Wellness Podcast

This week's episode is about getting out of the weeds (Brene Brown) and focusing on the bigger picture of your life. I talk about the will this matter in 5 seconds, minutes, hours, years test and read a poem by Mary Oliver called "The Summer Day" which has the quote "Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" Action item: practice zooming out this week!

This week, I talk about periodically re-assessing your ideal week as necessary. I have already redone mine twice this semester due to factors outside of my control! But also, does that thing need to take you that long? Longer? Also, remember your Caution Weeks (from Cathy Mazak) where you know that you will be very busy for work or non-work reasons, and give yourself a break those weeks. Also, sometimes when you feel like you cannot stop, you need to take a break and come back later.

In this episode, I talk about what to do when you get stuck. We have (probably?) all had that feeling of oh no, what have I done, when we find that we have wasted an hour on Facebook or binge watching Netflix or whatever, when we were supposed to be working. My suggestion here is to figure out if 1) you are burned out or 2) you just feel bad about the thing you have to get done. If it is #1, then pick a thing that helps you to feel better and do it on purpose (even if you "can't" or "don't have time"). If it is #2, then find the best time for you to do the thing (when is your most energized time), split it up into smaller tasks, and JUST OPEN the document! Tell yourself you will spend 5 minutes on it. Once I start something, I usually keep going, but you can do almost anything for just 5 minutes, even something you hate/dread.

In this episode, I talk about slowing it down. Your thoughts, your movements, your life. I (literally) suggest stopping and smelling the flowers (or picking up fall leaves, or whatever) to ground yourself in the place that you are. A little bit hygge, a little bit mindfulness, a little bit calm and a lot of good will come of it. Action item: find a way to slow down something in your life. Also, I talk about this book I am reading called "How to do Nothing" which I am very bad at (reading this book and also doing nothing). It's a good one, though.

In this episode, I talk about community, connection and belonging. Finding our community (communities) is something we can do now based on our location (neighborhoods, etc.) but also through social media or podcasts or even through mom's yoga in the park (or whatever your mom's yoga in the park equivalent is).

In this episode, I talk about controlling what you can and letting go the rest. I talk about my favoritest person, Cathy Mazak and her making the word "overwhelm" into a noun, about Brene Brown's Guideposts to Wholehearted Living from The Gifts of Imperfection, and box breathing and completing the stress cycle. And caring about our students :)

This episode is adjacent to my anti-perfectionism episode, but is about how sometimes we can be great at everything (work, parenting if relevant, exercise, rest, etc.) and sometimes, we just can't, and that's OK too. It happens to everyone (I think?) and if you, like me, can predict when you will have busy weeks, or even if you can't, try to figure out in advance what you are OK with dropping. That way, you are at least doing it intentionally and can give yourself a break when you inevitably drop it (whatever it is). 

In this episode, I talk about climate anxiety and what action we can take to both help the Earth and ourselves at the same time. 

In this episode, I talk about reflection and how it can help us to recall/remember information, rethink our failures to learn from them, change our attitudes (like how I decided that I would enjoy summer this time around, and I did!), and really, change our brains.

In this episode, I talk about our fear of failure and how actually, it is the greatest gift that we can give ourselves and others, and how it is the way that we learn. The only way we really fail is if we cannot and do not look back on the experience later and figure out what we could have done differently and what we will do differently the next time. I also talk about Brene Brown's book, Daring Greatly.