Serenity Wellness Podcast E52: Are You A Plucker?

We are collectively working through a global crisis. We have a common thread and our unique individual experiences and processing of circumstances and life right now. We are going through many layers of change and awareness. Plucking out only one aspect of these layers can wear us down, create emotional storms, and block us from being kind to ourselves exactly as we are in each moment. Figure out how to collect it all and emerge in alignment with you.

Transcript

Hello,

Welcome to Serenity Wellness Podcast.

My name is Nicole White and I'll be your host.

This podcast is dedicated to helping you tap into your full potential of how you can heal and balance your mental,

Emotional,

And physical well-being.

Together,

Let's explore inner self,

Connect with our strength,

And manifest your true nature.

One full of love,

Purpose,

And passion.

Welcome to episode 52,

R U A Plucker?

I first want to take a moment to explain where I've been.

You might just now be tuning in for your first episode,

But I know many of you have been following me since the beginning,

Which I greatly appreciate,

As well as the messages some of you have sent me asking me where I've been.

I initially had to take a brief pause because I've been working on some business expansion stuff,

And you're welcome to check out my Instagram page if you want to learn a little bit more about that.

But then everything else unfolded in this global crisis that we're all working through right now,

Which required me opening up a little bit more of my time than usual in my work as a therapist,

As well as kind of an elevation of the level of holding space it has required for those of us in the mental health field right now,

Which meant me making sure I was being very mindful of holding space for myself and balancing myself before getting back into this again.

But with that,

It has to kind of do with today's episode,

R U A Plucker?

We're all working through a global crisis and pandemic right now.

We have a common thread of experiences and also our own unique processing of the circumstance and life right now.

Collectively,

We had to add life as we knew it,

Pulled from under us,

And we're working through so many different layers of what that has brought.

Just some examples of some of the layers that we're all working through.

We're having upheaval,

Overwhelm,

Stress,

Anxiety,

Fear,

Sadness,

Resentment,

Anger,

Feelings of appreciation and togetherness,

Compassion and awareness,

More of a connection and creativity.

Also stillness and contemplation,

Feelings of disconnect and heaviness,

Feeling stuck and scattered.

These are just some of the layers.

And plucking out only one aspect of these layers can wear us down,

Create emotional tidal waves and block us from being kind to ourselves exactly as we are in each moment.

We're working through a crisis.

Collectively,

We've had our life suddenly changed in almost all aspects.

It's creating uncertainty,

A lack of feeling connected to security and safety,

Financial stress and worries about healthcare.

Yes,

I know I have listeners all over the world,

Which is amazing.

And it is true.

Here in the US,

Our healthcare system is completely broken.

It was broken before all of this.

Millions of people without healthcare,

Or those who have healthcare have high co-pays and deductibles.

Now,

Millions of people just lost their healthcare because they've also lost their job.

So they don't have security in terms of finances.

And then we have a collective awareness here in the US of just how broken our healthcare system is.

As a mental health therapist,

I am contracted with insurance companies.

So right now,

Most of them,

All of them,

I should say,

Are allowing us to do teletherapy.

However,

Some insurances are waiving co-pays and deductibles.

Some insurances are not.

Some insurances have decided that they will allow teletherapy,

But they're paying us therapists less per session,

Because who knows?

Who knows why?

That's private insurance.

And then there's the millions of people who have no insurance,

Who are even being cut off from the ability to get the mental health treatment that could be helpful for them right now in this state of discombobulation.

The financial stress and lack of security with finances right now that people are suffering through is overwhelming and scary.

We're having lots of elevated emotions of fear and anxiety,

That stress and sadness and frustration and anger.

We're having a lot of stress and anxiety we're having blinds pulled back and having to see,

Being more aware of the social injustices.

For example,

There are countless people currently in our prison system for marijuana violations,

Or who are out trying to get their lives back in order with felonies for a marijuana violation.

Yet distributors are currently essential businesses as they should be.

