Living Well with PMDD

Why Going From Structured to Unstructured is Hard and How To Make It a Better Experience

• Heidi Bradford • Season 1 • Episode 105

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Last week, I helped at a young women's youth camp. It was delightful. The transition back to life was a bit rocky, but not nearly as bad as it has been in the past. In the past, I wouldn't know what to do with the angst that often comes from moving from one phase to another. But I know better now. It's just transition discomfort and it's normal. Listen in to hear about my camp week and how to make transitions a bit better. Watch on YouTube here. 

Take Aways

  • Heidi's experience coming home from camp
  • Have you ever experienced feeling weird and wondering what's wrong when ending one thing and moving on to another?
  • Often this happens when we're going from structured to unstructured. Sometimes it happens going from unstructured to structured. And it can even happen going from structured to structured. 
  • It's normal to feel unsettled when shifting from one activity to another sometimes.
  • What to do:
  1. Recognize your in a transition 
  2. Remind yourself that nothing has gone wrong
  3. Ask yourself, "Now what?"
  • Part of "Now what" is to identify structure within the transition or the structure in your upcoming activity. This brings calm to our mind and body.
  • It may be helpful to mourn leaving your last phase/activity. 

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Ep 105 Why Going From Structured to Unstructured is Hard and How To Make It a Better Experience

[00:00:00] Hi there. I hope you're having a great June. For those of you, uh, that are out of school, I hope this summer is wonderful for you. I'm excited to dive in, talk about why going from structure to unstructure can be so hard, and then give you some ideas on how to make it a better experience.

If you are new or if you're not sure what I do, I offer compassionate, affordable, coaching.

If you're interested, book a free call with me. We will together find your next best step for dealing with whatever you're going through. All right.

This topic is inspired by some recent events in my life. Most of you probably know that we're moving overseas this summer with the Air Force. Along with that, we still have life going on, and part of my life is [00:01:00] that I, volunteered to help with a youth camp this summer,. Specifically, a young woman's church camp. And it was last week from Tuesday through Friday, and it was so fun. And I just loved it. , We were up in the mountains. There were spiritual classes. There was the zip line, climbing wall. I wasn't doing those, but I was, belaying people and helping manage a ladder at the end of the zip line. Then lots of crafts, um, bedazzling all sorts of things. It was so well put together, well planned, well executed.

There was a beautiful faith walk. I got to be one of the characters in the faith walk. I was one of the three midwives, from the Egyptian times, from Pharaoh's time. But one of the Hebrew midwives that would not kill the baby boys. [00:02:00] Anyway, those experiences are so choice. I got to sit in a camp chair in the quiet of just trees and read scripture and think, um, write a little bit, and that's just not, um, part of my everyday life. I guess reading scripture, writing is, but you know what I mean, like out in nature, away from my normal responsibilities.

So I really, really loved it. Coming home on Friday, um- I, I don't know what I expected, but after,, hugs, I was kind of like, "Okay, well I guess I'll go unpack the truck," and asked for anybody who wasn't doing anything, which was most of the kids, to come and help me.

And they just brought in all the stuff. And then, my [00:03:00] mind, just went to, "Okay, well, what's next?"

All of our belongings are gone, most of our belongings. What's not going on, a boat or flying on the airplane, we get to send a few things that way, is coming with us in luggage. Of course, we have to clean our house, and I had laundry from my week away.

So I started laundry. I got kids lunch, and got myself lunch, and then, Just started doing, doing stuff for the move ., Trent came and he gave me a hug and was like, "Hey, I'm going back to work." I'm like, "All right." , He was able to work from home for Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, but Friday he actually took kids in to work and then came home, uh, and then now was headed back.

We talked for a few minutes before he left, but...

and I was just, back in my house on a Friday, kind of [00:04:00] sat in the middle of my day and I'm like, "Man, I'm tired, but I'm not gonna take a nap."

It just felt weird.

Have you ever experienced that? Is that something you, you go through, where you just find yourself like, "I feel weird," " what's wrong?" , Nothing's wrong, but I feel like something's wrong, and I'm not sure what to do next.

Often this happens when we're going from structured to unstructured. Sometimes it happens going from unstructured to structured as well, and it can even happen going from structured to structured. I've been doing all of these things and it's planned, and now I'm gonna go to a different thing that has its own rhythm, its own, routines, or things that belong to that structure that don't belong to the one we were doing.

So when you find yourself in that place, there are some things that can [00:05:00] help. One is-

recognize what's going on, that this is a transition time, and that's why it feels weird . Some of the feelings you might experience are confusion or anxiety. Sometimes it's feeling unsettled, in your chest or in your stomach.

, If you notice wanting to lash out or not wanting to commit, it could be that you're in a transition time and you're just not recognizing it. That's the first thing I would do, is ask myself, "Okay, what's going on here? Am I transitioning from one thing to another?" And then the second part is to remind yourself that nothing has gone wrong, that it's normal to have transitions in our life.

