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Walking the Fine Line...

5/26/2021

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Gimme a Good Night's Sleep and Food in my Belly......Ahhh!!

5/26/2021

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Getting a good night's sleep and 'eating clean' can help you to get through stressful times. 

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Helping you get through the Pandemic: Part 2
Sleep routines & nutrition 
 
 
So a lot of the magazines at the checkout seem to have variations on the themes of sleep, nutrition, exercise and meditation to help you deal with stress.  But why?

Foundation Repair in Western WA - Kunkel Moving

If you think about the developmental stages that we go through as children, it doesn't start with us as thinking and doing humans.  We are human BEINGS!  The first stage of development of our mind, body and spirit involves, eating, sleeping, letting go of waste and bonding.  And also noticing and learning how to explore the environment using our senses. And the next stage of development involves moving.  Crawling and walking.....well running for some kids!!!  lol  It isn't until we are in the third stage of development that we are practicing thinking and finding out how power dynamics play out in relationships.  And our society focuses so much on buying and doing that it can be easy to lose the ability to be in touch with that being part of ourselves....our core.   That's the foundation of our mind, body and spirit connection.  I like to think of it like building a house.  It doesn't matter if a house is beautiful or has good wiring if there is not a solid concrete foundation.  If there isn't a good foundation then the walls will all shift, the roof will leak and everything starts to fall apart.  This is basically the same with our mental health.  If you can create a solid foundation re: sleeping, eating, exercising, enjoying life at a sensory level and enjoying the company of a  few close people that you can count on...then all of the other stressors in your life become more manageable.

Sleep. 
Often people will have great sleep routines for their children but somewhere along the way they have lost them for themselves.  Teaching your body when and how to wind down is an important part of 'sleep hygiene' it's called nowadays.  Pay attention to the process of what is happening an hour before you go to sleep.  If you are driving home from shift then try putting on music that puts you in a good mood and helps you to wind down.  Try not to spend time on your phone or ipad  at least 20-45 mins before bed.  Studies show that the blue light found in electronics, flourescent lights and LED lights reduces the amount of melatonin produced in your body (that's the sleep hormone) and reduces the amount of time you are likely to spend in the short wave and the REM stages of the sleep cycle......which in turn impacts upon cognitive functioning.....which affects your self-esteem....which affects your sleep .....etc.

Some tips to getting good sleeps include: 
- keeping chaos out of your bedroom and only using your          bedroom for sleeping, reading and sex.
- taking melatonin to aid the body's ability to relax
- stop drinking caffeine or using nicotine
- decrease the time you spend in front of computer screen or    get blue light glasses to protect your eyes from the impact

Nutrition:
What we eat is not just for taste.  Food not only provides the raw materials for the regeneration of cells in our bodies but the kind of food you eat impacts upon the gut biome. 

Remember the movie "Super Size Me"?  Wikipedia states that as a result of the 30 day experiment where Morgan Spurlock only ate at McDonalds and would say 'Yes please' if they asked him if he wanted to 'Super size that' he

"gained 11.1 kilograms (24 lb), a 13% body mass increase, increased his cholesterol to 230 mg/dL (6.0 mmol/L), and experienced mood swings, sexual dysfunction, and fat accumulation in his liver."

EWWWH!!
Super Size Me (2004) - IMDb

95% of seratonin is generated in your gastrointestinal tract. Since seratonin is the neurotransmitter that is responsible for regulating your sleep, appetite, moods, and inhibiting your pain, it makes sense that food affects your mental health and your brain functioning.  Generally, 'nutritional psychiatry' studies show that: 1) cutting out sugar and processed foods, 2) decreasing lean meats and dairy, while 3)increasing vegetables, fruits and whole grains; will help you maintain healthier gut biome, keep the production of seratonin up and cause less imflammation in your internal organs.  So if you're going to go for that donut vs the air fried french fries.....pick the latter!  

This may all sound like it is a big 'to do' list while you are already under a lot of stress.  It's just information.  Do what is 'doable'.  Get through however you can but you might find that changing just a few of these things makes it a little easier.  And easier is easier and we could all use that 13 months into a pandemic!!

Next blog post I'll focus on meditation and exercise and why they help so much.

Lee



 
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When you have a Hobson's Choice, Attitude makes all the Difference

5/26/2021

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Being in a Hobson's choice where you feel like your sense of agency has been robbed from you can leave you feeling bitter and oppressed, however, how you approach this can make all of the difference re: your mental health.
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In a 'Hobson's Choice' Attitude makes all of the Difference!
 
 
Hobson's Choice (a Free Choice or No Choice at All?) | davidrohlfingblog

What is a Hobson's Choice you ask?

A Hobson's choice is a free choice in which only one thing is offered. Because a person may refuse to accept what is offered, the two options are taking it or taking nothing. In other words, one may "take it or leave it".

The phrase is said to have originated with Thomas Hobson (1544–1631), a livery stable owner in Cambridge, England, who offered customers the choice of either taking the horse in his stall nearest to the door or taking none at all.

As dispatchers you are working long hard shifts during a time when people in the world are more stressed and have increased mental health issues.  Furthermore, you are so short staffed that someone was ordered back from another part of the organization and some dispatchers have quit.  The rest of you may feel like you have no choices.  It's either 'take this stressful job and just do it, or leave'.  And leaving might not be an option for you because there are not a lot of other jobs out there during Covid that pay as well or are as stable and you may need this job to pay your mortgage and look after your family.  

