In this podcast episode, we discuss self care beyond conventional methods. Taylor, founder of Inner Workout and author, shares her unique perspective on self care, offering practical advice and revealing how she turned her insights into an accessible app. We delve into the importance of listening to oneself, breaking down self care myths, and integrating small, impactful practices into daily life. We also explore the impact of technology on self care and strategies to mitigate its effects. This conversation is essential for business owners looking to balance productivity with personal wellbeing.
KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST
- Self-care is listening inwards and responding with love: It’s not a set of tasks, but rather checking in with yourself and understanding your needs. Forget the “all or nothing” mentality and focus on what works for you in the present moment.
- Start with cultivating the practice of listening within: This can involve journaling prompts to identify what drains your energy or simply checking in with yourself throughout the day. Learn to listen to your body’s cues as well.
- Develop a toolkit of self-care responses: This includes proactive activities you enjoy, but also reactive responses for when things go wrong. These can be anything from breathing exercises to calling a friend. Remember, self-care doesn’t have to be expensive or time-consuming.
If you enjoyed this episode then please feel free to go and share it on your social media or head over to Apple podcasts or Spotify and give me a review, I would be so very grateful.
LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE
Connect with Taylor on Website, Inner Workout App Waitlist, Instagram
Connect with Teresa on Website, The Club, Sign up to Teresa’s email list, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter
Transcript
Teresa: Self care is a word that is often thrown around a lot. And sometimes we constantly think we must be doing more, especially as business owners. It is also something that I thought I had learned a lot about. However, today’s guest talks about self care in a way that is completely different to how I thought about it before.
She offers practical advice on how to bring it into our everyday and really gets you to think what self care looks like for you. We also talk about why she decided to take her knowledge on self care and put it in an app and what it’s taken to create that app and get it out into the world.
Welcome to the Your Dream Business Podcast. I’m your host, Terese Heath Waring. An international bestselling author, award winning speaker, TEDx speaker, certified coach, and the host of this number one ranked podcast. I am so excited to guide you on the journey of creating a business and life that you not only love, [00:01:00] but one that perfectly aligns with you and the season of life that you’re in.
In each episode, I’ll share with you easy, actionable, and insightful strategies to grow your online business. Plus we’ll be diving into some mindset tools and strategies that keep you focused, motivated, and are going to stop you from getting in your own way. So if you’re a course creator, membership owner, or coach, you are in the right place. Let’s get started.
Hello, and welcome back to another episode of the Your Dream Business. I hope you’re good. Thank you so much for hanging out with me today. I really appreciate it. And this episode is a really good one. So we’re talking self care, which is a word that is like thrown around all the time, and everyone thinks, you know, self care is sitting down with a book or having a bath or having a massage.
Now, and granted, all of those things are self care. And actually, as I record this intro, I have in my diary for later on today, a three hour reflexology and massage, [00:02:00] which honestly is like heaven. However, it’s not really about the big self care stuff. It’s about smaller things. And today’s guest made me think completely different about what self care means and what it looks like, which for me was actually super good timing because I spent most of last year pretty much just doing self care.
Like, I was talking to my therapist the other day and I said that in 2023, I felt like I spent 45 to 50 percent of my brain space and energy on me and looking after me and about 10, 15 percent on the business and this year it’s moved, and rightly so and I’m super glad because otherwise I wouldn’t have a business if I carried on that way.
And. You know, I spend a big chunk of my time and my energy now on the business, which obviously I love and adore. However, it has meant that my self care has taken a bit of a battering. And I’m trying to find [00:03:00] a middle ground or a way in which I can manage my own self care and make sure I look after myself while still being super productive.
And this conversation was so well timed for it and really helped me think about it and also helped me get over the kind of pressure that we put ourselves under to go, we must do these things and to look at them differently. So today I’m interviewing the lovely Taylor Morrison. Taylor turned being bad at self care into her career.
She is the founder of Inner Workout and the author of the book by the same name, recently named on a Fortune’s 10 innovators shaping the future of health. Taylor is tired of aspirational wellness as usual. Instead, she makes wellbeing and personal development more accessible. Taylor can go from facilitating workshops at a fortune 100 company to talking about TikTok and body image with a high school class.
