Category: Blog

When Holiday Spirit Spirals into Holiday Stress

I need to be at two recitals and a holiday event right now. I have stress about time, money, and not having enough of either. I am driving too fast to one of the recitals, trying to “win” a traffic jam by changing lanes a lot.

My holiday spirit can quickly spiral into holiday stress. The world tells us to do it all, buy it all, and be it all for everyone. We want to create lasting, magical memories for our families, and we want to spread gratitude and light in our neighborhoods. But life often interrupts my idea of a perfect holiday. This morning, for example, we had a carbon monoxide scare, discovered that we needed a new furnace, and found lice on one of our children’s heads. Then there were all those holiday events on the same night.

That’s when my car starts talking to me. It had done this before. It beeps when roads are icy, or when someone is in my blind spot (we had to buy this car after I couldn’t turn my head as well from my neck fusion). But never before has it sounded an alarm and said in big letters on the dash: TAKE A BREAK.

Even my car knows that my stress is not normal; it is dangerous. I wait for the message to go away to keep “winning” the traffic jam. Instead, an image of a steaming cup of tea appears, a new alarm sounds, and those words flash again: TAKE A BREAK.

I get off at the next exit. I call my child and apologize for not making the recital. She says, “Don’t worry! There will be more!” Then I drive home, slowly, on a back road, and think about what is in my control to change. Here is what I’m learning about the least expensive ways to manage stress, and how stress affects our brain, and health.

The next morning I drag my tired bones to yoga. Of course, my teacher, Sukhraj, is talking about stress. She insists that the best way to deal with stress is to hug it out. She quotes the respected family therapist, Virginia Satir, “We need four hugs a day to survive, eight hugs to keep us as we are, and 12 hugs to grow.”

I think, Please don’t make me hug someone now. I’m here at yoga because I want to move my body, not touch other people’s bodies. I close my eyes and act as though I am too busy breathing to engage with others.

Sukhraj persists, “The average hug is 3 seconds. But to make changes happen in your brain and nervous system, we need to hug for 20 seconds. ”

Thankfully, she does not force us to hug each other in class. I go home and check her science. She’s right. When someone hugs us, important changes take place immediately in the brain. There is an increase of dopamine and oxytocin, sometimes called “love’s hormones,” and a notable decrease of cortisol “the stress hormone.” There are abundant studies that say that 20-second hugs can lower heart rates, blood pressure, and activate the parasympathetic nervous system, which acts as a kind of brake when we are under stress.

The next day, when I ask our son and daughter for 20-second hugs, they ask if they can eat something first. “It’s not a hike, just a hug!” I protest. After a few of these, they are used to it. Now they meet me in the kitchen, open-armed.

When my husband tries to squirm out of my hug to go to work, I say, “I know. You hate hugs.” He says, “Nah, I don’t totally hate hugs.” When I tell him about needing “12 hugs a day to grow,” he says, “I don’t think I’m going to grow much at this point.” He lets me give him a 20-second hug anyway, as often as I can.

What if you live alone? Some studies show hugging pets has the same effects on the brain, and holding hands (as in taking up ballroom dancing 😉 reduces stress levels substantially.

Hugs just may be the least expensive way to manage stress.

I want to add one more way to manage stress. Getting outside in nature is the quickest way to boost my mood and lift me out of a depressed state.

When my car demanded me to “Take a Break,” I finally listened. I pulled over. What I didn’t tell you is that I sat on a rock under a pine tree for a few minutes. I listened to the chickadees call to one another. I watched the sun turn the clouds yellow, then orange, then red, in a glorious light show. It only took a moment to come back to myself, and to feel connected to what matters. And when I stood up to go, I am not embarrassed to tell you that I hugged that tree and whispered, “Thank you.”

Love,

Susie

image credit: Janaina de Oliveira, Flick’r

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How to write a book (or finish any big project) in 30 minutes at a time

Before, my secret way to write was to procrastinate forever then to work in frantic, uneven bursts; I insisted that I needed big chunks of time and a clean desk in order to write. I thought it was the only way to be inspired, and to find flow. But since my surgeries, I have a fraction of the energy I used to have. If I was going to write a book and start a business, I needed to find a new way. How do I get anything done if I have to lie down all the time? Aim for progress, not perfection.

