With this episode I want to give you permission to DO less and BE more this week. I also talk about why that’s hard, why it’s something I was virtually incapable of doing for over a decade and still have to make a conscious effort for sometimes. Join me as I share about the time I walked away from playing duck duck goose with orphans to do dishes because productivity felt so much safer than play and how this pattern showed up for me even today when faced with the option of quality time with friends or outlining this podcast. Healing can feel messy, with each episode you listen to, thanks for inviting me into yours.
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3 take aways:
Have questions you'd like me to answer on the podcast? SUBMIT HERE
Website: https://www.riseaswe.com/podcast
Email: amanda@riseaswe.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/amandaontherise/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@amandaontherise
With this episode I want to give you permission to DO less and BE more this week. I also talk about why that’s hard, why it’s something I was virtually incapable of doing for over a decade and still have to make a conscious effort for sometimes. Join me as I share about the time I walked away from playing duck duck goose with orphans to do dishes because productivity felt so much safer than play and how this pattern showed up for me even today when faced with the option of quality time with friends or outlining this podcast. Healing can feel messy, with each episode you listen to, thanks for inviting me into yours.
Looking for more personalized support?
3 take aways:
Have questions you'd like me to answer on the podcast? SUBMIT HERE
Website: https://www.riseaswe.com/podcast
Email: amanda@riseaswe.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/amandaontherise/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@amandaontherise
0:00
Welcome to regulate, and rewire and anxiety and depression podcast where we discuss the things I wish someone would have taught me earlier in my healing journey. I'm your host, Amanda Armstrong. And I'll be sharing my steps, my missteps, client experiences and tangible research based tools to help you regulate your nervous system, rewire your mind and reclaim your life. Thanks for being here. Now let's dive in.
0:29
With today's conversation, I want to give you permission to do less, and be more this week to be in your doing self less and be in your being itself more. And I promise I won't speak in code this entire episode, I'll tell you more what that means in a second. And I also want to talk about why that's so hard. Why this is something that I was virtually incapable of for over a decade and I still, I still struggle with it and have to make a conscious effort to switch from being in that doing headspace GO GO GO GO GO productivity, and into that space of just being and being present, and letting go of the incessant need to do.
1:21
So what, what do I mean by do? What do I mean by be? And I want to start answering that by first asking you a few questions. So maybe take a deep breath, and we're gonna get a little self reflective. And I want to invite you to think about the last time you let yourself just be when was the last time you sat on the couch, or sat on the porch? For the sake of sitting on the porch. And you just sat there, not sat there and scrolled on your phone, just sat there. What a lovely day when I go sit outside and look around. When was the last time you felt fully present with friends. You were listening to hold space for not listening to fix or listening to problem solve. You were present in in the moment and not thinking about all these things that you didn't get done or that you still needed to get done. When was the last time that you played for the sake of playing or engaged in a hobby? And how many of you were sitting there like Amanda? I didn't ask for you to come at me like this. I couldn't have answered any of those questions. For over a decade of my life. I never sat on the porch for the sake of sitting on the porch. In fact, I would have told you it was a colossal waste of time. And what was the point? Like there's things to be done, obviously, I needed to be the helper to be the fixer in my relationships. So whenever I was with a friend, either I was only half there and half mentally in my own to do list or I was listening. Always with this need to respond with a suggestion or to fix space holding is something that comes much better to me. It better because this is what I do for a living for people. But it didn't always. And just playing for the sake of playing? I don't know. Again, I'd been like who does that? Nope. Oh, yeah, my work is play or hobbies always served a greater purpose of productivity. And so maybe ask him one more question. Are you more comfortable being productive than present? And I will side note, that you can be both in some circumstances. I just know how often I traded presents for productivity, how often I still sometimes trade presents for productivity.