She uses her [00:04:00] coaching, mindfulness and movement training to meet people where they are at and offer actionable steps towards creating a world without burnout. Like I said, it’s a great conversation, which I think anybody needs to hear, but also as business owners, this is probably something that should be high up on our agenda.
So enjoy today’s episode. Here’s Taylor. Taylor, welcome to the podcast. How are you doing?
Taylor: I’m doing so well. I’m excited to be here. Thank you for having me.
Teresa: I am excited for this conversation because I was looking through your notes prior to your interview. And this subject we’re going to talk about is a subject that I’m not very good at.
So I am going to be picking all your brains to, to work out how I get better at this. But before we get started, please tell my lovely audience who you are and how you got to do the thing that you do.
Taylor: Yeah, so I’m Taylor Elyse Morrison. I am the founder of Inner Workout. It’s a company that makes wellbeing easier.
I’m also the author of a book [00:05:00] by the same name. So, and how did I come to this work? I, I mean, I chuckled a little bit when you said, this is a topic that you’re not really good at because I come to this work. I’m not personally good at this work either. And before I got into this space, I was doing work related to brand strategy.
And I kept burning myself out and I realized that the way I was structuring my life really wasn’t sustainable. And so I came to this topic because I kept hitting up against a wall. And as I shared some of my own navigating around self care, people started telling me that they had similar issues and that’s how inner workout came to be.
Teresa: So just explain the actual app and how that works and what, what it is.
Taylor: Yeah, so for the inner workout app are the biggest complaint I’ve heard we inner workout as a company has been around for about five years. The app is just [00:06:00] launching and from back in 2019 what I heard from people is I don’t have time for self care.
And I kind of wrote it off because I was like, I can’t do anything to help that. But as I’ve talked with more and more people, what I’ve heard is, oh, there are ways we can help people have more time for self care. So there’s two sides of the app. Part of it is that we’ve got different practices, meditation, journaling, breath work, these mini courses we call journeys.
Those most of them can be done in 10 minutes or less. So if you can find a little snippet of time in your day, there is something on that app that you can do to support your well being. The other side of things is what seems to get in the way of most people’s self care is we’re spending so much time on our phones. And so we have this functionality called lock sections that locks you out of distracting apps. You can set it on a schedule or you could do it one off and you can’t go on Instagram or you can’t go on Tik TOK until your time is up. So it really gets the willpower out of the [00:07:00] way. You don’t have to have willpower. The inner workout app can support you.
Teresa: I love that.
And it’s funny, right? So anybody who listens to this podcast regularly, one will hear my voice is a bit funny, which is because I’ve been doing too much. But secondly, they’ll think the list you gave of like journaling, meditation, like they are things I do a lot, but yet I said to you, I’m not very good at this.
So there’s obviously a disconnect in my brain between doing some of those things and self care and not necessarily seeing them as a self care. Like, is that something that you see that’s pretty common? Is it that when people actually do stop and go through, they’re like, Oh no, actually I do do some things.
Taylor: Yeah, no, that, that happens a lot. Most of the time people are like, Ooh, self care, I’m not really good at it. There’s a couple pieces to that. So first what I’ll offer is the way that I define self care, the definition we use at inner workout is listening within and responding in the most loving way possible.
[00:08:00] I really view self care less as a set of tasks. And more is you checking in with yourself in doing what you need in that moment with the resources that you have. And that definition alone opens up so many possibilities for what self care can be. I was leading a workshop yesterday and someone was like, Oh, I guess The bowling league that I do with my dad is a form of self care and she wouldn’t have defined it that way before, but it sparked something.
The, the other thing that I will say is in terms of, oh, I do these things, but I don’t think of them of self as self care. A lot of times we’re so hard on ourselves. We also have these ideas. Self care should be a bath or self care should be a massage. And if I’m doing something, that’s not that it’s not really self care.
So that idea comes up a lot of times in conversation with people.
Teresa: And that’s so interesting because as you started explaining that, that’s why I think I didn’t and I don’t see it as self care because I have put it as [00:09:00] part of my routine and it doesn’t feel like I’m doing, you, what was this, what did you just say?
What was your quote? Self care is something that is
Taylor: listening within and responding in the most loving way possible. So it’s, and we can get into more of the different types of practices because what you’re doing is you’re doing a proactive practice. It sounds like. So you’ve built these into your schedule.
