Welcome To Holding It Together Kinda

SPEAKER_01 0:41

Hello and welcome to the Holding It Together Kinda podcast. I'm your host, Michael Maknaak. Here we will get real on our conversations about chronic health issues, mental illness, and caregiving, and the messy reality of keeping it all balanced. No sugarcoating, no clinical jargon, just real talk about the hospitalizations, the medication battles, and the toll it takes on a home. This is for the parents, siblings, the partners who do the impossible every single day. Holding it together kinda is a home for the overthinkers, the multitaskers, and anyone who feels like they're one-spilled coffee away from a meltdown. Find us on YouTube at hitkinda, H-I-T-K-I-N-D-A, and subscribe, like, follow, comment, vent, throw rocks, or whatever you need to do, but do it today. Welcome back to Holding It Together Kinda, the podcast. I'm Michael Makniak, your host. If you're listening to this, there's a really good chance you're currently white-knuckling your way through the day. We talk a lot on this show about the systems that fail us and the legal hurdles we jump over, but we don't always talk about the physical tolls that it that all of this takes on us. You know, stress isn't just an idea when you're a caregiver. It's a tight chest, it's a short fuse, it's that permanent knot between your shoulder blades. We're told to just relax, chill out. You know, but when listen, when you're responsible for another human life, those chill out words feel like a joke. So then we're gonna get tactical about it. I'm joined by an expert in my really good dear friend Alicia Feller, who understands that you don't have an hour for a spa day. You may only have 30 seconds between a crisis and the phone call. We're gonna break down the de-stressing toolbox that actually works in the real world. There's no jargon, no toxic positivity, just ways to keep your nervous system from red lighting.

Meet Alicia Feller And Her Work

SPEAKER_01 2:57

Well, hello everybody, and welcome back to the Holding It Together Kinda podcast. I'm your host, as usual, Michael Makniak, and I'm joined by one of my really good friends, long time, long time buddy and pal, Miss Alicia Feller, who is here to my left, your right, I think. Doesn't matter. Point being that Alicia and I were talking a little bit off stage here prior to hitting record. And I was telling her about the podcast and what we've been doing and and and the purpose of why we're here. And generally speaking, uh I don't think that we can necessarily provide great miracles and great answers about anyone's case or anyone's specific personal issues and journey. What I am here for is to show and to reinforce to many of you who are going through the journey of caregiving, particularly when it relates to folks with mental illness and long-term chronic illnesses, uh, that you know the system is messy, and you're caught up in a messy system, sometimes unwitting willingly, and sometimes you're volunteered to do it. So we're not here to offer necessarily these great resolutions and solutions for everybody's issues. What we are here to do is to point out that you're not alone in this journey, that it is messy, that there sometimes are little workarounds that can come out of experience that I have, or that my my panel has, or that my friends like Alicia have, or you met Rebecca in another episode, or Walt, or any of the folks that I've interviewed for this podcast. Today may be a little different though, because Alicia, after she retired, can't you tell? I mean, she's she's all of 35 years old and has already been able to retire from her job as a big wig in the state. And I'm gonna have her tell you about her background here in a second. But Alicia is is a former Department of Mental Health executive, and she has since taken on a really cool passion that we're gonna talk about today that will offer, I think, some solutions. As I said in my opening, uh, stress and anxiety and emotional baggage is not just an idea here, folks. You are living a reality. You're you stress is a reality for you, it is real. Don't let anybody tell you it's not, don't let people tell you to pick yourself up by the bootstraps or get over it. That's not how this works, and that's what Alicia is here to talk to us about tonight because she's the guru of it. I, as any of you who know me quite well or listen to me quite regularly, know I am not a person that can relax. I am always stressed out, and I actually want to talk to you a little bit about that in a little bit in a in a while in a segment of this of this particular episode. But tell us about yourself, Alicia. You I mean, you don't got to tell me. Tell the listeners about yourself and and what you were doing here tonight.

SPEAKER_00 6:16

Thanks, Mike. Very happy to be here. I let's see here. So I have over 30 plus years of experience in the behavior health field. I'm a licensed clinical social worker and I start out as a psychiatric social worker trainee in the Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services. But how long ago was that? Do we really need to discuss this?

SPEAKER_01 6:44

You said you died with 30 years.

SPEAKER_00 6:47

No, at the ripe old age of 23 is when I started. So that was some 32 years ago. 33 years ago. I did, I did. No, I I'm proud of my age and my experience. And so I started off as a psychiatric social worker trainee and just really loved the work that I did. I had the privilege and experience of working in a couple of different teams. I worked on in a sort of community treatment team. I worked many years with young adult services, which I really enjoyed. I eventually became a clinical director down at the Southwest Connecticut Mental Health System. And then over the course of the next few years, there eventually became the chief executive officer for the Southwest Connecticut Mental Health System, serving Region One, which in Connecticut is from Stratford down the 95 Corridor to Greenwich. Did that for seven years and led the organization through COVID, which of course no one was prepared for. So had to learn a lot of stress management techniques through that. And during that time, to say the very least. During that time, I in 2019, right before COVID hit, I graduated with a second master's degree in integrated health and healing. And that was a life-changing program. It really just gave me a different perspective on life and people mastering mind, body, spirit, all things that are important to them. So through that, I started to bring some different programming to the Southwest Connecticut mental health system and really offer some holistic modalities that could augment kind of traditional allopathic medicine from a psychiatric perspective, which is typically medications, counseling, you know, being in a large community mental health center. We also provided case management services and employment services as kind of augmented modality or services, I should say. So it was really nice to be able to bring that things like aromatherapy and drumming, mindfulness, meditation, drumming, things like that to our impatient. Tree hugging.

SPEAKER_01 9:11

Don't forget tree hugging.

SPEAKER_00 9:16

We did go out and hug trees.

