Hey CityFam!
I am so glad to see you guys. I'm Nicole, your executive director, and we have been spending this past weekend from Thursday all the way until today “retreat-ing”. It's been more like working like crazy. We have been planning and writing goals for the rest of 2020 and 2021.
I just wanted to make sure that every one of you got to meet these incredible girls and highlight the subject of this month’s coaching call for contributing members with Lori Lockemy.
Lori Lockemy, from The Focus Life Group is our life coach, and she's going to be doing a call this month about self-care. We thought it might be a really good idea for us to go ahead and start talking about it and give you an opportunity for you think about how this applies to you.
I’m thrilled to introduce you to these wonderful people! Mindy is our Central Regional Director. She works with all the chapters in the central US. And then next to her is our Western Regional Director, Cami. She does the Pacific and Mountain time zone for CityFam -which is growing SO fast. And then we have Alycea, who works with all of our international chapters as our International Director and Angel, the OG, where it all started in the Eastern region.
These ladies all come to you not as perfect, but as people who have strengths in some areas and want to encourage everyone on their journey. We have all been talking about what we do for self-care and are learning from each other.
Mindy: I feel the need to feed my spirit each day: For instance, at the beginning of the day, the first thing I do is read a devotional. That’s self-care in my book. Next, I do a zoom exercise right after that with a good group of people. And another thing I've implemented recently is eliminating pop and increasing my water. So I drink four 24 ounce water bottles (or 96 ounces) a day. Such a big difference! It's really helpful.
Angel: Well, we usually have to focus on self-care in the beauty industry. I’m used to helping people with ideas on how to take care of themselves. So this is definitely my jam right here! Now I get up an hour before I'm actually supposed to get ready; I LOVE sleep, but I want to be nicer to people around me and I need that time! I get up an hour beforehand or read, watch a video, or whatever I need to do.
Another part of my self-care -I just have to say it- is my coffee. So me and my coffee barista, we've got a good relationship and that helps me to make sure everybody around me is good.
When I didn't take care of myself, I would run myself too hard. I would make sure my clients got every piece of me and I didn't get time to take a lunch break or take a little time to recharge.
Then I realized that my daughter needed to see me taking care of myself. I needed to be an example showing how to care for myself. I am a super-busy business owner but I've scheduled little blocks in there where I get a break. Taking breaks throughout the day means that my self-care is constant. That's how I work now. How about you?
Alycea: Although I want to be beautiful, the last thing on my list as far as self-care is my face. This weekend, I learned from Angel that if you go to bed with your makeup on – you age your skin by 5 years! I’m inspired to take better care of myself now!
I have been thinking about how when you’re on an airplane, they tell you to put the oxygen mask on yourself before you help others. I like that because you can’t give what you don't have. For me, it starts with filling my spirit.
If I don't have time in the word, if I don't have time in prayer and take time just to be quiet, I can't even make it throughout the day being merciful and humble and all the things I want to be for other people. Just getting that cup refilled is so important for me.
The other part of self-care that I'm really big into now is working with a counselor to set up boundaries, because I’ve suffered a lot from not doing this in the past. There’s a book called “Boundaries” that I’ve been reading and you would be surprised how many people think setting boundaries is a mean thing! In reality, it’s the opposite! If you don't have healthy boundaries for the people in your life, it can actually have a negative effect because either you expect too much from them out of an expectation of what the relationship was supposed to be, or they expect too much from you. So for my mental and emotional health, I’m working on identifying what healthy boundaries look like in relationships, and then putting those into practice.
Cami: It seems as if it comes in waves doesn’t it? When I was in the worst yuck of struggles in my marriage, I was also not very good at self-care. There were lots of nights that I would just fall into bed in an exhausted heap. I did have to learn what healthy boundaries looked like for me and my relationships. It definitely was a process.
Lately, I have been working on a healthy morning routine and a healthy evening routine. I want them to become habits so that don't have to think about it too much, but my soul, my body, my emotions are getting rest and getting fed all those things so that they need. So I guess the self-care that I’m working on is self-discipline?
I wanted to share this with you guys because also part of my self-care is wrangling in my finances and working with what I have now. So that, in combination with taking better care of myself, led me to an interest in making some of my own skin care items. I found a person talking about skin care on YouTube and she shared how to make some serums by yourself for pennies. It's kind of fun! So vitamin C serum and HLA serum are things I would buy for myself but it’s just not in the budget to spend a bunch of money on them. I’ll share a link to the recipe for you!
Remember what Nicole was saying earlier about the coaching calls? We're working on expanded benefits for our contributing members! At the Champion and Big Timer levels, you get a free monthly coaching call with a life coach. She will help you take a look at your life and figure out areas of growth. So it's super cool and a huge value. I'm so stoked about this! We offer for our contributing members at the Champion level and the Big Timer for free! Still, no matter at what level, everyone can check it out one time for free.
Really consider the benefits of becoming a contributing member! We work at creating the environment for people becoming better versions of themselves.
And please let us know if you have questions. We love you right where you are. Everybody's accepted. There is no qualifying thing to become a CityFam member. We are all on our own journey. You're not going to get judgment from anybody, but we all recognize that we all want them to become and better versions of ourselves. And we want to provide you with the tools to do that.
Alycea: So that's what CityFam is all about. We also recognize that it is a two-way street. There are things that I can pour out if you want me to. But then I know there are things that you're amazing in and they pour out on me.
Financially, I'm learning! I'm in my forties and yet I have very little experience being allowed to handle finances. I definitely have a lot to learn in that area! That's one of my areas that needs to be my greatest focus. I think there's different seasons to focus on different areas where we're lacking.
Mindy: That's part of the beautiful thing about the life coaching. She's going to give you tools to work on those things and encouragement. It's awesome! Since we use high level terms and scientific terms, it's called a symbiotic relationship. Dropping the knowledge! And it's me, dropping my symbiotic relationship.
Cami: Yeah! Well, we absolutely love you. I hope that you reach out to one of us or Nicole with questions. And please, just let us know if you have any questions about becoming a contributing member.
So, as part of your self-care routine – we would love to offer good friendship and community here within Cityfam! We want you guys to all experience that in your own cities no matter what version of quarantine you're in. Make sure to hop on the zoom calls and the CityFam online events. Just knowing that you've got friends, who've got your back, it's a beautiful thing. Please stay connected because we don't want you to miss out!