4 Cups for Self Care to Make You a Better Mom and Wife

In this episode of the Real Happy Mom Podcast, I talk to Kimberly Walton from Cherished Wives about the four cups of self-care. 

Kimberly is one of my favorite people to learn about self-care because of her unique perspective.

One of my first posts about self-care was inspired by her Power Hour Approach to self-care.

Kimberly’s unique view on self-care will change your approach and ultimately help you be a better mom and wife.

Listen to the full episode with the player above. Or read the post below to learn more.

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What does self-care have to do with having a better marriage?

When Kimberly works with her clients, she looks for patterns and causes of problems in their marriage. 

“And so we’re trying to figure out what’s causing this. Could we have said something different? How did your mate interpret what you said? How would they said something? How did you interpret it? And so I ask a lot of questions.”

Asking many questions and noticing patterns helped Kimberly see that the problems are compounded by the physical stress. Her clients weren’t physically okay.

An underlying issue was making these women’s problems bigger than they should be.

“It’s the idea of when you’re going for a long journey in a car, you don’t just go. You make sure the oil is in your car is topped off. You make sure you’ve got water. You make sure your tires are fully inflated and you pack some snacks.”

Kimberly explains that when a marriage is in trouble, you must work on self-care to prepare for the journey to a better marriage.

“Get somebody stronger so that they maybe don’t take things so personal or they’re not dealing with, I’m so tired and he said this and it just irritated me. And then you look back later and you go, why was I so cranky? And then you feel guilty. Then you have to apologize. It helps with my clients to not feel so defeated. And self-care is really the first step for me.”

4 cups for self-care

Kimberly has a unique view of self-care. It goes back to the principle that you can’t pour from an empty cup.

As moms, we have a habit of spilling over every drop and then trying to give more when we are depleted.

You have to constantly make sure that you are pouring into your cup so that you can pour out.

This means that you have to take time to build yourself up in a way that nourishes you so that you can go out and be the best version of yourself every day.

Now, Kimberly doesn’t feel like we just have one big cup. Instead, there are four cups that we have to work to keep full: physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual.

Let’s walk through each one and how you can keep your cups full.

Physical cup

The physical cup is the easiest of the 4 cups for self-care to fill. This requires doing things like:

• Getting enough sleep
• Drinking enough water
• Going to the bathroom instead of holding it
• Getting your body moving however you like – yoga, walking, dancing, cross-fit
• Eating foods that nourish your body, not just satisfy your tastebuds all day long

Then, there is what Kimberly calls the unglamorous side of self-care.

These are the things that nobody really likes to do, but you have to do them.

Like having a mammogram and going to the dentist.

Physical is the easiest to fill because it is the least painful. Now, let’s get to the more challenging parts of self-care.

Emotional cup

The emotional cup is a little more challenging to keep filled. That’s because we have to deal with some emotions that may be unresolved from our past.

Kimberly starts out by saying that we need to start saying no to the things that don’t fuel our life or family.

Have a hard time saying no?

Try saying:

• Maybe
• I’ll get back to
• Let me think about it

You would think that Kimberly would say that saying no helps with boundaries. But Kimberly is a little anti-boundaries.

“But what I found, and it just hurts my heart, is that sometimes people are abusing the word boundaries.”

So be careful not to use boundaries as an excuse to bully or get what you want.

Also, within the emotional cup, we need to cry more. 

Yes, I know. I hate crying.

I’m the queen of the ugly cry, and I hate crying.

“Tears are very, very healing, you know, physically, chemically. But, you know, crying sucks because we feel vulnerable.”

But there are actual benefits of crying.

Crying has physiological and emotional benefits that will make you feel much better afterward. So put on a chick flick and let the tears flow.

Reaching out for support is another form of emotional self-care. Remember, you can’t do this alone. So, ask for help.

Decluttering is another way to do emotional self-care.

Kimberly explains that when your house or office is a mess, you start to criticize yourself and talk to yourself in a way that you would never do with a friend.

Challenging beliefs is another form of emotional self-care. 

“We have beliefs that we picked up somewhere along the way. They don’t serve us. And sometimes we learned them because as we were a kid, we were heard, you know, things like money doesn’t grow on trees or don’t trust anyone or you know, those kinds of things that were told to us at a time where we were so open to that notion that we’ve grabbed onto it. And now it’s like an anchor and it keeps us from really living our life fully. “

So, what’s the way to break free from these beliefs?

One way is to use affirmations.

And don’t just say the affirmations a few times a day. Kimberly says you have to take the next step and write these affirmations out on Post-it notes and put them in places that you look at every day.

Some of the common places to put these affirmations are:

• The bathroom mirror
• On the front door
• In your car
• On the clocks in the house

Repeat affirmations multiple times a day to help change those limiting beliefs.

Mental Cup

The mental cup is about being creative and disciplined. 

“And this is about stimulating your brain. And the idea of stimulating your brain is important because you know things, it’s the idea of the object in motion and things either going forward or backward at any given time. And if you’re not moving forward, then you’re basically going backward.”

So, what are some ways to stimulate your brain?

• Reading
• Coloring
• Writing
• Words with Friends
• Puzzles

There is also another side to the mental cup. Kimberly explains that if there’s anything that saps your energy it should be dealt with to preserve your mental cup.

For instance, a negative co-worker with a toxic attitude needs to be given some distance. Anyone that is negatively impacting your energy, you need to minimize their impact on you.

Kimberly even puts handling your money and spending time with girlfriends under mental self-care.

Don’t forget to say yes more to the things that bring you joy.

Spiritual Cup

The last cup is the spiritual cup in the four cups for self-care. This cup concerns your soul.

