TRANSCRIPT
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
denny, jenny, spouse, care, workouts, feel, great, work, family, talking, love, stressed, wife, women, kids, hear, communication, relationship, resentment, gratitude
SPEAKERS
Kimberly Hoffman, Denny Locascio, Jenny Swisher, Matthew Hoffman
Matthew Hoffman 00:00
Welcome back, everybody to the kick ass couples podcast. We are focusing a special episode today on self-care. I think gone are the days of when people say it’s not necessary. It’s not important. It is critical but so many people get it wrong Kim and wonder what do I do to take care of myself without being selfish? How do I do it? How do I approach this? We’ve got two incredible panelists. With us today we have Jenny Swisher and Denny Locascio joining us to dive in and share some nuggets and pearls about what people can do to really establish this for themselves so they can be most effective in their own relationships. So welcome, Jenny and Denny.
Denny Locascio 03:16
Awesome. Glad to be here.
Jenny Swisher 03:17
Yeah, thank you so much.
Matthew Hoffman 03:19
Our pleasure. Glad to have these are both alumni to have the Kickass Couples Podcast. So they’re on a second tour because they slayed it so much the first time.
Matthew Hoffman 03:27
Right.
Matthew Hoffman 03:27
They’re coming back to give us some more goodness. Denny was actually, he and his wife Amber were one of the first couples we interviewed 118/120
Kimberly Hoffman 03:38
Episodes ago.
Matthew Hoffman 03:39
over over that many hundreds of episodes. He’s a grizzled veteran, but Jenny had the benefit of us knowing a little bit more of what we’re doing. When we got to interview her and her husband and learning about what she’s doing. But we’re ever evolving, guys. We’re trainable, we’re teachable. You guys are both trainers and coaches and teachers that we are going to be open and want to learn today. And Kim is going to kind of share a quote about self care and then dive right in with some questions.
Kimberly Hoffman 04:06
Yeah, this is a great quote that we found by Ruby Cowher, and it says how you love yourself, is how you teach others to love you. So I love that. And I wanted to start out by asking each of you, how do you each love yourselves? Jenny? Maybe you want to go first? How do you love yourself? How do you care for yourself?
Jenny Swisher 04:28
Yeah, well, I think it really starts with your inner voice. I like to call it your narrative, like how are you talking to yourself about yourself? And I talk about this a lot when it comes to women’s health because as women, a lot of us are mothers, and we have children watching us, right? So how we speak to ourselves translates not only to our own inner dialogue, but also to our children, our children see what we’re saying about ourselves. So for me, you know, self care really is about more than just your body and your physique and how you feel about your physical body but it’s also just about Have you feel about your energy? I measure everything and energy. And so, for me, it’s constantly gauging that energy and then understanding what it might take to refill your energy bucket. That’s self care.
Kimberly Hoffman 05:15
And, Danny, how would you? How would you say you love yourself? How do you care for you?
Denny Locascio 05:21
I think Jenny’s spot on I think we have very similar thought processes. And it’s easy for me to say the physical aspect, because that’s the profession I’m in. That’s the world I live in, is taking care of yourself physically. But I really believe what she said it starts before all that. It’s the self talk. It’s the words you read, the words you speak to other people, the words you allow people to speak to you. All that starts before you get to anything physical. So you know, biggest thing in my world, just how I talk to myself. Things I read, things I’m watching, the world I’m around.
Matthew Hoffman 05:52
That’s great. You’re talking about digesting Denny, I love that. What you take in right? What you think, what you focus on, kind of what you become. And Jenny was talking to that about energy too. And so I’d love to hear from each of you. And Danny, maybe you’d start what is one of your personal like non negotiable self care, like, Come heck or high water. I’ve got to do this to take care of myself.
Denny Locascio 06:17
For me, it starts first thing in the morning, and just having a quiet morning time, my prayer time and meditation time, like that kind of for me starts the rest of the day. Yeah, I feel like I gotta get a workout in. Because I gotta do something active. But I think even before that, I gotta start like with a fresh slate, a fresh mindset, and just clearing everything for the day.
Matthew Hoffman 06:38
And so tell me, what how do you feel when you do it versus when you don’t? What’s the difference it makes in your day when you do or don’t do that.
Denny Locascio 06:49
I feel like it starts the day with a focus and not being so rushed into the day before the day gets ahead of you. And especially as a parent, as a working professional. As that day gets going, it only gets busier and more things come at you. There’s more things to do. You’re always trying to take your time. So if you spend a few minutes to your own time, focusing on what you need to focus on are your prayers and moments of gratitude. Those things kind of set you up for the rest of the day.
