Hello, beautiful humans and welcome to the mental Wellness. Wake up, show a weekly podcast where growth minded creative people, come to learn, best practices from both spirituality and psychology that create lasting well-being. I am your host mental Wellness, expert improvised acting teacher therapist and Coach, Don McMillan. Let's get to it. It. Hello friends. So what I want to talk about today is the lazy crazy unmotivated as in why are you so
lazy crazy and unmotivated? But before we get into the answer to that question, spoiler alert, you are not. I want to apologize for the weird editing in the last episode. I had a major coughing fit in the middle of recording a cut that out. It sounded fine to me, but when I downloaded it to listen to it off of the service that I use, it was a little bizarre but based on the feedback that I have been getting from all of you, the important parts were kept in.
So I just want to thank you for those of you who have reached out to me to tell me just how meaningful that anxiety episode was for you, and if you haven't listened to it yet, go back and listen to it. It really? Ali can make a huge difference in the relationship that you have with your own anxiety. Also before we get into today's episode, I just want to thank you for listening at all.
We are growing by Leaps and Bounds all over the world, it's super exciting and we're creating a community of people who are choosing to get better and so when we choose to get better, we do Do better. And it becomes this ripple effect all around the planet. And I think we can all agree that the planet or whole not the plan at the people on it. Really needs some, some peace and some joy and some up leveling and some Harmony and we're all contributing to that. So yay. Yes whoo.
Whoo. All right. Lazy crazy unmotivated. Have you ever accused yourself of being one of those things? I raise my hand. I know I have we have a feeling in this culture that we should be awake and I'm a American but I think there are other cultures who are as bad as us that we should be awake 16 to 20 hours a
day. And during those 16 to 20 hours, we should be completely productive grinding going after it making, it happen, doing the thing, picking names, kicking names, kicking, butt and taking names. And if we are not Not, if we are not going for it, going after it building, the Empire becoming a mogul, all the things that there's something wrong with us. And then we wonder, I just can't get motivated. Why am I so lazy? I just can't get motivated. Why am I so crazy?
I get distracted all the time and I can't just knuckle down. We think we are lazy crazy or unmotivated and that if we just Ourselves up enough or read enough affirmations that then we'll get up, we'll get focused and we'll do the things that we think we should do. The problem is lazy, crazy and unmotivated are not what's going on. And so beating ourselves up or trying to knuckle down or use force on ourselves is not going to solve the problem.
So here comes Bertram. So what actually is going on? On for, let's talk about trauma. Yes. Trauma again, some more still. So lots of us like to think that either. We don't have trauma. Some people are like, my parents were good. My childhood was fine. I don't have any trauma because they can't name anything, particularly horrific, that happened to them. So, let's talk about trauma first, because, what we think trauma is is Mama, but we're understanding it incorrectly. So Stephen gosh.
What's his name? Steven Levine and best over Bessel. Van Der kolk who are pioneers and the realm of noticing how the body stores. The trauma, kind of break it down to trauma. That is anything that is too much too fast or too soon. What does that mean too? Much means any Stimulation. That overwhelms, your coping skills that does not have to be something bad. It doesn't have to be a fire.
It doesn't have to be a war. Anything that overwhelms, your ability to cope in. That moment is too much and that's a trauma, someone that, I know actually had a traumatic fifth birthday. Why? Because it was a surprise party and having all of those people jump out and scream at this person. Was overwhelming. And so what was meant to be a joyous occasion was actually a trauma. So if you're looking for traumas and you think, oh, a surprise
party is a trauma. Not for everyone, but it was for this person because it was too much too fast. If someone accelerates your sexual activity, in a way that you're not ready for that can be traumatic if you have. Have too many changes at once that can be traumatic, you move change jobs, have a baby, get married, have knee surgery, and all of those things too fast. Maybe you're coping, sit skills would be able to deal with them if they came one at a time.
But when they come all in a row, that becomes a trauma or Too Soon, a lot of trauma around abuse sexual and otherwise is that people are treating. Children like adults. If if you were going to get away from sexual trauma right now, but if you are eight years old and you have to take care of your 64 and two-year-old siblings, because your parents are out of commission due to addiction that is too soon.
Being a parent at eight is too soon so too much too fast or Too Soon is going to get coated in your body as well as trauma. And so motivation is a conscious process. Trauma responses are an unconscious process. So what happens is we will be in a trauma response and will think we're lazy or crazy because it's contrary to our conscious intention Lisa. Feldman, Barrett does a lot of wonderful research. She has a book called seven and a half truths about the brain and she has another one.
How emotions are made? If you read these two books, it will upend what you think is true. They stood for me, our popular conception of how the brain works. How emotions work, how we work is just wrong, it's wrong. So trauma response can be explained by this your body, your mind, your body, might your mind, body is not in the business of making you happy, it's in the business of keeping you alive.
And one of the primary functions of your brain is to predict your energy needs and prepare accordingly, predict your energy needs and prepare accordingly. So what this looks like out on the Savannah is Is that if your your brain body senses that you may be in a situation where game and food is scarce, your body will switch into conservation, it will slow everything down, it will shut you down to conserve energy because it does not know when you're going to get your next meal.
