Ever felt burdened by the societal expectations of being a perfect mother, a dedicated professional, and maintaining an ideal body?
We’re here to let you in on a secret, you're not alone.
We've been there too, and we're here to share our personal journeys of finding peace, calm, happiness, and fulfillment in our own unique ways.
In this enlightening conversation, we're sharing struggles, triumphs, and perspectives on health, fitness, and self-care in a way that is doable for busy working moms.
We're talking about the transformation from traditional health and fitness models to a non-diet approach and how it can liberate you from societal pressures and transform your life.
We’ve all heard it before, "work-life balance is the key to fulfillment."
But can you really divide your time and energy equally among all life aspects?
We dare to challenge this notion.
As we navigate through our discussion, we'll explore the idea of work-life integration, adjusting focus according to life's changing seasons, and finding fulfillment in unique ways.
Remember, it's not about doing everything perfectly; it's about doing what's right for you at this moment in your life.
We're discussing the importance of self-reflection in personal development, understanding your own desires, and differentiating between personal aspirations and societal expectations.
Building a healthy relationship with food and exercise might seem like a daunting task with the constant expectations to look and feel a certain way.
But, we're here to tell you that it doesn't have to be that way.
We're diving into shifting mindsets and redefining self-care.
It's time for a revolution—an evolution—from self-care activities being something we do to ourselves to something we do for ourselves.
This is your call to empowerment, growth, and transformation. Join our conversation and find your Strong Her Way to Eat, Move, and Live.
Ever felt burdened by the societal expectations of being a perfect mother, a dedicated professional, and maintaining an ideal body?
We’re here to let you in on a secret, you're not alone.
We've been there too, and we're here to share our personal journeys of finding peace, calm, happiness, and fulfillment in our own unique ways.
In this enlightening conversation, we're sharing struggles, triumphs, and perspectives on health, fitness, and self-care in a way that is doable for busy working moms.
We're talking about the transformation from traditional health and fitness models to a non-diet approach and how it can liberate you from societal pressures and transform your life.
We’ve all heard it before, "work-life balance is the key to fulfillment."
But can you really divide your time and energy equally among all life aspects?
We dare to challenge this notion.
As we navigate through our discussion, we'll explore the idea of work-life integration, adjusting focus according to life's changing seasons, and finding fulfillment in unique ways.
Remember, it's not about doing everything perfectly; it's about doing what's right for you at this moment in your life.
We're discussing the importance of self-reflection in personal development, understanding your own desires, and differentiating between personal aspirations and societal expectations.
Building a healthy relationship with food and exercise might seem like a daunting task with the constant expectations to look and feel a certain way.
But, we're here to tell you that it doesn't have to be that way.
We're diving into shifting mindsets and redefining self-care.
It's time for a revolution—an evolution—from self-care activities being something we do to ourselves to something we do for ourselves.
This is your call to empowerment, growth, and transformation. Join our conversation and find your Strong Her Way to Eat, Move, and Live.
Hey, welcome back to the Strong Her Way to Eat, move and Live. Here we talk all things food freedom, fitness and life transformation, helping you heal your relationship to food, exercise your body and yourself. Before we dive into today's guest episode, I want to make a special announcement. The Strong Her Way app is now live and it is available for free download in both the App Store for Apple and Google Play. So be sure to check it out. Grab your download. Let's go ahead and get into that episode. Hey guys, welcome to another episode. For me and my audience, it's going to be the Strong Her Way, rym. Who are you speaking to today? Who's your audience? Hi, everyone.
Speaker 2:So here I'm speaking for the MomShift podcast for defining success and finding fulfillment, and I'm speaking to my fellow working moms.
Speaker 1:Awesome, okay, so this is going to be a little bit of a different conversation. Today. We are kind of doing a guest interview for each other's podcast and so, in the sake of saving time for each other because we all know how valuable time is we decided to just do more of like a collaborative conversation, where I'm going to be interviewing Rym a little bit, she's going to be interviewing me and we're just going to kind of share a little bit of our wisdom and our approach with our clients back and forth. So, rym, do you want to go ahead and just kind of introduce yourself?