For example, I just handed in my memoir to the publisher; it’s about 70,000 words. I wrote the book 30 minutes at a time, with multiple naps in between. A friend was curious about my system. She asked me to share what I do, reminding me that, “None of us have the energy we used to have!” So maybe my “progress over perfect” strategy is helpful to you, too.

My new secret way to amplifying focus and minimizing procrastination is not so secret. It is fundamentally the same as the fantastic Pomodoro Technique, with a twist. It waves goodbye to multi-tasking and goal-setting. And says hello to rest and moving forward. When I was in the hospital, the key to my mental and physical health was to focus on small victories. It’s important to shift our gaze from the overwhelming size of any project and toward progress.

It starts with the night before. I decide what tiny piece of writing (or task) I want to work on the next day. When I put my computer to sleep, I make sure that the page I open to in the morning is not my email inbox, and not a blank document (too much pressure!) but a document with some of my scribbles already on it. My friend Teresa, who is a single mom, a scientist, and a PhD candidate, starts each morning by filling in the lines and points on a single graph. She is going to finish her dissertation this year, one graph at a time.

When I wake up, I light a candle for luck and light, and I set my watch timer to 30 minutes before I do anything else. Yes, I still have a watch, and No, I don’t recommend that you use your phone. I need to keep my phone in another room, on airplane mode, because it is too distracting.

I like the Pomodoro idea of using a kitchen timer, but is anyone else sensitive to the loud ticking? It made me feel like there was a bomb on my desk and inside my head. I tried muffling the timer with a pillow, but that is just weird. Then I realized that any cheap digital timer will do. I love this Miracle TimeCube timer because it doesn’t tick and it’s so simple.

Next, I write for 30 minutes without judgment. Why 30 minutes? Because it is an amount of time that 1) I can usually carve out without interruption 2) It’s not so short that I don’t get into a flow, and it’s not so long that my mind finds reasons why I can’t do it 3) It’s not finicky or gimmicky; it’s easy for me to remember.

By the way, this is how I used to race ultramarathons: 30 minutes at a time. It was too intimidating to think about the whole race and how many hours I would be on my feet. So I broke it down into 30-minute chunks. Run for 30 minutes, eat and drink something, then run for another 30. You can run for a whole day like this, or longer. It reminds me of what E.L Doctorow once said (and Anne Lamott quoted) about writing a novel, “(It’s) like driving a car at night. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.”

To start fresh each morning, I usually move all those words I had on the page from yesterday down below the screen. I need to know that they are there, but I don’t want to get sucked into editing them, because then I don’t move forward. And that’s the key. Make progress. Once you make it about “finishing a chapter,” you’re focused on an outcome and a product, which can send your creative mind into fight, freeze, or flight mode. Focus on time, not task.

After 30 minutes, I clap at least three times to give myself a mini round of applause, and take a 5-min break. I stand up, refresh my coffee, and stare out the window.

I do this 30-minute routine three times, then take a nap. If you can’t nap because you are a teacher or a doctor or a mechanic, do something to rest and recover. In an office, I used to leave and walk around the block. And, on those days when a child is home sick, the furnace is broken, the car needs snow tires, and bills need to be paid, I still write. I do a single 30-minute interval of scribbling without judging, then I give myself a standing ovation.

To review:

Set yourself up for success the night before
Write/work for 30 min
Stop & applaud yourself
Rest: take a 5 min break
Do three more intervals on the same or different tasks (30 min + 5 min rest x 3)
Rest: take a longer break (I like the rhythm of also taking a 30-min break)
Repeat

One important note: to begin or wrap up a creative project, I still need long swaths of uninterrupted time. There is nothing more valuable than a long weekend totally alone, devoted to writing. But in the messy middle of a difficult task or a creative endeavor, just make progress, 30 minutes at a time, without multitasking.

Oh, and don’t skimp on the applause! When you are tackling something big, you better do it by loving yourself along the way, or why do it at all?