Sometimes, this involves being creative. But it also involves birthing something and connecting to a higher power.

What are some ways to connect and fill your spiritual cup?

• Meditate
• Pray
• Journal
• Get out in nature

One of Kimberly’s favorite exercises to help with the spiritual cup is the Reverse Bucket List.

Instead of writing down a list of things that you hope to achieve one day, write down a list of things that you have already accomplished.

Kimberly challenges all of her clients to come up with 100 items on this list.

Doing this exercise shifts your mindset so that you see how far you have come and what you have accomplished so far.

“We forget to look back and see how far we’ve come. I mean, and I have people at the top of the mountain, they’ve only got a little bit left and they look back and like, Oh Dang, look how far I’ve come. But they were focused on how far they still have to go. And when we’re only focused on how far we have to go or not, how far we’ve come, we lose part of the journey.”

Kimberly challenges you to make a reverse bucket list with 100 items. 

Are you going to give it a try? I know you can do it.

Your spiritual cup also involves taking a look at your identity.

More specifically, it is the things that have happened in your life that you identify yourself as.

For instance, if you used to have a drinking problem in the past, you might identify yourself as an alcoholic. But this is not really who you are.

Also included in the spiritual cup is forgiveness. I talked to Karen about forgiveness in episode 42.

Kimberly echoes the same message that forgiveness is not for the person who has hurt you or has done something wrong to you.

Forgiveness is for you.

“People, they don’t want to forgive because they feel like they’re letting people off the hook. They don’t want to forgive because they feel like, well that means it was okay and it’s not. It’s not about that”

Kimberly has a forgiveness exercise that will help if you are having a hard time forgiving someone.

“Where I tell people whoever has wronged you, and even if it’s something horrible, then imagine them shrunk down as a small child. And a lot of times imagining them and like as a five-year-old, it’s easier to forgive them. Yes. Because as a grown adult you should know better. But to often, the things that people do are things that they do because when they were five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, they were wounded. They were wounded big time. And now they’re still carrying that wound around in there. They’re acting out in ways that are not appropriate.”

You not only want to forgive others, but you want to forgive yourself too.

We all have things that we are not proud of.

We’ve done things based on our information. Sometimes, we’ve done things out of ignorance or to ensure a need was met, and this makes things worse.

It’s okay. You are still an awesome mom, wife, friend, sister, daughter, and woman. Forgive yourself so that you can move on.

This is where you should start today.

You may think Kimberly shared some great stuff, but you have no idea where to start with the four cups for self-care.

“I want you to look at where you have the greatest need. So if you were to take those four cups and you give them a scale of one to 10 ask yourself, you know, where are you at in each one of those? And then the one that is the lowest is the one you need to focus on. And I say that because it’s probably the one you’re pouring from the most and that’s why it’s the lowest. So we need to get that one filled up.”

Remember, the physical cup is the easiest to get filled. Start with the physical cup if you still don’t know where to start.

And be honest with yourself. Are the things you’re doing really filling your cup?

Take time to really think about what you really need.

Did that pedicure really make you feel better? Or did you do it because that is what you think self-care should look like?

About Kimberly

Kimberly is a wife to a fabulous man. She is also a mother to two grown children and a stepmother to two more grown children. 

Kimberly is in private practice in Northern California helping women have wildly successful marriages by taking a whole-person approach through her system called the In Love approach. 

She is single handled to making a difference in the divorce rate through her services and blog at Cherished Wives. 

After her marriage of 15 years ended, Kimberly spent time researching and reflecting on what went wrong in her marriage. 

“I made so many mistakes and nobody told me, nobody said, you know, you can’t, you should, what are you doing That’s not going to help? And so I said, you know, I can be that for other people. I can take this pain and this discomfort and everything that went along with getting divorced and I can maybe help other people not repeat my mistakes.”

Go to Kimberly’s website at Cherished Wives to learn more about her and to schedule a FREE 15-minute chat with her.

Make sure that you mention that you heard about her on the Real Happy Mom Podcast’s episode on the four cups for self-care.

You can also find Kimberly on Facebook.

Kimberly is new to Instagram, so follow her and say hello.

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Key takeaways

• You can’t pour from an empty cup.
• If you’re having difficulty in your marriage, try implementing self-care first.
• The 4 cups for self-care are physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual.
• The physical cup is typically the easiest to fill. The emotional cup is the more challenging one.
• Rate where you are for each cup to determine which area you need to focus on now.

Links mentioned in this episode

• Kimberly’s blog post inspired me to write one of my popular posts
• My popular post was inspired by Kimberly
• Kimberly’s post that talks about the benefits of crying
• Cherished Wives
• Kimberly on Facebook
• Kimberly on Instagram

Transcript of this episode

Real Happy Mom 0:00
Welcome to the Real Happy Mom podcast. I’m your host, Tony and the blogger and content creator at Real Happy Mom, where moms can find encouragement and practical tips for this journey called motherhood. I also have this podcast to introduce you to other moms from baby spots to life. And today on episode number 43, I’ll be talking to Kimberly about self care. Now, this is a little bit different from what you’ve heard in the previous episodes, she’s going to be talking about the four cups for self care. Now, you may be wondering what those four cups are. Stay tuned, and you’ll find out. Now let’s jump into Episode Number 43 with Kimberly. Alrighty, welcome to the podcast. Kimberly, I am so happy to have you on today. I’m thrilled to be here. We’ve been talking about this for a few months. And so I’m glad that we’re getting to make this happen. Oh, yes. And before we jumped into everything, I wanted to kind of tell a little background story about how I got to this point of being able to speak to you today. So what happened was I had a previous blog, and then I decided I didn’t want to do that anymore. And then I started my new blog, Real Happy Mom. And one of the posts that I first started looking at to kind of get me inspired on topics to talk about for my blog, was actually your blog post about self care. And it got me super inspired like man, like this is something that I really need to do better about and something I’ve been working on. And so I started doing a roundup post about self care for moms. And it turned into a big huge hit. It’s one of my most popular posts to date, most shared posts. And I was always like, man, if I could get her attention, that would be awesome. And then I finally got your attention.

