EP6 // Stay fueled like a firetruck: Be Ready for Whatever Life Throws at You!

 EPISODE 6

Happiness Hack:  Putting The 3 E’s to Sustainable Self-Care™ into ACTION!

Does a firefighter wait until they get an emergency call to fill the gas tank of the firetruck?  No.  They stay fueled up.  

And you need to stay fueled up too!  So when life strikes (be it your energy, kids, or work) you are fueled up and ready to go.  But how?    

Join me Sundays at 8PM Eastern, in my free Facebook group at bit.ly/finallyeffinghappygroup to pick your self-care Essentials for the week ahead and calendar your Extra (but regular).  We’ll write them down and generate some energy and enthusiasm for the week ahead.  It is super simple and super effective.

Self-care is NOT about self-worth.  I once heard someone say if you want self-esteem, you need to take esteemable actions.  And The 3 E’s to Sustainable Self-Care™ are the easiest way to get, and stay, in action.     

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

Hey Beautiful, it's Shannon here, your Happiness Coach and Self Care Strategist.  As you know, I am committed to helping you take better care of you so that you can have the most epic life possible even if you live with chronic illness. And today's episode is a really short happiness hack. A follow up from the last episode, The 3 E's to Sustainable Self Care™, because I'm going to take this one step further and share with you how I can help you with your accountability around self care on a step by step, week by week, day by day basis.

So before we dive in: Hey, beautiful and Welcome to Finally Effing Happy. A podcasting community for kick ass can do women living with chronic illness. I am happiness coach and self care strategist Shannon Klenk. And I will share with you some of my personal journey to joy with chronic illness while hosting some amazing guest speakers, sharing tons of happiness hacks and self care strategies so you too can live in joy and happiness despite whatever chronic illness you may be living with day to day.

I am absolutely thrilled that you are here for today's episode. Hey, beautiful, you how are you doing today? I hope super great. I'm coming to you in full disclosure from my backyard, because there's no place in my house that's quiet at the moment. And so hopefully the birds and the wind and the dog won't get too much in our way. But my heart is super full after sharing with you the three E's to sustainable self care. And I am so excited to start sharing with you every week in my Facebook group at bit.ly/FinallyEffingHappyGroup.

And this isn't a let me tell you what you should do sort of a thing. This is a come join me sort of a thing because if you are a kick ass can do woman like I am living with chronic illness you know that you can do quote unquote, everything, right, and still get knocked on your butt for a day or two or in my case, sometimes a week and this analogy was given to me a long time ago.

And I use it and it's been really helpful in regards to self care. So rather than thinking, equating self care with self worth, like, if I really loved myself and if I really knew my own worth or value, then I'd take better care of myself. I sort of removed it from the self worth paradigm and really started treating my self care, my body, my health, some of my home logistics like an ambulance or a fire truck.

So if you are an ambulance driver, one of the amazing EMTs out in our world and if there are any listening to this. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for all of you've done for so many of us throughout this pandemic. But if you're an EMT, you know that your job is to have your ambulance prepared, ready to go.

You don't wait for that phone call when someone's having a heart attack and then go, oh, you know what? I think we'd better go fill the tank. Like, that would be awful. No, the EMT knows that as soon as they finish a call, as soon as they've attended one crisis, they prepare their ambulance for the next. They fuel it up. They restock the supplies to make sure that the oxygen is full and the bandaids are prepared and the stretcher is working.

They fill the gas tank so they can drive wherever they need to drive to get the job done. They have it prepared so that they are ready to go at a moment's notice. And when I shifted my approach to self care . Instead of it being a mission in self-worth, it became just that's my job, like an EMT, is to make sure that my self care is taken care of, prepared, and that includes little things like I try and fill my water bottle at night before I go to bed, sort of like fueling the tank of the car, the EMT van.

And so here's how I do that. And this is the part that I'm going to start sharing with you every week. I'm going to go live on my Facebook group on Sunday evenings about 8:00 p.m. Eastern. And if that's too late for you, don't worry, because it'll be live the next day, on Monday morning. And you can do it Monday morning just as easily as Sunday evening. But I take 10 to 15 minutes and I look at my calendar, my schedule ahead, and I go, OK, what are my three essentials?

So if you listen to the last episode, you know that the three E's to sustainable self care are essentials, extras and extravagance. And I take 10 or 15 minutes and I will do this with you and you can download my little form that I use. It's not super pretty, it's not super branded, but it super works. Or you can just do it on a piece of paper in your own journal or notebook. And I write down what my three essentials are going to be.

And I look at my week. So like next week I have an IGG infusion, and so I don't have a lot of physical energy next week, but I can make a movement goal that really is designed for how much energy I know I'm going to have next week based on my infusion.

Or I can make a water goal or I can make a prayer meditation goal. And I use the word goal really loosely because I don't even like calling them goals. I like calling them my focus. And then I decide on one extra but regular and I put it in my calendar. And then I take that piece of paper and I literally put it on my bathroom mirror. I do. it's so old school, there's nothing fancy about this.

I put it on my bathroom mirror and if you want to do that with me and I will lovingly hold you accountable in our Facebook group all week, just like I lovingly hold myself accountable in my Facebook group all week to try and shift that corner so that you can take care of you better, show up for you so that you can show up for all the other people that I know that you love, serve and care for throughout the week.

So with that, hope to see you in the Facebook group. Hope to see you Sunday evening, but most importantly, be well and be kind to you today. Hey, sister, if there's something that you've heard in today's episode that you have found helpful, useful, inspiring, will you do me a favor? Will you write a comment in Apple podcast so that more kick ass can do women can find this community and find this hope and inspiration to be able to show up for themselves better.

If you want to hang out some more, come join me over in my Facebook group. You can find it at bit.ly/FinallyEffingHappyGroup. If Facebook and social media isn't your GM, go ahead and join my email list and you can do that at bit.ly/FinallyEffingHappyEmailList. Follow me on Instagram at Finally Effing Happy or even better, take a screenshot of this episode and share it on Instagram.

Tag me and I will tag you back and forward it on. Have a beautiful day. Be well. Be kind to you.