Podcast Summary

Podcast: Don't Cut Your Own Bangs
Host: Danielle Ireland
Episode: Sustainable Self-Care: A Better Way to Actually Feel Better
Date: January 26, 2026

Episode Overview

In this episode, Danielle Ireland explores the concept of sustainable self-care—moving away from prescriptive lists and toward a more compassionate, flexible approach. She draws on both personal experience (including a recent ankle injury) and her background as a therapist, advocating for self-care processes that adapt to changing needs, support nervous system nourishment, and foster meaningful self-connection. Danielle guides listeners through practical exercises and reframes self-care as something accessible and validating, not another item on a to-do list.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Rethinking Self-Care: From Rigid Lists to Living Processes

• Danielle wants to move past “zingy” self-care headlines (e.g., "Self care that will blow your mind") and focus on what actually works: “it’s only self care when it’s working, and we deserve self care that lasts and sustains us because we deserve calm without having to earn it.” (04:08)
• Self-care is dynamic; its meaning can shift daily or over time. Instead of a fixed routine, the process should be responsive to how you’re feeling right now.
• Lists of trendy self-care activities can create stress or comparison rather than relief.

2. Life Update: Learning Self-Compassion Through Injury

• Danielle shares a recent "whoopsie doodle”: she sprained her foot/ankle leaving a date night, now in a boot and on crutches. This experience forced her to confront the gap between knowing what’s good for her and actually living it.
• Quote: “There was a part of me that was aware of them, but what I wasn't doing was acting on them... There was the level of understanding I thought I had and then there's the basement.” (09:30)
• This period made her realize how easy it is to “say the right things” about slowing down while still pushing too hard in practice.

3. Big Feelings & The Challenge of Embodiment

• As a therapist and mother, Danielle often faces big emotions—her own and her children’s.
• She plugs her children’s book, Wrestling a Walrus: For Little People with Big Feelings, highlighting the importance of making space for emotions, not just suppressing or solving them.
• “It's so much easier to say than it is to embody in practice. What do we do with these combustible emotions?” (12:54)

4. Process-Focused Sustainable Self-Care

A. The “Ideal Day” Exercise

How to do it:

• In a quiet, unhurried moment (ideally, just after waking), ask yourself: “What is my ideal day?”
• Let your mind wander and imagine without censorship for 2–5 minutes (or longer).
• Danielle addresses the inner critic that says this is impractical – let it have its voice, then set it aside so imagination can flow.
• Quote: “Anything that exists, that we have created, was an idea first – it was imagined first.” (17:10)
  Benefit:
• The nervous system receives the same nourishment from imagination as from real experience—briefly inhabiting pleasurable scenarios creates calm.
• After the exercise, ask: “Is there anything from what I imagined that I can pull into my day?”

B. Embodied/Somatic Check-In

• Take three deep breaths.
• Scan your body for tension, pain, or discomfort.
• Ask that part of your body, “What do you want me to know?”
• Danielle describes how doing this after her ankle injury revealed she needed to "ground down" rather than constantly look ahead.
• Quote: “We're trying to bring all the parts of ourselves home.” (25:45)
  Sometimes the answer is practical (hunger, thirst). Sometimes it’s emotional or metaphorical.

5. Examples of Sustainable Self-Care in Real Life

• Danielle and her husband treat travel as self-care—making it sustainable by actually scheduling trips, discussing budgets, and setting intentions for time together and alone.
• Personal example: Tap dancing brings pure joy and is felt as genuinely restorative, not a chore.
• Contrast: Getting nails done, while commercialized as self-care, feels like “maintenance or just another appointment” sometimes—an example of how self-care changes meaning.
• Test for sustainable self-care:
  • How do you feel thinking about it?
  • How do you feel when doing it?
  • How do you feel after?

Memorable Quote

• “Sometimes, you know self care is working or not based on how it's making you feel.” (30:22)

Notable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• “It’s only self care when it’s working. And we deserve self care that lasts and sustains us because we deserve calm without having to earn it.” (04:08, Danielle)
• “There was a part of me that was aware of them, but what I wasn't doing was acting on them... There was the level of understanding I thought I had and then there's the basement.” (09:30, Danielle)
• “It's so much easier to say than it is to embody in practice. What do we do with these combustible emotions?” (12:54, Danielle)
• “Anything that exists, that we have created, was an idea first – it was imagined first.” (17:10, Danielle)
• “We're trying to bring all the parts of ourselves home.” (25:45, Danielle)
• “Sometimes, you know self care is working or not based on how it's making you feel.” (30:22, Danielle)

Key Timestamps

• 04:08 – Redefining what sustainable self-care actually means
• 09:30 – Injury as a forced self-compassion lesson
• 12:54 – Facing big feelings as a parent and therapist
• 17:10 – The “ideal day” exercise and power of imagination
• 22:40 – Translating imagination into actionable self-care
• 25:45 – Somatic check-in: connecting with the body
• 29:00 – Personal examples: travel, solitude, tap dancing
• 30:22 – How to gauge if self-care is working for you

Tone and Style

Danielle’s tone is warm, friendly, and gently humorous. She openly shares her own struggles (“whoopsie doodle”), mixes professional insights with relatable anecdotes, and encourages self-acceptance, trial-and-error, and a non-dogmatic approach to self-care.

Conclusion

Danielle’s message: Sustainable self-care isn’t about perfection or rigid routines, but about cultivating curiosity, imagination, embodied awareness, and responsiveness to your real, present needs. It’s also about compassionately renegotiating your relationship to rest, pleasure, and presence as life circumstances change.

“The best things in life are shared. It is my pleasure, my privilege and an honor to share this space with you... We need a safer, tender place to allow our human selves to exist.”

For those seeking sustainable self-care:

• Let self-compassion lead.
• Let your imagination play.
• Tune into body and emotion, not just mind.
• Try ideas, but measure what works by how it feels—before, during, and after.

(Skip to 17:10 for the Ideal Day exercise, 25:45 for somatic self-care, and 29:00 onward for practical examples.)