Have you ever felt so overwhelmed with life that you could just burst?

I know I have had many moments in my life where I felt completely overwhelmed that I felt like I couldn’t think anymore. As women, we wear a lot of hats in our life, don’t we? We are mothers, wives, sisters, daughters, best friends, professionals, and so much more.

Our to-do lists are long and our calendars are full. With our very busy lives, we often time forget to reserve time to care for ourselves. Or worse – we don’t even pencil in time for ourselves because we don’t think we matter.

It’s the sad reality of some women, but you know what? We do matter. YOU matter.

And as busy women, no matter what our role in life may be, we deserve to take time out for ourselves. If we’re going to fulfill our roles in life, whether it be as a mother or a professional, we need to first take care of ourselves.

 

 

Self-care is a must! Find out what motivational Katrina McGhee recommends for practicing self-care everyday.

 

Meet Katrina McGhee, Founder & CEO of Loving on Me

Last week, I connected with motivational speaker Katrina McGhee to learn more about her academy Loving on Me. She shared with me the importance of reserving time for self-care and how we can sign-up for her FREE course – Rise. Shine. Slay: 5 Steps to Get in the Driver Seat of Your Life (and Stay There)!

Katrina is very passionate about empowering women to be strong, successful leaders in their careers, home, and personal life. She is the founder and CEO of Loving on Me – The Empowered Woman’s Inspiration Destination.

Founded in 2012, Loving on Me was first created to be a blog which grew into a platform for multiple writers and also featured licensed products. The platform soon became the Loving on Me Academy empowering audacious women to lead, inspire, live, and succeed.

Katrina started the academy because she saw a great need to help prepare and position women leaders. These women leaders came from all walks of life: career professionals, mothers, church leaders, and more. Katrina felt these women leaders needed to be empowered and have the skills they needed to be confident and become effective leaders.

 

Find your tribe to encourage you and support you.

Katrina McGhee is passionate about empowering and inspiring women to be strong, successful leaders in their every day life!

I asked Katrina what inspires her to help other women. She told me it was who she was raised to be.

“Number one,” Katrina said, “I come from a line of really strong women who were people who loved others, invited them into their homes — tried to affirm and empower them.” The strong women who were in Katrina’s life motivated her to empower other women, too.

Her son’s godparents, for example, were a big influence in her life. “So many people have poured into me. When I was a young single parent, my son’s godparents essentially adopted both of us and came alongside me.” Katrina said her son’s godparents helped her and taught her how to be a better parent. When she had to travel for work, they were there to support her and care for her son.

She said having a tribe of women in her life who supported her and were there for her was such a rich blessing. “I very much try to embody that for other women,” Katrina told me. It fills her with joy to share the knowledge she has gained over the years from her tribe of strong women.

“Anytime we can find our tribe and create a community, it’s a good thing…We all need each other.” — Katrina McGhee

Just interviewing Katrina for this article feature empowered me! As I talked with her about Loving on Me Academy and the importance of self-care in our lives, I felt inspired to get in the driver seat of my own life and apply her recommended principles to my life as a Christian, wife, mother, writer, and individual.

I signed up for her free course the following day and I have been watching Katrina’s videos and writing in my personal journal to learn ways I can create balance and implement self-care techniques in my life!

 

Self-Care Positively Impacts Our Life

So many women neglect self-care in their lives because of their responsibilities as a wife, mother, career professional, student, or other roles. Katrina believes self-care is important “because it has such a significant impact on our health, mind, body, and soul.”

“A lot of times we think that self-care is selfish,” Katrina explained, “but in reality, self-care is what keeps us at our best in every aspect of our lives. When we’re moms, we tend to put the need of our children first. We’re nurturers by trade, and I think that is super important, but we also have to do practical things to take care of ourselves, too.

Because guess what? When we get run down, there’s nobody to stand up and take our place. So I think it’s important that we keep ourselves at optimal health so we can be there for the people who need us most.”

 

Self-care needs to be incorporated into your everyday activities.

Katrina said something very profound to me. She said she thinks we have a skewed view of the meaning of self-care. “So many of us think that self-care is actually a break from reality” she explained. “It’s a trip to the spa or it’s a timeout to get a mani-pedi or something that we kind of just let go of the responsibilities of real life and have me-time.”

She went on to say she thinks women have to be careful “not to treat ourselves as puppies performing on command so we can get a treat.” Wow! When I was listening to Katrina explain this to me, I thought it was so true. How many times have I, myself, performed on command so I can get a “treat”? Too many times!

I never thought of it the way Katrina explained the importance of self-care. According to Katrina, self-care is really something you have to incorporate into your everyday activities. Not to add something to your to-do list, but to do things differently.

 

 

Cultivating Selective Ignorance

In Katrina’s latest blog post, “7 Ways to Slay Your Self-Care”, she shares steps on how every day we can “Slay Our Self-Care”. The second tip Katrina shares is how to cultivate selective ignorance. In this passage, she writes:

“It’s time to release ourselves from the need for real-time updates.”

I asked Katrina if she believes the need or want for real-time updates negatively affects us. “Absolutely,” she told me. “I think we’ve perfected that we have to be accessible all the time and stay aware of everything that’s always happening. It’s actually having a negative impact on our psyche.”

Katrina further explained, “studies show that when you watch the news 24/7 and try to absorb all of the information that’s thrown at you, it can actually lead to depression.”

