Self Care with Practical Grounding Techniques

During stressful seasons, taking a moment to care for yourself can help your body respond to the stress and find grounding. What does “grounding” mean? It’s engaging in practices that bring you back to your body and refocuses your thoughts when you may be experiencing the effects of stress, anxiety, or trauma. In this week’s podcast episode, you’ll learn practical grounding techniques that can help you address stress in the moment.

Listen as Rachael speaks with Jeanette White, the Executive Director of the Allender Center, and Rachel Sanchez, the Manager of the Resilient Leaders Project at The Seattle School and learn ways to find that moment of care for yourself. 

About Our Guests

Jeanette White is the Executive Director of The Allender Center and has been a core member of the center’s leadership team since its creation in 2010. Alongside her work with The Allender Center, Jeanette is also a Certified Aroma Freedom Practitioner which pairs neuroscience-based therapeutic techniques with aromatherapy to reveal and release stories, emotions, and subconscious internal beliefs that influence wellbeing. She works with clients around the globe to support inner renewal and targeted healing from trauma through her Reveal & Release practice. Jeanette has called the Seattle area home since 2007 and graduated from The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology with an MA in Christian Studies in 2010. She enjoys spending her off-hours camping and exploring the beauty of the Pacific Northwest, and traveling to new places near and far with her husband and young son.

Rachel Sanchez is the Program Manager at the Center for Transforming Engagement at The Seattle School, which was formed from the Resilient Leaders Project. She is also an amateur ocean life enthusiast and occasional writer/artist. With several years of event and hospitality experience, she is passionate about intentionally cultivating spaces (both virtually and onsite) that lead to growth, healing, and community building for participants.  She feels called to use her gifts of hospitality and program management to support Christian leaders in building practices and relationships to sustain their ministry for the long haul. Rachel and her partner, Joseph, live in Vancouver, WA with their dog, Owen.

 

Listener Resources

• To get the 60 Second Aroma Reset Process that Jeanette White talks about, visit the website for her Reveal & Release practice.
• To download the Self Care Menu PDF referenced by Rachel Sanchez from the Center for Transforming Engagement, click here.
• If you work in ministry or a caring profession and would like to build your resilience, applications are open now for the Certificate in Resilient Service. Learn more here.

 

Episode Transcript

Rachael: Today on the Allender Center podcast, I am joined by two of my colleagues at The Seattle School. Rachel Sanchez, who is the manager of The Resilient Leaders Project, which is a kind of a, an arm and part of The Seattle School that’s really trying to create a space for leaders and, um, people and helping ministries, helping contexts, um, to be able to, to do some work around resilience and how they stay in these contexts that are so costly. And I’m also joined by Jeanette White, who is the new Executive Director of the Allender Center. Woohoo. And I am so thrilled for both of you to be here today. Thank you for joining me. Thank you. Great to be here. Thanks, Racheal. And we’re gonna have a conversation about a topic that I think we are all familiar with and probably quite sick of, to be honest, we’re going to talk about stress and I know stress is such a, you know, word that holds so many things, but if you’ve been listening to the Allender Center podcast for any season, you would know we talk about stress often as part of the, um, I mean it’s a very natural, normal part of being human, but as those of us who have, um, experienced trauma or work in the realm of trauma, we know that stress is also, uh, part of the impact of trauma and the ways in which trauma wires, our bodies to, sometimes have our stress biochemicals, just be kind of really out of control, or we have patterns or ways that we cope with stress triggers. Um, obviously January in and of itself in any kind of normal season, whatever that means tends to be a stressful time of year in the wake of the holidays, getting back in the groove of things. Um, usually the projects that were maybe winding down or kind of that sweet little window of the holidays, where you get to slow down for a little bit, um, everything’s kind of amping back up, but this year we find ourselves in another wave of, uh, different, uh, variant of the, uh, coronavirus that is impacting all of us in some pretty extreme ways. If you are a parent with young children in school, you would know that schools are trying to navigate and figure out what to do. There’s such a high infection rate with Omicron, and it has thrown massive curve balls, um, into all of our lives, as we’re trying to once again navigate and how to keep people safe, how to keep our communities safe. So, um, and those are just a few things I’m mentioning, let alone the, just multiple ways we’re navigating being human based on our bodies and our location and our identities and our relationships and our loved ones. So I will just say for myself, I find this to be a very stressful season. Um, both in those really small ways that sometimes just they can just start to tick at you like the little small stressors and then those big ones that kind of throw you off kilter and out of your grounding. And so I’m very much looking forward to having a conversation with both of you who bring different expertise and different insights in ways that we can manage our stress in some really simple, practical ways. I know we’re not often super practical on the Allender Center podcast. We get into a lot of nuance, a lot of complexities and our hope today is to honor those complexities and nuances, but to really step into some practices that we can borrow in this very stressful season to help bring some grounding and some soothing in real time that doesn’t require us to drastically change our lives or to have endless resources available to us. So again, let me say thank you to Rachel and Jeanette. Um. Why would you say yes to a podcast about stress? I’m just gonna turn it over to you.