Kimberly Hoffman 07:19
So really grounding yourself, setting a foundation intention for yourself for the day.
Matthew Hoffman 07:26
How about you Jenny, what’s one of your non negotiable, like, Hey, I got to do this to take care of myself?
Jenny Swisher 07:32
Yeah, I would agree with that. I’m not a morning person. So I don’t do it first thing in the morning, but I do my day the night before. So before I go to bed at night, I have a gratitude journal that I keep by my bedside. Even if it’s just five minutes before I turn off the light, I write down what are things that happened today that I’m grateful for. I used to do the basics of like, what am I grateful for, and I would write down general things like my family and my health. And I realized I really needed to evoke more emotion from myself in order to really feel and almost relive those moments that I’m grateful for. So now I do my gratitude journal at night and I just say what are three things that happened today that I want to just sit and remember and relive that moment while it’s still fresh. And for me going to bed that way just like it wakes me up in a good mood. It puts me in a good vibe for the day. So even though it would be easy for me to say because I’m in the health fitness space, it would be easy for me to say movement is my number one priority. As we record this I’m in the middle of a month long flare up of vertigo so workouts have not been my priority it’s just been if I can walk today I walked today right but um it’s movement is not as important as mindset to me like to me it’s where is your mindset? How are you living? Are you living in gratitude? Are you living in a positive vibe, so to speak, and that really can set you up for you know, for better exercise, better relationships, better everything.
Matthew Hoffman 08:55
I want to I want to you guys both said and I agree with you want to echo you said gratitude. And I think it’s grateful for what you have and what you’ve experienced. And then I know that both of you probably do this and Kim and I kind of like how can we our gratitude to each other for each other. But expressing the gratitude to your partner. I think you know if when you have gratitude in your mind for your partner, and you don’t say it, you don’t share it, you don’t put it out there. It’s almost like having money you never spend, right what’s the use of having a big stack of cash in the corner? If it never does anything for you and gratitude. You guys both hit that I think it it makes you aware of the goodness you have. But it also when you’re talking about gratitude for your partner, right? It makes them know you’re recognizing and seeing their value. And I love what you guys both shared on that.
Matthew Hoffman 09:49
Yeah, mind first and then body and spirit comes next is what I hear both of you saying. And I think people kind of get that twisted up a little bit and are not focusing on the mind part first. But I want to ask you this word, most people get it wrong. When they are trying to establish their own needs first in a relationship, we’re gonna go wrong.
Denny Locascio 11:16
I think it’s easy, at least in my family is, you know, I have two young kids as they get caught up and trying to take care of the kids, especially for my wife. She’s the most selfless person I know. And it’s easy for her to get caught up and try and take care of everybody else before taking care of herself. We’re all a little bit better at usually put myself first and for integrating the whole family with us. So sometimes it’s just you know, sometimes resetting those priorities or hey, what do I need to get done today? And planning ahead, too. I think that’s sometimes too is like your schedule gets ahead of you. Or events get ahead of you try and get all this checkoff box stuff done, you put yourself last.
Kimberly Hoffman 11:57
I’ve fallen into that trap, and live there for quite a long time. It’s family first, you know, everything else had to check those boxes. And I think that’s, that’s not a good place to be honestly. How about for you, Jenny?
Jenny Swisher 12:11
Yeah, I would say the same. I mean, I work dominantly with women. And so I see this often where I like to say women like to wear all the hats, you know, we’re we’re caretaking. And we’re wife and we are sometimes caretaking for our parents, you know, and we’re playing all these different roles. Sometimes there’s career involved and other things. And so it’s very easy to say, I’m just too busy. For my own self care, everything else comes first we want to pour into everyone else before we want to pour into ourselves. But I find that I’m constantly reminding women that it doesn’t mean that your whole day has to shift to be around you. It just means that you need those pockets of time that are focused on you so that you can give your very best I always say, I want women to reach their maximum energy so that they can be their best for those that they love. And I think sometimes we get it backwards, because we do like Denny said, we get caught up in the day to day we get caught up in a schedule we get caught up in making sure our kids are taken care of and our spouse is taken care of. And sometimes it can just sort of it just happens. And we don’t it’s not intentional, right, which is why self care is intentional.
