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Ep. 4 – Building Harmony in Uncertain Times · RiseUp - Live Joy Your Way

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Today's episode is produced by my friends at Walk West.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_01: If you're looking to grow your brand and generate leads through podcast or video production, head over to walkwest.com.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, let's start the show.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Rise Up.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: Live Joy Your Way with Comedy Wood.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's time to step into your power.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: Hi everybody, and welcome to another episode of Rise Up, Live Joy Your Way.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: I'm so happy you're here.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_01: Today I wanted to talk about tips to build harmony.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: Harmony during these stressful times and during these times when our house is completely full of people.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's funny, I was just talking to somebody recently and she was joking around with me and saying that we're finally getting our money's worth out of our mortgages.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, What do you mean by that?
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_01: And she said, um, it's we each month we basically are paying a mortgage payment to sleep in our house and have maybe one or two meals in our house on a daily basis, but the rest of the time we're all running around either at work or running to activities, and so for the first time in a really long time, we're actually getting our money's worth out of our mortgages.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I, you know, that perspective made me laugh, and I realized, you know what, it's actually kind of true.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_01: But what I really wanted to talk about today was ways that we can actually build harmony in our homes as we are all housebound, and it's hard to get space from from each other and to have our own personal time to process whatever it is that we're processing.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: So the first thing that I want to talk about is this the first step in building these the harmony within our house is actually practicing self-care and self-compassion.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: And the first part of that is even explaining what I mean by that.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: Because oftentimes when we hear the word self-care, we think of things like going for a massage, or you know, for us women getting our nails or hair done, or just doing things outside of our home.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: So, what is it to practice self-care and self-compassion when we're at home?
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: So, some of the things that come up for me are ways to give yourself mental space and mental grace from what is happening.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: You know, right now there is a lot of uncertainty.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, our leaders refer to it as a fluid time where we really don't know from moment to moment or day to day what to expect, or you know, one day we we hear that we are housebound until for us personally, the first um statement came out and said we would be housebound until mid-April, and then our governor came out and said it would be the end of April.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: Now I'm hearing talks that it'll be sometime in May.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: So there's a lot of uncertainty.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_01: So one of the main issues or one of the main ways to practice self-care and self-compassion is to give yourself that mental space, that quiet time to process what's going on.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: The other thing that I talk about a lot and have been talking about a lot with my clients recently is getting in touch with how you feel.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_01: Really asking yourself to identify what you're feeling and then what it is that you need.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes we can self-soothe with the things that we need, but other times we realize that we are going to have to depend on those around us.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: We're going to have to ask for support or for some help from the people that are closest to us, and when we don't feel like we can ask those people for support, we have to reach out for help.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: Because right now it's about taking care of ourselves, being careful with ourselves, being compassionate to ourselves.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: Because when we don't take care of ourselves, we are not full.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: We are coming from a half-empty space.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: And when we're empty and we don't um have much to give, when we're in a house where it's full of people, and for instance, parents have to they have to take charge of their kids' schooling right now.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: You know, if you're feeling empty or you're feeling depleted, it's very difficult to come to that and be able to absorb what it is that your children need from you.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's just really important to fill yourself up so that you have something to give.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_01: You have a way to absorb what it is that's happening around you and you can handle it.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um another way and reason why self-care is so important is um we have to give our emotions time and space to be.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_01: You know, a lot of times we don't process our emotions, we try to put them in a container and not deal with them.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_01: But this is a time when we're really going to have to recognize that emotions are meant to be in motion.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_01: They're they are meant to be processed.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_01: And when we try to contain them right now, and we don't have ways to distract ourselves, because let's face it, most of us are very busy.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: We have very planned, busy lives, and so a lot of times when we have different emotions on a daily basis, we can find ways to distract ourselves or kind of just not deal with what's going on in our life.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_01: But when we're stuck at home, and and I don't mean stuck in a negative way, I mean we just can't leave our houses and we're not as um we're not as busy in terms of running from task to task.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: We have to process those emotions because if we leave them unchecked um and we leave them undealt with, they're just gonna fester.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: And when we are at home in close quarters with the people in our lives, if we don't deal with the emotions, we might we might um strike out either you know verbally to those around us.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: And the truth is, is once we say something um mean or negative to somebody else, while we can apologize for it, they can't unhear it.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_01: And so as we are in these close quarters, it is so important that we actually do practice that self-care and do practice the pro the practice of we practice the practice of having emotions and allowing them to process um to rise and crest whatever they may feel.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I know personally, from my own personal perspective, I have had I've gone through uh a gamut of emotions over the past couple weeks.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I've had grief, I've felt a lot of sadness for my oldest child who is um who's who's been waiting for 12 years to walk across a stage and collect her diploma from graduating from high school, and we don't know that that's gonna happen.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I had sadness for my tenth grader who uh you know loves to play lacrosse and suddenly his spring season was canceled after one game.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_01: And that there was sadness, there was grief involved in that.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: I was I you know I had moments of anger.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not gonna lie, there were moments of anger over the just the situation and why we're in the situation that we're in.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_01: But the truth is, once I was able to process through those emotions, and I'm not saying that they've completely gone away, I think it's just like grief, right?
