Bloom Your Mind

Ep 101: Support

• Marie McDonald

Share episode

How are you feeling after the presidential election this week?

Are you feeling anxious and a little disoriented?
Or are you feeling happy and nervous at the same time?

The truth is, for many of us, a lot of things might happen around us that would make us feel that way at different times in our life. And it's important that when those big feelings happen, you are equipped to take care of your body, your mind and yourself.

In this episode, I offer you my support and tools to help you whenever your mind is running way too fast or you suddenly feel this burst of emotions coming at you all at once.

I hope that this episode can serve as your reminder that whatever it is that is happening in this world, you are going to be okay. You are not alone.

What you'll learn in this episode:

  • How to manage negative emotions when they come up
  • Tools to calm your mind whenever your brain is running too fast
  • Practices to bring self-awareness when you're feeling reactive
  • Becoming mindful of the inputs that you are taking into your mind
  • How you can get into action, and do something that will make more of what you want to see in the world

Mentioned in this episode: 

How to connect with Marie:

JOIN THE BLOOM ROOM!
We'll take all these ideas and apply them to our lives. Follow me on Instagram at @the.bloom.coach to learn more and snag a spot in my group coaching program!

Welcome to the Bloom Your Mind podcast, where we take all of your ideas for what you want, and we turn them into real things. I'm your host, certified coach Marie McDonald. Let's get into it.

Well, hello everybody, and welcome to episode number 101 of the Bloom your Mind podcast. This episode is a support episode for you, if you need it, for anybody in your life that you want to send it to. 

This week in the United States we had a presidential election, and it was a big deal for a lot of people. The truth is, the way that a lot of people felt before, during and after election day might come up for many of us, all of us, at different times in our life. 

I heard people describe the way that they were feeling as anxious. I heard people describe feeling disoriented, disappointed, alienated. Lots and lots and lots of anxiety and feeling a little depressed. Lots and lots and lots of anxiety and feeling a little depressed. Some people felt excited after the election results came out, or happy, but also nervous because there's so much division. 

So, no matter where you land, you know I had my own experience making things clear, describing things to children, my own experience with the election, and I heard all kinds of things in the people around me people that wanted they were feeling really stressed and they wanted to rest. People that are stress eaters and stress ate. 

People that just wanted to stay in bed. People that just wanted a hug. Whatever you felt, let this episode be a support for you Now, if you're experiencing any of those, but also in the future. For any time, your mind is running too fast, you're feeling overwhelmed, disappointed, depressed, anxious, disoriented, any of those things. 

Here are some tools for what you can do. The first thing always I do this every single day the very first thing to do is to ground your body. There are lots of different ways that you can do this, and I'm going to tell you just a couple of them, and then I'm going to tell you my favorite one. So, one easy thing that I've said on the podcast before is to look at the room around you and look at the four corners of the room. 

Recognize the four corners of the room and find three blue things in the room, three yellow things. This just helps the brain remember that it's in a space where there isn't a threat. Another thing is to close your eyes and focus on your breathing. You can use a technique called box breathing, where you inhale for a count of four, hold for a count of four, exhale for a count of four and hold for a count of four. 

Those are some tools for anxiety and big feelings, but my favorite to use all day, every day, is to just drop down into your body. I like to close my eyes. 

You can do this during a meeting, before a meeting. You can do this on a you know, a day where you had an overstimulating morning. Anybody have kids, like I do. Wow, are some of those mornings overstimulating? 

Where the news really has you get feeling wonky, where you're having racing thoughts, where you're feeling reactive emotionally to something someone said. 

Do this, become aware of your breath. 
Breath in, breath out. 
Drop down into your body and notice what is there. 
What feeling exists in your body right now? 
Where is it? 
Is there tension there? 
Lightness, emptiness, fullness, heaviness, color, movement? 

If you can, if it's safe, close your eyes and just ask. What does it have to tell you? And then ask what do I want? Ask yourself what do I want for myself right now from this situation, for my family, for my community, for whatever it is that you're dealing with? What is my body telling me, because it will never lie, and what do I want? 

So, the first step is grounding. The second thing that I want to give you in the way of support is to please pay attention to the inputs that you are taking into your mind. What I mean is reading the news doom scrolling on social media, but also, what are the conversations that you are having? 

Are you talking through the thing that you're stressed out about over and over and over again with different people, in which case it usually makes it bigger and actually activates our anxiety, our cortisol levels? Are you calling people that you know will probably be upset to commiserate? Are you allowing yourself to listen to a podcast that's about a stressful topic? 

