Self-Care Lessons from Regenerative Braking

Self-Care Lessons from Regenerative Braking

My family recent got our first electric vehicle. It’s been fun to get used to all the new ways EV’s work and gamify our commute to see how much battery we use or save. One of the exciting features of hybrids and electric vehicles is the concept of regenerative braking. It’s normal and good to need times to stop and recharge our batteries (this is part of why the importance of sleep cannot be overemphasized for our mental and physical wellbeing). Between re-charges, regenerative braking offers us a more holistic, and often realistic path forward. Our daily lives are full of moments that require us expending energy, and moments that restore our energy, sometimes even in the same experience! Self-care following regenerative braking encourages us to keep a mindful balance of our internal battery life, pushing and exerting when required, and then leaning into something restoring or slowing down

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It’s Okay to Feel what You’re Feeling

How I first imagined using this time social distancing has had to change and evolve as news and my own reactions have changed (translation: I have NOT cleaned my baseboards). The effects of this pandemic are hitting everyone, and it affects people differently depending on different stages of life, personality types, family structures, socioeconomic status, occupation, living alone or with others, what was already going on in your life, etc.

It’s okay to feel what you’re feeling.

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100+ Things You Can Do During Social Distancing 

The situation & recommendations regarding COVID-19 are rapidly evolving, including recent widespread closures of schools, workplaces, and large gatherings. We are all navigating a healthy response that avoids unnecessary panic & us vs them thinking while taking socially responsible steps to take this pandemic seriously. This means we may all be spending a lot of time at home, and perhaps feeling a bit sir crazy. Wondering what in the world to do while home while honoring social distancing?

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Befriending Our Ugly Parts - Part II

Last week we talked about how to identify & befriend those unsightly reactions in us that we’d rather not have. Today we’ll dive a bit deeper, using imagery to foster deeper compassion & understanding. Get yourself comfortably seated, then slowly work through the questions below. You can mindfully walk through this imaginatively or journal through your responses.

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Befriending Our Ugly Parts

The best way to manage those unsightly parts of ourselves is actually to befriend them. Yes, even that one you hate. Hating ourselves for a certain reaction rarely creates change. 

“Parts” language comes from a therapy modality called Internal Family Systems. We can really get into the weeds on this, but the basic theory is that we all have many parts of ourselves that are performing different tasks for our overall good. The parts always intend well for us, even if their actions seem to backfire. Often these parts of ourselves are working to protect us in some way and fear that if they don’t do what they are doing (pleasing others, being critical, being a perfectionist, acting suspicious, etc.) that something bad would happen. 

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Setting Intentions for The New Year

A few year back, I wrote a blog post about claiming a word for your year. Unlike previous resolutions, this is a practice that I’ve maintained! But beyond my success rate, this tradition has surprised me in its impact. It’s even a practice that others have adopted & adapted for themselves. Beyond surface goals around weight or health, claiming a word or phrase for your year is a discipline of setting and honoring intentions. I’ve noticed this practice has anchored me and kept me mindful in a way other goals or resolutions have fallen short.

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Playing Opposite Day with Depression

Remember when you were a little kid and you’d have opposite day? Whatever someone said to do, you’d do the opposite. This fun (sometimes annoying) little game may offer some insight into how to battle depression.

Stick with me here…

Depression is tough. During a depressive episode you feel down, hopeless, critical, unmotivated, tired. You desperately want connection and understanding with others, but you also want to stay in your bed watching Netflix and not see anyone at all. When you’re in a grounded place, you can battle the negative thoughts, but when you’re feeling depressed they sound so compellingly true.

Enter - Opposite Day.

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Growing Healthier Through Self-Talk

Words are powerful. The Bible compares the power of words to a spark that can cause a wildfire (perhaps a metaphor too close to home for us Californians) or a small rudder than can control an entire ship. Whether our words are spoken aloud or only thought, they have a huge impact on our emotions and behavior. Self-talk is the pyscho-babble term for how we speak to ourself (fancy huh?). Whether we speak kindly or harshly to ourselves can have a big impact on how we feel and act.