I would guess that you have reasons why you do them. They make you feel grounded or focused or connected to yourself. So. There are these things that you’ve put proactively on your schedule that it sounds like, and again, tell me where I’m wrong, but it sounds like you’re not even fully thinking of it because you’ve just integrated into your schedule so seamlessly.
Teresa: A hundred percent. And also almost in a way where I could berate myself if I don’t do them, or I’ll feel frustrated. So I would have, I have a habit tracker. And, and it’s funny because actually in the last few years, me [00:10:00] journaling and meditating has been imperative to my health and my self development.
And I spent the last year getting sober and getting sober. Like they had been imperative to that journey. However, it’s funny because now. I don’t feel the need to have to journal every day. So, which I try and see as a good thing, because it’s like, okay, if I don’t feel the need to journal, there’s obviously nothing really like coming up that I want to journal out.
But because I set it as a task, if I don’t journal, I then see it as, oh, I failed. I failed at doing that thing. Like, It’s like I’ve taken a self care thing and, which really was a self care thing. Like I said, it was essential as I was, you know, doing all this personal development, working with my therapist, getting sober.
However, now I’ve almost turned it into an action. And if I’m not taking the action, I’m beating myself up because I didn’t take the action.
Taylor: [00:11:00] Absolutely. And this is, this, this is so common. I’m glad that you’re bringing this up because I know people are listening and hearing, Oh yeah, I do that too. So a couple of things that I hear happening, one is there’s this cognitive distortion, all or nothing thinking our brain loves to use this as a shortcut where it’s like, I am either good or I’m bad.
I, et cetera, et cetera. And that happens so much in self care, especially for many business owners. We tend to be high achievers. We tend to be perfectionist. And so we want to be able to check that box. I did this. And because I did this, that means I’m good. If I don’t do this, that means I’ve fallen short.
I’m bad. I’m a slob. Whatever we do to berate ourselves. So one thing when I hear people in, in that space is try and encourage people to, to find the third option. So it’s not so binary that I am good or I’m taking care of, how do I [00:12:00] want to say that? I gave myself a tongue twister. I’m either good or I’m Taking terrible care of myself.
Yes, like opportunities in between. The other thing that I hear, and I talk about this a lot too, is Our self care is supposed to evolve because we are always evolving and our environment is always evolving. So it sounds like what happened really naturally to you is that journaling I’ll pull on that one.
Since you mentioned that specifically, you needed that in that time when you were getting sober and now. There are other things that fill your cup and feel more supportive. And so I think that’s actually an opportunity to celebrate and to say, wow, I’m so in tune with myself that I realized I don’t need this tool in the same way anymore.
And I’m finding other ways to replenish myself. That’s actually, again, going back to that definition, that’s you listening within and then responding in the most loving way possible. That response used to be journaling. It’s [00:13:00] other things now.
Teresa: And that’s such a good way to frame it and to see it and to, and like you said, not like to say, and, and I guess be curious about, well, what else could this be?
Like, I don’t need, and I think for me, the way I use journaling was very much. If there’s a problem in my world, I journal it out like, and that used to be my husband’s go to, which was very irritating sometimes when I like, if I was in a bad mood, should you journal that out? And I’m like, I’ll journal you out in a minute.
But anyway, like that was my thing and, and working through it through journaling was really, really helpful for me. And like I said, in one way, it’s really awesome. But I haven’t, I haven’t seen it like this, that I don’t have to do that every day now. And when I do journal sometimes, I’m like, I’m not even entirely sure what I’m journaling about.
But because that was one of my go to things, it’s like, oh, I have to do it. But I think I love the fact of like, actually thinking about what I need right now. I don’t need that right now. So I know this is like, And actually this is probably what you were, you alluded to before [00:14:00] about the tactic, like the tactic of doing a thing, because I was about to say to you, so give us some examples of what that might be, which is me wanting to go, where’s the list of have a massage, you know, have a nap, that sort of thing.
Like, is that the wrong question to ask? How else can we look at it other than, okay, I’m, you know, not feeling great. What are these self care things I could be doing?