Speaker 2:Yes, absolutely Well. First of all, thank you, alicia, for doing this. I appreciate connecting with you. I think we both are on the mission to empower women, and for me, it's specifically mothers, because of course, I'm a mom as well and I can relate to the struggle of making it all fit in to our busy schedules. So, basically, I started my journey a few years back when I realized that I did exactly what everyone expected of me. You know, like get the good grades and then go to college and find the secure job, find the husband, get the house and the kid.
Speaker 1:It sounds like the typical formula like do this, this, this, this and this, and then.
Speaker 2:And then you're supposed to be happy, right? You're supposed to find that fulfillment that everyone's raving about. And well, that didn't happen for me, and I realized that I was not living my own truth. I was just conforming to whatever was expected of me, and I think that I realized that that wasn't the role model that I wanted to be for my son. He truly was that turning point for me. Like I asked myself what kind of parent was I going to be for him?
Speaker 2:And that's when I just it was like this sudden spark, you know light bulb moment, when I thought to myself this cannot go on any further like this. I wasn't prioritizing myself, giving myself enough self care, enough time. I had no boundaries and I was struggling with that, you know, with perfectionism, and I truly thought that I was stuck at that point and it was too late, because I was a mother now and I had responsibilities. I wasn't going to shift everything and just disturb everyone else's schedule. So this is why I decided to now help other moms who are career driven, who really want to like, expand what they can do in terms of their potential and explore new options for them that can fit better with their needs and their desires, all the while being able to keep that time and being present for their family.
Speaker 2:Because we all struggle with that guilt as well, right, especially when we're passionate about our jobs. So that's I consider that to be my mission today I want to help other women believe and see that it is possible. It's just you need to find your own thing. It's not about trying to do as you know that other person does, or your neighbor or your friend, or you have to find your own blend that would be to your taste. You know, just like with anything else, yeah.
Speaker 1:So I really can resonate so much with that, because I remember when my kids were little and I just kind of felt like there was something wrong with me because I didn't want to be a stay-at-home mom, necessarily like full-time, or I didn't really see myself as like the PTA mom or the mom that was, you know, like always at the school volunteering. And it's actually kind of interesting, like as I'm saying, that I feel like there is a little bit of a shift. My oldest is in high school, my son is in middle school and there is this stirring that I am starting to notice where I'm like okay, maybe I do want to be at the school a little bit more, I do want to be a little bit more involved there. But thinking back to when my kids were little, I remember just thinking, you know, oh my gosh, like is there something wrong with me, is there something broken with me? Because I didn't picture myself as whatever that image was that I thought was going to be like that quote-unquote good mom. You know the air quotes good mom.
Speaker 1:And I really kind of wrestled with that a little bit and thankfully I was involved in kind of an accountability group through my church and I just kind of brought those before some of my friends and I'm like I feel like is there something wrong with me and the way that I grew up and my relationship with my mom and you know she was not a perfect mom by any stretch of the imagination I think for me there was also this, a little bit of a fear of like I don't want to repeat some of the mistakes that my mom made with me, and so I think there was kind of this like okay, I have to overcorrect. And so thankfully, I had these friends that were kind of like you know what God made you different? You know he's made all of us different. He's put you know there's different desires and different things like that. And you're fine the way that you know it's like you're not wrong, you're not being a bad mom, and so that was so helpful for me. And it's so funny, like as you were talking this morning, even while I was working out, I had a very short window of where I could get a workout in. And I'm kind of thinking back through the last couple of weeks and I'm like man, you know I haven't really been to the gym, like thankfully we have a decent garage gym and so I can still get a lot done. But occasionally I like to go work out at the gym and I'm usually there for 45 minutes to an hour and I haven't really done that in the last couple of weeks and it's just been kind of like okay, what can I get done? Today I have about 30 minutes or less. I just want to get in, I want to get some movement done and immediately.
