Recharging Your Batteries

Every now and then we all need to take some time to reset ourselves and refocus. In today's episode we discuss how to carve out time to recharge your batteries, and why it's important to take this time to yourself.

Transcript

Welcome to life lessons and laughter with your host Glenn Ambrose.

Hello,

Welcome to the podcast.

We are talking about recharging our batteries today,

Right Ben?

Yes.

Yes.

Oh,

Was I supposed to add more to that?

No,

I just kind of was enjoying the silly look on your face.

Thanks,

Man.

It was just entertaining to me.

Awesome.

It stunned me.

Are you saying that I'm stunning?

In this particular case,

Apparently,

Yeah.

Nice.

You stunned me.

So that's the definition.

I know.

I try.

So yeah,

We're talking about recharging,

Which is something that we all need to do and something that I've been doing in different ways recently.

Yeah.

So what ways have you been recharging?

Let's talk about why we need to recharge.

Yeah.

I think that's a good place to start.

I think you're right.

So let's talk about that.

Why do we need to recharge?

Yeah,

It's your show.

Okay.

All right.

I'll talk about that then.

We need to recharge because generally,

Our lives are very busy and a lot of our focus isn't on self-care naturally.

So we've got a lot of responsibilities with taking care of the kids or with working or both or taking care of the house.

Our focus is on a lot of things other than ourselves.

So I mean,

Of course,

Like myself,

For example,

I have my spiritual disciplines that I do daily.

You know,

I mean,

I meditate every day and I read something and things like that.

And I try to do things even more often.

Plus,

My business is spiritual.

So a lot of the stuff that I should be keeping in mind,

I'm discussing on a regular basis,

Which is helpful.

But that doesn't mean that I don't get caught up in the day to day stuff.

You know,

So if I'm getting caught up in the day to day stuff and my business is spiritual,

I know that everybody else is getting caught up in it,

Too.

So it's really about just taking a moment and checking in and seeing what you need to do to take care of yourself,

You know,

Seeing where you are.

And I noticed that I was feeling uncomfortable and that's generally not how I'm feeling.

So it was like,

OK,

Well,

I need to start doing things.

And,

You know,

Part of it can be,

You know,

To change that.

Right.

I mean,

I don't know what happened with that.

You and I haven't seen each other since you took a week to recharge.

Yeah,

I took a couple of days.

Yeah,

I don't know how long it was exactly because I haven't talked to you about it.

Yeah.

Because,

You know,

Something you mentioned earlier when we were talking about it,

Like I stopped at a Buddhist temple and that's a to touch on that.

That was an example of me taking care of myself and recharging without really putting a lot of attention to it.

You know,

I had worked kind of a long Monday,

Which I often do.

My Mondays are usually pretty packed.

And then Tuesday is slower.

But I had a business meeting on Tuesday.

So I went to that business meeting.

And when I got out of there,

I'm like,

I need to take some time for myself.

And I was aware of it.

So because I was aware of it,

You know,

And I was kind of looking for something to do,

That was my intention was to just care for myself.

After I left that meeting,

Something came to me that I didn't expect.

Like the guy I had a meeting with said that,

Oh,

You live in Coventry.

When I go to Coventry,

I always go this back way because it's really a beautiful drive.

And I heard that and I was like,

Good idea.

So I took that drive.

And in taking that drive,

All of a sudden I started noticing where I was.

And I was like,

Oh,

There's this Buddhist temple that's up on the left.

And I started keeping my eyes open for it and pulled up.

And then I just,

When I saw it,

I was just like,

I should stop.

So I pulled in,

You know,

And ended up spending some time and doing some meditation and talking with the monks there about Buddhism and stuff like that.

And I just hung out with them for like an hour or something and then headed out.

And it was really a great experience just because I was open to it,

You know.

So it doesn't have to be some big thought out plan thing.

If you're open,

You can fall into simple things like that.

So you know,

That I want to touch on that because it was unexpected and stuff,

You know.

Do you think we get a Buddhist monk on the podcast?

Would they do that?

I don't know.

Maybe.

We'd have to get one that we could make sure we could understand.

But you know,

Most of them that I was talking to,

It was really broken English.

Okay.

You know,

It took a lot of concentration for me to grasp what they were saying.

So but who knows?

Actually,

I think I knew I know somebody that worked at the Providence Zen Center in Cumberland.

I could ask her maybe,

You know,

We could get a guest that was a specialist on Buddhism.

That'd be cool.

So anyway,

Back to recharging.

