My goal was that over 50% of my books read this year be written by authors who were not cis white males. I got to 69%! Working on increasing this percentage for 2021.
My needs can be an offering and opening to greater connection.
I am human – I can’t be everything to everyone, and I don’t have to be good to be loved.
Body first, business second. -Kate Northrup
I am not responsible for others’ growth, I’m only here to love them through it.
I cannot tell the future.
I’m willing to live with myself, no matter what. I look forward to living with myself, no matter what.
To live my life, let my kids live theirs, and love them fiercely while doing it.
The best-case scenario is just as likely as the worst. Believe in it.
WHEN YOU’RE STUCK: Drop down into your body. Feel. Listen. Move. Turn it over. Offer it up. Do the work that’s yours to do. Let God do theirs.
I am a human, standing on a dog, standing on a crocodile -Mike McHargue, You’re a Miracle (And a Pain In The Ass): Embracing the Emotions, Habits, and Mystery That Make You You
To pay attention to and care about how I FEEL.
That when I imagine a future where I get sick and die – I’m living into a scenario that is out of my control. When I imagine a future where I keep showing up to what is, with gentleness and care for myself, I feel so much less anxiety. I’m living into a scenario that is within my control.
If we don’t wrestle with anger, we never get to the heartbreak. And if we don’t get to the heartbreak, we don’t get to the healing. -Lama Rod Owens, Love and Rage
Thank you for the joy.
I found joy in:
Deep cleaning – like, on hands and knees with a toothbrush
The Necessary Accessory of 2020
Long baths and lots of oils
Family TV watching: Ted Lasso, Bob’s Burgers, Blackish
Long walks
Exploring my neighborhood
Rhythms + Rituals – the daily chore list, morning meditation, evening gratitude, following the lunar cycle
Playing games – Superfight, Monopoly, Life, Cards Against Humanity
Grandma – even though she died in 2019, I felt the loss more deeply this year
Spending time with my siblings and their children
Traveling – to see Chris’ family in Boise, Oregon Country Fair, Brownlee, the beach
George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Riah Milton, Dominique Remmiefells
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
John Lewis
Oregon State Capitol in Smoke
Thank you for the teachers and mentors.
I welcomed new teachers and mentors:
Rachel Cargle
Morgan Harper Nichols
Colleen Jones
Prentis Hemphill
Sarah Gottesdiener
Marlee Grace
Emily and Amelia Nagoski
Alex Elle
Drew Hart
My 2020 contained so many FFTs (F**ing First Times – thank you, Brene Brown, for this descriptive term) – so much tragedy, loss, confusion, and struggle. It also contained magical synchronicity, unexpected joy, opportunities for rest, and deepened connection.
May we tuck away and integrate the lessons that are ours to carry forward, and may we leave behind what no longer serves us, as we cross the threshold from one year to the next.
One thing that unites many December holidays – is an honoring and celebration of LIGHT.
Being the darkest time of year in the Northern Hemisphere, we need intentional reminders that the light will return. This year maybe even more so than in other years.
Welcome the returning light
Photo by Davidson Luna
In our family, we’ve been lighting Advent candles, menorah candles, the Christmas tree, and the yule log. This time is always one of deep reflection, grief, gratitude, and the early whispers of coming dreams.
The time has come to do your annual reflection. You’ve got a few hours blocked, drinks and whatever you’ll need to stay comfortable and focused as you move through the materials you gathered.
If you want a recap on the materials to gather, start here.
As you begin your reflection, I’ve created a template that you can use.
Reflecting on this intense year will likely bring up stuff for us. Part of this process is to meet what comes up – starting now – from a place of gentleness and curiosity.
Essential oils to support reflection
Plants and elements from nature can support our emotional processing. Here’s an oil protocol to ground and center you, that encourages reflection and movement of stagnant energy. You can apply it daily during your reflection period.
Balance – grounds your energy and spirit in your body, allowing you to access greater intuition and supporting you as you process emotions.
Cardamom – calls difficult emotions out of hiding, allowing you to move, feel, and process them to completion.
Arborvitae – brings extra support and grace to your vulnerability.
Cypress – stirs up stagnant energy and encourages movement.
Lime – eases pain, helps you connect to gratitude within Life’s lessons.
Vetiver – helps you get in tune with your deepest emotions and desires.
Douglas Fir – calls in the wisdom and support of the generations who came before you.
Peppermint – infuses the process with clarity and playfulness.
