Using HALT to Give Ourselves Grace & Grounding

We're covering the acronym HALT in today's episode! This acronym is often used when working with young children and identifying why they might be overreacting, misbehaving, or throwing a tantrum, but adults are just children with more life experiences and we need tools like this too!

The next time you overreact, trying using this acronym... HALT and ask yourself Am I hungry? Is there unresolved Anger somewhere here? Am I Lonely or feeling disconnected? Or maybe I'm just plain Tired?

Let's agree to use this acronym the next time we feel ourselves overwhelmed or overreacting to HALT and diagnose whatever underlying need is not being met and move forward in a better way once we meet it.

I hope this is helpful for you! Love you, thank you!

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Transcript

Speaker 2 0:40

Hello. Hello. Welcome to another episode of the podcast. I'm so glad you're here. If you didn't listen to last week's episode, please go listen to it. It was so fun. I talked a lot about just kind of the reality that things are not that serious. Go out there, live your life. Live it messy. Have fun. Do your thing, girl. You know, all of that. And so I thought it was a really fun episode and I would encourage you to go listen to it if you haven't. If you are just tuning in and you saw this title and you're wondering what this acronym HALT stands for, I'm gonna get into that in here in a little bit, but I wanted to kind of open up and just remind you that. Sharing with friends and family and loved ones that you think this would help with is so helpful for me to get in front of other people and get in front of other listeners or watchers. If you're watching on YouTube, I'm also on Spotify and Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcast. But whether you're watching or listening, if you like the episode, please share it with someone else or leave a rating review. Only if it's five stars. Of course. And I would appreciate it so much because it does help boost the downloads that I'm getting in any given week and helps the content get out to other people. So if you like the content, then there's a good chance that if it's helping you or making you think differently, then it's pro, then it would help someone else as well. I would really appreciate it if you would help me spread the word. So with all that aside, today I wanted to talk about something. It's the acronym. Halt. I'm very curious if you have heard this acronym before in some specific setting, please let me know. I don't know if it is common knowledge or not. The first time I heard it was in college, and I'll give you that little brief story here in a second. But the acronym hall, it stands for hungry, angry, lonely, tired. And the reason, here's context to why I'm thinking of this this week. The reason that I was thinking of it is because this last week I was in the kitchen and I had taken my lunch break. I started my lunch break and I work fully from home right now and am loving that. But I went to the kitchen and I decided, you know, right before I. Make my lunch for myself. I'm going to make, put together some dough, some sourdough. If you haven't been on here listening, I am on a sourdough journey. It's very fun. I started New Year's Eve and I've been making all sorts of loaves and discard recipes, all sorts of things. Had cinnamon rolls for brunch today. It was awesome. So I have been. Able, since I'm working remotely, I've been able to like whip together some dough. You have to do stretch and folds every 30 minutes for the first two hours. So it's nice that I work from home because I can go in the kitchen, stretch and fold real quick, and it gives me a little chance to get up from my chair, walk a few steps, and then come back and get back to work. So I started some dough. And really all that means is that I added some of my starter, added some flour, added some water, added some salt, and then got it together. But with sourdough part of it is that you, you really have to get your hands in there. Like I have a bread whisk that I use and I can mix it around and. Whatever with the bread. Bread whisk. But you really have to get your hands in there and they get real sticky. And so I'm in the kitchen and at the beginning, and it's the beginning of my lunch break that I'm taking and I'm mixing up the sourdough, which doesn't take long. But then at the same time, my dog eed, he is outside and we have a door on the side of our kitchen that goes out to our deck. And our dog eed, he's so spoiled because both of his parents work from home right now. His entire life. His dad, my husband Jared, has worked from home or remotely, so his entire life that he has lived in our house, he has had parents that work from home and he barely ever has to stay inside the house. So if we, we don't keep him out there all the time, but he loves to go out on the deck, check out what the squirrels are doing. Let bask in the sun. He