Speaker 1:You know, I'm kind of thinking through some of the stuff as I'm working out and just kind of processing a little bit of my journey and thinking about the life wheel, that activity, where it's like okay, you have these different pie charts and I'm going to rate the different key areas of your life, you know, on a scale of one to 10. And I remember for me there was this pivotal moment, and this really kind of ties into why I'm now doing more of like the non diet lifestyle coaching rather than the mainstream fitness nutrition. I'll kind of get into that in a minute. But I remember kind of having this pivotal moment where I did the life wheel and everything else.
Speaker 1:Everything in my life except for fitness was below a 10.
Speaker 1:And like the fitness area was like, okay, this is a 10,.
Speaker 1:You know, I guess I I'm the kind of person where I'm like I probably would have rated it at nine, because I'm like there's always room for improvement. Of course, the fitness area was like it felt like it was so robust and so good, but then other areas of my life were kind of sacrificing because of that. And I remember having this internal conversation this morning and just thinking, you know what 30 minute workouts and this season of life or like over these few weeks where life is, you know, just a little bit out of order or whatever, it's fine, like it's okay to be sort of in maintenance mode and to not always be feeling like you're like pushing towards the goal, because right now I am really wanting to focus on a couple other areas of my life and so it's okay for me to just do the minimum baseline, to kind of keep my fitness where it's at. Maybe I'm not really in the right strides, but that's okay. This way I can sort of redirect some of that time, attention and energy to these other areas.
Speaker 1:Yeah it's oh sorry, go ahead.
Speaker 2:I was just going to to pick it up on what you said. It's just, I absolutely agree with that, and I think that's like what I mean by finding your own blend. You know your own Because you know it always depends on your life wheel. You notice that there are areas that require more of your attention, you know for the time being, and so that's how you just readjust, and I think it requires a lot of self-awareness. And that was a question I wanted to ask you actually and just to understand how, because to me, you're a model, a role model to follow about everything related to, you know, integrating fitness and working out into your journey, and an approach to dieting or just not an approach, really, but more like a philosophy that you know takes away the guilt and the self-loathing and all the bad things that come with that. And so I wanted to ask you how did you come to this, to helping women to do that, and also, what is your secret, you know, to make it all work?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so that kind of goes into the story. So initially so I was a hairstylist for 10 plus years and during that time, working behind the chair, I got married and, of course, like any bride, I wanted to feel good, I wanted to feel confident on my big day, and it was the January. I think we got married. Well, I don't think we got married.
Speaker 1:We got married in July that year, but I'm pretty sure it was the January of that same year that I started running and it was very, I mean, it was like, okay, I'm going to run from one light post to the next and then I'm going to walk and I just sort of like slowly built it up. But for me I've always said running was sort of my gateway into the fitness arena and it was really where I started to kind of break down certain limiting beliefs that I had about myself. I started to learn how to build trust and, you know, following through and kind of keeping my word to myself, which is huge. And you know, my body started to change. I did start to lose weight, I started to make changes to my nutrition and I just started to feel more confident. And I think in the moment I was thinking it was well, because I am losing weight and I'm looking a certain way, and maybe that was part of it, but also I think it's because I was starting to believe different things about myself. So, fast forward a couple years, I just wanted to kind of give what I was starting to experience in my personal life to other women. I wanted to help women feel empowered, to feel beautiful, to feel confident. I really wanted to help them kind of transform and show up as the women that in their minds I they kind of always visualize themselves being. And as you were sharing your story, I could resonate so much with like okay, if I just do this and I do this and I do this and I do this, then like I'm going to have this, you know dream life waiting for me at the end.
Speaker 1:For me it was not necessarily like the career thing, it was more in the vein of like if my body just looks like this, if I and I think there was kind of that success tied to it as well as like and if I have a successful career, then I'm going to be a better wife, I'm going to be a better mom. You know, I'm sure somewhere I'm thinking there's not going to be any problems in my life and everything always is just going to be good. And so for me, with this fitness journey, it started off as something that was really empowering and then it became something that was all encompassing, like. It started to consume me, where I was constantly thinking about my body, I was constantly thinking about my weight. What do I look like really being super consumed with tracking food. It definitely kind of went into the other extreme of just not really taking care of myself in that other direction.
