The Oxygen Mask Effect

Episode 8 Chatting with Chauntae Hollins.mp3

Hello, and welcome to The Oxygen Mask Effect. I am excited to be joined by my first guest, Chauntae Hollins. She is the founder of Chauntology Speaks LLC. She is a motivational speaker and a coach with multiple certifications. She is on her way to becoming a certified master life coach. We will get into that in a little bit. But she she has said that she helps women develop an awareness of their personal identity, so they can achieve success in every aspect of their lives. And we're going to go into a little bit more on how she does that in a little while. But I want to learn more about Chauntae as a person before we get into Chauntae as a coach, In order to understand one,you need to know the other.I hope you've enjoyed this episode of The Oxygen Mask Effect. I hope you've learned some tips and tricks on creating your own self care habits and routines. And for more information, follow me on the oxygen mask effect dot com. Subscribe to my channel, review the episodes and I look forward to seeing them reach out to me and join my facebook group, The Oxygen Mask Effect or reach out to me on Facebook at Alison Swerdloff and on Instagram at Alison Swerdloff. Also, feel free to find out to contact me for more information about my free self care workshop. I look forward to speaking with you soon.

Episode 7 Introducing Alison and How The Oxygen Mask Effect Came to Be

Welcome to today's episode of The Oxygen Mask Effect. I'm Alison Swerdloff, your host and wanted to introduce myself. Not all of you know who I am or how The Oxygen Mask effect came about. And I wanted to explain, explain that introduce myself. Let you know why I am doing this program and why I feel it's important. As I mentioned, my name is Alison Swerdloff. I am a recovering people pleaser, as I like to say, and I have I have a number of years ago, I realized something wasn't right in my life.
To backup, I was raised by a single mother for my teen years after my parents divorced when I was about 11 or 12 years old. And we lived in a couple of different places. We moved back to live near family when I was 12. I started school in Brooklyn, New York, and basically lived in New York most of my life. I met my husband at the age of 20, married him at 22. And this is just background. Happily married, but things happened that might not have been the way I would have liked. But six years later, we had our first child. My children, just so you know, are two of the most important things in my life. But it wasn't, I mean, parenthood is never the easiest. But it was also a little more challenging because my daughter at the age of a year old developed multiple food allergies. So I spent a lot of time learning how to take care of her, how to take care of her allergies, how to help her live a normal life even with them. Over the years. She thinks goodness has outgrown them. But in second grade was diagnosed with ADHD, which can be a challenge for anybody in any family. So I had to learn all about ADHD and how to deal and how to handle it, how to help her through it and how to advocate for her. At five years after my daughter was born, I had my son, he developed bronchiolitis at four months old he was a preemie. So he his lungs weren't fully developed, he was diagnosed with bronchiolitis at four months old. By the time he was 16 months, he was already diagnosed with asthma. So being a premie, he had a little bit of issues growing up to begin with less than a year old was diagnosed with a potentially life threatening peanut allergy. He was on the highest potential possible level to the point that the allergist said we will never be putting a protein near his mouth. He will only get tested via blood tests. And with his blood tests, he was always in the very highly allergic category, not a potential not even a potential for doing a challenge test. Fast forward, I was the parent who did it all. I stayed working locally, instead of working in the city where I could have been earning more, and in supporting helping out more with the family financially. But my husband said one of us needs to be local and close by just in case the kids need us. So I'm the one who did it. I worked full time. I was the one who got the kids ready for school. I was there when they got home or they went to an after school program or at some point we had a babysitter. But I was the one who did all of their sports activities. I did all of their community activities, doctor's appointments. I was the caregiver. I was the mother who did it all. I was the parent that the doctors knew. And we had experienced a lot of things in our lives. I and you know, unfortunately, two of my brothers-in-law passed away. The first one when my daughter was in fourth grade, second one a year and a half later, a year and a half after that my father passed away in December of 2008, two months before my daughter's Bat Mitzvah in March of 2009. My grandmother passed away in December of 2009. And my mother, after being diagnosed with lung, liver cancer, and metastasized to the brain, after 20 months, passed away in December of 2010. So needless to say, December is a tough month.
Now, a couple months after my mother passed away, and I'm not saying for any other reason, but to explain who I am and why I'm doing what I'm doing. A couple of months after my mother passed away, in February of 2011, I woke up one day and said, something's not right. I don't know who I am. I'm not happy. I don't know what's going on. I need to figure out who I am and where I fit in. And I said this to my husband. I started researching, I started looking at things. I started going to book groups and crafting groups because I'm a crafter and I'm an avid book reader. I couldn't figure out who I was. They didn't really help. I needed to find a place I belonged. I needed to find my tribe. But I also realized during this time, I started doing a journey of self discovery. And it's still ongoing 10 years later. But through this journey, I realized, up until now, I had been what everybody else wanted me to be. I was a wife, I was a mother. I was a caregiver. As my grandparents were getting older, we a bunch of us split it, you know, shifted my mother, my uncles, my cousin, my sister and I we all were caregivers to our, to our grandparents. With my sister and brother in law was a caregiver to my mother. I was also a caregiver to both of my children with between the life threatening food allergies, the asthma, the ADHD. And at the end of 2012, my son was also diagnosed with ulcerative colitis. So my husband and I were dealing with that, as well. So my life centered around my family centered around my community. I was part of the school PTA, I was a class parent for both of my children. I was the one who took them who went to all of their school activities. I did all of their school meetings. I was the intermediary if there was an issue, I was the advocate for their health and everything for my son's peanut allergies and asthma. And for him to get the care he needed in school, for him to get the speech therapy, for my daughter to get the support she needed with her ADHD, so the teachers understood what she needed. I was also part of my synagogue board, I was involved with that I was PTA president for the synagogue, on multiple committees and was very active. I was involved in that. I was also a scout leader for both of my children. That's eight years of scout leading for two children over the course of time. And at one point there was even an overlap. I was doing both of them at the same time. So this is who I was, but I realized something was missing. Because I was doing for everybody and my health suffered. I was diagnosed with severe high blood pressure, at least 15 years ago, actually, yeah, probably about 15 years ago, maybe a little bit more and was told basically, tell your husband and children that if your blood pressure doesn't go down, you could die. That was the severity of my blood pressure. And as I said, I was working full time, I was taking care of the kids, taking care of the house.
