Simple self care practices for business owners during particularly stressful times
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How do you keep showing up to your work when the demands of your life and the horrors of current events are beating you down? Well as much as you might groan when I say this, self care is a big part of it.
This week I am joined by Steff Gallante (she/her) to talk about basic self care practices that might not seem like they will have a profound impact on your work, but if they are neglected, are absolutely negatively impacting how you show up to your business and your ability to keep going.
In this episode we talk about:
Why we have to rethink the idea of sustainability and how we create sustainable work practices
How to be intentional about what we are using our capacity to show up to
Why basic self care practices are so critical to our ability to keep showing up
The 4 self care practices to implement first if you are feeling burnt out or overwhelmed
The 8 practices to implement if you have the capacity, and are looking for more ways to replenish yourself and keep showing up
Here’s what you’ll hear about in this episode…
6:59: Collective burnout and why “staying organized” isn’t the answer to finding balance with your life and business with everything going on in the world.
9:58 American culture’s obsession with success and our skewed expectations of balance in life and each other.
16:51: Coming back to the basics of self care, and why that’s necessary to create your meaningful work and stay aligned with your values.
25:41: Mental shortcuts we take under stress to keep pushing ourselves through difficult times vs. dealing with tough situations by intentionally setting things down to release the pressure.
30:26: The four self-care foundation basics that your body needs to come back to.
45:01: Four more accessible self-care gateways to implement in your life.
Do you have a question you’d like to hear addressed on a future episode?
As part of Fruition Growth Network, you can submit your questions related to being a human running a small, lifestyle business and have them answered by one of our expert contributors. You can expect nuanced conversation and expert guidance just for you, and you don’t even need to wait for new episodes to drop. As soon as we record your response you will get access to the full video interview. Join Fruition Growth Network here!
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Links + resources referenced in this episode
Follow Steff on IG: http://www.instagram.com/steffgallante
Steff's website: https://www.steffgallante.com/
Join us for Steff's workshop in December and create a self care plan for yourself in your business http://www.joinfruition.com
Transcript
Brooke Monaghan: 0:51
Welcome to another episode of Make Your Business Work For you. I am Brooke Monaghan I use she and her pronouns, and today I am joined by Steff Gallante, who also uses she and her pronouns. I asked Steff to come on the show today to have a conversation about basic self-care when you are trying to manage the demands of the world, the observations of how unjust the world is, the news, current events, taking care of your family, taking care of all of your other obligations in your life and running a business. I wanted to have this conversation with Steff because, first of all, she is very skilled in this topic. She is a liberation-focused well-being educator, an Ayurveda yoga specialist. She is a self-care coach, a mental health and trauma-informed yoga teacher. She is an instructor at Rutgers University in the Department of Kinesiology and facilitates well-being workshops for businesses, organizations, universities, conferences, yoga studios, festivals. Steff's work is all about disrupting the messaging of white supremacy culture on health, self-care, fitness, mental health. This is precisely why I wanted to have this conversation today with Steph, because what so often happens in our businesses is that we revert back to this messaging of productivity and being able to just achieve or strive your way out of your current situation. The reality is that we are in a situation right now where most of us that I know anyways are feeling pretty burnt out. We are all juggling different demands in our lives in addition to our businesses. The question that I had for Steph was like what are some of the practical things that we could be doing for ourselves right now to actually take care of ourselves through this? Because I don't see an end in sight. I really don't. I think that we are adjusting to a new way of living our lives and we need to get real with ourselves about how we could be taking care of ourselves right now so that every time that one more thing happens, it doesn't totally knock us down and put us in a position where we have to halt everything, because the reality is that most of us don't have the privilege of being able to not work. Most of us don't have the ability to say oh well, things are really hard this week, and so I guess I'm not doing any work right now. We have got to figure out a way to keep going. My question for Steph was kind of like all right, this is really hard right now. What are some things that could make it easier to digest everything that's going on around us, show up to the things that are important to us and take care of ourselves in the process. If this conversation is eye-opening for you which I hope that it is, and honestly if it's not, then I would listen to it again, because and I referenced this in the conversation but my observation is that oftentimes people want to blow past the foundational, really basic things that could set them up for success and in pursuit of things that seem that maybe they've never heard of before or are a little bit more advanced. The reason that we often do that is because dealing with the foundational, basic things are actually hard. We take it for granted and we act like we're already doing it and so, yeah, I already know all that. Tell me something that I don't know. But if we paused and implemented the things that are basic and foundational there's a reason that that term foundational is being used here because without that foundation, a lot of the other things that you're trying to do can't really, don't really square up and are not really as solid as you might think that they should be. So Steph is going to be leading a workshop in Fruition Growth Network in December. It's going to be on December 12th. We are going to be holding a space for you to check in on some of these care practices that we discuss in today's episode and to build them into your schedule, because the reality is that nothing that you are doing in your business is truly sustainable if care for yourself is not built in, and my experience is that when these basic needs are taken care of and when you treat them as though they are your job, a part of your job, everything else becomes more clear, everything else becomes a lot easier to stay grounded, it becomes a lot easier to make sound, reasonable decisions and judgments and, ultimately, it's a lot easier to keep going. I hope you enjoy this conversation with Steph Gallante. Come and join us on December 12th. You can go to joinfruition. com to get registered for that, and if you have not yet left a rating and a review for the show and you are enjoying it, please, please, take a minute to go to Apple Podcasts and leave your rating and review. It makes a really big difference. So I asked you to come on here and chat with me today because -- Well, a couple of reasons. First of all, you're going to be teaching a session in Fruition in December and I wanted people to hear from you, to hear how brilliant you are and have a little bit of an intro to your work. And there's a reason you're teaching a workshop in Fruition in December and why I want you on here, and it is because your work is incredibly important, so relevant, to people who work for themselves. I've been talking a lot about how burnt out I think we all are like collectively. I don't think this is new, but I will say that something about September and October of this year I feel like everyone that I talk to is like I'm like how are you? And they're like I'm alive. I keep getting that response. I keep hearing people ask the question like how do we balance all of this? How are we supposed to keep showing up to our work and keep running a business when we're also trying to live normal life quote, unquote normal life and take care of our families and our households and all of that? And also we are at a really low starting point because we are coming we're now how many years into surviving a pandemic and then everything else that's going on in the world and how absolutely devastating the news is regularly. I mean to the point that, like horrific shit is just starting to blend in and become white noise and I think I just I keep hearing people ask this question how do I balance all this from the perspective of how do you keep yourself organized? You know, like how do you keep yourself organized?