One of a million examples related to the drastic awareness we are having in terms of social injustice in our prison systems.

The economic inequality.

Another example,

I now do not live here any longer,

But where I grew up in Coatesville,

I just saw a story this morning.

Pennsylvania is on a stay at home order.

All non-essential businesses are closed,

Including country clubs.

But here we are with wealth and inequality,

Where there's a bunch of privileged white men out there playing golf yesterday,

Because it was sunny on the country club.

Again,

A great example of privilege,

Wealth,

And who decides to follow the rules and who doesn't.

Or wealth and inequality,

Even in terms of the testing situation going on.

It goes on and on,

The blinders that are getting opened,

That we have to see now and be aware of.

The pollution and nature and earth we're seeing all over the globe.

How the air is getting cleaned out.

We could see the sky.

Animals are living free in nature without humans polluting and destroying.

We can't ignore any longer the things that we kept ourselves so busy and blind from in life.

Within this crisis,

We're having to see and be aware.

And that brings all kinds of emotions.

Some people are choosing to use this as a way to even divide us further.

How's that going to help?

That's going to get us nowhere.

So hopefully those who are moving into a place of hatred and divide in their heart can find more connection to loving kindness,

Compassion,

Empathy,

And how we might collectively as humans emerge from this in a way of healing and healthiness.

As a collective,

We're going through grief and trauma.

Much of this is still to be felt,

Experienced,

And worked through.

Right now,

We're still in the thick of it.

We're still in the crisis.

It's like when individuals are still in the battle,

They don't start working through the trauma and the grief.

That comes when we have a little bit more of a feeling of safety and security and stability.

We'll all be going through stages of grief.

We've lost lots of different things in life through this experience.

So it's natural and normal to feel all of these things,

All of these emotions,

These uncertainties,

These fears,

And feeling connected to a state of crisis and upheaval.

Individuals working in the medical community right now,

They are overwhelmed and working so hard at trying to save lives and keep people safe and all the layers that brings to their mental functioning,

Their emotional functioning,

Their families and loved ones,

The other essential workers who are out there every day trying their best to still do what they need to do,

And to be able to do what they need to do.

Those who are out there every day trying their best to still do what they have to do to keep us all running.

It's overwhelming,

It's stressful,

And crisis-oriented.

But it also is allowing compassion,

Understanding,

And when we bring in this compassion and understanding,

Allow it to surround our emotions,

We can then allow that offering to others as well in their individual experience,

What they are feeling and going through.

Bringing it to self allows it to bring out to others.

Recognizing and knowing all of those emotions are natural and normal allows us to sit with it,

Allows us to feel it,

Which then brings about change and allows us to emerge through this in a different way than maybe we were before.

You might find in this that there's moments of increased judgment or comparison mind.

Those have-tos,

Shoulds,

This thing going around on social media about you now have the time to do this,

That,

Or the other,

And if you don't do it then I don't even remember the verbiage like you failed or something like that.

Just because we have this time may be different right now does not mean we have to fill it with something.

It's okay to feel stuck,

To feel like you don't want to do anything.

It doesn't mean you're failing,

You're trying to do the best you can in each day and that can look different from moment to moment and day to day.

You don't have to do anything right now but keep living.

Nothingness and stillness can be scary and hard,

But it's also where aha moments come through.

It's these things that allow us to break patterns and create new habit,

Which I'll talk about here in a moment.

Letting go of judgment,

The need to not compare and to just be you.

As I mentioned,

We might have long periods where we don't want to do anything,

And at other times you might have a desire to find a different connection with interests or passions,

Creative ways to virtually connect and stay in touch.

When we let go of those pressures of shoulds,

Coulds,

Whys,

And why nots,

We tend to glide a little bit more into this readiness or desire to connect to something different.

We tend to be more aware of the things that we want to connect to something different.

Even with clients,

They often are noticing this area too of this pressure valve being taken down.