And my husband was starting to be a little bit verbally abusive, and a little bit emotionally abusive. And I'm not going to say he's totally at fault. But when I brought it up to him, he wasn't able to fully ease out of it. He thought about it when he was thinking about it, it was fine. But within a couple of months he would revert back. He would make negative comments behind my back or in front of me to family and friends. He argued before he thought and then afterwards would backtrack and say well, maybe this, but I would ask a question automatically I would get shot down. So it was challenging. It became got to a point that I didn't know where I was anymore, where I fit in. I spent over a year finding my tribe. Getting out of the house. I met a group of people with similar interests, similar thought processes. And I realized this is where I fit in, because they didn't know me, as a wife, as a mother, as a community leader, as a this as of that, they got to know me, they got to know the real Alison. And I realized, that's where I fit in. Because I started being invited to people's houses. I started being invited out to dinner. When my kids were younger, I wasn't able to go out with the other mothers. I didn't have the closeness of the friendships with the other parents that other mothers and families did. Because my husband didn't want me going out. He didn't want me paying for a babysitter, for even an hour, so I could go out with the other girls, I was invited out. There were school events that I wanted to attend. But if he couldn't get home early enough, I wasn't able to because I couldn't pay for a babysitter. I might have had closer connections, I might have been closer with some of the mothers. I might not have needed to look outside. But I wasn't feeling like I fit in. Because I didn't have the connections, I wasn't able to go out socially with people as much. So finding people who were my tribe was great. It made my life a lot easier because I had people who liked me and wanted to spend time with me.
If I there was a point, probably about seven years ago, maybe six, maybe eight years ago that my daughter common good mom, you have a better social life than I do. And I think she was a senior in high school at the time. You know, it's like when your high school senior is telling you, you have a better social life than she does,there's a little issue there. But for the first time in my life, I was having a social life. So I realized I needed to find who I was. Once I found who I was, I realized who I didn't want to be anymore. And during that time I ended up about a year and a half later, unfortunately, just about the time my son was diagnosed with his chronic health issues. My husband and I decided to separate. We ended up living together for another year almost, because at that point, we were just before Hurricane Sandy. And we're dealing with my son's health issues. I hadn't really separated at that point, we were still living together, we were just starting to discuss that. Hurricane Sandy had arrived, literally two days after my son's diagnosis, official diagnosis. And we were on Long Island, so we got hit pretty bad, to the point that we had over five feet of water in our basement for over, for almost a week. And we were dealing with my son's new diagnosis, not sure how to handle it, not sure how to take care of him or what we needed to do. And he was sick, he really couldn't do anything. And I had recently lost my job. I had lost my job about a year before, you know, so there was a lot going on. I was trying to start a business at that point. Wrong place, wrong time, wrong business. And I realized I needed to spend time with him. So I could I took care of the house. So I was still handling a lot of things for the house, even though I knew I wasn't going to be living in it. Um, I was still the primary caregiver, especially since I was not working. I mean, I was trying to build a business but I wasn't working. So I was still the primary caregiver for my children. I was there for them, drove them to and from wherever we were living to school, when school reopened, and we rebuilt the house. And that's when the separation really hit. And we started working through this and created the Separation Agreement. But most of my life was around the kids. And even though yes, I had a social life, I was finally having a life of my own. But I still did everything for them. And I was still figuring out who I was. And that's never gonna end. They're still my children. They always will be. They're young adults now. And I realized a lot of other women don't know who they are, especially women. I'm not saying men to, but especially women. We are the caregivers. We are the people pleasers. Everybody asks you to do this, you do that, you get involved in community activities. It's yes, yes, yes. But how many times have you wanted to say no. And part of my learning process was learning to say no. And realizing, saying no. Excuse me, saying no isn't That's selfish. Saying no to somebody else or to something else that doesn't serve is saying yes to myself. And I realized, women in general, in particular, are taught, don't make waves don't cause problems being meek. I was meek in my marriage for over 20 years. After my separation, so many people who knew me before, said, You are a different person. It's like you've become the person you're supposed to be, but you weren't able to be. And you know what? That's huge. When people who knew me say that. They knew me in my marriage, they knew me for 20/15 years in my marriage. And they're telling me that I became the person I should be or should have been. But I was living in his shadow, I was letting him control everything I did. Not living my life. In the end of 2017, I realized I needed to help others. So I started taking coaching trainings, I've become a certified virtual coach through Eben Pagan training, or coaching. And I also earned my certification as a Canfield Success Trainer of the Success Principles. So I was certified through Jack Canfield, the creator of Chicken Soup for the Soul. And I'm going to tell you, his training is amazing. In 2018, I started figuring out trying to figure out how I can help other people. It has been a long haul. I've tried doing things over the years. And in the last year, The Oxygen Mask Effect was born. I'm not going to take credit for the name, I didn't name it, somebody in one of my coaching groups did, but I'm glad she did, because it's perfect. Basically, I realized, I want to help others learn to create self care habits. What is self care, it's not selfish, it's doing for you before you do for others. You can't take care of yourself if you have an empty cup. So my goal is to help you get there. And I'm about total wellness. So we'll have conversations with people in so many different areas of interest. But it all revolves around taking care of you. When I say total wellness, I mean emotional, physical, health, body, spiritual and sexual wellness. So total wellness, it's not just taking care of one aspect. It's not just saying no, although believe me thing, saying no, it's so empowering. But it's realizing you are an amazing person. You are top priority, you are most important. We say yes to so many other people. We should be starting to say yes to ourselves and no to so many other aspects. Someone asks you to join a committee? Is it a committee that really serves you? Is it something that will benefit you, or just take energy from you and benefit somebody else? Saying no is not selfish? Saying yes to something that doesn't serve you is. Through The Oxygen Mask fEfect podcast, through my facebook group, The Oxygen Mask Effect, through my coaching program, also called The Oxygen Mask Effect. I want to help other women learn and realize saying nose not selfish. Self care is top priority. Learn to create your own self care habits. That's where you're going to thrive. Untill you set up the habits that work best for you. And self care is not universal. But I do for self care is not the same of what you do for self care. It is very personal. And together we'll figure out what your personal self care routine and self care habits are. I'm looking forward to speaking with everybody more. I hope this helps you figure out who I am and learn who I am and why I'm doing this why The Oxygen Mask Effect podcast has come out. And I look forward to seeing you and speaking with you on the next podcast. Stay tuned for more wonderful interviews, you'll interview uh, you'll hear the full interviews with the people that you've seen that you've already heard from, as well as a lot of new interviews as well. I have some great people lined up and I'm looking forward to sharing them with you. Over the course of time I will also be interspersing more just of me about different topics. You can follow me at the oxygen mask effect dot comm, website due to come up to be published shortly, you can follow me on Facebook or join my group the oxygen mask effect on Facebook, I am on Instagram, I'm on all social media. Also sign up for my free workshop September 18. I am doing a free self care workshop for two hours, feel free to sign up. I will be posting the link in the show notes. And I am looking forward to seeing you on the next episode.I hope you've enjoyed this episode of The Oxygen Mask Effect. I hope you've learned some tips and tricks on creating your own self care habits and routines. And for more information, follow me on the oxygen mask effect dot com. Subscribe to my channel, review the episodes and I look forward to seeing them reach out to me and join my facebook group, The Oxygen Mask Effect or reach out to me on Facebook at Alison Swerdloff and on Instagram at Alison Swerdloff. Also, feel free to find out to contact me for more information about my free self care workshop. I look forward to speaking with you soon.

