Rethinking Self-Care & Leisure // with Julia Hogan

[00:00:00] Carmelita (Cat) Tiu, Host: Hello all! I'm Carmelita Tiu. And welcome to today's episode of Know Them, Be Them, Raise Them, a show to help busy, mindful moms stay informed and inspired as they navigate their daughter's tween and teen years with most episodes running 20 minutes or less. My guest this week is Julia Hogan, a therapist, author, and speaker, with a mission to help people lead fuller and more authentic lives every day. 

[00:00:28] Julia is passionate about helping people who want to feel fully alive, but struggled to find purpose and healing within the messiness of life. She's the author of the book, It's Okay to Start with You published by Our Sunday Visitor, and it's also available on Amazon. Her next book titled, A Work in Progress, Embracing the Life God Gave You will be published in Spring 2022. Links to her website and Instagram are in the show notes. So be sure to check those out. Now I am a huge believer in therapy, and I loved chatting with Julia. In this episode, you'll hear her story of how she decided to become a therapist and start writing her compelling insights on self care and leisure.

[00:01:08] And the probing questions you can ask yourself to feel more restored and rested. Here's our conversation.

[00:01:19] Julia, I am so excited to have you here with me today and to get a chance to talk to you. You've always been someone that has such a positive energy and I, anytime we talk, I feel better about myself afterwards. 

[00:01:30] Julia Hogan: Thank you for saying that I'm happy to be here and I'm really looking forward to chatting today.

[00:01:34] Carmelita (Cat) Tiu, Host: Well, would you mind telling us a little bit about what drew you to become a therapist? 

[00:01:40] Julia Hogan: You know, for me, it was, I would say, a slow unfolding of realizing that I wanted to be a therapist. I definitely didn't have a light bulb moment, you know, where the heavens opened and a voice said, you know, this is who you're meant to be or anything like that.

[00:01:52] But I always liked stories. So I was a really big reader when I was a child. I mean, I am now, but when I was a kid, I was the one who went to the library and checked out a stack of books and just sat in, churned through them all. So I always loved storytelling. So then when it came time to choose a major. For college, I was really thinking between English and psychology and kind of took some classes in psychology and then took some literature classes as well and realized that my love of stories fit almost better with psychology in a sense, because it was–

[00:02:27] Helping people understand themes in their life and you know, what's getting in the way? What's important to them? What kind of story do they want to tell about their life? Is it headed in the right direction? That kind of naturally led to going into grad school to be a therapist. And once I started my internship and started working with clients, I really felt so at home, it just felt very much of a natural fit.

[00:02:49] And I, I love being able to accompany people in growth. It's just incredibly rewarding. 

[00:02:56] Carmelita (Cat) Tiu, Host: You were drawn to stories and you're thinking about literature. And, but it, I imagine it was pretty static. Like you're looking at things that are already existing, not really helping to craft or mold something going forward. And it sounds like that's what you found with therapy is tapping into that love of story and finding meaning, but also being able to have an impact on an ongoing basis.

[00:03:18] Julia Hogan: So true. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that idea of. The work in progress, right? That you are working with someone and we're a team and we're coming up, you know, what are your goals? Okay, let me help you get you there. That's so different than something that's maybe static. Of course, there's nothing wrong with literature.

[00:03:34] And I have friends who majored in it and they do amazing work. So I never want to knock that, but just. Being able to witness the transformation in their life is so powerful. You get that change, I think, which is really key there.  

[00:03:48] Carmelita (Cat) Tiu, Host: So I found you because of an article that you wrote online, and I'm curious what led you to write? Can you tell us more about that?

[00:03:57] Julia Hogan: For sure, yes. I think for me, my love of reading just translated into writing, but definitely more on the, I guess you would say non-fiction side of things, always just wanting to share information, I think. And that was a big impetus for me, starting to write articles for different websites online and what ultimately led to my book when I graduated from grad school.

[00:04:22] I had to go through the licensing process to become a therapist and all that. But as soon as I graduated, I thought to myself, well, now I have a degree behind my name, which lends weight to my voice. And so all of these interesting things I learned in grad school that I had never really been exposed to before things like.

[00:04:41] Boundaries and communication skills, and even just kind of more of the details around mental health and things like that. I wanted to be able to share them beyond that one-on-one, working with clients in the therapy room to kind of offer resources for people out there who want to know more about these things.