Frankincense – opens you to divine wisdom, guidance, and truth.
Review
In order to cull all of the memories, milestones, themes and lessons from the past year, I first go back and do a month-by-month review.
Monthly Play-by-Play: Milestones, Important Events, Memories, Themes
Using your calendar, journals, notes, and photos, rewind to January. Put yourself back in that month, as gently as possible, and remember what you experienced.
Photo by Estee Janssens
On your Reflection Guide under the section titled “Monthly Play-by-Play”, make notes about each month.
What milestones did you cross?
What important events took place?
What memories do you have?
What themes were you working on or learning about?
What losses did you experience?
What did you celebrate?
What did you learn?
Stay with yourself
As you recall these memories, your nervous system will respond in kind. Let it.
Notice the emotions and sensations that are stirred in you. Breathe with them. Move with them. Cry with them. Laugh with them. Shake with them.
Be gentle and patient with yourself as you do the work of completing the stress cycle. This is a key practice in moving away from burnout.
Once you’ve made notes on each month of the past year, you’re ready to reflect on the year as a whole.
On your Reflection Guide, consider the highlights of the year.
What were the most important events of the whole year?
What were the major milestones?
What themes emerged and played out over the course of the year?
What were the main lessons?
Favorites
Now let yourself have some fun, recalling all of your favorites from the last year. Use the template categories to inspire your reminiscing, and add categories of your own!
Takeaways
Spend some time reflecting on, synthesizing, and summarizing your takeaways from the past year.
What are you ready to forgive yourself for?
What are you thankful for?
What are you grieving?
What will you leave in 2020?
What are you welcoming into your life in 2021?
Closing Ceremony
Congratulations!! You’ve completed your annual reflection.
You may feel many emotions after taking in your year as a whole. Closure, grief, gratitude, and sadness are all common. Completing a closing ceremony can help you to honor and embody all that you’ve reflected on.
There’s no right or wrong way to do a closing ceremony, so let yourself get creative. It can be as simple or as complex as you want!
The goal is to allow the energy from your reflections to manifest or be expressed tangibly.
Some ideas to inspire you:
Write on pieces of paper all that you’re grieving, forgiving, or wanting to leave behind, and then burn them in a fire.
Near the end of each season, I spend time reflecting on the previous three months and planning for the next three months.
At the end of the year, I reflect and review the past 12 months, giving gratitude, grieving, forgiving and releasing the year. I dream into the coming year, making plans and setting intentions.
I’m preparing for my 2020 reflection, and I’d love for you to join me!
Prepare to Engage
Over the course of this month, I’ll be sharing my process with you and invite you to share yours with me.
You can also of course keep your reflections and intentions private, and just use these posts as inspiration!
Prepare to Reflect: Set a time
Photo by Yeshi Kangrang
The first step in looking back over my year is to set aside a time to do it. There are a few parameters I consider:
When can I have everything gathered by? The list of what I like to gather is in the next section.
When do I have 2-3 hours to myself? If you need to break this up, schedule it in whatever increments will work for your schedule.
What time of day do I have the most energy? This reflection can be emotionally intense (especially after the kind of year we’ve just had) – schedule accordingly.
Once I’ve got my dates on the calendar, I know how much time I’ve got to gather my reflection items.
Prepare to Reflect: Gather
The next step in looking back over my whole year is to gather the tools and info that will help me.
Here’s what I gather:
Journals – I make a new one each month, so at the end of the year I have 12
Calendar – my Google calendar
Visioning + Intentions document – created the December before
Photos – I use Google photos, which makes it easier to jog my memory by looking up specific dates or locations
Photo by Pepe Reyes
Over the years I’ve made it easier on myself by keeping all of these things in specific places, so I don’t have to spend too much time looking for them.
If this is your first time, or you’re just developing your routines, do your future self a favor and spend some time getting intentional about where you keep your items during the year.
Thank yourself
If you’ve made it this far, preparing for your annual reflection, you’ve already given yourself a great gift!
Spending time with yourself, giving care and attention to all that you’ve been through in the past year, goes so far toward developing a loving relationship between you and you.
Photo by Juan Davila
Take a moment to thank yourself for devoting this time to you!
I look forward to sharing my review and reflection process with you next week! Until then, take such good care of your precious self.
Let’s start with a really tangible definition for the often nebulous concept of ‘boundaries’:
A boundary is a property line, as defined by Dr. Henry Cloud.