Kimberly Walton 1:48
Yeah, and I actually think I reached out to you. Hey, girl, you want me to come talk to your people? I’d love to talk about this. Yes, yes,

Real Happy Mom 1:57
yes. So if you’re listening, and you’re like, Who is this lady? And why is Tony and so excited, you will find out in just a few minutes because she has so much to share about this topic of self care. But before we jump into that, I just wanted you to just share a little bit about yourself.

Unknown Speaker 2:14
Sure. So I’m a wife, I’m married to a fabulous man, not perfect, but he’s perfect for me. And I am a mom to two grown boys. And I am also a stepmom to two grown children. I’m in private practice in Northern California. But I do work with people across the nation and even have people across the world. My passion is helping women, especially moms, to create wildly successful marriages by taking a whole person approach. And that also means wholehearted through a system that I developed called the in love approach. And the i in in love stands for investing in self care, which is amazing, but amazing to me that it’s often the most overlooked part of creating a happy marriage. And and I’m gonna get to talk about that today. We won’t really talk about marriage, but we’ll talk about self care. And I love what I do. I’m so fortunate to be able to see marriages grow and flourish. And the light bulb gone go on for people going, Oh, my gosh, I’ve been doing this for years, this isn’t working. And what about this? And what about that. So I am in a unique position where I, I tell my husband, I am single handedly going to make a difference in the divorce rate.

Real Happy Mom 3:34
I’m gonna that’s my goal. That is awesome. I love to hear that. Because the divorce rate is pretty high around here, at least in the States. So I’m really happy to hear that

Unknown Speaker 3:46
well. And I’m I’m passionate about it, because I’m actually divorced. I was married for 15 years and got divorced. And I look and afterwards I did all this like research and self self reflection, like, what was my part in this? What did I do wrong and all these things and, and I made so many mistakes and and nobody told me Nobody said you know, you can’t you shouldn’t? What? What are you doing? That’s not going to help. And so I said, You know, I can be that for other people, I can take this, this pain and this discomfort and everything that went along with getting divorced. And I can maybe help other people not repeat my mistakes.

Real Happy Mom 4:22
I like that a lot. Now, you mentioned that you help women with creating these better marriages. But how does self care come into play with that and what led you to incorporating self care into your coaching?

Unknown Speaker 4:35
Well, basically what I do with my clients is I am always looking for patterns, and I’m looking for the cause of problems. And so we’re trying to figure out what’s causing this. Could we have said something different? How did your mate interpret what you said? How would they said something? How did you interpret it? And so I asked a lot of questions. And what happened is Really quick, I learned with my clients that what was happening is that they were, they were telling me things like, oh, we’re arguing. And I said, Well, how what was your night? Like? What was your day? Like? And, you know, how was your how’s your work schedule, and I started realizing that so many of the arguments that my clients were having, or their inability to attune with their mate, or even the stresses they were having with their kids, or because they were physically just not okay. They were exhausted, I would even ask clients, you know, some of them wouldn’t do the homework assignments, like, reflect on this, or tell me about this during the week, and I’d come back and I’m like blue. Okay, so tell me about, you know, what your, what your journal showed you? And they were like, Well, I didn’t do it. I said, Well, tell me why. Because I’m not going to shame anybody, because everybody’s got their own journey. But I’d say, Tell me why. And then, like, you know, I was just exhausted. And I’m just tired. And so I have my clients, we’re tracking their schedules, their cycles, are we you know, what happens before, during and after? Are we stronger here with that kind of thing. And so I started really noticing that so many of my clients problems were being compounded by what I call the physical. And so I started taking steps back and saying, we got to get the physical first. And, you know, it’s the idea of, when you’re going for a long journey in a car, you don’t just go, you make sure the oil is in your cars topped off, you make sure you’ve got water, you make sure your tires are fully inflated, and you pack some snacks. I mean, we do you know, your spare tire is in good working condition. And we even carry an extra container of oil in our car. We don’t usually need it. But we’ve had rest stops, we’ve been out where people said you have any oil, those kind of things. And so when a marriage is in trouble, the one thing that we can pretty much do is work on the self care and get get somebody stronger so that they maybe don’t take things so personal, or they’re not dealing with, I’m so tired. He said, this was just irritated me. And then you look back later and you go, Why was I so cranky, and then you feel guilty, then you have to apologize. And so, you know, it helps with my clients to not feel so defeated. And self care is really the first step for me. Even if they say, Well, my husband’s dealing, we’re dealing with this and, and I’m mad because of this. It’s like how’s your self care? It’s always I always start without self care, because if we aren’t taking care of ourselves, there’s no way you can make that marriage work.

Real Happy Mom 7:37
Absolutely. I totally fix those problems. Yeah. Yes, ma’am. You use the four cups of self care, that customized self care for your clients. And I just wanted you to walk us through these four cups, because these are the topics that actually got me inspired to write that post that I was telling you about.