SPEAKER_01 9:17

Alicia and I have a lot of inside jokes between the two of us about some of these things because uh I was really around when she was starting this program and saw how excited she got. You know what's amazing about that and hearing what you just said is how excited and passionate you were when you were basically a an a trainee, right? 23 years old, and it wound up being a fulfilling, amazing career where you did all these cool things. Yeah, by the way, folks, just assert assertive community treatment. That's what we all usually call an act team. It's just so putting this is the reverse of the right abbreviations. And the Yaz team, the young adult services team, yeah. Probably the most difficult populations to work with are the young adults. The 18 to I know it goes at 25, but 18 to 22, 23-year-old kids. Think about you, you have no executive functioning. Well, you have your executive functioning level still hasn't even matured completely. And now you're gonna pile on top of this all the things that we did when we were were that age, you know, between drugs and alcohol, partying and and just living life. Oh, and by the way, let's throw a mental health issue on top of that, you know. So young adult is very challenging. And Alicia tackled it and did really well with herself, and and she's not giving herself enough credit about the size of the agency that she was running, the demographics of the agency that she was running, and the issues that that particular agency faced and faces, just by virtue of, as I said, the the location, the demographics. It's a tough, tough place. And she was there during a tough, tough time and really thrived at it. And she was able to get out at a young age, and then you found this whole second love and this whole second passion that I playfully tease you about, but it is real stuff, and it and it and I, you know, you and I joke around about it, but I poo-poo only the things that I don't understand, so to speak. I guess that's expression, right? And I can't, and and I'm going to, you know, I don't pull punches, you know that, and I'm gonna push back on you here on some of these these things because I don't understand them. But I oh back just ghosts. So folks, that's my dog barking. So, in the event that he does, I'll either edit it out or just leave it so you guys can see what I have to go through around here.

Why Caregivers Treat Rest As Luxury

SPEAKER_01 11:51

Anyway, so I want to hop into this because very often caregivers that we we both know and have worked with in the past fall into this trap where they consider relaxation to be a luxury that they can't afford, or a luxury that's available to everybody else except them. I I told you this story I know, and I know you know the person who said this to me. I was out to lunch with with a woman who is another executive director, not in Demus, but in Demus-related nonprofit agency, and she has a special needs son, and I know I've told this story on this podcast before. And and I I asked her, you know, what do I have to do to get people to raise their hands, to take the educational information, the resources that I have that I've been making available to people for the better part of what 15, 20 years now? And and you know, her answer to me was pretty eye-opening. And I know I think you and I've discussed this over our own lunches, but you know, her answer was basically, Michael, you know, when things are quiet and there's all quiet on the Western Front, so to speak, there's a there's a moment of calm on that turn tumultuous sea. Sometimes I just want to sit back and have a glass of wine and relax and have a nice lunch with a friend. I don't want to be educated anymore, I don't want to Google my fingers to the bone, and I don't want to, I don't want to think about it. So we're not here today to poo-poo that at all. We're not here today to tell you that stress is we're gonna eliminate your stress. That's impossible. That's stupid. That would be stupid of for us to say almost like we're gonna eliminate all stigma associated with these types of issues. Because I know that you and I've talked about this too. I don't believe that that's even possible. Right. Um, but what we can do is we can uh change our perception, our perception of it, and we can't we can change our perception of the stress that we feel, the anxiety we feel, the it's somebody else's luxury, not mine. So I want to talk about that. So I I think a good place to start. I think you've told me this before, and I know that Jen in my office has told me before that I need to stop walking around with my shoulders hunched up, you know, because I walk around like I'm a ball of stress. I think I'm better at it than I used to be, but I definitely know that I do that. And a friend of mine told me he does the same thing just like three days ago. Yeah, he was mentioning this. So talk about the physical aspect of the stress that we carry.

How Stress Lives In The Body

SPEAKER_00 14:29

Yeah, it's it's and it's such a good point. When I teach a holistic stress management class, and I will say to people, when they first sit down, I say, okay, everybody take your shoulders and kind of roll them back and down. Because many of you are walking around with your shoulders up near your ears and you're not even aware of it, right? And it's true, myself included. And I ask them to then also just take a couple of intentional deep breaths in through their nose and out through their mouth and take a moment to just be present. Because so many of us, you know, we live in a culture that's gotta go, gotta go, gotta go right now. It's a badge of honor to be super busy with competing tasks and doing all of these things. And our bodies and minds are not designed to operate like that. We're just not. So when we experience stress, we experience it in our mind as well as our body, and we end up carrying it physically. Our issues lie in our tissues, right? You've heard that saying before. No, but that's pretty cool. I never heard that one. Our issues lie in our tissues. And so, you know, if you think about right, your the word disease, if you put a dash between disks and ease, your body is not at ease. And so that's your body telling you something is not okay. And depending on the level of stress you have and how much stress, how often you're experiencing stress, then that's your body's gonna hold on to that in different ways. And so we see different things. We see behavioral stress where people are eating too much, they might be drinking too much, they're irritable. We see physical stress, and physical stress can manifest in so many different ways. We many people clench their jaws, they grind their teeth at night. I ask that question quite often. You know, how how many people here sleep through the night? And in a group of about 50, I might have two people raise their hands. Yeah, I'm just most people are not sleeping well, and we can talk about good sleep hygiene. But, you know, uh the uh muscular tension, stomach issues, stomach ache.