Even if the pressure valve was something that they created in their own mind related to shoulds,

Coulds,

With a collective right now having to put a bit of pause in their life,

It's letting them also quiet their own judgmental mind towards self and have more compassion,

Which is opening up a little bit more of this desire or readiness to experience things differently.

Getting creative of connecting.

Having Zoom meetings,

I guess,

Is the most common one used.

I think there's lots of ways to connect,

You know,

FaceTime,

I think social media has got opportunities,

But finding ways to virtually connect.

Setting up coffee dates.

I'll set up little coffee dates with my friends and sometimes they're only like 15 minutes long,

You know,

We've maybe have a busy day ahead,

But touching base with another human is great.

I don't have a lot of in-person human connection right now because we're on shutdown kind of situation.

So coffee dates.

Having the little house party kind of situation,

I think it's house party app is what it's called,

And you can get together with friends and play games and connect virtually.

Or there's the Netflix party app where you can watch movies together with friends.

Letting ourselves get creative about connection right now is important.

There's also lots of opportunity right now virtually through exploring any kind of class or interest you probably have in the background of your mind,

And maybe it's something you forgot you were even interested in.

So right now with more of the stillness and sitting with self,

We start to discover who we are.

We start to notice things about ourselves that maybe we weren't paying attention to.

And maybe those things might be hard,

Like some of those emotions that I mentioned.

But sometimes it brings up other parts of awareness of self that we forgot different passions we had or areas of creativity that we used to have.

You know,

Maybe,

Oh,

Man,

I remember when I was a teenager,

I really used to do X,

Y,

And Z,

And I haven't done that for so long.

Well,

Everything's virtual right now.

I'm attending yoga classes and meditation gatherings in different states,

Some in different countries,

Because everything is virtual.

I've also been able to take a few classes with individuals in my fields of interest that I wouldn't have been able to go to because of distance and time.

So those are some of the areas when I mentioned about at the beginning of this that I was making sure I was taking care of self and getting myself rebalanced because of the just heaviness right now in the mental health field.

Those are some areas that I've been tapping into.

We also have lots of virtual stuff going on right now at Serenity,

Many free things each week,

Free yoga and Chi yoga and some meditations and energy gatherings.

So if you've ever wanted to see what we have going on,

We've got some free virtual gatherings too,

Because again,

We're all globally in this situation together and finding ways to connect,

Create,

And learn are also good opportunities.

But again,

Remembering we don't have to do any of that either,

And it doesn't mean we're somehow failing at this situation.

As I mentioned,

We are having this enhanced awareness through this experience,

Not only about societal and economic situations,

But also about ourselves.

Sitting with yourself in the way that you are having to now might be completely new.

As a society,

We are often in a state of busyness and rushing through life,

Overwhelmed with many things that we have to maybe get checked off our list,

And often sitting with ourselves is not one that we give.

And even individuals who might practice this more in their everyday life are still experiencing intensity here.

But with this enhanced awareness and this sitting with ourselves through practice,

Number one,

It gets a little easier because we can go in with curiosity and compassion,

That leading with curiosity instead of judgment.

It's going to then allow you to break patterns,

Recognizing how you want to emerge,

Who you want to be,

Being aware maybe of areas of your life that you were not valuing as much as you realize now you do,

Or things that you procrastinated on and now realize that they are really important to you in terms of self or emotion or moving forward,

Whatever it may be.

You might also be more aware of unhealthy time wasters and how you value yourself and your time,

Creating new habits where maybe now you recognize that life doesn't have to be so rushed,

That you can slow down as you emerge from this as well in a new way,

In a new connection with yourself,

A new connection with those around you,

But also a new connection with just how you want to live,

What you want life to start being like and feeling like for you.

Maybe becoming more aware of gardening and growing your own food or how to live sustainably and more in alignment with the earth.

You might also feel scattered during this experience,

So sitting with ourselves and enhanced awareness might also make us feel a little discombobulated when we start noticing these things in these areas.