Unknown Speaker 7:56
Oh, yay. Um, you know, you we never know who we inspire, right? Yeah, just never know those little things, whether it’s somebody you said something nice to in a grocery store, that just really needed somebody to acknowledge them. So it’s great that we can, you know, give that feedback. The idea of the four cups, and is basically the idea that we can’t pour from an empty cup. But we do, especially as women, we have our cups that are depleted, there’s like nothing left in them. They’ve, you know, they’re spilled over and every little drop is gone. And we’re still trying to pour more out of it. And, and that’s our habit, we love to pour from our cup. The problem is we got to get stuff going in, so that we can have stuff coming out. So I the idea of the four cups, is we look at our physical cup, our emotional cup, our mental cup and our spiritual cup. And can I run through them? Can I spend more time with Yes. Okay, great. So the idea of the physical cup, and I think physical is the easiest of the cups to fill up, is, you know, we need to get plenty of sleep. Which I say that and I don’t do it. But you know, I try I try some days were really good and other days are not not so good. Um, you know, drinking plenty of water. That one I’m usually pretty good at. Although, you know, the problem of drinking plenty of water is then you have to go the bathroom more often. And yeah, I had a lady years ago, and I’m in my mid 50s. So it’s been a while but she this was like when I was in my 20s. And this lady named Janet. She used to get bladder infections all the time. And I remember asking her like, why she goes, Well, you know, it’s because I don’t go back then when I should. And she would she would literally hold it like cross legs like a little, you know, kindergarten or something. And she always got these bladder infections. I’m like, just go to the bathroom. But you know, as mom sometimes you’re like, I i’ve been holding it for an hour, you know, and I’ve even had that when I do workshops and things were like I needed to go back there. 20 minutes ago, and I still have 20 more minutes to talk about. So that one I understand, but you know, getting our bodies moving, and whatever that is to you. I’m very big on everything being customized. Some people love yoga, some people love walking, some people say walking the dog in the morning and at night is good. It’s really up to the individual. nourishing ourselves, I mean, there’s foods that I eat, alright, actually try not to eat that if I eat them, I know afterwards, I’m going to feel exhausted. And so we need to not, we need to not do that we need to be more self loving. And physically, we can do that. Things like just getting our vitamin levels checked, whether it’s vitamin D, or iron A, B 12, having your blood sugar checked, if you think you’re at risk, those kind of things. So we’ve got, we need to tend to ourselves physically. And it’s kind of like the object in motion stays in motion. So the more we tend to ourselves physically, the more we’re going to keep that physical going. But I also like to say that there’s the unglamorous side of self care, and, I mean, the really ugly, nobody likes to do it. And that’s the things like the mammograms, and it’s going to the dentist, you know, or it’s the, you know, flossing our teeth, you’re like, Oh, I really just want to go to bed, you know, so, and, and I’m guilty of that sometimes, so don’t hate me, you know, I’m guilty of that. And so I have like those little flossing sticks in my car. And I’m like, if I didn’t floss, you know, yesterday, a couple times, I’m gonna try to do it, as I’m driving, while I’m in traffic, I’m gonna make the most of my time. But physical is, is all of those little things, that so often we neglect, we don’t get enough sleep, or we don’t get enough this. And

Unknown Speaker 11:48
that tends to be the easiest one, it’s the one that is, in a lot of ways the least painful. And that means if you’re not like, all of a sudden go ahead and work it out. Now you’re sore for two days. But the the second cup is the emotional cup. And this one tends to be the most challenging for most of my clients, because the emotional cup brings up emotions. And some of those emotions are things that you haven’t healed from when you were 12. Or when you were, you know, 20. And those things can be difficult and they don’t, they’re not as they’re not as easy as taking a you know, vitamin D pill to get your vitamin up. So the emotional cup, I say things like, you know, you we need to get more comfortable saying no, when it doesn’t fuel your life and your family. And one of the first steps I give my clients in the saying no, is don’t you don’t have to say no, you can say, let me think about it. I’ll get back to you in 48 hours. Because we’re right, right? When people are asking us things, we feel like we have to say yes or no. And you don’t have to do that you can say let me think about it. I’ll get back to you in 48 hours. And then you can fully Think about it. You can figure out if you can really do it. It’s kind of it’s you know, boundaries. But I’m I’m a little different when it comes to boundaries. I talked to people about boundaries, and I’m, I’m a little at times anti boundaries. And I hope that doesn’t irritate the people who listen, one of the people, how would you be against boundaries. And but what I found, and it just hurts my heart is that sometimes people are abusing the word boundaries. And I have an example that I give from one of my clients where she was demanding for their anniversary that they go to a certain place to have for dinner. And her husband’s like, Well, you know, I I kind of had this other thing he had this whole evening planned as a surprise. She goes well then I’m not going and she said well that’s a boundary I should be able to set that boundary said no, you were bullying. Yeah, I said you were bullying. Let’s be real. You were bullying so you wanted your way. Why wasn’t a discussion there? Why did you not say Honey, I really want to go to this place. I know you have this evening planned and I want to honor that. Let’s do that. But next week we go to this place, there was so many things she could have done besides say this is a boundary. So sometimes I have to unbounded people I say, okay, but in the emotional cup, I say we need to cry more. And, you know, tears are very, very healing, you know, physically chemically. But you know, it crying sucks. Because we feel vulnerable. Right? I mean, think about how, how when people cry, what what happens to their body? Well, depending on the kind of crime and deep sobbing thing, you’re like, your body is in convulsions. You’re right. I mean, we’ve all done that. And or maybe you go into a fetal position because because you feel vulnerable. I want to get as small as possible. Or, you know, some I have clients who will cry in my office and appointments and they always cover their face or cover their head. It’s like because we feel vulnerable. We’re trying to protect ourselves and I tell people just it’s okay to feel that you just get yourself in a safe place with a safe person. Under emotional I tell people reach out for support. You know, if you have people you need to talk to when you need support and, you know, group or friends or something, as long as they’re not bashing people, your mate and stuff reach out. And I even under emotional, I even put things like decluttering. Because Because sometimes people get clutter, and then they start doing self talk that says, Oh my gosh, I should not be this. And I’m this and I’m Oh my God. And all of a sudden they spent 20 minutes just berating themselves in a way that they would never speak to a friend. You would never go to a friend’s house and go, Oh, my God, your house such a mess. And you need to clean it up. And why aren’t you doing this? And you know, you already know this. It’s like, what a friend, don’t talk to yourself like that. I’m a big fan of challenging beliefs to, you know, we have beliefs that we picked up somewhere along the way that don’t serve us. And sometimes we learned them because as we were kid, we were heard, you know, things like money doesn’t grow on trees, or don’t trust anyone or, you know, those kind of things that were told to us at a time where we were so open to that notion that we’ve grabbed on to it. And now it’s like an anchor. And it keeps us from really living our life fully. So I do a an affirmation and a belief exercise with my clients to help them get to the root of some of the things. So I’m a big fan on affirmations. I know you have some too. Yeah, so I love seeing that you’re doing affirmations. And I do a whole class with my clients, like a couple times a year, anybody that’s been in my client, you can come to this class for free. You can bring a friend I don’t even I used to do it in the public that I don’t do in charge. I just do it for my clients. And I do that because I find myself saying it over and over again. So it’s easy for me just just do a day and have a class. No charge. But yeah, we you and I should talk about that sometime. Oh, yes, definitely.

