Self-Care Spotlight: Neck & Shoulder Relief with Jen Kagan Feb 19th, 2022 10:00 am pacific
Join us in the Burnout Proof Collective to learn from the wise Jen Kagan. Jen’s a sign language interpreter, yoga therapist and yoga teacher who specializes in helping sign language interpreters get out of pain and establish a long healthy career. She’ll be walking us through a quick way to relieve neck pain and improve posture, and answering all our questions live!
Broadcast in English, with English captions to come afterward.
Join the Burnout Proof Collective Facebook group now so you don’t miss it!
We’re dealing with more change and uncertainty today than ever before, and it’s stressing us out. This 7-day self-care reset will help you make meaningful time for yourself so you can start feeling more resourced, less stressed, and more like yourself again. Through this self-paced online course you’ll discover how to build new habits, what’s getting in the way of your self-care, what brings you joy, and how to care for yourself even when things don’t go as planned.
If you’re ready to make time for YOU, join me for a week of support and connection in this self-care reset.
Here’s what you’ll get:
0.3 GS RID CEUs
A daily intentional self-care practice
Connection with other interpreters for support + community
Clarity on what brings you joy and what holds you back from experiencing more of it
Support for coming back to your self-care habit whenever you lose your way
This is an on-demand, self-paced course worth 0.3 GS CEUs. If you haven’t yet registered, just click below and you’ll get instant access to everything!
As you’re spending time in your garden, you’ll notice uncomfortable emotions. This might be one reason you struggle to make time for yourself.
Emotions can be very inconvenient, downright painful, and at times excruciating.
Emotions are also called feelings, because we feel them in our bodies. Feeling things in our bodies is something that Americans in general, and white Americans 🙋 in particular, often avoid. This avoidance of feeling our feelings is at the root of many of our distraction-techniques and addictions.
How emotions relate to burnout
The first warning light that signaled my burnout was physical pain. I was unable to sleep, run, play with my kids, do yoga, or even brush my teeth without shooting, aching, burning pain in my wrist, arm, shoulder, neck, and head. I tried all the typical physical healing modalities I had access to: supplements, physical therapy, diet, chiropractic treatments, acupuncture treatments.
It wasn’t until I explored my experience of the pain with my own coach, that I began to uncover the years of emotions that were just sitting in my internal waiting room – begging to be heard. Together in that safe container of support, we made space for guilt, anger, sadness, regret, feelings of unworthiness, fear, and finally hope, joy, pleasure, and love.
Exhaustion happens when we get stuck in an emotion.
Emotional exhaustion is one of the hallmarks of burnout, according to Herbert J. Freudenberger who coined his definition in 1974. Emotional exhaustion is described as, “fatigue that comes from caring too much for too long.”
Of the three components of burnout, emotional exhaustion is the one most strongly linked to negative impacts on health, our relationships, and our work – especially for women or those aligned with feminine cultural norms.
Every word of this Brene Brown podcast episode with the Nagoskis describes so beautifully how emotional exhaustion contributes to burnout and what to do about it. This is required listening or reading for every interpreter! Burnout and How to Complete the Stress Cycle
Feelings always end
Photo by Jana Sabeth
When emotions are stored up without acknowledgment or space to be felt, they must get our attention in other ways. It can be so scary to allow these feelings to move through you. It can feel as if they’ll never leave or they’ll consume us – but I’m here to tell you:
They always end.
Just like a wave, crashing on shore, feelings have a beginning, a crescendo, and a receding conclusion. The more willing and intentional we are about giving them space and ways to move, the less backlog we incur, and the more clear, present, and grounded we can be – even through our experience of them.
This Saturday, October 24th, 2020, I’ll be teaching a specific practice for completing the stress cycle and allowing emotions to move through that you can be doing throughout your day. Check out Self-Care for Stressful Times and join us!
Keep a comfort object nearby – a pillow, soft blanket, or an essential oil. Juniper is especially helpful for fear. Set a timer, and when it goes off switch to an activity that feels comforting and safe.
Reach out to a professional – a therapist, a coach, a spiritual guide. Get support in place so that you can feel free to explore this messy, roiling mass that is our unprocessed emotions.
We’ll be talking more about ways to honor our own boundaries and to build trust with ourselves in the November Burnout Proof Saturday School workshop: Healthy Boundaries for Interpreters. Register to join us here.
