S4-Episode 2: Why Self-Care Isn't Working (And What Will)

You’ve tried the self-care routines.
 The journaling, the meditations, the Sunday resets.

So why do you still feel disconnected, foggy, and on edge?

In this episode, Sam and I dig into why self-care often doesn’t land—especially when your nervous system is dysregulated—and what it actually takes to feel better.

This isn’t about doing more.

 It’s about learning to listen to yourself better.

 Because if you're not caring for yourself in the right kind of way, even the most nourishing rituals can feel like noise.

We explore:

 — How self-care is often misinterpreted
 — The difference between numbing, distraction and conscious regulation
 — Why your body might be resisting rest (and what to do about it)
 — How real change starts with reconnection
 — The kind of support that actually shifts things from the inside out

This is your permission slip to stop trying so hard—and start listening differently.

🔁 Want to take this deeper?

🌀 Join us inside The Re-Calibration—a 6-week group journey to reconnect with your body, regulate your nervous system, and step into your next season feeling grounded and clear.

 → Join us here.

💬 Let’s Connect:

DM Emma @emmaobriencoach or Sam @zenroom_at_thewoods—we love hearing what landed for you.

And if you loved this episode, leave a rating or review so more folks can find this work.

#therecalibration #nervoussystemhealing #selfcare #embodiment #burnoutsupport #reconnectwithyourbody

Procrastinators, this will change the way you show up for yourself and help you make serious progress in just 7 days.

STOP putting your progress on the back burner

LEARN how to set effective boundaries

MAKE more progress in a week than you have in the last month

Get instant access to STOP Procrastinating in 7 Days here.

__________________________________________________________________________________________

If you know you want more from your life or career but you're totally stuck about where to start, I invite you to book a complimentary strategy call with me here.

We'll uncover what's holding you back from the goals you want to achieve and you'll leave the call with actionable steps to get you moving in the right direction.

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You can also connect with me on Instagram @emmaobriencoach where I share an abundance of tools, strategies and brilliant content, you might also see the occasional dog.

Transcript

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Emma O'Brien: Hi, folks. Welcome to season. 4. Episode 2 of the lemons and pineapples podcast with me, Emma o'brien and my guest, Sam Shrosbury. Today we're talking about. Why, self-care isn't working for you and what will. So maybe you've tried the bubble baths. You've tried the odd Yoga class, the expensive skincare routines, and you still don't feel quite right.

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Emma O'Brien: So we're going to be talking about why self-care isn't working, and what you actually could be doing instead to create meaningful self nourishment and connection.

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Emma O'Brien: So Sam, who is a Physio and functional medicine health coach, and I have created a brand new group coaching program called the recalibration. You can find out more information about that in the show notes. It's going to be launching. Doors are opening very soon for that, and self-care is going to be something that we are really focusing on in this group program, because I think people have

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Emma O'Brien: totally got self-care wrong. Talk to us about self-care from your perspective, Sam.

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Sam Shrosbree: I'm just thinking as you're talking, what is self-care? If you think about something else you would care for, whether it's your child or a pet. It's listening to what they need. When the child cries, it's working out if it's

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Sam Shrosbree: hungry, or just needs some love or needs to be changed. So I think self-care is taking the time to actually stop. Listen to yourself, your mind, your body, see what it needs, and give it that thing, and

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Sam Shrosbree: maybe just also let it feel what it needs to needs to feel.

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Sam Shrosbree: I think a lot of the time we take self-care as just just doing something that just makes us feel a little bit better, or maybe like puts a little

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Sam Shrosbree: Band-aid on it, like, if I just have a bath, I'll feel better. If I just have a bottle of wine, I'll feel better. I think care is actually caring. If you care about someone else. You would want to spend time with them, listen to their story and support them. So how are you supporting yourself to to keep

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Sam Shrosbree: to keep living your your happiest life.

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Emma O'Brien: Yeah.

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Emma O'Brien: And I think we talked about in the previous episode. We talked about dysregulation and signs of dysregulation, and I think learning to regulate your emotions, regulate your nervous system, regulate your mind. Body connection is a huge part of self care. And one of the things that's really important is actually doing that before

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Emma O'Brien: your body starts screaming. Hey? I've got a problem before you start feeling the overwhelm before you're struggling to focus before you have the headache, because you can preemptively add self care into your day to day routine

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Emma O'Brien: and help to prevent all of the problems that you and I both see with people who are stressed out and and completely and utterly dysregulated and just not coping. I think you know, we've we've both we talked in in episode one about. You have clients who come to your physio practice.

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Emma O'Brien: and they're literally surviving, and they're coming to have you kind of deal with the frozen shoulder and the tension headache which actually isn't a physiological problem. It's a psychological problem that's manifesting physiologically because there's too much happening. And what we have to do is start addressing the root cause

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Emma O'Brien: of our of our mind, body dysfunction quite frankly. And one thing that we've talked about one thing we're going to be focusing on in the recalibration course that we're doing is what is true regulation versus numbing and avoiding. Can you talk to us a little bit more about the kind of the numbing and avoiding that you see people doing.