Unknown Speaker 17:04
Because it’s that self talk. And we don’t even know. People don’t realize it and and I tell people when it comes to affirmations, look for your charge spaces. And I mean, like, when you’re in the car, are you so frustrated? Is that where you need to post up affirmations? every clock in the house? I tell my clients every clock in the house and every door that leads out of the house, you have to have affirmations posted. Hmm, okay. Because as you as you’re leaving for the day, you want that last little, something’s wonderful, or you need to stop and check yourself because so often when people are leaving the house, they’re like, oh, gosh, I have to go to work or hope the traffic’s not bad. And they don’t even realize the stuff they say to themselves. Right? And think about this. Every time you look at a clock, what are you doing?

Real Happy Mom 17:52
I’m checking the time,

Unknown Speaker 17:54
I’m checking the time because I’m afraid in my head, I’m afraid and behind. I’m afraid I didn’t do something. And so, you know, I put even in my house, my poor family. I have notes in the bathroom mirror because you look in the bathroom mirror and you’re like, Oh, my hair. My hair looks like hell today. You know, or Dang, I think today would have been a dry shampoo day too late now, you know, I mean, we say those things to ourselves. And so I’ve got my clients with affirmations everywhere that are customized to what they need. So yeah, well, we’ll have to talk more about that.

Real Happy Mom 18:25
Yes. Right. You brought up a couple of things here that were really good, because I feel like you’re about to go on to something but I wanted to go back just for a second. So the two cups that we’ve gone over so far are the physical and emotional. So you mentioned that the physical tends to be the more easier cup that we can fill because I just see it as this is something that is like a little bit more tangible. Like we can like actually work out we can drink more water we actually go to sleep versus like some of the other things like the emotional side, even when you’re talking about like, Oh, I don’t want to do that right now. Yeah. I don’t want to get into that space but because it’s dark and

Unknown Speaker 19:05
it’s ugly, and it’s gonna hurt no matter what. It’s gonna hurt drink and water doesn’t hurt. No. Sleeping doesn’t hurt. movement. If you’re just going for a walk shouldn’t hurt. But But emotional cup. It’s going to hurt. Yes, yes.

Real Happy Mom 19:20
And that is what I was gonna get to because when you’re talking about the crying part, I was just thinking how I hate crying. Because when I’m an ugly crier, I don’t look cute. My best friend She is so cute when she cries I laugh at her every time like you’re just so cute. Oh my god, but me I’m like ugly and like my eyes turn red and I’m all puffy and I just sound like I hate crying but it’s true. Like, I do feel like this sense of physical relief like, okay, I just got it out. So I feel better but and I shouldn’t do it more. just afraid that I might scare somebody when I do

Unknown Speaker 19:59
get to do it with you by your So you’re like, hey, you’re gonna have a little sign on the door says mom’s gonna ugly cry go away.

Real Happy Mom 20:04
Yes, you know,

Unknown Speaker 20:06
and, and sometimes seriously, I’ll watch certain chick flicks, I have a couple of chick flicks that I watch that I know are gonna make me cry because I know I need to cry before it gets to a point where I’m gonna cry it inopportune time. And, and so I will do what I call pre emptive crying, I’m like, I need to get this out. And there’s toxic chemicals are released. There’s, I’ve done some research on this. I actually wrote a blog post on it, you know, crying and tears. There’s actually some chemicals and there’s a physical chemical thing that happens. So we can cry, and we didn’t solve anything. And we feel better afterwards. Right? Yeah. So girlfriend, I’m an ugly crier, too. I’m a Sabra. That kind of thing, like, Oh, God, is someone attractive? You know. But that’s where you got to be in safe hands? Or if you’re by yourself, I’m cool with that, too. I mean, obviously, you don’t want to do it in the grocery store line. Yeah, but But see, that’s why if we cry preemptively, then it prevents us from like crying in the grocery line, when you see like, some magazine, like, you know, some child was hurt, or something that’s always good to me. It’s like, Oh, my gosh, I’m not gonna be okay. Maybe I’ll just leave my cart and run, you know,

Real Happy Mom 21:17
I am totally with you on that one. Now, like I said, you went over the first two. So the physical and the emotional. Now, we still have two other ones. So I wanted to hear about those.