[00:04:59] That's the exciting part, getting the word out there about these things that I read about. And I'm like, oh my gosh, this is fascinating. Or this is really interesting. Or I think this will be so helpful, or this seems like an important topic, but nobody's talking about it and the night you will email in an editor and say, hey, what do you think about this article?

[00:05:16] Carmelita (Cat) Tiu, Host: One of the things I think I stumbled across just in the wellness space, perhaps connected to some articles you've written as well. There's this notion of authentic self-care. I would love to hear your thoughts on why it's important and what it really means. 

[00:05:28] Julia Hogan: Yeah. Self-care is definitely, it's been a buzzword, I would say for the past several years at this point. I think it has been to a certain degree, like co-opted by–you know the skincare industry–

[00:05:41] Carmelita (Cat) Tiu, Host: Ah, yes. Cosmetics, a face mask is going to make you feel a hundred percent.

[00:05:48] Right, like buy this new serum and this is going to be part of your self care routine. And so if you buy it, you're practicing self care. And so, that's not necessarily untrue. And I know that's a double negative there, but I think that we met that sort of skimming the surface of self-care. I started, you know, I would use to talk about just self-care in general.

[00:06:12] And then I started using the term authentic self-care because they wanted to kind of push past those assumptions that some people have about self-care, because I would say. The most common sort of objection to self-care that I get is that self-care is selfish. So why should I take time to treat myself when there's so much more than I could be doing?

[00:06:33] Particularly if you're a mom, or you're in the workspace where you have obligations, or your caregiver. You know, it's that sort of like guilt pushes back and says, well, that's being selfish. There are so many other things you could be doing, Right? And so I started using the term authentic self-care to really communicate.

[00:06:52] We're not just talking about spa days, or buying serums or, you know, checking out of your responsibilities and vegging out and bingeing on, you know, your Netflix show or whatever, but that it's really looking at. I've got to take care of myself so that I can be there fully. For other people or fully for my obligations.

[00:07:13] Right? So that it can show up to whatever it is that I'm meant to do in a way that I'm fully me or I'm authentically me. Right? And really simplistically, if I'm tired, if I'm stressed, if I'm hungry, I can't fully be myself because my body's telling me, hey, you forgot to eat today or, hey, you didn't get enough sleep and you're cranky and irritable and you know–

[00:07:38] Carmelita (Cat) Tiu, Host: Oh, totally! We’re still a little it hangry.

[00:05:28] Julia Hogan: We’re jittery from coffee. We’ve all been there, right? And authentic self-care is really kind of moving past. Oh, I just need to treat myself and moving more to what do I need? Like, how do I take care of myself, right? So that I'm fully present. Whether I'm spending time with my kids, whether I'm at work, whether I'm spending time with my partner, like whatever that is.

[00:08:04] And I think that's the biggest difference between what you read about maybe in the advertising world or pop culture with self-care and that idea of authentic self-care and that it looks different for every person. So for someone, it might be a spa day because they are, you know, the mom of a newborn, haven't been out of the house in months.

[00:08:26] They're getting treated to a spa day. Someone's coming over and watching the baby. And that is so restorative for them and that they're able to come back and say, oh my gosh, I just, I feel like a human being, but that might not be the same for someone else. Right. For someone else, it might be something as simple as I'm going to bed on time.

[00:08:43] And I'm getting my seven to eight hours of sleep. Yes. Which sounds simple but can be so hard to do.  

[00:08:51] Carmelita (Cat) Tiu, Host: I love how you–there's that slight perspective shift. It's finding what you really need. It's not just treating yourself because I think sometimes I feel like I've been susceptible to some of the advertising or the promotions you see out there that are like do Sunday brunch, bottomless mimosas, it's self-care.

[00:09:09] And you're like, is that what you really need? I hadn't really thought about asking that question. Like, what do you really need? Not what do you want to do to treat yourself 

[00:09:17] Julia Hogan: exactly. And that, and that, I love that you said that because I, sometimes I will get at that question of, well, how do I know whether it's self care or it's me being selfish.

[00:09:26] And I think by asking yourself that question of what do I need, which is different than what do I want, right. Because maybe we do want a bottomless mimosa brunch. That sounds fun. There's nothing wrong with that objectively, but is that what you need, you know, and maybe you do, maybe you need connection with friends, then that can be a form of self-care.

