Reality Checks and Lessons from Self-Isolation

There was an email. Then a phone call urgently reminding me to check out email. A child in my son’s class tested positive for Covid-19. Now my son has to self-isolate for the next two weeks and get a Covid test done. My first thought – what about my self-care? Women are the most deeply affected by this pandemic, especially where child care is concerned. This is true in my house too. When my son isn’t in school, it’s my life that gets jarred the most. Even though I work, I still carry the heavier load where child rearing and the household are concerned[i].

Before I get too far into my story there’s something I want to be made clear right now: I have a wonderful partner who’s actively engaged in our child’s life. He contributes around the house and is super handy. I do not experience abuse at his hands or words. I am very privileged. What I’m about to share is not a knock at my husband or men individually, it’s about a cultural bias that we’ve all bought into and how I’ve learned to not break underneath it.

When the pandemic secured it’s spot in Canada back in March, children in Ontario were told to stay home from school. Through virtual appointments I was able to continue to provide care to my patients and pivot so that we were not affected financially (another privilege of mine that doesn’t go unnoticed or unappreciated).

Only now I had to run my business WHILE having my child home. A child with many questions about Covid, who missed his social interactions deeply, and needed more of me than usual (physically and emotionally). Many of my friends were doing this with two, three, and four children vying for their attention.

Simple things like my own lunch time turned into something completely different – it took more time, more thought, and more clean up. Suddenly I was in jeopardy of losing my alone time, rest time, and self-care time.

That’s not to mention my own mental health strains – my granny is ninety, my parents are in their seventies; how will my business be impacted by the economy when all of this is said and done…

Slowly we found a new groove. Summer brought opportunity for safe connections and social interactions. The numbers started to decline and the new normal stopped being such a drain on me mentally and physically.

Part of the new groove was shuffling my priorities and my schedule. Some of the planned projects got put on hold, or were removed from the queue altogether. My mental health and self-care took a higher rung on the ladder along with playing with my child, watching movies and taking naps.

I learned how to Delegate, Delay, and Delete.

These three D’s aren’t new to me per se. When my patients and clients are overwhelmed, I encourage them to look at their schedule with these three D’s in mind regularly.

When we take on more, either voluntarily or forcefully, we must remember to put other things down. Otherwise, the weight of it all will bury us.

Thankfully, this time I was faster at implementation than I was back in March.

Delegate

To delegate some tasks means that we have to admit that we’re at capacity. That can be hard for some people. Showing vulnerability isn’t always well practiced. To say to their partner “I need your help right now” can be very uncomfortable. It also means that we have to give up control – eek. Yep, the dishwasher will likely get loaded all wrong and it may need to be run twice (either to finish the dishes because they don’t fit as many in a load as we do or because they put so many in without rinsing them that twice is what’ll make em clean). The laundry may stay in baskets for the week until they’re dug out, worn, and need to be washed again; everyone will wear wrinkled clothes for a bit. If that thought makes you want to puke, then read on.

Delay

Delaying some responsibilities or commitments is another great strategy to temporarily redistribute the load. Sure it would be nice to keep up with all of the things. But you committed to those things under different circumstances that you’re in now. Give yourself some grace and reschedule some projects, meetings, or committees to later.

A quick note here about other people’s reaction to your making room for yourself. Someone is sure to say “Kerri, we’re all struggling right now, you don’t’ see me shirking responsibilities do you?” and that can leave you questioning this strategy. Look, the only people that get wound up about me setting boundaries, are those who benefit from my lack of boundaries.

I will not longer be shamed into thinking that my basic needs are not important. They are THE most important thing in my schedule. Without them, I cannot show up for my child, my partner, my family, my friends, or my patients at my best. Since serving others is a deep value of mine, I need to take care of me in order to take care of them. Simple as that. Sometimes my setting boundaries forces them to briefly see that they don’t do it for themselves, and instead of setting their own boundaries, they challenge mine. That’s okay. It’s their process. My job is to manage my own boundaries, not theirs. I can feel compassion for them because I’ve been there. I wish them well from my side of my boundary.

Delete

To Delete some things altogether can be very empowering. I realized that I was doing many of the items on my schedule because I thought that I ‘should’. It’s like when I was still stuck in diet culture and I ate certain foods because they were ‘good’ for me, not because I actually enjoyed them. It was so freeing to just say “I don’t like kale or quinoa” and to stop trying to find a way to choke them down. There are plenty of other wonderful foods that give me great nutrition and taste amazing. I’ll stick to those thank you very much. Same thing with the rest of my life.

How many things do you do around your house because that’s how it was done when you were a kid? I encourage you to ask yourself “Is this really important to ME? Or am I on auto-pilot here?”. Maybe you do certain things for fear that others will think badly of you if you don’t. At least become aware of your real motivation behind your actions. That in and of itself can free you up to choose for yourself.

One of the major obstacles to implementing the three D’s is knowing what you value in order to prioritize. In my Living Life As A Rebel course the very first thing that we do is figure out our values. Very few of us have ever really considered what ACTUALLY matters to US. Values are often adopted from others telling us what SHOULD matter to us and then we’re left overwhelmed, unfulfilled and unmotivated.