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How To Reduce Anxiety Through Rational Thinking

Anxiety is not always rational. In fact, one of the infuriating things about anxiety for super logical people is knowing that their anxiety “doesn’t make sense”, and judging themselves for not being able to stop feeling anxious. If you can park the self-judgment (unhelpful thinking styles of labelling, personalizing, or “shoulds”), logical thinking can be very effective in reducing anxious thoughts The key is to identify where your thoughts may be distorted, unhelpful, or irrational so you can replace them with more true thoughts.

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Don’t Believe Everything You Think: Battling Anxiety

One of the most effective ways to reduce anxiety is to use your mind to catch & replace unhelpful thinking. The thoughts that accompany (and fuel) anxiety are distorted, but have juuust enough truth that they sound compelling. If you’ve ever experienced heightened anxiety, you know how quickly anxious thoughts can spiral. Here’s the trick...don’t believe everything you think.

Anxious thoughts are usually driven by a few unhelpful thinking styles. We all utilize these unhelpful thinking styles or cognitive distortions from time to time. Here are the five most common distorted thoughts that I see fuel anxiety:

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All the Trophies

When I was in the bleary eyed state of being a brand new mom, I was convinced I would never successfully leave the house before 10am ever again. As I dove into this ever changing rhythm (and all the equipment that goes with it), I began offering myself mental trophies for any small, personal successes. Got somewhere within 20 minutes of the start time? Trophy! Showered? Trophy! Left the house? Trophy! Made it through a rough day? All the trophies!

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You Have the Right to Have Boundaries...really!

Successfully implementing boundaries requires believing you have the right to have them. Maybe you grew up in a family where you learned to ignore your feelings or minimize your needs and the idea that you deserve boundaries seems so foreign, even indulgent. Maybe you think boundaries are awesome for other people, but not for you. Build up your foundation by using the Bill of Rights list. This is a list of 25 personal rights adapted from The Anxiety & Phobia Workbook by Dr. Edmund Bourne.

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3 Ways to Battle Shame

If we slow down to pay attention, we see the many small moments our shitty first drafts fight for our attention. It can be as simple and subtle as the moment your spouse looked away from you when you came out in your new sweater for the first time (SFD: He thinks it looks bad on me, I’m not good enough), or the look that stranger gave you walking Lake Merritt (SFD: She heard what I said and is judging me), or the drop of your stomach when a group of coworkers make lunch plans without you (SFD: They don’t like me, I’m a tag-a-long). Once those everyday shame moments are in our awareness, how do we battle it?

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Sh*tty First Draft

I recently had a scuffle with a friend that left me spinning. I felt consumed by it, it seemed every waking moment I was rehashing and replaying our conversation, trying to make sense of our argument. The more I tried to shake it, the more I found myself thinking about it. I became more and more anxious, unsure, and critical of myself.  I felt a pull to smooth it over. Unconsciously, I went to an old, familiar story that my worth is dependent on whether people are pleased with me. My anxiety was oozing out of my shame exposed behind my likable, charming armor. In her research on vulnerability & shame, Brene Brown calls this reaction “The Shitty First Draft”. We all have a shitty first draft. It’s our knee-jerk, go-to story we tell ourselves when we feel vulnerable, shame, or fear.  So how do we break the cycle?

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Externalizing the Problem

Beginning to externalize the problem is all about separating ourselves from the issue. Externalizing language asks questions of the problem like, in what context does that _____ usually occur? What types of things happen right before _____ takes over? What does _______ tell you to do? For example, rather than saying “I’m depressed,” you may say “Depression really got me today,” or “I really gave into Depression’s tricks last week.”

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Celebrating Mini-Milestones

Life traverses various seasons, some joyous and light, others dark and difficult. Regardless of the season you’re in now, it’s human nature to zoom in on the difficulties of a day or week and filter out the positive. It can feel natural to celebrate the big milestones in joyous season, but it takes more discipline to celebrate the little, everyday milestones that go easily unnoticed.

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