Self Care at Home with Dr. Debbie Magids

DR. MIKE MORENO: Welcome back to Wellness Inc. I’m Dr. Mike Moreno taking a deep dive into all things wellness after over 25 years of practicing medicine, I’m fascinated with anything and everything that can help you feel better, live healthier and become the best you possible. I’ll be interviewing the most cutting-edge experts in the field of wellness and exploring new innovative technologies to help you live your best life. At the end of each episode, I’ll give you my weekly RX. My top tips for you to use right away. Remember to subscribe for free, rate and review my podcast on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen.

Today, I want to help you figure out exactly what we mean when we say it is important to practice self-care and to do that, I want to bring in an expert who specializes in this very thing. She is a counseling psychologist with over 20 years of clinical experience and a thriving practice in New York City. She is also a corporate consultant and speaker in the area of mental health and wellness in the workplace. She has been an expert on countless television shows, including The Tamron Hall Show, The Today Show, Good Morning America, you name it. So many others. She’s known to both her patients and national TV audiences as Dr. Debbie, excited to have you today, Dr. Debbie Magids. Thank you so much for being here.

DR. DEBBIE MAGIDS: Thank you for having me, I’m happy to be here.

DR. MIKE MORENO: Why don’t we start by saying what is self-care? Take us through that, let’s start with the basics.

DR. DEBBIE MAGIDS: Yeah, if you read any article and you talk to people, they’ll put into self-care activities like, I’m going to meditate, I’m going to work out, I’m going to eat well and all of those are self-care, or people would go get a massage, people would go get their nails done or whatever it is that makes you feel good in your body and good about yourself and what has happened, especially during these times, especially during COVID. A lot of the things that we had in place under our bucket of self-care that got taken away all of a sudden, we’re at home and we can’t go do the normal things that we would normally do. So that’s one definition. My definition when I hear self-care is

DR. MIKE MORENO: Here it is. Here it comes.

DR. DEBBIE MAGIDS: I have always honed in on emotional self-care, and I feel like it’s never the thing that’s focused on and emotional self-care is the thing that can stop you from being motivated to do all the other self-care things that people want to do, right? You get on an exercise routine, you give it up, you get on a good eating plan, you give it up, and you don’t pay attention to the mental health part of you, which is the emotions and self-awareness and the things that I am so good at doing to help people then do their self-care.

DR. MIKE MORENO: So I want to be clear, this is sort of like a foundation, is that fair to say? In other words, if you’re going to build a structure, you need a good foundation. If you’re going to do these other things, you need that emotional foundation in order to build the house, whatever we’re going to do.

DR. DEBBIE MAGIDS: Love that you said that. I use that analogy all the time and people don’t get in touch with their emotions, their whole house breaks down, right?

DR. MIKE MORENO: Right.

DR. DEBBIE MAGIDS: This isn’t the topic, but when people talk about anxiety or depression, those are not those are not feelings. Those are symptoms that you’re not letting yourself feel. When someone is anxious and someone’s depressed, then everything else goes out the window.

DR. MIKE MORENO: Yep, and everybody’s feeling it right now, let’s face it, I think a year ago, would we have ever imagined this was going to happen? I don’t. I’ve been in medicine 25-ish years now, and I thought I’d seen it all. Wow, a big punch in the face is what we all got.

DR. DEBBIE MAGIDS: Yes.

DR. MIKE MORENO: Reset button, whatever you want to call it.

DR. DEBBIE MAGIDS: Yeah.

DR. MIKE MORENO: Ok, so I was the Catholic kid, 7 kids. I was the kid in church with my mom every Sunday when they would say, OK, it’s time to pray. I struggled, right? I had one eye open. I’m looking around at the family next to me, looking at the band, whatever. My mom used to nudge me and say, you’re supposed to be praying. It was not that I was disrespectful. I was a kid and I’m just not good at that and that makes me think a lot of meditation and I still struggle with meditation. 1 minute meditation, everybody is like, you just try that. Well, I can’t even do that. So, give us some examples of- well, let’s build the foundation. Let’s go there. Let’s build this foundation so we can build this big, strong house for people. Where do we start?