Speaker 1:And so for me I really had kind of this wake up call. I call it my, you know, come to Jesus moment in my kitchen, where I'm standing there taking progress pictures. I have a degree in nutrition, exercise, science, I have all the knowledge about all of this stuff. And here I am standing taking before pics again, feeling super defeated, super discouraged and just like why does this so hard? And for me, you know, with my faith background, I truly believe like it was the voice of the Holy Spirit. That was like it's because you've been dating this whole time and calling it a lifestyle, and that just like stopped me where. It was like oh, my gosh, wow.
Speaker 1:And so for me that really was kind of the shift of like Okay I, the mission is still the same. I want women to feel confident, I want them to feel beautiful, I want them to be that version of themselves that they imagined being like once they reached all of these achievements and these accomplishments in their life. But I can't do it from sort of that traditional health and fitness model of lose the weight, follow the diet program, eat on the meal plan and then these things are going to happen. So for me that was really where I did start to introduce kind of that non diet approach, which does you know, for me it takes away that guilt, because there would have been a time in my life where I would be like, well, if I can't go to the gym for an hour, then I might as well not even work out, or I would be like beating myself up or I would be trying to kill myself, trying to get to the gym for an hour and still trying to do all of these other things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this totally resonates with me because I like I consider myself to be really, really hard on myself. You know, like most most, I guess most women and most career driven working moms are like this because we want everything to be perfect in our lives, right, and we want to be overachievers and everywhere, like we want to please people, we want to make sure that everyone's happy with us, and and we don't do it, we don't even do that to ourselves, to with ourselves, like we, we look at ourselves in the mirror and be like, okay, you, this aspect of you is not like, this is not right. And when you talked about your approach, I was exactly like this, like I would feel so bad because I realize I cannot fitting a workout session and I would just, you know, cancel it and and just consider that it was this big failure and beat myself over it and guess what happens next, like I would overeat or just spiral, exactly so this is like, like it's unbelievable how much we are like. I say sometimes that we are our worst enemies sometimes, and I truly believe that, because my core belief is that we aren't in our upbringing, we are not educated in how to love ourselves and care for ourselves, we believe.
Speaker 2:I know that you come from a religious background. I do as well. In religion, there's this thing about giving to others and being selfless. I think that the flip side here is that we tend to forget to care for ourselves and our own needs. We don't realize how much caring for ourselves is actually caring for others as well. I wanted to ask you that how do you help women embrace this new way of viewing fitness and dieting and taking care of yourself?
Speaker 1:I think the missing piece for me for so much of my journey was the mental aspect, the mindset component. I always get this saying wrong, but I love this image. It's like a fish that's in a bowl of water doesn't realize that it's in water until it's taken out of the water. I think that is so true for us when we think about being steeped in diet culture and the diet mentality around food and exercise, which I think does breed a lot of that perfectionism, that striving, that all or nothing mentality, the shame usually that comes with oh, I didn't do it perfectly and I'm never going to measure up in all of these things. For me, when I described that moment in the kitchen, it really was this a-ha epiphany of like, oh, it's because I've been doing all of these things and calling it a lifestyle, but I've been doing it from the diet mentality or trying to do it with perfect in mind and the all or nothing and being really hard on myself and putting a ton of pressure on myself Versus looking at it, and I can engage in all of the same activities and not have the same outcomes because I'm thinking about it differently. Right, so it's like I could still decide I want to watch what I'm eating. You know, maybe I want to track my food for a couple of weeks just to see you know what's my intake and, depending on what I'm thinking is going to create a completely different outcome. If I'm thinking, you know that I'm restricted, I can only eat this much, yadda, yadda, yadda, then I'm going to feel really deprived, really restricted, and that usually is kind of what ends up creating those binge and restrict cycles where it's like, okay, you restrict for like Monday through Friday, and then you're so tired, you're so worn out from the way that you've approached that come Saturday, sunday or Friday night through Sunday, you're like, screw it, I'm completely off the rails, I'm eating whatever I want to, exactly, and then I'm going to ratchet back down on Monday.