SPEAKER_01 16:47

Yeah, but you said at the outset on shallow breathing, you know, rushing your your breath and things like this. Yeah, I have a question about this. Sure. Well, one thing, one thing you said that I I think is so true is it's become almost part of our lexicon that somebody says, Hey, how you doing? I asked actually asked you when we first got on the call, how you doing? And you gave me the you know, like it's like a badge of honor to say, I'm so busy, I'm so busy. You know, and and uh one of my mentors used to say, Well, I'm really sorry to hear that, you know, that's such a great way to live because we wear it like it's a badge of honor and it's just not that's not right. But a question for you about this stress thing. One of the things that I've learned, and you probably learned from Colette too, is this concept of generational trauma. Yeah, I wonder how much the physical aspects of stress folks that are listening, just so you know, if you experience a traumatic event in your life, and let's say a woman is pregnant while she experiences a traumatic event, studies are showing that that trauma can pass onto the child in the womb, and that trauma can carry through generations up to like three or more generations from one event, from one traumatic event. So I'm wondering, listening to you, if that stress that you carry, I I I guess it's palpable to other people around you, and do they absorb the stress that you're carrying?

SPEAKER_00 18:19

So good question. And that's that's gonna be about energy exchange. Because when you are with somebody physically in close proximity, there's an energy exchange. There's no question about that. If and so do you ever walk into a room and kind of feel like the it feels heavy?

SPEAKER_01 18:36

Yeah, you can cut their tension with a knife, as they say.

SPEAKER_00 18:39

Right, right. That's all about energy. And so if you're stressed and you're feeling that stress, you're absolutely people around you are gonna feel that, whether they're aware of it or not. There's it's absolutely happening.

SPEAKER_01 18:52

Does stress have an ability to become chronic?

SPEAKER_00 18:56

Absolutely. So there's different kinds of stress, you know, and and we're used, so there's new stress, which is neutral stress, doesn't really bother us. Like if you're in the grocery store and you hear about like a sick child or something, you're kind of like, oh, that's too bad, but it doesn't have any bearing on you because you don't know that child. There's you stress, which is good stress, and that's the kind of stress that motivates us to change. So that's a graduation, a promotion, things like that. And then there's distress, and that's what most of us are familiar with. And distress can be acute, like getting pulled over for a speeding ticket, something like that, right? It happens, we experience it, our body responds, and then we de, and then we get back to baseline. And then there's chronic stress, and that can be any variety of things that are happening. A difficult coworker, financial burden, anything like that. That stress can last minutes, weeks, months, years. The pandemic was a prime example of chronic stress. And our, but the problem is, Mike, is that our innate response to stress goes back to when we were hunters and gatherers, and I called the saber-toothed tiger response. And people may have heard that before, right? And so we get stress now that is not just a matter of life and death because the saber-toothed tiger is coming our way. We experience emotional stress, psychological stress, spiritual stress, and it's coming at us from all directions all the time. But our body still responds in the same way with that fight, flight, or freeze response. And that doesn't serve us well when it's emotional or spiritual stress necessarily.

SPEAKER_01 22:21

Well, it it and I think that what this is leading me to, and I love the the saber-tooth tiger thing because it also goes to our our always seeking approval of the tribe, right? We're always looking for people to approve of us. And now, you know, maybe the saber-tooth tiger was the only thing we had to be afraid of back then, but now we got a lot of things to be afraid of, you know, and I know that you are uh a specialist in digital detoxification and getting rid of the cell phone and getting rid of the social media bombardment, and that is so prevalent in our lives. But do okay, so if if I'm thinking about stress and a chronic capacity, yeah, do I have to fight against that stress like an addict has to fight against an addiction? I I understand it's probably from a different part of the body, the brain, etc. But but it's do, I mean, does stress become something that is in not inherent in us, but it's part of what's our what is our makeup? It really becomes part of who we are.

SPEAKER_00 23:24

Well, it's if it's not managed, it's impacting us through different behavioral responses, physical responses, and emotional responses. So, in that sense, it becomes kind of part of our makeup. The other thing that happens is when we experience that fight, flight, or freeze response, our body automatically responds in the sense that our lungs increase to so that we can take in more air. We get tunnel vision so that we're focused on survival, our heartbeat increases, and our body releases cytokanes. And those are pro inflammation chemicals that, or it's a pro inflammation chemical that is designed to guard against injury. And so it causes inflammation. And what happens is back in the day when we would get back to homeostasis, the threat. Was over and we would get back to homeostasis, then our body would release cortisol. And cortisol tamps down those cytokines. However, in this day and age, because we are constantly stressed and our body is constantly responding in that same old way. We are the cytokines don't respond to the cortisol, but our body's still releasing the cortisol. So we see excess cortisol. We know cortisol is one of our stress chemicals in our body. Too much is not good for us. So we see an increase in inflammation because the cytokines are not responding to the release of the cortisol, and we have extra cortisol in our body.

SPEAKER_01 24:51

So wait, you calm down in in caveman days, they calm down. That's when the body released the cortisol.

SPEAKER_00 24:58

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 24:59

And that was good.

SPEAKER_00 25:01

It was good because it was released in order to specifically tamp down those cytokines.

SPEAKER_01 25:06

Oh, oh, oh, okay. So now it's releasing the cortisol, but our cytokines are basically immune to it, and they're saying they are because we're so out of the change. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 25:17

We have so many different things.

SPEAKER_01 25:19

So there are so many, and I thin I find this stuff fascinating because you know I love the science aspect and the science explanations for a lot of the things that that happened to us and yeah, happen to us, and this is happening to us. You know, the shortness of breath. If in and when people get into this stressed out mode, and a lot of caregivers are feel permanently in that stressed out mode. I mean, just you know, I've told you before about when I was practicing law more traditionally than, of course, I have in several years, but you know, just hearing the phone ring sometime would just make my my shoulders go up and my whole body clinch because it was never something good. Nobody calls a lawyer when there's some you know with something happy or good to tell you, right? Right. But so this isn't just a feeling, it's a it's a state, it's a it's a it's a way of being can we teach people and can you teach people to recognize their red flags and to and to recognize when stress is becoming something that's going to become dangerous and threatening and burnout is right around the corner?