Love,

Susie

****

by Susie Rinehart

The Sex Talk I Never Got, For My 15-yr-old Son

I want to talk about intimacy and sex with you. At school, you’ll get lectures about protection and diseases. Good. And yet, sex is not just about love and babies, or herpes and condoms, but about mutual respect, and curiosity.

You may feel like you are supposed to know what to do before getting intimate with someone. You may want to show up perfect. But the point of intimacy is exploration and freedom, not perfection. Everyone is, literally, feeling their way around in the dark when it comes to sex. When perfectionism enters the bedroom, it’s not just dull, it’s dangerous.

Terrible things can happen when your desire to be perfect makes you pretend to know what you’re doing. The first things to go are honest communication and vulnerability. Without them, you are not having sex, you are just satisfying an urge and taking advantage of someone. Worse, you may try to force another person to do what you want, because it feels easier than being rejected, maybe even easier than asking permission. But you must never take another’s freedom and dignity; it is a trauma that stays with someone for life. Your responsibility during sex is to remember that you are with another human being, and someone’s child; treat that person with care.

As a teenager, you may experiment with illegal substances, because you think they make you brave. But drugs and alcohol don’t make you brave, they make you deaf and dumb. When you are drunk or high, especially in a group, it’s really tough to hear the voices of reason, or compassion, or a single, scared voice telling you to STOP. Listen. There is nothing attractive about drunk sex. The sexiest thing is to touch and be touched once you and the other person in the room have said an enthusiastic, undeniable YES. But to say yes, you need to talk, you need to ask for communication.

“Use your words,” I encouraged you at two years old. I’ll keep encouraging you now to speak your feelings. It’s ok to say, “I was feeling great a minute ago. But something is changing. Let’s pause and explore.” Don’t make it your goal to be in charge. Make it your goal to slow down, and discover what makes it fun for both of you. Intimacy and sex are apart of the process of knowing who we are, who someone else is, and what it means to be human. Notice how it feels when there is no fear, because there is trust, because there is conversation, because there is connection.

Maybe the repair of the world starts in the bedroom when two people see each other not as opposites, but as equals. When you choose to have sex or not is up to you, but please go armed with condoms and kindness. And then when you say yes, say it confidently, and let fear drive someone else’s car. Remember, if you ever feel stuck or uncomfortable, even if you feel that you got yourself into the situation, call me anytime. I’ll pick you up, no questions asked, and bring you home.”

If these words were helpful to you parents, use them, copy them, make a video with a cat saying them, just please don’t avoid the subject with your teens anymore. Christine Carter, my partner on the Brave over Perfect site, has these excellent 3 tips on how to get started

And, because it’s difficult to talk to our kids when they are rolling their eyes and slipping out the window, telling us they’ve “got this,” I offer one last strategy. Write a letter to your teenager(s) about relationships and intimacy that is more positive than negative. Start with the prompt: “The sex talk I never got, but wish I had…” I believe that the next best thing to talking openly about sex is writing down your thoughts and feelings, and giving those scribbles to your children, not as a report of your trauma, but as a map to healthy, positive relationships. It might seem like they don’t care. But I’d argue that they do, and that it might be one of the most important letters you ever write.

Love,

Susie

image credit: Flick’r, Blue Skyz

by Susie Rinehart

Our Infinite Impact; Our Chance to Invest in the Empowerment of Women Globally

If you’ve come to help me, don’t waste your time. But if you know your liberation is bound up with mine, then let’s work together. I believe in the truth of this message from indigenous activist, Lilla Watson. My work with Her Infinite Impact has made me braver, happier, and more resilient.

This is the one post I will write a year to encourage you to invest in the empowerment and education of girls globally through Starfish; Her Infinite Impact. The fiscal year ends on September 30th, just 8 days away. If you have already given, thank you from the bottom of my heart.

My dream?