How many times have you watched the news and felt overwhelmed or sad because of all of the negativity you absorbed? I know I feel this way many times when I turn on my TV.

Katrina recommends being selective about what you choose to read or watch on the television and on the internet. “I recommend only engaging in things that you choose to act upon.”

 

SELF-CARE TIP FROM KATRINA: Set the tone for your day.

Instead of turning on the TV, cell phone, or some external source, decide what mood you’re going to be in before your feet even hit the floor. Express a moment of gratitude and just step back and think, “I am so grateful to be here.”

Speak to your spouse before you actually turn on the TV. Have that moment of self-care where you can infuse your body with positive thoughts and you set the tone.

Scheduling Joy Breaks 

Another tip Katrina gives in her article is to schedule joy breaks. In the article, Katrina explains a joy break is designed for you to have 15 minutes of peace in your day.

“Leave the dishes in the sink for a minute” Katrina recommends. “It will not be the end of the world. And go call that friend that’s been on your mind. Be present while you’re present. It adds so much joy to your life when you intentionally schedule that [joy break].”

Katrina believes scheduling joy breaks is something that needs to be done in our everyday lives. “All of those things have the ability to lift your mood and give you fresh energy for the day, especially for moms.”

“Society gives us a list of all these things that we have to do,” Katrina said. “Obviously, there are the necessary things we want to do. We want to take care of our kids. We want to make sure they eat healthy. We want to make sure that they get proper exercise. But they also want us to make sure we clean the house, go work out, and find time to engage in community service.”

All of these expectations and responsibilities can be very overwhelming. When you take the time to schedule and take a joy break, you are reserving time to take care of you.

 

SELF CARE TIP FROM KATRINA: Put your joy breaks on your calendar. 

“If you don’t put it on your calendar, you don’t make it a habit,” Katrina says. Your joy breaks need to be something that you do every day.

Incorporate 15 minutes in your life to “stop and call a friend, intentionally play with your children, or go for a short walk and embrace nature.”

 

Scheduling joy breaks with friends, for instance, is a great way to practice self-care in your life.

How does Katrina practice self-care?

Katrina told me one of the ways she practices self-care is by setting the tone for the day. This is another tip she gives in her article. She also eliminates unnecessary speech.

“For me, it’s so important because we live in such a chaotic time in our country. We can find ourselves sliding into these insane conversations to nowhere.”

One of her mentors told her, “You will never win an argument you shouldn’t be having.” So instead of having unnecessary arguments, or unnecessary speech, Katrina doesn’t engage in the speech at all. She says it “dramatically increases my peace of mind when I choose not to engage.”

 

Rise, Shine, Slay: 5 Steps to Get in the Driver Seat of Your Life (and Stay There)!

Want to take Katrina’s FREE course Rise, Shine, Slay: 5 Steps to Get in the Driver Seat of Your Life (and Stay There)? Here is what you need to know about the course:

The course is designed to help women prioritize their priorities in a practical way that has an action plan that will lead to success.

Who is the course for? Women who lead at home, at work, in the community, or at church.

Katrina will provide you with practical strategies for developing your priorities and teach you how to actually keep them.

 

Loving on Me Day is Tuesday, February 13, 2018!

Loving on Me Day – February 13, 2018

On Tuesday, February 13, 2018, the annual Loving on Me Day will take place. Katrina would love for you to join and participate in the celebration!

Katrina on Loving on Me Day:

“It’s a day that we stop and celebrate what’s brilliant about you. This year we’re launching #365SelfCare. I think it’s so important that we affirm to other women that you are worthy of your own love and respect!”

The launch date of #365SelfCare is also on Tuesday, February 13, 2018. This year, with #365selfcare for Loving on Me, it’s about taking care of you every day in the most practical way. #365SelfCare is a different way to look at how to prioritize and put a plan behind it.

“For moms,” Katrina explains, “this is so important because a lot of times we say, ‘My priority is my kids.’ And then when something gets in the way or we can’t live up to what that ideal is, we have incredible guilt when we can’t reach our priority.”

Katrina wants to encourage women to be more specific when establishing their priorities. “Instead of using a single word,” Katrina explains, “I challenge people to be specific. Is the priority you have dinner together 7 days a week? Is the priority that you make all of their games?”

Katrina believes the more you can refine your priority from a single word and be more specific, the more likely you are to put a plan in place to keep them.

 

If you’d like to learn more about or register for Katrina’s FREE course Rise. Shine. Slay: 5 Steps to Get in the Driver Seat of Your Life (and Stay There)!, you can visit the website here.

Special thanks to Katrina McGhee for taking the time to share tips on how we can practice self-care in our lives!

 

Today’s post is sponsored by Katrina McGhee and Loving on Me Academy. Thank you for supporting the brands that support Good Life Detroit!

 

Written by

Jennifer Hamra

Freelance creative Jennifer Hamra created her blog Good Life Detroit in 2015 after relocating from Tennessee to Southeast Michigan.

Inspired by her love for personal blogging and photography, Jennifer likes to share her favorite Detroit things, from cool places to visit (the hidden gems are her favorite!) to the amazing people she has connected with over the years.

When she's not busy juggling family life and her creative projects, you can find her at an art gallery, community event, farmers market, or spending quiet time at home with a good book and cup of tea.

Jennifer lives in the metro Detroit area with her husband Travis and their six children.

Connect with Jennifer on social media @goodlifedetroit on all social media platforms or via email at [email protected].