Unknown Speaker 21:27
Yeah, the mental cup is about being creative. And sometimes emotional can be that too. But the mental is more about being creative. And it has a little bit more to do with being disciplined. And this is about stimulating your brain. And the idea of stimulating your brain is important because, you know, things, it’s the idea of the object in motion and things either going forward or backwards at any given time. And if you’re not moving forward, then you’re basically going backwards. And so I tell my clients, you know, I really want you to do something to stimulate your brain, I don’t care if it’s Words with Friends. I don’t care if it’s reading. But there’s also some other things too, in anything that mentally saps you. Like, if you have toxic people in your life, things you can do to minimize their impact on you. I tell people that under mental I usually put getting money handled when people have money problems in their marriage. You’re just disagreements on how it’s spent. Not paying bills, I have clients who make plenty of money, and they still don’t pay things on time. Like we need a better system because that then you’ve got to lay charge and all sorts of things that that, that start mentally nagging at us like a program running in the back of a computer that takes up space, that you could close the program. But setting goals would be in this place. Saying yes more even though I said earlier saying no. was important. saying yes to the things that you really need to say yes to. But no to things like the negative self talk. No to overspending. No to the toxic people. But yes to things that bring you joy. Yes. The things that make you happier. Yes, the things that are gonna get you closer to your goals. So optimally spend time. Yes. And yes. for things that are not they’re not moving us forward. In fact, anything they’re taking time away from us, that could be better spent somewhere else. But I would put Yes, as you know, girlfriend time. I’m a big fan of spending time with girlfriends and just chatting and having cups of tea and just, you know, messaging them or sending them beautiful little meme memes or something. So yes, I say yes, more. But this is going to be mental is a little more creative. And it’s a little more stimulating your brain. So I love to watercolor. That’s one of those things I love to make, like for my Facebook page and stuff, my own little means and the covers for my blog posts and things. I make those myself because I need a creative outlet. So that fills me up mentally. My husband even teases me about it because I use Canva you’re probably familiar with Canvas, and he’ll, he’ll say, Oh, she needs to go Canva cameras become like this thing where I’m like, Honey, I’m gonna go Canada for a while or he’s like, Oh, are you can being and I’m like, yeah, so. So cam has become this whole word in our family that we stay at least once a day. And so it’s kind of a funny thing. So that’s your mental and then the spiritual is your soul work. And sometimes this is creative also because creative. A lot of times has to do with birthing of something and connecting to some sort of higher power. So your spiritual is something that is is that soul step. So that’s going to require you to meditate and pray and journal. For some people. It’s getting a nature and whatever it is for you. You got to find your thing. Gratitude journals are I do a lot of what I call rbls, reverse bucket lists.

Real Happy Mom 25:03
Are you familiar with those? No, no.

Unknown Speaker 25:06
So a reverse bucket list. And this is like the first assignment I give my clients the first time we meet, they have to do this. And so a reverse bucket list is where you sit down, and you come up with a list, I give my clients 100, a list of 100 things that are pluses about you, or compliments or accomplishments, that get your mind shifted to saying, look at all of this stuff I’ve done, because we’re so focused on how far up we still have to go the mountain, we forget to look back and see how far we’ve come. And I have people at the top of the mountain, they’ve only got a little bit left, and they’re looking back and like, Oh, dang, look how far I’ve come. But they were focused on how far they still have to go. And when we’re only focused on how far we have to go or not how far we come, we lose part of the journey. And so the reverse bucket list is to come up with a list of 100 items. And I challenge I challenge every listener to do this 100 items, things you’ve accomplished or things you’ve done, like, you know, my kids are all grown, they’re all grown and they’ve not been in jail, they’re not doing drugs, and nobody’s got babies. Okay, I’m going to count that for like four. You know, I mean, and those are simple, but they’re still something because, you know, some people can’t say that. Things like, you know, graduating high school, getting my undergrad degree and getting my graduate degree, each one of those counts, and I commuted to get my degree and I worked and my kids were little and, and we forget, we discount those things. Like we shouldn’t be proud of that, because some of those things are really worth cheering on. And I love to cheer on my clients, when they have to bring in their bucket list item or reverse bucket list, I’m like, Yes, look at you, girl. And then you say, if I could do that, I can do the next thing. And that’s part of your spiritual work. Because a lot of times we are tuned into the universe, or God or whatever your listeners associate with that, that higher power that says, You go girl, there, I got a plan for you, you go make this stuff happen. And it helps us also to figure out what our identity is. And that’s one of my challenges with my clients is that they have, they have to really be careful what their identity is, and what I what I mean by identity is, we you know, things happen in our life. And we identify ourselves, as, you know, for me, I could say I’m a divorcee, or, and then there’s, you know, maybe there’s shame that goes along with that. Or maybe there’s, there’s sorrow or something. And that’s, that’s not really who I am. And I know other people who have gone through tough times in their life and, and they’ve considered themselves to be victims. And I’m like, but you’re not a victim. Because if your identity is in being a victim, you can’t, you can’t get out of it becomes an anchor. And and so it’s the idea of are you are you going to be a warrior or a warrior? Are you going to be a victim or an overcomer. And so the spiritual aspect, I also say, we’ve got to look at our identity. And part of that becomes super important where almost a spiritual cup, an emotional cup will kind of pour back and forth, where you have to do a lot of forgiveness. And we’ve got to forgive others. And I know you’ve got a podcast, I think somebody’s done forgiveness. And it was really good.

