#138 What is self-care & why is it important, with Emma McQueen
If you're anything like me, self-care is the first thing to go when the plate gets full and everything in life just gets busy. We often don’t prioritise ourselves nearly as much as we should in fear of being selfish. However, self-care is crucial to not only our own health, but the health of our business.
This week, I’m joined again by Emma McQueen. If you’ve been following along with our recent conversations on the podcast, you’ll know Emma as one of my business besties and a coach who helps women achieve incredible results in their businesses. I just had to have Emma back on the podcast so that we could have another meaningful conversation in hopes of sharing real value.
Today we’re talking about why self-care is so important, exploring what it really means and how it can be tailored to suit each person.
We share what taking care of ourselves means to each of us, demonstrating how it can vary from person to person. While I always thought self-care was about indulging in things like massages and pedicures, I discuss the practices I’ve now implemented into my everyday life that truly align with who I am. From journalling in infrared saunas to ensuring I take a lunch break, prioritising my own wellbeing has been an absolute game changer for me.
Emma shares the tools she uses to regulate her nervous system, lower her stress levels and maintain her health and wellbeing. While her daily naps and meditation seem like impossible practices for someone like me, it’s interesting to hear how effective these routines are for her when designed for how she specifically works.
As women in business, we tend to leave ‘me’ time to the end of the day - that’s if we give ourselves any kind of time in the first place. We even see ourselves as selfish to want to prioritise it. However, rest is a responsibility, not a reward, and it’s time to change the narrative that we’re defective if we need it.
Self-care is a deeply personal journey, and what works for one may not work for another. The key is to explore what resonates with you, so that you’re giving yourself the best chance at maintaining your health and boosting your productivity.
So, tune in and grab some gems from this delightful conversation on taking the actions you need to make sure your cup stays full!
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Tracey: [00:00:00]
Hello everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the Rise Up in Business podcast. Thank you for joining me again. I appreciate your time so much. We're in for a treat today. I'm joined by guest Emma McQueen on today's episode. and if you've listened to our previous chats, you'll know how much we really enjoy having these conversations so we can share real value Today we're diving in to talk about the hot topic of self-care.
What it is and why it's important and it's different to everyone and I share with you in this episode What self-care means to me what it used to mean to me? Why I really struggled with the [00:01:00] concept of self-care. Emma is a queen at self-care. I've got to be honest you will love what she has to say about this and there has been a significant development in my own self-care and my own self-care journey, which I dive into and share with you in today's episode. Without further ado, let's dive in and I'll join you here at the end. And I want to talk about self-care today because it's so important and it means so many different things to so many different people. And not going to lie, I'm going to be really honest and transparent here. You know me, the very first time someone put the proposition to me about self-care earlier on in this business, so four and a half years ago, I thought that just meant some massages and pedicures and, my gosh, it means so much more. And I know that now, what does it mean to you?
Emma: Yeah, I hear you. I like pedicures too, but I also think that self-care is what you do on the daily to [00:02:00] make sure that you're feeling balanced and in flow and you have the energy. And so for me, and I've had to work on this too, Tracey, because I think sometimes when we give ourselves permission to focus on self-care, it can almost feel like we're being lazy. And so sometimes we have to give ourselves permission to actually indulge in self-care, whatever that looks like for you. For me personally, it looks like meditation. I do meditation every morning. And that's getting up before the whole family get up so that it's quiet. And I get my hot cup of tea and my dog sits on my lap and I meditate for 30 minutes. And I've done that for the last almost five years.
Tracey: What does it do for you? If you sit there..
Emma: Look at your face!
Tracey: Sorry, for anybody who obviously you can't see this. And for anyone who knows me would know my initial reaction to that is that's a very inefficient use of time. But it's not, and I know it's not, and I have the greatest respect for people who can meditate.
I'm not that [00:03:00] person. I find it's counterproductive for me. I need to be a walking meditation. But what does it do? Do you just sit there and zone out? And how does it help you? Why do you do that?