4:30
So let me explain the difference between being and doing and another way and this is going to be with them. I'm just going to preface this. I know that this is the absolute most cliche and cringy analogy, but just stick with me. Imagine that life is a beach. I know. It's not a promising start for this analogy. But imagine that life is a beach Doing is like building sand castles, you're gathering the materials, you're planning your design, and you work hard to make something cool. It's it's doing that can feel fun and rewarding. But ultimately, it's focused on achieving a goal. Now being would be like simply laying on the sand, you feel the warmth of the sun, the sand under your toes, you hear the sounds of the waves, you're not aiming for anything. Just experiencing the moment you're present.
5:46
When was the last time that you engaged in anything for any amount of time, where you weren't aiming for anything, just experiencing the moment. For some of you, you're like, I do this every day. Today's conversation probably isn't for you. But you can keep listening. And some of you are like, again, Amanda, you're throwing some punches I didn't ask for today. Because maybe you don't know. You don't know when the last time that you were fully present, not aiming for anything, just experiencing the moment, maybe you can't remember that ever been part of your lived experience. And to that person, I want to send you so much love, and compassion. Because I was you and still am you in so much of my like default programming. I am so good. I'm so good at doing. And it's something that I have been praised for, often in my life. And before I get into to maybe expanding on that a little bit, I want to share with you a story that I know I have shared on the podcast before. And I will most likely share their story again, especially when I do an episode on Play. And the role that play plays in healing and cultivating more neuroplasticity that's going to be a cool conversation. But in 2015 ish, I think maybe 2015 2016 I don't know. It's all a blur. It's all a blur that whole decade of my, like 15 to 27 Very big blur. But I went to Zambia on a humanitarian and mindfulness retreat. And we stayed in the home of this incredible Zambian woman, and this trip, forced presence. When we got there we all everybody who was there, it was part of what we knew we agreed to before we came on this, this trip was that we were gonna have to put our phones away for the full two weeks that we were there. So we turn off our phone, we put them in a box, and then the program lead kept it for us, you know, in case of an emergency. We were not given an agenda for the trip, we did not know what we were doing each day until that morning. I am the biggest type a control freak. In general, but especially during this season of my life. I'm not sure how I survived this trip. Without absolutely psychologically breaking. There, it was challenging, it was really, really challenging my system wanted to know wanted to know wanted to know, because it felt like if it knew then it could control and it could plan for. And it was a beautiful this trip. It laid a number of different paths, if you will trailheads for future healing that I have done.
9:07
But on the particular day that I'm talking about the activity, if you will, the volunteer opportunity that we got to engage in was with a nonprofit that supported and took care of street children. So these were children who didn't have homes, often they were orphans. And this facility opened its gates in the morning, the children could come in, they got fed to meals, there were books and it was just a place that they could be safe, safe and off the street. And different volunteer groups would come and just be with the children. And every morning, we woke up again not knowing what we were doing. We had breakfast and then we we met as a group in circle to do a meditation and set an intention. When they shared what we were doing for that day and they said today You're doing what I just shared with you we're doing. And the intention is to be present, to love the person in front of you for the moments that are in front of you. Because I think what she's also said was, notice your urge to want to fix. Notice the urge that you have to want to, to save these children to put together a fund for these children, and what a human, what a beautiful, natural human desire. And this retreat was nondenominational. But the leader would often, you know, use terms like God or universe, and the conversation here it was, you know, turning to your your higher power with that was universe or God turning to God and saying, you know, what's my job? And what's your job? What's my job? And what's your job? And she said, I am willing to bet that the human urge for you to want to wrap up and take all these children home with you, if you get quiet. And you ask, What's your job, and what's God's job, your job is to be present, and to love these children in the moments that you have them. And so I wasn't actually that, that last couple minutes I shared with you wasn't in my notes. And I hadn't remembered that, until just now sharing it with all of you. So if it felt a little choppy or messy, I'm pulling it from a deep place.