Steff Gallante: Because you can organize your way out of this
Brooke Monaghan:
Exactly, Exactly. How do you keep yourself organized? How do you set up your Asana? Will you show me specifically what your task management like you know system is? How do you stay motivated? Maybe, if I start drinking mushroom coffee instead of regular coffee, I'll suddenly, like, I'll be able to optimize my physiology in a way that will like maybe I'm just tired because my body is broken. Maybe I'm tired because I need to go on a detox. You know what I mean. Like. This is the perspective that so many people are looking at this from, and when you and I talk about your work often, as we often do, it's almost funny, Like I almost can't help but laugh to just be like oh no, maybe it's like actually, just like you are, you need to remember to take care of your basic needs, and so I wanted to have a real conversation about it today. I saw you post something on Instagram the other day that was tips for like digesting our current world, and I was like you know what? Let's follow that through line and talk a bit about like as people who work for ourselves, who are this fried. It's like what are some of the really basic things that we can remember to do that can maybe make this. At least we're not. We don't feel like we're physiologically shutting down at the same time. Physiologically, yeah, you know.
Steff Gallante: 9:58
I mean yes, and two things that you just said stood out to me and I was writing notes so that I didn't forget, because part of the way I am kind of coping and managing is with a brain that just kind of has a thought and then it, and then it leaves. So if I don't write it down it's probably not going to be said. So two things. First of all, we need to recognize that for those of us who I can I, since I was, I was raised in America I can only comment on American culture, and what I know about American culture is that the information we are fed from a very young age is so tightly and deeply woven almost within the fabric of us, of our being, that we revert back to that.
Brooke Monaghan: 10:47
Oh yeah often.
Steff Gallante: 10:50
And so what you named of people saying like, how can I stay organized, how can I be more efficient, how can I increase my productivity? Because literally the world is falling apart, the world is on fire, including the literal world, and also, you know, humanity, and there's so much happening and we revert so many of us in American culture revert back to, well, if we're just more efficient and if we are just more organized and we just do a better job, this will suck a little less.
Brooke Monaghan: 11:22
Yeah, I mean I see people being like I feel so not motivated and I feel so tired and I feel so pessimistic and I feel so hopeless, and clearly that's because I'm just not. I'm just not organized enough and my mindset isn't right.
Steff Gallante: 11:44
Yes, and, and, and, and ever. Please, everybody who's listening, please know that any time it seems like we're judging, it's, it's not. We're not judging you, we're not calling you out, right, because I can say for myself most of the things I'm pointing out are things I do as well. Oh, I'm sure you're saying the same thing, right?
Brooke Monaghan:
Oh, yes.
Steff Gallante:
And so I think that it is so important. The reason I say this is not because it's like like a dumb moment, but it's like I think we are past the point. We as Americans, especially and I say this not to exclude anybody, but I can only again like talk about American culture and those of us who were raised in it, because that for me is is so salient as somebody who was raised in American culture and we are hell bent on success. And that still plays in when we are dealing with unprecedented times and continue to deal with and navigate through unprecedented times. And so somehow, for anybody who is recognizing that something is off, that they are not experiencing life the way that they normally quote, unquote normally do, and I find myself questioning myself too, like what is going on with you? It's to the point now where we are past the point of being able to carry so much in the imaginary backpack that we carry around with all of our lived experiences and whatever hardship or trauma or anything else that we are carrying around with us. We can't carry it all and some of it needs to get put down and like placed down, whether we choose to pick it back up or not. That isn't on an individual basis. But that brings me to that point about balance. Because I think for those of us who grew up in the 90s, we, you know there, you may have seen, you know that cartoon where, or possibly like a clown or like a circus act, where there is this person who has somehow juggling multiple balls or plates or have plates spinning on the stick right and you've got to somehow keep everything spinning all at the same time, everything up in the air. And that to us, at least for me in my 90s brain, that's what I view as balance. Or some people view like a scale, or, you know, multiple scales, where everything is just evenly balanced, and that's honestly, yes, that might be what balance is theoretically, but that's not how it plays out in life. And we are at the point now where, as you said, we continue to go through more and more and more, so much that we don't even have a chance to process all of it or even acknowledge something else that has occurred, because we're still trying to be in what happened before. We've got to redefine our definition of balance and our expectation of balance, and we also have to give ourselves permission to put down stuff when it's really heavy or hard. We have to redefine how we are moving through life and what our expectations are of ourselves, of each other, and also a skill development needs to happen in terms of grace and compassion for ourselves and for one another, because, again, in American culture we're not taught that. We are taught discipline and willpower and all that other stuff which is important. Yes, success is important. Yes, making money is important all the things but we also are humans and I think that that is a big reason why a lot of people are struggling, like deeply struggling, because they are equating, almost how they are, the heaviness that they're feeling or the uncertainty they're feeling with their own success, an ability to move through life.
