Welcome to this tiny corner of the internet where an off-duty psychotherapist keeps the conversation going on how to make sense of this life thing we’re all doing. If you ever wondered what your therapist does off the clock—which, who among us hasn’t?—this is like that. Think of it as the adult equivalent of seeing your elementary school teacher at the grocery store picking out lemons. 🍋 (If that imagery alone, feels sticky for you, this would be the time to jump on that off-ramp) I typically oscillate between long-form psychoeducation pieces and narrative essays—sometimes I smush them together. I also do a biweekly podcast with my husband, roundups and a segment of brisk thoughts on music, TV, and film.
One thing before we jump in, I show up very much as myself here. Myself first, and all my other labels are secondary. If a therapist speaking candidly feels like too much to your system, that is absolutely is OK and this may not be the best particular newsletter for you.
I have an excessively busy July–no boring girl summer for me (womp womp). I have a mother daughter trip to Northern California, a family reunion in Wisconsin, a long holiday weekend with no childcare and mostly 90 degree days (aka cabin fever central), a midweek concert (Olivia, why?!), a silent disco with a girlfriend, starting a weekly volleyball rec league, and a birthday party. Oh, and all this is supposed to fit into my working, parenting, and writing commitments.
Maybe this wouldn’t be too much for some, but for me, my introversion, and my central nervous system, it most certainly is. I love most of these things. I signed up for most of them, but that doesn’t mean I’m not overwhelmed by them.
If you’ve been with me for a minute, you know a few of the behaviors that make up my mental health toolkit—walking, dancing, meeting myself where I’m at. When I’m overwhelmed, I can very easily forget the most basic needs I have. The things I do that greatly impact how I feel in my body and mind.
It happens so fast. So, so, so fast. It’s like I forget they are there FOR me. They aren’t chores. And they are often incredibly simple.
This got me thinking, (1) What are the biggest features that will help me stay present and engaged so I can experience all these things without burning out? and (2) Could I provide an accessible framework for you to do this as well?
I’ve found that my things usually fall into four categories:
Body/Movement
Mind/Emotional
Connection/Intimacy
Creativity/Hobbies
I’m going to list a bunch of options underneath each category. Before I do, a few things:
This would not be a time where I’d try something new–let’s save that for another newsletter.
Of the four categories, my intention is to make time for three of the four each day. One from each category every day would be too much for me personally right now. If three is too many for you, start with what works and you can build from there.
🚨This is not an exercise in making feelings go away, this is to be with yourself exactly as you are. If you’re anything like me, if you go in with the agenda to eliminate a feeling, things will go sideways fast.
Body/Movement– Swim, roller blade, tennis, golf, yoga, stretch, walk, strength train, pilates, dance, basketball, garden, sleep/nap, cycle, martial arts, hike, pickleball, laser tag, canoe, drink enough water, eat nourishing foods and/or mindfully eat, massage
Mind/Emotional–Journal, therapy, meditation, write, set boundaries, abstain from or reduce use of addictive processes and substances (e.g., social media, alcohol, cigarettes, coffee etc.), sleep 8-9 hours, clean your space, get outside, gratitude practice, time alone, massage, plan out your day, cry, crossword, dopamine dressing, take breaks throughout the day from work, time with pet, read, breathing exercises
Connection/Intimacy–Grab dinner with a friend, call that person you’ve been meaning to, set that boundary, share gratitude for someone who has impacted you–tell them what they mean to you, family meetings, snail mail, date night, book club, writing group, concert with loved ones, trivia, volunteer, exercise class, sex, board games, go through your camera roll and send to someone a picture or video that strikes you, comedy show, campfire hang, bake or cook together, schedule a long distance zoom game night, cuddle on the couch, do the 36 Questions That Lead to Love from NYT,1 hold hands with your honey on a walk, karaoke with your besties
Creativity/Hobbies– Write, cross stitch, garden, paint, draw, woodwork, knit, sing, dance, morning pages, photography, cook, birding, scrapbook, read, fish, bowl, video games, pottery, calligraphy
**As you’ll see there are some I think cross into multiple categories and so many more that I didn’t notate. Or ones that meet all four— going to an exercise class with a friend or gardening with a loved one.**
My Wellbeing Intentions
Body/Movement: Drink enough water
I was tempted to put a form of movement down, but I’m at a point in my relationship with that aspect of my life where I trust I’ll make time for it—a place, I must note, after decades of having a complicated relationship with movement and my body, I never thought I’d be able to even visit, let alone live in most of the time.