Jeanette: I would just say that I kind of laugh that I did, because I stress, I, I would not say I have mastered how to deal with it. It’s it’s with me constantly to some degree. Uh, but Rachel is here because I feel like the work that she’s done has been so helpful to me personally. Uh, so Rachel, I want you to share a bit, uh, but yeah, I’ll, I’ll share a little bit more about my experience of, of some time that I spent with her a few months back, but stress have not mastered it by any means, but, um, I’m here to talk about it. Yeah. I mean, I don’t think I’ve mastered stress either and that’s, uh, highlighted in the fact that I actually find this a little bit stressful. So it’s funny when, when you ask, why did I say yes, I’m like, why did I say yes, um, but I’m really glad to be here. And I think like Jeanette said, I feel that the resources and the work that we do in Resilient Leaders Project, I’ve seen the way that it really positively impacts people’s daily lives and like what could be more exciting than that? Um, so I was excited to have the chance to spread that to a larger audience than, um, you know, just the folks who sign up to participate in our programs. So I appreciate the chance to share just a little bit of what we do with your audience.

Racheal: Yeah. And you know, if you’ve listened, uh, tuned in before you may remember an episode we did with Derek McNeil, the President, uh, and Provost of The Seattle School of Theology and Psychology, and also Kate Davis, the Director of the Resilient Leaders Project, where we talked a little bit more, but Rachel would definitely love for, um, you to share a little bit more about, yeah. What is the Resilient Peaders project? What is your role in some of the work that you’ve been able to do?

Rachel: Sure. Resilient Leaders Project began a few years ago in response to, um, a grant initiative asking Christian institutions to look at the various factors that lead to burnout in ministry and find ways or, you know, design programs that could help Christian leaders stay in ministry for the long haul, not at the expense of their own wellbeing or their families or their community’s wellbeing. So we define Christian ministry very broadly as anyone who lives their lives and service to God, and neighbor, um, and really focus on trying to help those people learn more about themselves, their communities, and build, build tools that they can use for the duration of their lives in ministry, for their own wellbeing, for their family’s wellbeing and for the good of their community.

Racheal: And recently you were able to host something for our community in a larger community, engaging stress, which I think happened in November, maybe close to, is there like a national day about stress awareness? Is that, am I making that up?

Rachel: No, that is true. Um, November 4th, 2021 was National Stress Awareness day for 2021. And one of the things that we like to do at Resilient Leaders Project, we see the staff of our own institution as part of our community that we care for. And so one of the things I’ve enjoyed doing in this role is, uh, providing care for our staff on National Stress Awareness day, which seems like a good excuse to do it. So, yeah, that was a really fun workshop,

Racheal: Which is kind of what led to some of the ideas for this conversation. So Jeanette and I had very different experiences and engagement with this invitation, which actually is so generous and so creative and actually felt very caring and loving that people within our own midst of The Seattle School, cuz you know, the Allender Center is a part of The Seattle School would invite us to pause in the midst of, you know, the busy and good labor that we do to get some care and to think a little bit more. Now, Jeanette, when you saw this invitation, um, you graciously at the time as the Interim Senior Director of the Allender Center sent it to our staff and our team and said, we think you guys should really make space for this and consider us, we know it’s a busy season, this could be some good it for you. Um, and I stubbornly in the midst of a very busy week was like, I don’t have time to go to a workshop on how to care in the midst of stress. Um, and I think I really missed out. So would love to hear, um, kind of some of your experience and then Rachel would love to hear from you some of the tools that you would love to give to us.

