"Gua Sha", which translates to "scraping" in Chinese, is an ancient East Asian practice that involves using a flat tool to pull or scrap across the skin to increase blood flow. Intense as this sounds, yes, you can try this at home! Philippe and I chat about our first time with Gua Sha. Spoiler alert: loved it.

Cultivating an attitude of gratitude is scientifically proven to benefit you in so many ways. This week Philippe and I discuss being grateful and how we can include daily gratitude into our self-care practice.

How do you feel when you present an imperfect self or an 'unfinished' product to the world? Philippe and I chat about this and the kind of self-talk that bubbles up when you are doing something vulnerable.

Uh oh, it's Monday! There's a good reason for being a day late to post, tune in to find out 😉

This week on the pod Philippe and I talk about how self-control is key to making decisions in your life that feel truly good for you and I drop a little wisdom I received 10 years ago from a French woman in Melbourne.

This week on the pod we are chatting about Hypnotherapy! Disclaimer: we are not experts in this field and the views and descriptions we give are our opinions based on our experiences as patients 😄

This week on the pod Philippe and I recap how much pampering each of us managed to fit in... spoiler alert: one of us was more successful than the other!

A perfectly timed nap immediately after consuming the exact right amount of coffee can leave you feeling extra refreshed and alert.. Ummmm, hey @nespresso - let's chat 💤😄☕

What's better than a long, luxurious, hot shower in the morning? According to some, an ice cold shower can be! This week on the pod Philippe and I go over the purported main benefits of cold showers and share our findings from a week of testing out this self-care practice.

This week on the pod I quiz my friends about how they think their lives are going, their choices to date, the cards they've been dealt and their dreams for the future...so nothing too crazy. All of the questions are from a quiz called 36 Questions To Bring You Closer Together by Arthur Aron as referenced in an episode of Tapestry on CBC.

It's my first Mother's Day! 💐 In honour of this special occasion, my friend Melissa (a mama of two kiddos) and I discuss how mothers can find ways to prioritize themselves a little more while caring for everyone else in our lives.

Do men have different self-care needs than the rest of us? Philippe and I watched a recording of panel discussion from SXSW hosted by Men's Health Magazine called The State of Men and Self-Care to find out what the experts were saying.

Is your brain operating 'in the red' every week? How much of your time is spent on doing tasks that drain your energy versus boost your energy? This week on the pod Philippe and I chat about something called a 'Brain Budget' created by Melissa Wolak (www.melissawolak.com), a prioritization tool to help you balance your daily energy deposits and withdrawals and pinpoint where you could use a bit of extra self-care scheduled in to your week.

It's here: spring! And for Philippe and I that means time for a BIG spring clean to put some order back into our lives. Cleaning as an act of self-care is more 'work' than pleasure, but the feeling of serenity that comes from having an uncluttered organised home makes the work totally worth it. First up, KonMari'ing our clothing...

What is the first thing you do in the morning? Philippe and I chat about making time in the morning for things that align with our values, slow down the pace of our mornings and make us happy - the recipe for a successful morning routine.

Do you love your body? Like I mean loooove it, like you want to show it off because you are bursting with love and pride when you look in the mirror? This week Philippe and I discuss the awkward realisation that we may be all for the #bodypositivity movement when other people are doing it but it is totally different when you are the one in front of a camera, in your undies, in a photoshoot that will be shared with the internet.

This week on the pod Philippe and I agree to do a 14 day digital detox and discuss our top reasons for wanting to throwback to that 90s life.

This week Philippe and I chat about the evolution of the #selfcare trend and how it is important to have a purpose or intention in mind when practicing self-care if you want to reaps the benefits.

I started seeing this quote pop up on Instagram a lot lately: Take Your Pleasure Seriously. I later found out that this is a quote from Charles Eames, the famous architect, furniture and industrial designer behind The Eames Chair. No, this week is not a deep dive into 1950's iconic furniture, instead my friend Meaghan and I discuss the kind of pleasure that you might seek as a form of self-care.