And everyone....EVERYONE.....likes to have a sense of agency, or power and control, over their own lives.

So my goal in writing this blog post, at the request of Suzanne and the Chief, is to help you to maintain good mental health while you get through this extremely stressful time and give you specific strategies related to your situation that might be helpful for you.  Specifically, I'm thinking that you sit and look at your computers a lot and probably move into an adrenalized state several times throughout your shifts and that shift work might interfere with your sleep rhythms.  
 

So when we face anything the brain perceives as a threat, stress is the body's natural response.  Identical twin sisters Drs. Amelia and Emily Nagoski identify the difference between stress and stressors in their book, "Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle." They write:

“The good news is that stress is not the problem. It’s how we deal with stress—not what causes it—that releases the stress, completes the cycle, and ultimately, keeps us from burning out. You can’t control every external stressor that comes your way. The goal isn’t to live in a state of perpetual balance and peace and calm; the goal is to move through stress to calm, so that you’re ready for the next stressor, and to move from effort to rest and back again.”

They provide 6 evidence-based strategies for completing our body's stress cycle:

  • Physical activity. It's not just about going to the gym. Dancing counts. Jumping jacks in the dispatch room are fine. Running on the spot, stomping your feet or screaming, all of these work. The point is you have to use your body. Since stress is physical, physical activity is a big part of ending stress cycles.
  • Creativity. Make something. Do you like to knit, sketch, sing, write, or scrapbook cards? Whatever creative endeavor speaks to you, do it.  We have a tendency as humans towards a negativity bias. It's important not to beat yourself up when you notice this, however, the more intentional you can be both as an individual and as a group towards positivity then it will help all of you to manage the stress you are under better.  We 'co-regulate' with other people's nervous systems that we are around.  The more each of you works towards an intentionally constructive way of dealing with this stress that you are under, the more it moves the group culture in a positive, solution-focused direction and everyone benefits.
  • Laughing. Especially when you can laugh together with someone, laughter is a way to release and express all the emotions we’re keeping inside. Emotions are like tunnels. If you go all the way through them, you get to the light at the end. Laughter helps with this, as does recalling a funny story that made you laugh.  Make it a 'thing' to look up TikToks and videos that will bring pleasure and a smile to each other's faces!  
  • Crying. Crying is for everybody. Babies cry because it’s good for them, but it’s good for adults. Crying is one of our body’s mechanisms to release stress. It’s important not to be so embarrassed by our tears that we attempt to stop them from coming out.  I know that this is not necessarily a strategy for when you are at work, however, taking time to journal or get support from a loved one by letting your tears out releases the stress from your nervous system and allows you to move into a calmer state.  
  • Physical affection. You don’t have to have a romantic partner, just someone you feel safe with to give you a long, strong hug (about 20 seconds according to the research) or time with a loving pet. Physical affection helps your body release trust and bonding hormones like oxytocin, and those can chase away the sense of danger your body was previously holding onto as a result of the calls you process on the job. As our hormones shift, our heart rate slows and our body has the opportunity to feel safe.
  • Deep breathing. Breathing deeply allows your body to know that you are safe because we move into shallow breathing when our nervous system is in 'fight or flight'.  If you take deep breaths while lying on the floor with your legs up the wall it can really help you to move into the parasympathetic nervous system because the blood coming down your legs and filling up your heart muscle will also signal to your brain to relax.   Just a few minutes of this practice can calm down your vagus nerve and complete your fight-or-flight stress response.


So the vagus nerve is the 10th cranial nerve and is the nerve related to accessing your parasympathetic nervous system.  

This video by Sukie Baxter explains Polyvagal Theory and shows some very simple exercises to massage the vagus nerve so you can relax your nervous system out of the stimulation response.  This will help you to not feeling anxious all of the time.  

And you don't need to watch the video or understand the theory to get the benefit.  Just recognize that the exercises are simple and can be done easily in the dispatch office.

https://youtu.be/L1HCG3BGK8I

Yoga Pose: Twisting Cobra pose | YogaClassPlan.com

I also really enjoyed Andrew Byrne's descriptions about how to stimulate the vagus nerve with some very simple exercises.  He put it out for people who want to sing better but I think it will work well for you guys too......especially if you want to sing better!!!  Again, the exercises are really simple and don't take much time or space so they will work in your call center when you are not on the phones.  

My colleague, Lindsay Gulanes, is a Somatic Experiencing practitioner.  She explained to me that when in sympathetic arousal in our nervous systems, our bodies recruit energy from our core to our arms and legs.  Doing these exercises will help to dissapate that energy and down regulate the nervous system.  Her suggestions were:

1. Stand up and shake your arms and legs, or stamp your feet, and/or do squats,  burpies or planks for 3 mins.  That will dissipate some of the energy that may have built up during your calls.

2. You can cross your arms and put them on the opposite shoulders and then gently bring your hands down the outside of your arms in order to soothe and release the 'excited' energy in your body. 

3. Chew gum, sing or hum to strengthen the ventral part of the vagus nerve.  The vagus nerve controls the parasympathetic parts of our nervous system and governs our organ function.  