I am not supposed to [00:06:00] be at girls camp, every week of my life. We're not supposed to be at work 24/7. We're also not supposed to just be playing all of the time and just doing whatever comes to our mind next. There are times for that, but it's not all the time. It's not every day all the time. And what that means is that there is supposed to be transitions, that that is a part of life.

So when we find ourself in them, nothing has gone wrong, and even those feelings that we might not like, feeling awkward or feeling unsettled, we're supposed to have those feelings too. We were given a gamut of feelings and emotions to experience them. They're just like a little flag [00:07:00] being raised, like "Hey, something's going on.

Did you notice?" Then give some attention to it. Being around people and also coaching people and also life experience, do we skip lunch at work because we have to? Is it necessitated because we have a meeting scheduled, is that what's going on, or are we avoiding a transition? We don't really wanna let go of work long enough to get into having lunch, thinking about the food we're eating, thinking about other things in life, are we avoiding that?

The answer is probably sometimes we are, and sometimes really something is creeping up. But if we can know what's going on, like this is a transition or it's not, then that can also just help and It can bring peace and calm [00:08:00] into your life in that moment.

The next part is asking yourself, now what?

And there are options. Sometimes recognition that you're in a transition is enough to just shift to the next thing, and can help you kinda stop dragging your feet. So that's one option. Um, another option is when you notice you're in a transition, to rest first. And a rest can look different. It could be saying a prayer.

It could be taking three deep breaths. I'm gonna grab some water.

It can also look like going on a walk. If you're hungry, eating. If you are thirsty or you just haven't had water for a while, [00:09:00] grab some water. Those can facilitate rest in our mind and in our body. The one can facilitate the other, right? If our body's kind of hyped, having a drink of water can help calm it.

If our mind is hyped, then doing some physical exercise, can help calm our mind. And then another option is to mourn. Take a minute and be sad about what you just left.

Whatever phase that was, for me, girls camp. Missing that experience. Missing just sitting in the trees. Missing talking with one of the young women about, a class. Missing talking to the adult leaders. I love the lunchtime where I just get to sit and we get to chat, along with the girls, but, you know, catch up on things.

We're each running [00:10:00] our families, and that is a big job, and to get away from that for a little bit of time ... it's such a blessing. It really is. And it can make us better when we get back. Taking the time, if you want to, right, to mourn. Maybe that's what needs to happen before moving on.

It's okay to revisit. If you're able to just in that moment shift to the next thing, which my shift initially was really easy into home, making lunch, getting some things done for our move, and then it was like, "Ugh." And so I chose, okay, well, I'm gonna take time to just watch a show with my little kids.

But it's okay to mourn the loss of whatever you're losing, the loss of the structure or the loss of part of that experience. And this can be short. It's usually better if it's short so that we don't go into [00:11:00] self-pity. Self-pity is not a good place to be. If you notice that you are pitying yourself and just feeling sorry for yourself, mourn and then move on.

See if you can pull , from that self-pity, what is actually really bad about your life? Find the nugget. Find what it is. Be sad that it's something you're going through, and then move on.

If you want individualized help with shifting from, something structured to something else structured, or something structured to unstructured. Maybe you're just going through a bigger transition time in your life.

I would love to help you. And we can come up with a personalized plan for how to deal with this time of transition.

Essentially, I'm encouraging you to do three things when you're going from one [00:12:00] structure to another, from structured to unstructured, and from unstructured to structured.

And it is to recognize that you're in a transition time .To identify that nothing has gone wrong and to ask yourself, "Now what?"

I failed to mention, and I will say it now, if you're going from structured to unstructured, and if that's what it feels like, the next piece when you get to that now what is to actually find the structure in the unstructured part.

I know that sounds funny, but let's say, you're going from school routines to summer. Find some structure for your summer. It gives our mind just so much peace for there to be some structure. And instead of it, like with me at that young women's camp, we had... [00:13:00] I was gonna show you, but I actually don't know where it is right now.

We had a lanyard with little schedules for every day, and on the front was from 7:30 wake-up call all the way to, 9:30 devotional. , Yeah the devotional and then obviously you go to bed. Um, so the front side was that, and on the back side were the breakout classes, like from 1:00 to 1:45, first years, and it had, like, where the first years were gonna be, and then it had the second years and the third years and- It was amazing, right?

But it's like hour by hour and there were free times in there. Your new structure. For me for the move, it does not look like that. It looks like breakfast, lunch, dinner, and then within those, packing, cleaning, playing, [00:14:00] free time, and then after dinner it's almost like we have scriptures and prayer in there, but it's whatever, needs to get done.

So yes, find the structure in your unstructured, time and that will bring you peace. Even transition times can have structure.

Anyway, hope you have a wonderful rest of your day and we'll talk to you next week.