Episode 6 Talking Self Care with Lily Nicholson.mp3

Alison Swerdloff: Welcome back to another episode of The Oxygen Mask Effect. Today I am joined by Lily Nava-Nicholson, who is an intuitive life and success coach, author, book writing coach, branding strategist and visual artist. She has spent decades as a paralegal and visual artist, which are, of course polar opposites, before venturing into the wilds of nonfiction writing, intuitive life and success business coaching, branding strategies and intuitive art readings. She is an author of her first book, the Rediscover Your Magic, how to energetically align your path and calling to bring your ideas to life. And I'm looking to find out more about that in a future episode. But for today, Lily, thank you so much for joining me.
Lily Nicholson: Thank you for having me, Allison.
Alison: And we've had a chance to speak previously. And I know, there's so much more to you than this. But I have a question about self care, since it goes along with what the oxygen mask effect is. Now, what is one tip you would like to give to entrepreneurial women about adding self care into their busy lives?
Lily: Absolutely. Great question for me, Alison. Thank you. Um, you know, with me, Alison, everything's about energetic alignment in my coaching practice and in life. And really, in any situation, you find yourself. I can tell you what I do for myself, and what I tell my clients, energetically align yourself is part of self care. And the way you can do that is in you, this is speaking to new entrepreneurs, I believe. So what I do is set up my environment for success and relaxation. And it would invoke a feeling of grounding, even while you're working as a new entrepreneur. Like for instance, and I talk about this in my book where you can pull in colors of gemstones, essential oils, lighting, you know, scarves of different colors. On Amazon, you can get these beautiful scarves that you can just put on the window and kind of accent. It's really just pulling in things to create a beautiful space for yourself to live, work and play in. Because I saw I know for myself, I have my own office. It's an extra bedroom in our home. And that's what I do. I've pulled all this I've pulled all the stops in here. And I love being up here. I mean, my husband has to come and come and kidnap me out of here. I don't want to leave. It's just I feel so good in here. So hopefully that answers that question.
Alison: It does. Now I see some of the other things you have in your background. You have a salt lamp, I see.
Lily: Yes, yes, I have a Himalayan salt lamp. I have my lucky bamboo. I have gemstones. And a lot of the things on my channel I'll put my abundance little table there. It's things that were gifted to me. Stones, carvings, and you can't see it. But on my window, I have little unicorns, Amethyst stones, and I've just kind of surrounded myself, some of my art is up there. My beautiful mermaids up there. It's just I make it my, I put it this way, for any on any female entrepreneur, make it your happy space because one you're living in it. And this is the place from where you project your expertise, where you're helping your clients. You're bringing them into this space. So you've really got it you know, it's really kind of loving on them. You're really loving on them when you're empowering this to them. So that's what I tell my clients and whenever I want what I want from me, I want for them.
That's wonderful. And it's true, you have to have a space that you feel comfortable in. And that allows you to move, to grow and progress.
Alison: Thank you for that. Very different than some of the other comments I've received. So it's wonderful to hear that. Now, for anybody listening, if they wanted to reach out to you, how would they do so?
Lily: The best place is my website, and that would be the pathfindercode.com. And just put that www in front of it and you will get a hold of me.
Alison: Awesome. Thank you again for joining me and for anyone listening. Stay tuned, keep an eye out because Lily's full interview will be popping up on this, on my podcasts very, very soon.
Conclusion: I hope you've enjoyed this episode of The Oxygen Mask Effect. I hope you've learned some tips and tricks on creating your own self care habits and routines. And for more information, follow me on theoxygenmaskeffect.com. Subscribe to my channel, review the episodes and I look forward to seeing them. Reach out to me and join my facebook group The Oxygen Mask Effect or reach out to me on Facebook at Alison Swerdloff and on Instagram at Alison Swerdloff. Also, feel free to find out to contact me for more information about my free self care workshop. I look forward to speaking with you soonI hope you've enjoyed this episode of The Oxygen Mask Effect. I hope you've learned some tips and tricks on creating your own self care habits and routines. And for more information, follow me on the oxygen mask effect dot com. Subscribe to my channel, review the episodes and I look forward to seeing them reach out to me and join my facebook group, The Oxygen Mask Effect or reach out to me on Facebook at Alison Swerdloff and on Instagram at Alison Swerdloff. Also, feel free to find out to contact me for more information about my free self care workshop. I look forward to speaking with you soon.

