Recharging Your Joy Through Self-Care with Margaret Feinberg

Series 2

Feb 23

As we charge ahead in our self-care series, today we’re getting into the nitty-gritty of what it actually means to take time to care for our minds, bodies, and souls. So many of us are stuck with 40 items on our to-do but only the time to complete 10—even though we feel like we should be able to complete all 40 and beat ourselves up when we don’t. Podcaster and author of More Power to You Margaret Feinberg knows that cycle all too well. Margaret found herself worn down during COVID, and burned out from people pleasing long before that. But during her months in quarantine, she discovered when she gave the world a time-out and began to focus on taking care of herself first, in small and big ways, she began to regain some of the energy and passion and confidence that used to be part of her days. Margaret tells Nancy why self-care isn’t a solitary act—even in the midst of pandemic, it can be a community-building exercise that helps us create a more welcoming and loving world for everyone.

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Show Summary

Hi there, Nancy Hicks here. Welcome back to So What? Why It Matters.

We're continuing on in our rethinking self-care series, and I have to say that I'm becoming more and more aware of the desperate need we all have to pull back, to say no, to draw the boundary lines, to push pause, because it's such a fast-paced society. We are overstimulated, we're under pressure.

For many of us, we have pushed those precious moments of self-care to the sidelines, to the margins.

And frankly, in the wake of all that, some of us are way overdue for a recharge. So when things are changing all the time and there's all this chaos around us - even when we do have time, we don’t take it to actually recharge. We can fritter that time away, but how do we get ourselves back to a place of recharging for that important self-care?

That's what we want to talk about so we can get to that place of joy, so that we can commit to caring for ourselves, so that we can feel confident and loved again

So this week I'm excited because the light, bright, and snappy guest we had talk about some of these things and gave us really great insights is a woman that is just full of joy. She is full of experience and great thoughts.

So we had the privilege of speaking with the lovely Margaret Feinberg. If you're not familiar with her, well, she's a writer and she's a speaker. She's written books like Scouting the Divine and a favorite of mine, Taste and See: Discovering God Among Butchers, Bakers, and Fresh Food Makers - since we're foodies in our family. And her latest 2020 devotional, More Power to You. She's the host of the Joycast Podcast, and on that show, she encourages everyone to spark their joy and love their precious life. And we all need that these days, don't we?

So I think you're really going to enjoy our conversation and hopefully it helps as you seek to recharge your heart, your mind, and your soul this year. So here is my talk with Margaret Feinberg.

So What? Moments

Margaret Feinberg
Self-care matters because you're worth it. And everything in this world is going to try to tell you that you're not, that you have to keep running harder and faster and do more and go, go, go and it's all on you. But it's not. Put on your mask first. Take care of yourself because you are worthy, and you are worth it.

Nancy
Self-care is not about self, actually. It's about the community. And with the time that's been given or the time I choose to take, I am going to do something that's actually going to feed my soul. There's always a choice to be made around that.

Thought-Provoking Quotes

“When I write, I feel like I feel the holy hum of God's presence. I think Eric Liddell said something like that when he ran. When you're in that spot and that creativity is flowing, it is complete magic and life to me.” - Margaret Feinberg

“Do you know what the telltale sign [of needing self-care] for me? I would so often hold myself from using the restroom when I was talking to someone or doing something because I didn't want to stop and break. In other words, I would just hold it to the point of extreme pain. And I realized, you know what? This is a form of almost self-harm in the sense of, I'm that negligent of my own body's demands that I won't even go use the bathroom and excuse myself when I need to. And that was a ringing alarm bell that something was wrong.” - Margaret Feinberg

“Learning to accept and say, “You know what? If there are triggers that I am constantly saying yes and then, afterwards, I am mad at myself or, worse, I am mad at the other person or slightly resentful about it, that is a red flag to say, 'Wait a second.' In that situation, when it comes around again, to not give that knee-jerk response of yes, but to press pause, to step back, and to say, ‘You know what? I need some time to think about that,’ and then be able to deliver a gracious no and to recognize, by learning to give more noes, I'm actually reserving some of the best yeses for the most life-giving things that I can do out of pure joy, that I can do without a second thought, that I can do without needing a thank you, without any of that, and living, I think, a healthier life, which again, is one more form of self-care.” - Margaret Feinberg

“You can be somebody, as you're listening right now, who identifies the darkest place in your life. It may be in your classroom. It may be in your living room. It may be in your bedroom. It may be where you work. It may be in your retirement community. But you can identify that darkest place and begin offering up praise one square inch at a time. And when you do, you declare that the darkness has not and will not win.” - Margaret Feinberg

“It is precisely in the moments when we are in that weakness and that brokenness and that give-it-upness and that “It can't get any worse and I can't take any more and the storm clouds are so stinking heavy and it is so dark and it is raining so much,’ we cry out, ‘God, I can't,’ He says, ‘I can.’ And He can because He is the great I Am. When we can't fight, He fights on our behalf. And in some ways, when we can't fight, we actually give Him more space and more room to fight on our behalf than when we have our best warrior jeans on.” - Margaret Feinberg

“Practicing self-care is not just a solo act. Practicing self-care involves others. It's a communal act. And it matters.” - Margaret Feinberg

“Part of my self-care, the way that I know that I will spiral upward instead of spiral downward, is by doing something kind or thoughtful or generous for someone else. And it doesn't have to be complex. I do not need a macramé for 19 hours because, number one, I don't know how to macramé. And I don't have 19 hours. But it may be just calling someone and saying, ‘Hey, can I come over this week? I know you're not able to leave the house. Let's sit on your lawn and just talk for 20 or 30 minutes outside,’ or picking up a gift card or having a stack of them and mailing them to those who are hurting or in need, or texting just encouraging words or funny meme. But in that act of thinking of someone else, we're actually caring for ourselves.” - Margaret Feinberg

“When you don't have a friend, be a friend.” - Nancy Hicks

“If you're looking for someone to be your exact age in a traditional life script and your life script doesn't follow that... maybe you haven't gotten married. You don't get married. You don't have children. You get a divorce. Whatever that is, look outside the traditional life script because there are tons of us out here who would love to play with you.” - Margaret Feinberg