loves laying on the desk deck when the sun is out, all of that. So anyway, we, and he's really good about communicating to us when he is ready to come in. So right when I have, my hands are all sticky, goopy, sourdough, mess, uttered, barks at the back door and is asking to let me in and I feel myself just rage you guys, like, I just feel myself. Overreact because I am so angry that I am, I've got sticky hands and I need to wash them off really fast, but, and then I'm gonna have to get them sticky again because I'm not done mixing my dough, but I have to wash'em off really fast so that I can go open the door for my dog. And I was just like. Why am I so worked up about this? Because first of all, going back to last week's episode, it's not that serious. Edward can wait for a few minutes while I rinse off my hands or while I finish my dough or any of that. He's not gonna die out on the deck for an extra five minutes, so not that serious. Secondly, even if it was immediate that I need to get him. Out of the outside and into the inside. I know I said that weird, but if I, even if it was that, oh, I really need to get him inside immediately. If there was something else going on for a reason and it was that serious, I need to get him inside immediately. It doesn't take that much. I could grab a paper towel, put it over the doorknob and not get it, or I could just get the doorknob messy and it wouldn't be that big of a deal. It just would not be that big of a deal and, but my feelings in my body were all of a sudden this. Reaction of, oh, this is so frustrating. And I remember, I think I even made that noise. I was like, oh, oh my God, I'm coming. You know? And I was really frustrated.'cause then normally he'll just bark or grunt like once at us, but then if he hasn't been let in in a minute or whatever, however long he deems acceptable to not have let him in after he's told us he's ready to come in. He'll do it again. But for whatever reason, he was kind of worked up this day. He bark, he was barking repeatedly, so I'm like, oh my God, this over. So overstimulating, my hands are covered. I just got up from doing a bunch of invoices for work and my dog is barking outside and I just was overstimulated and it reminded me of this acronym halt. Which I had learned about back in college.'cause if you didn't know this, I studied human development and family sciences in college and part of that was childhood development. And I remember in one of our courses we talked specifically for toddlers, like two or three year olds. So this is why I wanna know if you've heard it.'cause I, I'm wondering if a lot of the younger moms that I have in my life, if you guys have already heard of this, because The concept, the way it was taught to us was that when your child is one of these things in halt, hungry, angry, lonely, or tired, the acronym you, you should use it to remind you to halt. Meet that need, whichever one it is. If they're hungry, angry, lonely, or tired, meet that need. And then more than likely, whatever the surface level problem is that's happening, once you meet the need that's underneath of that problem, it will get resolved. And I don't know why this popped into my brain as I was getting pissed off about my sourdough and my dog and all of that, but it did because I thought to myself. You know what? It was not the smartest idea to start basically a project, but start this sourdough right as I began my lunch break because I had already gone a little bit later on my lunch break than normal. I was hungry. I realized that my overreaction was definitely because I was hungry. I was hungry, and I don't always notice this, so I'm taking this as progress, but there will be times where I'm really sniffy or something with Jared and he's like, it's okay, babe. We're gonna eat lunch soon. And then I realized, oh God, I'm hungry. That's why I'm being mean. But in this moment, I halted, I stopped and I thought. Why am I, ugh. Like why am I making this noise? Why am I so frustrated? Why is there this anger in my chest? You guys know what I'm talking about, right? Like when it just boils up and then it's in your chest and you're like, I'm pissed off. And I realized it was, I really just think it was'cause I was hungry, so I stopped what I was doing. I of course let my dog in. I wasn't gonna strand him out there. And then I said, you know what, I need to pause on this sourdough and make myself something to eat. And I felt so much better just five to 10 minutes later after I was, I started eating. And it was just a good reminder to me that sometimes we think that we're so frustrated. Because here's what I was doing, you guys in my brain, I was already going, oh my God. Jared's the one that let Ed out and now I have to let him in. And Jared's never around. Whenever Ed has to be let in. He, he wants to let him out all the time, but he doesn't wanna let him in all the time. And I'm creating problems in my marriage. Poor guy doesn't even know he's downstairs in his