[00:09:47] But if it's, you know, maybe if you're avoiding something that you really need to be taking care of and then maybe it's not self-care, but asking yourself that question, what do I need? And then seeking out ways to meet that need for yourself. And I think particularly as a mom, that's really important because you're modeling that for your children, right.

[00:10:11] Especially your teenage daughters, because the word I, I never heard of self-care until probably grad school after grad school and wished someone had told me about it and I was in high school. Right. Cause in high school, I know that for me, I can't remember if I shared this with you Cat, but it was an intense time.

[00:10:31] You were, you know, waking up early, you went to school, you did a full day of classes. You came home, you did homework. Went to bed, got up and did the same thing the next day. And that was just that endless cycle and taking the hardest classes possible and doing all the extracurriculars. So it looks good on your college application, right?

[00:10:47] That there's this message of like, achieve, achieve, achieve, you know, do your best. Push yourself as hard as you can. And I really wish that someone had almost... Given me permission to find balance and to say, you don't have to take AP calculus if you don't want to, the world is not–your life course is not going to be altered.

[00:11:07] If you don't take math or you don't take an AP course it's okay. So I think particularly as a mom, to be able to model that for your children, especially your daughters. And to be able to say, I'm not this endless resource that can just go and go and go, and I do need to recharge. And maybe that means that I'm not able to do everything that I would like to do, or that I do have to go and make time for exercise or put strict limits on bedtimes, or, you know, there's lots of different examples.

[00:11:36] Or even, you know, that you make time to go spend with your own friends. Your mom, but that's just one part of your identity as a person, as a human being, right. There's these, all these other outlets too. So I think it's an example as well. And I think sometimes that can make it easier to kind of understand authentic self-care too, and to say, oh, wow.

[00:11:56] You know, not only am I taking care of myself, but it's also serving a purpose, right? That I'm modeling this healthy behavior for my kids. And they're seeing if we're hungry, we make sure we eat or, you know, exercise being important or sleep being important. Balance, schedule, emotions, all that stuff. 

[00:12:14] Carmelita (Cat) Tiu, Host: Right. And I’m so glad you've mentioned this notion of what we're modeling, because this is kind of a recurring theme that I have to remind myself of is I don't want my daughters to be overly obsessed with what society says success looks like, but then if I'm not taking steps to model that, then what are they really learning?

[00:12:34] You know, the whole concept of children and values being caught, not taught. So I love that you brought that up. That even if it feels like you're being selfish, if it is truly something you need, think of it as in almost like a selfless way, because you need to model this for your daughters. That’s so key. And something you said about getting enough rest.

[00:12:57] I know I'm guilty of my sleep being the thing that's always sacrificed in favor of productivity, or a time with friends or family. I'd love to hear you help us navigate, you know, what authentic rest and leisure looks like. 

[00:13:11] Julia Hogan: Yes, I think understanding the definition of rest and leisure is really helpful because again, similar to self care, I think when we think of leisure, it can be like, I think we have to choose our leisure wisely and choose things that are actually restorative.

[00:13:28] I think that's the key there, because I know for me sometimes when I'm–after a long day of meeting with clients and I'm done for the day and I finished my notes, close my computer. And then the first thing I do is I pick up my phone and I start scrolling through social media. And that's not restful, even if their accounts I enjoy following it's a little bit more of like checking out rather than like restoration.

[00:13:52] And so for, you know, that's just an example. I think of what we might think of as rest. Just sort of checking out from the world, but missing out on that actual restoration. Like, I think just sort of thinking out loud here, maybe it would be more helpful for me to like, not pick up my phone and I don't know, maybe go for a walk around the block to clear my head or create a work personal life transition.

[00:14:14] Or I think that with leisure sometimes I think we think about it as, oh, I need to go on a week long vacation or, oh, it needs, I need a whole day of no chores on the–you know, no work obligations, no chores and I don't know I'm not doing anything, but I think we can be creative about leisure. And I think that's what you were alluding to with family life is that it's often changing.

[00:14:39] It's very busy, there's a lot going on. And so it can be hard to have this really strict structure or balance going on. And so I think with leisure, the most important thing is identifying things for you are restorative. So things that really fill your cup up, right? That when you do them, you're like, gosh, that felt really good to take time to read a book or journal or, you know, maybe just forget all the obligations that we normally do on Saturday as a family.