If you would like to learn more about Polyvagal Theory for managing stress- Sukie Baxter explains this simply in her video here:  https://youtu.be/OeokFxnhGQo   Or if you want to research Polyvagal Theory some more then you might want to read books/listen to videos by  Dr Stephen Porges, who developed it, Steven Levine or Twig Wheeler. 

Elie Wiesel may have some things to teach us about these kinds of 'Hobson's Choice' circumstances too.  Elie Wiesel is an American-Jewish author and one of the most famous Holocaust survivors.  In 1986, Elie Wiesel was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace for overcoming the horrible experiences at Auschwitz and for sending a message of peace and human dignity. He is also a founding member of the New York Human Rights Foundation.

Several quotes from Elie speak to how you can maintain resilience as a team until they have enough dispatchers for you to go back to your regular schedules.  Some of his quotes that you may want to adopt as a team are:


"When a person doesn’t have gratitude, something is missing in his or her humanity. A person can almost be defined by his or her attitude toward gratitude."

"If I were immersed in constant melancholy, I would not be who I am."

"Hope is like peace. It is not a gift from God. It is a gift only we can give one another."

"Peace  is our gift to each other."

As a team only you guys can decide what the culture is that you want to adopt.  It will uniquely represent the personalities of all of you combined.  I just want it to be your 'happy place' even under these stressful circumstances.  If you have ideas about how management can support you then speak up.  Don't focus on the part that you don't have control of, it won't help.  Management doesn't have control of this either.   Focus on what will make it better.  

This blog post is already long so I will sign off and send you another one next month that talks about sleep routines and nutrition and a yoga video designed specifically for the types of exercises that dispatchers might need.  If you have specific areas of your body that you would like targeted during the yoga video then let me know.  I am a certified yoga instructor and will be designing and teaching the class myself.  

All of this is just to say.......the management and I have your back.  Thank you for your service.

Lee

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Good for What Ails Ya....

4/21/2021

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In order to build resiliency skills and hope you must face reality and then learn the skills to deal with it.  That means that we must learn to be anti-racist and deal with our anger appropriately while also learning to support our nervous system by drawing on things that make us feel joyful and hopeful.

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How to be Anti-Racist and other things that are Good for What Ails Ya!
 
 

File:Justice For Regis - Not Another Black Life rally and March ...

The intention of this blog post is to teach resiliency skills and provide hope.

So, unfortunately, here we are in the midst of a global pandemic and Derek Chauvin, a police officer in Minneapolis, kneels on George Floyd's neck, while George continually repeats "I can't breathe" until he dies.....while three other police officers look on and do nothing.   It's horrific.  Many people in the world are being triggered to function at a survival level of their consciousness because of the pandemic and now there is the awareness of the pandemic of racism piled on top of that because we've witnessed George's murder as if we were standing next to them on the sidewalk.  

And my intention is still to stay with my intention of building resiliency skills and providing hope.

So, first, I took a breath.  Then I turned to my own spiritual community and felt validated that they could not and would not gloss over this because we are all needing reassurance during the pandemic.  I HAVE to speak about this with you.  To not speak about it would be to be complacent and discount the systemic issues that perpetuate the problem.  We all need to learn how to be anti-racist and not just 'not racist'.  We are all dealing with the stresses of the pandemic and black people and other minorities are dealing with racism and oppression AS WELL.  It didn't stop because we have suddenly become more compassionate for this period of time, like wars stop on Christmas day.    Which means we have to have the courage as white privileged people to look at how we have internalized our privilege, to ask what we can do to support, make change and to have the courage to speak up to each other about systemic racism.  And this has been going on for centuries.  Black people don't want us to 'just join book clubs' or post about it on social media so we look good to our other white friends.

Partially the problem is that we are being taught by society, on a daily basis, that we have a right to judge some people as superior and others as mattering less.  And if we judge ourselves to be superior then we have internalized the right to not listen and to pathologize the person who is lesser than.   We are not taught the language of how people's behaviour isn't ok or how their behaviour has impacted us.  Movies and television shows steep our psyches in 'the blame game' and gossip instead of the skills of how to have healthy conflict and de-escalate situations.  While marketing convinces us that without having lots of 'stuff' and looking a particular way then we really aren't ok.  All of that creates insecurity at a deep level, which then perpetuates our buying and feeds the greed machine instead of our inherent worthiness.  Without that healthy modelling as a basis for how our society functions then we will all continue to rank ourselves as MORE or LESS worthy of mattering.

One of the most important skills required is humility and listening to others with an open heart.  Shame is the scourge carried deep in everyone's psyche.  It is a skill to be able to look critically at yourself and not shift into allowing shame to take over and change the subject onto yourself.  When you recognize where you have made mistakes then accountability is another resiliency skill that makes you feel proud of who you are when you take action to make things different.  This is true in personal relationships as well as societal issues like Black Lives Matter.  