Jeanette: Yeah. Oh gosh. Yeah. I mean the original workshop that Rachel hosted, you know, the funny thing is, is I almost didn’t go either. Um, because right before the one hour workshop started, I was telling myself I was too stressed and I couldn’t make time to go, but I’d already like kind of backed myself into this corner. I’d encouraged everyone, our on our administrative team to go, I knew deep down, like it would be good for me. So I figured I would, should, you know, I’d better show up. So I went and there were some things that just really stood out to me that I’ve carried forward over the past few months and I’m so grateful for them. And a little later I’d love to share a bit more about what I’ve been doing since the workshop, because I think it’s always good to have some tangible ideas that others have found helpful. They may or may not fit for everybody. Um, I also have this kind of little 60-second stress relief technique I’d love to share with everyone as well. But, um, but for the moment, I’ll just say that the global takeaway that I had, um, after spending that hour with Rachel is that I realized two things. One, that I’ve always thought about stress relief or self-care as something that requires more of me in some way. And my internal excuse is that I don’t have anymore to give with my fullness and my daily life. So, um, I just loved how one of your first invitations Rachel to us in the workshop was to think about the simple things that we’re already doing that we already do or know of that make us feel like rested, peaceful, grounded, and that to combat stress, we didn’t necessarily have to think about adding something new, uh, to our already full daily lives. And then the second thing that happened for me is that Rachel really gently disrupted my hangup of always allowing myself to get stuck on the issue of time. It’s just so easy for me to say, I don’t have the time for this and skip it in so many realms in life. Um, but Rachel, when you asked us to start kind of thinking about what we’d listed out and like how long do these things, you know, take for you to do, and you said this really simple phrase, you said something is still worth, even if you only have five minutes and for whatever reason, this was this aha moment for me, because I had to admit, I do, I do have five minutes to spare. You know, I can do something that brings an experience of rest to my body and mind, even if I only have those few minutes. And, and it really helped me to get out of the mental space that I, you know, somehow needed to carve out a whole hour or have all things quiet and peaceful or be done with my workday before I could do something that would support de-stressing. And, um, as I said, I’ll share a bit more about things I came up with for myself. Um, but I just wanted to express my gratitude to you, Rachel, for creating this material. It’s just for, it’s been revolutionary for me. Maybe it feels so simple for you. Um, but it’s just so practical and applicable to our daily lives. So, um, I’m really glad I showed up and over rode myself and backed myself into that corner where I felt like I had to go .

Racheal: So before we jump into kind of how you came to create what you did, um, and some of the processes behind it, some of the data behind it, tell us what it is you offered our staff. Yeah. Thank you. Um, so I created what I like to call a self-care menu worksheet. It’s a long title. Um, it is a three page document that will walk you through creating for yourself, a self-care menu. And what that is is it’s really just a paper that you can get. You can hang it in your bathroom, in your office and you can look at it in a single glance and see what are the things that I can do for myself that I know provide care, grounding, peacefulness, whatever it might be.