[00:15:05] And we just hang out in the backyard and something really simple, but that at the end of the day or the end of that activity, you can say. We felt like we were really nourishing ourselves and restoring ourselves and reconnecting with each other as a family. So I think considering it from that lens of, what can, what are things we can do within our schedule to help us feel restored rather than using social media is kind of an outlet to just escape or TV.

[00:15:34] Carmelita (Cat) Tiu, Host: Yeah, I was going to say Netflix. Totally.

[00:13:11] Julia Hogan: And everything in the right dose can be helpful. But if you're just zoning out for hours an hour, maybe it's not the most helpful thing there, but to find that balance of… We have obligations or things we have to do. We can't just, you know, shirk responsibilities, but leisure is important because it creates that balance. And it allows us to do more of like the human side of life.

[00:16:01] Right? Rather than that productivity. What do I need to achieve? Check off my to-do list. Like you said earlier, that push to be successful and all of those things. So I think that leisure can really be an opportunity to recharge. And it's just being smart about picking those activities that really speak to you and your family.

[00:16:21] Carmelita (Cat) Tiu, Host: It sounds like taking a moment to really think about how you feel when you're done doing something. Yes, kind of important just to make note of that data point, like I just watched five episodes of this show. Do I really feel more rested or better? And maybe you do, but taking that time to just do a little bit of self-awareness is probably helpful to identifying those restorative things.

[00:16:45] Julia Hogan: I totally agree. And I think that that is also really key because. I think I said earlier with self care, but I think it applies too with leisure, we are all kind of different in our exact recipe for leisure or self-care and that we can get easily stuck in that comparison trap, right? Where we say. So-and-so, you know, this is a form of exercise that they do, or how can they go to like a class every morning or, oh my gosh, that's exhausting.

[00:17:14] And so I think your point of checking in and cultivating that self-awareness can help push back against that comparison trap, you know, to be able to say, when I sit down in the backyard and I read for 20 minutes and I feel great, that's a sign to me that that's for me. Right? Whereas someone else might prefer something more active and they might take a bike ride, going for a bike ride for 30 minutes is like I come back and I feel alive.

[00:17:42] It is different. And it was changes in the season of life that you're in as well. But I think you are absolutely right about cultivating that self-awareness, that that can help you more clearly zero in on what exactly is the right thing for you to do with regards to leisure in regards to self care. 

[00:18:00] Carmelita (Cat) Tiu, Host: And for people who are used to checklists, I read an article recently about rest and the author was essentially saying like, put rest on your checklist.

[00:18:09] Julia Hogan: Oh my gosh, that’s a great idea.

[00:18:11] Carmelita (Cat) Tiu, Host: making sure you're checking off and doing, self-assessment done restorative. 

[00:18:19] Julia Hogan: Yes! Because that communicates it's a priority too, right? Like, especially if you're a checklist person, your checklist is like, these are the important things to me. So I, if you are scheduling that, like you were just saying, I think that's a way also of implicitly communicating. This is a priority it's like worse enough to put on my list. 

[00:18:37] Carmelita (Cat) Tiu, Host: Well Julia, it's been wonderful talking to you. I'm excited to hear more about the book that you have forthcoming. So I will definitely be asking you to come back and tell us more when the time comes. But in the meantime, is there an Instagram or a page that people can go to, to stay in touch and follow you?

[00:18:54] Julia Hogan: Oh, yes. Well, thank you first for having me. It was a joy. To find out more just about the work that I do, or articles that I've written. My website is juliamariehogan.com. So J-U-L-I-A-Mariehogan.com. And then my Instagram is @juliahoganlcpc. So my credentials, those are kind of the two places where I'm most active.

[00:19:17] And then I have a newsletter that people can sign up for that I send out monthly, but you can sign up through my website. I love interacting with people and sharing ideas and everything. So, come say hi over there.

[00:19:32] Carmelita (Cat) Tiu, Host: Thank you for joining me today before you go, make sure you subscribe to the podcast so you can receive new episodes right away when they're released. And if you're enjoying our podcast, I'd love for you to leave a review in Apple Podcasts or Google Podcasts, wherever you're listening. Reviews are one of the major ways that platforms rank their podcasts.

[00:19:51] So even though it only takes a few seconds, it really does make a difference follow @knowberaisethem on Instagram for inspirational quotes, advice, and more, and feel free to visit knowberaisethem.com. Again, thanks for listening and here's to strong women. May we know them, may we be them, and may we raise them.