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Sam Shrosbree: I think. Yeah, we spoke in Episode one about the number of people these days that are on anti-anxiety medication and antidepressants. It's basically like, there is this feeling. I don't like it. It needs to to go away. And I think, yeah, I ran a course once where I asked people to

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Sam Shrosbree: tell me ways in which they help themselves, feel better, how they shift emotions, how they listen to the emotions, and it was without fail I drink a bottle of wine. I go out and go crazy with my friends, and it's like, let me just forget this thing. Let me distract myself with something else. Yeah, I think distractions are a big one. I think people like to keep themselves distracted and busy with

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Sam Shrosbree: with work and lots of busyness and lots of social events and and things like that, even something as simple as eating and sleeping, which is self-care. I think people often will avoid eating like I'm too busy, or I've got to eat on the run, or, Oh, God! Now I'm starving, and I feel like I'm going to fall down. Let me just shovel something in my mouth, and then I'm wired. By the time I need to go to bed.

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Sam Shrosbree: actually sleep. So let me just take a sleeping tablet. We're not even doing the the basic things. Or

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Sam Shrosbree: I think we've spoken about it before at our our corporate wellness, events that we do where I don't even think people take the time to get up and go to the Loo. It's just like back to back, meeting one after the other after the other. So you literally are numbing out those things you're not listening to basic

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Sam Shrosbree: human things that we we need to do. And so we we numb out with the the busyness of life. The next call, the next meeting, the next activity. Busyness, is probably the the biggest.

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Sam Shrosbree: the biggest numbing agent we use.

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Emma O'Brien: Oh, yeah, totally. I mean, it's like I could give you the whole merchandise range for that, because it's what I used to do is, I just didn't ever stop, and I think the part of the reason for that is a we're not taught to name and feel feelings.

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Emma O'Brien: Big feelings are really uncomfortable to sit with.

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Sam Shrosbree: Okay.

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Emma O'Brien: So we avoid them. And I understand why people, you know, I understand why people do it, because it takes quite a lot of

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Emma O'Brien: time, introspection, and being able to be really uncomfortable to sit in big feelings. But the thing with

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Emma O'Brien: feelings is, and you know we we say we come from a from from kind of both 2 sides of this

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Emma O'Brien: physical sensations of I've got a stomach ache. I've got a headache, are telling you something. Feelings are messengers, so whether they're somatic feelings or whether they're emotional feelings of, I feel angry, I feel sad. I feel overwhelmed. I can't cope.

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Emma O'Brien: They're all signs that something is out of kilter, and

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Emma O'Brien: instead of being taught to listen to them and say, Okay, I've been feeling consistently, really, really reactive.

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Emma O'Brien: What's going on for me what's happening that my plate is so full I can't cope.

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Emma O'Brien: That I can't stay calm because I've got no capacity anymore. If you've not got capacity to cope.

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Emma O'Brien: what can you shift to find capacity, because you have to make some lifestyle changes. Not

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Emma O'Brien: like you say we know we talked. I'm not going to get on my soapbox again about it, but not start medicating the lack of capacity

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Emma O'Brien: with a blood pressure medication, or a or a headache tablet, or all of the things that you will very easily be given as opposed to taking the time to reflect on what in my life is not working for me. And how can I make some adjustments to that. It's a huge part of the coaching work that I do with people is, can we just take a step back and have an overview here?

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Emma O'Brien: What's really causing all of these problems here? Is it your relationship that's not working for you anymore? Is it the job that you hate? And you actually every part of you is just screaming. I need something different. Is it the lack of boundaries you've got going on? And how can you start to just free up a little bit of time for yourself each day.

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Emma O'Brien: One of the things I like to do for self-care is just to go and sit and and in the afternoon or in the morning, if I have time.

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Emma O'Brien: is just to go and sit outside in the garden for 5, 10 min, and just have a coffee or a herbal tea, or a pina colada, and

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Emma O'Brien: just one occasionally to, and just sit and enjoy being outside, and just be present in the moment.

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Sam Shrosbree: Hmm.

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Emma O'Brien: Because that is probably the biggest form of self-care you can give yourself is to be present in the moment you are in right now, at the risk of sounding like Yoda with a pina colada.

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Sam Shrosbree: I think we we've also lost. I'm just thinking, like, maybe a lot of people say, well, I will just go and sit down. But the the TV will probably go on, or the cell phone will be in the hand. You're not actually just sitting. Maybe. Yeah, there's always a scrolling or a

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Sam Shrosbree: a TV or something that it just again keeps us distracted that we don't have to listen to our own thoughts and feelings. Let's just be yeah. It's just keeping stimulated. So we never need to.

