In every episode of the “Thrive 5” podcast, we talk to notable women about how they’re thriving, and explore how taking care of our well-being has huge payoffs for our confidence and mental resilience. It’s always inspiring to hear about someone’s “final straw” moment, where they realized that they needed to start taking better care of themselves or continue on a path that wasn’t serving them.
This week, host Clarice Metzger chats with Hannah Bronfman, a D.J. and the lifestyle guru who founded HBFIT, a wellness website, about her realization that she had to prioritize her health, as well as how she’s been navigating a pandemic (and pregnancy) in these turbulent times.
Here’s a little of what Hannah had to say…
On her self-care wake-up call:
“My lifestyle was D.J.ing from 11:00 p.m. until 4:00 a.m. at least four nights a week, sleeping all day, maybe having one meal a day. And you could see on my face, through my skin, that this lifestyle was really deteriorating me from the inside out. It was completely unsustainable. I needed to figure out a way to still D.J., but really prioritize my health. So I made the switch from D.J.ing nightlife to D.J.ing corporate events. Not only was the money better in the corporate world, but it really allowed me to utilize my day more properly and prioritize my sleep and my healthy eating habits, get back to the gym, figure out what was going on with my skin, and just prioritize myself.”
On finding the courage to talk about her fertility struggles:
“When we first experienced our miscarriage, I hadn’t told my best friends that I was pregnant. They say you shouldn’t tell people you’re pregnant until you’re 12 weeks along, in case you lose the baby. One in four pregnancies ends in a miscarriage within the first 12 weeks. But then I had to tell my friends, ‘Hey, by the way, not only was I pregnant, but I’ve also lost the baby.’ It just felt horrible, and I felt very isolated in my experience. When we started to share with some of our friends, they were like, ‘Oh, that happened to us, too.’ So many other people said that they’d been through the same experience, which just made me feel so much more at ease. So Brendan and I decided that this was something we were going to talk about, because we don’t talk about it as a society, and so many women have to suffer through this in silence.”
On having boundaries with social media:
“In the beginning of the pandemic, I was definitely on my phone a lot. I was trying to be this very motivational figure, and I would schedule [Instagram] Lives like twice a day. I realized that my life became this very online situation. You know, my whole career basically shifted to social media because a lot of what I do — whether it was appearances or D.J. gigs or community-based events — is out the window now. Then with everything that was happening with the BLM movement and just the insane violence that we were seeing, I really needed to take a step back because it was really affecting me on a very profound level. I really needed time to process a lot of what was going on. Now I’ve shifted. I’m very present on social, but I also limit my time scrolling. I cannot see anything violent before going to bed anymore.”
On the power of reframing negative thoughts:
“Whenever I have a negative thought coming into my head, whether it’s because I’ve heard a crazy birth story or I’m constantly reminded that the mortality rate for Black women in the U.S. is so much higher than it is for their white counterparts, my mind goes from being rational to completely irrational. I was swimming in the ocean this summer and literally thought to myself, ‘What if a shark comes and bites my stomach off?’ It’s crazy! So whenever those negative thoughts start to creep up, I just rewrite the narrative in a positive way and start repeating that to myself. And it really helps me calm down.”
To hear more from Hannah, listen to her full podcast episode. “Thrive 5” is available on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.