SPEAKER_00 26:28

Yes, absolutely. And I would say one of the biggest things for people to do is to take a moment to check in with their bodies, because that's where we carry it, right? And most people are so busy moving from one thing to the next to the next that they don't take a moment to really step back, check in with their bodies. You know, if you're you're feeling like tension in your shoulder or pain in your shoulder, why is that? Is that because your shoulders are up near your ears? Is it because you're carrying too much? You know, but to like really kind of tune

Digital Overload And Daily Check-Ins

SPEAKER_00 27:06

in to your body. And the trick is to manage the stress just by virtue of the world we live in and the, you know, you mentioned before, right? Our devices, you know, everything is a smart this and a smart that. And so, but we are constantly being bombarded by all the bells and whistles of apps and emails and notifications and push notification for everything. And everything and anything is an app. No matter where you go, there's a television, you know, in most places, most restaurants have televisions. If you're watching the news, it's not anything positive. And I don't care what news station you're watching. You know, the the media has a saying if it bleeds, it reads. And so you're not hearing about positive, happy, uplifting things. The news itself is stressful.

SPEAKER_01 28:03

And if you are, it's that little tiny 20-second segment buried between commercials at the very end of the 11:30 news.

SPEAKER_00 28:09

Yeah, exactly. The ABA even just real quick, the ABA did a study where 50% of people said that they felt more depressed and anxious what from watching the news. Of course. Oh, absolutely. How could you not? Right. That's a significant statistic, right? How many, what percentage was it? 50%. I'm I bet you it would be even higher than that. I bet you it would be more than that, too.

SPEAKER_01 28:31

Yeah. All right. So two things. Number one, I know I've seen it in action. You are really good at taking your time and doing yourself check-ins in the evening and in the morning. I preach this to people, I've seen it in action. I have it in our care navigator journal so that people can if you're a caregiver, if you're stressing out, do yourself check-in. And and I want to talk yeah, I want of course we want to do the physical check-in with your body, but what else goes into that check-in, that that daily morning, evening sort of introspection? Sure.

SPEAKER_00 29:14

Yeah, you know, I'll I'll start with the morning. One of the things that if people can do it is to not have the first thing you do pick up your phone.

SPEAKER_01 29:25

Uh, you know what? That was something I was gonna bring up here. And that was I was gonna bring up my not-to-do list, which is on this exact same parallel, and the phone and check the emails. But go ahead, I'll let you, I'll let you steal my thunder.

SPEAKER_00 29:39

No, but it's really important, if possible, and to just take a couple of deep breaths and be intentional about how are you going to show up today. You know, think about how is it that you would like to show up today. And you might run through in your mind, like, okay, I know that I need to go to work and then I have this appointment, and then after work, I have to run Susie to, you know, soccer and do this, and I've got to go over and check in on mom and dad, and you know, whatever the case might be. So you're running through your day, and it's very easy to immediately get caught up in like, oh my gosh, I have to do all of this. So take a couple of moments and just think about how do you want to show up in that day? And breath work and deep breathing is a a form of meditation and b, it physiologically brings the body down and grounds and centers the body. So where stress is the fight, flight, or freeze, breathing, intentional breathing is rest and digest. It brings our body back to that. It it activates our parasympathetic nervous system to take care of ours. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:48

Well, I and I want to get into those techniques with you because they're interesting. They're, you know, to me, they're I would say they're controversial, but that's not the right word. It's just it's just one of those things that's like you never sort of really give pause to think about, and then you talk to an expert like yourself, and the way you explain these things to me is so simple and so grounded, even the grounding thing that we talk about. But one of our one of our mutual mentors talked about his sort of how am I gonna approach the day today lesson or what he would repeat to himself in his head over and over again was anytime he walked through a door or a threshold into another room, he got to the point where that would be his trigger to remind himself to think about how do I want to present when I walk into this room. And I remember that from however many years ago that was. And I wish I could do that. Yeah, but all it takes is practice. Yes, and you gotta practice it. And back to the to the pick don't pick up your phone thing. The the the thing behind that, and this is from another mentor that you and I both know. He he would say, When you first go to your phone, the first thing you're gonna do is you're gonna go to your emails and or or your you know, your DMs, right? Yeah, and invariably in there, somebody's gonna be complaining about something, or they're gonna feel compelled to react in some way to an email or to a DM, etc. And what that does is it instantly puts their agenda on you. Yes. So somebody else is taking their agenda and pushing it off on you. Now it's your problem to share. You didn't wake up with that, you don't deserve that, and frankly, you shouldn't do it. And and you you don't you don't get to do that. Instead, I think looking at the way that Alicia's saying is start the day thinking about how you want to present, give yourself that. My god, even if it's five minutes, I mean it used to be, I used to say it was at least an hour. Don't you know I don't think everybody complete disclosure, I can't do it. But you know, people who are disciplined can and should not go right to your phone and look at your phone. So, anyway, I just wanted to make sure that we brought in those those two lessons because I think they're they're cool lessons for people to know. Another one, I don't know if this goes to how you're gonna approach today or how you're going to sort of relax, but you know, there's an AA adage where it's make your bet, it's from the army. Make your bed first thing in the morning. It sets a mindset of productivity for you. I I never made my bet as a kid. I heard that from some army retired sergeant who said that that was something that he learned in AA after he was in the army, and he said it was just great because it does, it gives you the mindset of getting into productivity. Make just make your bet.

SPEAKER_00 33:45

Yeah, you've already accomplished something once you make your bet.

SPEAKER_01 33:48

Yeah, right. Yeah, think of it that way. Yeah, yeah. All right, so you mentioned breath work, and you talk about this toolbox, this this building a toolbox, this de-stress or toolbox, stress management toolbox, stress management. Okay, that's a good, that's a good word, better than what I was coming up with. So are these sort of microinterventions that people can do to help them de-stress?