Real Happy Mom 28:23
Yes, forgiveness is huge. And it was just last week. So yeah, you’re right on time with that one.

Unknown Speaker 28:29
Yeah. And forgiveness is huge. And and people they don’t want to forgive because they feel like they’re letting people off the hook. They don’t want to forgive because they feel like well, that means that was okay. And it’s not it’s not about that and I’m sure I didn’t listen to that one yet. The your podcast, but I’m sure that your person said it’s about us. It’s not getting us unshackled and, and I have a forgiveness exercise I do. Where I tell people who ever has wronged you. And even if it’s something horrible, then imagine them shrunk down as a small child. And a lot of times imagining them and like as a five year old. It’s easier to forgive them. Yes, because as a grown adult you go, you should know better. But too often, the things that people do, are things that they do because when they were 5678 910 they were wounded. They were wounded, big time. And now they’re still carrying that wound around in there. They’re acting out in ways that are not appropriate. So I’m not saying they’re off the hook. I’m saying get yourself off the hook. And on top of that, forgive yourself because we all have stuff to grow from I can’t tell you stuff I’ve done that I’m like I’m not proud of and I have had to forgive myself. Because we do things at times based on the information we have or based on even perhaps ignorance or trying to get some sort of need met. In a way that didn’t meet the need, and it didn’t, it just made things worse. So I, I am a big fan of forgiveness. Yes, yes, it is gratitude journals and reverse bucket lists and praying and meditating and all of it, you know

Real Happy Mom 30:16
that? Yes. So just to recap, we went over the last two cups here, which were the spiritual cup, and the mental cup, the mental cup, I’m with you on the whole Canva thing, because I really get a kick out of it too, just designing all of my own stuff. So all of this stuff that you see I do it myself too. So I’m totally with you.

Unknown Speaker 30:37
Well, and you know, I don’t your kids are young with in mind, but I have to tell you that one of the things for me, I’ve noticed, as I’ve gotten older, is that I need more creativity. Because I used to have so much that with my kids, just birthing kids, and birthing something, you know, a meme or something like that, we get a fulfillment out of that. So as my kids have gotten older, I no longer do little science experiments with them, and little, you know, hand paint things and stuff. I missed that. So now I’ve had to really learn how to be creative, because so much of mine was with my kids. It’s like, let’s go do chocolates, make our own chocolates, make her own playdough let’s make this let’s this you know, and stuff like that. And I didn’t realize for a few years, that I was actually grieving that I had to grieve the loss of those stages with my kids, and grieve that I wasn’t doing creative things with them. Now. It’s like we go to dinner. We can make make dinner together. But it’s not the same thing. It’s not that I don’t get to watch them explore, and the light bulbs go off and stuff. So

Real Happy Mom 31:37
yes, I know one day I’ll be there. But yeah, I’m still in the let’s make the playdough space. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 31:43
Yeah, I, I’m like waiting for like, I just need to borrow a couple of friends, kids. And like, let’s just have a play day at my house. Bring them over? I’ll

Real Happy Mom 31:52
do it. Yeah, definitely. Now, you gave us a lot of really good information here about the four cups and how we can keep them filled. Now there is a mom that’s listening. It’s like, okay, all of this stuff is really good. But I just need like one thing that I can get me started today, what would you say is one thing that we could implement today to get us on this, the start of doing better self care?

Unknown Speaker 32:17
Well, I think, for me, what I normally would tell my clients is, I want you to look at where you have the greatest need. So if you were to take those four cups, and you give them a scale of one to 10. Ask yourself, you know, where are you at in each one of those. And then the one that is the lowest is the one you need to focus on. And I say that because it’s probably the one you’re pouring from the most. And that’s why it’s the lowest. So we need to get that one filled up. However, again, the physical tends to be the easiest, everybody after they’re listened to this could go up could go for a walk, even if it is a walk in the house. And seriously, my husband and I sometimes if I need if I’m feeling like I want to move my body, we will run around the house in this weird kind of odd shaped figure eight thing for 30 minutes. Okay, okay. And, and people like, really,

Unknown Speaker 33:06
I like being outside. I’m like,

Unknown Speaker 33:07
I don’t care, I need to move my body for 30 minutes. And this is it looks dumb. And I’m doing it and we’ll walk we’ll run by each other more high fiving each other like, like that kind of thing. And it’s like, okay, and he doesn’t love doing it. He’s like, I’m supporting you. I am support. Yeah, you know? And so I don’t know if So the one thing I would say is, figure out what your one thing is? What is your thing that you know, you deplete? Is it that you need to say no more because you overscheduled your stuff? Self and now you’re taking it out in your family? Is it that you have decision fatigue at the end of the day? And you need to start making? You know, decisions do decisions differently? Is it that you need to do meal prep on Sundays? Even though that’s not fun? Is it that you need to do that so that your rest of your week is set up for success? Where is it that your cup is like man, just please nobody take anything else out of this cup because I’m about ready to be dry? Because I’m about everything being customized. Yeah, not a one size fits all. And people go Oh, when I asked my clients, what do you do for self care that I call I get many petits and I get massages, and that’s great, if that truly fills you up, but it’s almost like a full self care. Because people are like, Oh, I did that. But what did that fill? How much did it put in your cup night? Well, and sometimes like I was super stressful because I had to get a sitter for the kids and I had to decide to that. It’s like, is that really filling your cup? Let’s Get Real. Did it really fill your cup? Because sometimes it doesn’t, you know, maybe like I don’t love Manny Petty’s likes some of my friends do, I’ll go with them. But it’s not my thing. But I also have a client that gets pedicures all the time because Her husband loves to rub her feet. And he, and he likes it when her feet are like clean and all that stuff. And so it’s a way for them to bond so she gets her feet done so that they have intimate time. Okay, so so my one thing, because there’s so many, my one thing is, you have to stop and figure out what your one thing is.