Rachel: Um, stress relief in that it serves as just an easy go-to when you find yourself needing a moment of care. So I’ll give kind of a big picture overview and I encourage you to look at the worksheet for more information, more detail. So the first step of completing this is to do a brain dump. So get a blank piece of paper and just write down, I encourage you to set a timer for 60 seconds, write down everything you can think of that you already do or enjoy doing or have done in the past that brings you any feeling of calm, groundedness, wellbeing that feels gentle and kind and caring for yourself and your body, brain dump all of those things. The second step the worksheet will take you through is organizing those into categories. And the worksheet has two different layouts that you can use. The first is to organize your self care activities by the energy or the capacity that you have. And it also breaks down into areas of wellness. So spiritual wellness, physical wellness, emotional, social, et cetera. There’s also some blanks you can fill in your own if you like. And then to group those things based on these are things I can do if I have a ton of energy and I really am like a full at a full cup this day, these are my ideal day. These are the things I would do to care for myself. The middle column is I’ve got a little bit of energy, but not a ton. I can do a midrange, um, type of activity. The last column is I’ve got, I barely got out of bed today, brushing my teeth felt like an accomplishment there. What are the things that you can still do on the days that you’re feeling like that or whatever that lower end of the spectrum feels like for you? The second layout is you can organize your activities by the amount of time that they take. Um, so you can group them into five minutes or less, 10 to 15 minute range, a half hour-ish range, and then maybe an hour or more. Um, and that’s just to really remind us that even the days we feel like we have no time, you probably still have five minutes and Jeanette talked a little bit about that. Um, so once you’ve taken your brain dump list and you’ve grouped them into one of those categories, I would say to start just pick one of those layouts and start with that. You can always come back to the other one later, if you want to. And then at the last step you’re gonna do is you’re gonna look at what you have down. Are there any, um, are there any missing spaces? Are there any holes, you know, maybe you don’t have any activities that you do that take you only 30 minutes or maybe you don’t have any activities that you do, um, a low energy day to care for your body. So look at what those holes are and then get creative. Maybe it means talking with someone else to get ideas from their life, or maybe it means, uh, doing some research online to find other ideas, to fill in those gaps so that you have something in every spot on that worksheet so that no matter your energy, your capacity, your mood, or the amount of time that you have, you have at least a few options of something that you can turn to. The last thing I would say practically is not… I would encourage you not to have more than five things in each category, because if you give yourself 20 options, then you add on you add on the extra layer of making yourself make a hard decision, which can sometimes be stressful. Yes, it can be stressful. So if you struggle with decision fatigue or, you know, anything like that, help your future self by limiting the options available so that it may makes it easier to take a quick glance, oh, maybe something, you know, immediately jumps out at you and you can go and do that thing without spending too much time.

Jeanette: It’s like a capsule wardrobe for self-care.

Rachel: Yeah. Yeah. I really think of it as a tapas menu. Um, like, you know, I love tapas restaurants because you can order as much or as little food as you like, depending on how hungry you are. I think about this the same way. Like some days I might only have the time or the capacity for two minutes of self-care. I can still feel good about that. Because that was two minutes I wouldn’t have had otherwise. Other days I might is a really stressful day. I, the time and energy and I really am in need of a workout and a yoga and a bath and a walk. You can pick as many or as few of these activities as you like, and really mix and match them, um, to fit with whatever it is that you’re needing to care for yourself that day.

Racheal: Okay. First of all, this just feels like a really kind simple kind of containment to offer all of us and invite us to yeah. Do some of that. I love how you said work for your future self. Um, how did you come up… Like what inspired you to, to do this, to, to offer this kind of care.

Rachel: Yeah. Um, I’d love to share a little bit about how I came up with the self-care menu, which was the workshop that we did. Um, and there will be a link I believe in the show notes to the worksheet. So it will be available to you. I encourage you to spend a few minutes with it, um, for yourself. This idea really came about, because for me, I started in the last several years, I started noticing I was on this like cycle of believing that consistency of habits was like the key to happiness or the key to wellbeing was if I, uh, can be consistent with my healthy habits, then I’m set and I’m gonna be healthy, whatever that means. And then I think many of us, uh, struggle with an all or nothing approach to life where I have to do it perfectly, or it’s not worth doing at all. And so I would think, okay, I’m going to wake up every day and do yoga at 7:00 AM every single day. And then the one day that I slept in or my alarm clock, didn’t go off. I would count that as a failure and think I’m done, I’ve already failed at this. Why continue? Which leads to shame and self sabotage, and then, you know, you stop doing the healthy thing at all. I do nothing. And then, you know, a few weeks, months, days go by and I decide all over again that I need to be consistent with my healthy habits and like the cycle continues. And after, you know, riding that, that pattern for a while and realizing that it just really wasn’t working, um, this big up and down, I started to question my stronghold on consistency as the key to health and wellness. I realized that aiming for perfection and consistency was the thing that we sabotaging me doing anything at all towards my wellness. So the minute I was able to question that that had to be the case that it had to be perfect consistency, 365 days a year. That really opened up a door for me to say, well, if I don’t have to do everything every day, I can do something when I need it. So that is really a key thing about the self-care menu is that it is not a to-do list. It is not meant to be a daily checklist on top of all of the other daily checklists, you already have running through your head. And it is really not meant to be something that you look at and say, I have to complete all of these things on this list every single day or else. I have to feel bad that I didn’t do it, or I have to shame myself for not, not having the energy, not having the time. So it’s really, it’s not a to-do list. It’s not something to use to look at and shame yourself as a reminder of all of the things that you should be doing that you’re not doing. We do that to ourselves enough. We don’t need a list to help us with that. So I would say, gather my thoughts real quick. I approached this by thinking about what are the big things that are standing in the way of me doing things to care for myself. And some of those biggest obstacles or stumbling blocks that I had were the excuse that I don’t have time, days that I just didn’t have the energy or didn’t have the motivation. Like, just because we live in bodies, it’s a fact of human existence that we don’t have the same energy and motivation and capacity every single day. I think that’s what makes consistency really difficult. Um, not being able to remember in the moment that I need it. What are the things that I actually enjoy doing? What are the things that are available to me that I know make me feel even a little bit better. It’s sometimes really difficult to remember what those are.