office just working on his job and I'm up there teaming at the fact that he let our dog out. How dare you let our dog go potty outside, you know, just irrational overreactions. Really overreactions. So this episode, I wanna help you because. I love that we have that acronym HALT for our toddlers, for our 2-year-old, 3-year-old, even older than that. You could use it with any kid. But what I was reminded of is that a lot of us, we are also just going through life for the first time ever. We have so much grace for kids because they're learning so much in just their few years of life. Or first years of life, I'll say. But then we immediately lose grace for ourselves once we become, I don't know, adults or even younger maybe. But we turn 18 and all of a sudden it's like, oh yeah, you being hangry, hangry, hungry, angry, lonely or tired. That's not gonna affect the way that you react to people or situations. Of course it is. Let's give ourselves the same grace that we give to our kids because. Even though children, yes, they are developing and we can have a lot more grace for them because they haven't learned better yet. A lot of us haven't either, and me being hungry affects my mood and my emotional like emotions and my reactions just as much. I don't know about just as much. I, I haven't looked up the biology of that, but it, it affects me too, just the same way that it affects a 2-year-old that I am trying to help navigate their development. Right. So that popped into my brain, that acronym, for whatever reason. And then I started looking into it'cause I wanted to remember exactly what each one was and then when I Googled it, apparently it is also, again, if you know this acronym, you don't have to necessarily tell me that you're an alcoholic or anything, but apparently. It's also an acronym that is used in Alcoholics Anonymous, or for people for addiction. I guess I shouldn't say alcoholics, but for addiction in general, because it als, it can also be a trigger for people that have an addiction. These four things can be a trigger to make them turn to whatever it is that they're addicted to. So that, honestly, that made me feel validated because I thought. Am I just using, like, is this a dumb thing to talk about on the podcast? Because this acronym is really for children and actually no, it's for very serious things, but also we can just apply it in our everyday life. I believe that if you apply this in your everyday life, it can help you pause and like it did for me earlier this week. During the workday, it kept me from yelling at my husband. It kept me from being angry at my dog. It kept me from starting a fight. It kept me from. I, I just felt like it immediately. Relieved my mood, I guess, and it kept me from being like, this day sucks. This is the worst, da, da, da. Because I was able to diagnose the underlying need that was making me overreact. So if you are a person who is struggling with the fact that you're like, my emotions are just everywhere, or I feel like I'm overreacting all the time, or I know that. I've had young moms, and I don't wanna overstep because I'm not a young mom. I don't have a child, but I know young moms that have talked about past the hormonal changes because you kind of get a pass when you are going through the postpartum hormones. But past that feeling like, oh my gosh, yeah, just all of a sudden I'll flip out and. I don't know why that is, and it's probably because there's some underlying need that hasn't been met, and you are so focused on meeting another human's needs that you don't realize that, oh, this is the need that hasn't been met for me, and that's why I'm overreacting to this situation instead of reacting as the human that I want to be because We all want to be certain versions of ourselves and be the best versions of ourselves, but we can't if we have an underlying need that is not met. So I wanna go through each one really quickly, and obviously, you know what being hungry is like, or angry is like, or lonely or tired. But I want to talk about how they present themselves, like how it shows up so that it can help you diagnose which one you might be. Because also, shocker, as an adult you might have a crossover. You might be hungry and tired, who knows? But then like a quick fix that if you do halt and you say, oh, I'm this one. A quick fix for each of those. So the first one's hungry, obviously. This is when maybe you're not nourished well, you haven't eaten all day or whatever it is. You're hungry, and this most likely will show up as being super irritable. You might have some brain fog and that's what's making you feel. Kind of crazy and like you need to overreact and everything feels hard when you're hungry. You probably feel like, oh my gosh, just one more thing, like opening the door for my dog feels hard. And so those are some of the ways that it pre presents itself. And then obviously the quick fix is that you eat something, but I wanna encourage you when you stop and you realize, oh, I'm