Whatever it is, pay attention to that cocktail of things that you're putting in your mind, because they also create the cocktail in your body of chemicals there. Right, if they're feel-good chemicals or stress hormones or stress chemicals, that's all going to be impacted by everything you're putting in your mind. So, balance that out. 

Help yourself, focus on some things that make you feel good and, speaking of that, give yourself some dopamine hits, maybe some oxytocin, by being around people that you love, giving them a really long hug. You know I'm a fan of being with your pets. 

My favorite is sitting in my garden. I have this abutilon tree. It's also its familiar name is called a parlor maple. I am obsessed with it. The way that I like to find plants for my garden is by walking around my neighborhood and seeing what vegetation is really successful in my microclimate. 

And this one is from a neighborhood walk and I saw it. I was like, ‘what is that thing?’ Took a picture of these beautiful red and yellow bellflowers and researched it. And it's called Abutilon. You should totally Google it right now. It's so pretty. People walk by my yard all the time and it hangs over the fence, and they say, ‘what is that?’ Because it's so magical. 

And so, I have this place where I sit under a chair and all of the Abutilon flowers hang over me in like a wave and my husband, max tells me I'm getting barreled like a surfer. He says you're going to go get barreled right now. I'm like yeah, I am. 

And I sit there really still in this chair, getting barreled by the Abutilon flowers in the yard because I love it and also because I'm trying to get the hummingbirds to be comfortable with humans around them. I'm training them by being really still in my abutilon barrel. And so, I'm sitting in the chair and guess what happened the other day? 

A hummingbird was buzzing around me. I felt its little hummingbird wind from its wings on my face. That gave me such a good feeling. And so, when I'm stressed out or overwhelmed, I go sit in that chair and I zone everything else out of my brain and just focus on hummingbird wings, you know, on Abutilon barrels. 

So, what is it for you that can give you that feeling? Now, the next thing that is super important is to do something good in the world. Get into action that feels positive. 

This is the whole reason the Bloom Room exists is to help people take all of that angsty energy that they spend being worried about everything and put all that energy into creating something that is good for the world. Instead, to turn ideas that will make the world into a better place into real things. 

And when you are overwhelmed or feeling angsty or feeling hopeless and just stressed, get into a community or be in your community and do something good for your community. 

I've told you a lot of times about starting a maker's market, starting yoga classes, doing this podcast. All these things make me feel like I have something to put my energy into that's doing some good. 

The Bloom Room is my biggest energy source. That's regenerative for me because I can take all of that focus off of stress about all the things in the world that I could be spending time doom scrolling about and instead get my brain focused on. 

How can I make the bloom room more effective? How can I help the people that you know the 12, 14 people that are in there right now, that are my little study group and my fundamentals course group, before we have our January wave of enrollments? How can we have that group be even more effective? 

Right now, I get to put all my time and energy into that and if you want to get into the bloom room, the enrollment is open. We're taking rolling enrollments. Take it, come on in anytime. The group is small right now and it's really fun, but in whatever community that you want to do something that's good for the people around you, it is so healing, it is being of service is so healing. It's why I volunteer many hours a week. 

Do something good for the people around you and, lastly, practice awareness around your mind, what your mind and what your body are doing. So, the first thing that we said is to ground and you can always do that and then identify what the feeling is in your body. And then the second one is the second part of what I'm saying is to really identify what are the thoughts running through my mind, write them down. 

Are they helpful? What is that going to create? If I keep thinking that thought, do I want to think something different? And, my friends, if you need to just grieve about things that are happening around you, please take the time to do that, decide to grieve and then get into action, doing something that will make more of what you want to see in the world. 

Again, if you want help managing your mind and practicing thought awareness, managing your cognitive mind, your conscious mind or managing your unconscious mind, the Bloom Room can help you with that too. 

So, we are here to help, we are here to serve, and I hope that this episode is supportive of you by giving you some quick things that you can do to take care of your body, your mind and yourself. You're going to be okay, and you are not alone. 

That's what I've got for you this week and I will see you next week. 

If you like what you’re hearing on the podcast, you've got to come and join us in the Bloom Room. This is a year-round membership where we take all of these concepts, and we apply them to real life. In a community where we have each other's backs, and we bring out the best in each other. We're all there to make our ideas real, one idea at a time. 

I'll see you in the Bloom Room.