Managing the Overwhelm

a person that I have spoken to. There isn't a family member that I've spoken to, a friend, or a clerk at a store, or an Uber driver that I have spoken to who hasn't shared, even for a moment, their bit of overwhelm. I've gotten out of ubers over the last year or so, and when I get out, the drivers all exclaim be safe, be well, you know,

stay healthy, stay safe. These are like salutations greetings that we didn't have, right, Like when you think about when people sneeze and they would say gazintite or God bless you.

That dated back to you know, the height of the plague that when people sneeze they were like close to death, right, so you were saying, you know, God bless you and keep you It's interesting to me as the times become more and more extraordinary, and I mean extraordinary in their wildness, like ten years ago, five years ago, we could never predicted where we are now or what we have all

collectively experienced. And by the way, you know, what I find so unsettling, I think sometimes is the fact that the media would love us to believe and pretend that COVID never existed, That over a million people didn't die, that every holiday season that you're sitting down and there are empty spaces at your tables that were just all supposed to be okay with that never to have really talked about it beyond the one collective day of mourning

that the Biden administration ushered in before the inauguration, that that was the only honoring we've done. And it's still wild to me because what we know, right is that hurt people hurt people right, That wounds that go unhealed, untreated, bump up against other wounds until everyone around you is hurting.

So one of the things that I had the just tremendous ability to participate in over the year the last couple of months of the year was a commitment to care class that I was taking and I won't even

call it a class. It was more like a gathering with other black women led by a somatic healing coach to teach us how to get in touch with our bodies, our feelings, and the way that we hold emotions in our bodies, and that when we are in certain conversations, certain places that we just move with just our brain but don't really think about, why did my shoulder rise, Why do I have this not in my stomach? Why am I feeling sore? Why am I waking up exhausted.

Our bodies provide us with signals right to alert us to the fact that something is not right, something is blocked, something is not sitting well. And through this healing gathering that I was doing at the end of the year, I learned so much about how I hold energy, how I hold negativity, how as I've been able to not just recognize and move through because this isn't just about let's say, getting a massage, which is lovely and great,

but that's not it. It's really about becoming in tune, closing your eyes, deep breathing, sitting with yourself inside of your body. And you know, I realized as I was in these gathering settings that that is a luxury, and it shouldn't be. It shouldn't be a luxury to be able to wake up and sit with yourself, to be quiet, to stretch, to breathe, to come into your day, to really unpack and learn your body, your emotions. As my mother says, the issues that we hold in our tissues,

the tissues in our body. Because, as I've said to you, and if you've been listening to this show for quite some time, dis ease in our bodies create disease. So when I talk about really trying to work to live and be and exist in flow, it isn't just about letting things roll off your back. It's recognizing that life is yang and yang. Life is always going to hold

both grief and joy. But learning how how our bodies signal to us gives us the greater skill set and awareness to navigate what will inevitably become rough seas right. But if you are a skilled person who is not caought off guard but starts to see like, oh yeah, I can see how this can turn. So what do I need to do? How do I need to breathe? How do I need to approach this situation. Is there is this real? Is this a story that I'm telling myself?

What is in my control and not within my control? Right? I look at it in turns terms of dealing with all of the layered crises and complexities that we've all individually and collectively been navigating for years now. I can't remember the last time, to be honest, right, that I felt truly, truly, truly truly about society, truly stable, truly like things are going to be okay. We'ven't felt this

in a while. We've been on edge, which is why I'm talking today about the ways that I have found to help myself, and I hope that all of you are looking and finding the ways that will help you. But doing this work of researching, analyzing current events and affairs, making it digestible to all of my listeners and readers takes a toll, because I'm a person who, for way too long was unable to detach myself from the grief that was in the headlines and the life I am leading.

So I was carrying all of this weight and sadness of the world with me everywhere like a giant anchor, and recognizing that if I did not learn how to compartmentalize, how to be an observer but not an absorber, and let me say that again, to be an observer but not an absorber, then I was not going to be able to continue doing this work. So for me, through the pandemic, I developed and began to hone skills that allowed me to center my peace and joy even in

the midst of grave hardship. Physical movement going on walks for me is meditative. It's really hard in the winter, and I have to figure out other ways to release right because for me, I need a physical release right of movement that is both meditative, can take me out of my body but also drop me into my body in a real way. Cycle does that for me too, because I can zone out, just listen to the music

and ride right. And like if I were a biker on a road, which I would never do in the city because I'm terrified of being hit by a car, but if I were to ride you can see how the road right for bikers avid bikers becomes incredibly meditative and you're just like in it. So for me, I need to be in physical movement that allows me to kind of drop out right of what's around me and

really in side of my body. So that's one. Two is that I really shrunk my circle of friends in a serious way because I realized that we fill our lives. I was filling my life with a lot of extra fluff and stuff that didn't need to be and again through COVID, that all naturally got stripped away because you weren't able to, you know, take that dinner date, that coffee date, do you know this meetup, that meet up, that happy hour, And so those kind of extra layered