Kimberly Hoffman 13:12
Yeah. What’s the first step that women can take to get in that space?
Jenny Swisher 13:17
Well, I think first they have to get rid of the guilt. I think that’s the the very first step is realizing that it’s not selfish for them to want to care for themselves. You know, I know a lot of women I work in the home exercise space, so home fitness programs and that sort of thing. And the on one hand, yes, it’s convenient, because women can just walk to their basement or their living room, and they can do a workout there. But even still, some women struggle with that they struggle with stepping away from their kids or putting their kids in front of an iPad or something so that they can take that 30 minutes for themselves. And so for me, it’s just it’s saying and reminding them that it’s okay to take those 30 minutes and you can shed that guilt knowing that for I know, for me, those workouts are my sanity, right? Like, that gives me 30 minutes to just get out any aggression, like to sweat and to just feel better, and to get those endorphins running. And I know my kids see it in me, I’m a better person. After I do that. I’m more you know, I can tolerate more. I’m more patience. And so I think the first step has to be getting rid of the guilt so that you can step into that, you know, that just acknowledgement that you are worthy of that time for yourself.
Denny Locascio 14:27
Yeah, and I think once you get past that mental aspect of it, I think the next step is establishing habits or even stopping habits and kind of evaluating what you’ve been doing with your schedule your family time, all these times and now saying, hey, let’s establish some new habits. The great book atomic habits kind of goes over this is that hey, maybe you just need to start for one minute doing something and then you’ve established that habit and move it up to two minutes an hour trying to overwhelm yourself and create a whole hour workout right every day and it’s just overwhelming. But could you do five minutes or start? Start off with some base? sic winds in your schedule and plan for plan ahead, look at the day the next day had and have that established and how to help you out to to do some self care. What.
Matthew Hoffman 15:12
So I hear one of the things that, you know, Kim talked about not putting herself first not being willing to do it. And I think we even had some there was some resentment that we had to work through. Because my exercise was important to me just like my my prayer time, meditation time, and I was scheduled the workouts and I don’t care how busy I was, I would do them. And some, you know, some resentment built up between us where she would say, Hey, how can you know, why are you taking the time to do that, but you’re not doing X, Y or Z? Right? Or I don’t have the time to do it. Why is it fair for you to do it? So how do we, how do we in a relationship? Or are the some of the clients that you’ve had? How can somebody work through that challenge of resentment, where one individual says, I don’t have the time, right? Or you do and it’s, or you’re being selfish, because you’re doing these things for you, but I can’t do them for me. So it’s one thing when you’re just you and your tunnel, right? Hey, it’s just me. But have you guys come up against that in your practice and working with people where it’s not just their own ability? And as Denny was saying, a habit, but when we introduced the dynamic of a relationship? How can how can somebody you guys have any thoughts on how Denny on how somebody can work through that, and still maintain the relationship but get that self care?
Matthew Hoffman 16:31
What has tended to work best in our family and our relationship is kind of integrating. So maybe it’s you all get to work out together? Or if the kids are going to their jujitsu, that’s my time to do Jujitsu. Or if we’re all going to go for a hike for a walk, we just do it together as a family. So sometimes, instead of doing two separate things, what if we can combine them and do at the same time, now you’re doing a couple of things at once, maybe you can have your walk or your rock at night and natural time with your wife to talk over these things. So maybe sometimes having to work together to integrate and not have to do two different things at two different times.
Matthew Hoffman 17:12
That makes sense. How about you, Jenny? What are your thoughts?