However I do not trust that I will always keep up with water intake. The impact on me without this one is large–headaches, even drier skin, grogginess, I sleep poorly. I didn’t get sober to feel hungover, you know?
Mind/Emotional: Journal
I am not a journal every day type of person. Most of my journals are incomplete and the frequency with which I write in them is chaotic as hell. That being said, when I’m spiraling, it works almost every time.
True story, whenever I’m super mad at my husband—so mad I can’t say things in a way I yet trust—I give my journal a spin. Sometimes I ramp up in my anger and that’s OK. I got to give it a place to go, honor what it’s trying to tell me. Other times, I very quickly can see clearly all the parts that make up the relational hurt.
Connection/Intimacy: Telling someone how I honestly feel
You may be fooled into thinking because I'm a therapist I would know the value of talking to others and thus do it a lot. **Au contrarie. Lolz.** I have many a message in my makeup about being a burden or that people will bulldoze my feelings which often leaves me wanting to keep to myself.
A framing I’ve begun to incorporate is from
’s Buy Yourself the F*cking Lilies: And Other Rituals to Fix Your Life, from Someone Who's Been There. It centers around the commitment to being more thoughtful about who I reach out to in a crisis. Tara has rules: kindness, confidence, self-awareness, curiosity, do you feel good in this person’s company and that secret sauce. Of course we know this intellectually, but do we act on it? I can’t be the only one who historically has gone back to the same dry well time after time, right?I find this to be a very important consideration for myself and with clients. Choose the people who are not maybes, the people who are hell yeses in moments of crisis. Don’t mistake longevity for a hell yes. I believe we know in our bodies who is the right fit for this.2
Creativity/Hobbies: Writing
This one may not be a surprise since we are all here reading the result of this behavior, buttttt lest one forget–me!--a year ago I wasn’t writing. Not really. Not like this. I still don’t do it every day and I don’t intend to, and yet, doing it when I can is like injecting breath directly into my soul.
As Joan Didion once said, “I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear.”3
Put more simply, it helps me know myself.
Other Considerations
Illness/Depressive Streak/Overwhelm
I can very easily be at odds with my body the second it doesn’t work exactly how I want it to. This is typically where we can, understandably, see movement take a backseat. I find it helpful, albeit slightly dreary, to plan for these moments by having modifications ready. For me, that would be something like light stretching and intentional breathing.
If this is a new endeavor for you…
Plan out where will these behaviors will fit it into your day. Don’t rely on willpower and the spirit to move you. Those are fickle beasts. A trick I learned through BJ Fogg’s book Tiny Habits is to tag the behavior you want to start with a behavior you already do. For instance, with my journaling, I could tag that onto going to sleep, something I will do ostensibly every day. 🤞
Habit isn’t habit-ing
If I start with one and it’s not providing grounding? Next! Pick a new one, done.
Also, there are so many different ways to approach something like this. I feel particularly overloaded by this month so I picked very specific behaviors from each category. Looking at a list of options and choosing a different one each day is too much for me—basically, decision fatigue. Howeverrrr, if being limited like that is too much for you, keep it fluid. You can switch it up whenever. Make it your own, my loves.
Intentionality
You very well may already be doing a lot of these activities throughout your day. This is not about blazing through something to feed our task master part. This is not about checking something off a to-do list. Although, what a rush.