Brooke Monaghan:
Yes.
Steff Gallante:
And that math doesn't quite math.
Brooke Monaghan: 15:48
No. Hearing you say all of this, like even as you're talking about balance, I feel like, well, there's two things I mean. One thing is, I think the concept of balance is just in itself confused, I think for all of us. But speaking specifically to self-employed people, it's like the expectation that you have your life and then you have your work is a and like that those are two things on opposite sides of a scale is a joke.
Steff Gallante: 16:17
Or a clear boundary between them?
Brooke Monaghan: 16:18
Right? Of course not. That's not how it works. Everything that happens to you in your life affects how you show up to your work and for most of us, we're thinking about our work all the time and we're bringing things from our life into our work. You know. But the other piece of this is and I hope that this I want to say this as like a way of sort of grounding this whole conversation and why this is not just another conversation about this, is not just another conversation about the basics of self-care that you think you already understand. The reason I want to have this conversation is because the way that, as people who are doing meaningful work in the world and creating our own work in the world, and who want to stay aligned with our values and build something that challenges systems rather than continues to perpetuate the same thing that we're seeing most of the people who are listening to my show are people who want to create some kind of difference through the work that they're creating.
Steff Gallante: 17:18
Mm-hmm.
Brooke Monaghan: 17:19
You are not going to be able to do that if the way that you are dealing with challenging times is to disconnect from yourself, from your body, from reality, in order to push through your work. Like you're literally disconnecting yourself from the place where your values live, from the place where your curiosity lives, like you are getting further away. Our pursuit to be more productive at a time like this brings, it, takes us further away from the kind of difference that we want to make or the kind of work that we really want to be bringing to life. And so listen to us people. Listen, because I know it's always the stuff that's like it sounds so basic that people want to like skip over and get to the other stuff, and what we're saying is like no, no, no, no, no, no. Stop doing that and come back to yourself in this moment and understand what you're actually going through and some things that you could be doing for yourself. That will be a lot more, actually a lot more productive in the sense of the term that we're interested in here.
Steff Gallante: 18:34
A case for basic self-care is that, you know, the more dire things are, yes, the worse things feel.
Brooke Monaghan:
Yes.
Steff Gallante:
we need to. We need to again redefine, learn, unlearn, relearn what we perceive as self-care or enough right. Or what is going to be significant right. And so I always say to clients like the bigger life is, the bigger life is, the smaller and more basic the self-care practice needs to be, because there's just not enough space for big on both sides. And then what happens is oftentimes our big self-care is the flashy stuff, the stuff that costs a lot of money, the stuff that also costs us a lot of time, that requires a huge ass amount of support or space, and we don't have that yeah.
Brooke Monaghan: 19:35
And so you know what I'm going to do. I'm going to go and get a membership to this yoga studio and I'm going to start going to five yoga classes a week and I'm going to invest in this and be serious about it, and it's like, mmm.
Steff Gallante: 19:48
Right. Yeah, or thinking that and here's the thing, like no way am I poo-pooing that, yes, move your body right or take the vacation if you are resourced to and privileged enough to be able to do that, whatever it is. But the reality is that also takes work, time, energy, money right, and you may not be resourced to do that. And also, does it fix everything? Or is the impact really going to be enough? Because in the times we're living in, you know, basic has never been insignificant. Basic has always been significant. We have just taken the meaning away and given it to something else. Because, again, in American culture, if something costs more or more time is involved, then to us that means it's more valuable, and so we have to redefine what we view as valuable.
Brooke Monaghan: 20:38
I just have to say, like when you what you're talking about Steff for everybody listening, please understand that part of what Steff is saying is that you are setting yourself up for this feeling of why can I never follow through on the things that I say I'm going to do for myself, because that's another place where we start to judge ourselves. Well, the reason that you can't follow through on it is because your expectation of yourself, of what you're going to put into your self-care practices, are way too fucking high, considering what you're going through.
Steff Gallante: 21:08
Exactly. Yes, and then the other thing that I wanted to say too and this was actually a conversation I just had this morning with my best friend on kind of an epiphany that I had this morning was, as I was, you know, of course, berating myself for how tired I am. ri ght, because you're going to, you know, because that helps and that's fair. I realized I was like you know, it's November and I reflected a bit yesterday on some of the hard things I did this week. Hard things around money and planning and hard conversations about things and also reflect have been I'm a big reflector and I reflected on wow, we are in, you know, month 11 now of 12, if we're following you know the calendar and as I look back I'm like shit, I've been doing hard stuff. This whole year has been my focus has been doing some really hard things and every single week having hard conversations or doing uncomfortable things. No wonder why I'm exhausted on top of everything else. And what I realized and what I was able to name in words was to avoid things, whether it's hard emotions or hard experiences or hard conversations or hard, you know, considerations. That takes energy, it does absolutely 100%, but to actually show up and face it. To be in it requires even more energy, cause the doing of it is hard and the being in it is hard and the soothing of yourself is hard. And that's why we avoid, because we know what that takes Like it's it's hard, it's uncomfortable, it's vulnerable.
Brooke Monaghan: 22:57
Yeah, it's like Kat Sleadd says, like anything that requires, like anytime that we're faced with change. We both want it and don't want it.