Jenny Swisher 17:14
Yeah, so for about six years, I, my husband, and I owned a fitness studio, and I had male and female clients. And I saw this all the time, where women, especially with come in, and you know, they want to sign up for the program, they want to come in and work out and they’re they’re maybe used to exercise or they’re interested in exercise. And I see it more often on this side of the coin. But I know it goes both ways where they can’t get their spouse on board, right? Like they want their spouse to come to the gym with them, or they want them to participate. But for whatever reason, they don’t want they’re not interested in it, or there’s this sense of resentment. And again, I’ve seen it go both ways. I had a male client who used to say my wife doesn’t want me coming here because she thinks I’m gonna get hot. He used to say that, and he was a funny guy. But it’s true. I mean, you see this dynamic happen often. And so people ask me this, they’ll say, Well, how can I get my spouse on board? Like, how can I get them more interested in a healthy lifestyle? I’m really trying to make efforts and I feel like they’re sabotaging my efforts. You know, I hear that frequently. And I think my best advice there, or I guess what I would say to that is open communication with your spouse has to be number one. So even in my own personal story, when I first started doing home workouts 13 years ago, my husband was very much like you do that? That’s not for me. That’s weird. You know, I’m a runner, I’ll run when I feel like it like, No, thank you. And so for me, it was, it was okay. Like, I’m not going to like, I’m not going to let this disrupt our relationship. I’m going to just bring him in it with me, I’m going to tell him about it. Right. So I would tell him, I would go downstairs and I would try to do the pull ups and I would fail miserably. And then we would share over dinner, you know, we’d be talking about things I’d be like, you should see me do this pull ups. Like it’s sad, you know, like, I would just, I would share with him like pieces of the workout or I came off my knees today to do push ups or whatever. And slowly he was just like, he saw me transforming. He saw my body transforming. He saw how interested I was in the workouts, he saw me change and just become happier. And so slowly, he’s like, I’ll start doing them with you. So we started getting up together in the morning. And he started doing them with me. But it was never, I was never putting him in a position to feel guilty. Or, you know, I was never saying like, we you need to do this with me. I wasn’t trying to like preach to him, it was just well, this is something that I want to do. And it’s important to me, and I’m going to continue to communicate how important it is to me and how I’m feeling as I do it. And that process brought us through a journey of really a double transformation because he ended up saying, You know what, this is kind of cool. Maybe I want to do it too. So I don’t think it’s ever you know, a good idea to to allow that resentment in. I think that’s where we have to stop and say wait a minute, like, why is this stealing happening? And how can we prevent that from happening? How can we be more clear in our communication?
Kimberly Hoffman 19:54
Yeah.
Denny Locascio 19:54
Jenny, I got a great similar story is that when we had our oldest our daughter My wife wanted to do meditation. And I was like, I’m not only into the meditation, the headspace app, and I was like, that’s not for me. And then she had done it numerous times playing out loud right there in the living room. And after being around it enough times, like, that sounds pretty interesting. The guy’s voice is pretty soothing. I was like, maybe I’ll sit down and do a lesson with you. And to this day, six years later, I’m hooked. And so it’s like a thing now that will do the headspace meditation together by osmosis, and it just finally absorbed into me.
Kimberly Hoffman 20:30
I love it, because I hear you both saying that healthy communication, and then you each modeled something, or in your stories, somebody modeled something, right. And then it was just a natural thing that your spouse’s sort of came along. So I love hearing that, you know, you actually did it, and continued to do it. And they were attracted to it, and came on board.
Matthew Hoffman 20:54
Yeah, and Jenny, I love what you said, because I think it’s so important. You said I didn’t make him do it, but I shared it with him and let them know how important it was to me. And obviously, he loves you and is committed to you. So if it’s important to you, his desire to support you or cheer you on, not that he was doing it led to his involvement, because you knew it was important to you. So I think we can have different habits and or we can share them. But the idea that we’re supporting our spouse in the journey that’s best for them, we want what’s best for our partner, our best friend, right? We want them to get what they need. And if it’s different than ours, we can understand and come along for the journey. And and Denny, you know, your your story is, you know, Kim and I, we have great stories as well in our relationship where we’ve influenced each other by the practices that we are doing in to take care of ourselves and our families.
Kimberly Hoffman 21:46
So there any current or common practices, that people sort of wrongly classified as self care. So sort of think of it as like a wolf in sheep’s clothing, maybe they’re actually, you know, saying that I need this self care, but really, it’s maybe not healthy for the relationship, to think of any of those instances.
Jenny Swisher 22:10
I can speak to that I literally just recorded a podcast myself for for this topic of are my workouts counterproductive. And again, I speak to women, and I’ve found that in working with women for the last dozen years, I work with fitness enthusiast, I work with women who they’re into exercise, and I will tell you that that can be it can become a problem, especially if we become obsessive about our workouts. I can see I see this happening every day where women will, you know, again, I work in the home fitness space. So they’re following a calendar, right? They’re following a 60 day program or a 90 day program, and they become so obsessive about that program, that it can be counterproductive to their health, it can definitely, you know, start to stress their adrenals and their their hormones and everything else. But it’s also counterproductive, because now all of a sudden, it’s become this obsessive thing that really maybe your spouse can’t even understand because you’re so far into it. Does that make sense? So, exercise is great, I would say exercise is great and moderation. Clean eating is great. In moderation, we also need to live our lives too, right? So when we start to become too obsessive about those things I’ve seen that also disrupt relationships and women in general, just as people.