Episode 5 Talking Self Care with Yong Pratt.mp3

Introduction: Have you ever woken up one day and looked back at your life and realized you've spent your whole life taking care of others? You are a caregiver to your parents, your children, you work full time or you are an entrepreneur and run your own business. But how many hours are you working? Are you saying yes to every activity in the community and stead of saying no when you wish to have when was the last time you were on an airplane? What is one of the first things they discussed in the safety proceedings? In the case of an emergency and ask an oxygen mask will fall from the ceiling, make sure to put yours on first, so you can then take care of others. It's the same thing in life as it is on an airplane. You have to put your oxygen mask on first. Listen along, as I'll tell you my story of self discovery, how I got to where I am today how I learned to put my own oxygen mask on first. I'll also interview other successful entrepreneurs or successful business people who are doing the same thing. They've learned to say no and yes to themselves, learn their tips and tricks, and I look forward to seeing you.
Alison: Welcome back to The Oxygen Mask Effect. Today, I'm excited to be sitting here with Yong Pratt. She is a sought after content creation and repurposing strategist, aka content gold miner, who has taught 1000s to simplify and reimagine their content through her top rated Apple marketing podcasts Amplify Your Awesome as well as her online courses. A former professional dancer, and performing arts studio owner Yong combines her love of video and podcasting, along with systems automation and Human Design, to help coaches and course creators mine for the gold within their content. She lives and creates at the base of the beautiful Ruby Mountains in Spring Creek, Nevada with her husband, two teenage daughters, and many furbabies and feathered friends Yong, thank you for joining me today.
Yong: Oh, it's so great to be here. Thank you for inviting me.
Alison: Now, I have a simple question that's really isn't so simple. Because we all know, we're women. This doesn't happen easily. What is one tip you would give to entrepreneurial women about adding self care into their daily lives?
Yong: This is such a great question. And I can go so many different ways because I've kind of run the gamut, myself of self care and lack of self care and repercussions of lack of self care. So I guess if there's one piece of advice would be this. When we think about our days, and we think about our families, we need to first think about our intention, what is the intention we want to have with the people in our lives? From there, we need to kind of backtrack and say, Okay, how do I show up as that person with that intention to carry it out. Because if we don't first think about the outcome we want to have, feeling great, being able to take care of ourselves, or family having the energy, we really need to think about that end result. So it's kind of a backwards process for me, I want to always be thinking forward about who do I want to be? How do I care for myself in such a way that I can actually show up as that person?
Alison: Hmm, that makes a lot of sense. But how would you tell somebody how to go about doing that?
Yong: Again, another great question. It really is about being intentional with our lives. I mean, if you're going through a period of time where you're not feeling great, and you know, you need to add self care, it's really a matter of looking at the calendar, looking at your priorities and saying, Okay, how do I get to that place, I need to go for walks, I need to find something in my life, to tap back into me, without anybody else, finding who you are, the joys that you have, the passions you have, getting back in touch with that is going to help tremendously in being able to show up as the person you want to be. I know we all have days where everything kind of just feels like it's getting stacked against us. And in those moments, we have to kind of take a breath, breathe, remove ourselves from situation, get grounded with ourselves. And for me that looks like going outside walking in the grass barefooted, taking the dogs for a walk. Just being outdoors and disconnecting from everything allows me to think about who I want to be when I get back from that little excursion or those little micro breaks during the day. Because I want to be able to show up as my as the best version of me. I'm not able to do that, however, if I have not recently heard and gotten back in touch with who I am as a person, and what I need to do in order to show up for the other people in my life.
Alison: That makes a lot of sense. And thank you for that little tip and I hope that our listeners will get some good advice from there and hopefully take advantage of it. Stay tuned, keep an eye out Yong's full interview. You just got a little tidbit right now, but her full interview about content creation and how she is a content gold miner, and how she incorporates self care into her daily life as well as running her successful business is coming up in the next couple of weeks. So stay tuned for that. And we look forward to seeing you on future episodes.
Conclusion: I hope you've enjoyed this episode of The Oxygen Mask Effect. I hope you've learned some tips and tricks on creating your own self care habits and routines. And for more information, follow me at theoxygenmaskeffect.com Subscribe to my channel, review the episodes and I look forward to seeing them. Reach out to me and join my facebook group The Oxygen Mask Effect or reach out to me on Facebook at Alison Swerdloff and on in at Alison Swerdloff. Also, feel free to find out to contact me for more information about my free self care workshop. I look forward to speaking with you soonI hope you've enjoyed this episode of The Oxygen Mask Effect. I hope you've learned some tips and tricks on creating your own self care habits and routines. And for more information, follow me on the oxygen mask effect dot com. Subscribe to my channel, review the episodes and I look forward to seeing them reach out to me and join my facebook group, The Oxygen Mask Effect or reach out to me on Facebook at Alison Swerdloff and on Instagram at Alison Swerdloff. Also, feel free to find out to contact me for more information about my free self care workshop. I look forward to speaking with you soon.

