Does anyone else out there find yourself reaching for an entire box of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups (insert your kryptonite here) when you are feeling the big feelings that most of us are experiencing on a daily basis? During times of high emotions, boredom, and overwhelm, we have found ourselves grasping for something to hold on to. In this time, we have found that Gretchin Rubin’s strategy of using healthy treats to care for ourselves has been truly a life saver.

Most of us love the idea of good habits in our lives. In her book, Better Than Before, Rubin describes a strategy of using healthy treats to care for ourselves, which actually increases our ability of keep good habits in our lives. When we deprive ourselves of things that we look forward to and bring us pleasure, we can end up feeling depleted and burned out. This often leads us to abandon our good habit pursuits and can lead us to un-healthy treats or numbing (which can bring us pleasure momentarily, but often derail our long term goals and habits).

Healthy treats are so wonderful because they are things that both make you feel good in the moment, and feel good after you are finished with them. On the other hand, unhealthy treats are enjoyable in the moment you indulge in them, but often make us feel worse later (think eating an entire chocolate cake to escape feeling a negative emotion, skipping your workout to mindlessly scroll YouTube, over drinking, or any addictive behavior that you feel sabotages your wellbeing).

In this episode, we discuss how to really use the strategy of healthy treats as a fun way to give more to yourself, which in turn allows you to actually stick with your goals and habits. We give our lists of healthy treats so that hopefully you leave the episode with a long list of your own healthy treats you can lean on throughout the day to help you feel both taken care of and motivated.

The book that inspired us:

The Happiness Project // Gretchin Rubin

Better Than Before // Gretchin Rubin (in this book, she really expands the idea of healthy treats)

Our Website (You can find all show notes here, along with book recommendations and links to all past books):

https://www.findthemagic.co

Find us on instagram:

Felica: https://www.instagram.com/felicaallen/

Taralyn: https://www.instagram.com/taralyngriffin/

p.s. Our secret to reading so many books is this little baby, a magical wireless earbud:) https://amzn.to/36d89Zj