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Sam Shrosbree: We never need to look or explore.

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Emma O'Brien: I think.

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Sam Shrosbree: Sometimes I mean baby. Sometimes there is all the ailments and the sicknesses and things like that, because there's big changes that need to happen, but sometimes we just need to properly rest.

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Emma O'Brien: Yeah.

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Sam Shrosbree: Sometimes I mean, I had it. A few weeks ago I had an insanely busy week back to back, and I started just being ridiculous like everything was sending me over the edge. And eventually my boyfriend just said to me, I think you need to eat something.

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Sam Shrosbree: have an early night, and then I think these things will not be as as problematic tomorrow. And he, yeah, he was a hundred percent. Right? So sometimes it's also that we just need to switch off a little bit. Yeah.

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Emma O'Brien: Completely and get a good night's sleep, I think. Don't underestimate the power of a good night's sleep. I mean, I'm like grandma here, so I'm literally.

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Emma O'Brien: I'm in bed by about half past 8.

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Emma O'Brien: I'm up, maybe half 5, 6 o'clock, so I'm up relatively early, but if I don't get a proper night's sleep. I'm foul. I can't actually cope very well, so it's a bit of a non-negotiable for me.

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Sam Shrosbree: Is.

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Emma O'Brien: Get into bed. Notice that the screen is off. I'll read, and then that's it. I know I need a good night's sleep. It is an absolute non-negotiable. So

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Emma O'Brien: often, you know, we're kind of not coping, not coping, not coping. But if you're trying to survive on 5 h of sleep.

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Emma O'Brien: there's your solution is just go to bed earlier. But again, we'll kind of overthink. The whole thing is, how can you self-care like you know we've talked about it doesn't have to be the kind of oh, treat yourself, you know, going to a Spa day.

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Sam Shrosbree: Great.

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Emma O'Brien: But that's not. It's not long-term, self-care, long-term self-care is, what are you doing each day

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Emma O'Brien: to feel good and really look after your body, and also your mind, like I've said good night's sleep. I need a good solid 8 h, otherwise don't come near me.

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Emma O'Brien: Sitting in the garden just listening to the birds, and just kind of, you know, mingling with the Tree Spirits in the garden. All good. I feel I can do that for 5 min. And I'm like, Oh, life is actually quite magical. It's all good. I'm a heart math practitioner. So heart focused breathing, which is literally just. It's so simple. It's something we're going to be going through in the recalibration

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Emma O'Brien: is just to take the time to connect inwards and slow your slow, your breathing down and put some focus on you as you breathe. I know you. You've got Yoga Nidras, which you can talk. You're going to talk to us a little bit about as well.

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Emma O'Brien: but they're all very simple. Things are very easy to add into a routine. It doesn't have to be

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Emma O'Brien: 5 h of standing on your head.

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Emma O'Brien: Tell us a bit about your Yoga Nidras.

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Sam Shrosbree: So

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Sam Shrosbree: a yoga Nidra, I mean. I don't know if the more I talk about it I feel like the word yoga should be taken out of it. Just call it a Nidra but it's it's referred. It's also sometimes called a Yogic sleep, and it is a kind of meditation.

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Sam Shrosbree: Using certain words and phrases that get your brain waves into the same state that they would be in when you are sleeping, which is your Delta brainwaves.

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Sam Shrosbree: I believe that Yoga Nidras are used by pilots where they're often flying long periods of time and random times during the night, that they don't have regular sleep patterns, and also by soldiers at war, where they need to be quite alert, and are in dangerous situations, and just doing 20 min of this kind of meditation, these, it's just basically

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Sam Shrosbree: scanning through your body and literally telling your body to relax from from top to toe and listening to various words that your brain can only focus on those things slows down those those brainwaves, and apparently 20 min of listening to something like a Yoga Nidra can give your brain the equivalent of 4 h. Sleep. Wow!

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Emma O'Brien: Be the solution to my.

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Sam Shrosbree: To your brain.

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Emma O'Brien: Smart behaviour.

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Sam Shrosbree: So,

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Sam Shrosbree: yeah. So I feel like, that's another another technique that we can use. Because even as you were talking about people sleeping where

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Sam Shrosbree: people say I sleep 4 to 5 HI think most people believe that they are functioning perfectly normally.

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Emma O'Brien: You're not folks sorry.

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Sam Shrosbree: Wow!

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Emma O'Brien: You're not.

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Sam Shrosbree: Yeah.

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Sam Shrosbree: it's also because we've gotten used to functioning on that. So maybe you're getting used to functioning at 70% or 60%. I don't know what it is.