11:43
The part of the story that I wanted to share with you that illustrates this doing versus being and when we're living in survival mode being is so uncomfortable, It's so itchy, it's so scratchy, we get there, and we're given the instruction to go, go find a group of kids go play, and immediately my system is paralyzed. What do you mean, just go? I need like a right and a wrong way to play like, this is where it'll come in. I will talk about just a really challenging relationship with play. But I found a group of kids who wanted to read a book and I was like, I can read books. And then they wanted to play Duck, duck goose, I was like, yes, there's rules for duck, duck, goose, there's a right and a wrong way I can do this. And then from across the yard, they say, Hey, we need a couple volunteers to come to dishes. I've never stood up so fast in my whole life. I jumped up and went to go do dishes. And somebody would be like, what's the problem, they asked for volunteers to come do dishes. What I realized because part of this program was also at the end of every night, we circled back up together and we were able to process and to reflect and I remember just breaking down, I have such an inability to be present, I had such a discomfort with play, that I left children who have no one to go do dishes. I walked away from presents for productivity. So like I said a minute ago, productivity has been a safety net. For me. My ability to get things done is something that has garnished me a lot of praise in my life. And if you've been listening to my podcast for a while, you may remember I did an entire episode on my productivity based self worth. And if you haven't listened to that one yet, and you are resonating at all with today's conversation, please go there next. I think it's episode nine. And it should just be titled productivity based self worth.
14:08
So what what does all of this have to do with today's conversation? And what does all of this have to do with today? Really? This conversation came about because today in my very real life, not a lot of years ago in Zambia, but today I struggled trading productivity for presents. So today, I went to an event in my area. This is an event I go to every single month. It's a monthly meetup for working moms, many of which are business owners, entrepreneurs like myself, where we learn from an expert on a particular topic and then we just connect it's about an hour and a half long event. We co work and I have the extra benefit of it being put on by one of my dearest friends out here. Her name is Mariah. If you are a mom, business owner or working mom, she has an incredible podcast made for mothers. Also, if you're like, Man, I wish there was an event like this near me. She shameless plug for her she is getting close to opening made for Mother's is what the event is called, chapters across the US. So stay tuned, follow her find her through her podcast for that. So I have this bonus of I would love to go to this as just a mother business owner anyways. But I have the added benefit that I get to see to two of my best local friends here. So I've got Mariah. And then Ali, I've think I've shared of I think I've shared about Ali before here. But she is the genius behind my brand photos, my family photos, even my birth photos. Sweet Ali will never be able to unsee every inch of me that she saw in the delivery room with my last son. So I love to go to these events, because I know it is going to be time with my friends that I just don't get to see very often. And at this beautiful winery is the venue where this is at. It's that hour and a half event. And then we are invited to stay and to just work in this beautiful space.
16:20
So I lined up childcare and my husband worked from home today. And it was like, Yeah, you don't have to come home until you know 435 Do the event and then work, get out of the house. Don't hear kids tap dancing upstairs while I'm driving to work in my basement office. And my plan was to outline like the next few weeks of podcasts, including today's. So again, it's a Monday, this podcast is going to come out tomorrow for you all. And the event wrapped up and I was like oh, they're staying a little longer, I'm gonna get lunch. Awesome. That still gives me three hours to work. And then lunch turned into a conversation that turned into a different conversation that turned into another conversation. And as every about 20 minutes, two and a half an hour that past I felt my system lurch into like, I need to get this done, I need to record this podcast, I need to outline this. And then there would be this pull of like, but I want to be here and in these conversations with my friends. And then 30 minutes later with lurch back into you need to pull open your laptop, you need to just let them know you need to go work or you know, put on your headphones or do whatever. And then I would pull myself very intentionally back into this conversation that we were all having this time together that I really need it. I've been really busy behind the scenes of my business, I've been feeling a little bit depleted, I haven't had a lot of social time. And it was only after like an hour and a half to two hours of this like, ah, productivity present with friends get work done. Before I could calmly and confidently articulate that I was choosing presents over productivity today. And that is what I want to invite you to begin to pay attention to.