If I had to put this into steps it would look like this:

1. Uncover your values. Do some heavy lifting and get clear on what you value most.
2. Prioritize your schedule to reflect those values. Put those important things first and then fill in the blanks with other stuff.
3. Be sensible and realistic with your expectations. I always hated scheduling because it forced me to see that I had too much on my plate. Instead of facing the reality that I had to delegate, delay or delete, I would avoid scheduling. That let me live the fantasy that I could do it all (work, parent, self-care, date my hubby, look after the house, see my friends, take up a hobby, work out, cook everything from scratch…). It also left me feeling like I wasn’t good enough in any area of my life.
4. Protect your value actions. If family time is important, then protect.
5. Understand that every time that you say yes, you’re saying no to something else. Very often that no is to yourself. Your basic needs are important and need to be met. Sleep is a basic need. Food is a basic need. Rest, intimacy, connection…all basic needs. Say yes to those more often.

Wow, that turned into a much longer essay than I had intended. This is just so important right now.

The world is talking about quarantine weight gain, stress eating and the health impacts of that. New Year’s weight loss ads are starting to flood our media and inboxes.

It would be easy to add a new plan in place and call it a ‘healthy lifestyle change’ forgetting that it’s simply adding to an already stressed system. The plan is doomed because it doesn’t start with your values. It doesn’t consider your time constraints, your emotional bandwidth or your mental well-being.

Isn’t it time to do things differently?  

---

[i] PMID: 32836987

Would you determine someone’s intelligence by the length of their ring finger?

Would you be okay if they were admitted to a math program based on their finger length rather than their SAT score?

 

When I first started my weight loss journey I was chasing confidence. I really thought that if I could just lose a few pounds that I would feel better in my body and then better about myself. Can you relate? Have you ever said “If I could just drop x amount of pounds, then I’d feel better about going to the gym/applying for that job/attending the wedding/wearing that dress”?

 

Well, after a few rounds of losing and then gaining more weight, I started to be concerned about my health. I mean come on, we all know that excess weight is related to many chronic health conditions, right? As my weight cycling continued, I kept moving up the BMI scale and my anxiety about my weight rose even faster.

 

Health and weight have become synonymous in today’s culture. When someone says “Time to get healthy” they’re really saying “Time to lose weight”. It’s so deeply ingrained that I got lambasted by a follower for ‘promoting weight loss’ when I encouraged my followership to ‘chase their health and fitness goals’ on an Facebook post.

Health and fitness goals are NOT the same as weight loss goals. Unfortunately, we have been using weight to measure health for so long that this woman couldn’t see the difference.

 

Back to the ring finger that I started with.

Did you know that there’s a relationship between someone’s ring finger length and their SAT scores? Specifically that longer ring fingers consistently relate to higher mathematical literacy?

Kinda cool eh?

 

Knowing that, would a school let someone in because they had a long ring finger? Not likely.

 

“Correlations doesn’t equal causation” was drummed into me during all of my years of science classes. And yet, when it comes to weight, we seem to have forgotten this.

 

Yes excessive body weight is related to many chronic health conditions. That DOES NOT mean that the body weight CAUSED the health condition. Nor does it mean that in order to reverse the condition that the weight must be lost.

 

I know I know, that’s not what you’ve been told and it’s hard to swallow. But stick with me here.

 

What’s really important to you?

 

Is your health? Or is it your weight?

 

If it’s your health, then keep reading. If it’s your weight, that’s cool. You do you.

 

What we measure matters (remember the ring finger). So If I want to know how my health is doing, I should measure health indicators.

 

Health and weight are related through BEHAVIOURS. When you take away the behaviours, we lose the consistency of the relationship.

How many times have you given up on a fitness program because you weren’t losing weight? Yet that fitness program (the behaviour of exercise) was doing wonders for your health. Reducing cardiovascular disease, improving cholesterol and insulin sensitivity, to name but a few.

 

You were just measuring the wrong thing.

 

So how can you avoid this trap again? Use this three step process:

Step 1 – Dig

What’s under the surface? What are you really after? Is it health? Is it vanity? Is it fitness? Is it confidence?

Weight loss is the means to an end. Just like wealth. Money itself isn’t valuable. It’s what we believe money will bring us (security, freedom, choices, comfort).

Ask yourself this “What do I believe that losing weight will get me?”

 

Step 2 – Define

What does that goal look like? If it’s health, what does being healthy feel like? What could you do if you were healthy that you cannot do now?

If it’s fitness, what is fit for you? If you currently cannot walk to the mailbox, then defining fitness as completing a marathon isn’t going to help you.

Get super clear about what you’re after.

 

Step 3 – Deliver

Once you’re clear on what you’re really after, then how can you deliver this? What actions can you take that will lead you towards that goal?

So for instance, if being able to get up on a chair to change a light bulb is the goal, then what actions can you take that would help? Well, you could start by doing chair squats, or step-ups onto a 2 inch platform. Make sense?

 

So my goal is that I would like enough fitness to enjoy skiing this winter without the soreness in my hips and legs that I experienced last year.

A clear goal with a clear outcome.

I put together a training program that included squats, lunges, sides lunges, planks and push ups. I added some rowing to the start both for some cardiovascular support and for warm-up.

By tracking my progress, I’ve been able to make adjustments where necessary (some I couldn’t do as many as I’d planned and others I could increase) and measure my success.

 

A client of mine is working on improving her blood pressure.

Her plan included meditation along with movement and some dietary adjustments.

 

Are you getting the picture? In each case, the health goal was clear and not weight related.

The plan focused on behaviours that are known to support the desired result.

 

I know that it can be hard to shift this conversation in your head. If you’ve been linking up health and weight forever, then separating the two can be tricky. Many women who have stopped chasing weight loss have also stopped making health related goals. They just don’t know how to do the one without the other.

 

If you would like help with this, I’m offering up 10 New Year’s Strategy Sessions in January.  These are 1-hour coaching calls where we can go through your 3-Step Process together. Book yours here.

 

Dedicated to helping you find peace and power with your body,