DR. DEBBIE MAGIDS: Ok, so self-awareness is the first place you have to start, and they always use this iceberg analogy, and I always put a picture up of it. People think they know themselves, but we’re only 5% conscious. We’re 95% unconscious. That’s the iceberg. If you look at any picture in the world, it’s under the water and people are always at the tip and I’m always going to the ocean floor. And what lives in the ocean floor is everything from childhood, right? You just mentioned childhood and all of our emotions get stuck there. It’s like a pipe that gets stuffed. If you do not roto-rooter, your sink is breaking.

So, every memory we have, every unresolved feeling, every feeling in the world gets stuffed down. So, awareness of what’s happening to us and why it’s happening to us is the number one thing that will help build the foundation. Just to spread this out a little more, people want to start looking at what were their childhoods like? What were their roles in childhood? Because people who have the hardest time with self-care? Believe it or not, are labeled the good ones in their families and I’d like you to think about who you were and everyone out there listening.

So if you were the good one, think about it. We all have families, parents, siblings. If there was any problem in the house that was bigger than what you were feeling as a kid, you became that kid who said, I’m not going to add any more problems to this household. My parents are struggling, or my father is sick or they’re getting a divorce, or I have a sibling who’s not doing well.

From very early on, the good one starts to minimize their needs, needs and getting your needs met is the foundation of a human house. If your needs went unmet young, you continue going through life, minimizing your needs and maximizing everyone else’s.

DR. MIKE MORENO: Wow. Well, that explains a lot.

DR. DEBBIE MAGIDS: Right.

DR. MIKE MORENO: I’m nervous now. It’s all making sense. let’s keep going with this because I’m sure people are going nuts here. I want to hear more.

DR. DEBBIE MAGIDS: Good. Ok, so you then grow up and your whole foundation, your whole identity has been about servicing the needs of others. And I know no one can see me. I always do the scale thing. When you’re the person who puts everyone’s needs first and your needs are last, you’re depleted all the time.

And so, what I try to teach people is for emotional self-care, we have to start to realize that no one is putting our needs first because our whole identity has been based on meeting other people’s needs, including us. We’re also not putting our needs first. So, it’s little by little starting to a get enough self-awareness to understand that you’re doing this, and then it’s a whole process of trying to figure out what you need. Now here becomes the problem.

DR. MIKE MORENO: It’s already a problem in my eyes. But keep going.

DR. DEBBIE MAGIDS: If you’re the person who is this, you’ve also not learned how to set emotional boundaries, and what that means is you’re the person who never says, no. You are the person who makes too many commitments. You are the go to person for everyone. You are the one who will feel guilty if you’re not meeting someone’s needs or worry that they’ll be mad at you, or worried that they won’t like you. So, you’ve now created a storm of you will be depleted and you cannot do self-care.

It won’t happen unless we start to understand who you are and start to push you towards figuring out when you need to say no. When are you to sort of live through what it feels like. I always like to say what it means if someone’s angry at you or you can’t meet someone’s need, or someone is unhappy because it became your job to make the world happy while you suffer.

DR. MIKE MORENO: And we’ve all heard that term, you spread yourself too thin.

DR. DEBBIE MAGIDS: Yes.

DR. MIKE MORENO: And I think that’s generally the concept. It’s funny because so I grew up in a big family. I was the youngest of 7. I don’t know if I was the good or the bad guy. I was the favorite. Of course, my mom loved me more than anybody, of course. But I see this with patients all the time and I and I’m interested. I hope I’ve been saying the right thing to my patients because I say this maybe 10 times a day. You have to be selfish in order to be giving.

DR. DEBBIE MAGIDS: Mm hmm.

DR. MIKE MORENO: And I think as especially when you see young families raising kids and taking their kids, here they are that doing all the stuff and they come into my office and they have headaches. They have stomach problems, they are tired, they are fatigued, and they don’t come in and say, Hey, Dr. Mike, I’m overextending myself. And I’m not taking time for myself, and I make that statement very clear you have to be selfish. So, this is where selfish is OK, because if you are not selfish, you’re not able to provide what you are trying to provide in the way you’re trying to provide it. And then the whole building, as we said, it falls apart, right?

DR. DEBBIE MAGIDS: Yeah.

DR. MIKE MORENO: It’s this house of cards that falls apart. But that’s a struggle for people like, how do you get past that guilt? You know, overextending yourself. It’s like 10 people call and you’re like committing to all these things and then you’re like, frustrated. You’re not going to enjoy anything because you’ve committed to 10 things. You don’t want to do anything but sit at home like, how do you walk us through how you get through this?