SPEAKER_00 34:17

Yeah, absolutely. And the the trick is is there's lots of different things out there. And so get a few that resonate with you. You know, what I always say when I teach people is take what you need and leave the rest, because not everything is going to resonate with everybody, and that's okay. So, yes, you're you're building your toolbox and you're putting the different things, and sometimes it's just a matter of people remembering that, oh, you know what? This is something that I really enjoy doing, and it's reading for a half hour, you know. If and if that's something that helps you de-stress, build that in. Because the other thing that's important is that you can't pour from an empty cup. And so we have to take time for ourselves to rejuvenate, to manage our stress, because if we don't, then we're not good to the people that are relying on us.

SPEAKER_01 35:09

Right, right. And I that's you know, that's the that's the put your oxygen mask on first. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. And you know, joking around, I remember when you were going off to a retreat once on the the soil stuff, where people were literally, I don't know if you were on a retreat or you were reading about a retreat where people were literally digging in the dirt. What's that called? Is that called grounding?

SPEAKER_00 35:34

It's well, there's earthing where people like put their feet in.

SPEAKER_01 35:38

Earthing, yes, yes. People put it in. So for me, you said take what you need and leave the rest. That does not resonate with me, but there are people that do it. I heard about, you know, yeah, I mean, you know, I heard in Costa Rica they have retreats just for that. I mean, you get a little ayahuasca with it, you get a little earthing element. Yeah, but but this is I mean, these are real things again that may sound silly to some, but some people really find that connection, that grounding to themselves in this earthing process, yes, pre-hugging process that we talked about.

SPEAKER_00 36:11

Your earthing, Mike, is fishing.

SPEAKER_01 36:14

Yeah, yeah, very true.

SPEAKER_00 36:15

You know, it really is because earthing is about being out in nature, right? And our bodies are made of energy, and that energy, that unit of measurement is called a hertz, and the earth is also made of that same energy. So, literally, when we are barefoot or in in communion with earth, or uh think about going a day at the beach, right? If people love the beach, you go to a day at the beach, your feet are in the sand, your feet are in the water, you're connecting with the earth. There's an energy exchange there. If you're just out in nature in general, just take a walk. You know, you don't have to be barefoot, take a walk out in nature. But for you, getting in a river or being on a river, right? You're in nature. It's and there's solitude in that, there's it's mindfulness kind of a thing because you're present to what you're doing. So, like you're you're doing it. That's that's a tool in your toolbox.

SPEAKER_01 37:06

Yeah, you know what, you know what else I've discovered that I really enjoy is nature photography.

SPEAKER_02 37:10

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 37:11

I've been I've been really doing that, and you know, that really gets me going. So that that is I you know, I find myself I can waste hours just watching a monkey play or watching uh, you know, a jaguar up in a tree or whatever it may be. I I tell the story all the time about how I I was fishing in a river one day and I had a trout that kept rising. Jesus, I mean 25 feet away from me. I watched this thing rise and I tried to catch that trout for next thing I know, two and a half hours went by, and I was trying, but it felt like three minutes, you know. And so that I so I get your point there. That's a point well taken because I didn't think of it from that perspective. So, but you you talked about breath work, yes, you talked about moving your shoulders, relaxing your shoulders, that gentle movement kind of exercise, the act actually exercising shifting weight around and moving the body. Yes, talk about this concept of mindfulness

Breathwork Mindfulness And Meditation Basics

SPEAKER_01 38:07

and meditation because that's what the big one that we all hear, and that's the one that all of us are kind of like, I you know, some people love it, some people hate it. I like I can't do it, and we're gonna talk about that here in a minute, I'm sure. So, what what does that do? What does it look like? And it doesn't have to be, you know, the old yogi sitting at home, you know, with their legs crossed in her in the position it looks like exactly you know, no, it's it's it's such a good point, what you say.

SPEAKER_00 38:35

And when I first heard about meditation, that was my vision of it was like a Buddhist monk sitting on a bed of nails for nine hours thinking of absolutely nothing.

SPEAKER_01 38:44

Yeah, well, his buddies went by and smacked them in the head.

SPEAKER_00 38:47

Exactly. And I was like, there's no way I can possibly do that. But let's take mindfulness first. Mindfulness is just about being present to the moment and tuning in with your five senses. So one of the things that I challenge people to do is mindfully eat because most of us during the course of a day are throwing food down our throats while we're checking emails and text messages and responding to things and not being present at all to what we're doing. Are we even tasting our food? Chances are we might not be. So I really encourage people to you have a lunch break for a reason, step away, even if it's just for 20 minutes. Look at your food, smell your food when you're eating it, be aware of the different textures and tastes in your mouth, and just be still and be quiet, you know. If you can't, just for 20 minutes and really enjoy your food. Food is sustenance, you know, it's nutrition and nourishment. Everybody loves food, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:45

So you know, that is a great, I think that's a great introduction to that concept because so many of us love our food. Yeah. You know, especially, you know, it seems like the foodie concept has really become a thing where you know, so if we can all have that in common, that we love food, that's a really good way to ground yourself, as I keep saying, and and get in touch with those senses that you're talking about. So, what's the difference between that and meditation? Meditation, being you know, proactively meditating.

SPEAKER_00 40:23

Yes. So mindfulness is about being present and tuning in with your five senses. Meditation is about becoming still, and you can use breathing as a form of meditation. There's a thing called box breathing, which is where you breathe in through your nose for a count of three. It could be two, it could be three, it could be five, whatever's comfortable for you. Holding for the same count. I'll use three. So breathe in through your nose for three, hold for three, exhale for three, hold for three, and repeat and do that as often as you need to. So that's a form of meditation because meditation is sitting quietly and rather than grabbing a thought and going down the rabbit hole of where that thought brings us normally, acknowledging the thought and kind of letting it go. So one of the things that was helpful for me when I first started to meditate is to imagine a cloud kind of grabbing that thought and moving it along. And so it's it's just it's acknowledging that a thought is there, but not going down the rabbit hole of where that thought can bring you.