Taylor: Yeah. So I think going back to that definition, the first place, because where we like to start just societally as business owners, we want a list of things that we can do.
And so that gets into the response side of things. We’ll get there, but I will, I like to start with the cultivating, the practice of listening within. So what are the ways that you can add to your day where you’re checking in with yourself? That might be that there’s a task that you do. And normally you listen to a podcast as you’re cooking dinner or in the shower, or as you’re walking your dog, [00:15:00] but maybe for the first five minutes you just give yourself space to be with your thoughts and see what’s going on.
That could be a way that you check in with yourself. For other people, it could be forms of journaling, less like dear diary and more. I have some questions. I asked myself, how am I feeling? What really energized me today? What really drained me today? And as you start to do that, you notice themes of, Oh man, every time I have a meeting with this person, My, I talk about how my day was rough or how I felt really anxious that day.
Maybe there’s some ways that I could take care. So that’s where I would encourage people to start is just to get comfortable checking in with yourself and naturally ways to care for yourself will emerge. So that’s, Oh, go ahead.
Teresa: Yeah, no, I was just gonna say that, like that in itself is a skill. Isn’t it?
Because we, and again, as business owners, we are like in it doing the thing, like going from one thing to another to another. And [00:16:00] like, so the reason my voice is a bit funny and this often happens, it’s not that I’m ill. The minute I get run down, it goes to my voice. I have done, I worked on it last week and then I was at a bit of a mastermind thing all weekend and then I went straight from the mastermind thing straight down to London and did three days at a conference and then I came back home and then of course I had to do all my normal work because I’d been away doing all these things and it’s weird because I’d forgotten that when I’m away, how terrible I am at slowing anything down.
And I think that is one of the key things, like having to slow ourselves down to go, okay, I need to check in. Like, I think that is a skill almost in itself to go, how am I going to check in? Have I checked in? that sort of thing. I love the fact that you talked about the journaling and asking yourself, what do I need?
How do I feel? There was a great thing I read and I can’t even remember. And I think my coach says as well, but it’s [00:17:00] like, she will say to herself, body, what would you have me know? Like, and I remember seeing, I read someone’s book that they talked about almost as a higher power or a higher them. What, what would you have me know?
Like, and it just, and it’s just that quietening down of like, What, what’s happening here? Is there something that I need to know right here? So yes, it was just going to point that one section, but sorry, carry on.
Taylor: No, no. I’m so glad that you brought that out and you’re, you’re right. It is a skill. Especially because so many of us, whether we work for ourselves or even for those of us who had previous careers in corporate, we kind of get trained not to listen to our body.
How many times are you like, Ooh, I’m hungry, but I got to send two more emails first, or I really got to go to the bathroom, but let me finish this. And so we’re actually actively conditioning ourselves not to listen to the ways that our body is trying to talk to us. And so. The good news is our body and the other parts of our being do have things to say.[00:18:00]
The bad news is so many of us have turned the volume down to almost a whisper. And so we got to really tune in and develop that skill. And then on the other side of that definition, the loving responses that can show up in so many different ways. I already mentioned the proactive responses. So that’s like When you did have journaling slotted into your day or meditation is slotted into your day, that can be really helpful.
So it can be, I know, for example, that moving my body in the morning just changes the way that I approach my day. For people, I’ll especially again, say it for this audience, try to build some flexibility into what that could look like. So notice I said, I like to move my body in the morning.
I didn’t say I spend 28 minutes doing this specific hip workout, or I spend 90 minutes doing a walk by the lake.
Sometimes I do those things, but the standard that I try and [00:19:00] set is that I’m going to move my body and then. If I stretch for a minute, or if I go for a 90 minute walk by the lake, I still did that thing of moving my body, and it gives me more options. The other thing that I would encourage people to think about in terms of responses, are, what are those things that could be in my toolkit when things don’t go as planned?
And we know as business owners, that’s really regularly that things don’t go as planned.
Teresa: And if it’s not happening, you’re not trying hard enough because that is something that happens all the time.
Taylor: Absolutely. So when you get that unexpected email from a client, when you thought something was going to work perfectly and all of a sudden there’s a bug on your website, What are those things that you could go to and know, okay, if I do this breathing exercise that helps me, or if I spend five minutes writing a poem, or if I call my business bestie and talk through it.