Denny Locascio 23:25
Yeah, that’s a great example of any I could see that happening. You know, for me, too, it’s very similar to the food like, I’m probably 80% strict on my nutrition, like in the morning daytime, I can make my own meals, were good. When it comes time to the family time at night, I don’t want to make or have someone make two different meals, right? So it’s like I’m trying to do the strict meal, the family’s not having the strict meal. So it’s like, I can be flexible, or anybody, any of us can be flexible with what we’re eating. Also see it too, and like how much time you’re spending outside of your family, maybe it’s hanging out with your friends or going out. Sometimes alcohol even itself is detrimental to your family time. So sometimes taking a look at those things, too.
Kimberly Hoffman 24:09
Yeah. There are some activities. And I’ll just use golf as an example. It takes up a lot of time. And you know, we have a lot of friends who love it. They’re obsessed with it, but it takes a lot of time away from the family. So I think we have to look at those things and how they actually impact a relationship.
Matthew Hoffman 24:28
Yeah, no doubt. So you guys talked a little bit about communication, Jenny and I want to swing back to that. How, how do you all are what for our listeners out there who maybe have what’s important to them and they’re not sure? How can we normalize that communication, whether it’s, this is what I need, or how can I support you? It seems that you know, communication is the glue that holds us together no matter what whether the times are great or they’re bad, but how how can you, you gave a great example Jenny, I said, you know, you brought your husband in. So, and Denny, I kind of want to ask it, Denny, maybe you’ll go first on this one. How have you communicated or work with your clients to normalize their self care so that their spouse is part of it? As opposed to it’s separate together? Because when you talked about shared activities, but you know, share, from your experience with your clients or with with your wife, about the communication and the self care, and so it’s open and sharing as opposed to closed and independent?
Denny Locascio 25:36
Maybe if I could take it one step backwards. And sometimes it’s knowing yourself first, like knowing where on that barometer, you sit on what you need for self care. Like for me, personally, I need really hard, like physical mental challenges to keep me level. And so that may require a 24 hour weekend challenge away some type of physical thing where I’m doing this crazy workouts right. And that keeps me level keeps me calm, it kind of resets me. But I’m also lucky in the fact that my wife can also recover and able to support that. So I think it’s to knowing yourself and what your needs are. And also having the communication knowing, can your spouse handle that? Or what will it take to allow that to happen? And talking to each other through that? So maybe that’s where that communication comes in and knowing each other and saying, I need this for this to happen for us to have a working relationship? What do we need to do to get there? What do I need to do to support you? What do you need in having those maybe those conversations and seeing how you can help the other person? What do they need? What do you need? Can they help you and support that? Or what do we need to do to allow that to be in support system?
Denny Locascio 27:56
And Denny, I agree with you. I think we you share the example I know that you’ve had the Misogi right. Is that am I saying it right?
Denny Locascio 28:04
Misogi
Matthew Hoffman 28:04
Sorry, Misogi so and we How did you bring that up with your wife? And what did that conversation look like? So just share with us how you walk through that process so that you communicate to her what you needed, she supplied it to you? And how did how did you guys thrive through that as opposed to this horrible thing that we had to just get through.
Denny Locascio 28:24
So by definition, Misogi is a Japanese term of doing something physically challenging, once a year, that’s so impactful, that it almost affects the rest of your life. And usually, there’s like a 50/50 chance of you actually finishing this event. And so what we do as a family is in January, the end of December, we go through our family goals, usually and it’s individuals and family goals, and we sit down with a whole family, even our kids do it and saying, What would be your goals for the year? What are the family goals? What do we want to accomplish? And so I look a year ahead and plan out what I would like that Misogi to be. So for next year, it’s going to Normandy for the 80th anniversary of D Day and doing a series of events on the beaches of Normandy. So we’re already you know, a year ahead 2024 knowing what that is what that’s going to look like, and start that planning process and saying, What is the family need to do for this to happen? Maybe it’s the safe financially, maybe it’s to make decision on if the kids are going or not going? Is it too stressful for them to go or not go? What will be the support look like out there? So start to look at those things maybe ahead of time. At least that’s how it works in our families like Amber, what do you want to do next year? What are your goals? What can I support you on and looking over those things and just talking over them? And then how do we get there? How do we make that support system around those ideas happen?