Photo by Rodrigo Kugnharski
The boundary tells you who controls the property, who has freedom and choices over the property, and who is responsible for the property.
Now let’s take that definition into the realm of our everyday lives, and pair it with a concept that can help us decipher our property lines.
Types of property
The property that boundaries are helpful for include:
Emotional – your feelings
Material – your things
Mental – your thoughts, ideas, and beliefs
Physical – your body
Time and Energy – your time and energy
Who owns the property?
According to Byron Katie, there are three kinds of ‘business’ in the universe. I like to think of this as ‘Who owns the property?’
Mine
Yours
The Rest (aka: God/Goddess/Universe/life/reality’s – pick the descriptor you resonate with)
I like to think of these three kinds of ‘business’ as three separate yards – like three pieces of property.
Mine – My yard contains those pieces of property that I control and am responsible for: what I do, what I say, how I feel*, how I spend my time and energy, my possessions and what I believe.
*Feelings get a little star, because they are by-products of our thoughts, beliefs, and circumstances – not as easily in our control, but nevertheless, still our property. You can read more about getting to know your garden here.
Yours – Your business is what you control and are responsible for. All those same bits of property: emotional, material, mental, physical, time and energy.
Life’s/God’s/reality – This is made up of all the things that are outside of my control and your control. Examples include: the past and the future, as well as elements of the weather, accidents, traffic, etc.
Photo by Brandon Nelson
Your map
With my yard, your yard, and Life’s yard, we’ve basically drawn ourselves a map of our existential ‘neighborhood’. Maps are cool on their own, don’t get me wrong, but the magic comes when we use them to navigate.
Some scenarios where this map comes in handy:
When you’re feeling stressed.
When you’re afraid someone will be upset with you.
When you feel compelled to say ‘yes’ even though you want to say ‘no’.
When you’re caught in the mental loop of ‘what if’s – worrying about the future.
When you’re upset or angry with someone else.
In any of these not-so-hypothetical cases, you can pull out your map and ask yourself: “Where am I?”
Photo by Daniel Gonzalez
Find yourself on the map: “Where am I?”
Let’s use an example from above, and ask this question: “Where am I?”
When I’m afraid you will be upset with me, the property I’m focused on is your feelings – specifically your feelings of being upset with me.
Whose yard do other people’s feelings reside in? Their yard. Their feelings are their responsibility. When I’m trying to take responsibility for them, I’ve left my own yard – walked right off my own property and onto theirs – which leaves no one home to care for me.
Walk yourself home
When you’ve found yourself trying to manage someone else’s property, walk yourself back home by asking:
“What’s my business?”
Identify what is in your control, or what is your responsibility, and take action.
That could look like:
Donating money, time, or resources to a cause you care about.
At first glance, boundaries can seem like a way to stop caring about anyone but yourself.
Let’s just sit with that. If you’re anything like me, that idea brings up a lot of fear about being selfish, putting my needs ahead of others, etc. When I pause, put my hand on my heart, and just feel those feelings of fear and guilt and breathe through them without feeding them more thoughts, they’re usually a lot quieter in 90 seconds or less.
The most compassionate people are absolutely the most boundaried.
Let that sink in.
The more I leave you to your work/business/journey/lessons, and the more I take responsibility for my own work/business/journey/lessons – the more compassion I’m able to have for you and what you’re going through!
Healthy boundaries are the foundation of empathy, authenticity, and accountability – and they’re an integral part of self-care.
I hope you’ll join us November 21st, 2020 for Healthy Boundaries for Interpreters. We’ll explore what healthy boundaries are, what makes them hard to hold, how to tune into your guidance system, and how to communicate your boundaries in a kind and honest way. I can’t wait to spend this time with you!
Healthy Boundaries for Interpreters – 0.2 GS CEUs – Our Saturday School LIVE workshop is happening on November 21st, 2020 from 10 am to noon pacific. Join us to discuss this tricky topic and develop tools to make holding clear, kind, healthy boundaries much easier. Saturday School LIVE workshops are a great opportunity to get to know other interpreters who are struggling with burnout and working on taking better care of themselves!
Put On Your Raincoat: Energetic Protection for Sign Language Interpreters – 0.5 GS CEUs – Interpreting work is sticky – especially in 2020! In this workshop you’ll create a raincoat to protect yourself from the energetic effects of interpreting work, with practices of self-reflection, self-compassion, and mindfulness.
In our minds, unchecked thoughts can grow like weeds. It’s so easy for them to be constantly playing in the background, orchestrating and puppeteering our decisions and behaviors, rarely questioned or examined…flying under the radar.