Yeah,

So I had,

You know,

I myself I had spent a lot of energy getting the the Great Love Project up and running and and then afterwards,

I kind of kept myself busy,

But I didn't have the clarity on what I was doing.

And it was just I was getting a little uncomfortable.

So I noticed that feeling and you know,

I tried figuring it out looking at it and stuff like that.

And I wasn't really getting the answers that I needed.

I was just feeling uncomfortable.

So I was like,

Okay,

Well,

That's it.

This is I need to put some real attention to this.

And it's it's about living the way that I preach,

You know,

If I mean,

I'm always telling people to take care of themselves.

And here was a situation where I was feeling uncomfortable.

I needed to get some clarity and some direction and and some peace within myself.

So once I came to that understanding,

I just cleared my schedule.

And I was because this is the most important thing.

If I don't take care of myself,

Then I'm not capable of being the father I want to be the friend that I want to be running the business that I want to run being the life coach I want to be.

And I can't be everything that I want to be if I don't take care of myself first.

Yeah.

So so my spirituality is my foundation for everything.

Everything comes off of that.

So when I was feeling,

You know,

Disconnected,

Uncomfortable,

I needed to take action to refocus and you know,

Really take care of myself.

So I cleared my schedule and I went and I asked around if there was any I don't know the beaches that well,

But I got the feeling I want to go to the beach.

So I asked around if anybody knew some beaches that were more quiet,

Because in Rhode Island in the summertime in July,

Yeah,

The beaches can get pretty hectic,

You know,

So I got a little bit of insight from some people and I just picked one and I threw it in the GPS and went down there.

Then when I got down there,

I ran a search for hotels in the area.

And I went and looked at a couple of them and grabbed a room somewhere,

You know.

Oh,

Really?

Yeah.

That's cool.

Yeah.

And I stayed there for two nights.

And you know,

It was cool.

And my son ended up staying with a friend and had a great time and had some alone time without me also,

Which you know,

Which he enjoys at 15.

So I mean,

It was good for both of us.

And I got just spending that time alone and I really didn't do anything.

You know,

I got there,

I got the I got the hotel that night.

I kind of familiarized myself with the area,

Got something to eat and went to bed.

Where was it?

It was down at East Beach.

Was that Charleston?

I think it's in Charlestown.

What was a I don't know,

Is East Beach in Charlestown?

I think so.

Davis,

East Beach in Charlestown or is that the one in Watch Hill?

Were there a bunch of were there a bunch of like mansions around you?

No,

No,

But it was it was pretty deserted.

But you know,

I think you get what you need to and the weather was not beach weather.

I mean,

It wasn't raining,

But it was really cloudy and overcast and stuff.

So it was really deserted,

Which was perfect,

Because that's what I was looking for is quiet time,

You know.

So I just walked down the beach and.

Yeah.

So that's a that's a good quiet one to go to.

The other one is right next to Taylor Swift's house,

You would not have.

Yeah,

I which which is the beach that's north of that,

Because I walked north of that and there's a little waterway there.

Yeah.

Over to another beach.

Yep.

Which I was like,

My plan was to walk like I just looked quick.

There was not a lot of thought into this because I didn't really care what I was doing that much.

You know what I mean?

So I looked at a map and going south was a lot longer.

It looked like to a public beach than north.

So I headed north because I figured I'd walk,

Get something to eat and then head back.

Well,

I wasn't aware that there was a waterway that I couldn't cross.

I walked all the way there and had to turn around and walk back.

But you know,

But I got what I needed.

I got that alone time.

So it was really good for me just to spend that time alone,

Meditating more,

You know,

Get time,

Going inside,

Going,

You know,

What's what am I feeling?

What do I need?

What am I missing?

You know,

And getting some answers and I got some good answers as far as especially as far as the business end.

Yeah.

I realized that I was I was keeping myself busy,

But I needed to refocus and do different things that would be more productive instead of just spinning my wheels,

You know,

Doing things that really didn't produce that much results.

But it was keeping me busy.

So I felt like I was doing something.

So to slow down and look at that was really beneficial to me.

You know,

And then I had I had already booked a retreat,

Which was I think was two weeks after that,

Which was last weekend.

And so I already had that booked.

And it was right before like a couple days before the retreat,

I was I noticed I was like,

There's more work I need to do,

Because there's still something else that I haven't gotten clarity on yet.

So this I'm glad I'm going to this retreat.

So I went up to Peace Village in New York and spent the weekend there.

And it was a beautiful location,

Beautiful place,

Wonderful people there.

And I had a great weekend retreat.