To raise $10,000 to add the desks and chairs to each classroom, the muscle to the bones of the only woman-led, indigenous-led school in all of Latin America. It is a powerful model for communities all around the world. Already, leaders from everywhere have visited the school to see how this small town created something that weaves culture and education to transform lives out of poverty.
The new school building opens on January 8th. Nearly 150 students will walk through the front door. How wonderful would it be if we could fully equip all ten classes with desks, chairs, chalkboards, shelving, and water filtration units? I know we can do this. Please forward this email to someone who you think might be interested in helping!
$500 provides English lessons for one girl for one year; critical for her for employment
$250 provides family support in the form of home visits by a mentor to help the family overcome challenges and support their daughter to stay in school
$100 provides vocal empowerment training for twelve weeks for one girl to give her the skills to find her voice
Now, 100% of your donation goes directly to the girls and their teachers, because of the generosity of a donor who insisted on covering the administrative costs of running an organization

Please Donate today: https://starfish-impact.org/donate/

or, send funds to (please date 9/30 or before):

Starfish; Her Infinite Impact

Posner Center for International Development

1031 33rd street, suite 176

Denver, CO 80205

I share the following words with you from a speech given by the Executive Director, Norma Bajan, on Finding My Voice:

“I was tired of being called silly, ugly, dirty, Indian. I hated that my teacher called me useless, and the following years were no better. But I became stronger.

When I finally learned to say things like “I do not agree with this,” “My opinion is,” and “If you gave me the opportunity to prove what I am capable of,” my life changed completely. Then, through my voice, I got scholarships to continue my studies. I spoke up for raises where I worked. I denounced acts of corruption.

I became a leader.”

I am so grateful to have powerful leaders like her, and like you, in my life.

With love,

Susie

by Susie Rinehart

The Days of Awe; A Poem for You

Today, I headed to the nearest ditch with water in it and a bag of stale bread. I asked, What do I want to let go of from last year? What do I need to do differently, if anything, to be my true self? Then I tossed the bread into the flow, naming each crumb after behaviors I’d rather not repeat this year: worrying, doubting, hustling, yelling, judging, hesitating, playing small...This is a tradition I do each fall, based on the Jewish ritual of Tashlikh. I am not Jewish. But it feels right to celebrate the New Year in September (that’s what two decades of teaching does to you!) I wrote this poem about what I’ve learned from the river and the breadcrumbs, so I never forget.

The Days of Awe
These are the days of awe.
Lie back in summer’s last green grasses.
Listen.
Each cricket’s song is slower now,
the wind smells of ripe apples,
the soil devours rain
and coughs up stones.
Blackbirds rise up from the fields
Like mist off a pond.
Trees gain color and restraint overnight,
act like old ladies who
snap their purses shut
in anticipation of a need.
Remember
The sun isn’t journeying
east to west.
We are
spinning — west to east,
setting to rising,
beginnings growing out of endings,
not the other way around.
Lie back in the wet grass.
Wait for the sky to grow dark.
Breathe in the moon
like a question
you’re not quite ready to ask.
Be like the river
Who moves toward the unknown,
who doesn’t turn around
and ask the mountain for directions.
Listen to the grace of insects,
then drop, swell, and release
like bread in cool, swirling waters.

Love,

Susie

by Susie Rinehart

How to Strengthen your Marriage; Send the Kids to Camp

Since the kids left for camp three weeks ago, I’ve done laundry once. I haven’t yet turned on the oven. I cooked one large batch of red-lentil curry and we have been eating that every day. When I clean the house, it’s still clean the next day. Phone chargers and scissors stay where I put them. There are no arguments about screens and bathrooms. Our home feels less like a train station and more like a quiet, tidy oasis. But that’s not the best part. The best part is I get to reconnect with my husband.

At first, it was too quiet. Our conversations were awkward. With the kids gone, there were no logistics. With no logistics, there was nothing to talk about. For years, I’ve believed that our communication was less than great. Now I don’t think it’s terrible; I think we were just out of practice.

We had to slowly get to know one another again. I finally learned what Kurt does for a living as a data scientist. And I re-learned that he needs me to sit and look right at him when he speaks, in order to feel heard. In the beginning, we fought more, not less. There were no kids around to keep us from arguing. But there were also no interruptions. So we kept talking until we got to the bottom of what was bothering us, and came to a place of deeper understanding.