hungry. I haven't eaten all day. It's affecting my emotions, it's affecting my reactions. Eat something balanced. Don't just. Shove a handful of candy in your mouth or something like that, you can have candy. Other times, I'm not against candy, but maybe try to have something that has a little bit of protein, a little bit of fiber. If it could be a whole food even better, but something like that because When you use protein to balance out whatever carbohydrate, which most everything has carbohydrates, but if you have, you know, some berries and some yogurt, then your blood pressure is gonna stabilize, not blood pressure, sorry, blood sugar is gonna stabilize way better, and that will help you to feel fuller longer and to not have the situation happen again here in an hour when you get hungry again. So I encourage you to eat something balanced., I would love to give you some recommendations on that if you're more interested in the nutritional side of it. I'm very into nutrition but just in general, if you want a few quick. Easy meals that you could put together or snacks even to have a couple snacks that are easy, that have protein, fiber, and are not hard to do because we are all busy. We don't have time to prep a meal every time or make sourdough on our lunch break, but. I, I, I'd be happy to give you some suggestions. So that's hungry, angry shows up as being impatient, passive aggressive, or super resentful. And I wanna hone in on that resentful piece because if there is something that you have been building up it, it can become a trigger really quickly. So say that you walk into the kitchen and you're not hungry, you're not lonely and you're not tired, but you see that the dishes that you've asked, whoever in your household to wash. One bazillion times and you immediately, you have this crazy overreaction where you're yelling and you're, maybe you're slamming something and I don't know, you go off. That is a sign that that thing is triggering you and not allowing you to be your best self because you're so angry about it. And so. The first thing to do is to address that underlying anger, especially if it's with someone else. Address that with them. But in the moment, the quick fix is to take a breather from the thing that is making you angry, because you probably know the trigger at that point. Like if it's a sink full of dirty dishes, you know that that's bothering you. So take a breather. Go to another room, go outside. I would say do something physical in this moment. Physically pick yourself up and move somewhere else. Physically do something and if you can add in a little movement, even better if you can take a walk around the block, if you could, maybe journaling, maybe walking is not something that you could do, but you could go out on your deck or your front porch and you could just journal like just a few sentences of why this is pissing you off. So good. That would be the quick fix for anger because you need a breather, you need to take a second. And I always say there's nothing that three deep breaths couldn't fix. It's easier said than done, but in the moment if you're feeling really angry about something, leave the room and then take three deep breaths. Game changer. I, I really do think that the third one is lonely and You might notice that you are experiencing the L, the loneliness when you're feeling disconnected, but the signs are a little bit more subtle. I think it's when you start seeking validation or you start to feel really insecure and unloved or unwanted or unneeded. And unimportant, like nobody would care if you were gone. Those kinds of feelings. It's really sad, but that just shows that you're feeling disconnected and sometimes when you're feeling disconnected, your brain creates problems with people in your head that you're feeling disconnected from rather than getting closer to them. It's this weird thing where you're doing the opposite of what will actually fix the problem that you're doing because you're feeling lonely. So you're feeling insecure and really what your brain needs is for you to connect with that person rather than create problems in your head with them and think, oh, well they haven't reached out because of this. Or, you know what I mean? When you create problems with people that don't exist. So the quick fix for this, obviously reach out to somebody, But if you don't feel like you can reach out to somebody, my first thing is get off of your phone. Your phone is creating fake connection for you. And that's okay sometimes. But if the, if you are overreacting because you're feeling lonely and disconnected, get off your phone as the first step. And then if you can go somewhere where there are people, if you can't reach out to your sister or your best friend or. Your husband or whomever or someone that you live in the house with and tell them, Hey, I just really need some quality time. I really need to be around somebody right now. I need to be social. If you can't do that, go to