SPEAKER_01 41:25

Yeah, and that's so that is a discipline in and of itself that I don't have.

SPEAKER_00 41:32

As you know, you have to cultivate it. You have to cultivate it.

SPEAKER_01 41:34

I mean, you're laughing at me and with me, I know, because you know me, and you know that I just can't do that. You know, my mind just starts worrying about all the people out there that I should be talking to or whatever not doing is, you know, and and I think that as you know, it takes practice. This does take practice practice. This is just something that you could pick up and and yeah and just jump right into. So along these lines, after you get done with your meditation or your mindful exercises, do you recommend that people include that later in the day or right then and there or the next morning in their reflections?

SPEAKER_00 42:15

Sure, absolutely. Yeah, you can you can bring that in any, especially intentional breathing like that, midway through your day. Take a moment and do it just a few times. And there the benefits to doing that, and with meditation, two or three minutes is a great place to start. And there are lots of apps that will give you a guided meditation. And again, if you find your mind wandering, you just oh, my mind's wandering and you come back to the moment, you know, it's not reflection. There's no shame in that. No, no, no, no shame at all. But it studies show that meditation reduces cortisol, it helps to grow gray matter in our brain. So I it there's just many benefits to meditation. There have been, there was one study, and I don't remember who who did the study, but there was a study that showed a work program where people had a stress management program that included meditation. And for people who had a stress management program that included meditation, they saw a 30% reduction in their stress.

SPEAKER_01 43:25

We'll get back to our conversation in just a minute, but I want to take a second to talk about something that many of us in this community deal

Care Navigator Journal For The Mental Load

SPEAKER_01 43:32

with every single day, and that's the mental load of caregiving. If you're like me, your brain is probably filled with appointment dates, medication schedules, and a never-ending list of questions for doctors. It's exhausting trying to keep it all in your head while also trying to show up emotionally for the person you love. That's exactly why the team at the Care Coalition created the Care Navigator Journal. This is not just another notebook. It's a tool specifically designed to help you to stay organized and more importantly, to help you feel a little more in control when things start feeling really chaotic. It gives you a dedicated space to track medical updates, manage daily tasks, and even process your own thoughts. Imagine such a thing. Your well-being matters just as much as the person that you're caring for. If you're feeling overwhelmed and looking for a way to stay organized, I highly recommend picking one up. You can find it right now at www.carecoalition.org slash holding it together. Again, that's carecoalition.org slash holding it together. It's a small way to start holding it all together, one page at a time. All right, let's get back to the show.

SPEAKER_00 44:56

And the nice thing is too, Mike, you can, you know, you asked about can you bring it in at any point else during the day, another time during the day. And it's a if you're again somebody who doesn't sleep well, doing some intentional breath work while you're counting. Because the beauty about while you're counting your breath is that you can't go to a place where you normally go to because you're, you know what I mean? You can't have other thoughts, you're counting.

SPEAKER_01 45:22

And so I think that's I think that's a great and and and you know, along the along throughout the years, people trying to teach me this meditation techniques. I think that's one of the better ways to get introduced to it because as you say, you're you're forcing yourself to focus on something. If it's counting to three, it's still counting

Aromatherapy Music And Sensory Grounding

SPEAKER_01 45:41

to three. Right. You know, that kind of thing. And that I think that's a great um great technique. Now, you you mentioned that a big part of your your toolbox that you you work with people on is music. I think we can all relate to music being a calming, even if it's you know, for some people that love metal, they love rap, they love thrash. Whatever your music may be, that I can understand. I I can I can understand on on many, many levels why music could be calming. Soothing from classical to as I said black metal, whatever you're into, if it you're if it if you are relating to it on some level, it is deep in you and it's touching you in some way. The thing that I don't understand is your this aromatherapy thing. When I when I think of aromatherapy, yeah, am I sitting in a room with a bunch of those stinky candles that smell you know like those those stores you walk into and you it's so overpowering you have to leave? What the heck is aromatherapy?

SPEAKER_00 46:46

Sure. So aromatherapy is it is it's all about scent, right? And so it can be a can, it's not a room full of candles, it's a candle or an essential oil. And what it is is there's there's different scents that have been shown to help people relax. Some are energizers, some are relaxers, and so lavender, right, is a very popular one.

SPEAKER_01 47:12

That's the one that I that's the only one I know. So that's what I was gonna say. Yeah, like lavender, everybody knows that's supposed to be a relaxing scent.

SPEAKER_00 47:18

Yes, right, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:19

So lavender typically essential oil. What does essential oil mean? It's essential to what?

SPEAKER_00 47:24

Yeah. So so essential oils is uh basically pulling the essential elements of a plant, a flower, a tree, a shrub out of the leaves, the roots, the branches, you're extracting. So you're extracting lavender from the lavender plant, and then you cold press it. There's different ways that that it the OILs are processed. And then essentially you can put diffuse a couple of drops. So you can get a diffuser where you put some water in, you put a few drops in, you turn it on, and then it diffuses the oil into the air. There are many different ways to use essential oils. You can also put them on your hands and kind of inhale into your nose. You can put them on the soles of your feet if you're getting medical grade essential oils, yeah, or pharmaceutical grade essential oils. No, no, not quite. That's a little bit different.

SPEAKER_01 48:20

But so, like the let me ask you, Alicia, when you're sitting there, what's the point of the aroma? I don't get that.

SPEAKER_00 48:27

So the aroma is relaxing, so it it taps into so scent, right? It's one of our five senses, and so it it scent is powerful for people.

SPEAKER_01 48:38

And they say it's the most powerful of all of our senses. Yeah, it goes deep. It triggers more memory and nostalgia than any other. Even seeing something isn't as powerful as smell, it's or hearing something.