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Sam Shrosbree: I think we almost applaud those things in modern day society like we don't ever say, How are you? Oh, feeling so relaxed. Life is great. I mean, you'd be seen as maybe a little bit lazy, whereas if you're so busy, just you know, burning the candle at both ends, sleeping 4 HA night. That's like, Wow, this person, this person is winning at life. You know, we

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Sam Shrosbree: we almost need to reset our thinking around these things. It's not how we are designed to be living

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Sam Shrosbree: modern day life and all the isms that we could do a whole nother podcast on later.

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Emma O'Brien: Typing.

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Sam Shrosbree: Need that.

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Emma O'Brien: Yeah, you're totally. You're totally right. And I think you know, if I think back to pre burnout Emma.

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Emma O'Brien: I would.

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Emma O'Brien: I mean, it's farcical. Now, when I think of how much I was cramming into a week, I mean, I was working 7 days a week, and, as most people know, I also got a photography business. Some days I was doing 4 photo shoots a day, and doing all the editing and delivering everything to clients and and not doing anything else other than working

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Emma O'Brien: folks, not normal. Okay, let's just drop that myth. And I can remember people saying to me, Oh, you're so lucky you're so lucky to be so busy. Don't complain.

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Emma O'Brien: It's not just busy, is not a badge of success. It's not, it is, I think, a measure of

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Emma O'Brien: a measure of success in my not very humble opinion is, how much are you enjoying life?

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Emma O'Brien: Food

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Emma O'Brien: often are you present with where you're at and the people you're with. How many deep, meaningful conversations are you having with your partner, your friends, your children.

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Sam Shrosbree: Hmm.

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Emma O'Brien: Each day. How often do you sit back and go?

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Emma O'Brien: Oh, this feels really, really good.

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Emma O'Brien: that's a measure of that's a measure of success. Not not how many customers can I hustle? Don't get me wrong. I'm the 1st person to tell you. I love earning money. It's a big buzz for me to earn money, but

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Emma O'Brien: I'm no, it's not the be all, and end all for me. It's more. Did I? Did I have a nice day? Do I feel fulfilled. I think that really is a measure of success, and we've got to shift the narrative around it.

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Sam Shrosbree: I will always remember having a conversation with my stepmom.

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Emma O'Brien: When she was dying from terminal cancer, and

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Emma O'Brien: she didn't say, I wish I'd done more.

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Sam Shrosbree: Said, I.

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Emma O'Brien: Wish I'd actually gone out and experienced more.

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Sam Shrosbree: Yeah.

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Emma O'Brien: I wish I'd gone to take the time to visit some of the places that were really local to me, that I could have just gone and enjoyed. I wish I'd enjoyed my life more.

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Sam Shrosbree: Yeah.

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Emma O'Brien: And I think it's about making sure you're doing that before you hit a point of no return.

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Sam Shrosbree: 100%.

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Emma O'Brien: And I know it kind of goes off a bit of a deep tangent. But it's

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Emma O'Brien: really what else is. What else is there if we're not actually enjoying the the day to day of things, and that starts with

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Emma O'Brien: taking care of yourself, because if you can't take care of yourself adequately. You can't care for or connect with anybody else.

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Sam Shrosbree: Yeah.

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Sam Shrosbree: So I'm

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Sam Shrosbree: yeah. I'm just. I'm just thinking back this that I think it was a Russian study on babies where they gave the babies everything that they needed in terms of food and clothing and warmth, and the babies still didn't thrive because they were never given love. So I think, just circling back. I think really caring for yourself is giving yourself what you need physically

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Sam Shrosbree: and emotionally.

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Sam Shrosbree: and just constantly tying that self-care needs to be looking at both sides of that coin. Yeah, all the time, because maybe working is helping you achieve something physically and tangibly in terms of

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Sam Shrosbree: a living, and that can buy you your home and things like that. But unless you're looking after yourself mentally and emotionally, yeah, it's going to be pointless.

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Emma O'Brien: Guess it. You can't enjoy it. So there you go on that mic. Drop. Sam and I have created an amazing 6 week program called the recalibration. We are going to be opening the doors to that very soon. You can find all the info in. There's a link in the show notes to go and have a look at.

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Emma O'Brien: This is for you. If you're listening to this and going okay, this all resonates, but I don't know how to do it. I want something to be different, but I don't know where to begin. It feels like it's all too much. This is a practical

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Emma O'Brien: course. We're going to be kind of giving you holistic mind-body techniques and

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Emma O'Brien: things that you can be doing that are realistically.

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Emma O'Brien: you can add them into your daily routine without creating overwhelm. So we've put a lot of love into this. So we're really excited to share it with you. So make sure you have a look in the show notes, and of course, as always, we'd love to hear from you and what your takeaways were from this episode. You can pop either of us a message on Instagram. The links are in the show notes, and we will both see you in the next episode. Thanks for listening. Thanks for being with me, Sam.

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Emma O'Brien: Thank you, Emma bye, for now team.