Another resiliency skill required is to learn to speak about your anger without your anger being in charge so that you don't hurt yourself, another person or damage property.  If you want to hear someone eloquently talk from a place of anger about the George Floyd situation and Trump's response to it, while keeping Trump an inherently worthy person, then listen to Marianne Edgar Budde, the  Bishop of St John Episcopal Church speak.  (St John Episcopal Church was the church that Trump posed in front of after ordering the police to clear the way by spraying the protesters with tear gas.) 
  
https://www.goodmorningamerica.com/news/video/bishop-overseeing-st-john-episcopal-church-reacts-trumps-71015163?fbclid=IwAR25H_FlImj3Ea8ojwu3xlAfszUJeMlF0ZtKTbKA-YJOk-ol8mja-


And to learn about actions you can take to make changes and be on the anti-racist side of things then read the following 75 suggestions:

https://medium.com/equality-includes-you/what-white-people-can-do-for-racial-justice-f2d18b0e0234

Or go to the Black Lives Matter website at:

https://blacklivesmatter.ca/?fbclid=IwAR1ErAyWGjJIayxp4uovWSlXkokx1fvPNyQKr07UOsZzqglwHKx4-_vfX5M

The difference between not being racist and being anti-racist is rooted in action and changing policy.  Watch the movie 13th to understand this difference in how it affects Black lives in the States.

 https://www.google.com/search?gs_ssp=eJzj4tVP1zc0TDaxSEkzNTcxYPRiMTQuyQAAOp8FNw&q=13th&rlz=1C1CHBF_enCA809CA830&oq=13th&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j46j0l3j46j0j46.6888j0j8&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

So, having named the horror and made suggestions about how  you can be on the side of positive change, I just want to say, that grounding yourself  in calm, kind, happy and loving experiences....also gives us the strength in our constitution to have the resilience to fight injustice.  

So here are also some ideas for you in that vein:

For those of you that love the arts there are brilliant videos put out like:

Julliard's Performing Arts Conservatory Zoom show:
https://www.juilliard.edu/news/146351/creating-bolero-juilliard

Or a Tour of the Louvre:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vuFh6NNa70

And if you want to tell stories to your kids and yourself about a kinder, healthier future:
https://www.facebook.com/probablytomfoolery/videos/925284527912453/UzpfSTYwMDYzMDYxOToxMDE2MDE0OTQzNTg4NTYyMA/

And to support a positive internalization of black people.... get Michelle and Barack Obama to spend time reading to your kids by having your kids watch this:

https://mashable.com/video/barack-michelle-obama-read-childrens-book-chicago-public-library/

And there's a great meditation chant that goes.....

When I breathe in....I breathe in peace.  When I breathe out, I breathe out love.

https://youtu.be/rUSOVakFAdY

Or just laugh a bit:

at how much we're Zooming....
https://youtu.be/gEbLloJV3rw

or how sick you are of quarantine as a family....
https://youtu.be/ygdB-ZE0daY

or how time has blurred together.....
https://youtu.be/MH4TVYT1OYQ

This pandemic is shining a light on all of the cracks in our systems around the world: elder care, homelessness, poverty,  minority issues.  Dr Ibram X Kendi, who will be launching the Anti-Racist Research Center at Boston University,  is doing research right now on the pandemic that is proving that minorities are dying in disproportionate numbers in the US.  This pandemic is providing us with the opportunity to make change around all of the places where these fault lines have been shown to us....and THAT is hopeful.

 

Let's open up and build a more peaceful world together everyone,

Lee



 

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In order to build resiliency skills and hope you must face reality and then learn the skills to deal with it.  That means that we must learn to be anti-racist and deal with our anger appropriately while also learning to support our nervous system by drawing on things that make us feel joyful and hopeful.

Follow on Twitter Friend of Facebook

How to be Anti-Racist and other things that are Good for What Ails Ya!
 
 

File:Justice For Regis - Not Another Black Life rally and March ...

The intention of this blog post is to teach resiliency skills and provide hope.

So, unfortunately, here we are in the midst of a global pandemic and Derek Chauvin, a police officer in Minneapolis, kneels on George Floyd's neck, while George continually repeats "I can't breathe" until he dies.....while three other police officers look on and do nothing.   It's horrific.  Many people in the world are being triggered to function at a survival level of their consciousness because of the pandemic and now there is the awareness of the pandemic of racism piled on top of that because we've witnessed George's murder as if we were standing next to them on the sidewalk.  

And my intention is still to stay with my intention of building resiliency skills and providing hope.

So, first, I took a breath.  Then I turned to my own spiritual community and felt validated that they could not and would not gloss over this because we are all needing reassurance during the pandemic.  I HAVE to speak about this with you.  To not speak about it would be to be complacent and discount the systemic issues that perpetuate the problem.  We all need to learn how to be anti-racist and not just 'not racist'.  We are all dealing with the stresses of the pandemic and black people and other minorities are dealing with racism and oppression AS WELL.  It didn't stop because we have suddenly become more compassionate for this period of time, like wars stop on Christmas day.    Which means we have to have the courage as white privileged people to look at how we have internalized our privilege, to ask what we can do to support, make change and to have the courage to speak up to each other about systemic racism.  And this has been going on for centuries.  Black people don't want us to 'just join book clubs' or post about it on social media so we look good to our other white friends.