Racheal: Well… and yeah. I think I wanna join you there because you know, when, okay, so full disclosure. This is not like, I think people know this about me. I talk about it pretty often. I, I struggle with anxiety. I have most of my life from a very young age. Um, and I’ve gotten a lot of healing from that, done a lot of therapy, lots of different things, spiritual direction, deliverance, prayer, um, just a lot of healing, but the amount of body care you have to pursue when you struggle with anxiety. Medicine, I’ve taken medicine. So I’m not, anti-medicine I think working with lots of different specialists to help regulate biochemicals is so important. Um, but I think what you’re saying, there’s something right on there because when, when, when you struggle with anxiety as a natural response to the trauma, you’ve experienced any kind of stressor, even ones that just seem so small can lead to such a strong response. You know, they can be triggers of like a much stronger response. And I think when that happens and you have more of a trauma a response to stress, it’s like your brain, you know, we know your prefrontal cortex goes offline. You have more of a fight, fight or freeze. And I think you’re so right on, it’s like in those moments, we don’t always have the luxury of remembering the five things we could easily access to bring some soothing and some grounding and actually help those stress biochemicals come down. Exactly. And so I loved, I love what you’re saying, just agreeing with you.

Rachel: Yeah, exactly. And I think that’s why I consider the 30, 40 minutes even 10 minutes, honestly, of sitting down to complete the worksheet. I consider that for me an act of self care that I am caring for my future self. I know that there’s going to be a day that I’m gonna be in a spiral or, or numb or whatever, whatever the stress response is. And I’m not gonna know what to do. I’m gonna know that I should do something, but I may not be able to think about what that thing is or what would be most helpful. But if I have a piece of paper that I look at every day, that’s it, it takes away the guesswork. It takes away the decision fatigue and reminds you that even on the lowest capacity of day, you can do something for one minute. Like I, I could do something for one minute and that might make me feel 10% better, but that’s more than I had before. Um, so that’s something that I really love about this exercise and it’s even something I would encourage you to redo, revisit, um, because it might be that in different seasons of your life, the, the care activities that you turn to, or that feel good to you, you might leave some by the wayside, you might pick up new ones. You might find that what worked for you in the last season of life isn’t working anymore. And so you swap it out for something different. Um, so as much as I wish that there was like a set it and, forget it feature of self-care, there isn’t. Um, so it’s really that I found that this approach, this self-care menu approach to habits offered me the flexibility that I needed, and that actually enabled me to do something rather than getting so hung up on doing things, doing everything perfectly that I in reality ended up doing nothing at all.

Jeanette: I resonate with that so much. And I think some of what you brought in that workshop was just that just such an acknowledgement, that felt so kind to me, that just sort of like named me in a nutshell, all the reasons why I, you know, I kind of have that like perfectionist procrastinator situation going on in my life. Where, yeah. It’s like, you can’t do it perfect, don’t do it at all. And so you just kind of get stuck and I’m, I’m very good at getting stuck. So you were just so invitational and kind in the way that you invited us to, to move into thinking about it differently.

Rachel: Jeanette was saying that sometimes self care is not about doing more. It’s about doing less. And I was laughing when she said that, because I had written down, it’s not always about doing less. Sometimes it’s about doing more, but what I’m, what I mean by that is I think for a long time, I thought that rest means doing nothing, laying on the couch, watching TV, like vegging out, doing less. I need to reduce my stress by doing less activity and found it really helpful when I realized actually sometimes doing more things is helpful for my stress, going to the gym, going outside for a walk, taking a bath, which in the moment feels like doing something when I could have done nothing. So those are moments I find a, it actually is about adding in things that bring me peace that I delight in that make me feel creative or more connected to my body, or more connected to my community, adding in those things, rather than seeing rest or self-care as doing nothing at all.