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: Where you have different emotions and they it's not like a linear process where you get through a feeling or an emotion and it goes away forever.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, they come back.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_01: The point here is that you allow them to come back and you allow them to rise and crest and and then move on from where they are, because the truth is once I allowed some of those emotions to process through, I was left with a lot of gratitude.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: I was left with gratitude for the fact that I am in a home where I can spend time with my children.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_01: I had gratitude for the fact that my oldest who is 18 and my youngest who is six suddenly have time where they can spend together.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: You know, that having such an age difference, most of the time their lives are in completely different paths and they don't see a lot of each other, but they've been given this beautiful gift of having this time together.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_01: Not that they're getting along swimmingly every day, all day, but they do have time that they didn't have before, and that's a huge gift.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I had gratitude for the fact that we are eating dinner as a family for the first time in a long time because suddenly we're not all running in 18 different directions.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_01: And so we're able to spend that time together.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_01: So, in some sense, if I hadn't processed through those emotions, I wouldn't have been able to get to that clear headspace of recognizing what the gifts that I currently have right here at home with me.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_01: And so, in building harmony in our house, once again, it's you know, going through our own self-care and practicing self-compassion allows the groundwork for building this harmony within our house because when we aren't taking care of ourselves and we try to come from a place of half full or empty, there's not much to give.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_01: And this is a time when we have to figure out ways to take care of ourselves so that we can meet the people in our house with love.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, we can give them compassion as much as we can give ourselves compassion.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_01: And the truth of the matter is that this is important for all of us, not just us adults.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: I think that our our teens and our young children need to have the ability and and be um encouraged to practice compassion with themselves.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I know that I with with my teens and with my youngest ones, I have been asking them daily, you know, what what is it that they're feeling?
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_01: What is it that they need?
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: Because they too have had their worlds rocked right now.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: They um, you know, have gone from very busy lives, they've gone from being able to socialize with their friends at school, they've gone from having a very routine-oriented day to suddenly, you know, all that's been up-ended, and they are learning in a totally different way that they have no idea what the right way is to do this, which causes anxiety.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so we've done a lot of talk around, you know, the fact that there is not a right way to do this right now.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_01: This is a time for, again, the practice of grace, that it's okay, there's not a perfect way to do this.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_01: We're going to figure this out together.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: But it's so important that our children, our teens, our young adults, our adults, we all figure out a way to be compassionate with each other, but most importantly with ourselves, that we're coming from this place of fullness rather than emptiness and halfness.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so that when we are together, we can um we can really be present with each other and really embrace where we are in this moment.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm not trying to sugarcoat the situation that we're in because it is difficult.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_01: The situation is is very uncertain, but by the same token, we have to be able to find ways to take the small gifts or big gifts, however you want to look at it, from the situation that we've been given.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_01: In some ways, to give yourself some of that space is, you know, sometimes it does mean to, you know, maybe go into a room that nobody's in and just give yourself a little bit of space that way, physical and mental.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe it's to go take a walk by yourself instead of with other people.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_01: You know, maybe it's to stand in the shower for a few minutes extra just so you have time to process the emotions that you're having.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um maybe it's just to show up to, you know, sit with your kids without an agenda, without a an agenda of what schoolwork needs to be done that day, but rather just to be there and and whatever comes, comes.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: You know, maybe it's to just show up and play a board game with your kids without any attachment to how it's supposed to end or how it's supposed to be.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um so the tips that I have in terms of just trying to build this harmony when we're coming, when we've practiced that self-compassion and that self-care and we're coming from a full place, you know, the tips to build that harmony in the house again is to slow down and get present with with the present moment rather than worrying about what's gonna come and what if and all those, you know, those uncertainties is to just slow down and get present with where you are.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_01: How do we do this?
