Welcome to 'Lupus Life Podcast', your congenial guide to physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being with lupus. In today's episode, I, Cory Hollingsworth, a spiritual advisor and meditation facilitator, discuss the importance of nurturing oneself through simple everyday practices. With the experience of managing systemic lupus erythematosus personally, I stress here the significance of treating yourself kindly each day.
This podcast will shed light on ways to bring self-love into your daily routine. Firstly, I discuss the physical aspect of self-love, sharing personal tips including regular walks, eating well and ensuring ample rest. Then, moving on to mental care, I deliberate on maintaining brain stimulation through reading, learning new tasks and keeping abreast with different topics, acknowledging the unique challenges of those living with lupus.
Subsequently, the episode explores the emotional aspect of self-care, indicating healthy emotional releases, such as journaling, finding laughter, expressing emotions, and not hesitating to shed tears when needed. Lastly, we dive into the spiritual dimension, emphasizing the role of personal meditation, prayer, and simply breathing exercises in establishing a profound connection with your soul and spirit.
This episode serves as an inspirational guide to striking a balance in your well-being, motivating you to be gentle, compassionate, and happy with yourself, no matter what day it is. So tune in to learn more about self-care strategies and remember, taking care of you is the first step to a happy, fulfilled life with lupus.
Cory's Website:
https://coryhollingsworth.wixsite.com/coryhollingsworth
Disclaimer: Cory is not a physician or medical professional. Please consult your medical professional prior to making any changes to your health or well-being.
"Little Lupus Spirit" Book by Cory Hollingsworth: https://coryhollingsworth.wixsite.com/coryhollingsworth/lupus-spirit-book
"Reconnecting With Your True Self.." Book by Cory Hollingsworth
Reconnecting with Your TRUE Self: Easy and To-the-Point Guidance for Remembering Your Connection with Your Spirit: Hollingsworth, Ms. Cory: 9781493581474: Amazon.com: Books
"The Lupus Book: A Guide for Patients and Their Families" by Daniel J. Wallace, MD:
The Lupus Book: A Guide for Patients and Their Families: 9780190876203: Medicine & Health Science Books @ Amazon.com
Lupus and SUGAR and Inflammation
https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/12/4/1094
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who lives with and manages systemic lupus erythematosus, also known as lupus.
The purpose of Lupus Life podcast is to offer firsthand easy and simple ways
(00:22):
to manage the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual aspects of lupus.
Today's topic is be nice to yourself each day.
I will be talking about physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual aspects of
being nice or kind to oneself.
And you can take these individually or you can do all of them in one day.
(00:48):
There's no real formula for this. The real purpose is to make sure that you're
at least being nice to yourself once a day on some level of your being.
So the first part of this is the physical aspect.
And I'm just going to give some examples that I personally use for how I try
(01:10):
to be nice to myself physically.
And one of the ways that I do this is I walk every single day.
And so I know that if you've listened to me and this podcast long enough,
you know that I'm a huge advocate of movement and especially walking because
(01:31):
walking is very basic and And it doesn't require a whole lot of equipment and
it doesn't require a whole lot of time.
It's just something that our bodies naturally do.
So I'm kind of myself when I walk every day.
And another thing I do for my physical well-being is I try to eat well.
And I actually follow a specific way of eating that's more like a lifestyle
(01:57):
that I will talk about in a future podcast episode.
I don't want to talk about it now because it's something that requires a little
bit more detail than I can do in an episode that's about being kind to oneself.
Something else that I really like to do that's nice for myself physically is I rest.
I make sure that my body gets enough rest, gets enough sleep.
(02:21):
Sleep, and I know this can be tricky for a lot of us, but I am someone who is
an advocate of having the same bedtime every night and having the same wake-up time every morning.
Do I follow this every single day?
No, not really. I do it during the weekdays when I have work,
but on the weekends, last night, I know I stayed up a little bit later than
(02:44):
I normally do, and I woke up a.
Movement, eating well, getting enough rest and sleep, those are ways that I
physically take care of myself and show my being that I'm being nice to myself.
(03:05):
Mentally, this can be pretty much anything that gets your brain stimulated.
So for me, it's about doing something that feeds my brain.
So I know I've mentioned in previous podcasts, I'm an avid reader.
So for me, that's how I keep my brain going.
