Strength in Self-Care: Reclaim Your Energy and Productivity as a Mom Entrepreneur

• Why Self-Care Isn’t Selfish
  Dr. Lyons addresses common misconceptions about self-care and explains why prioritizing oneself is vital for personal and professional growth.
• Building Resilience Through Self-Care
  Discussion on how intentional self-care practices can enhance resilience in challenging and uncertain times.
• Practical Self-Care Tips for Busy Lives
  Dr. Lyons offers actionable tips for integrating self-care into daily routines without feeling guilty.
• The Impact of Self-Care on Relationships and Work
  Insights into how self-care positively influences relationships, productivity, and overall contribution to society.

“Self-care is not selfish; it’s the foundation of resilience for ourselves and those around us.”

“Taking care of ourselves is one of the most powerful ways to show up fully for our families, careers, and communities.”

“True strength comes from recognizing that our well-being is integral to our success and happiness.”

“Self-care isn’t about indulgence; it’s about sustaining the energy and strength we need to contribute to the world.”

“When we prioritize our own care, we model a healthier, more sustainable path for those we love.”

ANNE RAJOO 

Self-care isn’t selfish. This is something I had to tell myself many, many times before I could internalize it, and I know that many struggle with applying the same level of care to themselves, and so many believe that self-care is less important or even selfish. And in this episode of the peaceful productivity part, we’ll dive into understanding that your strength is vital for your business, your career, your life, your family, especially in the turbulent times that we are living in. At the moment of recording, we just had the US election, and where I’m living in Mauritius, we have the elections coming up. So there’s a lot of uncertainty, and we need strength and resilience to get through this. So taking care of ourselves is not just beneficial for productivity, but it’s actually essential for productivity. It’s essential for our well-being, happiness, our relationships, and it just really contributes to a more positive world, and that’s what we need right now. 

I’m really excited to bring on Dr Gertrude Lyons, who is at the forefront of coaching and educating holistic Women’s Development, parenting, self, love and relationship fulfillment. She’s a visionary behind the Rewrite The Mother Code LLC. She inspires women to embark on their unique path of personal transformation, drawing over 25 years of experience, empowering individuals, couples, parents and families towards fulfilled lives. 

So while Dr Gertrude speaks about motherhood, you don’t have to be a mother to get value from what she shares and that Dr Gertrude holds a steadfast belief that we all embody the essence of a mother. 

Welcome to the peaceful productivity pod. I’m your host, Anne Rajoo, and together we redefine productivity and find your sweet spot where performance meets happiness. 

When I met Dr Gertrude Lyons, I was deep in unraveling my motherhood experience. My motherhood journey was filled with lots of love and beautiful moments, but also burnout and frustration, disengagement, resentment and all these other things that I never thought I would experience as a mom, because I really, really wanted to be a mom. I really loved being mom, so much so that I just poured everything I had into it. And when my first baby was born, he was just mine. He was my precious gift, and I really struggled to let my husband take care of him, to accept any help from anyone. 

I had one year maternity leave, paid leave. I was very lucky. I lived in the UK back then, and it was just amazing. I had the most wonderful early motherhood experience, and just really had this strong bond with my baby, which was exactly what I what I envisioned to experience when I became a mom. But then there was also a lot of element of just doing it right, doing it really well, doing the best that I could possibly could. I remember there was this, I guess, challenge for me to actually breastfeed. It just didn’t work out. I was trying so hard. We even had to rush to the hospital one time because, yeah, not to go into details, but it was just I really, really tried so hard, and it didn’t work out. And I was very adamant not to substitute with formula, but it just didn’t work. And it was one of the hardest moments for me, because I thought it should be natural, I should be able to do this short I ended up exclusively breast pumping for nine months, which was, obviously, it was giving the thing that I wanted my son to have. But it really got me to a point where I remember I sat there at night with him in my arms, a bottle in one hand, breast pump in the other hand. The noise of the pump was just excruciating. I hated it, and I kept going, just because I had told myself, that’s what a good mother would do. 

Then we moved to Mauritius. He was about one year old. I started work, and there was a lot of adjustment to be done, you know, getting used to new environment, new work, new everything, obviously moving country. And, yeah, I mean, it was, it was, I was doing okay. But I think years went on really fast without me ever taking a look at my life, at what I was doing, and just really being, you know that mom that was 200% dedicated to her family, and forgetting everything else, forgetting the person that I am, besides being a mom, and that’s why I love the conversation with Dr Gertrude Lyons, and I love her book title, Rewrite The Mother Code. 

And I actually have a motherhood Studies Certificate, because I’m incredibly passionate about this topic, and I also experienced that a lot of the motherhood stories and social conditioning that I had internalized replayed in my business and entrepreneurs journey and where, for our a big reason why I started Peaceful Productivity because I was repeating very similar patterns that I’ve had experienced in motherhood. I repeated them in my work life as well. While I wanted to be a perfect mother, I also wanted to be a perfect employee at that point in time and a perfect entrepreneur. But then what happened and self-care for the longest time was something that I thought was selfish, that was indulging, and I just didn’t have time for it. That was no priority for me. So I obviously ended up burned out, resenting a lot of things in my life, and I truly think when we prioritize self-care, we have a better chance not to get to that point. 

And so I’ll share with you now what Dr Gertrude Lyons has to say about self-care and why it’s very important, why it helps us to I think, build resilience and really do better in life and in our business. So let’s hear it.

DR GERTRUDE LYONS

And you know, if I’m contacting a mom and we’re just getting started, one of the first things I asked, “if you had a magic wand to get anything out of this session, what would it be”? It gets us thinking, and what I’m want to lead them towards is creating a vision for themselves as a mother. That’s something that doesn’t have to take a lot of time, but like, if I really start thinking about, like, what do I even imagine could be in a if it were nourishing, if I were getting all the support that was possible and available to me if I were to be that I learn and grow in this, or I discover more about myself as I’m, you know, just as I’m raising my children. Like, those are the kinds of things, you know that. 