Steff Gallante: 23:07
Exactly, exactly. And so you know, we keep wanting, wanting change, we keep wanting things to be different, but we're unwilling because and it's an, it's a vicious cycle, right Because if you don't have the support, if you, you know, you don't have the space, if you don't have the time, if you don't have the resources right to support you through this, yes, of course, you're going to bottle things up and you're going to avoid things and you're just going to push it away, of course, but then that's when this just continues to go on for longer time and also feels even bigger and more impossible and awful. And so when you were saying, you know, like having trying not to avoid things, not trying to push through all the time, like we've got to be in the hard, we've got to be in the tough stuff, we've got to be in the horrific stuff, we've got to be in all of it because that's the only way through it.
Brooke Monaghan: 23:58
Yeah, absolutely. I was listening to a podcast episode this morning with this behavioral economist who was talking about what we understand about why people buy into conspiracy theories. And the actual psychology and the sociology and the science that's been done about this, to understand the ways that our brain works and that we need to understand that when people are he was talking about how it kind of is like a vicious cycle, because people are more likely to buy into something like this when they have been alienated. So if you feel like you are really being pushed aside, marginalized, left behind, you know people think that you don't matter or whatever it's like, you're going to look to how to make sense of that and, like, when you're more stressed, your brain starts looking for patterns more. So, like they've literally apparently they have literally looked at people who they land from skydiving and they show them an image and it's like a bunch of like dots on a piece of paper and they just like immediately can see a bunch of patterns where, when their nervous system is totally calm, they don't see any patterns. Like it's an evolutionary thing that we start looking for it when we're really stressed. Anyways, the point is he was talking about how, anytime that you're stressed, you're going to go back to mental shortcuts, right? So you're going to go back to in this instant like your brain is going to try to save capacity. It's like you're running out of RAM, you know. And so the only way for your brain to deal with it is to just go back to all of these mental shortcuts that you've created for yourself to try to get out of it, because it's the only thing you have the capacity for. And so when I'm hearing you say all this, I'm hearing, yeah, of course, when our capacity is diminished because of everything that we're going through, facing all of it is going to feel nearly impossible. And so what are we going to do? We are going to try to escape it by going back to those cultural narratives that we talked about in the beginning of this, that most of our parents taught us that it's like yeah, I know you don't want to and you have to, because this is the way that the world works. Get your shit together and go and do the thing. Why are you laying down? Still, it's 11 o'clock. Why are you still sleeping? You know what I mean. Like I know I'm not the only one who still hears my parents being like why are you laying down? You know what I mean. So, of course, we're going to go back to those shortcuts and of course, we're going to try to escape the thing that's going to require so much more capacity, because we don't have the capacity. So then I hear you stuff saying we have to be able to set things down, and the connection that I make, and I would love to hear if this is kind of what you mean by this or if this is just what my brain does and I start putting things together. But then I hear okay, so we have two choices. We can continue to do what we've been doing, which is to try to escape this feeling by achieving our way through it, pushing our way through it, organizing our way through it, berating ourselves for being tired, making ourselves wrong for it, so that we can try to create a different situation where, in our minds, everything's going to be different and we're finally going to have things together and we're not going to feel this way anymore. Or what if we said, okay, I'm doing this because my capacity is really limited? I know that the way out of this is to actually face and deal with this stuff, so what am I going to be intentional about setting down so that I have the capacity to do that? Great, I get it now. Thank you, steph.
Steff Gallante: 27:55
Well, because I think also. I mean, I feel, I mean, I know for me and maybe other people, but there's this feeling that we have to keep carrying everything.
Brooke Monaghan: 28:05
Oh, of course.
Steff Gallante: 28:06
And that everything has to be important and we all have so many priorities, so many responsibilities, so many things that we've been told we need to do or we have decided we need to do that it's just too much. We just cannot. Under not horrific circumstances, we all had too much on our plate anyway, and we saw that when things shut down with COVID and we saw the holy shit. There was way too much that I was responsible for, that I was trying to do, and it just is. It just is too much. And so I think we need to get more comfortable with saying no, I cannot do that, and deciding what truly the priority is, because the reality is we cannot show up to as many priorities as we are trying to, or the way that we are trying to show up to them, right. So we have to, we have to get comfortable in that Like when. So when I say, put something down, it's like okay, well, either I don't have the capacity to deal with this right now emotionally or mentally, so that's got to have, that's going to have to pause, because this needs, this other thing needs my attention, or I know I wanted to do this today. It is, you know, not time sensitive, right. Somebody may be sad or disappointed, right, but the world is not going to end. Shit's not going to hit the fan. I'm just not going to do it. And have that decision not be tied to you didn't do enough or you are not amazing enough, right, because you had to say no or or or decide not to do something, yeah, so that's, that's the first thing. And the second thing you know, I think that too is we're living in a pressure cooker. At least I feel like that. We're like maybe for everybody it's a different feeling, but I feel like it's just I'm in this vessel and the pressure just keeps getting turned up, and turned up, and turned up, and all I want is to reduce or release the pressure. And sometimes, I know, for me it feels like if I do that, then everything's going to explode, yes, or implode. I, you know, I guess depending yeah, right, and so then it's like you just okay, then I'm like okay, then I just got to get comfortable in this, because everything can't explode, right, there's not enough space to put it all together, back together, like I just don't have the capacity to deal with it if it does do that. And so something that I've really been turning to and that in in my own life, but is really the? The foundation of the work that I do with with clients is, come back to the basics. So can we give some love to eating? Because it's when we get stressed and when we're overwhelmed that the basic things fall off. Yes, because they probably weren't all that set anyway, because, I mean, you know, the reality is we're not, we don't have enough space and time to take, you know, the care of ourselves that we wish we could Right.
Brooke Monaghan: 30:53
Yeah.