Racheal: Yeah. And I think, you know, one of the things I’m just thinking about in my own journey is how hard it can be sometimes when you are in chronic stress and by chronic stress. I mean, when you are in complex trauma, when you are in a situation that it feels like, oh man, I hear you guys talking about this. And I would love to have, again, these kind of self talk, I’d love to have the time I’d love to have, you know, and I think part of what’s happening for us there is that we actually don’t believe that even offering ourself, that little ounce of kindness, we know it won’t be enough to eradicate the chronic stress or to dissolve the complex trauma, but it is a profound act of kindness that even in its smallness can actually go a long way and it begins to let your body know… Hey, I know you’re suffering. Can there be some mercy for you? Can there be some kindness? And I think sometimes that takes a lot of courage because it might invite us to a kind of tenderness or a kind of grief or a kind of ground, or, or even an awareness of how exhausted we are. So I don’t want anyone who is needing to be in some ways… I think those of us who have known experiences, where in some ways we feel like we have to power through in order to survive. Like those of us who might be in survival mode, feeling like we’re trying to tell you, you know, to incorporate some practices of self-care is gonna be sufficient to eradicate some stressors that actually are part of us being Christians and coming together in community to help eradicate some of those stressors together. Um, so we’re not, we’re not saying this is a fix all to some of the serious realities of oppression in the world. Can you have imagination that you get to offer yourself kindness and mercy, even in the midst of those seasons? And it might be a small gesture that gives you a little more margin, um, that you don’t have to rely on maybe other coping mechanisms that are so costly to you, your heart, your soul, your body, and your relationships. So I love this idea of having a self-care menu, um, to look at in the moments when it’s not as easy to access, what might be possible. Um, so Jeanette, I know you’ve named this had a big impact on you. It really influenced, um, some of the ways you’ve even incorporated some of these practices as you did your own worksheet. And I think that’s one of the things I would name as well is that this will be really particular to you, um, and your own story and your own life and your own circumstances. So I think there’s a lot of freedom there too, but would love to hear more, um, how this impacted you.