When our kids were eight and ten, we made them try two weeks of sleep-away camp. We ask them each year if they want to go back, and so far, the answer has been an enthusiastic, Yes! This year and last, they have gone for one month. Our son, fourteen, goes to the same camp I went to as a teenager: one that is big on rugged camping and not much else. He’ll spend over twenty days canoeing a remote river, in northern Ontario, learning to navigate rocks and rapids, fears and friendships. Our daughter prefers to go to an all-girls camp with her cousins and the daughters of my childhood friends. She gets to sail, swim, do archery, and perform in the summer musical. They don’t have phones or screens of any kind. Mail is slow, so we rarely hear from them. Yet we know that they are being cared for by many, capable adults, so we don’t worry. This time away is good for them. It is also good for us, and our marriage.

[bctt tweet=”Sometimes I make the mistake of believing that the bond with my kids is the most important relationship. But in a few years, the kids will be grown and gone. Then what? ” username=”susie_rinehart”]

This month, our relationship has a certain quality of attention: we are less needy and more curious. We head to the mountains to hike as fast as we want, identify wildflowers by their latin names, and fish in high alpine lakes. For us, with the kids away, it’s less like we’re wild twenty-somethings, and more like we’re two souls protecting one another’s solitude. I read, and Kurt learns to play the drums. I go dancing, while he heads out on a bike ride. After dinner, we jam a little: Kurt on the guitar and me on the banjolele, and we fantasize about having a family band when the kids come back.

Sometimes I make the mistake of believing that the bond with my kids is the most important relationship. But in a few years, the kids will be grown and gone. Then what? I don’t want to wait to find out. I want to hold my sweetheart’s hand now with a long afternoon before us, and toast how far we’ve come, how far we’ll go, together.

Love,

Susie

***

photo credit: Susana Fernandez, Flick’r

by Susie Rinehart

I did something scary for my birthday

I am thrilled to share my recent talk from TEDx Boulder in June. Grab some popcorn for an 8 min ride! I always do something scary for my birthday, but usually it involves running a race over high mountain passes. This time, the mountain I had to climb was facing my fears and 1,500+ people, to tell my story. I never expected what happened. The energy that night was so incredible and positive that I want to share it with you.

May this video be a match strike for your courage to face a challenge, have that tough conversation, or begin something bold.

by Susie Rinehart

College Reunion Anxiety & What I Learned by Going

Why was I so nervous? I hadn’t been a terrible person or horrible student in college. But I couldn’t shake the worry about returning to my small college in New England for our twenty-fifth-year reunion.

Maybe the doubt came from shouldering all the insecurities of my twenty-year old self PLUS the new ones of my middle-aged self. Did I belong? Had I achieved enough? Will I look wrinkly and tired?

Maybe it was because twenty-five years ago, I was convinced that the admissions office had made a mistake. I am not smart enough or talented enough to be among these prep school geniuses and athletic giants. This time, I arrived on campus with a wheelie suitcase instead of a duffel bag, but the feeling was the same as when I was eighteen. Except now I was sure I was the one who had made the mistake. Why did I come back?

It didn’t help that within hours of graduating so long ago, I was in a car headed north to Canada, where I was born. The border itself confirmed the feeling I had of a solid line between my experiences in college and those after. I was foreign, an alien. My visa expired. I was not really welcome back.

But within minutes of returning to campus, I was swept up in hugs given by people I had not seen since “Jump Around” was the new hit single. No one measured successes or counted failures. No one took score on careers, kids, or real estate. No one scolded me for not keeping in touch.

Our conversations went straight to the heart. A woman I thought was perfect shared stories of raw pain, another of the grief around the death of her Dad, another of the loss of his job and identity. We were unguarded and vulnerable. And that opened the door for a ton of simple, fun moments.

We rode around in the back of a pick-up truck and the years between when I was twenty and forty flew through my hair and vanished. We bushwhacked through the forest to find waterfalls and jumped into swimming holes off granite ledges. We laughed easily and often over creemees from the local ice cream shop. We gathered around a ping pong table in an empty parking lot until two in the morning because no one wanted to leave one another’s side. We didn’t want to miss a moment of being together, no matter how cold the night air, or how often the campus security wondered, “Surely you have somewhere else you can go?”