Episode 4 Talking Self Care with Stephanie Hyde.mp3

Introduction: Have you ever woken up one day and looked back at your life and realized you've spent your whole life taking care of others? You are a caregiver to your parents, your children, you work full time or you are an entrepreneur and run your own business. But how many hours are you working? Are you saying yes to every activity in the community instead of saying no when you wish to? When was the last time you were on an airplane? What is one of the first things they discuss in the safety proceedings? In the case of an emergency and ask an oxygen mask will fall from the ceiling, make sure to put yours on first, so you can then take care of others. It's the same thing in life as it is on an airplane. You have to put your oxygen mask on first. Listen along, as I'll tell you my story of self discovery, how I got to where I am today, how I learned to put my own oxygen mask on first. I'll also interview other successful entrepreneurs or successful business people who are doing the same thing. They've learned to say no and yes to themselves, learn their tips and tricks. And I look forward to seeing you.
Alison Swerdloff: Welcome to The Oxygen Mask Effect. Today, I'm excited to be joined by Stephanie Hyde, who is a Jack Canfield, certified coach of the Success Principles. She is the founder of the Facebook community Reclaim Your Path and Power for Women over 40. She helps women who have compromised their own happiness to make sure everyone else was happy to get unstuck, clear on their path and ready for their next adventure. She understands how hard it can be for women to do it all. She is on a mission to help women connect and support each other. Stephanie has had her share of bullying from women and wants to help women connect, support and lift each other because she believes together we are stronger. Stephanie, thank you for joining me today. I'm excited for this.
Stephanie Hyde: Thank you so much for having me.
Alison: Now, I'm going to ask you one big question that I know I okay, I do this too. But I fight with this. I know I have the same thing, the same issues everybody else does. But for our listeners, what is one tip you would give to entrepreneurial women about adding self care into their busy lives?
Stephanie: Ooh, I only get one?
Alison: You can give a couple more, if you wish.
Stephanie: Okay, so self care is so important. It's the foundation of everything. And so one of the things that I coach on is, every single person in the world has three things. And those three things are the most important things to you. And they're your foundation, okay? My three things are sleep, exercise, and food. And I know that if I get those every day, I'm a better person, I'm a better wife, I'm a better mother, I'm just I am better all around. And if so that's my foundation. And then during the day when the little bullets come and things try to take you off track, if I have those three things, I can just react to everything better. And I notice that if I start to get a little off track, I'm missing one of those things. So I would challenge every single person, find out what your three things are, the three things that set up your foundation that give you strength and power for the day. It could be sleep, it could be working out, it could be quiet time, it could be meditation, it could be prayer, whatever it is to you. You've got three and make sure no matter what they are non negotiables. You get them every single single day.
Alison: Now when you say food, what are you talking about? You're not just talking about eating three square meals and eating a couple of snacks. What are you talking about? What do you mean when you say food?
Stephanie: So food I I make my meals so that I have optimal energy all day long. I don't want to get hangry because that's another thing that can take me off path, get me distracted, get me grouchy, I need energy to go throughout my day. So if I don't pre plan, I'll go into the pantry or the refrigerator. I'll grab something that's easy. Let's just as easy the night before to think about what I'm going to eat. It's just as easy to grab an apple as it is to grab a candy bar.
Alison: But the candy bar sometimes tastes better.
Stephanie: I get it and you know a Snickers it's got peanuts and stuff and it's not a horrible thing. But my point is, I especially me, you know your own your own self. I know my husband, if he's getting old snippy, I'm like, why didn't you eat? I didn't have time. That's not a that's not a good excuse. We have time we make time for the things that are important to us. And eating and sleep. Huge, huge.
Alison: Definitely no, thank you for that. That's, that makes a lot of sense. And I'm sure our listeners are going to realize that they need to do that. You know, a paying attention to what we put into our body and how we rest to recuperate is huge, and a lot of people don't realize that. So thank you.
Stephanie: Yeah, one last thing related to that. I know, we all talk about our morning routine. But our evening routine is just as important. And the big thing that I think most of us struggle with is go to bed, go to bed. You know, we stay up when we do more than go to bed because you need your sleep to recover, and to rebuild and be better tomorrow than you are today. So go to bed.
Alison: I've actually been going to bed by 10 o'clock every night. And I used to not be in bed before 11
Stephanie: That's amazing.
Alison: That clock is early!
Stephanie: You seen a difference?
Alison: Um, sometimes? It depends on the day. But yeah, for the most part, it does make a difference, but going to bed an hour earlier, even if you think I'm supposed to be up. It actually means I'm even if I'm not falling asleep right away, my body's relaxing for the extra 45 minutes before I fall asleep. That makes a big difference.
Stephanie: What are your three things? What three things do you need every single day to set you up for success?
Alison: I need, as you were talking about food, healthy food. I need I need alone time. Whether it be reading a book, I do adult coloring, I've actually been spending a lot of time reading on my ereader finding all sorts of new genres to read. Um, self reflection is huge for me journaling, reading personal development books. Those are three things that to me are important. Because by doing self reflection, whether I do it in the morning or at night or a little bit of both, I realize the things that are going right for me instead of the things that are going wrong.
Stephanie: Beautiful, beautiful.
Alison: Stephanie, thank you so much for joining me. For those listening. Stay tuned, keep an eye out. There is a full interview with Stephanie coming up in the future. So keep an eye out for that. I hope you got some information from Stephanie's little snippet. And if anybody wants to reach out to you, how would they reach you?
Stephanie: I have a community called Reclaim Your Path and Power for Women over 40 on Facebook, and we do great things in the group. So come join us there.
Alison: And I am a member of it and I love the group. It's extremely active. So join us it's a great little group there. And I am looking forward to seeing everybody or having everybody listen to my future podcasts. Click below subscribe, and review everything we are looking for as many reviews as possible, and I'm looking forward to seeing you in the next episode with The Oxygen Mask Effect.
I hope you've enjoyed this episode of The Oxygen Mask Effect. I hope you've learned some tips and tricks on creating your own self care habits and routines. And for more information, follow me at theoxygenmaskeffect.com. Subscribe to my channel, review the episodes and I look forward to seeing them. Reach out to me and join my facebook group The Oxygen Mask Effect or reach out to me on Facebook at Alison Swerdloff and on Instagram at Alison Swerdloff. Also, feel free to find out to contact me for more information about my free self care workshop. I look forward to speaking with you soonI hope you've enjoyed this episode of The Oxygen Mask Effect. I hope you've learned some tips and tricks on creating your own self care habits and routines. And for more information, follow me on the oxygen mask effect dot com. Subscribe to my channel, review the episodes and I look forward to seeing them reach out to me and join my facebook group, The Oxygen Mask Effect or reach out to me on Facebook at Alison Swerdloff and on Instagram at Alison Swerdloff. Also, feel free to find out to contact me for more information about my free self care workshop. I look forward to speaking with you soon.