And so for some of my clients, [00:20:00] they will have, whether it’s in a notion dashboard or they’ll post it somewhere. they’ll make like, this is my self care toolkit right now. Cause again, those things can change. And when they’re feeling overwhelmed, they don’t have to think too hard about what to do. They’ve already got this menu of things that are supportive for them.
Teresa: Yeah. And I think that’s super important as well, because I think sometimes looking at the different options, some won’t feel like self care like, you know, I have, a very interesting relationship with moving my body and, and that wouldn’t feel like self care. It would feel like, oh, I’ve got to, and that would feel hard.
And, you know, but looking at it either framing it differently, like you said, I am just going to move my body. There is no, you know, whether I dance around in my office or whether I do a workout, that is the same thing. So again, and I guess some things are really personal, like. I, a few years ago, and I laugh every time I say it because I [00:21:00] feel so old and stupid, but I found gardening and I love it.
Like I love getting, and these nails do not look like they get hands in soil, but they do, right? I love getting my hands in the soil. I love planting seeds. I love nothing more. Like I got back from these conferences and hadn’t been home for like six days and I immediately walked in the house, let the dogs out because the dogs are very excited to see me home.
And I walked straight outside and I looked at all my babies, my plant babies, and I wanted to check how they all were and I watered them all and like just wandered around looking at them and like that for me, like if I have got a full day of calls at some point, getting outside and just looking at what’s growing and just tidying up a little bit or doing something, you know, again, it’s not like, you know, it’s like there’s any structure around it.
It’s just, I know being in my garden is one of the places that I love to be. That makes me happy and really does fill my cup. So I think as well, like [00:22:00] that list of things. And I think that’s the other thing, like, cause I do, I love going for massage. I go for reflexology in a full body, like probably every six weeks or something.
But I think people make the mistake of thinking it has to be something like that. Something that is big effort and costly.
Taylor: Yeah, that’s one of the biggest myths I hear about self care. So, the first one I kind of talked about inadvertently is that we feel like we have to spend so much time on self care for it to be effective.
And really, you can do a lot with even a minute of focused attention and support for yourself. The other thing I hear is, yeah, it’s got to be so expensive. Like I have to treat myself to the massage or I have to go on a week long vacation when there are opportunities using the things that you have.
Like. You already have a garden, why not spend time in that garden and feel that connection to the earth? And [00:23:00] even like there is a physical aspect of having your hands in the dirt and being like shoveling stuff, planting stuff, pruning, weeding, all of those things. And so yes, it, it doesn’t have to Be a lot of money.
And that’s also a thought experiment I’ll, I’ll offer up to people sometimes is, okay, if my goal is to move my body. How could I do that for 0? How could I do that for 1, 000, 000? If I want to feel connected to community, how could I do that for 0? How could I do that if money was no object? And for 0, it might just be, I send a voice note to a friend and for money is no object.
Maybe I’m taking all of my friends for a week long vacation to Bali. But you start to realize when you have that thought experiment again, there’s options. It gets you out of that all or nothing thinking. And you’ve kind of mentioned [00:24:00] this too Teresa. Self care is not one size fits all. So for someone listening to this, they’re like, I have, I don’t have a green thumb.
Gardening is my worst nightmare because all I do is watch plants die, but they have something else that they love that is, maybe feels like a nightmare to you.
Teresa: Yeah, absolutely. And I think the other thing that came up as you were talking is This kind of reminds me of like some gratitude practice and the fact of like, I try and do quite a lot of gratitude practice, but I think people think because I do like nice things and we do nice trips and I like to fly and nice parts of the plane or the nicer parts of the plane, like they think that my expectation for gratitude is high.
And the truth is, it is like the smallest, tiniest things. Like this morning, I made my coffee, I went and sat back on my bed and drank my coffee. Like that, I am so grateful for. Like I said, walking outside and just walking around my [00:25:00] garden, looking at my plants, I am so grateful for that. So it kind of really reminds me of like, You know, those small things that we can do for ourselves and like you said, how can I connect to a community for no dollars?