DR. DEBBIE MAGIDS: Yeah, the first thing is you have to have a desire to want to change it and you have to have the desire to be able to withstand what you’re going to feel like if you change it. The people that have this syndrome, I call it the good one syndrome or the commitment. They can’t tolerate how they feel by saying no, so they continue to say yes, you’re actually protecting yourself emotionally by saying yes, because it won’t feel good to you if you say no.

DR. MIKE MORENO: I gotcha.

DR. DEBBIE MAGIDS: And also, when you use the word be selfish, it’s sad. That selfish has to be the term that we use for self-care.

DR. MIKE MORENO: Right! It sounds like- people are like, be selfish, oh my god, that’s terrible. I’m like, No, no, no. Listen to the concept, not the word, but you’re right, and they think that’s a word everybody understands.

DR. DEBBIE MAGIDS: But you know what, Dr. Mike, I put this as a tip for the end, but I always look at people’s language because what we were actually feeling and it isn’t selfish, it’s called taking care of your own needs. Otherwise, no one else will. It’s not selfish at all. It’s self-care. It’s self-loving.

DR. MIKE MORENO: Maybe I need to change my verbiage.

DR. DEBBIE MAGIDS: Yes, from today’s podcast, you’re going to now watch your language.

DR. MIKE MORENO: That’s right. I love that.

DR. DEBBIE MAGIDS: Always be careful of what you say because it’s information about what you really feel and believe, and people use self-deprecating language all the time. But I digressed. But back to what you do, so you have to have the awareness, you have to have the desire. And then I always want people to ask the question, What’s my motivation? Why am I saying yes or no to whatever I’m saying yes or no to? Is it because I really want to do this? Or is it because I’m afraid my husband will be mad at me? Or am I afraid my friend won’t like me? What’s the motivation?

DR. MIKE MORENO: I love it, right, I love it.

DR. DEBBIE MAGIDS: Because if the motivation isn’t, I really want to do this, then it should be no. Now there’s also a caveat obviously we all have when people need us if someone’s sick or there’s a crisis or needs don’t matter in those moments, right?

DR. MIKE MORENO: Right.

DR. DEBBIE MAGIDS: So, I’m not going if you don’t feel like helping your mother because she fell. Go help your mother because she fell. And the other thing I like people to ask themselves is if I say yes, how much will this deplete me if the cost is too high? The answer is no.

DR. MIKE MORENO: This is sort of an emotional savings account, right? An emotional checking account, right? You’re going to write a check. You got x amount of like emotion dollars in your tank and someone’s like, Hey, I need you to come help us pick some tree out or paint for our living room. You’re like, Oh, I mean, you got to look at the cost benefit. It’s like anything else in life, right? Cost benefit to everything. But I love that. Ok, all right. I’m with you. I’m feeling better.

DR. DEBBIE MAGIDS: If you’re in this category, you never do the cost benefit analysis, you just give and give and give and give-

DR. MIKE MORENO: Yep.

DR. DEBBIE MAGIDS: Right? And we all should think of the examples in our lives where it might be really hard to say no to someone because they really need us. But we need us to right? And it would be great for people to think of very specific examples. I mean, I’m just going to throw one in. You know, my father passed away 13 years ago, and we were all devastated and sad as you are when you lose a parent or spouse. And my brother moved away, and it was the Jewish holidays, and my mother wanted me to go to temple with her for Yom Kippur. And so, I did because I don’t really go to Temple anymore. And she sat and cried the whole time and I sat there watching her cry. And so, when the following Yom Kippur came, I put my needs first, even though she’s my mother and she’s a widow and I love her to death.

I said, Mom, me going there is going to hurt me too much. You go to Temple and you go do your mourning on your own. And everyone was like, how could you do that to your mother? I said, because I have to mourn the way I have to mourn. It’s hurting me too much. I cannot make her happy. I have to make myself whole, right? So, I just use that as an example, because it’s an extreme one where everyone was telling me, you’re being so mean to your mother. I’m not. I’m not being mean. I love her, but I have to also know that when my limits are and what I need.

DR. MIKE MORENO: So this happened with my brother just a couple of months ago. He had a big 60th birthday and he invited some siblings up to Napa Valley. I live in San Diego; it was only going to be just for a couple of days and it’s very safe. He had this whole thing planned well. I had, first of all, I had a difficulty in getting those couple of days off. But beyond that, I had been having some issues, medically speaking, and it was a struggle.