people fell away. I no longer work in an office or in a studio. I work from home, and so again those kind of extra ness fell away. And for me that ended up being a really good thing because then who was left I knew were like my people. So who are your people? Not the people that just tell you that everything is gonna be okay when you know,

for fock's sakes, it's not and we don't know. But that you can be real with, you can be raw with that can hold space for you, and you in turn can hold space for them right that you leave their presence feeling lighter, feeling better. Right. And that is again about connecting with your body, How do I feel? I told myself that once we were able to reconnect with people, I was no longer going to just say

yes to things right like that. I was going to take a beat and see how the invitation felt to me. Does it feel heavy? Does it feel light? Do I find myself wanting to come up with an excuse as to why I can't do it, which means that I don't really want to do it, so then why am

I doing it? Right? Funny enough, I was watching one of these like old you know, not really old, I guess, but like in comparison Christmas Movies for Christmases with Reese Witherspoon and I think Vince Vaughan, and I started watching it because I like to watch it like mindless Christmas movies, as many people do, hence why they're marathoning throughout the

holiday season. But you know, they were talking to people in the beginning of the movie about like why they hadn't spent the holidays with their families in three years because both of them and mind you, a lot of these Christmas films, like if you look at them with a proper lens, you're like, wow, this is really fucked up. This is really toxic, So let's just suspend you know

that for a moment. But what they did bring up is all the ways that people turn themselves into pretzels right in order to make other people happy, particularly during the holiday season. So they were talking to like, you know, colleagues at a Christmas party, and both of the colleagues were dreading, you know, they're seventeen pickups that they had

to do at the airport. They're like sleeping on uncomfortable sofas and listening to somebody's terrible jokes and like engaging with family that they would rather not be with and they would rather just take a you know, a vacation. And then, you know, as Reese Witherspoon and her boyfriend are sharing, they're like, don't you feel guilty? Like you're just going off and doing your own thing, lying to

your families. Don't you feel guilty? And they're just like, do I feel guilty about taking a vacation during the only vacation that I have for the year. No? And so I want us to, you know, think about Sure, there are always things that we have to do, but there are actually more things, I believe, you know, outside

of work. In taxes, that we have a choice and can make a choice about how how we want to break bad traditions, toxic traditions, engagements and conversations and experiences that leave us wanting or feeling bad and remake them. Just because something has always been doesn't mean that it's right, and we each have the ability and the opportunity to renew, re engage, figure out what actually works, because sometimes doing

the same old, same old doesn't. And of course we know that doing the same old, same old, but expecting a different result is in fact one of the definitions of insanity. We know, right, folks, that life is really precious and also really short, and so the questions that we have to be asking ourselves is how do we want to be living? How do we want to feel?

And lead with that. You know, one of the books that I've mentioned before on this show, and if you've had the ability to listen to one of my other shows, The New Abnormal, I had the ability to interview one of the sisters, the co authors of Burnout, The Secret

to Unlocking the Stress Cycle. Emily Nagowski and Emilia Nagowski wrote this book, and I had the ability to interview Amelia, and you know, everything is about whether you're into Western medicine, Eastern medicine, you know, metaphysics, all of these different things is about what is causing me my stress, how to get to the core of it, how to move through these cycles and stop them. And the holidays for a lot of people bring up a lot, a lot, a

lot of stress. One of the things that she says, that they say in this book that I think is pretty amazing is about looking for your something larger. They write this, some people know exactly what there's something larger is, and others take years to figure it out. Amelia has always known, even when she didn't know, she knew. She has wanted to be a choral conductor since she was twelve, and here she is with three degrees in leading choral

ensembles an impressive resume of conducting gigs. Emily stumbled from school to work to school again until looking to trace the pattern of the door she had walked through. She finally figured it out about twenty years after Amelia. Our experiences discovering the sources of meaning in our lives might suggest there is no predictable way for each individual to find it. For themselves, but the common thread is an inner voice that you can hear if you stop and listen.

Everyone has it. Ask yourself, what am I doing when I feel most powerfully that I'm doing what I meant to be doing. If you're still struggling to recognize your something, larger research has found a few strategies that can help. Try writing your own obituary or less morbid a life summary through the eyes of a grandchild or a student. Osk your closest friends to describe the real you, the characteristics of your personality and your life that are core

to your best self. Imagine that someone you care about is going through a dark moment in their life, which, as I'm saying, we all have been. They've experienced significant loss and feel helpless and isolated. As your best self, write that personal letter to support them through this difficult time, then reread it. It's for you. There are all different ways for us to be able to navigate this thing called life and to center ourselves and our joy and ease is not selfish. It is actually an act of

resistance to the darkness. So I wish for you all, as we gear up to start anew to really think about who we are and how we want to be, because that is how we spread more light, more joy, and renew without the burnout. That is it for me today, dear friends on Woke a f as always Power to the people and to all the people power. Get woke and stay woke as fup.