Episode 3 Talking Self Care with Lorna Sophocleous.mp3

Introduction: Have you ever woken up one day and looked back at your life and realized you've spent your whole life taking care of others? You are a caregiver to your parents, your children, you work full time or you are an entrepreneur and run your own business. But how many hours are you working? Are you saying yes to every activity in the community and stead of saying no when you wish to have when was the last time you were on an airplane? What is one of the first things they discussed in the safety proceedings? In the case of an emergency and ask an oxygen mask will fall from the ceiling, make sure to put yours on first, so you can then take care of others. It's the same thing in life as it is on an airplane. You have to put your oxygen mask on first. Listen along, as I'll tell you my story of self discovery, how I got to where I am today how I learned to put my own oxygen mask on first. I'll also interview other successful entrepreneurs or successful business people who are doing the same thing. They've learned to say no and yes to themselves, learn their tips and tricks, and I look forward to seeing you.
Alison Swerdloff: Welcome to The Oxygen Mask Effect. I am excited to have you join me for this wonderful episode. Today I am joined by Lorna Sophocleous. She is a certified holistic health and wellness coach, women's fitness expert, transformational and lifestyle life coach, corporate wellness presenter and Reiki practitioner level one. She started in her career because she was personally frustrated with the ups and downs associated with emotional eating and weight loss, digestive issues ravishing arthritic pain throughout her body. Lorna developed her passion to help her clients avoid the path she went down with food. Her transformative work empowers the person beyond the parameters of what they thought possible for themselves, which transcends into every area of their lives. Lorna, thank you so much for joining me today. I am excited to have you here.
Lorna Sophecleous: Thank you, I'm so grateful to be here.
Alison: Just something a little quickly, what is one tip you would give to entrepreneurial women about adding self care into their daily lives.
Lorna: The tip I would give them is to start the habit or a ritual of carving out time for themselves. The most common thing I hear is that I don't have time. For me, it's either excuses, or solutions. And I'm very results oriented and solution oriented. And I would ask them to sit down and make a little list of what voices they hear repetitively, continuously. I am this, I am that, I can't do this, whatever the case may be. Because inherently as women, the just the nature of our roles, we are caregivers, and that's a wonderful thing. But without it be even being said, that automatically drops us to the bottom of the to do list. And my work is having you step into your personal power and put yourself on the top of the list. So how are you going to do that step one, write those voices and things down. Then and just as a side note, anyone who was super accomplished, has rituals, this is proven this study rituals. So you're going to start with five minute ritual. Every day, everyone I don't care, even the president can find five minutes for a ritual and it will be a confidence boosting self esteem, I am affirmations after they're acknowledging the negative voice because our languaging and our self the self talk that we say to ourselves is really disempowering. So we want to repetitively we want to drown that out. We want that to fade. And we want to have these I am statements to boost our confidence and then when we say that repetitively, that's going to overshadow the negativity. So for example, I am love, I am amazing, my elegant. I am authentic. I am worthy.
Alison: Huge, huge,
Lorna: I am evolving, because another thing is there has to be some level of awareness that they are not putting the oxygen mask on themselves, they have to have that awareness otherwise then that this will be meaningless. And therefore, that's why the start is, is understanding the drought and helping them to process that, you know, to get to that awareness. I show up for myself. I show up for myself, I love myself, I forgive myself. And so, once you start doing that now, when that familiar, I am not enough voice, you can look at it head on and say, Oh, no, no, no, I know, I recognize you. Oh, no. Thanks for sharing. No, thanks. I am, I am enough. And it is a practice that is so empowering, that when you feel good, it actually now becomes a non negotiable. You start with five minutes. And then you start to see that it also all of a sudden starts to organically become who you are. This is neuroscience. So who doesn't want to be empowered, and have the tools to stand in their power? When the you know what hits the fan?
You know, thank you so much for that. It's very true. The I Am statements are among the biggest thing that can change a life even if you just repeat, I am worthy to yourself throughout the day.
Alison: Exactly. I am worthy. I am enough. Thank you so much for that little pointer because so many people, especially women seem to forget that and they have the negative self esteem. That is wonderful. And I'm glad you joined me today.
Lorna: Thank you.
Alison: For anybody listening who wants to learn more? Stay tuned, come back and visit in a couple of weeks for Lorna's full interview. You can learn more about her, about her technique, about how she helps her clients with self care. And I'm looking forward to finding that out myself. So come back, follow us and a couple of weeks. Make sure to subscribe so you know when Lorna's episode is up, and we will definitely see you on the next episode.
Alison: I hope you've enjoyed this episode of The Oxygen Mask Effect. I hope you've learned some tips and tricks on creating your own self care habits and routines. And for more information, follow me on theoxygenmaskeffect.com. Subscribe to my channel, review the episodes and I look forward to seeing them. Reach out to me and join my facebook group The Oxygen Mask Effect or reach out to me on Facebook at Alison Swerdloff and on Instagram at Alison Swerdloff. Also, feel free to find out to contact me for more information about my free self care workshop. I look forward to speaking with you soonI hope you've enjoyed this episode of The Oxygen Mask Effect. I hope you've learned some tips and tricks on creating your own self care habits and routines. And for more information, follow me on the oxygen mask effect dot com. Subscribe to my channel, review the episodes and I look forward to seeing them reach out to me and join my facebook group, The Oxygen Mask Effect or reach out to me on Facebook at Alison Swerdloff and on Instagram at Alison Swerdloff. Also, feel free to find out to contact me for more information about my free self care workshop. I look forward to speaking with you soon.