And I remember, you know how they lay it on you. And my brother handled it perfectly well. I was the one struggling with saying, I’m not going to make it right, and I kept thinking, I’m going to tell him this week, I’m going to tell him this weekend. I’m going to tell him next week. And finally, it was like two days before and it hadn’t been discussed. But I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t make it. And I was like, this is not a text thing. This is a pick up the phone and call thing. And I’m like, Dude, I go, and it was eating me up.

DR. DEBBIE MAGIDS: Yes.

DR. MIKE MORENO: I was like, Hey, man, I you know I love you. It’s the 60th birthday. It’s huge. I would be there under any. And he’s like, Dude, no worries. We’re going to miss you. We’d love to have you. I invited you just because I didn’t want to feel guilty if you couldn’t go. I understand.

DR. DEBBIE MAGIDS: Hmm.

DR. MIKE MORENO: I was so relieved.

DR. DEBBIE MAGIDS: Yes.

DR. MIKE MORENO: I must have aged 10 years and 3 weeks because it was like devastating.

DR. DEBBIE MAGIDS: I would never have known that you were my perfect candidate for this topic because you did it all backwards.

DR. MIKE MORENO: My therapist that I see every week knows that I’m a perfect candidate for a lot of topics, but seriously, it just beat me up. And then he was like, Dude, it’s all good, but I mean, walk me through again. It’s about me. Walk us through because I’m hoping that the listeners are relate to me or relate to the story and say, Yeah, I’ve been there. Like, how do you walk through that and not have it torture you so much? How do you go and you just gave it your description? So help us.

DR. DEBBIE MAGIDS: This is the live with what it feels like and onto what I deem is so important in experiencing your emotions. The reason why you didn’t want to say no is because you felt that people would be mad at you or you were letting people down. And then that’s painful. So, we need to be able to sort of whether it’s almost like act isn’t right, you have to push yourself to do the behavior and then live with whatever emotions come up and have the awareness of what’s happening.

So now, like after this topic, right? If you were to do it again, you’re like, OK, Dr. Debbie said, I’m the good one. My needs were depleted. I always put other people’s needs before mine. I worry about what other people will think will be mad at me or I’m letting them down. I’m going to make that call immediately. I’m not going to torture myself and wait for 2 weeks and kick the can down the road. I’m going to say what I need to say, and then I’ll feel what I need to feel. And then it’s over, because then you felt the relief.

DR. MIKE MORENO: I mean, it was like I just tortured myself for a month. It was like coming sooner and sooner. It’s like when you’re in college, you’re anticipating this midterm that’s coming. And before you know it, it’s tomorrow and you’re like, oh my god. But I want to go back to something you said a minute ago because I love it. And I think the biggest strength in terms of lifestyle change or shift in mentality or thought process is what you said, which is motivation. And I use that tool, I use a tool of my patients. I call it M&M. Mindfulness and motivation.

DR. DEBBIE MAGIDS: Mm hmm.

DR. MIKE MORENO: Make a decision about what it is. You’re going to eat, spend 5 seconds, look at it, touch it, feel it. Recognize why is this going to be a good idea or a bad idea? And what is your motivation for getting healthy? And it works with like exercise, right? You come home long day. I don’t want to exercise, OK? Take 5 seconds and say to yourself, all right, I’m going to either exercise or I’m not. Why do I want to exercise? I want to feel healthy. I want to be around for my kids. I want to be around. Once you start to find your motivation, it makes the doing the thing. Now, you’re not always going to get it right. Sometimes you’re going to say, here’s my motivation, I want to do this, but I’m too tired. I’m not doing it.

DR. DEBBIE MAGIDS: Right.

DR. MIKE MORENO: But when you can start to win those battles, right? When you start to maybe win 1 or 2, it starts to become easier. So, I love that you say your motivation. I love your idea of what is this going to cost me emotionally to do this.

DR. DEBBIE MAGIDS: Yes, and when I use motivation again, I’m going sort of under the iceberg. I’m trying to get to the underlying levels, right? So, at the tip of the iceberg, what’s my motivation is I really don’t want to do this, and I know I don’t want to do this, but I’m about to say yes. And when you go to the deeper levels of what’s my motivation, it’s because I feel that I’m letting someone down. It’s the deeper meaning behind it. And once you have that awareness, it propels you to be able to act without the awareness. We’re just beholden to what we don’t even know. It’s that unconscious stuff that was put in us long ago.