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: Well, there's the the process of getting present with your current moment, you know, getting in touch with your five senses.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: What do I hear in this moment?
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_01: What do I see around me?
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: What can I touch?
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: You know, what do I hear?
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, what do I taste in my mouth?
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_01: And when you do that and you get really in tune with your five senses, you're able to slow your mind down and get present with your current moment.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: And that in and of itself allows your brain to slow down, allows it, allows those thoughts to slow down, and you can then figure out what the next best step is, or what you would like to, you know, how you would like to spend your day with your family, or what's the what's something that needs to get accomplished.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, there are breathing techniques, of course, that can help uh slow you down again to try to build that harmony within your house.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, some of the breathing techniques that I talk about are the box breathing method, which is when you breathe in for four, you hold it for a count of four, exhale for a count of four, wait for a count of four, and then repeat, you know, three to five times.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um, another option for breathing is to breathe in for a count of three and then exhale for a count of six.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_01: And the difference in the counts and as well as just the slowing down and focusing on the counts allows, again, those thoughts to slow down so our minds aren't running as as rapidly.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um again, another um, and I think I mentioned this earlier, but another way to practice and build this harmony within our house is when you are in a very you're stressed or anxiety ridden and you know that the temperature, so to speak, has risen, you know, maybe it's it would be a good idea to take a time out, for instance, you know, so that you don't say something offensive to somebody in your house or you don't get angry, you don't let your anger get the best of you and you again say something that you can't um take back or they can't unhear, but instead take a timeout.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we practice this a lot a a lot with our young ones when they are getting very upset or misbehave, we put them in a timeout.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_01: Well, some people think that the timeout is a punishment, but truthfully, the timeout is meant for a um quieting of the mind, um, settling of the child so that then a ref a reflection can be made.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_01: It's kind of the same thing for us, is sometimes when we when we feel triggered and we've we recognize that we are amped up, we just say to the other person, let's take a timeout, or we give ourselves a timeout, and that quieting, whether it be five minutes or maybe it's 30 minutes, we're able to slow it down and not engage in high anxiety, high, high um stress reactions to things.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_01: So we're not coming from a reactive place and we can be more generative with our actions and our thoughts.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, another tip that I have is while yes, our routines have been completely upended, sometimes it helps to go ahead and build a new routine, you know, because a lot of us are able to anchor, you know, when we anchor into routine, we're able to feel whole and complete.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_01: And then of course it it caught it it leads to um having more um, I guess, uh harmony, that's the best word for it.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_01: It leads to more harmony within ourselves, which then on the outside and in our relationships with those around us, there will be more harmony.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_01: So building a new routine, you know.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_01: While my routine, for instance, was wake up and head to carpool and then you know, this list of things, and that's not happening anymore.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_01: What I have done is come up with a new morning routine and a new daily routine.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_01: Having said that, it's really important because there's so much fluidity in what's happening around us that we don't have control over, remembering to practice grace when those things get up-ended and giving ourselves the space to um, you know, to forgive ourselves if we don't necessarily stick to the routine that we put into place, or conversely, be open to rebuilding the routine if need be.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_01: And then my final tip in terms of building harmony within our house when we are um so facing these uncertain times is to either come up with a power statement or a power word that we can anchor into when we feel ourselves being triggered, we feel ourselves being overanxious, we know that our emotions might get the best of us, and we might say something or react to something in a way that would um cause more strife within our house.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_01: And for me personally, I've anchored into the word grace.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: When I feel myself amping up, I simply say the word grace to myself, whether it be quietly or in my head, and I repeat that and it reminds me you're okay, you're doing the best you can, things are uncertain, everything is gonna be fine.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_01: And it just reminds me to go ahead and slow it down and to be present in my moment so that I can come from again a generative place instead of a reactive place.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: So those are just a few tips that I have in order to try to build some harmony facing in our homes as we're facing these uncertain times.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I would love to hear what other ideas people have and what other tips that they may have to build harmony within their house.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_01: I do hope that those are helpful to some of you.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_01: And again, if you uh ever need anything or would like additional support, I welcome it.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you can visit me on the web at www.itsauthenticme.com.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_01: Feel free to shoot me an email at contact at it'sauthenticme.com.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_01: And until next time, I am Comedy Wood.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_01: See you soon.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for listening to Rise Up.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: Always remember your uniqueness and the gift that you bring to this world.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: Life happens for you, not to you.