Steff Gallante: 30:54
And so so. So there are four things that I'm always like okay, can you just do these things?
Brooke Monaghan: 30:59
Okay, great, I was going to say so, what needs our, our attention? Like, if we are, because I know people are going to have so many things to say about, like, but I can't put anything down, right? Yeah, first of all, I just want to underscore what you said about when you feel like you're in this pressure cooker, and what I'm hearing you say is, like, when you need to release the pressure the most is when it's going to feel the most impossible. Yes, right, so when you really really need to do this, it's going to be at the time when your brain is going to be telling you you couldn't possibly. And what I would love to just underline, there is anytime that you are making up a story about how, if you simply set something down, if you simply give yourself some space, if you simply take care of yourself, your whole business is going to fall apart, or all of your clients are going to leave, or you're never going to achieve the thing that -- that is an outsized. That is you jumping to a, to a pretty major conclusion, which is a pretty good sign of the fact that you're probably really tired and doing one of those mental shortcut things Like it's almost. It's almost like you're. You're triggered because you're so activated. I don't know. I don't know how that shit works. You know better than I do. But anyways that's a good indicator that, like, now's the time to do this audit. So I would love for you to share, like what are the four things to come back to that we could maybe together, if you're listening, maybe you like really pay extra close attention right now, as stuff is talking and you just ask yourself, like are these four things? How could you take better care of these four things?
Steff Gallante: 32:37
Yeah, and and. And I want to be very clear before I continue is that we've got to let go of perfection, We've got to let go of like what this needs to look like Right and so like. The first thing is each like, and I understand that that is a really really hard topic for many people, for many reasons, including food insecurity. Of course, eating disorders, the way that dominant culture views food and demonizes food and healthifies or puts food on a pedestal so many people are walking around with, with really hard relationships with food and with eating, and whether it's cultural, you know, beyond American culture, and it's to, you know, whatever culture it is that their family origin has. Like it's so hard and so much of it is given to us right From from others, and so I want to acknowledge that. So please take this with a grain of salt if this is something that's very, very emotional, flammable for you, but but eat, because because there are a lot of people who who, when they get stressed, they just don't eat, and I'm not going to tell you what to eat, just eat please.
Brooke Monaghan: 33:54
I was having a conversation with a good friend recently and I said it was like in the morning, I think, and I was going on about I just feel like if this happens and this is going to happen, and then this is going to happen, and then I'm just never gonna blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah and I was just like totally venting like all of my fears and stuff, and then I ended up eating something after that and then I texted them and I said it turns out I just needed to eat a piece of bread. I was like I just needed carbs. I think it's going to be okay now.
Steff Gallante: 34:26
Yes, sometimes, yes, that's all we needed, right, and I mean, like you think about it and I always and I don't mean to take away from the human experience or the adult experience but I always think back, you know, in the moments that that I have that kind of clarity and it's like oh, so, like, what does a tantrum look like from my child? What about when your animal is like acting out? Right, they're so basic. Yeah, animals and kids, right. Like, obviously, their emotions are complex, don't get me wrong. Yeah, but it's so much, so much of dysregulation when we're seeing it comes back to like have you had enough water? Have you eaten? Do you need a hug? Right, do you need to go to the bathroom? Yes, oh, and I'm not making fun at all, I'm just like I don't know why we feel like we, as adults who have competing priorities and we have so much shit on our plate like that we don't need these things. Yeah, right, like, why is it okay for your dog to have all those things or your child to have all those things, but you think that you don't need that?
Brooke Monaghan: 35:38
Yeah.
Steff Gallante: 35:40
Right, and how, then, can you come to your business? How can you come to these things, your clients and all these people and things that need you, these decisions? Without that yeah Right. We view basic as in like insignificant, but it's not. So eat.
Brooke Monaghan: 35:55
It's the most significant. Drink water right.
Steff Gallante: 35:58
It is the most significant.
Brooke Monaghan:
You can't do anything if you're not nourished.
Steff Gallante:
Yeah, right, it's true. And nourished in different ways, right, like, drink your water, drink your tea. I mean, if you're having caffeine, I encourage you to like, maybe limit it past 10 am, because you know it does take quite a while for caffeine to get through our system, and so I know that's really hard for some people. But the reality is like, if we're leaning on, if you keep normal hours in terms of like, you're up somewhere between like 6 and 8 am and you're in bed I don't know, sleeping by like midnight or so. If you're keeping that type of hours, you're not working overnight per se or some reason why you're up overnight all the time, like allow that the caffeine to come out of your system so that you can, you have the best chance at getting to sleep. And the reality is, if you're needing, if, within that schedule, you're needing that caffeine in the afternoon, that's an indicator that something else has got to change. And I know that's hard, yeah Right, that is hard, it's really hard. And because we know so many people who are having that afternoon cup of coffee, it's like it's become normalized, right, because, again, American culture, the hustle and the grind. How do we get through it, right? But hydrate. I mean, we do a good job of discounting how important that is and we think, oh well, I'm working out, so I need to drink more water or whatever. No, no, no. Like everybody, whether you're moving your body or not, please keep yourself hydrated, like when you water your plants. Make sure you remind yourself that you need to drink some water. Or when you put water in the dog bowl, right, like all the things.
Brooke Monaghan: 37:24
You could do what I do and just carry around an emotional support water bottle all the time.
Steff Gallante:
Yes.
Brooke Monaghan:
Everyone knows I got this white hydro flask. It comes with me everywhere.
Steff Gallante: 37:35
Everywhere, everywhere, do it, do it, and then you know. The third thing is move your body. Again, exercise is also very complicated for people. That's why I typically don't use that word. But move your body, you know, do whatever feels good, whatever you like. Right, Like dominant culture has all the you know guidelines and stuff. Fine, but do what you like, do what's going to feel good, and if today your hard ass cardio workout or your hard ass strength training workout is not it, then do something else, and that is going to be met with a lot of like oh, that doesn't feel good, and I know that because I have been there and I'm in the process of healing my relationship with exercise after being in this industry for so many years. Right, but we have to do what feels good and we cannot guilt and should and shame ourselves and judge ourselves for a workout we didn't do or we didn't go the way we wanted it to or whatever else it is. Move your body and if what you need to do is kind of beat yourself up a little bit through a workout, I understand that and sometimes we do need that. But there come a point where, like, that's just not it and doing it for the sake of doing it, because that's what dominant culture says, or that's what whoever says, or whoever's doing it. No, just, in these times, just, freaking move your body, whether that's a walk, whether that is gently stretching, whether that is rolling around on the ground like your favorite animal, like I don't care, just move your body. Yeah, please. And sometimes just doing that, whether it's dancing around to your favorite song, right, like it doesn't matter. You could twerk it out, like, imagine you're in the club whenever you are at the height of doing the club, and if that's you now as an adult, please take me with you, right. But like, do it. Yeah, like, just do it. And then then back to sleep. Like you know, I know it's really hard because when you're dealing with a lot of emotional and mental stuff, sleep gets interrupted so much. But also sleep gets interrupted or messed with because of the way we're going through the day. Sleep is not only or solely impacted by our caffeine or by the stuff that we're carrying around. It's also by the pace of our day and how much discomfort we're holding. And so these simple things of eating and drinking water, nourishing the body, so it could be a little bit more soothed, but allowing yourself to move, to create space for some of these very basic practices that normally we may just omit all together, that is going to nourish our sleep. And so trying to maybe fall asleep and wake up at the same time each day, or most days, just trying to come back, just like whoever it is that you care for, even plants out in nature. So sleep cycle to things every day.
Brooke Monaghan: 40:30
Yeah, one of the things that I tell clients often who are like you, stuff like really focusing on doing some really hard things is part of what you're trying to do is you're trying to build new habits and like build new patterns and stuff, and what we know is that neuroplasticity which is what we are trying to take advantage of when we do that, works when you're sleeping. Like your brain is what we know about neuroplasticity and the way that your brain literally changes shape as you do new things. So we face challenges, we go through the hard parts, we try new things. Eventually, those things become second nature. They become second nature because your brain literally changes shape and that happens when you're sleeping. So I am saying this just because I know that there are people who listen to this, who are like hardcore. Like you know, I don't want to do all of this, but tell me the business case, Brooke. That's what they want. They want the business case. The business case is none of the shit that you're learning how to do from any of the programs that you're in or any of the people that you're following, or any of the things that you're doing daily or weekly or whatever to build new habits. It's not going to stick if you're not sleeping. You would be better off setting down. If we're talking about what you're going to set down, set down the creation of new habits in your business and prioritize the creation of better sleep habits. As your business coach, this is my advice.
Steff Gallante: 42:05
It's so true. I mean, there's so much that happens during sleep, including that, right? Yeah, I mean, we're talking cell regeneration, we're talking about digestion, you know, and when we think about digestion, we're always thinking about okay, well, you know, how is my gut right? How is digestion going? Am I, is food agreeing with me, right? Like, how do I feel after I eat, et cetera? What is my energy like after I eat? All those things, right? That's what we associate digestion with. But there's also digestion that's happening overnight that can only happen when we're sleeping. Cell regeneration can only happen when we're sleeping. There are hormones that we need that are only secreted when we're sleeping. And so if, for those of you who want to be more productive, for those of you who want to be more organized and more efficient and just fucking crushing life right now, sleep.
Brooke Monaghan: 42:57
Sleep. Yeah, Totally. One of the things that I'm recognizing as we're talking about this because, again, I talk to clients sometimes about sleep. I mean, oftentimes it will be like someone will come to me and be like there is this massive problem that we need to fix. I am in serious trouble. I'm in serious trouble. Everything is going downhill. This is bad, bad, bad. Help me, and I usually will start with like how are you sleeping and what's going like basic stuff, because I'm like if these basic things are not met, I don't even want to have a conversation about this, because the reality is you're actually just tired and like burnt out and we're going to go down this whole rabbit hole of chasing this thing that actually, if you took a nap, then like in two hours you'd be like actually maybe it's not that bad, you know. And but what I get from people a lot, it's so funny Because it's the same thing as what happens with the business strategy stuff when we talk about basic things. So great example: Know who your ideal client is. This is like everyone talks about knowing who your ideal client is. Guess what. There's a reason why everyone talks about it and it's because you need to know who your fucking ideal client is. I'm sorry, I am sorry, Don't come for me. I'm just telling you this is what we know. So you can either be like, but it's so hard, what else can I do? Or you can spend some time trying to figure out why you might not be able to get clear on this. Your time would be better spent slowing down and, instead of like rushing past knowing who your ideal client is, to do the other things to try to find a way out of it because it's so hard for you. Slow down and figure out why it might be hard for you, why you keep trying to do a million and a half other things to avoid this one thing that almost everyone agrees is so important and basic. The same thing happens when I talk to people about things like these basic you know, these like basic self-care things is it's just like I know, I know, but it's so hard for me, and so what else can I do Exactly?
Steff Gallante: 45:01
And if you find yourself there, yes, I have four other things
Brooke Monaghan:
Great!
Steff Gallante:
But they're not, and so maybe it's like more accessible, I don't know, right. Because here's the thing.
