, but so many people are hurting and we need each other now more than ever, we need each other. Who do you need to connect with? Who do you need to talk to? Who do you need to ask forgiveness?

Who do you need to just let go of the past? This year we have seen so much strife and hatred and anger and everything else. And so many of us were holding on to that anger and that bitterness. I'm gonna remind you, you're only hurting yourself when it comes to your immune system and your health. You know, we're continuing to stress out and live in fear. Remember living in fear and having unmanaged stress. Guess what? That hurts you. It tampers with your immune system. It hinders it limits your immune system. Now again, I've got a whole podcast on this, so I'm going to reference that in the show notes as well. So you, if you kind of want a little bit of that science of how fear and bitterness and anger impact your immune system I want to make sure that you listen to that podcast.

There's so much here and it's a big, huge, hairy, ugly topic. And the reality is that we're hurting. We're overwhelmed. We don't know what to do. So this week, can you practice some mindfulness? What can you do to implement some very small changes with regard to self care and soul care. Now, as you've listened to this and you're thinking, okay, I get it, Jennifer, I get it. I need some realistic strategies, but I'm overwhelmed. I don't know where to start. I need somebody to listen. Here's the thing that you need to know. I've always seen all of my clients online. I had no idea how important that would be from the time I put this coaching business into place and had it arranged to where I saw all my clients online. This has been pivotal during this pandemic, but it's very important for you to know. You can meet with me online and get the help that you need. It's really convenient. So don't forget that free gift that I was telling about that gives you the link to book your discounted health coaching session. Remember it is limited by availability and those are going quickly that there are some left. This is a really heavy topic today, but I hope that you found one or two things that were empowering to you. So until next week you take care of you and now I'm here for you. Bye ya’ll.


My friends...please don't forget your FREE gift! The Holiday Survival Guide - Beat Stress, Combat Cravings and Stay Joyful in the Season.  You will LOVE this! Very easy and realistic tips to help you truly thrive during this stressful season instead of just survive.  In that guide, there is a special link to book a 1-hour, virtual coaching call at a HUGE discount.  $48 off!  There is a limited quantity of these available and they are going fast!  Access your Holiday Survival Guide and Holiday Coaching Special at bit.ly/2020holidaysurvivalguide