18:23
So this week, I invite you to pay attention to what it feels like when you aren't in doing mode. Maybe even paying attention to if you are ever out of doing mode. Just bringing awareness to how often you are physically somewhere but maybe mentally or emotionally somewhere else. And a fun way to maybe test this out is to set a timer and then put your phone away from you not like on another side of the house because you also want to notice your urge to reach for your phone. But let's say you set a timer and then put your phone on one side of the couch and you sit on the other. And you just go sit on your couch. You sit on your couch and you breathe. You look around and see how long you can be there before you feel like crawling out of your skin. Jumping up to do the dishes or reaching for your phone. Because that can be a really good test on how comfortable my simply being in and with myself and not doing.
19:43
Or maybe you have an opportunity this week when you're out with friends or even having a phone conversation with somebody. How quickly or how often does your mind wander elsewhere to the next thing you need to do to the thing you need to get done, or even how is it that you're listening? Are you listening to hold space for this person, or you listening to solve the problem in being with this person from the outside looking in, it looks like you're being you're listening. But really, internally you're doing because you're wanting to step into the problem solving the fixing.
20:20
When we are living in survival mode, when we struggle with anxiety, our nervous system is primed for hyper vigilance. In this overactive state, our system is constantly scanning for threats. And for many of us with this productivity based self worth, the idea of not getting enough done, feels like a threat. One of the things I hear often from clients is something like, you might not guess, if you just saw me in my everyday life that I'm struggling, because I'm really good at going through the motions of my life, whether that's getting to work showing up as a mom, but I'm never really there, I don't ever feel fully present, the term autopilot gets brought up a lot, I feel like I'm just on autopilot in my life. Nervous System dysregulation causes this disconnect between our mind and our body. So you might be physically present in a situation, but your thoughts your emotions are swirling elsewhere. And it makes it really hard to be fully engaged. And I also think this is why I have so few vivid memories, from my mid teenage years, even through my 20s. I mean, I have a handful. But I spent so much of that life, physically present, but mentally and emotionally already in the next place. Or worrying that I didn't show up properly in the last place. And dysregulation when we're in especially that sympathetic activated state, it affects the way that your brain works, it affects your ability to focus to concentrate to process information.
22:04
So what I want today's chat to boil down to is simply this invitation to notice this week, how often you are in a state of doing versus being and also an invitation to notice how often or if at all, you are able to consciously switch off doing to instead really settle into this sense of just being and to notice that if doing you know, quote, nothing feels uncomfortable. If arresting is something that you feel like you can only do after, after you have finished your to do list after insert whatever it is for you here. Well, number one, what happens is that you never get done. Because if you've productivity based self worth, if you are a chronic doer, you just add more, you never actually let that To Do List ever get to the last thing. And the other thing that happens is that when you finally do sit down on the couch, after you feel like you've done enough to earn the right to rest or to just be it's not an experience that is filled with a sense of you know, calm and presence and awareness, it's usually a collapse on the couch into a dissociative Instagram scroll. I know because I do it often.
23:34
And I want you to number one, know that you're not alone. And number two, to remind you that presence, this ability to be is a skill. And our ability to be present is an essential skill to living a life that doesn't just maybe look good from the outside, but feels good from the inside. It's an essential skill to living a life outside of survival mode. presence being is an essential skill for being in deep connection with friends, with partners with our children. And all of that starts with awareness. And with this awareness, maybe this happens this week. Maybe this doesn't happen for a couple of weeks or a month. But if you notice that you do you struggle with being that three minutes of sitting on the couch makes you want to crawl out of your skin. Practice being with being just a little longer than feels comfortable. So maybe you choose to sit on your porch for five minutes. And after three you are feeling that pool to head back in and do something. What if instead of just jumping right up and going back and deciding that couple minutes more doesn't matter? You offered yourself even just 10 more are seconds with a little reassurance that it's safe to just be that doing can wait just a little longer.