SPEAKER_00 48:51

That's pretty wild. Yeah, it is. And so, yeah, there's you know, oils are they they serve many different properties and purposes, they have many different properties and serve many different purposes. Peppermint is an energizer and can help with headaches. There's not a lot of studies that are done on essential oils because there's not, quite frankly, not a lot of money to be made by studying them because they're pretty easy to get. But there was a study done with rosemary, and there were students who smelled rosemary before they studied and did 75% did better on their test after smelling rosemary because of memory. Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_01 49:31

That's a weird. How the heck did they do a control experiment on that one?

SPEAKER_00 49:35

That one's I'm not exactly sure how they did it, but it's a weird one. So rosemary is meant to increase it helps increase memory retention. Back to peppermint. If you're somebody who does not like spiders and mice and other creepy crawlies, uh peppermint will keep those away. You can put some in a cotton ball along your windowsill, or if you get mice, you can put some drops of peppermint oil in tea bags and put them along your foundation, and then it tends to keep them away.

SPEAKER_01 50:03

Yeah, the nature, nature is so amazing with what it creates and what's out there and how many healing benefits it really can give you. And you know, I know that you have a massive collection of these oils, and you know, you've touched on a handful, but there's hundreds of them, right? Yes, yeah. And and it's up to each individual to really dive in and find out which one of these oils or these scents works for them and in what capacity. But people like you can teach them, you know. Yeah, and is that part of what you do now in your prof in your in your therapy? You you are teaching people who may be having a problem with stress that they can try lavender or yes, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 50:48

I teach them breathing and breath work about mindfulness, meditation. Sometimes I might provide a guided meditation in session if that's something that they would like. So, yeah, it's all the all those tools. Gratitude is another huge one. So keeping a gratitude journal is can be life-changing

Gratitude Journaling And New Neural Pathways

SPEAKER_00 51:11

for people because again, our brains are wired to constantly be scanning and looking for danger, things that have not felt good to us before. And we tend to globalize things that have happened. So if there's one piece of an event that happened to us that was didn't feel good for us, and there's something similar that's occurring now, our brains immediately like, oh, wait a minute, is this a similar situation? And so it's a survival instinct. If you're practicing gratitude, and it does not need to be much, again, at the end of the day or at the beginning of the day, physically writing pen to paper, two or three things that you're grateful for, helps to create new neural pathways in the brain, and it trains our brains to seek out the positive and many other situations, and including in our relationships.

SPEAKER_01 51:58

Just the proactive action of doing something proactively. That's the like the worst sentence I've ever created, I think. But you understand what I'm saying. Being proactive and actually doing that creates that the the synopsis have to fire. Yes, and then it's training your brain like a muscle to do this. And and it could be, from what I understand, it could be things like, hey, I'm grateful that I woke up this morning. For sure. The sun is out today.

SPEAKER_00 52:25

I'm grateful for a rain today, you know, whatever. Yes, whatever it is. Grateful for the smell of a cup of coffee. I'm grateful somebody complimented my shirt, you know.

SPEAKER_01 52:34

I'm grateful that the peppermint worked and I didn't have my exactly.

SPEAKER_00 52:40

The other thing, too, is I use that a lot in therapy with people. I strongly encourage them to do that. And I use it with couples if I'm treating couples, and I ask them to share with each other things that they're grateful for that the other one has done. And the the reports that I get back around that are like that really changes the dynamics in our relationship. Yeah, so it's very powerful. They say gratitude is the king of happiness.

SPEAKER_01 53:09

Really? That's that's interesting because huh. I'll chew on that one for a second. Gratitude is the king of happiness, and you know, that becomes very important in this caregiving setting to look at your partner, look at your family, look at the people who are there to help you, and and be thankful for the help that they're giving you. Be they're thankful for the help that you're giving your mutual loved one, your your, you know, and uh to remind each other of that. Uh as hard as it is, I think to remind each other of that is is very important.

SPEAKER_00 53:46

It is. And it's so easy again to, and it doesn't just have to be with a significant other. It can be with your co-workers, you know, it can be with your friends. It's just important, I think, to say thank you for different things that people bring because we are appreciative, we just don't give voice to it very often because we're just so busy trying to manage all of the the place that we have in the air, you know.

SPEAKER_01 54:09

Yeah, we're trying not to be right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I know we've already talked about this, but I'm gonna, you know,

Micro Tools When You Have No Time

SPEAKER_01 54:16

give you the pushback, the the caregiver pushback. I don't have the time. All I want is a glass of wine and relax. All right, how about the person that says, I'm not gonna sit on that cushion for 20 minutes? Give me something that I can do while I'm waiting for my tea kettle to boil over here. What could what could we do? And I think you already answered this, but you know, what would be your first couple of go-tos?

SPEAKER_00 54:36

Yeah. So while you're waiting for your tea kettle to boil, that's where you could take a couple of moments to check in with your body, lower your shoulders if they're up, loosen your jaw, you know, and just kind of do like a progressive muscle relaxation from the top of your head down right through your toes. And if you don't want to do progressive muscle relaxation, which is kind of like clenching your muscles and then releasing them, the other thing that I do for people who also, if somebody has a hard time with intentional breathing because they have asthma or COPD or something like that, the other thing you can do is imagine a wave of warmth kind of moving from the top of your head down through your neck, through your torso, your legs, and out your toes, and just have that kind of repeat. And as that's going down your body, that wave of warmth is moving down your body, it's pulling any stress away with it. So, you know, visualization is also really key to that. But that's you know, while you're waiting for the tea kettle to to boil, check in with your body, take a couple of intentional deep breaths, and just give yourself a moment to relax and maybe a little gratitude.

SPEAKER_01 55:49

And what about this point? Give yourself permission to take that moment.

SPEAKER_00 55:54

For sure. For sure.

SPEAKER_01 55:57

The next question I was gonna ask you is well, you know, I'm sitting over here relaxing and breathing exercises and relaxing my shoulders. Meanwhile, my loved one is out on the street somewhere, and I haven't heard from him in three days. Is it selfish for me to worry about me when I should be worrying about that?