Partially the problem is that we are being taught by society, on a daily basis, that we have a right to judge some people as superior and others as mattering less.  And if we judge ourselves to be superior then we have internalized the right to not listen and to pathologize the person who is lesser than.   We are not taught the language of how people's behaviour isn't ok or how their behaviour has impacted us.  Movies and television shows steep our psyches in 'the blame game' and gossip instead of the skills of how to have healthy conflict and de-escalate situations.  While marketing convinces us that without having lots of 'stuff' and looking a particular way then we really aren't ok.  All of that creates insecurity at a deep level, which then perpetuates our buying and feeds the greed machine instead of our inherent worthiness.  Without that healthy modelling as a basis for how our society functions then we will all continue to rank ourselves as MORE or LESS worthy of mattering.

One of the most important skills required is humility and listening to others with an open heart.  Shame is the scourge carried deep in everyone's psyche.  It is a skill to be able to look critically at yourself and not shift into allowing shame to take over and change the subject onto yourself.  When you recognize where you have made mistakes then accountability is another resiliency skill that makes you feel proud of who you are when you take action to make things different.  This is true in personal relationships as well as societal issues like Black Lives Matter.  

Another resiliency skill required is to learn to speak about your anger without your anger being in charge so that you don't hurt yourself, another person or damage property.  If you want to hear someone eloquently talk from a place of anger about the George Floyd situation and Trump's response to it, while keeping Trump an inherently worthy person, then listen to Marianne Edgar Budde, the  Bishop of St John Episcopal Church speak.  (St John Episcopal Church was the church that Trump posed in front of after ordering the police to clear the way by spraying the protesters with tear gas.) 
  
https://www.goodmorningamerica.com/news/video/bishop-overseeing-st-john-episcopal-church-reacts-trumps-71015163?fbclid=IwAR25H_FlImj3Ea8ojwu3xlAfszUJeMlF0ZtKTbKA-YJOk-ol8mja-


And to learn about actions you can take to make changes and be on the anti-racist side of things then read the following 75 suggestions:

https://medium.com/equality-includes-you/what-white-people-can-do-for-racial-justice-f2d18b0e0234

Or go to the Black Lives Matter website at:

https://blacklivesmatter.ca/?fbclid=IwAR1ErAyWGjJIayxp4uovWSlXkokx1fvPNyQKr07UOsZzqglwHKx4-_vfX5M

The difference between not being racist and being anti-racist is rooted in action and changing policy.  Watch the movie 13th to understand this difference in how it affects Black lives in the States.

 https://www.google.com/search?gs_ssp=eJzj4tVP1zc0TDaxSEkzNTcxYPRiMTQuyQAAOp8FNw&q=13th&rlz=1C1CHBF_enCA809CA830&oq=13th&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j46j0l3j46j0j46.6888j0j8&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

So, having named the horror and made suggestions about how  you can be on the side of positive change, I just want to say, that grounding yourself  in calm, kind, happy and loving experiences....also gives us the strength in our constitution to have the resilience to fight injustice.  

So here are also some ideas for you in that vein:

For those of you that love the arts there are brilliant videos put out like:

Julliard's Performing Arts Conservatory Zoom show:
https://www.juilliard.edu/news/146351/creating-bolero-juilliard

Or a Tour of the Louvre:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vuFh6NNa70

And if you want to tell stories to your kids and yourself about a kinder, healthier future:
https://www.facebook.com/probablytomfoolery/videos/925284527912453/UzpfSTYwMDYzMDYxOToxMDE2MDE0OTQzNTg4NTYyMA/

And to support a positive internalization of black people.... get Michelle and Barack Obama to spend time reading to your kids by having your kids watch this:

https://mashable.com/video/barack-michelle-obama-read-childrens-book-chicago-public-library/

And there's a great meditation chant that goes.....

When I breathe in....I breathe in peace.  When I breathe out, I breathe out love.

https://youtu.be/rUSOVakFAdY

Or just laugh a bit:

at how much we're Zooming....
https://youtu.be/gEbLloJV3rw

or how sick you are of quarantine as a family....
https://youtu.be/ygdB-ZE0daY

or how time has blurred together.....
https://youtu.be/MH4TVYT1OYQ

This pandemic is shining a light on all of the cracks in our systems around the world: elder care, homelessness, poverty,  minority issues.  Dr Ibram X Kendi, who will be launching the Anti-Racist Research Center at Boston University,  is doing research right now on the pandemic that is proving that minorities are dying in disproportionate numbers in the US.  This pandemic is providing us with the opportunity to make change around all of the places where these fault lines have been shown to us....and THAT is hopeful.

 

Let's open up and build a more peaceful world together everyone,

Lee



 

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The Third Quarter of Isolation-You're having a Normal Response to an Abnormal Situation

4/15/2021

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We're in the 3rd Quarter.  It's normal to feel testy and sluggish mentally.  We will get through to a 'new normal' if we focus on what we have control of and have compassion and forgiveness.