Speaker 1:And so I think the big thing is is to really just kind of explore your mentality around it.
Speaker 1:What are you thinking, how do you feel about this?
Speaker 1:Like, what's the way that you're approaching these lifestyle, habits and behaviors and learning how to kind of think about it in a more neutral place and even in a positive light in terms of you know, maybe I want to kind of track my food for a couple of weeks just to sort of see where I'm at, in the same way that I track how we spend our money right, and that has taken me a long time to get to the place where I can have money conversations, I can look at my bank account and not be triggered, not get stressed, not kind of get in that fight or flight, and that's taken some work right, and so you know, it's kind of the same thing when we're talking about food or we're talking about exercise.
Speaker 1:It's really is like working on your relationship to those things, but at the end of the day it's working on your relationship to yourself and then from there we can work on your relationship to food, to the scale that's a huge thing, with a lot of women to their bodies, yeah, and you know, in all of these other areas Now I will sort of caveat that to say that if you have a history of eating disorder or eating disorder tendencies, then you know we are going to probably approach things a little bit differently, like I don't know that I would ever recommend tracking for somebody with a history of eating disorder because a lot of times it really sort of triggers that or obsessiveness and that need to control.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely yeah, well, so that's, that's a really good angle and I think that most women, at least those that I interact with, who are, you know, they're so busy they're, they're already overwhelmed with everything they need to do and I think, just like you said, sometimes it's almost a punishment, to add.
Speaker 2:You know, taking time for yourself as it's it looks like a task on your to do list, so it's something that adds up, that piles on and and it it adds to the overwhelm, so it's kind of beat the purpose, you know, and I know that for me was the case for a long time like I would tell myself I need to be able to do all these things and I would actually give myself unrealistic goals, like we said before, like we and a full hour would be better than doing nothing.
Speaker 2:Right. And that's why I really like agree with that vision that you shared about mentality, because I think we need to shift our perspective on self-care, on even our need for balance in general. That's why I like the approach you know that is a bit holistic about balance that you need to see where your needs are the most during a specific, you know, period of time because of what you're going through in your life professionally, personally so you need to take all of that into account and view it as this is my way of taking care of myself. It's not like I'm not trying to be this super wonder woman or whatever and try to please other people. This is me taking care of myself, and so if at some point I find it overwhelming to just tell myself I need to go to the gym this day and this day and this other day, then I'll just start with one.
Speaker 2:You know, just one, two, three or something like that. So I think it's important to like take steps in everything that we do, and I think we all tend to want to have it all and do it all perfectly. You know, the first time around and we feel terrible for not managing our time effectively.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so a couple of things. One is this quote, or this idea I think Tony Robbins is the one who I always see attributed to it, but it's this idea that perfectionism is really the lowest standard that we can set for ourselves because it's unattainable, right?
Speaker 1:So it's like we set the bar, like you said, we set it so high and then we're like, well, why would I even try for that? Because I can't even achieve it. And so I am a huge fan of, instead of setting the bar super high, like that might be where you want to get eventually, but what can you do today? What's the lowest hanging fruit, what's the easiest thing that you can sort of step in and do today, and then let's just work on doing that consistently and we can build up from there. One thing I did want to share. This has really helped me. When we're talking about like life balance is instead of. I think initially, when people are thinking about creating balance in their life, they're thinking that every single bucket has to have like the same, like equal amount of energy and attention kind of deposited into it and I heard this a few years ago and it really stuck with me and shifted so much the way that I think about it.
Speaker 1:Instead, it's taking, you know that life will exercise, for example, kind of rating honestly where everything is right now, giving it an honest assessment, looking at the areas, like if you have certain areas that are like eight, nine and 10s, and then you have other areas that are, you know, two, three, fours or some are even non-existent. It's saying, okay, what would it take to maintain the sense of eight, nine and 10 in these areas, but doing less so that I can take some of that energy, some of that attention in that time to start depositing it into these other areas that are maybe not doing so well, right, so it's. You're looking at these different areas and you're asking, like, what would it take for this particular thing to feel like a 10? What would it take to fill this bucket? To fill this bucket, to fill this bucket, and then you're looking at dispersing it based on where the need is the most, rather than always trying to keep everything even, because I think that is a mistake that a lot of people make especially high.