the go to target, go to a store, go to go somewhere where there are people around. Go to the park, go somewhere where you can be around other people and maybe you can start a conversation and you can just feel a little bit less lonely. And then the T is tired. So when we're tired, everything feels like drama. Everything is the worst thing that's ever happened. Everything is out to get you. It's just drama, right? It's emotional and it's overwhelming. And I, I know this one because ever since I was a little kid, I have a hole in my heart. I was born with a hole in my heart and I used to sleep so much as a baby and kid. And honestly, I still, as an adult, it's a joke with some of my friends that, oh, Morgan's gotta get her eight hours because I really, really, really try not to let myself have a night where I don't sleep eight hours because everything really is drama with me. If I don't, I'm so emotional, I'm rubbing my eyes like I'm a 2-year-old and I'm going off on somebody, or I'm crying and it's all overreaction and really I'm just tired, so. The big thing that I wanna point out with, if you know you're tired and you can't necessarily fix it right there because you're at work and you can't just go take a nap, which maybe you can, you know, if you've got a sick day, just say, I'm not feeling well. Go home, sleep girl, take a nap. Totally. Okay. If you got some time that you can use, but maybe you're not somewhere where you can take a nap. First of all, don't make any decisions in the state. Do not make even small decisions. Definitely don't like quit your job or something like that, but also, don't text somebody that you're angry with. Don't yell at someone that's in the room with you. Don't online shop. At this point, you are not in a good state and you should not make decisions. My sister always says something that I love and it's that Thoughts after 9:00 PM aren't real thoughts. And really it's because our brain is in that tired, sleepy, shut off mode There are all these thoughts that we have that we're sure are a hundred percent true, but then you wake up and the next morning you're fully rested and your brain is normal, and you're like, oh, that was a crazy thought. That actually definitely is not true. So if you can't do that first, don't make any major decisions. Don't trust your thoughts, honestly. And then if you can take a nap. If you can't take a nap, Make a plan for going to bed early tonight. If that is communicating to your roommate or your husband or whoever you live with, your partner texting them and saying, Hey, I really need to go to bed at 9:00 PM tonight. Do it, communicate it. Or if you live alone, make a plan to plug your phone in across the room so that you don't stay up till 2:00 AM scrolling on TikTok or Instagram or wherever you scroll. Make a plan right now your plan might even be, okay, if I wanna go to bed at 9:00 PM work backwards from that. I need the kids to be in bed by 8:00 PM I need dinner to be done at 7:00 PM I need, whatever it is, work backward from that so that you can make a plan and then you can follow through with it because you're gonna be so much happier and you're gonna be in a way better place to make decisions. In the morning when you're well rested, or maybe in the morning, an hour after you've woken up because you're well rested and you've had your cup of coffee. So those are the H-A-L-L-T. Obviously the acronym spells halt. And the reason is because HALT helps you to respond to the need and meet the need rather than react to the situation. That is the, is not the actual issue. So. I hope that this is helpful for you. I know for me, the reason I wanted to bring it up is because it was something that I experienced this last week and I was thinking about when I share on these episodes, I like to share things that are actually happening in my life that are either making it better or something that went not great, like for instance, me freaking out about sourdough and my dog and being hungry so that I can share with you how you can utilize something in those same moments because they're just moments that we all have. We're all human and. My hope for this episode was just that it would give you one more tool in your toolbox that you could use to help you so that you are not allowing your relationships, your job, your house, your whatever, your kids to be affected by the fact that you're literally just hungry, angry, lonely, or tired, and give yourself some grace, girl because. Being hungry, angry, lonely, or tired is not fun for anybody and we give our children so much grace and we need to give ourselves the same grace. So hope this is helpful for you. If you have heard of this acronym, please let me know. DM me on Instagram at rise and Energize Pod. I would really appreciate it because I wasn't sure if this was new information or not., Like I said, I had only heard it for the first time in college, but maybe it is standard knowledge for other people. I don't know, but love you. Thank you.