25:11
For me, that sounded like inside on the outside, I was nodding and smiling and engaging in conversation with my friends. And like I said, every 20-30 minutes, my answer would be like, Oh, I'd feel that urge, like, we gotta go, we gotta go. It didn't feel safe for my system to be in being that long. And it took that more regulated of that more healed part of me saying, actually, it's okay. It's okay to just be that work you have on your agenda to get done. It can get done later. There is time. The number one indicator that I have stepped into a new layer of my healing, that I have a reset my baseline nervous system state a little bit more into that green zone is my ability to turn off the urgency, the urgency that says no, no, it has to happen, it has to happen right now. And the rigidity of not only does it have to happen right now, but it has to happen in this way. And when I can catch that urge or that default, and there is a more resource part of me a more regulated part of me that can come to the surface to say actually, it's okay. That can wait. There is time. Those moments feel like my big trophy moments, when the urgency and the rigidity can settle.
26:55
Over time, what my system has learned and is learning that it can be safe to be that chronically doing and overdoing isn't the only way to find validation, to find acceptance to find the praise and the safety, but that it can also be safe to be. And so each time you practice being just a little longer, you show your nervous system, that it that you didn't die, that you you got 10 More seconds out of being. And the more frequently your nervous system experiences being, the more familiar it becomes. And the more familiar something becomes to your nervous system, the safer or more survivable it feels. And the more willing it is to experience that thing a little more often, for a little bit longer. And in this conversation, we'll kind of bring it all together with is that being and doing or not opposite things. Both doing and being are really important parts of life, like that are really cliche and corny life as a beach example. There can be a lot of internal reward and you know, the fruits of your labor that come from the doing. But it's the why are we doing and the how often are we doing in comparison to being so this doing and being it's about finding the balance and knowing when and how to switch between them, that really matters. You can build amazing sand castles, while also feeling the sand between your toes, the sun on your skin. And we just want to make sure that there is space for both and oftentimes when we've experienced trauma, when our nervous system has become dysregulated. The being goes because the doing is necessary for survival.
29:07
So I want to leave you with our three takeaways from this conversation. Number one, if you've been living in survival mode, it makes sense that your nervous system feels safer doing than being it makes sense.
29:24
Number two, is an invitation to simply notice this week, how often you are doing versus being how easily can you pause doing to shift into being present. When that's asked of you, whether that's to be present with a friend or a partner, your children. So that's the awareness piece.
29:53
And then number three is another invitation or a challenge for you to practice Being with being just a little bit longer. Notice the urge, oh, this thing is calling me. Hey system, we'll get to that thing. That thing can wait. Let's be here for one more breath for 10 more seconds.
30:21
Alright, friends. That's the conversation I have to bring to you all today, it felt a little less polished than normal. I hope there was something that you took away from it. I'm guessing if you made it all the way through the end, there was I have some really exciting episode ideas coming up, I want to talk about the neuroscience of behavior change the eight essentials, to more regulated living that we teach behind the scenes in our practice, really pulling back the curtain to showing you how we help people heal. Whether that is something that you feel like you want to join us to do, or you can take pieces of those episodes and integrate them into your own life to create a life that feels more regulated that feels more grounded, that gives you more capacity to be and thanks for sticking around through the episodes that have really polished and well researched outlines, and the ones that I threw together in about 20 minutes before I hopped on the mic. And until next week, I am sending so much hope and healing your way.
31:29
Thanks for listening to another episode of The regulate and rewire podcast. If you enjoyed what you heard today, please subscribe and leave a five star review to help us get these powerful tools out to even more people who need them. And if you yourself are looking for more personalized support and applying what you've learned today, consider joining me inside rise my monthly mental health membership and nervous system healing space or apply for our one on one anxiety depression coaching program restore. I've shared a link for more information to both in the show notes. Again, thanks so much for being here. And I'll see you next time.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai