Covid is spreading exponentially at the moment in certain parts of the world (such as my country Switzerland) and you might be feeling out of control, overwhelmed, frustrated, and anxious about it, because it affects your everyday life and you might have to go back into working from home and cutting down all your social contacts.
Even though it might feel scary, what matters most is that you get back into the driver seat of the situation and take care of the things you can control - rather than being upset about the things that are out of your control.
IN TODAY’S EPISODE, WE DISCUSS:
The 3-part framework to maintain or create a glowing life during a pandemic
What to do to get your physical body glowing
How to manage your emotions through this time
Why cultivating positive and empowering thoughts are important
And so much more!
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TODAY’S EPISODE TRANSCRIBED:
This is episode number 120 about how to glow up your Corona lifestyle.
Welcome to the Glow Life Podcast, the one and only place for ambitious, high achieving and perfectionist women like you, who want to leave overwhelm behind, turn self doubt into self confidence and learn to trust yourself again, so that you can work less, fully love and accept yourself, and live a fulfilled and glowing life.
Every week, I'll be giving you tips and inspiration on how to think less, feel more, slow down, and use your body and your daily habits to help you step up, level up and glow up in all areas of your life. This is not just about the big shifts, you can glow just a little more every single day.
Welcome back to the Glow Life Podcast. And today we're diving into how to glow in the dark in the midst of a pandemic that is exploding again, in many parts of the world. And it doesn't mean you need to go down the rabbit hole of fear and anxiety and control and frustration, you can still glow throughout these times. So that's what we're talking about today.
But before we dive into that, I want to share with you that next week we are doing a five day perfectionist detox. And that kind of aligns with the topic that we're talking about today of releasing the stress and the overwhelm and the worries that we are probably currently cultivating in our lives.
So, this free five day training is for you, if you are ready to stop controlling every single area of your life, even if it feels scary to release control. And control is a big thing for people, especially right now, because there are so many things that we cannot control at the moment. And releasing that control and detoxing that control feature or that control addiction that we may have is super important, right now.
We're also going to talk about preventing yourself from overwhelm and stress, even when you constantly say to yourself, "I don't have time," we're going to make sure you have time because, in the end, we all have the same amount of time every day. We're going to talk about how you can feel successful, even when you don't take all the success boxes, like your job title or your income. We're going to detox and stop the judgment that you have towards yourself and to make sure that you can start feeling again, because avoiding your feelings, especially now in this time of uncertainty and dis-control if that's a word, lack of control, it can be really challenging to let ourselves feel. And, we're also going to grow your confidence using your mind, even when you think you will never feel confident again.
So, over the course of the five days, what we're going to do is, we're going to detox your schedule, so we're talking about time, and prioritizing certain things in your life. We're going to detox your control, release the control over certain things, specifically those things that you cannot impact, that you cannot change at all. We're going to detox your emotions, so we're talking about the anger, the frustration, the overwhelm, the things you may be experiencing right now, as we're going through the global pandemic. We're also going to talk about detoxing your stress, where does your stress come from? And, why is it there? And, what can you do proactively to manage your stress and make stress no longer a part of your life? And, we're also talking about the superwoman syndrome, which is something that I see in so many women that they want to have it all together or pretend they have it all together, be perfect and give 150% at work, at home, in their relationships, all of that stuff.
So, we're going to talk about taking life a little slower in those five areas. So, after this detox, you're going to feel light and grounded. So, you can tackle your schedule and overwhelm with ease,. You're going to feel inspired about your future, even though we don't quite know what the future will bring, to be honest, right? And, you will feel in control of your energy again, because that's what makes us feeling so frustrated and angry when we feel like we're losing control of what we're actually doing with our lives.
So, all of this is part of the perfectionist detox, which is starting on Monday, November 2 2020. You can find the link in the show notes to sign up. And the link is also in my bio on Instagram and on Facebook. If you want to connect with me there, I would love to see you there. And also please share it with any of your girlfriends that you think could totally use a little bit of a detox at this time of the year.
And now, let's get started with today's episode in which we talk about the three part framework to maintaining or creating a glowing life during a pandemic. What to do to get your physical body back into glow, how to manage your emotions through this time of uncertainty and chaos and why cultivating positive and empowering thoughts is incredibly important, especially right now and so much more. And, you can find everything we talked about today in the show notes at MartinaFink.com/podcast/120
Today we're talking about glowing up your Corona lifestyle. Why is this so important? So, over the last couple of days alone, some of my clients had to get tested for Coronavirus. Some of my clients got really worried about Coronavirus. And I thought, well, this is something that clearly needs our attention. And so I asked you in my Instagram Stories if you needed some support with this, and it sounds like you do.
And, if you are feeling like this right now, most probably if something unexpected happens to you at work, you might be feeling the same way. You might be feeling frustrated, angry, anxious as well. If something unexpected happens in your relationships, maybe the exact same thing will happen there that you are out of control. If you don't know what to do, you're feeling frustrated and anxious as a result. And so why is it so important that we're looking at this now, because now we are not quite yet, but in pretty intense isolation, at least some of you, including myself. And so this is a time where growth can happen, right?
Growth happens in isolation, I just actually pulled this card for one of my girlfriends today, it shows a butterfly coming out of the cocoon. And when does this caterpillar become a butterfly? It becomes a butterfly in isolation, when it's isolated in the cocoon, right? And so, it's a great time for us to use this time to feel better about ourselves and about our lives and do whatever we can to still glow in the dark.
You know, my brand is all about the glow. I'm all about glowing our lives up. I'm all about helping people, specifically women, live a glowing life? And, what does it actually mean to live a glowing life? Now it's not that there is this list of things you can tick off and then say, "oh, I've ticked all the boxes on the list, so now, I should be living this glowing life." No, it is actually something very individual to you. And so is the way you deal with this situation right now, right? How are you glowing up your own lifestyle right now, because we are at the beginning of winter, and we don't know how much longer this is going to go.
Yet, you get to choose how you want to experience the next couple of months? Do you want to remain in the position of the victim? Were you like, "this is so annoying, there's nothing I can do about it? This is so frustrating, 2021 will be better." You can remain there, but it's not going to make your next few weeks and months pleasurable. Right?
So the question is, what can you do then? How can you glow up your life. And again, this is not a list of things that you can just tick off and say, "oh, I've done all of these things, so now my life is glowing." It is something that you need to figure out on your own, but I do have some sort of a framework for you.
So, what I believe as a glowing life is when we put together or get several areas of our lives in balance. So that includes your physical health, it includes your emotional health, and then, it includes your mental health. So when all of these three areas, it's almost like circles, are in balance, what we get in the middle, in the intersection of all of these three circles, is the glow life.
Now, when it comes to the current situation, we need to take care of all of these areas because yes, one, we need to take care of our immune system of our physical body, make sure that we have good nutrition, all these things we're going to go into in a minute, but mostly, or equally important is, how do we think about this whole situation?
Are we telling ourselves stories? Like one of my clients last week she was or even this week, she was saying to me, "I'm just so scared for the rest of my life, I will remain in my apartment with my parents." And while this fear, or this frustration is totally understandable, it is also a story that she was telling herself that makes no sense at all, like, she will not end up in her apartment for the rest of her life, right, if we're just being realistic. And so that's why our mental health is super important. And then when it comes to how we're feeling, so maybe we're feeling this frustration, maybe we're feeling this anger. And, it is important to give these feelings to space to be, rather than just pushing them away.
So, we're gonna dive into these three things. Now, number one, your physical body. So of course, having a strong immune system is really important, especially as we're moving into fall and winter. Like this is something I could teach you every single year. And it also includes a lot of different things. So some of the things that I do on a daily basis is I drink warm slash hot water every day, which is really healthy, I make a green juice not every day, but most of the days, I'm definitely going to up that in the coming weeks. Greens are really important for your system. That also includes ginger, for example, I add ginger and everything, I drink ginger tea, or just sliced ginger with hot water and with honey, and I love that.