Episode 2 Talking Self Care with Laura Medrano.mp3

Introduction: Have you ever woken up one day and looked back at your life and realized you've spent your whole life taking care of others? You are a caregiver to your parents, your children, you work full time or you are an entrepreneur and run your own business. But how many hours? Are you working? Are you saying yes to every activity in the community and stead of saying no when you wish to? When was the last time you were on an airplane? What is one of the first things they discussed in the safety proceedings? In the case of an emergency and an oxygen mask will fall from the ceiling, make sure to put yours on first, so you can then take care of others. It's the same thing in life as it is on an airplane. You have to put your oxygen mask on first. Listen along, as I'll tell you my story of self discovery, how I got to where I am today, how I learned to put my own oxygen mask on first. I'll also interview other successful entrepreneurs or successful business people who are doing the same thing. They've learned to say no and yes to themselves, learn their tips and tricks. And I look forward to seeing you.
Alison Swerdloff: Welcome to The Oxygen Mask Effect. Today, I am excited to be joined by Laura Medrano. She is a sun loving California native known for her contagious enthusiasm. She loves connecting with women ready to embark on a healing journey, but who have no idea where to begin. She is a spiritual life coach, Reiki Master, speaker and author and using all of that she inspires others to end their frustration and suffering of feeling stuck and not living to their highest potential. Her mission is to be the catalyst to guide inspire and activate. Laura, thank you so much for joining me today.
Laura Medrano: Hi, thank you so much for having me.
Alison Swerdloff: Now, I have, we've spoken a little bit before, and I know that how you started your journey. And for anybody listening, you can hear the full interview later. But for right now, I have one simple question for you. Something that's important to my listeners, because we're all about this. What is one tip you would give to entrepreneurial women about adding self-care into their daily busy lives?
Laura Medrano: This is a great question. And I think just through my own personal journey with entrepreneurship, it really comes down to saying no to things that are not going to serve you or benefit you in the long run. And so any decision that I've made along my path, I always reflect and think about if it sabotages my direction, or if it serves. And so that is just something that comes to mind right away when I'm doing business because it's just, it's easy to say yes. And it just doesn't sit right or it doesn't leave you in the path that you're trying to get to. So it just makes the obstacles a little a little harder.
Alison: Very true. Now, is that just for people asking you to do things? Or is it with moving the business forward? Is it with doing everything yourself? Can you explain a little bit more about that?
Laura: I think it has a lot to do with, uh, with everything in that regards. You know, when when you're saying no to even things that are a waste of time. You know, or even just that, that really don't guide you to accomplishing your goals. That actually makes a lot of sense. No is a word especially women are told you don't say that.
Alison: Exactly, exactly. And we say yes to a lot of things. And of course we as women wear a lot of hats, and we have a lot of responsibilities. And it's easy to worry about everybody else except for ourselves. We put ourselves last too often. Out of curiosity, how do you say no?
Laura: That's a good one. I mean, honestly, it just comes down to being direct. I'm a straight shooter. So I really don't have a problem with it anymore. I think in my younger years, it used to be something I'd be afraid of judgment or hurting people's feelings or what they would think about me if I told them no, but nowadaydranos, it just comes directly down to business. And I just have to just be in the alignment for what my goals and my intentions are. And it's okay. You can say it kindly.
Alison: There True. Thank you for that. And, again, thank you for joining me for this little mini episode. For anybody listening, you can reach out to Laura on her at her email, if I remember correctly sparkthefirewithinyou@gmail.com. Is that correct?
Laura: Yes.
Alison: And for more information on Laura and her, or how she runs her business and what she does tell her clients follow up, stay tuned for future episodes, because we've had a more in depth interview in a previous episodes or in the later episodes. So, enjoy it. And thank you, Laura, thank you again for joining me.
Laura: Thank you for having me.
Alison: I hope you've enjoyed this episode of The Oxygen Mask Effect. I hope you've learned some tips and tricks on creating your own self care habits and routines. And for more information, follow me on theoxygenmaskeffect.com, subscribe to my channel, review the episodes and I look forward to seeing them. Reach out to me and join my facebook group The Oxygen Mask Eeffect or reach out to me on Facebook at Alison Swerdloff and on Instagram at Alison Swerdloff. Also, feel free to find out to contact me for more information about my free self care workshop. I look forward to speaking with you soon.I hope you've enjoyed this episode of The Oxygen Mask Effect. I hope you've learned some tips and tricks on creating your own self care habits and routines. And for more information, follow me on the oxygen mask effect dot com. Subscribe to my channel, review the episodes and I look forward to seeing them reach out to me and join my facebook group, The Oxygen Mask Effect or reach out to me on Facebook at Alison Swerdloff and on Instagram at Alison Swerdloff. Also, feel free to find out to contact me for more information about my free self care workshop. I look forward to speaking with you soon.