Matthew Hoffman 29:45
So I hear you say a lot of planning, a lot of communication. I love that. Jenny have anything to add on that about kind of communicating those needs and desires so that it’s collaborative as opposed to declaration like I am doing this.
Jenny Swisher 29:59
Yeah, I mean, I think I’m thinking a little deeper about it too. I mean, we do this as well, like the goal setting and communicating on goals and stuff every year, usually on New Year’s Eve. It’s like a date night for us, so. But it’s interesting, because I think I’m just I’m thinking about, like, the real life examples of what I’ve experienced when one of you know, a couple says, I’m struggling with my spouse not understanding where I am. And I think this might sound a little weird, but like, I really think that sometimes I find that if there’s not open communication about this, there’s probably not open communication about about a lot of other things as well. And so one of my biggest, especially as I’m talking to fellow women, is I will say, you know, what’s your intimacy? Like, are you able to be intimate with your spouse, because if you are, I want you to use those intimate moments to really open up about what you’re really feeling. And it goes beyond just exercise and nutrition and those kinds of things. Right? But I know for me, I can speak to myself, like when something is really either bothering me or, or there’s something that I’m really passionate about that, you know, that I want him to feel and be part of, if he’s, if he’s very, like, if he’s putting up a wall, and he’s not interested in hearing that, I know that our intimacy needs some work, I know that we may need more time together on a date night or, you know, he’s a physical touch guy. So he may be more interested in like the snuggling. And the cuddling, right. So for me, it’s like, how can how can we build and really bring our intimacy up? So that that communication opens up even further? Like, I feel like it’s all interweaved? Right, you guys have your
Kimberly Hoffman 31:37
Are we really connecting with each other? Are we really, you know, slows and vulnerable with each other?
Jenny Swisher 31:45
Right. Because saying something and the other person listening is not quite the same as true connection. Right. And so to me, it’s it’s all interwoven, probably with all 14 of your pillars, as far as how is this all working together? But I usually see that if there is, you know, if there’s a hiccup in that communication about something as simple as starting an exercise regimen, it probably goes deeper than that.
Kimberly Hoffman 32:08
Sure. Well, that kind of segues into my next question, which is we believe that shared experiences, and doing things together, really do establish those closer bonds. Could you Jenny, give our listeners some examples of things that they can do to do self care together so that they can build those bonds?
Jenny Swisher 32:35
Yeah, so I mean, I think it’s different for every couple. The one thing I will say is, you know, I didn’t have I never enjoyed working out with my spouse, because he was a former division one athlete, and I was definitely not. And so when we would do workouts together, I always was like, you stand in front, I stand him back, like, there was always you know, I was like, ah, but also, we just, we liked different things, he likes to go running, I like to lift weights, you know, so it, you know, it felt like I was dragging him along to bring him along with me sometimes, although we do still do that. Occasionally, we do still work out together. But it’s also important to just acknowledge and appreciate the other’s interests, if your significant others into mountain biking, like, cool, like, that’s your thing, right? Or if you’re into yoga, and that, let that be your thing. But I think, you know, it’s interesting, because sometimes we’re on vacation when we’re in small spaces, right? Like we rent a condo or something, on vacation, we will both work out in the same room doing two totally different things at the same time. And so the first thing I want your listeners to understand is it doesn’t you don’t have to be doing this, like all in together, every day doing the same thing every day. It can look, it can look different. It can look, you know, according to your own individual goals and your own individual interests. So that would be my first tip. Yes.
Kimberly Hoffman 33:53
How about for you, Denny?
Denny Locascio 33:56
I’m lucky in the fact that usually my wife and I are like the same things when it comes to physical activity. Like we both make love making stories of going hiking, finding a trail, some type of mountain to climb, and the family like the whole family, our family does best when we’re all outdoors. So maybe it’s kayaking or anything like that we do. Everyone’s has the bet even the kids have the best attitudes, everything’s really good. So we’re lucky in the fact that but still there are little things like my wife loves concerts. So finding out what your significant others into and like Jenny said supporting them in that meeting them over there and on their side of that, you know, that char and finding out what they’re into and just supporting them in that and then getting involved in it. Not just from the sidelines but going into the game.
Kimberly Hoffman 34:43
Sure. Yeah, really finding those experiences that maybe you don’t love so much. But you know, that your spouse does and, you know, go along with it, and you end up probably having a great time. And we’ve you’ve done concerts that I love for musicians that I love and afterwards have gone. Oh, wow, that was a lot better.