And I try to, every once in a while, throw in something that's new to me,
(03:27):
a new topic in science or a new topic that's happening politically or socially
in the world. And so just trying to keep the brain going.
And I know for those of us who live with lupus, this can sometimes be tricky
because we can be in a fog.
And especially if we're in a flare, we're in a fog.
(03:49):
But when we're not in a fog due to lupus flares, try to make sure that you're
doing things that are mentally stimulating.
Stimulating I also tend to watch documentaries about pretty much every topic on the planet.
And then also I every once
in a while I try to learn a new task or I try to reinforce a task that I know
(04:12):
how to do but I haven't done for a while so recently I was considering taking
a trip that would require me to potentially put snow chains on my car tires and so I had to go out
into the garage and get my snow tires or get my snow chains out and remember
how to put chains on my tires.
(04:32):
So even though it's something that I already know how to do,
it's not something I do often enough where it's in the forefront of my brain.
So when I say learn a new task, it doesn't necessarily mean go out and learn
how to, you know, reinstall the carburetor on your car.
It's more just taking a task that maybe you haven't done for a while and refreshing
(04:54):
your brain and your memory, having some mental stimulation.
The next aspect is emotional. I know that I've mentioned in the past keeping a journal.
I am a huge advocate of keeping a journal daily or every other day at least for me.
Not everybody's cup of tea, but emotionally, it's a good release to be able
(05:16):
to write things down that have emotional aspects to them.
And something else I try to do is make sure I find ways to laugh.
I know that I have a podcast episode about laughter and having friends and family
who instill that sense of fun and joy and laughter in your life.
(05:38):
I also watch movies. If I have a day when I feel like I haven't laughed and
I feel like I need to laugh,
there's these wonderful streaming things that I just love that I can pick the
comedy genre and find something funny to watch.
So make sure that you're taking care of your emotional well-being.
(06:00):
That is another way to be nice to yourself each day.
The other part of that emotionally is finding ways to cry.
I know that a lot of us think, oh, you're only taking care of yourself if you
laugh, and that's not true.
Sometimes we genuinely need to cry, and it's okay. hey, that's part of self-care.
(06:20):
Crying is part of self-care as well. Pretty much any emotion that we express
openly, freely, and with our hearts is self-care.
So make sure you're taking care of your emotional well-being because that's
a way to keep yourself in a state of being nice to yourself.
Spiritually is the next aspect. So we've covered physical, mental,
(06:44):
emotional, And spiritual is something that is personal for everyone.
And since I'm a spiritual advisor and meditation facilitator,
I take care of myself by meditation and prayer.
I do attend church every week, so I do have a disciplined practice of sustaining
(07:05):
prayer in my routine every day.
And meditation is probably every couple of days or when I feel like I just need to calm down.
And the other part of this spiritually is just the act of breathing.
If you can find a good app, I have Fitbit and I have Calm, the free version of Calm.
(07:26):
And just plenty of things exist online for just even something as simple as
box breathing or just calming noise sounds and just taking a moment to just
connect with your breathing.
That is a way to connect with your spirit because you're calming your body down,
(07:46):
you're calming your mind down, you're calming your emotions down,
and you're just able to just connect with your soul and your spirit.
I would like to add to this that having a practice of hope and faith—I do have
a podcast episode about faith,
and I'm not talking about religion necessarily—just having a faith in something,
(08:10):
believing in something, whatever that is for you, and having a sense of comfort
and peace in that belief and in that faith is how we take care of ourselves
spiritually spiritually, and how we are able to be nice to ourselves.
I hope these recommendations inspire you to take care of yourself and be nice to yourself every day.
(08:32):
And again, you don't have to be nice to yourself every day physically,
mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.
You can break it up. It's just on some days you might feel like,
wow, I really need to be gentle and kind with myself emotionally,
or I need to be mindful and gentle and compassionate with myself spiritually or physically,
just make sure that whatever you're
(08:53):
doing, it's very centered toward your well-being and your happiness.
Be gentle and be happy with yourself.
I hope these recommendations help you. Thank you for joining me today.
As a reminder, I have two books on Amazon.
The first one is Little Loop of Spirit Book, and the second one is Reconnecting with Your True self.
(09:17):
I can be reached on my website, corihollingsworth.wixsite.com.
I look forward to connecting with you again next week.
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Have a beautiful day and have a beautiful week.