Episode 1 Talking Self Care with Jessica Moore.mp3

Introduction: Have you ever woken up one day and looked back at your life and realized you've spent your whole life taking care of others? You are a caregiver to your parents, your children, you work full time or you are an entrepreneur and run your own business. But how many hours? Are you working? Are you saying yes to every activity in the community instead of saying no when you wish to? When was the last time you were on an airplane? What is one of the first things they discuss in the safety proceedings? In the case of an emergency and ask an oxygen mask will fall from the ceiling, make sure to put yours on first, so you can then take care of others. It's the same thing in life as it is on an airplane. You have to put your oxygen mask on first. Listen along, as I'll tell you my story of self discovery, how I got to where I am today, how I learned to put my own oxygen mask on first. I'll also interview other successful entrepreneurs or successful business people who are doing the same thing. They've learned to say no and yes to themselves, learn their tips and tricks. And I look forward to seeing you.
Alison Swerdloff: Welcome to The Oxygen Mask Effect. I am excited today to be joined by Jessica Moore of Jessica Moore bookkeeping. She is the owner and loves working from home and helping small business owners grow their business by taking the stress and worry out of managing their finances. She takes it off their to do list so they can get back to doing what they love growing the business and spending time with loved ones. She works alongside her clients helping them reach their goals both in business and personally by giving number driven advice, and takes confusing pages of numbers turning them into an understandable roadmap for her clients dreams. When she's not helping her clients grow, Jessica is the mother of two active toddler boys. And she chases after them in her West Texas home. Jessica, thank you for joining me today. I'm happy to have you.
Jessica Moore: It's so good to be here. Allison, thank you for having me.
Alison Swerdloff: Now, I have a question for you. working from home being an entrepreneurial woman, what is one tip you would give to other entrepreneurial women about adding self-care into their daily lives? Because I know that's something you do on a regular basis.
Jessica Moore: So, I would think that the one tip I would have is probably the most obvious and that's just do it. Take the time and do it. Because if we're not taking care of ourselves, how can we take care of our business? And how can we take care of our family? And how can we take care of our clients. And so, just intentionally taking time, whether it's one hour a day, one hour a week, something just intentionally taking that time and doing it because we are the key. And if we're not taking care of ourselves, everything else falls apart. And as moms or as females, we tend to forget to take care of ourselves. We often focus more on ok, does my husband have everything he needs to get out the door, does my kid have everything they need for school, is my toddler progressing the way he's supposed to, is my mom healthy, is my dad healthy, are my siblings getting what they need? And we forget about us. And so we have to intentionally schedule that time, whatever you have to do to take care of yourself. Because if you're not, you can't take care of everything else. We run and run and run and run and run and run to the point of we burn ourselves out. And then nothing gets done. It just piles up and piles up and piles up. But if you take that time, I said an hour a day, an hour a week. Some people can get by with an hour a monthica Moore, I mean, whatever you need, just take that time to refresh yourself, pause, take a breather, go get a pedicure, go get a manicure, tell your husband you're taking a bubble bath tonight. You know, whatever it is, just find that time and it doesn't have to be intensive. It doesn't have to be you know, you have a guided meditation that you're doing. Not that that's a bad thing. But it doesn't have to be something that structured it could just be I'm going to the grocery store by myself. No kids, right just me. I'm going to pick up a coffee on my way. I'm going to sip that coffee and I'm going to casually walk through the grocery store or if you're going to Walmart wanting to casually walk through every departments. Yes, I may pick up a new pair of shoes for my oldest son or a cute little onesy for my youngest, or, you know, a new shirt for my husband because he just wore a hole in his work shirt. But it's just me. There's nobody else that I'm having to go, okay, where's this person? What is this person doing? It's just me. And it's a breather. For some people that you know, I'm going to take an hour every evening, and I'm going to read my favorite book, I'm not going to read for work, I'm not going to read for anything else. I am reading for pleasure. And for some people, it's I'm gonna, you know, get on a video game and go kill CGI characters that mean nothing to me. But I'm going to take out all of my frustration on these characters. So I mean, it doesn't have to be structured. It doesn't have to be crazy planned out. It just needs to be whatever helps you resets.
Alison Swerdloff: You know, thank you so much for that, because that's true us as women, we tend to forget that we're doing for everybody else. So I really appreciate that little tidbit, and I hope my listeners get something out of that. And I'm sure they will, for anybody who wants to learn more about Jessica, come back in a couple of weeks because we have a full interview with her. We'll find out more about Jessica Moore Bookkeeping, more about how she runs her business, while helping her clients run their businesses, and how she creates her own self care habits.
I hope you've enjoyed this episode of The Oxygen Mask Effect. I hope you've learned some tips and tricks on creating your own self care habits and routines. And for more information, follow me on theoxygenmaskeffect.com. Subscribe to my channel, review the episodes and I look forward to seeing them. Reach out to me and join my facebook group The Oxygen Mask Effect or reach out to me on Facebook at Alison Swerdloff and on Instagram at Alison Swerdloff. Also, feel free to find out to contact me for more information about my free self-care workshop. I look forward to speaking with you soonI hope you've enjoyed this episode of The Oxygen Mask Effect. I hope you've learned some tips and tricks on creating your own self care habits and routines. And for more information, follow me on the oxygen mask effect dot com. Subscribe to my channel, review the episodes and I look forward to seeing them reach out to me and join my facebook group, The Oxygen Mask Effect or reach out to me on Facebook at Alison Swerdloff and on Instagram at Alison Swerdloff. Also, feel free to find out to contact me for more information about my free self care workshop. I look forward to speaking with you soon.

Trailer

Have you woken up one day and realized that you don't recognize your life, you work full time, you're taking care of the children, you give to everybody but realize that you aren't giving to yourself or taking care of yourself. Believe me, I've been there. I've been the people pleaser. I've done everything for everybody else, worked full time taking care of the kids, the house, the community, been involved in activities. And of course, was known as my children's mother, but not really known who I am. If this sounds like you, you're in the right place. Here at The Oxygen Mask Effect, that's what we're all about, teaching you that self care is not selfish, that you can build a business you can raise your family, you can have the life you want, living your dreams, and enjoying life. But you can't serve others if you're not serving yourself first. Giving from an empty cup does not work. And as you're told on an airplane, put your oxygen mask on first. That's what the oxygen mask effect is all about. teaching you how to create a work life balance by living your life by putting self care first and realizing it's not selfish. You are entitled to you live your own life, you're entitled to take care of you, you're entitled to say no. It's not selfish to do so. And I want to be the one to guide you there. Here on The Oxygen Mask Effect podcast, we're going to be speaking with other professional women and men who have realized that they've had their aha moments. We're going to learn what they are. We're going to learn how they've added self care habits habits into their routines. So join me on The Oxygen Mask Effect podcast and find out more about the oxygen mask effect itself. I'm looking forward to working with youI hope you've enjoyed this episode of The Oxygen Mask Effect. I hope you've learned some tips and tricks on creating your own self care habits and routines. And for more information, follow me on the oxygen mask effect dot com. Subscribe to my channel, review the episodes and I look forward to seeing them reach out to me and join my facebook group, The Oxygen Mask Effect or reach out to me on Facebook at Alison Swerdloff and on Instagram at Alison Swerdloff. Also, feel free to find out to contact me for more information about my free self care workshop. I look forward to speaking with you soon.