Like it’s, it’s that same thing with gratitude in my head anyway, the way I’m seeing it is like it doesn’t have to be big and massive and ginormous or overly like luxurious. It can be something so small, but the, for me, it feels like the secret in it is stopping and noticing it. Like
Taylor: awareness is everything,
Teresa: you know, sitting there and going, I’m having this coffee.
This is really nice. I have like, like moments that I can pull back in my memory with ease of like some of the most amazing memories. Like, and, and one of them, I got married in Vegas. It’s very, it sounds like as if Elvis didn’t do it, but the day of the wedding, I was in the Bellagio and we’re sat in, I’m sat in this pool and we’ve got this waitress looking after us because we’ve got a cabana.
And I remember sitting there looking around like, You’re sat here right now and I can take myself there [00:26:00] into a heartbeat and obviously that costs money, but I can also imagine holding my cup and drinking my coffee and feeling just as grateful and just as happy and just as calm. So I think, that for me, that kind of slowing down and just appreciating doing that thing can be really powerful.
Taylor: It, it absolutely can. And, and the goal is not to say that it’s bad to fly first class or whatever it is, or to treat yourself to your reflexology. It’s like, that is great. And I don’t have to have a massage in order to access that. And that was actually part of the, starting point for my journey is. I tell people all the time now that self care is more than bubble baths, but my first real self care ritual was on Sunday nights.
I would kind of get ready for the week and then I would take a bath and I wouldn’t look at my phone or my laptop after that until Monday morning. And it was this beautiful practice and I loved it so much. And I can think of [00:27:00] doing that in my home, in multiple homes, as well as when I was traveling, I would try and do it too.
That was lovely. And what I realized was. I want to be able to access that feeling of taking a bath on Wednesday afternoon when I’m feeling like, Oh my gosh, I still have two more days left of the work week or on Friday morning before I’m getting ready to speak somewhere. And that, that lovely experience that I cultivated for myself made me realize, man, there’s gotta be access points to this in other ways too.
So it’s a both and.
Teresa: Yeah. Yeah. So I just want to touch on the fact that you’re The app is split into kind of two parts and one of the parts is like about quieting, quietening, don’t know if I said that right, your phone apps and various things. How much do you think that, and this I feel like it’s a bit of a rhetorical question, but how, and my daughter says it all the time and I’m like, would you like to tidy your room?
Is that, Are you actually asking me or is it rhetorical? I’m like, I’m telling you. Like, how much of that do you [00:28:00] think is impacting on us? Like, and that whole being able to have self care by being constantly surrounded by all this stuff.
Taylor: Yeah, I think it’s impacting us in a lot of ways. The first thing I like to tell people is that it’s not necessarily your fault.
We’ve got really, really smart people who are building these algorithms and are like, how can I keep Teresa on her phone for as long as possible today? That’s a lot for our brains to come up against. So, yeah. Anyone listening, there’s no guilt or shame here, but it is hard. It’s hard one, because they’re tapping into the ways that our brain works and wanting to, Oh, there’s another notification.
Oh, there’s a new post so that we want to keep scrolling. It’s hard for our brain to come up against something that is wired to make different parts of our brain light up. There’s also the element of, especially for business owners of comparison. So it’s not just that we’re on these apps scrolling because there’s a shiny new content.[00:29:00]
It’s also, Oh, that person’s course sold better than mine did, or Taylor’s launching an app. And one day I want to launch an app or this person, Teresa was flying and she’s flying on a better part of the plane than I can afford to fly right now. And so it’s not just the scrolling, it’s also the thought process that’s happening as we’re scrolling that can affect our self esteem, but can also affect our creativity. Like I think about for myself and for so many business owners, the ideas that don’t happen because we’re like, Ooh, what are those people going to think? Oh, that person did something kind of similar, but I have this distinctive way. I could do it, but I’m not going to do it now.
It holds us back and it’s limiting. And then outside of that, even when we’re not scrolling, you were talking about this in a really positive way. of how we have awareness and how we’re noticing with gratitude. But I’ve noticed when I’ve taken time away from my phone and from social media, the ways that I can [00:30:00] be entering a situation and be thinking, OK, how would I post this?
How would I capture this for social media? And it actually takes me out of the moment.
Teresa: Mm hmm. Yeah. And it’s funny. I was talking about that with someone. We were talking about being truly vulnerable on social media. And she was like, being truly vulnerable isn’t crying and then getting your phone and going to an Instagram story.