This is TLC.
The way we do these behaviors matter. During times of stress, I’m very specific about how I talk to myself about why I’m drinking a lot of water or reaching out to a friend when all I really want to do is sink inward and be dehydrated,
“I’m asking us to do this because when we get busy, we tend to think if we just keep going there will be time for everything later. But we will miss the guts of all this fun stuff we’ve been looking forward to if we don’t take care of our vessel here. I promise, this is not a punishment nor a criticism. While we are resilient, we are also a high maintenance organism that deserves said maintenance.”
I’ve never done anything like this. Not this formally, anyway. It’s always been more an intention I hold in my head, but when things get harried, it slips into oblivion, as do I. 🫠
To assist in this I made a little worksheet to accompany you us—I figured out how to make an editable pdf and everything, y’all. It was surprisingly tricky, so please do use it if you’re at all interested.
If you have any trouble with it, email me at dialoguingsubstack@gmail.com or DM me on the Substack app and I can send it to you directly. Let’s get after it! It being our mental well-being.
Questions for you:
What would be your 4 categories?
What are your go-to’s under each one?
What’s the thing that always slips for you when you get overwhelmed?
Are you gonna join us on this month/season of intention?
Housekeeping: I have some deeper dive pieces coming up this summer, one several part-er on finances (aahhHH—run! that’s what I want to do as I write this) that I’m excited and terrified to bring to you.
Also, tickets for the virtual Mental Health & Motherhood Conference go on sale today (7/1)! Tickets begin at $25.4 You can get them here. If you want a taste of what it will be like,
has begun to post introductions with various speakers, one with yours truly is forthcoming.As I wrote about recently, this conference is NOT just for mothers. I’d love to see fathers, friends, and concerned citizens at this conference learning how to better support the mothers in their lives. I strongly believe we cannot put all the onus on mothers themselves. It’s often SO hard to see where you need support, where you are struggling when you’re in it. It’d be like asking a drowning person, “Instead of flailing about, have you thought about using a raft you don’t have?” while you stand on the shore—or at least that is what it felt like to me. I needed someone to throw me a raft. I needed someone to pull me out of the water. I needed someone to say, “I can see you are drowning. I may not have all the answers, but I won’t let this continue and it’s not your fault.” Hell, at times, I would have settled for someone to just jump in the water with me.
You can find more info and my full disclaimer on my about page here. Abridged version: I’m a therapist, but not your therapist—even if you are a client of mine ~hi, dear one!~ this isn’t a session. dialoguing is an educational and informational newsletter only, not a substitute for mental health treatment.
Any comments, questions, suggestions, please feel free to email me at dialoguingsubstack@gmail.com—or if you’re reading this via email you can just hit reply and send me a message. Love hearing from you for any and all reasons!
Lastly, the summer tends to be a time where things slow down for my practice. I’m excited to announce at this time I have space on my caseload for 1 or 2 coaching clients. Check out my about page (near the bottom) for more info.
|*|*|*| Catch this one before it goes behind the paywall:
I’ve done this with friends and my honey. A great way to get to know someone more deeply.
This is specific to this moment. I am NOT suggesting you only seek support from your hell yeses all the time. I, for one, know that there are people who sometimes I feel a hell no in my body and it’s old wiring, rather than the person. It can be worth it to explore that more deeply. However when overloaded, I prefer to stick to my hell yeses.
from Why I Write for LitHub Excerpted from Let Me Tell You What I Mean by Joan Didion
They have kept the tickets as low as possible while also covering the costs of hosting the event. If you would like join me in donating a ticket —or—are facing a financial barrier, contact contact@mentalhealthmomevent.com
Love this because things like this can help to be so grounding! Even drinking enough water - sometimes I feel like that's such a win and I feel so proud of myself! I also love that you give permission to move on to something else if you're not vibing with the current "thing!"
Was thinking about deleting instagram for the summer…you’ve nearly, fully convinced me!