DR. MIKE MORENO: The 95%. I love that. The 5% is what’s up top. And the 95% is what’s causing all the problems.

DR. DEBBIE MAGIDS: Yes.

DR. MIKE MORENO: I mean, OK, so let me ask you this and is it OK to do nothing because, I know that’s a broad statement. We can talk for hours on this, but I’m going somewhere with this. So, is it OK to just do nothing?

DR. DEBBIE MAGIDS: So, it’s one of the number one tips that I give when people are talking about self-care is allowing yourself and giving you self-permission to have unproductive time. The problem with a lot of people right now, especially, the other personality type that fits into this is the perfectionist that wants to get everything done and has unrealistic expectations and needs everything perfect and wants to be producing something or doing something all the time.

Doing nothing replenishes you more than anything else. It doesn’t just have to be sitting and meditating, it’s listening to music. It could be binge-watching Netflix. Anything that just clears your mind and clears you out and you’re relaxed and not working is rejuvenating. Too many people don’t do it because they feel guilty. They should be wasting time. It’s a waste of time. I should be doing something. I have so much to do and then they can’t get themselves to do nothing. I mean, you would just feel sorry for yourself.

DR. MIKE MORENO: It’s hard. It’s really hard. Now, so I’m a Virgo. Classically, we are a mess. I am OCD. I saw it in my chart of my therapist, who I’ve seen for 20 years. Bless her heart. And being OCD and doing nothing are two very challenging things. I will drive myself nuts by sitting down and doing nothing. There’s a guilt. There’s I should be doing this. There’s my eyes, wander through the room and see a speck of dust on the floor that I could clean that up or vacuum that up.

My cats are very good at doing nothing. My cats are excellent at doing nothing. They sit there and do nothing all day. They lift their head, they look at me and they’re like, what is he doing now? And I’m a lunatic. I’m running around the house; I’m doing all this stuff. So can you give us maybe a couple of tips? Give me a couple of tips on how can we help people do nothing? It sounds like a silly Seinfeld episode. What we’re talking about. But honestly, how can we help?

DR. DEBBIE MAGIDS: For someone like you, in all honesty, you need to schedule in doing nothing time because you’re an OCD guy. You know, for someone like me, I do nothing better than anyone on the planet. I’m really high functioning, I do a lot and then I do nothing. I can sit like nobody’s business. If you schedule an hour of nothing, you’ll do it every day, right?

DR. MIKE MORENO: Right.

DR. DEBBIE MAGIDS: Or half an hour. So, for anyone like Dr Mike, you have to get time to do nothing and then make yourself do nothing and sit and see what that feels like for you.

DR. MIKE MORENO: And it’s not going to you’re not going to get it right the first time, right? You’re going to struggle.

DR. DEBBIE MAGIDS: Yeah, that is going to go back to live with what it feels like. Listen, I think anyone knows that changes really hard changes. Cumulative change is slow. People don’t change because they get too uncomfortable, so they stay stuck in old patterns because it just feels comfortable.

DR. MIKE MORENO: Right.

DR. DEBBIE MAGIDS: I always say it’s like a rat on the wheel. People stay stuck in their patterns and they are in pain, but it’s familiar pain. And if they make a change, they’re in pain. But at least there’s room here for something new. So, if you don’t change your habit, you can’t change and you can’t change unless you feel discomfort.

So, I would definitely schedule time to do nothing. And if you want, throw in some music because that is part of how I help people feel. I think if you or any of your listeners know there’s a song you can think of that, you know, you’ll get sad, there’s a song you can think of that will make you happy or nostalgic. I use music therapy all the time when people don’t release their emotions a lot. I’m like, put on music, sit there with the music playing. Pay attention to what you’re feeling. And maybe let it come out.

DR. MIKE MORENO: What you’re describing is what I’ve- this is so eerie, and I’m going to share this with you because it’s burning me up inside. let’s touch on one quickly, let’s touch on self-compassion. Let’s talk a little bit about that. Like, what is self-compassion?

DR. DEBBIE MAGIDS: I understand that you probably suffer from this, too. I think people are not good to themselves, they have expectations of themselves that just can’t be met.

DR. MIKE MORENO: Right.

