BBR #145: Finding Joy Amidst Information Overload

I have an hour and a half commute to work both ways and I would listen the whole way there and back . I'd listen anytime . I was driving in my car , when I was walking or running , cleaning , cooking , you name it . I was listening to podcasts and books and trying to learn all the things .

And after consuming so much for so long , I don't listen to books or podcasts or read as much as I once was and there was a time when I would have thought that that was some kind of like failure , that I wasn't learning enough , but really we can only consume so much without giving ourselves time to process and make some room .

So as I say this , I'm realizing that this year has been a lot of that for me A lot of making space and integrating the things that I have been learning over the past four years or so , and I've really just needed some space to be without working to learn , although I still am .

I've actually been reading again , which is bringing me joy again , instead of feeling like a chore and something I needed to consume to be more productive .

I've been feeling very much in a space of limbo , like an in-between whatever it was , whatever is to come , shedding some things , a lot of emotional upheaval , and it's been difficult to let go of the pressure to constantly be working towards a better me , better habits , working to heal , working to build a business , working at my job , working out , working on my

health , working on my relationships with myself and others , and I am fucking tired . This podcast is the one thing , one of the things I've been consistent with . I haven't been doing much in a way of content creation for Instagram or for my email people .

I guess my head immediately goes to growing my business and I've also , you know , I stay consistent with my movement . That's one of my non-negotiables movement and exercise and that's about all I've had the energy for this year .

I started therapy with a trauma therapist , which is different than other types of therapy , and I actually have a guest episode coming up with a trauma therapist and we talk about the difference there . I'm super excited to share that with you all . So stay tuned for that .

So I started some trauma therapy last fall and , along with going into the second year of working full-time along with my business , along with post-pandemic and the long commutes that come along with that , my energy has just been gone .

So I have been really trying to lean into figuring out what brings me joy and sometimes that feels exhausting and doing what I can to add , add in little bits of that sprinkle that in . I've always really hated the question what do you do for fun or like , what are your hobbies ? Because I never knew how to answer that .

I have been both working and going to school since I was 16 , sometimes with two jobs , sometimes full-time school , sometimes part-time , but there wasn't much time for learning what brought me joy .

When I did have time to spend outside of work and school , I would just drink and smoke a lot mostly because I was so incredibly uncomfortable just being me , especially around other people in social settings , so I would just drink and smoke my way into less discomfort and about four years ago it was shortly after my brother died I quit drinking and smoking and I

started filling that time with learning everything I could find on the stress response , the mind-body connection , the breath and how it all ties together . And I never took the time and space to just be to sit in this silence for more than like 30 minutes of meditation , which I have now been doing because it feels exhausting right now .

And I recently said to my therapist that it's hard relearning how to feel safe and how to seek joy , and he reminded me that you can't relearn something that you never learned before . You're just learning it for the first time .

And when we come from homes with violence and abuse and neglect , when our nervous system first learns to defend and protect and be constantly scanning the environment for danger , that is what you know how to do .

That is the baseline , and you have to then be intentional about learning how to introduce other things like safety and joy , which can be complex when that's not the pattern we first learned and if you practice ignoring what it is that you feel and what excites you , makes you feel safe and joyful , because of the fear of losing those things , the fear of maybe

losing control or the fear of introducing something that just feels new and feels different than what you're used to . It doesn't come easily . So while introducing joy sounds great , it can be really . It can be exhausting , it can be , it can be really complex in the process , and this isn't where I intended this episode to go . But here we are .

I started by saying I listened to a podcast and so now we're circling back around to that . I was listening to my friend Shontae's podcast and she was talking with Megan Coppell-Duffy , who is the co-founder of the Neuro Studio and a brilliant , hilarious person , and she said something that kind of punched me right in the gut .

She said I am one of few people who actually does the things I teach about every day , so I know it works and I have not been doing my nervous system hygiene and I can absolutely feel that .

And I know it works because science and also I was dedicated to practicing my nervous system hygiene for a couple of years and all of its different forms , and I can absolutely feel that it is missing and so I get it .

Doing the extra thing in the day can seem exhausting , and using the coping tools that we have , like scrolling and binging and binging TV and drinking and smoking and shopping , whatever else it is they work to distract us and sometimes that is useful , but long-term it is not helpful .

The tools don't work unless we use them , and I , for one , need the constant reminder . So , as a reminder to myself and you , in case it's useful , now is always the perfect time to revisit habits that bring you pause and clarity and gratitude for life .

There is an old guy , one of my neighbors , an old guy with a tiny dog that lives near me , and we were talking one day and I said something about it being a good day and he said , yeah , every day I wake up is a good day , and it kind of shook me back into the realization that this life is finite and we don't know when it will end .

And the life is short . Cliche exists because it's true , it goes by in the blink of an eye , so quickly . If you have kids , you can see that , maybe more than others . When I look at my nieces and nephews , I am blown away with how fast they have grown up , where that time has slipped away to and the incredible little people that they are .

And yes there is a lot of stress , there's a lot of tragedy all around us , there is a lot of injustice , there's a lot of watching as the world seems to be spiraling downward . And we are still alive . And I don't know about you , but I want to live in this life .

And so , again , today , right now , is the perfect time to revisit the habits that bring you pause , that bring you some space to be , that might bring a little clarity and gratitude for life . And again , our brain is constantly scanning the environment that we are in for threat because it wants to keep us alive .

Our human organism , the whole purpose is to be alive . That is the number one concern . And so with that comes a kind of automatic negative bias . Our brain pays attention to the negative things , to the threats , to the dangers , potential threats and potential dangers

. Even if it's just shit , we're making up in our head that we're worried about that , we're thinking about that might go wrong , and so we have to be intentional . And it takes work , and sometimes it feels like work , and that's why it's so hard and that's why we put it off and that's why we don't do it .

But we have to be intentional about adding in the gratitude , adding in the pieces of life that bring us joy , adding in the spaces for pause , adding in the spaces to just exist . So start over every day , if needed . This is my goal for the near future and stay tuned for updates on that in the future . Until then , we will do this again next week .

I'm wishing you a beautiful week , peace .