Speaker 1:Achieving super driven, super ambitious women is we think, okay, I'm gonna keep doing all of this at this pace over here to keep this at eight, nine and 10. And now I need to take that same intensity, that same amount of effort and energy, and now I have to apply it to these other six areas of my life and that's not sustainable. So it's like, okay, what's the minimum to kind of keep these areas feeling full? And then how can we start to reallocate essentially your time, your energy, your effort into these other areas, to kind of get those all sort of bumped up?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I totally agree with that, and many experts talk about work-life integration instead of work-life balance because of what you explained about the time allocation, like we want to divide every area of our lives into like equal pieces, when it's not. That's not what work-life balance is about. And what you said about fitness is actually the same, like for career change, for example. I know that many clients that I've had have told me before that I can't afford to take that risk, as if, like, it was going to be all of a sudden this big shift and that they wouldn't be able to sustain that with the rest, when really it's all about just exploring options at first, like again, baby steps, and maybe at one point this becomes your focus exploring your career options, your opportunities and setting aside the rest, maybe going from 45 minutes workouts to 20 minutes workouts for at least a week or two or maybe a month, just while you figure things out in your career.
Speaker 2:The same goes for when you have something going on with your son, with your kids in general. I'm thinking about my son because, as a matter of fact, my son has special needs. He is autistic, so that's why I'm talking about this, and so I went through moments where I needed to focus on him more because we had a lot of appointments with doctors and stuff like that. So that meant for me putting my career ambitions on hold, and that was fine that I had about it, because I knew exactly what I was doing and I didn't.
Speaker 2:Of course, there's all this that I had to do and I didn't think that it was for her job, but at the same time, I realized that this is what I want my balance, or my work-life integration, to look like this ability to be flexible and to go from one area to the next, give it more attention and not feel bad about it because, we have seasons in life, and these seasons can be in a large span or a smaller span, but it's there and I think what we need in order to be fulfilled is also this ability to just adapt to those seasons, to the change that comes with them and accept that we won't be able to give 100% to Every single area of our lives at the same time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 100%. And I love that you bring up that there are going to be seasons, right, Because there are going to be times where maybe your family or your marriage needs a little bit more attention. And then it's like, okay, how can I back off of pursuing my career for a little while? Or, okay, family and marriage and you know, all of these other things seem like it's going well. Maybe now I can kind of push a little bit more in the career department, but it is.
Speaker 1:You know, I think it is really just being able to take that honest assessment of where things are at and just deciding for yourself, like, what needs to happen in order for you to feel like you're showing up in each of those areas in the way that you truly want to be. And this kind of goes back to you know, what you were saying initially when you were sharing a little bit of your story, was how it's so easy to just get sort of sucked into, just, do you know, following the path that everybody else has laid out, or that society or culture is telling us that we need to embrace and never really questioning okay, but is that truly what I want, right, Because there are so many women out there that have no desire to work outside of the home. They want to be full time, stay at home moms, and that's great for them, and I don't feel like they should have any additional pressure to have a side hustle or to, you know, be building a business on the side or working part time, if that's truly what they are wanting and where they feel that they're called to be, and you know. Likewise, I think the flip side to that is that if you do feel like you want to have something in addition to your family and things like that, then I think that that is okay too.
Speaker 1:But it really takes us being able to, I think, kind of question the status quo, question the narratives that we have playing in our head, and being like Okay, how do I feel?
Speaker 1:Like I was wired like what's you know what's going on here, and so, yeah, I think it's, you know.