Because if you’re truly vulnerable and if you are in that moment, your first thought is not, Oh, hang on. Let me just get my phone and go on Instagram stories to show people I’m crying. And it is really sad that like you said, it’s no guilt or no like shame. This is the world we’re in now, but it is sad that we immediately think.
Oh, this is awesome. Oh, how can I capture this? How can I share this? How can I put this out to the world? I saw something, and the irony of what I’m about to say, because I saw it on social media, was that this guy, like it’s some funny reel, where he was basically saying, you know, mindfulness was never a thing when we were kids.
So I’m [00:31:00] 45. And they were like, mindfulness was never a thing when we were kids. And I think he’s got similar age because We didn’t have phones. He said, so when you stood and waited for the bus, all you had to do was sit and wait for the bus. When you were traveling somewhere, all you could do was travel somewhere.
Like, and it was hilarious because it’s like, yeah, that’s so true. We didn’t have this thing that constantly distracted us, this constantly in our brain and kind of like firing our brain off all the time. When we were kids, like, we kick stones down the road like you, you know, you did nothing because that’s all we could do.
And like, so it’s so funny now and it’s kind of not surprising now that we do talk about mindfulness and self care and those sorts of things in relation to how much more we use phones and how much more our attention is taken all the time. You know, and again, like, you know, I don’t, I don’t know how old you are, Taylor.
You look very young to me.
Taylor: I’m 31.
Teresa: Okay, well, you are very young to me, but like, even things [00:32:00] like, you know, TV adverts and things like you would have actually just wait for the TV adverts to go on, like, you know, so I think there is something about the speed we’re at, like moving constantly all the time that taking that time to stop and slow and go, okay, well, what would really help right now?
What, and, and, And we’re not very good at that sometimes because we do the destructive thing. We do the thing. And obviously I have been on my own massive journey of this, like my destructive thing that wasn’t kind to me and that wasn’t going, you know, so, and it’s perfect example in the fact of like listening within what is the kindest thing for me to do right now?
Well, I would go, I’m so tired. I’ll have wine. That’s not the kindest thing for me to do. That wasn’t the thing that I really needed. The thing I needed was sleep or rest or calm, but I chose to have wine. I’m hungry. I’ll have some wine. I’m frustrated. I’ll have some wine. Like, rather than going, okay, no, what do I [00:33:00] really need at this point?
So, again, like, this isn’t coming from any level of, like, shame that we do this, because that’s our quick fix. That’s how we get through those things. So it’s understandable why we do them. But when we’re really honest with ourselves, is that truly the thing that is going to help us and is kind to us and is the thing that we truly need at that point?
Probably isn’t, no.
Taylor: No, and you have to be willing. I, I think of. If, if self care is really about being in conversation with ourselves, the best conversations are when you’re really trying to build a relationship with that person, you’re really interested in understanding them. And so to your point, if I’m asking, okay, what do I need right now?
And I’m keeping it really surface level, then yeah, I’m going to say, I need to scroll on Instagram. I need TikTok. I need a glass of wine.
Teresa: Yeah.
Taylor: But you have to be like that friend to yourself.
Teresa: Yeah.
Taylor: Like you’re, you’re real true friend who you say, I’m fine. And they’re like, are you really fine?
Teresa: [00:34:00] Yeah. Yeah.
Taylor: You have to do that with yourself and being willing to go through those layers of, okay, on the surface, I’m saying that.
I’m just a little bored. I need some inspiration. What’s underneath that? Or how else could I give myself inspiration? I’m tired. Okay. I’ve been training myself to perk myself up with whatever our favorite vices are, but what are some other ways I could address that? Yeah. I had a phase where I was like, I had a yoga mat in my office and I would just do a little three minute yoga sequence and was surprised to find, Oh, that’s another way for me to address being tired besides eating a cookie in the afternoon.
Not that eating a cookie in an afternoon is bad. There’s just other ways I could perk myself up.
Teresa: And that is, that is one of the main journeys I’ve been on. Like how do I, how do I manage? How do I cope? How do I answer these problems without my go to, without picking up the wine, without, [00:35:00] you know, having a gin and tonic?