And geez,

Just driving there,

It took me like four hours to drive there.

Just four hours alone in a car was peaceful.

It was just spending that time was was a,

You know,

A gift in itself.

But on that,

You know,

Spending that time alone,

That that really well,

I mean,

There was other people at the retreat,

But I'm really focusing on myself.

I was able to see,

You know,

Where my my mentality had shifted a little bit.

And it wasn't so I just needed to kind of be a little bit more conscious of my thoughts.

I'd gotten caught up in my day to day life,

You know,

It's it does.

I have a lot to do,

You know,

That like,

If I look at my lists of things to do,

It's pretty long.

Generally I don't look at it.

So I don't really feel overwhelmed.

I just do what I can.

But little by little,

I can chip away at you,

You know,

And it did me.

So it was the the the the the meditation and the the retreat that I just went on really helped me fine tune my own thinking about myself just in general and really focusing on being happy and walking through my days in a happier energy and being responsible for that energy.

And the couple days at the beach,

You know,

Gave me the time to really see what I needed to do business wise.

So you know,

It was really helpful for me to take that time.

And it's it needs to be a priority,

You know,

Because like I said,

It's my foundation.

It's my fun.

I have to take care of myself because,

You know,

What happens if I don't do that?

Like I was I was busy,

Right?

Doing business stuff.

We'll just look at it from a business perspective.

I was busy doing things,

But I wasn't doing what I should be doing.

So if I didn't stop to see that six months from now,

I'd be probably in close to the same spot,

Really frustrated and quite possibly ready to give up on that type of,

You know,

That area of my business,

Maybe because I didn't stop.

You know,

Now I'm refocused.

I saw where I was veering off and and I can head in a direction that I want to.

So it's you know,

It's people,

You know,

Oftentimes they go,

Oh,

I don't have time to do that.

I don't have time.

I can't take two days and go to the beach.

Well,

Really?

OK,

You can't take two days to go to the beach,

Which I understand not everybody can.

So you figure out what you can do.

But two days at the beach,

I mean,

I lost a little bit of income doing that and it cost me a little bit of money to stay down there.

So I mean,

Financially,

It wasn't the best decision to,

You know,

Just to go do that.

But what's it going to get me in the long run?

It's going to get me where where I need to go.

You know,

So really,

I look at it like I couldn't afford not to,

You know,

Because if I don't take care of myself,

I will not get to where I want to be.

I won't.

I just you know,

I know I won't.

So it's so I need to take care of myself.

And I think people have their priorities backwards.

I think they need to do take care of everything outside of them first.

And then if they have time,

Then they'll care for themselves.

And you just can't do that.

Every single person on the planet,

Everyone will burn out if that's the way you do things.

This past spring,

Which seems like it was forever ago now.

I was pretty busy doing three three shows like simultaneously.

And I was not taking care of myself at all.

How'd that turn out for you?

It was bad.

It was you know,

I felt lousy.

I was tired.

I was like I couldn't wait until June because June was reprieve from from all of it.

And and yeah,

I took no time to myself in like March through June.

And it was horrible.

I wasn't taking care of myself.

And I felt really like low,

Just bad in like every aspect.

And and then June was was nice.

June was nice.

It was an opportunity to recharge a little bit.

And then July has started or did start a really busy time again.

And I went in knowing how much the spring sucked.

Yeah.

And and Dave in June had been like,

What are you doing?

You got to like you got to focus and make sure that you take care of yourself and all that stuff.

And it was like,

Oh,

Right.

Like I didn't even realize that I hadn't taken care of myself,

Even though I was like in pain and upset and all.

Yeah,

Because we don't wait.

It does.

It affects us physically,

Emotionally,

Mentally.

And we get caught up in it and we think that it's all the stuff around us.

You know,

It's oh,

Well,

I'm I'm busy.

And it's it's it's that fault.

No,

It's your fault.

Like your life is your responsibility.

So if you're if you're feeling off,

That's because you're not giving yourself something that you need to be giving.

So the last few weeks,

I really made an effort to still do positive things for myself.

And we've had to we had two camps simultaneously,

One in the morning to the afternoon,

The one in the afternoon to the evening.

And every day,

With the exception of one in that time frame,

I would go.

I would leave one camp.

I would go I would go swimming,

Which would be really like and I said to a friend of mine that it was a nice reset of the day.

Right.

And then I would come back and do the next camp.

And by the end of the two weeks,

I wasn't nearly as exhausted or frantic and upset.

And we did because because they're independent things.

