When Self-Awareness Mobilizes
This week has been heavy in the world, yes? I read the news on Saturday night and quickly spiraled into doomsday nightmares and panicky feelings the rest of the weekend. I was irritable, impulsive…I was scared.
Fear divides. We know that. Fear also brings out the ego in us - the parts of us that react and the thoughts and emotions that are unobserved and therefore unchecked. Reckless.
So, I’ll walk you through what I do when the world feels heavy and my reactions become less steady.
TOOLS
My therapist asked me this week as I was recounting my increased anxiety, “So, what most ungrounds you?”
I knew instantly - the news. I’m a highly sensitive person so the over dramatized, over sensationalized news circuit really aggravates my nervous system (sorta like coffee, but I’ve finally found my morning coffee “balancing act!”).
When you notice yourself becoming reactive, unhinged, irritable, impulsive,
I urge you to go about these steps to self-assess:
What has ungrounded you? Is it a person? Something you consumed? Witnessed? A pain?
Is there something you can do to remove or lessen that trigger? For me, I have to be super mindful of my news consumption. I set boundaries with what people can send me. I also don’t subscribe to any news outlets.
If you cannot lessen or remove, how can you prepare to approach this trigger? Because I do not want to be a uninformed person, when I do decide to indulge in the news I make sure I’m grounded. I make sure I’ve done all the things to prepare me to not absorb or be as effected by the energy I am consuming.
Establish your consistent grounding routine. It was no shock to me that I had gone 4 days without journaling, meditating or exercising and I was then more easily shaken. I must get my quiet, my reflection time and movement. They are non-negotiable parts of me being a better human in this really exhausting and triggering world.
BONUS: What is on your non-negotiable list?
GRATITUDE
I spoke about this on social media this week, but then my mom sent me this and I knew I had to share it with all of you. The moral of the story below is how we most get through the hard days, the hard times of the world, the scary times, the unknowns, the fears and anxieties. Gratitude by way of Presence.
INNOVATION
In this field we often think and talk about coping skills. We talk about maintaining our “self care” regimens and people think of lighting a candle, watching Netflix, going to yoga, buying flowers, taking a walk outside, gratitude journals, exercising, making tea or drinking more water. “Self-care has been co-oped” as our therapist, Cady Hadesman would say. She likes to look at self-care, not as coping skills but as self-improvement.
Rethinking self-care as: How can you leave the campsite better than how you found it?
I love this reframe. I also think this expands to the collective - how can we do the work for ourselves so that we leave the world’s campsite better than how we found it?
Can we employ self-care strategies like self-forgiveness and compassion, saying no, setting boundaries, asking for help, being alone, leaning out, to support a more aware/conscious way of living? It’s this steady type of self-improvement that leaves us continually better than how we were before and thus ripple into the community healing.
FEELS
Coping is not enough. We must heal. We must heal our wounds that we are so afraid to access. We must be brave and bold enough to do the hard work. We must confront the uncomfortable things like our anger, resentment, traumas and grief. We must finally process and let go.
Otherwise, we continue to let our unobserved thoughts and feelings rule the show. And we know that when we’re living with pain, fear and stress our reactive self isn’t the most mindful, kind or empathic.
The world needs us to heal. To feel our way into healing. It’s the way only.