DR. DEBBIE MAGIDS: If they don’t allow for their own human fallibility, everyone else around them can make mistakes, but not you. And a little self-compassion goes a long way. Give yourself a break. You can’t do everything in one day. You can’t get everything off your to do list. You can’t always feel happy. You can’t always get everything done in the day you want to accomplish. You can’t always make your spouse happy or make your child happy like you’re a human being. And it’s really that umbrella. And just give yourself a break and allow yourself all the emotions and all of the feelings and times where you just don’t feel like doing anything and let that be OK the way you would give that to your child.

DR. MIKE MORENO: Well, so I will express, first of all, I’m going to begin this with a term and it’s an Italian phrase you probably heard this “Il dolce far niente” Il dolce far niente means give yourself a break or give yourself the joy of doing nothing. The sweetness of doing nothing. Well, dolce and far niente are actually wines. And this is crazy that you said this, but my go to at night when I’ve had an exhausting day is to pour a glass of wine, to set on the patio, to turn on a Pink Floyd song any of a number and just do nothing.

DR. DEBBIE MAGIDS: Yes.

DR. MIKE MORENO: What I found that does and this happened last night actually and it makes me smile. Sometimes I think about a time, and what it actually led me to was calling my best friend of 45 years and saying, hey buddy, remember that time when we did this? So, I will say in the last 9 or 10 months, last year, 2020, I really lost that, that Il dolce far niente. I lost that ability to that sweetness of doing nothing. And for me, it really was a glass of wine and a Pink Floyd song generally because they’re longer songs. But it took me away. It took me to a place. Sometimes it took me nowhere. But when it does, and like you said this a few minutes ago, it may make you sad and it may make you happy. Whatever it is a genuinely great feeling to get to that point.

DR. DEBBIE MAGIDS: Yes. Yes. You described it so beautifully. People don’t realize the joy in feeling whatever that is. And my clients call me the Michael Jordan of feelings because I literally cry every single day because there’s something sad. Every single day we are feeling 24/7. We just don’t know it. And I could be sad for something in me or something in my client. Or it could be crying because something touching happened. But you should be looking for an emotional experience every day in your life and just a release of that because that’s what makes us human and that’s what allows us to self-care.

DR. MIKE MORENO: The whole idea of self-compassion, and I tell my patients all the time they come in and again, they may come in with headaches, dizzy, dizziness, whatever, right? But the underlying thing, once you whittle it down, it’s their lives are in chaos. And I tell them, and I really I sort of pushed the computer aside and I just kind of hunched down and put my hands on my knees. And I look at them and I say, you know, life is hard, and it really is. It is hard. I mean, being an adult sucks sometimes being a kid sucks. And I remember when I was like, 5, right? When you just got up after a 10-hour sleep straight, you played. You have fun, you take a nap, you have lunch. But life has begun, has gotten so hard and so challenging. And I tell them, it’s OK that you feel this way. I’m more concerned if you think everything is OK and you got all this stuff going on. So, I think self-compassion is the take-home here, really. I mean, it’s fascinating to me.

DR. DEBBIE MAGIDS: Yeah, the whole thing, self-compassion and letting yourself be OK with wherever you’re at.

DR. MIKE MORENO: We’re too hard on ourselves, right? I think we’re just too hard on ourselves.

DR. DEBBIE MAGIDS: 100%. There’s the expectations we have of ourselves is half the battle.

DR. MIKE MORENO: Well, listen, I could go on forever, and my therapist will thank you because I won’t be dumping on her as much as I normally do this week. Give me a tidbit. I’m in your office, I’m talking to you and as I’m about to walk out the door, what are you going to tell me? You’re like you need more than just one tidbit.

DR. DEBBIE MAGIDS: I’m going to tell you-

DR. MIKE MORENO: Where do we start? How about that?

DR. DEBBIE MAGIDS: For this week, after all that we’ve said, go out and try to receive instead of just give. Try to receive instead of just give, because when we’re only giving, giving, giving, giving, giving right, because we’re under the topic of self-care, we’re actually doing a disservice to people who may be trying to give to us as well, but we are not receiving it. Take in other people’s love and other people helping you with what you might need and see how that feels for you. Because really, ultimately what we’re trying to break is this depletion that we feel because we’re not taking care of ourselves and we’re servicing the rest of the world too much.