That shutdown. Looks a lot like being lazy. It looks a lot like depression. It looks a lot like the Being unmotivated. If your body brain senses that you are currently in a situation of danger, it will keep you moving in order to keep you safe. So if your brain body senses a, we're not safe or not safe, keep it moving, keep it moving, keep it moving. If you got to stay in action, otherwise, the Tigers going to get you. That's going to look like, I
can't focus. That's gonna look like ADD ADHD. That's going to look like I sit down to do my homework and my brain is racing. So the trauma response is really are. Your brain. Body is trying to allocate your energy for current or future threats. So if your brain senses that you're under threat, now, it's going to keep you moving distracted and running around out. If your brain senses that a threat to maeby coming, it's going to shut you down in anticipation of saving that
energy for the future. So how does this help us understand? Innovation. So you think, okay, consciously, I did my New Year's resolutions, I'm going to do, I'm going to do all of these wonderful things to uplevel my life and make my life better. Yeah. And then what you find yourself doing instead is watching cute little animal videos on Instagram for two or three hours. Well, what's that for? Some reason, your body brain
senses. The idea that you're going to be in danger in the near future and you better Just keep it down now so that when you need to run or fight you have plenty of resources, your body brain, doesn't want you to squander your resources on going to the gym.
If you're going to have to fight later or your body bring feels unsafe right now, it feels unsafe and so it keeps you agitated so that you can fight or flee sidebar, we always say fight flight or freeze, that's really not the order that you're Nobody chooses your body's first response is to flee fight and
freeze will only come into play. If you can't get away just a sidebar because we always judge ourselves for our, our flea and freeze responses, and we think we should always fight but your body prefers fleeing because what's safer, fighting a saber-toothed tiger or not having the saber-toothed tiger around you, but I digress. So what we're judging ourselves for as Lazy or crazy is a trauma response.
And the myth is that we need to understand or know what the trauma is in order to solve it. That is a lie. What we need to do is become exquisitely, interested in understanding our own trauma response, so we know how to counteract it. So if you are completely unmotivated, you're feeling lazy, your body is shut down. Your body is saving and storing energy for future threat. And so, once you to conserve energy, now we talked last week about panic and anxiety episodes.
So a lot of times, the anxiety and depression will be like this pendulum swinging, and so when you're not currently having an anxiety episode, your body will shut down into a depression trauma. Vaughn's in anticipation of the anxiety episode, to make sure you have enough energy. Does that make sense? If you have ever or you have ever restricted food, consciously hear me diet if your ancestors had food scarcity, there is very likely in your body, a tendency towards shut down either.
By restricting your food have either. Earlier involuntarily or being descended from people who lived through famines or who had food scarcity for any reason, may predispose you to that shutdown, you have encoded in your nervous system. The idea that food is scarce. It's better just to keep the energy as low as possible for as long as possible so that you will survive. Remember your brain is not in the business of keeping you happy or motivated, or rich or are popular.
It's in the business. Of keeping you alive contrarily. If you have had Invasion, traumas, where things have happened to you, think about those things, the example that I gave you of the five-year-old birthday party, that felt so scary and overwhelming to that person. That's a kind of an invasion trauma. And so that's going to predisposed towards agitation being scattered being jumpy, you know, and you can fill in your own examples of other kinds of Invasion.
Traumas, that would keep you predisposed towards, I'm not safe. I'm not safe. I'm not safe. I'm not safe. So we got to learn what our body signals are. So if you notice that, you can't focus, think to yourself, something about what's happening right now is making me feel like I am not safe. I'm not crazy.
I'm having a trauma response. If you notice that you're feeling are quotes, unmotivated, lazy, you're not, you're having a trauma response and you tell yourself this trauma response today thinks I need to conserve energy for a future threat. And now let's think about some of what we can do to counteract that. So I'm going to borrow again from Britt Frank. Her book is so good. So here is some some suggestions.
Okay? Let's say you are stuck in the agitated State. First thing to do is to notice, I can't focus on feeling agitated. I'm all over the place. I'm having a trauma response. This is a physiological process, I am not crazy. And then you want to get into your senses. You want to do, find a way to blanket and essential oil, is soft music. A warm tea. You want to count backwards from some weird number.
Like 37, you want to get your body to get out of that complete agitation and into a safer feeling. And to say four senses, you want to do that, classic grounding skill Five things, you can see four things. You can hear three things, you can touch two things. You can smell one thing, you can taste. You might want to get the trauma response out of your body. Do jumping jacks, push as hard on a wall as you possibly can to activate those muscles and then release it.
Look for some place in your body that isn't activated and focus on that. Put your, put your hand on your pets, heart and count, their heart beats for a few minutes. You want to get very very into the body in a way that tells your body. We're safe right now, one of my favorite exercises for bringing out of that agitated on On nervous system on state is to use your peripheral vision, if you wear glasses, it's really handy. While you're staring. Straight Ahead.