And it also requires to you to reduce your stress and to get really good sleep. If you're not sleeping, then or if you're not sleeping well, what happens is that your body also gets acidic, because stress produces acid in your body. And therefore, your sleep is super important also. And then, I mean, everything I'm teaching you now or I'm sharing with you now is not new, it's important to go outside and have some fresh air, it's important to move your body and just make sure your physical body like your vessel here is in a really good shape, right? What greens do you usually put in your juice? So in my juices, I currently, I use kale, because I grow kale in my garden, I use celery stocks, and apples, and ginger. That's usually, that's my favorite for now. And instead of kale, you could use spinach, you could also use fennel instead of celery, those are my favorites, but I always add some leafy greens.
So, the second second thing that is really important for your glow life throughout this time, is your emotional health. So, when we are feeling all of these feelings, you know it might be, may be frustration, it may be anger, it may be disbelief, it may be the loss of control, where you don't know what to do. So when we are in that space, we can become complainers and just talk about all the bad things and why it is bad and spend hours, and hours, and hours, complaining about something which, doesn't make us feel better. Maybe sometimes it does, complaining does feel a little better or, it's just a short term gratification. But, in the long run, it doesn't help you.
Or, you can choose to just avoid the emotions and and be like, "Okay, I'm just gonna work, work, work, work, work, and then, Netflix and not even think about the frustration, and the pain, and the anger, that I'm experiencing." So I would say none of the two options are optimal. If you want to live a glowing life, the important thing is that you find the balance.
So, the most important key to living the glowing life when it comes to your emotions is to allow yourself to feel, that means when you're angry, let the anger be there. If you want to scream into your pillow, and like do that to let it out, do that, if you want to shake your entire body to shake it off, do that, if you want to put on a happy song that makes you dance around and like raise your vibration, do that. But it's in order to release the anger, it's important for it to be able to come out of your system. So we have our physical body, we also have our energetic body.
So the energetic body is right around your physical bodies like where you can still feel that there is something, you can still feel there's your body, but you cannot really see it. And so what happens when we have these emotions, is that they're still there in our energetic body. And if we don't release them, we are going to carry them around with us. And now, just imagine you're carrying around frustration and anger for the next couple of weeks. How are you going to feel at the end of the year? Probably not your best, right? So that's why it's important to allow yourself to feel the feelings. No matter, if it's frustration, or anger, or fear, or disbelief, or disappointment, or you know, hopelessness, like all of these things, loneliness, they're all valid. They're all valid and they're important. And it becomes important by you giving the feeling the space, so allow yourself to feel, and process the feeling, process the energy.
Emotion means energy in motion. So, that's why it needs to get out of your physical energetic system so that you can release it. Another important thing about your emotions is that you're not supposed to judge them, so often we are angry, and then I'm so angry that this Coronavirus, it's like saying, "I can't travel, it's so annoying, I don't know what to do, there's nothing I can plan." And then you judge yourself for being angry. Your like, "again, I'm so angry at this, why am I so angry at this, I shouldn't be angry, I should see the positive in this." And then you kind of get wrapped up in in the story where you're constantly judging yourself for feeling something. And the key to allowing your emotions to be there is to just let them be there without judgment and be kind to yourself in particular. So know that me feeling frustration doesn't make me less lovable. Me feeling anger doesn't reduce my value. It is just something that is part of our human nature. And it's super important to experience those feelings. So, be kind to yourself, even if you want to scream into the pillow, scream into to the pillow and don't beat yourself up for it, it's actually healing to do that.
Okay, last thing, we talking about our mental health, like I shared with you the example before of my client who was like, "I will never be able to leave my house again." We are telling ourselves stories, we are telling ourselves worst case scenarios, that most of the time, don't even become true. So, it's super critical to be mindful of the stories that you're telling yourself. Because some yes, some may be based on fear, some may be realistic, more or less fear, like realistic fears. But most of the stories we tell ourselves are absolutely not realistic. So, the key here is to start observing your thoughts, to start observing. What am I thinking about this coronavirus situation? What are my thoughts about it? How do I feel? And what are the thoughts that I have when it comes to like for example, I need to get my nails done done tomorrow?