The nervousness I felt so strongly before the reunion fell away as we looked up at the stars. We remembered and named the constellations. Then we remembered and named those who didn’t make it back and those who couldn’t because they had died too young. And when we gathered in the college chapel with our professors and those who were returning after five, fifty, even seventy-five years, we found common ground among a mix of generations and backgrounds. We shared a love of wildness and wilderness, intellectual debate, and swinging for the bleachers in life.

There are many times over the years when I have felt lost. But during this reunion, I felt found. I stopped trying to fit in and I let myself belong.

It turns out, others were feeling anxious before coming, too. What did it take to get us to the reunion? Only one person reaching out and saying, I really want to see you again. I wonder how many other things I’ve been nervous about or avoided because I was sure I didn’t fit in? I just have to remember that this is how it goes. Those fears I felt in the beginning are just telling me I’m doing something, and not that I’m doing something wrong.

Love,

Susie

****

by Susie Rinehart

The Loneliness of the Injured Distance Runner

“You’re breaking my heart! Can’t you run on another street? I’m injured!” That’s what I want to shout to the runners who innocently stride by our house. Instead I wave half-heartedly. Like anyone who has been injured or who has had to redefine themselves after they could no longer do a sport they loved, I feel a mix of envy and sadness when they run past me. I too want to be training for something exciting. I too want to feel that runner’s high. I’d like to at least jog a fun run with my kids. But I can’t.

Since the operations two years ago on my head and spine, my surgeon says, “No running.” My surgeon isn’t cruel; he just knows that it isn’t good for me. My spine is fused from my skull to my shoulders. It is held together with metal rods and screws. Running could loosen that hardware, or break it. So I listen to him. But not being able to run makes me feel small.

Who am I if I’m not a runner? My identity as a runner goes as far back as third grade when I beat all the boys in the class at the 100 meter dash. I found something that I was good at, and then wore my blue, polyester Adidas tracksuit every day through third and fourth grade. In high school and college, I set records in the mile and half mile. Then, after I graduated, I kept running marathons and ultramarathons, because running is where I counted exhales instead of minutes on a clock in a conference room. Out running, I felt a sense of progress and of possibility.

Just weeks before the surgeries, I ran an ultramarathon in the rocky mountains and won the Masters division. I felt invincible, capable of anything. After the fusion, I was not handling the loss of running well.

Until recently, when I decided to try on a new perspective: What are the elements of running that I love?

Top of the list is being outside, on a trail. Can I still do that? Yes! Now I go on slow, daily rambles. I shift my gaze from the roots and rocks to the tops of the trees and I am learning to identify birds. I love the way it looks when hummingbirds shake off raindrops from their wings; I’d never noticed that before.

Next is the “body high” after a workout, that elation from moving fast and hard. I don’t quite get that feeling doing leg raises at the physical therapist’s office. But I recently “graduated” from PT, so I am exploring new ways to move my body. I’ve been dancing. Not very well, but still. As long as I don’t try any Baryshnikov leaps, I’m safe. I’m also swimming. But because I can’t turn my head to the side, I swim with a snorkel. The little kids think I’m cool. The adults don’t ask questions.

But it’s not the same. It’s lonely. One of my favorite things about running is the other runners. I have always loved my morning conversations with friends and training partners. We talked about everything, from favorite places to how to survive graduate school or divorce. I always came home feeling better, like I wasn’t alone in this uncertain world. I realized it wasn’t helping to isolate myself just so I wouldn’t have to hear about their training adventures. So I’m fighting the loneliness by volunteering more.

At first I thought it would depress me to be on the side of the race course instead of in the middle of it, but it doesn’t. It brings me back in touch with a tribe I love, the conversations that move me, and a passion that is still mine. You’ll see me out there, early morning, waving you into a parking space, or handing out water at an aid station.

Finally, I had to face the truth that I thought my ability to run more than thirty miles, no sweat, was evidence that I had a superpower. It’s what made me different. I wondered, Without my ability to run, How am I extraordinary? But I had the question backwards. Why not ask, How is the world extraordinary?

Now, I slow down. I notice those wings of a hummingbird after a rain, the smell of butterscotch in a ponderosa pine, and I go for walks with my neighbor who is also feeling lonely. Life is not about the world celebrating me. It’s about me celebrating the world.