Brooke Monaghan: 45:11
Maybe, or maybe it's like, instead of constantly looking for the other thing you actually like, take a beat and be like. I keep skipping over these and that's why I keep finding myself here. Yes.
Steff Gallante: 45:28
Exactly, exactly, yes. And so I want to say, because you know, like the four things that I need: eat, you know, hydrate, move your body, sleep, I mean these are things that literally the body needs, like your body needs this, yes, there is no other way, yes, period. However, there are other things, too, that you could maybe use as your gateway. Maybe these feel a little bit easier, right, and so one, if you are safe to do so connect with nature you could look outside a window if you have access to one. If you work in a building where your office does not have a window, then maybe moving at some point in the day just to be able to see outside. If you are safe to go outside, go outside for a little while, and I'm not talking about some meadow full of flowers. If you are on concrete, go outside and stand on the damn concrete with your shoes on right? It doesn't have to be pretty, yeah, but as long as you're safe, right? So you know, because we often think, like it's got to be this picturesque thing I mean great if it is, but it doesn't have to be. But just to get fresh air or at least feel the sun on your face, especially if you're heading into you know the time of being cold and, like you know, sunlight is waning like connect with nature. There is so much research out there that shows the benefit of being outside in nature. Bonus if you can hear some, you know birds and things like that happening. Right. So so allowing ourselves, because you were talking about getting clarity, let me tell you I mean there's a lot of clarity that comes from taking that pause to look outside or be outside, that then, all of a sudden, this answer you were searching for for the last four hours comes to you. You can problem solve. You have flexibility within your mind now. So, for those of you who are really in the thick of productivity or the thick of problem solving, get outside for a while, little while and that will change things for you. That leads to another thing of pausing throughout the day, and this is very hard for a lot of people because time is of the essence. Right, we are strapped for time, and that could be literally pausing between emails. It could be doing something for self love. Could be eating. It could be drinking water. It could be the things we just talked about. Right, keep it short and simple. It could be using the bathroom when you have to go to the bathroom and not waiting. Right, not putting that kind of stress on your body, because your body is going through enough stress. T o breathe, to exhale, when you feel like I cannot even take a deep breath because everything will come unraveled. Right, breathe just a little bit, check in just to see what's present. Right, like when you have I don't know if it happens to you, Brooke, or anybody who's listening. But when you've got that loop, whatever the loop is on your mind, that just continues going on and on, and on, and on, and on and on and on and will not stop. Sometimes, when we just pause and we do a check in, that slows the loop down or it quiets the voice a little bit, like lessens the volume, or you can call bullshit on it, right, like so sometimes it just stops things a little bit and it's like a reset button and so taking those pauses, but keep it super short and keep it super simple and if you've got to put it into your calendar, put it into your calendar.
Brooke Monaghan: 48:45
Well, yeah, lunch break.
Steff Gallante: 48:48
Yes, yeah, put the break in, absolutely. And then the last two meaningful connections, right of your choosing, choose who you are spending your time with. Obviously, there are some things that are out of our control, but maybe we can shift. If we, if we can't altogether not see someone, maybe we could shift how we are in contact with them, how much space and time, I don't know. I mean, we can be very flexible with this and get comfortable with saying no. I mean, this time of year, I don't know when this is going to air, but you know, we are forced to sometimes be with people we don't want to be with right, and we have to say yes to obligations, with holidays and all the things and gatherings. You can say no as long as, hopefully, there's not going to be any sort of repercussion and if there is, maybe that's something you got to deal with too. But, like, say no and also, in the same vein, say yes. Like, if you want to say yes but you're like everything is telling me not to because of this and this and this, oh my gosh, say yes, say yes to yourself.
Brooke Monaghan: 49:48
How am I supposed to make time? Yeah, like, how am I supposed to make time to just like go out with a friend when, like, I have all this stuff to do?
Steff Gallante: 49:55
Yes, say yes. I mean, and I want you to begin to do this without guilt, without shame, without judgment, and if you figure out after you make the decision that it was the wrong one, then change it for the next time, right. Like that's the thing about life, like you can decide the next time to say yes if you said no, or vice versa, you can decide again, right. And then the last thing is me time. I cannot say this enough. Me time is so, so, so important. I know, right dominant culture when we say me time, you immediately possibly get the image in your head of the bubble bath, you know, maybe with a glass of wine, water, whatever it is, is your thing. You know Netflix, I don't know. Whatever. Your thing is right. And these things are me time, yep. But I want to be very clear about what I think me time is and what I need it for to be for you. Right it's where you get to choose what the fuck you're doing.
Brooke Monaghan:
I love that.
Steff Gallante:
Period. Yep, right, number one. And I, alone time. Now, I know alone time is hard for people because that's when, like your mind is racing, like your mind is never so loud as when you are by yourself. I know that's hard, but we need it, like we need time alone. Or if you are in a group, then you need to get to decide what you want to do. Yeah, for instance, this morning I told my kids I feel like having pizza. Quincy, my little one says I don't want pizza, I want hamburgers. I said that's fine, but I'm saying what I want, I want pizza. And that is significant and that means something.
Brooke Monaghan: 51:31
I love it yeah.
Steff Gallante: 51:36
Yeah, right, like like, whether you are a person who has children, whether you are a caregiver, whether you live with other people, whatever your life circumstances, I don't think enough of us really actively choose what we want to do. Yeah, whether it's people pleasing I mean, this can go back decades right, for whatever it is why we are the way we are and why we show up the way we show up Right. But there's so much importance in you getting to choose what you want to do, yeah, and doing that thing.