Jeanette: Yeah, well, I was really inspired by the five minute or less category, cuz I think that’s what allowed me to enter in and think, oh, I could, I could make this work throughout my day. Um, instead of trying to fit it in early morning or after I get my kiddo down or, or things like that. So for me, um, it it’s come down to kind of these three things, uh, tea, bouncing, and 60 second reset, um, and how all those fit together, you know, I’ll tell you, but, um, would love to unpack those a minute cause I, you know, I think that take it or leave it again. Like you said, Racheal, each person’s needs and what will work for them are so particular. Um, but I will say these are things I rave about awesome, you know, often. And so maybe they will be of help to folks, but um, yeah, so tea first off, I’m not actually a tea person, but this is one of five minute little rituals that has become really beloved to me over these past few months. Um, and I have three words for you all. Evening. In. Missoula. Uh, this is a tea blend by a company called, um, Montana tea and spice. And um, I don’t know how to explain it, but the scent of this tea, it just, it just takes me places. It makes my senses melt. It’s so calming. I can literally feel like the tension in my shoulders drop just thinking about it. And it takes me two minutes to boil the water, even pulling out like the sache and getting to smell that as the water is boiling on like, oh, this is so lovely. Um, so that’s just been a really simple thing for me to be like, no, I don’t need more coffee it’s, you know, it’s mid afternoon, but go brew some tea. Um, the second little act for myself of, um, self-care has been around, um, bouncing and more specifically rebounding. And you know, so this is basically I’m talking about exercise, but, but my style, because I don’t actually like exercise. Um, so we know, you know, we all know one of the best stress relievers out there, um, is exercise. It releases endorphins, um, gives us those feel good hormones. Um, but like I said, I’m just, I’m not a big exerciser, like get me on a hike or in a kayak and I’ll be there all day, but like a weekly scheduled exercise, habit’s never been something I’ve been able to formulate for myself. But, um, I discovered this thing a few years back, it’s this super like high tech rebounder called the Cellerciser, which is basically like a fancy mini trampoline. And I stumbled across it when actually researching options for like optimizing health and disease prevention. And it’s one of those things where you could, if you wanted, you could literally in like 10 minutes a day, get this complete, like cardiovascular and muscular workout. But I mainly bought it because I’d been reading this thing called the health bounce, which is just like two minutes of really gentle bouncing your feet, barely even leave the mat. Um, and it’s been shown to have these really positive effects on your immune system, which is huge right now for all of us. It like gets your white blood cell, count up all these things. Um, great for circulation, bunch of other positive effects on the body. So anyway, I bought it and this was way before Racheal’s workshop. And now here I am, I’ve had this rebound, literally sitting in my living room next to my couch forever and I barely use it, but somehow I keep it there in case inspiration ever strikes, which, um, for many of my internal procrastinator and exercise avoidance reasons, it never does. But then this time with Rachel at the workshop, something just reawakened for me and kind of finally cemented in my mind as this thing that I could do for myself, even if I only had two to three minutes between my work meeting on the days that I’m still working from home right now, the, when I’m waiting for the water to boil for dinner, whatever. Um, so I’ve been keeping it in my mind as this viable thing that I can do for myself. And the motivation is finally there. So, um, I’m now getting the benefit of it. And uh, whenever I have a few minutes to bear and I’m just feeling honestly, I think the best thing about it for me is I’m feeling really good about taking care of myself in this small little micro way. Um, and then the third thing that has become this wonderful habit that I’ve been doing two or three days a week, um, since going through this self care, um, menu is it’s a 60nd emotional reset technique. It was created by a psychologist who’s been, um, in the field for 20 years. He’s recently brought together worlds of mental health, neuroscience and aroma therapy. It’s really intended to be a brief nice and intentional time to pause and reset. Whenever you find yourself feeling out of sorts, overwhelmed, stuck. And this is essentially designed to flip a reset button in your mind and release those, some of the worries, the anxieties, the tensions that are there and just be able to move forward in a better place with your day. So, um, I mentioned that this technique concludes an aromatherapy aspect to it. So there’s also a couple of essential oils that are recommended for this. Um, the reason that these essential oils are incorporated into a process like this is because our response to smell is just powerful and automatic. They, the scent actually does something in our brain that we literally can’t resist. And when we smell the right oils in the right time, the right intention and focus, there’s something really predictable that happens in the brain. And that’s just because our scent of smell goes directly to our amygdala. And, um, as we know that tells us whether, you know, to either get into that alarm response of fight or flight or into a relaxation response. And it turns out that scent is one of the fastest ways to flip the switch in our brain into either a feeling of like alarm or calm. So anyhow, what I would say is this brief technique. It’s, if anybody’s interested in learning more about it, we’ll we’ll have access to it. Um, but it’s really about overrid how your brain and body is holding onto a particular situation or stressor, and then just moving you quickly and gently toward a state of calm and release. So, um, those are the three things that for me have just really solidified as so helpful, um, because of this time that I spent with Racheal that hour, that I, um, thankfully convinced myself to go to, um, and to have been so thankful for the ways that those, those have become active and such good resources for me throughout my day.

Racheal: Well, I wanna thank you both, Rachel, thank you for your creativity and generosity to create this self care menu and offer it to our entire staff and for offering it to our podcast listeners. So if you wanna learn more about The Resilient Leaders project, um, we’ll have a link to that in the, um, blog post, but also you can find it at theseattleschool.edu, um, and we’ll have a link to the work worksheet as well. If that’s something you wanna take time to sit down and look at and do, and if that would be helpful to you, we wanna make sure you have access to that. And Jeanette, I just wanna say thank you for sharing some of the, vulnerably, some of the ways this impacted you and giving us an imagination and idea of just some of the simple ways that we can offer kindness and mercy and care to ourselves. So if you want to learn more about this 60 second reset, there will also be information available for that as well. I really truly hope, uh, in this season that is requiring so much of us, um, that you will feel the kindness of God present with you. And sometimes that is in really simple, um, small ways. And sometimes that is in big ways of deliverance, but either way we hope these resources are support to you. And we thank you for listening.