Use your peripheral vision to focus on the arms of your glasses at because we are predators eyes in front love to hunt eyes on this. I'd love to hide because we are predators. When we fit sense, danger, we get what's called tunnel vision, we are extremely focused. When we are calm and relaxed, we have a wider field of vision. So mechanically using a wider field of vision.
Like looking at the corners of your glasses are doing that exercise, where you put your fingers together in front of you, keep your eyes focused in the front of you and then slowly bring your fingers out to the side. Seeing how far out you can get them and still see them while holding your eyes still. So, one of my favorite things to do is to get into peripheral vision. Okay. What about the other thing? You're stuck in the dorsal vagal state.
Depression, the first thing to do is remind yourself. You are not lazy or unmotivated, you tell yourself I am having a trauma response. This is a body thing. I am not crazy and then you want to shake yourself out of it. Ice-cold really good for it. You want to rub an ice cube on your forehead. Drop an ice cube down the back of your shirt, put An ice pack on your neck. Take a cold shower, Splash, cold water, on your face, cold is a
great state change. So, cold is one of my favorite go twos and be sure not to get caught in the. Why it is a, it is a lie in an illusion that you need to know why. Something is happening in order to solve it. That's true in engineering. It is not true. In the human heart. You do not need to know why. You're Having a trauma response in order to do something about it.
You just need to know that you are having a trauma response in order to do something about it. Make sure you watch yourself talk. Watch yourself talk. Don't don't say, oh, I'm drowning. I'm so overwhelmed. I'll never make it. I'm, I'm buried alive. Watch yourself talk and get super specific. So if you were feeling hashtag, hashtag the air quotes unmotivated feelingly See depressed, forget the emotion words and use fats. What's on your list of things that you are supposed to be
doing? Write them down specifically. You might want to, you can shock your senses with something. Sour like a bite of lemon. You're noticing a trend here, right? We want to shock the body. Wake it up a little bit. So, cold water squirting. A lemon under your tongue. Move your Your Body Move Your Body mechanically and it'll give your body a hint to keep moving
dance party. Dance party works for both, put on some music, put on, put on some music and dance it out like a five minute dance break will help get your stress response out of your body and if you are in an agitated State, it'll help calm it down. And if you are an unmotivated State, just And around for a little while will help. So what have we learned today? Your brain is in the business of keeping you alive and I keeping you happy or rich or popular
Your brains work. One of its primary jobs is to predict your energy needs and budget accordingly. There is a viral blog or post or something that went around recently about spoons and the idea being that every day, you get a certain amount of spoons and certain activities, take up a certain amount of spoons. And then when you're done for the day, you're done for the day.
That is your brain, budgeting your energy based on its predictions One of the things that therapy can help you do is to make your predictions more accurate.
If you are actually safe, and your brain is judging you as being unsafe, it is in accurately, predicting, your energy needs it. Thinks you need to run and fight right now when actually, you are completely fine and sitting at a desk in an office or it thinks that you better conserve all of your energy because you never know when something terrible is going to happen, or you have to conserve Your energy because you never know if this is the time where the food stops coming.
Right? So part of what we do in therapy is as you resolve. These traumas, it helps your brain make better predictions when your brain makes better predictions. Then it's going to do a better job at allocating your spoons, your daily energy budget, and you'll be better able to achieve your goals. You are not lazy or crazy or unmotivated for whatever reason.
You're having a trauma response and you do not need to know what that reason is. You need to acknowledge notice it and do the thing that will shake you out of it. Okay, so there's a lot in this episode, there's a lot. So we just want to break it down. Notice you're having a trauma response and then make a choice. Make a choice. Make a choice, every action, you take is a vote in favor of the kind of person that you want to be. Calling yourself. Lazy is not making a vote for yourself.
Call, you lazy is call yourself lazy. It's just going to make it worse. Calling yourself crazy is just going to make it worse. When you notice, you're not doing the things that you want to do a little self compassion. And then make a choice, get up and dance, get up and dance, get up and get grounded, get up and
get cold, whatever it takes. And then notice just notice how that pattern interrupt feeds you and the more you make choices in favor of yourself, the better, your brain is going to Edit allocating that budget right? It becomes this virtuous cycle. So I hope this has been helpful. You are not lazy or crazy or unmotivated and you don't have to spend the next 15 years. In therapy resolving all of your traumas before you can start to get moving. Please do, go to therapy, please
do go to therapy. And when you notice that trauma response in your body, make a choice to do. One of the things that I suggested or something of your own creation to break that state and get you. In alignment with what it is that you decided you wanted.
And you know why it's important for you to be in alignment with what you have, decided that you wanted, because you're awesome, because you're amazing because you are whole, perfect, and complete, and you are worthy and deserving of a Life. So Glorious. That transcends. Even your own imagination. Thank you for being here. And I mean, that on the planet thank you for being on the planet. I am so glad to be going through this very interesting time on planet.
Earth with you. I'm glad to have you as a companion on this journey and thank you for being here at the podcast. I enjoy spending this time with you so much until next time.