Ep. 129 Creating a Restorative Practice Plan

This transcript was auto-generated, please forgive any weirdness.

  Hi and welcome to the mindful shape podcast. I'm Paula Parker. If you've been around for a while, I think you're going to like this one because this is all new stuff. And if you are new to me, welcome. I'm a life coach and I specialize in helping you release excess weight and feel in charge around food.

So a little bit of you know, the behind the scenes on this. podcast topic. I've been sick for about a week, just a head cold, nothing serious, but I did have a flu like two weeks ago. This is the nature of having little kids. And, you know, honestly, I just haven't been feeling motivated. There's been a few extra handfuls of cashews, maybe some dried apricots, a few dried strawberries in the mix.

And I just feel like I'm now coming on the other side of it, which is why I feel comfortable sharing it with you. But I know that we've all been there, right? You're just like not doing the workouts that you normally do, or it feels harder to do them when you do get yourself to do it. You're kind of just feeling like you're in a rut, in a little bit of a rut.

Fortunately for me, My calls with my clients give me energy, so that's the time when I can set aside my own problems or issues or being in a rut and get, just get to focus on them. So I have that going for me. So hopefully you do too, where you have something like that, where you can just take a little break from your own life for a little bit.

And this podcast really is going to be focused on  What do you do when you're in that kind of rut? So see if this tracks for you at all. You might go into what I think of as screw it mode. You're apathetic. You can't get off the couch. You have avoidance tendencies. So maybe you retreat or you procrastinate.

Maybe you don't reply to the text or your emails are piling up. You tend to ruminate or you are like Overdoing things like you're, you're scrolling or you're, you know, over YouTubing or over Netflixing or overeating, maybe you feel a bit numb. Or this can show up as being very anxious, being hyper vigilant. 

Hyper focused on productivity or trying to control everything. So you're brittle. When plans change, you break instead of bend. You're white knuckling your way through the day. There's so much to do, never enough time. There's like a sense of urgency. It's a bit frantic. There's some frenetic energy. You might be quick to anger.

You might be quick to get annoyed or irritated easily in both of these states. You feel out of control. There's a sense of powerlessness and a stuckness feeling. Okay. That's all very heavy. Okay. So shake that off. Take a deep breath. This is normal. You are normal. This happens when your nervous system becomes dysregulated.

It might be because of a stress. So a chronic stress you've been dealing with or something specific that's happened, or it's simply from being a human and you have some unresolved trauma because as a human, you have some level of trauma. Right? So this is important to understand because being in either one of these states, and we tend to gravitate to one more than the others, although we, we usually entertain both at some point, they can really influence our, our eating and become an obstacle. 

We overeat to soothe and seek comfort. We use the food as a distraction. We eat to squash that panic or that anxiety. So what we want to do is have some tools, some restorative practices, to help us get back to a regulated state. Not euphoria, not highly motivated, but simply grounded, calm, able to respond versus react.

The idea is that if you have a plan in place for when you notice that you're in this spot, you don't have to rely on food. You can ride it out without any overeating happening. Think of it like an emergency response plan. We, I live on Vancouver Island, and we recently had an earthquake. And it's the first earthquake I've ever actually felt.

I think it was 5. 6 or something. But it was at 5am and woke me and my husband up and immediately, you know, you wake up in a panic and we ran to the kids rooms and they slept right through it. But then of course I go into this panic of we need an emergency kit. We need a grab and go bag. which I already have because I'm a little bit paranoid about earthquakes and tsunamis,  but I decided to top it up, right?

Okay. So why? Cause we need to have a plan, right? It's reassuring to have a plan. So I hope that you will use this episode as your own plan for your nervous system so that you can feel reassured as well.  Okay. So I think the first thing we need to keep in mind. is that you are not going to be inclined to enact this plan, this restorative practice plan, when you are in one of these states.

You are most likely to be in resistance. So we need to make it as painless and with the least amount of friction possible. But we're walking a fine line here too, because it also needs to be effective. Or, you know, what's the point?  So here's how I'm approaching it personally. So just take what you like and leave the rest.

I think of restorative practices in three categories. The first group is thinking. The second is feeling. I'm talking about emotions and the third is also feeling, but sensory. Okay. It's using your senses.  Now, what I would suggest is that you make a list for yourself that has at least one restorative practice in each category.

Why?  Because moving your brain and body requires you to address both your brain and your body. What we're doing here is creating a physiological change. Or if you are fancy, you can think of it as moving from sympathetic to parasympathetic system. Okay?  For me personally, to shift out of a funk or being in a, one of these dysregulated states into a more restorative state, I need to address.

All three categories. I find that works best for me. So I'll give you some examples of restorative practices for each, but again, I encourage you to make your own list. Okay. For thinking, can you identify any negative thinking patterns? For example, Are you thinking the same old negative thoughts that you tend to think?

Okay, my husband tends to point this out to me. So, he's like, you're probably thinking this, because he knows, he knows all my negative thinking patterns. I'm not doing enough. I work so hard nobody notices. I'm not good enough, or it's not good enough. Or I'll never get what I want.  Those are some of the common ones.

But you might have some unique ones just to you. Identify those, then, what is slightly more neutral? Or more compassionate?  in terms of how you were thinking about that. Maybe it's trying the thought on of, it's all I can do right now, and it's enough, or I'm learning. You can also use questions. And by the way, if you do this in your notebook or a journal, it's more effective.