So we had to set up and tear down an entire show like five times within the course of 48 hours.

And it was fine.

It was it was like it was hectic and it sucked.

But it was it was completely fine.

It was manageable.

Yeah,

It was totally fine.

It's amazing what you can do in a healthier way,

Because what we do is we sacrifice our self care in the name of accomplishing things.

And what we're doing is we're we're we're incapable of accomplishing as much because we're not taking care of ourselves.

You know,

When you're when you're feeling good,

When you're upbeat,

When you have energy,

You're when you're happy.

I mean,

You know,

Look at the studies Google like happy studies in the workforce.

Happy people work better.

They're more productive.

It's just it's a fact.

Right.

So like when you're taking care of yourself,

Then you're more productive and your day goes better and you get more done.

You know,

So it's it's that's the like I said before,

We have it backwards.

We think we have to do stuff.

And then if we have time,

We'll take care of ourselves.

And it's like,

No,

We'll take care of yourself.

And then that helps you do more.

There's no way I could keep up the pace that I that I'm on if I wasn't taking care of myself on a regular basis.

You know,

I've told you about the book,

The Four Hour Workweek,

Right?

Yeah,

I know you've mentioned it.

It's I don't know how much you would love it,

But or dislike it or whatever.

But one of the the main like the main thread behind the whole book is to not buy into this false,

Horrible thought of we're going to work really hard until we're 65.

And then we're going to find that we're going to save up and we're going to finally have time to enjoy ourselves.

Oh,

My God.

Yeah,

That just sounds horrible.

It's right.

And,

You know,

Like that's that touches on something that I see a lot with people.

And it's kind of a sensitive thing because and you just brought it up in another way.

It's sometimes I understand that sometimes certain businesses,

The way they're run,

You kind of have to hunker down for a certain period of time and really work harder.

And you can't space things out evenly over a whole year.

I understand that.

But that doesn't mean that we can't incorporate ways to care for ourselves in there like like you did.

You know,

You're still in a busy period of your work,

But you incorporated some self care in there this time and it benefited you.

So it's that this mentality of,

Well,

No,

I have to just beat the living snot out of myself for a certain period of time and then I'll recuperate.

It's not healthy.

You know,

It's not healthy to live like that.

And you know,

The extended version of that is what you just said.

I'll just destroy myself until I'm 65 and then I'll enjoy it.

It's like people are dropping dead on a daily basis because of that mentality.

I mean,

I'm going to be 48 soon.

And like,

You know how many people that are younger than me are having heart attacks?

And I just went to the dentist and they're checking me in.

They're like,

You're not on any medications?

Like no,

Like none?

No,

Like that's wonderful.

Do you know how many lists of medications I see of people that are that are in their 40s and you know,

And 40 years old and in their 30s?

Like,

It's because people aren't taking care of themselves.

You know,

It's in any way,

Shape or form,

Not just physically,

But emotionally and mentally as well.

And it's then you drop dead of a heart attack at 45 years old and you never make it to 65.

You know,

So that mentality does not work.

And even if it did,

You know,

That's a huge chunk of your life.

Like let's say 25 to 65,

That's 40 years of you being unhappy.

And then what?

You get to be happy for 20 and then you die?

No thank you.

You know,

Like I can't hang on.

Who can look at their life and say,

I'm going to be unhappy for 40 years and be okay with that?

That's just a warped mentality.

You know,

You're not going to make it.

You're not going to make it with that mentality.

So his,

So his advice in the book is,

You know,

Spend,

Spend money on experiences instead of things and take like several mini vacations a year if you can.

Yeah.

Stuff like that.

Like do things for yourself.

That's great advice.

Yeah.

And like,

And,

And the book obviously is,

Is about how to,

You know,

Optimize your,

Everything that you do so that you're working less and getting more out of it.

So that you,

So that with the specific goal of freeing up time so that you are able to live your life now instead of saving for retirement.

Right.

Absolutely.

And I love the,

The,

The idea of it,

You know,

Because it,

We,

You know,

Life is what happens when we're busy doing other things,

You know,

When we're busy working and,

And,

And driving our kids around and handling all our responsibilities and stuff,

Our life is passing us by it's,

It's going,

You know,

And we're not even aware of it.

It's like,

Oh,

Well,

You know,

What'd you do with your life?

What?

What do you mean?

You know,

I,

Well,

I,

I worked and I drove my kids places and really like,

Wow,

You missed it.

You know,

I really don't want to get to my death bed and,

And find out that I missed my life,

You know?

So it's,

It's taking care of yourself can look like a lot of different things.