Brooke Monaghan: 52:13
My husband is out of town right now and so I'm alone. By the way, I'm alone in my house, without a dog or a person, for like days at a time. For the first time in my entire life I've now I realized.
Steff Gallante:
That has to be a little disorienting
Brooke Monaghan:
It's very strange, like it's very strange, but anyways, I was talking to a friend the last time that he was out of town actually, and we were both saying I was saying to them they were like you know how, how are you doing? And I was like Jake's out of town and so, like you know, I'm just like doing whatever it is that I feel like at any moment, and it's so funny because you don't realize when you're. You know, ake and I have been together since we were 13. We've lived together. We literally moved out of our parents' houses into into an apartment together when we were 18. So I was like it's so funny that, like you don't realize that, even if you have a partner who you get along with really well and you love doing the same things, that every moment of the day you're thinking that, like you're weighing what you want to do against what some, what they might want to do, or how you usually spend your time together, and I was like you know it's, and they were saying the same thing. They were like, yeah, I love my partner so much and also I know exactly what you mean that like when they're out of town. It's like you don't even realize that there was some kind of mental load of constantly assessing what they might want, or like what you usually do for each other, and like, oh, I have to do this thing because this is an agreement between the two of us. Right, like, this is the thing that I do for us, and so I have to do it now, because it's like my part of the and there's this thing that happens where you're alone. That's just like wait, I can just like. Like I can watch literally whatever I want and not even give a shit about whether or not you want to watch it or you know whatever. My husband and I also had a conversation recently about how I oftentimes am walking around the house with AirPods in listening to a podcast or something, and he's like you know, even when we're together, you're like listening to a podcast and I'm like listen. Sometimes I'm not even listening to a podcast, I just have AirPods in to signal to you that this is my time, that I don't want anyone to talk to me, I'm doing something. That's what it is. So I understand and also like we need to set some boundaries on, or be intentional around, what is us quality, us time, and what is the time when there no one has any demand on my time. Cause, on days when I'm home, because I work from home, and on days when he works from home, which he sometimes does I absolutely cannot function with the expectation that anytime you want to have a conversation, I'm just supposed to be available for it. Nope, can't do it, I do not and I don't have children.
Steff Gallante: 54:57
And to your point, though, about, like the mental conversation, the mental gymnastics you do. Sometimes it's also like I really want to do this thing, but what are they going to say about it what's the fight going to be? Or, I know, for me as a parent it's like, okay, well, how much am I going to have to get done ahead of time? Or what's the load going to be like afterward, when I come back? And that's hard, that is really hard, and I'm not here to discount any of those things, because that is real. At the same time, you know, and this may be something that takes you some time to start doing, right, because it may take a little bit of like, wrapping your mind around it, but the reality is like doing things that bring you joy, doing things that bring you ease and comfort, and something I've been really, you know, interrogating within myself is something that brings you soothing. These things are necessary, it's necessary, and so I find that the action of creating space for something I want to do, even if it's just for a few minutes it does not have to be something big right. The action of me saying no or yes, right, when it's aligned, that those three things, in and of itself release that pressure for me. It creates space for me to do the thing that I'm should-ing myself over in terms of work or the to-do list or something like that. And so I know it doesn't seem maybe like on first glance it doesn't seem connected, and it really is, because, like you said earlier, every part of our life is interconnected, no matter how much we want to create boxes or boundaries around them. It's just not, and so we only have one gas tank that we're fueling ourselves with. That's the reality, right, and even just the mental conversations. Forget the conversations we're having out in the world, but the conversations we have internally is taxing us, just like you said, like that demand on your brain is so much. And the other thing that I also want to make sure to say is we know self-care isn't selfish, but I also want to say that that me time, those no's, those yeses, whenever you decide to eat, whenever you decide to drink some water, whenever you decide to sleep or it's a different kind of rest whenever you are making those meaningful connections, that is community care. So, whoever you hold in your community, whatever work you're doing in the world, however, you're showing up in the name and fate, like in the face of injustice and then the name of justice. This is community care period.
Brooke Monaghan: 57:47
Thank you. We need that reminder Steff. We could talk for the rest of the day. Sometimes we do talk most of the day on the Voxer. Tell people where they can find you. I mean, in addition to, obviously, you're doing this workshop in December, in Fruition, which we're going to tell people all about, but how about your work? Where should people find you? And if people are like you know what, I need a little bit of Steff Gallante in my life, like where have you been my whole life? I got to like get serious about this. Maybe, instead of investing in the gym membership, right, we put some resources into actual care for yourself. Where should people do that?
Steff Gallante: 58:30
Yeah, you can find me on Instagram @SteffGallante that's S-T-E-F-F-G-A-L-L-A-N-T-E, and also my website is SteffGallante.com, and there you can click on work with me and you'll find out all the information to you know. Book a one-on-one call that you get to release the pressure a little bit. For you.
Brooke Monaghan: 58:52
So it starts with that for you and then I know that you do have a like a community kind of space that you hold with some variety of self-care help space, help for self-care practices, for movement, for checking in around these basics. But it all starts with just that one-on-one conversation with you, and so.
Steff Gallante: 59:13
And if podcasts is your thing then also, you can hear more about you know, all of my eff bombs and feelings about all the things that are wrong. Humaning: The Shit We Need to Talk About.
Brooke Monaghan: 59:22
Humaning: The Shit We Need to Talk About. Find it wherever you're listening to this show. Steff, this was so fun and so needed, and I needed to hear it myself. So thank you so much. I really enjoyed it and I can't wait for people to listen.
Steff Gallante: 59:35
Thank you for having me always. I appreciate you.