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The Third Quarter - You're Having a 'Normal Response to an Abnormal Situation'
 
 
Space Oddity - YouTube
Studies of people in isolation, astronauts on the ISS or researchers down in Antarctica, show that there are phases to the process of isolation. 

https://www.abc.net.au/triplej/programs/hack/coronavirus-covid19-isolation-third-quarter-phenomenon-has-begun/12190270

The first phase is panic.  So, during Covid, we might call that the 'toilet paper' phase.  The second phase is the honeymoon phase.  During this pandemic that was when people were having fun working in their pjs and baking cinnamon buns and bread.  People were enjoying the novelty of this strange, new time and learning how to Zoom or play cards online.  However, now we're in the third phase where people are feeling truly lonely, they are missing meaningful events like birthdays, proms and funerals.  There are more conflicts about how to manage social isolation bubbles.  The drudgery of it is making people sluggish mentally and testy emotionally.  And for people who have had really difficult, abusive childhoods, it is triggering memories of horrific times when they felt trapped and they didn't think it would end.  

Here is Chris Hadfield talking about how he suggests people handle isolation:

https://youtu.be/P35NIu7QmP4


It's a hard time and it's bringing up all kinds of difficult family and work dynamics.  Remember, you are having a normal response to an abnormal situation.  These are uncertain times.  We need to radically accept the situation and radically accept ourselves.  Don't watch Facebook or Tic Toc and think that the people in the photos and videos aren't having their own little eruptions on the home front.  Everyone is.  And everyone has just learned to talk about the 'good stuff'.  We've been taught to 'brand' ourselves instead of being authentic.  And I'm not going to clump us into categories of 'us' and 'them'.  I'm functioning well and then tripping into stuff with my partner or my own overwhelm from time to time too.  It's like we've all joined the 12 Step program.  We need to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, forgive ourselves for having tripped up and move forward with intention.  Hence the saying "God (which could represent Good Orderly Direction) grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; the courage to change the things I can; and the wisdom to know the difference."  Having awareness about what you can control and what you can't control is helpful for focusing yourself in ways that will help you to get through.  If you find yourself agitating about how this is being handled by the politicians, for example, then decide if you want to write a letter or take action. If not, then give yourself a strategy about what you want your mind to be thinking about instead.  Something that you DO have control of and that will make you feel better about your life. 

Here's an exercise to do to help with this.  Draw a medium sized circle on a blank piece of paper.  Write all of the things that you don't have control of on the outside of the circle.  Write all of the things that you do have control of on the inside of the circle.  Write clear goals about what you will stop doing re: focusing on the things on the outside of the circle and what you will start doing to increase your attention about the things inside the circle.  For example, I will stop reading the news constantly and I will start watching it only once a day and increasing my fitness and joy quotient by getting outside every day and calling  my friends/family more often.   

And some great news is that the parks and conservation areas are open to use at a social distance!  This will really help people's mental and physical health.
https://news.ontario.ca/opo/en/2020/05/ontario-opening-provincial-parks-and-conservation-reserves.html

So, it's important for all of us to remember that mental health in all of it's forms and labels comes down to some basic principles.  Mindfulness.  Be embodied in the moment and take one day at a time.  Get out of your head and stop overthinking issues that are outside of your control.  Focus, instead, on what you do have control of.....in THIS moment.  That's all that we can really control.   Lead with forgiveness and compassion towards yourself and others.  Everyone is doing their best and people will probably be a more extreme version of who they tend to be right now.  The yellers will yell, the disorganized ones will be a little more disorganized, the criers will cry more, the avoiders will avoid.....etc.  Give yourself and them some grace.  If you've had a blow up with someone.  Try noticing it without judgement.  Try to forgive both yourself and the other person for not knowing how to do it better.  Start again with a new strategy.  For parents who are tearing their hair out re:  homeschooling your kids, here is a good article that might give you some ideas you haven't thought of re: how to cope and help your kids cope.  https://youtu.be/1f7OwFqTnco    It's Day One as per the 12 Step programs every day right now.  Practice gratitude.  Exercise.  Reach out to those you love.  We will get through this.  We are in the Third Quarter.  It's like when people hit the wall in a marathon.  Once we know dates that society will be opening up and when we will be moving back to the 'new normal', it will get easier.  It's kinda like being able to see the finish line.  

However, we need to mentally prepare and make peace with the fact that we will never be going back to 'how it was'.  We will be shifting to a 'new normal'.  This is concept where, if you have had a chronic illness in your family or a tragedy or trauma, there was a 'before' and, after the crisis, there is an 'after'.  However it was, things are never going to be the same again.  We will need to grieve how it was and then collectively decide, through healthy conversations  with each other, how we would like it to be.   As families.  As a community.   As a country.  And as a world.   We have to decide how we want to prioritize, physical, mental, spiritual, economic and environmental health as a world wide interdependent web as we continue to fight against this common enemy.  And, who knows, there might be some pleasant surprises in that.....

We'll see.  In the meantime, let's focus on today and how we can keep our spirits up so we can get to the finish line when things start to open up again.  

So, in that vein, and to finish off with a laugh and some validation about how you might be feeling, I leave you with this song about Covid.  It's by a lovely young music teacher who wrote it for her students.

https://youtu.be/1f7OwFqTnco

We will get through this!

Lee
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Heartbreak and Healing as We Move Towards Our New Normal During Covid 19

4/15/2021

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Externalizing the problem helps people to not blame each other for how Covid is changing our lives.  Trusting neuroplasticity, learning to talk about our feelings and having faith helps us move more easily into the 'new normal'

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Heartbreak and Healing as we move into our 'new normal' re: Covid.
 