And just the way that right now we're living is so different than maybe what we will be living like then when we emerge and get back out into society and around people again.

If you're feeling really scattered you might want to try to create a somewhat flexible schedule.

Maybe you don't have to set an alarm for example with what is happening for you right now in life,

But you can maybe set up your schedule of your day and just the schedule of your day of wanting to have so many hours towards work or so many hours towards connecting or hours of not doing anything.

Whatever it looks like for you,

You might want to just if you're feeling really scattered create a little bit of flexibility with your schedule but also scheduling it out.

Body movement is another area that is really important.

Taking care of our physical body right now,

We're not moving maybe in the same way that we used to when we were just living life in its typical flow.

But body awareness and movement is a great support system for the body in terms of stress and all the ways that we've talked about through other episodes,

But really supporting the body and movement has to do with many layers of stress and well-being.

In terms of how our body functions but also emotion regulation,

Individuals who have post traumatic stress disorder might be noticing elevations in some of these pockets or folders of trauma being opened as we sit in or become aware of other areas.

Body awareness is a big part of regulating and supporting yourself through that.

Our body stores emotion and past traumas and when we move the body and allow movement,

It helps so that that area in the amygdala doesn't open up so vastly and so widely.

It's a regulation tool in a ton of different ways.

You can also consider journaling.

I talked in the episode about collecting gratitude a bit about the research and journaling and those are all wonderful things.

So continuing to keep those in consideration in terms of emotion regulation and awareness and healing aspects it brings,

But also right now it will allow you not to have your story be lost.

As I mentioned,

We're all going through this in a different way.

As I mentioned,

We're all going through this in a collective way but also an individual way and journaling is letting you experience and process everything that's happening for you as well as the awareness maybe of what's coming through for everything around you.

Journaling also lets us keep a little bit more track of time.

People are noticing a little bit more of a difficulty in terms of the flow of how their day is going.

Time is a whole other topic but just in terms of how we're living life right now and feeling a little more disconnected from that flow,

Journaling is a good way to keep us more in tune with where we're at in life and what's going on there for us.

Remembering that it is okay not to feel okay.

Again,

Life is going through lots of changes and layers right now.

This crisis and trauma and some people experiencing trauma in terms of current loss and losing family members or friends,

Loved ones to the virus or a big sense of loss in terms of identity because they've lost their job and what kept them feeling stable and secure in life has now been uprooted and they don't know what it looks like right now.

My fellow mental health therapists,

You're holding so much space right now and emotion,

Making sure that you are also taking care of self,

Not forgetting to reach out and talk about it,

To replenish yourself and realize you're not alone through this as well.

And the medical professionals do the same.

Please find opportunity to take care of you.

You're doing so much that can overwhelm the system in so many ways and self-care is really,

Really important right now.

We're together as a community and collective and the more we tap into being there for one another and supporting each other,

The more we can emerge from this in a way of consciousness and connection and empathy and compassion to create a different society that stays connected and aware and empathic and compassionate.

I mentioned about journaling,

You can also create a strength board.

I know I've talked about this in some episodes somewhere,

But as I mentioned,

There's a lot of different heavy emotions that we're going through right now and we can feel disconnected and disconnected and not and depleted and unsure.

So you can create a board of strength of your awareness of who you really are and over time it gets filled in and then you can hang it somewhere so that you're reminded.

You would start with one word and then you can pull that word apart to create more and more words.

Often people struggle sometimes with finding strengths that are in them,

But they just can't see them initially.

So by starting with one word,

Say the word is compassionate and that's all you feel like you can get in terms of your strength.

Well then you look at compassionate and what else do I have in me that allows me to be compassionate?

So maybe open-minded,

Non-judgmental,

Active listener.

So you can see how just one word you can pull out several words.

So you create this board,

You know people will use a poster board or something like that and you can just write the words out maybe in different colors or graffiti type letters or cut out things from magazines,

Paint different things on it,

Draw pictures and it could be whatever it is just to identify these aspects of self.