Real Happy Mom 35:22
Got it? Right. I like that. I like that on that. Now, there is one question that I ask all of my guests. And if, if you could have any superpower, what would it be?

Unknown Speaker 35:34
You know, I actually spent quite a bit of time thinking about this. I even talked to my husband, I said, What do you think it would be? And he said, Well, what do you think? And I said, Well, I was thinking that I would love to be able to just to see into people’s hearts, when like my clients and so I could just help them get to the bottom of the issue and, and all that and he goes, you know, he can already do that, honey, that’d be a waste of that superpower. And I said, Okay, then what I would really love is I’d love to be able to teleport, okay, okay. But I but I have a caveat. I want to be able to bring somebody with me, because, well, here’s the thing, I have so many things I want to do. And so in my husband, I love to travel. And there’s like, there’s talks that people have asked me to do, but I’m like I can’t because there’s no way I can get there in time, because I’ve got the other thing I’m doing. And so time constraints, sometimes just like, frustrating. It’s like, Oh, I would love to be able to do all these things. But but I can’t. And so travel is one of the biggest hindrances that I have to get to places and I had somebody on the East Coast that wanted me to come do a weekend workshop for their church. And I couldn’t do it because I had something on a Friday. And this was a Saturday, Sunday, there was no way I could make it work. And so time, you know, gets in the way and, and it frustrates us even things like traffic. I don’t know about you. When I get stuck in traffic, it’s so easy for me to be like, Oh my gosh, this is so much waste of time. So I get up extra early to head to the office and things like that. But if I could teleport someplace, and you know, just be at the office automatically, or just, you know, I could Friday finish finish a topic and magically be somewhere, you know, two hours later and teleporting myself, I can get so much more done with my life. I totally agree with you. Like, I mean, I could triple my superpower, I would get so much more than I mean, I could even be doing this in person with you know, I mean, I could tell apart myself, we could be sitting there chatting and, and you know, and it’s like, wouldn’t that be so cool? It would be nice. I would like that. That. Yeah, so so definitely teleportation. I mean, that’s, that’s it. I don’t want to be invisible or anything like that people would run me over. I don’t know. Right?

Real Happy Mom 37:47
I didn’t think about that. But when people

Unknown Speaker 37:49
say I want to be invisible, I’m like, Whoa, you’re gonna have to stand in the corner. Because somebody is gonna bump in you and go, what the heck was that? You know, and,

Real Happy Mom 37:57
you know, nice, nice. Now, where can our listeners find you if they want to learn more about you online?

Unknown Speaker 38:04
Sure. So if people want to reach out to me or find me or hear more from me, my website is cherished wives.com my Pinterest and my Facebook are also cherished wives.com and then I am brand new to Instagram. I am a newbie. And so that is not cherished wives. That is actually miss Ms. Kimberly Walton.

Real Happy Mom 38:30
Okay, okay.

Unknown Speaker 38:31
And I just this week, I found you on Instagram, and I’m following you. So I expect you to follow me back. So I mean, seriously, I’m I just I did my first post today. I was seriously I put three things up. But they I don’t know if I even didn’t write it had to ask my son like, hey, how do I turn this picture? On the other side? It was mommy can’t do it there. You got to do a new funnel like, oh, that I can do. So I have a big learning curve. But you know, people go you’re just new to Instagram. I’m like, Yeah, because honestly, my business hasn’t needed it. The extra publicity. But I have so many friends are there. I got to go find them. And I got to see what they’re doing. You know?

Real Happy Mom 39:09
Yeah. And you might even find some new people out there that you’ll want to connect with. It’s a it’s a nice fun world out there on Instagram.

Unknown Speaker 39:17
Yeah, I have found some people already on my goal. I’m like, Oh, I like that. Oh, that’s inspirational. And so going on and putting Harding things and stuff on like I could

Real Happy Mom 39:25
do this. Yes, I can. Yes. So I’ll make sure to include all of those links in the show notes. And thank you so much again, for coming on and talking to us and sharing all this great stuff about self care with us today.

Unknown Speaker 39:39
Oh, I’m so happy to be here. And if anybody has any questions, or they want to follow up on anything, they’re welcome to send me an email, give me a couple days to get back. But send me an email. I’m happy to help and even if anybody just seriously I love to chat with people. So if somebody’s got something going on, they want clarification on I’ll give them 15 minutes of time to talk to them. So just tell They need to tell me they’re from your podcast though.

Real Happy Mom 40:01
Okay,

Unknown Speaker 40:02
well, I heard you and Tony on You said you’d give me 15 minutes. say go for it. Let’s do it. Okay, perfect. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Very welcome until next time girlfriend. Yes, me Yeah.

Real Happy Mom 40:14
Now that does it for this episode of the Real Happy Mom podcast. To find the links in the show notes make sure you head over to Real Happy Mom comm slash 43. There you’ll find the links as well as the complete blog post on this topic of the four cups to self care. And do me a favor if you found this podcast helpful. rate and subscribe. This does two things. One, it lets other moms know that this is a great podcast to listen to into it lets me know that the content that I’m producing for you is helpful. I’m so grateful for you listening and I will catch you in the next one.