Emma: Well, it's guided meditation. So I'm listening to someone's voice and I normally pop in three different meditations in that. So I'm not listening to the same meditation for half an hour. The reason that I started doing it is because I run on a lot of nervous energy and sometimes I don't feel stressed, but when the indicators in my naturopath or my bloods pick up that I'm stressed, I was like, right, what can I do that's natural to try and sort that out?
And also as women in business, we leave me time, any kind of time to ourselves, to the end of the day. And there's a very good name for it, which is called Revenge Procrastination. I'm sure you've heard of this before.
Tracey: Oh I read about this in Kristy Goodwin's book.
Emma: Yes. Yes. Right. So [00:04:00] that is when the whole household has gone to bed and you get those precious minutes to yourself and you think I should go to bed early, but I don't, I scroll down a rabbit hole in social media, or I watch something on TV because we gotta get those minutes to ourselves. I flipped that on its head and I do meditation first thing in the morning as my me time. That is the time I get for myself to focus on me and to make sure that my head is in the game for the day. And what it means is that I'm feeling balanced and grounded throughout the day. And at the end of the day, I don't feel like, holy crap, I really have to get some of that time in because I've already got it in.
So that's the first thing I'll do. And then the second thing, Tracey, which people are very surprised about me with this is that I nap every single day.
Tracey: This blows my mind. Again, for anyone who knows me, you'll know that I'm thinking, how on earth can you do that? I, again, couldn't do that, but I have the greatest admiration and respect for the fact that you do. [00:05:00] How do you do that and what is the benefit?
Emma: Okay, so I always used to be a napper on a Saturday and a Sunday, so weekend napper. And last year I got COVID and it turned into glandular fever. And so we had to wipe my calendar clean of anything that wasn't necessary in the business, which was all the fun things that I like, like business development and relationships.
It was literally just delivery and naps. And so there's rules around my napping. So the rules are I nap. It has to be before two in the afternoon. It can't be longer than 60 minutes. And even if I'm not tired, I lay down and I put on some meditative music and I just allow my body to just rest. And glandular fever is now gone and I love napping so much.
I kept it in the schedule. So it's in my diary to have a nap every day for 60 minutes.
Tracey: So you don't actually, because I'd be the sort of person lying there looking at the clock going, fall [00:06:00] asleep, fall asleep, fall asleep, fall asleep, you're losing your time. And it would all just be a complete and utter waste. But what you're saying is you don't actually have to sleep during that time. You can just allow your body to rest.
And how does that help you in the day to day in terms of business? And I know that your calendar is very full. Um, so how does that help? If you've got a really full calendar, I'm the sort of person that would look at it and think, Oh my gosh, I could achieve so much in that hour.
Emma: The thing is you've got to reframe your brain because I am a high achiever and I always want to fill every minute with everything. And when I go for a nap, the first thing I kind of do is, am I tired? Okay. If I'm tired, I'm going to sleep. If I'm not really tired, I have this thing in my head. It's okay to not go to sleep.
Just rest your body. So I just lay there and listen to whatever I'm listening to. The amount of energy you get by having a nap just pushes me through to the rest of the day, which is amazing. I mean, I love sleep. So let's maybe start there. I get like nine, 10 hours of sleep a [00:07:00] night. I love sleep. I think it does amazing things to your body.
And I think what napping during the day does is it allows my brain to have a break, like you say, my calendar is full. So by the time I hit a nap, I've probably had four coaching sessions and it allows my brain just to switch off and not have any noise in it, which is almost like having, giving yourself a mini break from anything else entering your brain.
And I don't know if you've read the book by Adam Fraser called The Third Space, it's almost like having a moment just to allow your brain to process the first half of the day. And then I'm kind of fresh and ready for the second half of the day. It's an amazing productivity hack that no one really knows about and no one feels like they can do because everyone needs permission to nap.