DR. MIKE MORENO: I love that. I absolutely love that. I think this past year has been one year, let me tell you, and I think a lot of people need to go back and look at their 95% right? What’s underneath that ocean, that iceberg. And it’s not what’s on the surface, it’s what’s underneath. And I think it’s really, really this is important stuff for mental health, for physical health, for happiness, you know, gosh, we should all be happy, right?

DR. DEBBIE MAGIDS: You talked about this so much in this session, I’m just highlighting it like the mind and body is so connected and I deal with the emotional you deal with the physical, but they’re combined.

DR. MIKE MORENO: Totally.

DR. DEBBIE MAGIDS: You can’t have good physical health without mental health, and you can’t have good mental health without physical health. And so much of what creates the headaches in the back aches and all the all the issues you are seeing is the lack of dealing with the 95% it’s the lack of dealing with the emotional world. And if you deal with both at the same time, you’re golden. It’s just so hard to do. It really is.

You know, and I would love to actually leave you with this. COVID has been super hard on everyone. We’re all now back at the beginning again, right? It’s like the stages of grief. You’re back at the beginning. Nothing’s linear and we’re all, I mean- you’re in California, I’m in New York. We’re up for a hard winter here. If you could take the next round to months before we may see the light at the end of the tunnel with this COVID thing and really think about who you are and what’s underneath and be kind to yourself and let yourself feel and take on rituals of self-care and self-compassion.

This will be a fruitful time for you instead of just missing everything else in my life, and it could be a source of growth instead of just pain.

DR. MIKE MORENO: Right. This is great stuff, I think we all need this right now, and I hope people are listening and reflecting and thinking about their own lives because this is priceless, priceless stuff. So. Dr. Debbie, thank you. I know everybody else thanks you. Where can we find you? Where can I find you? Please.

DR. DEBBIE MAGIDS: You can go to my website, www.drdebbie.com, you can go to Instagram. It’s @Dr.DebbieMagids.

DR. MIKE MORENO: Thank you. Honestly.

DR. DEBBIE MAGIDS: It was so nice to meet you. Thank you so much.

DR. MIKE MORENO: My pleasure, thank you. Well, that’s it, everybody. Man, we got a lot in. Let’s get to the tips the weekly RX, I have about 100 of them. I’m going to steal one or two from Dr. Debbie.

Self-awareness builds a foundation and that is huge. That’s an important thing to realize. Think about that iceberg. Think about what’s on top of the water and what’s underneath. What is driving these behaviors, and I think you got to start somewhere like Dr. Debbie said, give yourself a break, start somewhere, you’re the world will go on, but you need to be at your best mentally and physically so that you can be there for others, it’s OK.

And then lastly, what’s your motivation for deciding to do or not do something when that person asks you, Hey, I need you to do this, I need. What is your motivation? Think about that emotional sort of checking account and you know it is going to cost you. Is it worth it? Is it worth it? And is it that big of a deal? Life is hard, guys, but we will get through it with people like Dr. Debbie and the rest of us just chipping in and helping each other out because life can be a challenge. But if we help each other out, I think I think we’re going to be just fine.

So that’s it for today. Don’t forget to subscribe for free, download and listen to Wellness Inc. with me, Dr. Mike Moreno on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. Follow me on social media at 17 Day Diet. Thanks so much. Have a great day.

The Wellness, Inc. with Dr. Mike Moreno podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only and is not intended as a replacement or substitution for any professional, medical, financial, legal, or other advice, diagnosis, or treatment. This podcast does not constitute the practice of medicine or any other professional service. The use of any information provided during this podcast is at the listeners own risk for medical or other advice appropriate to your specific situation, please consult a physician or other trained professional. Thank you.

About This Episode:

On this personal episode of Wellness, Inc. Dr Mike Moreno talks openly with counseling psychologist and media expert Dr. Debbie Magids about self-care at home.

Dr. Mike shares personal stories from his life and explores what self-compassion means to him.

Dr. Debbie explains the importance of self-awareness as the foundation of your well-being. The two talk through what gets in the way of setting emotional boundaries, being selfish in order to be giving, self-compassion, music therapy, and why Dr. Debbie tells Dr Mike he needs to schedule time to do absolutely nothing.

Connect with Dr. Debbie Magids:

https://drdebbie.com/
https://www.instagram.com/drdebbiemagids/
https://twitter.com/drdebbiemagids
https://www.facebook.com/drdebbiemagids/
https://drdebbie.com/blog