Matthew Hoffman 35:07
Yeah, not always self serving. So, you know, in we all is one of my least favorite words in English language is the word busy b u s why it is a four letter word. And because it doesn’t give you any indication, right, of what’s happening, but we all based on what our lives toward ask whether it’s family, whether it’s work, whether it’s family of origin, we get stressed, we get burned out, and we feel oh my gosh, I just want to get out of this and change it up. I’d love to hear from each of you, Jenny, and maybe Jenny, you go first is with your clients or with yourself. If someone says I am stressed, anxiety is high. And I’m burned out what something somebody can do for a personal reset, like how do you? How do you get out of the pit when you’re just feeling overwhelmed? And just things aren’t going well? What would your advice be to someone that wants to get out of that?
Jenny Swisher 36:00
Oh, gosh, okay, so my token phrase that I say all the time is health is individual. So what might work for me to get out of that rut, we might be different from what what won’t work for you. And so I’ll start with that. But I will say that one piece of advice that I have given out on my podcast, and in my course, is that we as humans have become so disconnected with nature, that we are literally most of us sedentary, we’re stuck inside walls, and we’re not outdoors enough. And so as a result of that our circadian rhythm gets disrupted, which can then affect hormones and sleep. And of course, all of that affects our energy. And so something as simple as taking 10 to 20 minutes out of your day to just be outside. It can be a picnic in the park, it can be a walk, it can be a hike, it can be a run, it can be whatever you want it to be. But I find so many people come back to me and they say I had no idea how much of a difference that would make for me. There is something out there in the health space called earthing or grounding, which is walking outside taking off your shoes and socks and literally just walking in the bear you know, barefoot in the grass, looking up toward the sun. And it sounds it might sound Frou Frou and weird, but I really do find that when people are feeling really overwhelmed really stressed. They don’t know how to get out of their own head. Stepping outside into nature can be a great first step.
Matthew Hoffman 37:25
Great example, yeah. How about for you Denny?
Denny Locascio 37:31
My wife and I heard a podcast interview with Brene. Brown, it’s couple years ago now. And something that her and her husband they use as a strategy we’ve actually since used it and it’s worked out great for us is that it’s usually for us as we’re in the stage of younger kids. It’s usually younger kids, our kids, end of the night stressing us out. And what ends up happening is like Brene said, like, Hey, I got 1% of energy leftover. And it’s usually like your spouse, my wife would be like, listen, I can cover that other percent or I got 70%, I can cover the rest of the 30% you need help with. So it’s us usually in the night one of us is tapped low on that on what’s left of our stress level, it’s usually the other person picking back up. It’s very rare if I’ve ever that both of us have been tapped out at zero, so it’s one of us help picking up the other one. But it’s also letting us know that Listen, I got about 20% left of the stress meter, or else I’m gonna go over the top and the other person that comes in covers for us at that time. And that spouse can just do what you do to get that mental recovery that maybe it’s go outside in the sauna or go for a walk or go for a workout, whatever it is that you need to do to get back to level. But that’s what that really well for us is just kind of telling the other person where you’re at on that barometer.
Matthew Hoffman 38:48
Sure, I love that it’s communication, right? It’s saying, I’m tapped out, or I’m gonna tap out or I’m gonna lose it if I don’t get some help. Because you know, we can’t we’re not mind reader’s, we can’t look at our partner and we sometimes we get physical cues, ooh, she looks really stressed. You know, I need to get in there and figure out what’s going on. But sometimes we’re caught up on our own story. And we don’t hear or see that. But having your partner communicate and say, you know, let me wave the flag white flat, I need help, or I need you know, you got to get in here with me. And I think that we often don’t do that a lot. So and it also comes back when we do that we’re deep work we’re giving a deeper emotional connection to our partner that is creates what Jenny was talking about earlier is he cranks up our intimacy, because we’re being vulnerable, and we’re giving something for them to have an opportunity to help us which brings us together so I love what you each there there.
Kimberly Hoffman 39:43
All that leads to good romance.
Matthew Hoffman 39:48
It does.
Kimberly Hoffman 39:49
So how can you Johnny say that self care has evolved from when you were a child to now how have you seen it evolve?