Try this experiment now: take your attention from reading these words and turn it toward your mind. Become aware of your thoughts – the steady narration that’s happening in your mind. What’s it saying?
All of the ideas and beliefs you’ve soaked up since childhood are still operating today in the depths of your psyche as your operating system. Many of them are flat-out lies. This inner narration is programmed by your operating system. As you bring your attention to your inner narration, you have the opportunity to uncover your own operating system and the beliefs that undergird it.
Some of mine that I’ve discovered over the years:
“I’m annoying. No one wants to listen to me.”
“People who are angry are dangerous.”
“Any noise in the night is definitely someone breaking into our house.”
“No one will ever really understand me.”
“Prioritizing myself and my own needs is selfish.”
Reappraisal Self-Care Strategies for Fear
Photo by Callum Skelton
Thoughts, running wild and unchecked in our minds, are tricky and cunning – but thoughts on paper are lifeless and still. Getting these thoughts out of your head and onto the page is one of the best ways to weed your garden.
Once they’re on the page, ask them some questions. In mental health coaching we call this “reappraisal.” This is an opportunity to look again at something you took to be 100% true without really questioning it – or – at something you learned during a different time in your life when this belief helped to keep you safe, but maybe now is outdated and not as useful.
Ask:
“Is it 100% true?”
“Whose yard am I in?” “How do I feel when I’m believing this thought?”Name the emotions and sensations.
You can tell a weed based on its effects on your life. Weeds zap our energy. They contribute to us feeling disempowered, anxious, depressed, and unmotivated. Examining the truth of these thoughts and their effects on your body, mind, and spirit is a major step toward cleaning up your garden and freeing up your energy.
Questioning our thoughts and re-appraising their usefulness and truth can be difficult, especially if the beliefs were planted long ago or have trauma associated with them. Be very, very gentle with yourself as you do this work, and reach out for support if you feel scared, overwhelmed, or stuck. Having a neutral and steady person with you as you weed your garden can be so helpful.
Create a note on your phone titled ‘Thoughts’ or something more creative! If you prefer pen and paper, grab a 3×5 card or pocket journal to carry around with you this week.
When you notice a thought that accompanies stressful feelings (like the kind we talked about last week), make a note of the thought word-for-word – as if you’re narrating. At the end of the day, your list might look like this:
This is part 3 in a series on Self-Care Strategies for Fear. You can find part 1 here, and part 2 here.
Self-Care Strategies for Fear part 3
Distractions are plentiful in this hurried life. Even when there’s not something important to be doing, our mind grasps at things to occupy it. This is normal. It takes intention, it takes presence, it takes mindful awareness to notice the departure from here + now, and to guide ourselves lovingly back home, to ourselves.
Cultivating a practice of spending time in this garden of your mind + body + spirit is a gift that will keep giving to every iteration of future-you. Every moment you spend with yourself, and every time you’re willing to notice those departures and walk yourself back home, your relationship with yourself deepens and grows and becomes more fulfilling.
Spending time in your garden can look like so many things. The possibilities are infinite. For as many unique minds and bodies and spirits as there are on this planet (and elsewhere?), there are that many different varieties of gardens. So what will yours look like?
me in my garden with my trampoline, oils, and journal
Maybe yours has your journal, trampoline, and essential oils.
… your crystals, yoga mat, and a Redwood.
… your bible, running shoes, and hot tub.
… your puppy dog, pillow, and ukulele.
YOU GET TO DECIDE!
Whatever your garden includes, it is yours, you can change it anytime you want, and you get to feel comfortable, safe, joyful, and whatever-other-emotions-you-need-to-feel in it!
Finding/creating/making/honoring time for yourself to spend in your garden can be tricky. I find that designating a consistent time has helped it to become a habit that I look forward to and count on. For me, morning time is my garden time – before most of my family wakes up. This practice has also made it much easier to jump out of bed in the morning, because I’m so excited for my special time with ME.
If you want some support, connection, and accountability to help you create a garden-time habit, I made you a Burnout Proof Academy course called Make Time for You!
Some of my favorite resources for spending time in my garden:
Spend 5 intentional minutes in your garden, enjoying your body, mind, + spirit.
Image by Thought Catalog
Let us know in the comments:
What are your favorite ways to spend time in your garden? What helps you to prioritize your garden time?