Like, what do I do? How, and, and self care to me was something I almost had to re educate myself. And And that was like, you know, and I had to stop every time when in the early days and it was a real struggle. And I’d be like, I, all I want to do is drink some wine. And I’d be like, no, what do I really need?
And I’d almost talk to myself in the third person, which always sounds a bit weird, but, but it really held of like, no, Teresa, what, like, I know you want wine, but what, what is it like, why, what is the problem? And then how can we fix that rather than going to that thing? I just want to ask a couple of questions.
So actually on like, Where, where we’ve come from in this conversation, but I’m just intrigued. Yeah. So you’ve had your business five years, did you say?
Taylor: Yeah.
Teresa: Did you have a business before that? Or did you work?
Taylor: Both. So I started my first business and I was doing it on the side and then I also was working in corporate.
I worked in [00:36:00] corporate and in startup and startup owned by corporate.
Teresa: Okay, so you took the scary decision to drop the corporate five years ago. Is that right? So what were you doing before? Cause I’ll see now we’ve got the book and the apps coming out. How, what did your business look like in this space prior?
Was it one to one work? Was it what, how, what services were you offering?
Taylor: Yeah, so it started actually as a practice that blended movement, breathwork, journaling, and meditation. We were going to be kind of like the Zumba for mental wellness. We were going to do in person certifications and COVID hit. So the first iteration was like doing virtual certifications, but with COVID, people were so interested in talking about self care and I realized the practice wasn’t necessarily what people needed.
It was other things. And so that’s when we transitioned more into doing workshops, having group coaching, having [00:37:00] community, and then eventually all of the things that were generated from that turned into the book and then also now into the app.
Teresa: That’s awesome. That’s like an app is not an easy thing. I’ve got friends who’ve done apps and things and that must have tested you creating this app.
Taylor: Yeah, it’s, I mean, it really was opportunities to practice what I preach, like even before the app was built, I was like, I can’t sleep. Let me go into this database and play one of the sleep meditations or I’m feeling really anxious. Let me work through one of these practices. So like I said, I come to this work because I need it.
And I’m constantly using the tools in the app to get me through the process of building and launching the app.
Teresa: That’s so cool. That’s so cool. So when does the app come out?
Taylor: The app comes out on May 22nd.
Teresa: That is very exciting. And where will people be able to [00:38:00] find it?
Taylor: If you go to innerworkout.co/app, you can join the wait list, or if you’re listening after May 22nd, you can find it on the Apple app store.
Android’s going to come a little bit later.
Teresa: That’s so cool. And you must be really excited for that. That is awesome to have your own app.
Taylor: Yeah, I’m really, it just, it solves a lot of, like I said, at the beginning, people kept telling me they didn’t have time for self care and I was like, that’s not really the issue, but a lot of times it is.
And so I’m really excited to address that for people. And also I use the app every day. I’m using the functionality, benefiting from it, realizing where there’s a bug. And I’m like, Oh, developers, we need to fix that thing. But, in tech, they call it dogfooding, where you like eat your own dog food.
Teresa: Oh, nice.
Taylor: That’s what I’m doing. I would like to think that the app is better than dogfood.
Teresa: Well, let’s hope so.
Taylor: Yeah, I’m really in the trenches using it for myself and receiving the benefits myself.
Teresa: That’s so [00:39:00] cool. So, so cool. Taylor, this has been such an awesome conversation. I am in awe of the fact that you’ve done a book and an app, and that is really cool.
And put it in a Cause it would be easy to stay in the group space and the workshop space because that’s fairly safe. Like, you know, there’s only so much you can do, but putting it in an app is like you standing up and going, come on then, like, Oh, this is how I see it anyway. You know, I’m putting myself and everything out there.
Let’s do it. So I am, I’m really excited to see it, have a look at it and give it a go. And I really, really appreciate you being on the podcast. Where can people come and find you if they want to follow you or see what you do?
Taylor: Absolutely. The best place to stay connected with Inner Workout is our website, just innerworkout.co. Also on Instagram and threads at innerworkout. I’m on Instagram and threads at Taylor Elyse Morrison. That’s Elyse with a Y.
Teresa: Awesome. Taylor, thank you so much for being on the podcast.
Taylor: Thank you for having me. [00:40:00]