You can ask questions like, what if there's no problem?  Like, what if you could just feel in that moment? that there is no problem, nothing has gone wrong. And just notice how you can access the peace in that moment just by trying that on. See if it shifts anything for you.  What if this is exactly how it should be going?

So nothing has gone wrong. How can I find peace, contentment with how things are now? Where is the peace? Where is a contentment? How could I find that now? Is that accessible in any way? All right, we're just asking the question. The answer might be no, okay?  But we're just asking the question. And then this is kind of an interesting one, but where do I need to forgive? 

So do you need to forgive yourself for something? Is there someone else that you need to forgive?  Really interesting question.  Can you get up somewhere high physically? Or, you know, you hike a mountain, so you can look down and see a view. That can also shift your thinking, making your problems seem smaller. 

You can do things like morning pages. Some of my clients like doing that. Or your favorite self coaching exercises. Any kind of journaling prompt that you love. Or simply free write all your thoughts. This is all restorative practices in relation to your thoughts. thinking, cognitive self awareness. All right.

But be honest with yourself. What is going on with you truly? What's going on with you? Are you anxious? You might need some safety thoughts. Mine is always, you know, no matter what's going on in the world or in my life, what always matters most is my family. And when I focus on that, I can feel calm immediately. 

Okay. What are some restorative practices in the emotions realm? We slow your roll. Okay, we slow down. We do nothing for a minute and just feel, feel our bodies. So under all that busyness or avoidance, there actually might be some grief. There may be regret. There may be tears.  So let yourself feel without explanation, without judgment, without having to figure out what that feeling is.

or why you are feeling this. And for us cognitive people, right, who, who stay up in the brain, this isn't so easy, right? We're always, why are we feeling this? Why is this happening? What's happening? We want to examine everything. So this is an opportunity to practice that skill, get those reps in on just feeling the sensation in your body. 

I'm in this neuroscience course right now, right, so a lot of the stuff I'm talking about I'm pulling from that course. They talk about how when you slow down to feel without having to explain, it changes the body physiologically. If you aren't very literate in  emotional vocabulary, like, you can't easily name your emotions.

This is doubt, this is hesitation, this is worry, this is irritation, this is whatever. It's okay. Focus on the feeling. The sensory experience. You're having in your body. For most people, they feel a lot in their chest. So just check in with your chest. What am I experiencing in my chest? Is there a change of temperature?

Is there a pressure? Is there a tension? What's going on there?  Maybe you've heard of the idea of naming your own emotions. So maybe a combination of feelings. Sometimes, I love my kids. You know I love my kids. But sometimes I have this feeling before I pick them up or before they come home, it's like a combination of dread and anxiety.

So I have randomly named it Warby because why? It changes my relationship to that experience by giving it just a funny, weird name like that. Oh, this is some Warby coming up. I got some Warby. I can handle Warby. Alright, so I encourage you to do some fun creative exercises like that when it comes to your emotions. 

Alright, so what are some restorative practices that can help you work with your emotions, access your emotions? Of course, make your own list. I like meditation. You can watch a sad movie, journaling, music, anything that's going to help you feel into your body. Alright, so even if it's just taking some time to lie down and just taking a minute to feel.

It doesn't have to be for very long. And the last category is sensory. So what are the activities that activate the senses that would be restorative? It might be calling a friend. It might be a bath. It might be a shower, a walk, you know, moving your body, stretching, and then there's, think of all your senses.

So you might be using essential oils or your favorite perfume, putting on some nice body lotion, something that's like that. You're using your senses. Drinking water, tea, washing your bedding so that you have clean sheets. Nothing feels better than that, right? Or tidying up so that things are orderly and that's visually calming for your nervous system, right?

Our brains like to see things in place. They like to see things clean and tidy and orderly. Or maybe you have a pool or a sauna you can use. That would be great. Or you listen to some sort of music again or any kind of  Something audio that really helps you relax. Maybe that's a guided meditation. I really like some of these weird  ASMR videos on YouTube that you can look up.

I really like this one in particular. Her name is Lune innate. I'll put a little link in the show notes because she's great. And she, you know, she's a bit mystical if you're into that, she's mystical. But she just talks in this really soothing way. And sometimes I like to put it on because it's really relaxing and she's very positive in her energy and the things that she says. 

Okay. So let's wrap this up, but the ideas are endless. The idea here is to make a list of all of the things, as many as you find restorative to you in the categories of, you know, cognition, thinking, emotion, and sensory, your senses. And then the plan is. Simply pull out that list and commit to doing some, maybe, you know, three will get you going.

They don't have to be big things, right? So you can do multiple. If you want to do more,  if you feel like you want or need more, you do that. There are no rules here. We're just making this up as we go. Think of this as creating your own little retreat, your own little healing state. What you're doing is resourcing yourself when you need it most so that you can ride out Whatever you're going through and hey, if you want to do some private coaching with me, I have a spot for you.

You can learn my strategy and my methods for You know, feeling in charge with food, reaching your desired weight, and really getting supported along the entire way, so that it feels like an empowering experience, and the weight loss is simply a great benefit. So if you are interested in exploring that, go to mindfulshape.

com to book a call with me to see if it's something that you want to do, and I'll talk to you again soon. Okay. Bye.