Show Notes:

The last couple of episodes we established some of the things to look for to help guide you in knowing where you are at in the process of healing. To get here you’ve put in a ton of work, and I’m sure that it has not been easy. But, now what??

The primary focus is to stay on top of things and to maintain all you’ve worked so hard to accomplish. How do you do that? Well, this may sound too simple, but the answer is this: assess and adjust.

Let’s start with assess. One of the reasons that people wind up in burnout, traumatic stress responses and other stress-related challenges, is because they let things that were too big go for too long without recognizing them for what they were and doing something effective about them. When we avoid, ignore, and leave things too long, pretending that we’re “fine”, we make it all so much worse. Now, I want to be clear that I don’t think people generally purposefully neglect their trauma thinking that it will magically get better. I do think that people generally have no idea what they should be looking for to help them know that’s what they are dealing with AND I think that people generally get so caught up in the daily demands of life that they legitimately miss noticing how bad things are getting until it’s SO bad that it stops them in their tracks. 

I also think that our trauma is not just made up of the big stuff alone. It can be an additive effect where big and small things pile on top of each other, so gradually and progressively, that we don’t fully notice it until the pile becomes smothering. It isn’t as straightforward as that really traumatic call – it’s often childhood experiences, mixed with marital stress, financial uncertainty, parenting stress, and then on top of that add the work-related exposure to traumatic material…and then on top of THAT, add the toxic and often dysfunctional organizational systems within which we are not sufficiently supported to face what you tend to face. And then there’s the jerk in the grocery store parking lot, and the mean mom at your kids school, and the boss you can’t stand…it is an amalgamation of these big and small offenses, difficulties and traumas that shape our experience in nuanced ways until we realize that they have completely eroded our sense of self and stability within our own existence.

If you have done the work of healing, or are in the process of that work, you’ll know that some of the greatest discomfort comes in the reckoning. For many of my clients the hardest part of their work will be the effort at becoming aware of their own shit. Stopping and really looking at it. No longer ignoring it, avoiding it and passing it off like it’s normal and fine and the same as what everyone else is dealing with. To see it for what it is, is uncomfortable, to the point of distressing sometimes. Naming it and recognizing that it’s worse than we’ve given it credit for is unsettling. And yet, if we can’t see it and name it and know what it is, then we can’t ever do work to interact with it. 

So in doing the work, we carry with us this newfound capacity to call a spade a spade. We have done the very uncomfortable work of peeling back the layers and looking at each and every one of them with new eyes. We have developed tools like awareness, mindfulness, self-compassion and boundaries, to support us in carrying this forward. And that is a key part of where we need to focus our time and our attention once we have done the bulk of our healing work. …Because life won’t stop life-ing. It will continue to throw new things at you, and it will be tempting to fall back into old habits of ignoring and avoiding and pretending it’s all good. If we don’t want to find ourselves right back where we started, we have to change how we approach the whole process.

So here is what you can be working on investing in: schedule 2 types of check-ins. First, a daily check in. I know this might sound like a lot, but doing this will cost you less time, energy and frankly money than if you find yourself having to return to intensive therapy down the road! On a daily basis, have a time where you sit and reflect on your day and how you felt in it. What went well? What felt life-giving? Where did you shine? Who showed up for you? What was challenging? Did you rise to the challenge(s) or are there learnings around how you would want to approach those differently a next time? What was hard or uncomfortable? What did you do with the hard or uncomfortable and how do you feel about how you handled that? Where was your mood at and what contributed to shaping that? What did you do to help shape it? …While this might sound like a lot of questions, you should be able to do this in about 7-10 minutes, which I am almost certain you can afford to carve out the time for. Oh, and yes, all of these questions will be in the show notes for you to reference.

The next type of check-in I want you to schedule is bi-monthly (so every other month). I want you to print off our Beating the Breaking Point Indicators Checklist & Triage Guide and complete it. Notice where you’re at, and use the triage guide as a roadmap to help you stay aligned in using skills that keep you well. Keep your completed checklist! Find a pretty binder or cool folder to store these, and each time you do one, compare it to the one or ones before. Notice patterns, as well as any changes that indicate worsening symptoms. Use the guide to help map out tools to support you in staying on track, or getting back on track if you’ve been veering off of them. 

This brings us to “Adjust”. Assessing involves awareness and making the time to see the forest for the trees so we don’t ignore and passively avoid. Adjusting takes the information we glean from our self-assessing and considers what we need to keep ourselves in a place that feels aligned with our goals and connected to the people we have worked so hard to be. 

Adjusting doesn’t have to look like big sweeping changes. More often than not, it’s about small tweaks. But it all starts with seeing where we’re at risk so we can be effective and accurate in making tweaks that actually serve the needs we have rather than just throwing a ton of shit at the wall and hoping something sticks. Here’s an example – my daily and bi-monthly assessments might indicate that I’m feeling more tense and burnt out, and I am aware that I have been giving a lot and not taking time for myself to have quiet time alone, which I find to be rejuvenating. Seeing the problem clearly, and the needs that are connected to this, I can make some small adjustments that can start moving me in a better direction. Things like waking up 15-20 minutes earlier to have some quiet time with my coffee and a book in the mornings has actually honestly been a valuable part of my journey. It’s not huge, it doesn’t demand much from me, and it gives back in disproportionate ways. To make this tweak, a couple other tweaks also had to happen – my nighttime routine had to adjust a bit to be able to get enough sleep to not begrudge this earlier waking up – but with that, it feels so much better than resenting everyone for taking up time and energy and never getting my own need for time alone met. 

Adjusting can look like changes and adaptations to your self-care. Maybe you need a bit more time for self-care, maybe you need to adjust some self-care that used to work but isn’t meeting the need anymore, maybe you need to adjust the heart you are bringing to your self-caring actions. Adjusting can also look like changes and adaptations to your boundaries. Maybe you need to practice stronger boundaries with someone in your life. Maybe you need to hold s...