Tracey: I think they do. And I'm just going to share here for listeners, for those that don't know you, Emma doesn't drink coffee. So we get to that mid afternoon [00:08:00] slump and most of us, we'll go for the cup of coffee, that's certainly what I do and I look forward to it at about two or three o'clock and you don't drink coffee and you nap and it gives you this sustained energy from what you're saying.
It's amazing. It's amazing. Horses for courses. I think that it's really great that we were able to share that because as I said, self-care means different things to different people. A game changer for me in the context of self-care since I did a lot of work on this and I mean a lot because honestly, it doesn't come naturally and coming from the corporate background, there's so much guilt attached to taking any time for ourself and hello legal practice, traditional legal practice, billable hours. You don't even get to look out the window have five minutes to think about something if you're not billing it to someone.
Obviously one of the many reasons why I've done away with all of that, but I did struggle with it for such a long time and I had to go through a process of deconditioning. So now for me, having a lunch break is amazing.
Emma: Oh, Tracey, [00:09:00] we're starting off with a low base.
Tracey: We were, but it's really powerful. So factoring, so what does self-care to me look like? It's a lunch break that's in my calendar and I feel really privileged to be able to take it guilt free. And it gets moved. So my, my calendar, I use it like a Tetris or Legos. So I just move blocks around as and when I need to, to fit in things and to accommodate clients.
But there's always a lunch break there now. And if I have the time, I'll do a 20 minute walk with the dog as well through the day. If I don't have time to do it through the day, I'll do it in the evening. But the self-care has meant, for me, the biggest thing, no guilt.
Emma: Yeah, but you've also tried some things. Tell us what you've tried because I know you've tried a few different things with this self-care.
Tracey: I've got a lot of things going on now. I,
Emma: Yeah, you really do.
Tracey: I really do since I let go of, well, since I learned to let go of the guilt, which was really powerful, uh, I've got a lot of things, a lunch break, no joke, a really fabulous thing. infrared sauna.[00:10:00]
Emma: Yes. How good are they.
Tracey: Love, love the infrared sauna. And the amazing thing I've discovered about the infrared sauna and it's science based is we get really creative in an infrared sauna.
It's what it does to our brain. I naturally am not a creative person. So when I sit in the infrared sauna, I actually take a pen and paper. You can do that because it's not one of those heat saunas. It's not one of those steam saunas, I should say. And I sit in there and I, I do lots of journalling, lots of content creation. I do all of that in there. It's a really lovely outlet. I have acupuncture every fortnight.
That has been a game changer for me. I used to get migraines regularly and they would take me out for days. But I've discovered that self-care whilst it is guilt free, I've also discovered that it is selfish and we should be selfish because we can't pour from an empty cup. And it's good to be selfish, so I really own that now.
Emma: Oh I love that you own that. How has that transition been? Because that's a long time coming, right? To [00:11:00] go from a traditional every single minute is billable, to having your own space but then transitioning out of a corporate mindset. I mean, even when you talk about corporate, and people say a day, everyone thinks eight hours. Why does it have to be eight hours? It took me so long to kind of get out of that. So tell me about the transition.
Tracey: It really took a hold for me when I leaned into human design.
Emma: Yes. I know you love your human design.
Tracey: I really do. And I'm a projector. I'm a Splenic projector. And what that did for me, the moment I discovered what that was, I was actually very disappointed to learn I was a projector. I really, I wanted to be a manifesting generator, which is what my husband and my daughter are. So I really had my heart set on that and I thought that's what I was, but then I realised that I was living my life in 97 percent masculine energy and I was not in alignment.
Emma: Interesting.
Tracey: And once I leant into that, It became much easier to shed all of the beliefs and the programming that didn't serve me. And I remember saying to [00:12:00] myself, and I'm sure I've said this to you, it gave me permission to understand that I'm not defective.
I thought I was defective because I was getting migraines and I wasn't working hard enough and all the things that everybody listening to this would be nodding along to some degree, going, yeah, I carry that guilt. Yes, I feel like I'm not doing it right. Yes, I feel like I'm not working hard enough. But then I sat down to put some boundaries around, well, what does success look like for me on a holistic level as a whole person?