What are the thoughts that I have around taking public transportation tomorrow? What are the thoughts? Are they serving me? Or are they making my life more difficult? So those are the things that we need to be mindful of, the stories we tell ourselves and if they're serving us or not. And if they are serving us, great. If they're not serving us, then probably, it's something to think about and tell yourself a different story, right?
So, what we have going on in our mind is so important. And we are not the, I like to tell my clients always like "you are not your thoughts. But you are just the thinker of your thoughts." So what does that mean? That means, you are separate from the person who like, you're separate from your thoughts, they're your thoughts there, and then you think those thoughts. So, that means if the thoughts are separate from you, then you can decide to think something else, right? Because you just think the thoughts. This is something I could go on forever. And we could do like a 90 minute training just on thoughts, which we're not going to do. So I just want to wrap this up reminding you of the fact that in order to glow up your life right now, in whatever country you are, whatever city or area you are, most probably, there is Coronavirus somewhere in your area and it might be growing if you are, you know moving towards winter as well as we are here.
So remember that it is important to take care of your physical body and make sure you rest enough, you nurture nurture yourself enough, and well, and that your immune system is at the top as it can be, as good as it can be.
Number two, allow yourself to feel it's okay to feel frustration. It's okay to feel disbelief. It's okay to feel hopeless. It's okay to feel lonely. Like, I've had phases recently that I was feeling so lonely, and it's okay. Like we're all going through this, right? You are not alone in anything that you are feeling, somebody else on this planet is feeling this as well, so allow yourself to feel and don't judge what you are feeling, because your feelings are valid.
Number three, be really mindful of the stories that you are telling yourself and tell yourself a better story. Instead of saying "I will never be able to travel again," which we all love travel, we don't know when we will be able to travel again, right? Instead of saying that to yourself. Tell yourself a different story. Like how can you make this phase right now, absolutely amazing? This is the only time we truly have. Yes, 2021 is a new year, things may get better, they may not, we don't know, but, hopefully they will. And, what can we do now, to feel really great now? Because really, the only time we have, is right now. So how can you make tonight, amazing? How can you make the rest of this week, amazing? How can you make the weekend amazing, even though you can't go out, even though you can't do all the things you wanted to do, there is so much beauty in the present moment. And if you're constantly thinking about the next thing, once 2021 comes and things may or may not get better, you're gonna be like, "oh, but in the summer, it will be better or, but 2022 will be better, because you never learn how to be happy, and fulfilled, and present in the moment.
So that's how we're going to wrap this up. Be present with what is now, make the best of what is now, and glow up whatever you can in your life. Whether that's things in your home, whether that's your physical body, whether that's your heart, your emotions, whether that's the thoughts you think, this is the time to do it. Okay, this is the time to do it, not next week, not next year, not 2022, not 2025, not 2021, the time is now.
Thank you for showing up for you today and learning all of these things about how you personally can glow up your own life which will then have a ripple effect on the lives of the people around you. So if you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a review and subscribe to the show. And if there is anyone in your life that could use a little bit of glow in their lives right now, please forward the episode to them. For everything we mentioned in today's episode, you can go check out the show notes at martinafink.com/podcast/120.
And don't forget to join the perfectionistic detox. You can find the link in the show notes and I would love to connect with you on Instagram and on Facebook. You can find me @martinaglows. Now go get your glow on and remember that you deserve to feel healthy, confident, empowered, and beautiful.
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01 Where Is Your Self-Care At?
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02 Why Is Self-Care Important for Perfectionists? And How Do I Start?
Self-care is key for a healthy work-life balance for high achievers. You work a lot and you're easily stressed, right? Get my top 6 tips to kickstart your self-care without feeling overwhelmed. Shift from "doing" to "being" and find peace in your busy life.
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Stress and overwhelm isn't jut in the mind. It also shows in your cells, your muscle tension, and your hormones. Relaxation start with releasing stress from the physical body. Take a moment to relax every single part of your body to get grounded again.
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