Speaker 1:I'm always telling people it's like, yeah, you just kind of have to look at your life in you know sort of 10 to 12 week chunks, or you know what does this season look like and what you know what needs to be my focus right now? And sometimes that means like that means that we have to be okay with letting other things go a little bit or not trying to continue to invest fully in these other things, because I think that's where we really do end up kind of feeling exhausted and overwhelmed and burned out. So, rim, if you had to kind of just sum up some things here as we kind of wind down, what would be kind of some key takeaways that you feel like if a woman's listening to this and you know maybe she's feeling like she is a little bit out of balance or she's, you know, letting those things not really matter to her kind of fall by the wayside, what would be a couple of things you would kind of encourage her with today?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I would definitely. You know. You mentioned something earlier. You said you know that assessment, doing that assessment in your life and understanding what the statute quo is. And to me, it's really about questioning whether or not this is what you want or this is what you think you should want.
Speaker 2:And that means, again, taking that time to do some self reflection and and and give yourself permission to do so, because I think it all starts there and we don't even allow ourselves to do that exploration and understand ourselves better, understand those inner conflicts that emerge whenever we are at work or maybe when we are doing something, when we are looking at ourselves in the mirror or during our interactions with other people.
Speaker 2:And I think it's important to just allow ourselves to just sit and journal about it, or just, you know, try to figure out, seek help for this, but try to figure out what is exactly missing. Why am I feeling so overwhelmed? Why can't I feel like, why am I feeling trapped? Why am I feeling like I can't get out of this hamster wheel? I think that's like the key takeaway is to, for me, understand that you can do your own thing. It's like it doesn't have to look a certain way. Like you said, we navigate seasons. It doesn't have to be 100% everywhere. You just need to find the combination that works for you at a certain period of time and then reassess every season.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that. And one thing I wanted to just kind of share as we're closing, because I think you mentioned something a few minutes ago in terms of, essentially, how we're kind of taking care of yourself, whether that's going for a walk, taking naps, scheduling nothing on your calendar, like just having some white space or exercising or you know whatever those things are, that kind of fill your cup, allow you to come back rested and refreshed and restored. I think, for what I see a lot of times is that just becomes like one more thing that we have to do, right, so it's like we view meal planning or meal prepping or exercising as a chore and just like this obligation, this thing that feels really heavy. And this, I think, just kind of highlights the power of just the way that we think about it. Right, it's like we can look at it as okay. This is just one more thing on the to-do list that I have to do, or this is something that I'm doing for myself. I know I'm going to feel better after a 20-minute workout or going for a walk or you know, meal planning or meal prepping, I know that's going to save so much time down the road.
Speaker 1:So, right, it's like just kind of giving yourself that little bit of a pep talk and seeing those things through a different light can make it feel so much less heavy and not like an obligation and really that it is something that you're doing for yourself, right, like I like to explain that right, it's like exercise and eating. You know, eating well or eating healthy is not something that we're doing to ourselves, it's something that we're doing for ourselves. But I think when we're kind of operating from again sort of that diet mentality, if we feel punished because we're not yet at our goal weight or our body doesn't look a certain way, then a lot of times it feels like we're doing all of these things to ourselves, kind of as that punishment, rather than this is something that I want to do for myself, I want to take care of my health, I want to have energy for my kids, for my family, for my career, and so I think even just that subtle mindset shift of like am I viewing these things as something that I have to do, something that I'm doing to myself, or am I truly viewing this as something that I'm doing for myself? So thank you so much, rym.
Speaker 1:This was such a great conversation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you, Alicia. It was really great to be able to talk about these topics that we are both passionate about and get to share our vision.
Speaker 1:Yes, and for the listeners of the Strong Her Way, I will be putting all of Rym's contact information and her links and all of those kinds of things in the show notes so that if you want to listen to her podcast, if you want to explore working with her, then you can definitely reach out to her there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I'll be putting your own links, Alicia, into my own podcast description so that my listener can also find you and follow you and hopefully get all that amazing content that you provide.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you so much, and thank you everybody for tuning in and listening to us. I know that this was a little bit of an unorthodox way to do an interview but, like I said, I'm all about multitasking when we can do it well and this seemed like such a good fit. So thank you everybody for tuning in. Thank you.