 
MultiBrief: COVID-19 and the grief process

So here's what I'm noticing this week.  Everyone is internalizing that we're in this pandemic for the long haul.  Covid is not going away in just a few weeks.  For the first few weeks people were busy moving their work and children home and dealing with all of the learning curves and decision making that comprised that shift.  The massive number of changes included parenting issues, zoom meetings, schooling and how to stay connected to friends and family while living apart.  In the midst of that level of crisis some people shift into a mode of 'must do is a good thing' vs. collapsing into their feelings or freezing.  Now it seems, the focus has shifted to fear about how long this pandemic will go on for, the grief and loss of 'normal' and wondering how seriously the economy will be impacted by all of the losses and change.  We've lost our normal.  And there are a huge number of losses within the loss of 'normal'.   Believe it or not, even having to shop at a social distance is a loss of the normal we were used to.  At a deep subconscious level we are changing the boundary re: proximity of friends vs. family vs strangers in our culture. We are redefining these boundaries and having to integrate a feeling of being loved in ways that are different than hugging and touching or coming closer than 6' apart.   

It's important to understand that this is a lot of information for your brain to be synthesizing as we go about our daily lives.  It looks on the surface like people aren't doing much because we are mostly staying home and are social distancing if we need to go out for things.  However, EVERYTHING from how we shop at the grocery store and the hardware store to how we visit with friends and family, to how we work is different.  Our rhythms are different.   You might remember, if you've travelled abroad, having to learn how to flush toilets or use public transit in ways that are different from here.  It's the same principal.  It's more learning than we're used to as adults and it's learning that we didn't choose and comes at a time when we are feeling collectively more powerless than we had been.  So we are developing what is called new 'movement signatures'.  The new ways of behaving have to encode themselves at a kinesthetic  level before it becomes less stressful for your brain.  Think about having a conversation when you are cooking dinner in your home vs if you try to have that same conversation in a new apartment or a rented cottage.  You will have to focus more and think harder to remember or find where everything is.  That is what we are all doing in small ways about how the processes about everything are changing.  So that is why people are generally not functioning to their optimum.  Give yourself grace and know that NO ONE  is functioning to their max right now.  And it will get better.  Your brain has something called 'neuroplasticity' and is capable of learning and adapting throughout your lifetime.  You will notice as the weeks go on how your brain is shifting and integrating the changes.  If you want a giggle, here's a funny video that explains this concept:

Getting smarter everyday-bike:
https://youtu.be/MFzDaBzBlL0

So that's what's happening to our brains these days.  Now, emotionally, people are struggling with grief and loss; frustration about being cooped up with family; not being able to see their friends; anger that they are powerless around so much of this; and worry about the ways that this will impact on them longterm.  And here's the thing.....we aren't so good as a culture about 'feeling our feelings' and knowing how to have conversations about them in a healthy way.  We are a fairly illiterate society at a feeling level.  Most people report on their feelings and just say that they are 'fine', 'frustrated', 'sad', 'angry' or 'pissed' .  It might be helpful if you find ways for family members to talk about the impact Covid is having on each of you by 'externalizing the problem'.  It's like Covid has moved into everyone's family system and plunked itself in the middle of all of the dynamics and taken up more space than anything or anyone else!  So find an object that can represent Covid and pass the object around the dinner table (and a feelings sheet if you have people in the family that have a hard time naming what they are feeling)
List of Feelings – BayNVC 
Then ask the question "How is Covid impacting on you today?"  Talking about it and letting everyone have their varied experiences of it will help it not come out in other dynamics.  And you might use this as a learning opportunity for you and your kids to express those feelings in a healthy way.  It's good for everyone to learn that they will have feelings their whole lives.  The skill is either learning to calm them down or express them without hurting themselves, someone else or damaging property.   This can be a time that you learn as a family how to name what you are feeling and express those feelings in a healthy ways.

Here is a website that has an easy to follow approach to teaching feelings to kids:
 https://www.verywellfamily.com/how-to-teach-kids-about-feelings-1095012

And if you want to listen to an excellent podcast about having permission to feel and how it will improve our culture as a whole, including how we run businesses, then have a listen to Brene Brown's interview with Dr Marc Brackett, Director of the Yale Centre for Emotional Literacy and Professor in the Child Study Center at Yale University. 
https://brenebrown.com/podcast/dr-marc-brackett-and-brene-on-permission-to-feel/


And finally, I think we all need to have a faith.  And I'm not talking about religion, although faith can include religion too.

How to Know If Your Leap of Faith Is in God's Will

The faith I'm talking about is " deep-rooted in the expectation of good things to come. It goes beyond hope. While much of hope lives in the mind, faith is steeped in the heart and the spirit. ... While life can be hard at the best of times, faith is the knowledge, deep down inside, that things will get better."

I have faith that we will come together.  That we will dig deep and be resilient.  And that we will get through this.

Lee

And just for fun here's a parody called 'A Very Poppins Quarantine' and Jimmy Fallon's "I'm Cracking Up Covid Song"

https://youtu.be/BUttIeq-1NQ

https://youtu.be/uEMiTACTBhI



 

Contact Lee


519-570-9163

leehortoncarter1@gmail.com

12 John Street W
Waterloo ON N2L 1A7
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March 31st, 2021

3/31/2021

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Ground yourself into a sense of safety using your senses of sight, smell, taste, touch and sound.  Being mindful of grounding yourself into the moment will help to calm you out of your overactive mind and make this pandemic situation more survivable.  