And sometimes it comes out, you know, in a conversation of like, oh, you know, I’m exhausted, or I don’t have this. I don’t have that. It’s like, well, then your vision would be, you know, I tend to myself in such a way that my energy continually increases. Or, you know, I get to know myself in a way that I know what my what I need, and then I ask for it. So this crafting of a vision is something I think that doesn’t necessarily get enough air time. We all just want that thing to do. You know, as women like we have to act like more, to like some of the being right and the non doing, and honor it in such a way. 

So when you have a vision, then you can set goals like, you know, I want to depending on, you know, where you’re at in your journey, like, you know, maybe you’re a full-time mom now, but eventually, I want to have a career at some point in there, just some of the choices that you’re making around it, you start out of that vision, some goals will emerge. So that’s like a super key thing that I always wanted to get and we started with and then from there, we can see where some of the gaps are, and we can see what then I’ll ask them to start identifying what beliefs, mistaken beliefs, do you have that get in the way? So well, it’s in, you know, it’s either in my culture or, you know, I what not – that’s selfish to do that. I It’s narcissistic. I mean, you know, we’ve turned just general, like, care into, you know, like, horrible thing, and that’s not the case, right? The better shape we’re in, the better shape the whole family’s in. I always like to use the metaphor of a tree, you know. And I think about us and doing some of these things that we’re going to talk about, and we’re the core of the tree, right? So taking care of myself, that core of the tree, it being the strongest, is most important, you know, and then your relationship, and then the children you know are kind of out here. And some people, oh my gosh, no, like, you know, they’re the most important. But you know that strong core means the difference of that with, you know, withstanding storms, withstanding wind, you know, it can flex, it can flow, but not break. And, and that’s, I think, where, you know, a lot of us can run into, it’s like, we’re just give and give and give saying, like, you hit a point as super mom, and probably we’re getting a lot of acknowledgement in a certain way. So that can work to an expense, until you start looking inward and like, either lost it or all the affirmation in the world is going to tend to that. 

So, you know, I like to have us, you know, think about anything that we’re doing in that regard, it’s like building that a strong core of that tree. So vision, identified, inventory, mistake and beliefs start, you know, formulating more empowering beliefs. And then, you know, kind of, from there, it’s, it’s a little individual is, you know, maybe underlining some of what you know, we’ve said, but to expand on it, Maybe a little bit more is, it’s allowing our caring that we have, you know, so innately and naturally, to apply to ourselves. And that, that journey of breaking the beliefs and the myths and anything that does disempower us from that, certainly, you know, most, primarily, you know, supports us, which goes up into our relationship with our partners or spouses, and then our kids. But I think ultimately, it’s this is kind of our job as women for the world, right? The world absolutely needs more mothering, and if we don’t value that aspect, who’s going to, right? And so not to make it heavy, but I think it’s also kind of empowering and cool to think like, you know, I want to help the world. I want it to be a better place. Well, taking care of myself and doing this hard work, as as you underline, is is doing a huge part and making a huge difference, you know, on a really big scale. I think when we hold that, it’s incredibly empowering. 

ANNE RAJOO

So as we wrap up this episode of my peaceful productivity part, I would want to leave you with a couple more tangible tips how to make self-care happen in your busy life. So taking time for intentional recharging isn’t just a luxury, it’s essential. I hope you got that; if you didn’t take anything else away from this episode, please take away that it is essential. But recharging doesn’t need to mean spa days and long baths and whatever else it could be. It really could look anything you wanted to look, and that could be long, lavish, or just really simple. And really the essence there is that you’ve got to choose what energizes you. And for me, that’s, for example, having creative outlets, and it means taking a quiet morning walk without my phone, just me and my dog and my thoughts. Doing my exercise and slowly returning to my exercise. I’ll probably share that in another episode. I used to be very, very sporty, and because of motherhood, I pretty much stopped. And it’s only now after nine or 10 years, that I’m getting back into it, and it’s been an interesting journey. And I think I’ll share that one day. But I’m all for active recovery, so it doesn’t have to be doing nothing or definitely not self-care in terms of sitting in front of the TV or scrolling social media. I don’t think that is a good form of self care, but it’s for me, it’s a lot about active recoveries, taking breaks that really energize you. And it’s not just a pause for the sake of a pause. It allows you to show up fully in other areas of your life. It allows you to be more productive. So, if you’re ready to explore more about a more balanced and fulfilling approach to productivity. I would encourage you to download my Wheel of 

Peaceful Productivity. It’s a tool that dives into eight dimensions that shape a holistic and sustainable work life harmony and each section of this wheel is designed to guide you towards managing your overwhelm and especially navigating multiple roles that you’re playing in your life, be it professionally or as a mother or a wife or any other roles that you are having in your life. And it’s about optimizing these areas so that the wheel works in harmony and efficiently. You’ll find the link to the Wheel of Peaceful Productivity in the show notes. Just click on it and download it. 

And of course, as always, please help spread the word about Peaceful Productivity. Help other women to find this podcast by leaving a review, give it a rating, share it with a friend. And just let’s get the message out there that productivity doesn’t have to be grind and hustle and more. It can be peaceful, calming and joyful. 

And next week, in the next episode, I’ll be talking to Erica Diamond, and we’ll continue the conversation about rest and self-care as a key ingredient to sustain performance. So come back next week, and let’s just cover Erica’s five pillars of well-being, nutrition, sleep, physical activity, stress management and social connections. Stay tuned and be peacefully productive. Catch you next time.