I lost something important to me, but I found unexpected joys. Now I wave to the runners on my street and mean them well. I think, I’m with you on this workout. I know it’s tough for the first mile, but hang in there. It gets easier.

***

by Susie Rinehart

Super Simple Tips for Positive Change

We’ve spent hours making piles of clothes, books, and things in the house. The piles represent the stuff we want to toss, give away, or keep. Spring is the season of decluttering. While I don’t love the mess, I love the feeling when it’s done; I feel more relaxed, clear, and joyful when there is less stuff to cloud my view. A friend of mine is also doing a detox to clean out winter’s heavy wine and cheeses from her body. I am inspired to do a detox of another type: cleaning out self-criticism and negativity.

The most important detox I do regularly is to rid myself of negative thinking. I’ve written about the benefits of self-compassion before. This time I want to give you my map to freedom from thoughts that make me anxious and lonely. These are the kind of thoughts that say, “I’m not enough” or “I’m letting everyone down” or “I’m trapped in this life” or “the world is not safe and people are cruel.”

5 tips for a negative-thinking detox to bring about positive change:

Stop planting negative seeds. Don’t turn on the news until after 12 noon. Headlines feed fear in our minds and make us feel frantic, not free. When I drive, to avoid the tendency to turn on the radio, I turn on a playlist of songs before I get in the car. Lately, I’m loving Nina Simone’s 1965 classic, “Feeling Good.” Her soulful voice and lyrics get me going in a good direction. She belts out, “It’s a new dawn, it’s a new day, it’s a new life for me…and I’m feeling good.”
Start planting positive seeds. Commit to two things that bring you home to yourself and do those first. For me, that’s meditating and being outside. I dedicate my first 11 minutes out of bed to sitting quietly on a cushion on the floor next to my bed, listening to the birds out the window, saying a few mantras I like, plus a few gratitudes, and breathing deeply. Then I step outside and walk around the block, looking for signs of spring. I get up earlier to do these things because then I feel grounded for the rest of the day. I make decisions from a place that feels less like a bouncy castle and more like home. As Trista Gipple says, “The universe is on your side. It has all these gifts it wants to share with you, but you have to be home to receive them.”
Use a gentle voice when talking to yourself. In the evening, try asking yourself, “Where did I make progress today?” instead of “What did I get done today?” And when you hear the dictator in your mind start telling you, “You’re worthless. Why can’t you get more done in a day?” Don’t reject the thought, just refocus. Drop into your senses and feel your fingertips. Or give yourself a pep talk. Try saying, “You are smart, capable, resourceful. Many people have your back. You are not alone. In fact, who can you call to ask for help tomorrow?”
Make a list of the things you dread, and then organize the list into piles: toss, give away, keep. Martha Beck, Oprah’s coach, calls this practice, “Bag it, Barter it, Better it.” If something has been on your to-do list for weeks, get rid of it. You can toss it (bag it), or explore how to give it away by getting someone else’s help (barter it), or keep it, and remember how you got through something difficult and similar before and use those techniques to cross it off your list finally (better it).
Set boundaries defined by joy. This spring, choose joy over fear when it comes to social obligations. Ask before accepting each invitation, “Will I be happy with my decision?” Don’t mess around with social things that don’t make you healthy and happy.

When you’ve tried all these and you feel like giving up, help someone else. Lend a hand and you will get a second wind and a rush of positive feelings. Don’t turn this into another big item on your to-do list, just think of one small way you can help someone feel a little less alone and do it. Nothing clears negative thinking away faster than a little positive company.

Here’s to a healthy, happy you.

Love,

Susie

Take your detox to the next level

In the Brave Over Perfect coaching group, we are doing a stress detox together. Our next live call is Wednesday, May 9 (you can listen to the recording anytime). Throughout the month, Christine Carter will be teaching research-based techniques for dialing back the stress of our modern lives.

Join now for instant access to the Spring Stress Detox study guide and three live coaching calls. All three calls plus tons of resources are just $20. Learn more or enroll now.

photo credit: U.S Dept. of Agriculture