We’re sharing our favorite garden-time activities in The Burnout Proof Interpreter Collective private Facebook group. Come share yours with us too!
Sneak Peek: Be With Your Feelings – part 4
When we allow time to just be with ourselves, it can open the door to unprocessed emotions showing up uninvited or announced. The fear or avoidance of these visitors can keep us from spending time in our gardens.
Next week in part 4 we’ll explore what to do with these feelings that may arise. Spoiler alert: this might become your favorite part of the whole process!
Until next week, dear one, take good care of your precious self….and enjoy it!
Thank you to everyone who’s reached out to share your fears and how they’re affecting you. This is deep, scary work, and doing it with others can add a bit of comfort and grounding to the process. Keep reaching out!
Ok, are you ready for part 2? This piece is short, but sets the stage for the work we’re going to do over the next few weeks. Let’s dive in!
Cognitive Behavioral Self-Care Strategies for Fear
Photo by Miguel Cortes
Your Garden
Imagine your insides as a garden. I know it’s weird, but humor me. We want to create a visual representation of your inner world, so that you can more easily attend to it.
Photo by www.krstojevtic.com
Your garden lies within the fenced confines of a yard that is your very own. This outdoor space can look however you choose: it may have a beautifully manicured grape arbor, trellised veggies, rows of flowers, pea gravel and statues, or a wide expanse of lawn. This space is yours, and only you decide how it is maintained.
Soil + Seeds: Thoughts
Photo by Gabriel Jimenez
Within your garden, your mind is the soil – the rich, fertile, nourishing medium that cultivates life.
Your thoughts are the seeds carried through on the wind – some tumbling away and out of your garden, some finding a hold in the ground of your mind. Some of these seeds you grab, sow in the ground on purpose, water, and tend to – these are your beliefs.
Buds, Blooms, and Thorns: Emotions
Photo by Stella de Smit
Your emotions spring forth based on how situations and circumstances interact with your thoughts and beliefs. Emotions are a byproduct of our circumstances filtered through our beliefs.
These emotions are like the buds, blooms, and thorns of those seeds you planted in the ground. The emotions themselves are worthy of holding space for and feeling, but they also serve a purpose. They are like flag posts signaling to us that there’s a thought operating below the surface.
When an emotion feels uncomfortable – like sadness, jealousy, fear, and anger often do – we can ask ourselves:
What thought is driving this feeling?
The Fruit: Behavior
The last feature of our garden that we’ll look at today is behavior.
Behavior – what you say and do or have the urge to do – is like the fruit of the plants in your garden. Our thoughts stimulate our emotions, which in turn drive us to act.
Photo by Erwan Hesry
The more mindfully aware we are of the thoughts we’re planting and tending, and the emotions and sensations we’re experiencing, the better chance we have for our actions to be aligned with our values and intentions. On the other hand, if we’re not conscious of our thoughts and beliefs and haven’t chosen them intentionally, we may end up acting in ways that we regret.
Resources for supporting yourself as you get to know your garden
This week, spend some time with your journal and explore the features of your own garden.
Photo by Markus Spiske
Prompts to get you started:
Do you tend to be more aware of your thoughts, emotions + physical sensations, or actions? What helps you notice them?
Once you’ve identified your dominant feature, you can go forward or backward around the triangle to learn more about the others:
What thoughts do you have when you’re feeling (example emotions – substitute what’s relevant for you) sad, angry, frustrated, or jealous?
What emotions and physical sensations do you feel when you’re having these thoughts?
How do you act, what do you do, say, or want to do, when you’re thinking these thoughts or feeling these emotions?
In the moment that you’re feeling upset, this three-point check can be useful:
What am I thinking? What am I feeling?
What am I doing?
An important note:
We are observing, noticing, and increasing awareness here. Remember, a key component of mindful awareness is paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, without judgement.
As you bring your awareness to your thoughts, emotions, and behaviors, notice any judgement of yourself that comes up. It’s helpful to make a note of this too!
Self-Care Strategies for Fear: Part 3
Next week we’ll talk about what to do in this lovely garden of yours, to enjoy it, get to know it, and work with it. You can read part 3 here.
Be so gentle with yourself this week, dear one, and remember that you have a whole community of precious people here to support you in taking better care of your precious self. Reach out to me privately here, or join in our community in the Burnout Proof Interpreters Collective. I look forward to connecting with you more deeply as we continue to explore self-care strategies for fear.
Healthy Boundaries for Interpreters
Self-Care for Stressful Times