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Resilience in the Face of Covid 19
 
 



I feel like mother nature has sent us all to our rooms To think ...


Well, here we are......sent to our rooms for over a month now.  And from my experience of talking to people, it's starting to sink in that this is not going to be over quickly.  So, let's remember our resilience and focus more specifically on how you might be coping to help you get through this time.  And we WILL get through this.  Life will be different and there will have been losses, and yet, never lose sight of the fact that, as a world, we have survived the Spanish flu in 1918, World Wars, Depressions, Recessions, the Swine flu in 2009 and many more things that I've missed but would probably become overwhelming as a reader.  We are resilient by nature.  Now is when we need to remember that.   And our resilience lies in our ability to come together as people with our ideas about how to cope, to use our creativity for new inventions and a vaccine, to adapt and pivot towards this 'new normal', and to be mindful of what helps us in the moment to get through this period of time.  

So this week, as I have been working with people, we have been doing a lot of work in the nervous system, tracking where the stress is held and finding ways to release the energy or calm it down.  So what does that look/sound like?  It means that as someone is talking about how trapped they feel (a common trigger these days) I will ask them what is happening in their body as they talk about that.  They might tell me that they have a racing heart or butterflies.  So I will recommend that they put their hand on that spot and breathe into that part of their body and remind themselves that they are safe and that they have choices within the constraints.  They might also focus on a calming sensation such as looking at a picture that brings them joy or holding a precious mug full of warm tea to orient them towards the reality that they are safe.  That danger or a feeling of being trapped may have been true for them in the past but IN THIS MOMENT they are safe.  To focus on the danger or fear without taking action to calm yourself or focus on what IS happening in the moment and is within your control is like a deer looking into the headlights of an oncoming car and not getting off the road.   

Alternatively, for people who are focusing on the fact that this is 'just the way it is', and are doing things that keep their attention engaged in the present moment, they are reporting that they are not experiencing the same level of stress.  Some ideas I've heard from people who have told me that they are fairing pretty well include: making focaccia with their kids; making signs in the windows and on the sidewalks thanking frontline workers; renovating their basement; building a backyard fire pit; recording music and sharing it online; making masks, gowns and scrub caps for the frontline workers; learning how to use jackbox, worldofcardgames.com or one of the million other online game sites.  Anything that grabs your interest and attention away from the doomsday reporting of the news. 

Unfortunately there is only one thing that we will all be successful at.....without even trying!....and that is dying.  However, up until a month ago there was an unwritten agreement that we didn't talk about it every day and the news certainly steered away from reporting it.  Now we hearing DAILY about how many deaths there have been in every community, city and country AROUND THE WORLD.  With the news being this skewed towards those that are dying it is no wonder that people's nerves are frayed and that people are having a hard time staying socially distant but spiritually connected.  Remember, we are doing the distancing so that we can flatten the curve of infections and protect the vulnerable from dying unnecessarily and protect the hospital systems from being overwhelmed.  And we're doing a good job!!  We aren't staying away from each other because being close is going to kill most of us.  35-70% of us will get this eventually ......and 96% of those people will survive according to the World Health Organization.  And of the 4% that pass away, half of them will be seniors in long term care residences.  This is important data to keep at the forefront of your mind because people's fear response when someone walks into their 'bubble' (my husband likes to think of everyone having as having a Pigpen aura these days!) is anger like someone has just given them a death sentence!  

So here are a few things that I've compiled that might help you.  One is a yoga class.   I'm teaching online yoga for the Y at 7:30 on Thursday nights.  You can find it on Facebook under YMCA's of Cambridge, Kitchener & Waterloo.  At the beginning of class I try to add in tips about the nervous system and coping in healthy ways.  Please join me if you're free.  And there are lots of people doing this so if you can't join mine then find any type of exercise that you can to move the stress out of your nervous system.

The other is a meditation exercise that you can try.   I tried to upload the meditation to YouTube but ....well.....maybe next time!!!  lol

Anyways, gather things that you can see, smell, taste, touch and hear that you enjoy and that bring you a sense of gratitude.  Then sit quietly and breathe deeply while you take in that thing with your senses.  I used a candle for the sight because we light a chalice every week at church and talk about how having been to church and being surrounded by community that supports us keeps the flame lit within us.  As you look at your object, take deep breaths and count bringing your thumb and fingers together and repeating the breathing 3 times.  Touching your fingers together to count helps you to be mindful and gives you another sensory experience to pay attention to.  Then repeat with the other objects.  I used the tea I drink for both the smell and taste.  A favourite sweater for the touch.  And the sound of a campfire for what is calming to hear.  You can use photos or rocks or anything that brings you comfort and joy.

My office in Waterloo is located at the Fearless Heart Yoga Studio.  I think their tag line is very apt.  You don't have to be FEARLESS.  But you have permission to FEAR LESS.

Try being mindful and calming yourself into the moment and let me know how it goes!


Lee


 





 

Contact Lee


519-570-9163

leehortoncarter1@gmail.com

12 John Street W
Waterloo ON N2L 1A7
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Check out my website at
www.leehortoncarter.ca
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