Commit to staying with yourself
It can be really scary to feel some of these feelings, or you might not feel anything at all. Whatever you find here as you explore your emotions is a-okay. The most important thing is to stay with yourself. This means:
Don’t judge yourself or your experience. Be willing to be uncomfortable. Prioritize time and space for yourself – even if it’s just 5 minutes. Notice that you’re still here when the feelings pass. Allow yourself to feel proud of this scary accomplishment.
Set a timer for 5 minutes and be with your feelings. Maybe you have a certain situation you want to focus on to inspire the feelings, or maybe they’re already simmering at the surface. Just give them space and keep breathing through them.
This may be in your bedroom or bathroom, with the door locked, in your parked car, or outside while walking or running.
Let us know in the comments: What helps you access and process your emotions?
@keeleyshawart
Next Week – Pull the Weeds
In part 5 next week we’ll explore ways to identify the weeds in our thinking patterns and how to work with them when we find them. Because our thoughts feed our emotions, pulling the weeds helps to reduce how often we go through our stress cycle.
Until then, take such good care of your precious self.
Interpreting during a pandemic, especially a VRS shift, is like entering a war zone. People are stressed, frustrated, in pain and completely freaked out – with good reason.
Don’t treat your shift or yourself like this is a regular day. It’s not.
This is a triage situation.
As interpreters, we can’t expect ourselves to be 24/7 enjoying our #quarantinelife, productive, #blessed, #handlingit, checking things off our bucket lists and doing our work like it’s business as usual.
This is not business as usual.
We are on the front lines, witnessing the lives of many people in crisis on a daily basis.
Facilitating communication between people who are calm and connected is hard. Facilitating communication between people who are triggered, afraid, sick and overwhelmed is exponentially harder. It can be helpful to name why this is so hard. Let me offer a suggestion:
It is hard because you care.
Connect to the humanity of it. Seeing another human in pain (fear, frustration, anguish) causes us discomfort. It hurts because we care.
This hurt is compounded by the fact that we’re each personally going through hard things, so witnessing the pain of others lights up and intensifies our own personal pain.
Stress affects brain integration.
Brain Dis-integration
When we’re calm, our brain is in a state of integration where all its parts work together to balance and support the other parts. We’re able to problem solve, understand different perspectives, organize our thoughts, and carry out our plans.
When our pain is lit up – when we’re stressed, overwhelmed, outraged, anxious – our brain’s connections dis-integrate, and we lose our ability to do all of those things.
Identify ‘check points’ that remind you to scan your body for tension and breathe deeply into it, allowing it to release and relax. Even 5 second check points throughout the day can do wonders. During a VRS shift some check points could be:
During your setup process, just before you log in to take calls
While ringing or waiting for a caller to answer
While on hold
Between calls
When you log out for a break
When you return from a break
At the end of your shift
Make self-care a habit.
During this crisis, as interpreters we must have time and practices built into our lives to care for ourselves – to be able to handle the stress we’re exposed to and experiencing. This includes time to cry and grieve and scream and break down. Time to laugh and connect and time to just let ourselves be.
Daily reflective practice allows our nervous systems a chance to decompress and rest, and builds stronger connections toward integration.
You wouldn’t ask your car to keep running without giving it gas. Don’t ask your heart, mind, or body to show up to work without having what it needs.
A daily self-care practice creates stronger connections for brain integration.
As you flex this muscle of integration, over time you will find it easier to stay calm through the hard stuff. When those around you are in disintegration, or when things are tough for you personally, your brain will naturally maintain integration in more and more difficult situations for longer periods of time.
The goal is not to become immune to disintegration, it’s to notice it.
We are human. The ability of our brain to prioritize safety when necessary is a very good thing. The goal then becomes a growing level of consciousness, where we’re able to shorten the time it takes to return to integration when we’re not actually in danger, and where we’re able to be gentle with ourselves and others throughout this messy process of being human.
In this integrated state, we become a true source of support for those around us, and are able to act with more compassion and empathy – for ourselves and others.
May we make this state of integration, compassion, and empathy the new normal.
Your arms work so hard! Give them some extra love.
If you attended my Morning TLC for Interpreters workshop at TerpExpo, you learned about this simple and effective technique that provides instant relief to sore muscles, breaks up adhesions, and reduces trigger points. If you didn’t, watch this short video to get started.
My favorite lube to use with this technique is the Deep Blue Rub, made by doTerra. I use this heating/cooling cream daily on my arm and shoulder, and get wonderful instant relief. Try it today to reduce your pain and inflammation!
What’s your favorite way to care for your shoulder and arm pain?