Jenny Swisher 39:58
Oh, that’s a great question. I would say, you know, I think back to my childhood and my my parents, I think there’s a lot of similarities on things that have stayed the same. But there’s there are also some differences as well. I mean, my mom was primary caretaker for our household, my dad worked full time all the time, he was driving trucks. And I can remember, my mom would rarely ask for time alone, like she was always with us all the time. She cooked all the meals did all the laundry took us all the places was at every sporting event, every single thing, she never really took a break. And I can say this with love that I could see, I could see that in her. And I really think that if, if knowing what I know now as a mother, and as someone who has been in similar shoes, I wish she had taken more time for her own hobbies for her own mental resets. Because she would really sort of boil to a point where all of a sudden, she would boil over. Right. And so I’ve seen that happen. And I think nowadays, it’s interesting, because she and I were just having a conversation the other day, we were talking about this mutual family friend. And this mutual family friend has a daughter my age, and she has four kids. And she said to me, she said, can you believe that so and so went out for the weekend, she went for the weekend to a hotel, and stayed in the hotel for the weekend while her husband took care of the kids for the weekend. She’s like, can you believe that? And she like went on this whole rant, I was like, I’m gonna smoke for Amy here. Because the best thing I have ever heard, and I wish that I would i That’s a great idea that like, that’s what I’m asking for, for for Mother’s Day, you know? So I think it’s evolved in that way. You know, I think I know, my mom’s generation, definitely. I mean, I don’t want to speak to all of them. It’s not a stereotype. But my mom in particular, was very much not someone to take her own time for herself. I never saw her exercising, I never saw her really even doing a lot outside the home. And I know for me, and a lot of my generation, it’s the opposite. You know, daddy is fully capable of taking care of the kids right now while I take a break, or go to a hotel for the night or whatever the case is. So that’s one major difference that I see. But I also just think that we have so much more available to us now than we did before. As far as you know, we have the internet at our fingertips. So you can pull up your headspace app and do a meditation and kind of reset your mind. Whereas maybe 30/40 years ago, that wasn’t an option, right? Or you can do a home workout a lot easier than you could back in the day. So I think those are those are both things at play.
Kimberly Hoffman 42:41
Yeah. Denny, how have you seen self care evolve in your own family?
Denny Locascio 42:47
Yeah, Jenny, that was well said. For me, just like as a male perspective, it’s not that we haven’t had feelings, just now it’s becoming more common for us, it’d be okay for us to express the feelings. I think it’s just old school to hold it all in, just bear the weight on your shoulders, put your head down and grind it out. And now it’s just becoming more mainstream, more okay to express those feelings. Like my wife will say it’s like, it’s okay to tell me these things. You can trust me, and just having conversations now about what’s going on in your world. And so just bearing it all in keeping into yourself? I think that’s, we’re not there yet. But I think it’s that trend. We’re all headed in the right direction there.
Kimberly Hoffman 43:24
I would agree with that. And I think it’s important. That’s actually what brings us closer together, when you can really trust your spouse and open up to your spouse that builds a very deep bond.
Matthew Hoffman 43:35
It does, it does. You guys have been great.
Kimberly Hoffman 43:39
I know we can keep going.
Matthew Hoffman 43:40
We have more questions. We have an inquiring mind, we want to know. But you’ve shared some great stuff with us. Jenny, if people want to get in touch with you, if they want to connect, they want to learn more about the good work that you’re doing. Where should they go?
Jenny Swisher 43:55
Yeah, you can find everything for me at Jennyswisher.com Or I’m Jenny Swisher on my handle for Instagram, Facebook, and all the places. So either way, get in touch with me personally, or head to the website or both.
Matthew Hoffman 44:06
Great. And how about for you, Denny, people want to connect with you and get some of the good that you’ve got going on?
Denny Locascio 44:12
Yeah, the social is probably easiest. strong dlo; S T R O N G D L O.
Matthew Hoffman 44:28
Beautiful.
Kimberly Hoffman 44:29
Thank you both so much. This has been a great conversation, good dialogue and I think our listeners have gained a lot from this episode.
Matthew Hoffman 44:29
No doubt we want to normalize the self care. It’s here. It’s not going away. It’s not a selfish thing when it’s done right. And y’all given us some great things to think about about how we can apply it and do it for ourselves and make it better in our in our own relationships. So we’re, grateful and thank you for your time today.
Kimberly Hoffman 44:47
Yeah, take care guys.
Matthew Hoffman 44:48
We just want you guys and our listeners to remember that obviously, happily ever after does not just happen but it is on purpose. So thanks for being with us today guys.