And then as you create it,

It gets all filled up and you can hang it somewhere that you are often at,

Maybe your bedroom or where you get ready in the bathroom or something,

On your fridge,

I have mine on my fridge,

And when you're feeling depleted or unsure you can just glance at it and it reminds you of everything that you really are,

All those strengths within you.

Some other just quick reminders or awareness I guess,

Things to be mindful of in terms of this plucking.

So I just went through a whole lot of different things that we're going through right now with the layers of our current situation in life.

And how important it is to be mindfully aware of all of those different areas with compassion and non-judgment and not just plucking out one part.

We don't just want to pluck out,

For example,

The good stuff,

The noticing nature,

Noticing mother earth healing,

Noticing that we're connecting more,

Noticing that we're cooking more.

Lots of people are cooking more which is awesome,

But we also want to recognize and notice that we're stressed out,

That we're overwhelmed,

That we're scared,

We're tired,

That we haven't done much in the day and that's okay.

Not plucking just a part will allow us to regulate and be emotionally well and mentally well through this experience.

There are other areas in life just to be on the lookout as well,

For the plucking.

One is communication.

Sometimes people can be really good pluckers when it comes to communicating with others.

They might pluck out just a word or a phrase out of two paragraphs and just pull out that word or phrase as a way to react or digress from the communication or what's happening.

Lots of different reasons we could do that.

Maybe you want to fix something or our own emotional struggle or defense mechanisms or we might have overall communication difficulties with active listening.

So lots of reasons we might pluck out in a conversation and communication,

But when we do that it gets derailed and we end up pulling out those bricks from our backpack,

Moving away from active listening,

Which changes our reactivity cycle.

We might also pluck experiences or memory,

Only looking at specific examples and not the full picture,

Which again will create emotional regulation difficulties.

When we have increased stress or worry,

As I mentioned that example PTSD,

Folders might start opening up that are all in the same kind of category of what the body felt like before in trauma and stress.

Or we might go back to our mind in a conversation we had with somebody that maybe we didn't react or communicate the way that we would have preferred to,

And we might have had 20 other conversations with them that were smooth and connected,

But we might keep going and replaying the same story.

That creates an emotional reaction.

It creates this sensation still in the body,

Even though we're not experiencing it in the moment and we're not looking at the full picture.

Having the full spectrum of awareness of all that is happening that ebbs and flows of our emotions with compassion and awareness of all that is happening,

That is happening,

That is happening,

That is happening,

That is happening,

That is happening,

That is happening.

And we can see that through the whole experience of compassion and awareness,

Leading with curiosity allows us to stay in the now and not in the illusion of the mind.

And I think that that's the key to life right now with compassion,

That sometimes it means doing absolutely nothing,

And that's okay.

I will be putting together a couple more episodes to break some of this apart.

The next one will be about breaking patterns so that I can at least this way virtually,

However you're listening to this,

Somehow try to continue to offer support in this way to everyone.

All over the world trying to get through this together.

Please everyone,

Let's remember to support each other,

Loving kindness,

But also recognizing there's a lot of different emotions.

I can get pretty heightened at times with what's going on here in the US,

But we need to pull it all in,

Bring it all in so that we can work through it in awareness and compassion and emerge in a way of togetherness.

Thank you everyone for listening.

Be sure to check us out online and maybe tune in to some of our virtual offerings we have happening no matter where you're at.

Have a good one.

Talk to you soon.

Reviews

Great talk on awareness!

So grateful to have you back. Mental health is so important especially when the world is in the middle of a pandemic. I have suggested meditation or podcasts to many of my friends/family during this time. I don’t think many of them have the means to make sense-of all of this. I give the info and let it go.

Thank you for sharing and caring for each of us. Be well. Namaste. 💜

Thank you for sharing your knowledge and insight! Another great episode!