Generally with my clients,

What I tell them is to bring some structure into it,

You know,

Do,

Do something daily.

Right.

Usually,

You know,

Usually people do a meditation,

You know,

Whether it's five or 10 minutes,

20 minutes,

Whatever you can do,

Just set,

You know,

Reset yourself on a daily basis,

Teach your mind how to slow down on a daily basis.

Or I think I said this earlier,

Like if you're having a really rough day and you have an hour lunch break,

Try to take 10 minutes of that.

Right.

Out of it to,

To reset.

To reset,

Just to,

You know,

Some people like I had one job where I didn't actually like the job,

But one thing that was nice about it was I could run.

I could go for a run.

So I used to go for a run on my lunch break and eat at my desk instead,

You know?

So it was cool because I could get that reset,

That physical reset for going for a little run on my lunch break,

You know?

So whatever you can do,

But you know,

I usually tell people do something daily,

Do something weekly,

And then if,

Or monthly,

Do something like twice a year,

Do something once a year.

And you know,

The,

The,

When you do them,

The like the,

The less often you do them,

The larger it is.

So like,

You know,

For once a year,

Well,

You go on a week or two vacation,

You know?

So daily,

It might be 10 minutes.

Monthly it might be a group meditation or a workshop somewhere that,

That's a couple hours,

You know?

Or a book club weekly.

Or doing anything,

Or taking anything you want to do,

You know?

Yeah.

And that's,

That's the other aspect of it.

It can be absolutely anything because all it needs to be is with your intention of self-love.

If your intention is to sit there and stare into space for 10 minutes because you love yourself and you're trying to just relax and settle down and you're doing it out of self-love,

Then that counts.

You know,

I got challenged years ago to do something nice for myself every day.

And it was difficult.

Something different,

You know?

So I would like,

I would do,

I would take a bath with some lavender sea salts and stuff.

And,

You know,

I'd do that.

I'd sit and read for a certain period of time.

I'd sit outside and read or just sit there for a period of time.

I'd go drive and get an ice cream or a coffee somewhere or just anything just to go out,

You know,

Go sit by the water for 15 minutes.

Absolutely anything.

It doesn't,

Go for a walk in the woods.

It doesn't have to cost money.

It's just a matter of just doing anything.

You know,

Lots of women that I talk to about this will go get your nails done.

You know,

Go get a facial.

Go get a massage.

You know,

Whatever you like,

Do that.

You know,

If it's somebody that likes to work on cars,

Well set aside time to work on a car.

You know,

If it's somebody that wants to garden,

Then,

You know,

Whatever.

It doesn't matter what it is.

It's just take time for yourself on a regular basis.

One day we took and drove up past Boston to this colonial harbor town.

And it was ridiculously cool.

Yeah.

That's an experience.

Yeah.

And it was something different and like refreshing and fun.

Right.

And that's it.

I'm just going to hop in the car and just,

You know,

Drive for how many,

You know,

For an hour.

I'm just going to head in one direction for an hour.

Find a beach like you did.

Yeah.

You know,

It's so where can people find you if they want help?

They can find me recharging at the beach.

No,

They can find me at life-enhancement-services.

Com and also check out thegreatloveproject.

Com and you know,

Give the great love project.

You know,

That's the,

It's all about love,

Loving yourself,

You know,

Love yourself first,

Care for yourself first.

And then what you can do is you'll have that foundation where you can care for others.

You know,

It's and I'll wrap it up with this.

On my retreat,

There was a lot of,

There was more women than men,

Which there often are.

And there was a lot of mothers who get carried away with caring for their children and their busy lives.

And you know,

I saw a lot of that there and it reminded me of the priority list.

And it's,

You know,

For me,

The priorities are my connection with my source,

With the God that I understand,

And then caring for myself,

And then everything else.

You know,

That's the order that I need to keep because my strength comes from my source.

So I need to stay connected with that.

I need to care for myself so I'm capable of handling everything else in my life.

So if those are your priorities,

You're never going to burn out,

You know?

Sometimes you might need to take a little reset and a little recharge,

But you won't burn out.

So go ahead,

Think about that and take some time for yourself.

And thank you for listening.

Conc establishing宿

Reviews

How true, taking time for the self can be seen as selfish but it's anything but... Looking forward to having my time to myself by the sea in a couple of weeks 😁 thanks Glenn and Ben 💜 x

Beach walking on a cloudy day-healing nature breaks. Mini vacays

Wonderful reminder of the benefits of self-care, for me and all those around me. Thank you!