Sometimes you just don't feel like laughing. Maybe you are tired, stretched too thin. This week Philippe and I acknowledge that laughing isn't always easy but it is necessary for mental resilience and self-care.

Philippe is back on this week's episode to chat with me about ways to practice self-care...as a couple! If like me you are following social media accounts and media platforms that post about self-care you may have noticed that the focus is squarely on the "self" aspect - me time, all by myself please! This week we chat about how practicing self-care alongside a loved one can be beneficial for your "self" as well as your relationship.

My friend Caroline is back this week for an episode about ways to take care of yourself when you are '#Girlbossing it' (ahem, in case you didn't know Girlboss is a registered trademark of Girlboss Media Inc., see girlboss.com 😉). We talk about waking up at 5 am (ewww), not answering client emails at 11 pm, Napleisure and the meaning of 'break activities'.

Do you feel like your days are full of tasks, big and small, and you are just racing from one task to the next almost on auto pilot? This week I chat with my husband, Philippe, about the need to stop and ask yourself "What do you ACTUALLY need right now?". It might not be the thing you thought you should be doing, it could be that you need to create a bit of space to reset or to surround yourself with loved ones so you feel in the moment and less in your head.

I know this is a podcast about SELF-care, but this week my friend Ruth and I discussed how giving OTHERS grace can be a form of taking care of yourself. By responding with kindness and curiosity when dealing with 'difficult' people instead of meeting them with judgment, frustration or anger you may actually be able to impact your own mental health and wellbeing in a profoundly positive way. This week's pod is really building on last week's episode about extending ourselves compassion...so the overarching theme here is GIVE EVERYONE A BREAK 😉

This week my friend Caroline joined me to discuss the topic of Self-Compassion. When things don't go as planned, when our to-do list remains unfinished, when we stumble on our words in a presentation or we lose our tempers after a long day, how do we speak to ourselves about what happened? Do we berate ourselves for failing or do we offer ourselves compassion? Why is it so natural to be compassionate with others but so easy to be hard on ourselves?

Week 4 - Let's meditate! Have you ever tried group meditation? This week my friend Trish and I attended a really cool introduction to meditation session hosted by Loversland and The Quiet Co. I discovered that unlike my previous meditation attempts at home on my own, time during group meditation seems to just fly by!

Week 3, let's try meal prep! If it doesn't sound relaxing to you to spend part of your Self-Care Sunday making meals for the week, you are not alone. I am going to be honest: just thinking about doing this practice has been stressing me out! But if I think about the benefits: save money, save stress of scrambling to make something during the week, save on packaging/waste and add in the fact that apparently trying out a new recipe is a chance to be creative and as such is actually a form of mindfulness... it becomes hard to ignore that this is a really good way to take care of myself. ** Just a note about the audio - I apologise for the poor quality in spots, I'm still trying to learn how to edit out the bad bits! Thanks for bearing with me. **

Week 2! In this episode I chat with my friend Carly about something we share - a Passion Project. Carly, our friend Inga and I have been in a 'band' together since early 2011. We meet up every few Saturdays to laugh, drink wine and play covers on our fruit-themed ukuleles 🥝🍍🍉. We record these nights and post the videos to a YouTube channel called The Fruity Ukuladies if you are curious! This is our passion project because it is something we work at but that we find so much joy in that even during our busiest times it is something we all try to make time for. For me it is an amazing outlet that leaves me feeling invigorated. Do you have a passion project? If so is there a way to spend more time enjoying the flow of working on it?

It's the first Self-Care Sunday of 2019! So excited to kick off the #52selfcaresundays project with this podcast episode all about ways to set yourself an awesome Bedtime Routine. Thanks to my guest and close friend, Melissa (@wine.girlboss) for coming over to chat about this important topic. For the article referenced in the episode check out My Domaine magazine's article The Nightly Routines of 19 Successful Women (https://www.mydomaine.com/nightly-routines-of-successful-women)