Emma: Yeah, because we're not just business owners. We're not just mums. We're not just wives. There's so many bits of us, right? And that mental load, that mental load is massive.
Tracey: It is. And so learning that I was a splenic projector, learning that I didn't actually have to be slogging, exhausted all day, every day, giving myself permission to let go of what didn't serve me and explore different things, explore the infrared sauna, explore the, I do love a massage. I do.
And I love my acupuncture and I've realised it's the antidote [00:13:00] to my migraines. The journey has been long, but it's been so rewarding. And now I feel like I owe it to myself to do these things. And on the podcast last year, I had Dr. Kristy Goodwin and she said to me many things in that episode, but one of the things she said was rest is a responsibility, not a reward.
Emma: Yeah, it totally is true. It is totally true.
Tracey: And that was a permission slip.
Emma: But how, how often in your childhood did you have to finish your homework before you went and played? Did you have to do this before you got to do that? Like we're just programmed that way. We are so programmed that way.
Tracey: And as women, I think we're really hard on ourself as it is. So it's giving ourselves the.... it's not even a luxury. It's just giving ourselves little pockets of time for us because I'm that person that will sit sometimes at nighttime and scroll because I'm so exhausted and I think, gosh, I just want some me time.
I could go to sleep or I could stay up really late and have some me time and I choose the latter and I pay for it. [00:14:00] So I'm still working on that. It's a work in progress, but the reason I wanted to do this episode and have this conversation with you is because I wanted to shine a light on this so that listeners know it's okay that it's different for everyone.
It's not prescriptive. What works for Emma won't work for Tracey and vice versa. But if somebody can take some little nuggets of gold away from this episode, just to give themselves a break or just to try something new and give it a go and see how it works. And I think we've done pretty well.
Emma: Yeah. And I would add that self-care also doesn't have to be all serious. So one of the self-care things that I do is after COVID, I picked up my hobby, which was roller skating. So as a kid, I did roller skating and during COVID, I strapped on my roller skates and skated around the house. And after that, I decided to take lessons again. So I go to roller skating lessons.
Tracey: I didn't know that.
Emma: Yeah, it's so much fun. I'm learning how to speed skate and go backwards. They're my two things that I really want to learn. And I've got rainbow skates, like they make me so happy.
Tracey: Oh, I've seen [00:15:00] those.
Emma: Yeah, just once a week I just go and it's all about me for an hour and a half and I'm in the adult class and it's amazing. And I would also call that self-care.
Tracey: Wow. Okay. I love that. And that's, that's, thank you for sharing that. I love that. It doesn't have to be serious. I think this is so valuable and I think that if people listening can just take away one little nugget to try something new, guilt free, prioritise yourself and it's okay to be selfish and rest is a responsibility, not a reward.
Emma: Yes, sister. I love it.
Tracey: Thanks, Em.
Emma: Thanks, Tracey.
Tracey: Ah, I hope you enjoyed that as much as we enjoyed recording it. You can tell that we have such fun together and we've got more of these types of conversations planned for you in the new year as well. So stay tuned. As always, thank you for listening. I appreciate your time so much. And I hope that you found some value in this episode and some little nuggets of gold and little things that you might try to incorporate into your day to day or your week or your month to enhance your [00:16:00] self-care because we all know it's so important. But if you're anything like me, self-care is the first thing to go when the plate gets full and everything gets busy because we don't prioritize ourself nearly as much as we should.
As always, I love receiving your feedback. Please let me know what you thought of the episode. Jump over onto Instagram where I spend a lot of time. Send me a DM. I would love to know your key takeaways from this one. Thanks for joining me. Catch you next time.
LINKS:
Previous episodes with Emma:
Connect with Emma McQueen:
Website: https://emmamcqueen.com.au/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/emmarmcqueen/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmamcqueen/
Connect with Tracey:
Book a Strategy Session with me here
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