SPEAKER_00 56:13

Right. Self-care is not selfish, it's necessary. It's absolutely necessary. You know, this is where you have to give yourself permission to take care of you. Again, that's the it's the oxygen mask on you first. It's the can't you can't pour from an empty cup. You know, per full permission granted.

SPEAKER_01 56:33

This one is we've already talked this one beat this dead horse, but you know, I tried these breathing techniques. I'm not good at them. I'm a high strung type of person. Am I doing something wrong? What else can I try to do? You've kind of answered that. I like the counting aspect of it because counting does force you to be more focused than just a woman, one of my old therapists used to say, think of a of a paper plate that is just jet black, and you stare at that paper plate in your mind's eye, and that's your focus. If you start to wander away from that, get back to it. And that worked for me okay. But I think the counting thing was was a really good little nugget.

SPEAKER_00 57:17

Yeah. Yeah. You know, so again, the other thing that you can do is this is where mindfulness can come in and tune into your environment with your five senses. Take a moment to just look around. What am I seeing? What am I hearing? What am I smelling? Um, if you're eating something, what am I tasting? And if you're not, you have a glass of water, what am I tasting? You have a glass of wine, what am I tasting?

SPEAKER_01 57:39

You know, whatever, you know, just now you're gonna encourage people to start drinking wine and say that. No, no, no, no. I taste the raspberries and you know it's an oaky kind of how about the people that'll yeah, the oaky to put it in Merlot. What about the what do they say that to the people who tell you that my house is loud, my house is nuts. I can't find any time to practice mindfulness. There's no quiet in my world. How am I gonna quiet myself?

SPEAKER_00 58:08

Can you take a walk? Take a walk outside 10 minutes again. This isn't, you know, I I feel like a lot of people really believe that they need to do this stuff for like a good hour and it takes a lot of time. Little tiny moments add up. It's the same thing with journaling. Journaling can be very powerful for people, and people, and I'll say to people, if you want to write and one day, I don't want to do this, right? I don't want to do this and put the pen and paper away.

SPEAKER_01 58:39

I'm just gonna ask you that. What do you write when you journal? It's not like dear diary. John looked at me in class today. I really like him. I hope he asks me to the dance, you know. What are we journaling?

SPEAKER_00 58:52

So you can journal about things you're feeling, things that you saw. It's a great time to put your gratitude in a journal if you'd like. For some people, it's really cathartic and really helpful for them to process emotions. And again, I always say to people, because and I I hear this in private practice with my clients. Do you want to journal? Yes, I like to journal. And I'll check in. How's journaling going? Well, I don't journal every day. That's okay. There's no requirement to journal every day. There's there's no right way to do that or wrong way to do that. It's whatever works for you. And I wax and wean with it myself. Sometimes I'm Johnny on the spot and I'm really good at like you're better than most.

SPEAKER_01 59:33

You really are.

SPEAKER_00 59:34

I mean, but then I get into bouts where I don't, I just don't do it, but I'm still doing something, you know, to kind of process things. And so it's really individual, but again, lose the the notion that it's gotta be perfect because it doesn't need to be perfect. It's progress, not perfection. That's what I always say.

SPEAKER_01 59:55

Well, right. I mean, perfection is the enemy of progress. Yes. Yes. Wow, we're coming up with a lot of cliches. This is boy, we should be writing these down. I've heard this one before, and and this is heartbreaking. And I don't know how I think you have to put on your clinician's hat for this one, but how about the caregiver, the the mother who says to me, if I take a quiet moment and I start to to try to relax, I I'm so stressed out that all I can do is ball my eyes out. I just burst into tears. Is is this a normal response? Is this is this am I a cracking up, you know? And that's just heartbreaking.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:35

It is heartbreaking. I would also say honor the tears, experience the emotion. You know, I definitely tell my clients that you have to feel to heal, is another saying that I really like you have to feel to heal, and you do. And it's okay to be sad, it's okay to shed tears. What you're going through is hard. It is, it's really hard. So shed the tears because if you're not, you're holding it in inside and it's coming out somewhere else, you know. Right. So yeah, it's it's okay to be sad. Acknowledge it. I'm sad, I'm angry, frustrated, I'm disappointed, I'm all the things. Yeah, that's okay. It's okay to experience that and feel that. And then once you feel that, start to move into some of the other tools that we talked about. You know, yes, and if you're at that point, yes, yes. And if you're at that place and you are not seeking your own therapy, that might be something that you want to do.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:37

For sure. So I I mean I was gonna ask you sort of the cliche podcast question, which is you know, what are some takeaways that people could do right now? But I think we've already we've already tackled that. I yeah, I wrote down here as a final thought, and I'd like your your comments on it. You don't have to do it all. You just have to do one thing that makes you feel kinda the kinda of of your life, it makes it a little bit easier to manage.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:04

Yes. Absolutely. You don't have to do it all. It's all not gonna be, you know, it's not all gonna resonate with you. It's not gonna be a solution for you. Figure out what works for you. And again, people already have things that work for them, but they're not thinking about it. So take some time to just jot down what's what's in my toolbox. You know, it could be exercise, it could be making a really great meal, it could be baking, it could be spending time with family, it could be walking your dog, it could be, and then add to that. Let me try mindfulness, let me try a little bit of meditation. Well, that's what I meant by progressive.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:43

You know, you have things in you already have things in your personal toolbox that you need to have. Yes, embrace those things, yeah, practice that, get in the habit of practicing that, and it might lead you to some of Alicia's tools, the yeah, the breathing work and the aromatherapy and the mindfulness and all of that, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:03:04

Yeah, absolutely. The other thing I just want to say, Mike, very important for people, uh, going back to the sleep thing that I brought up before. Oh, right.

Sleep Hygiene And One Tool Challenge

SPEAKER_00 1:03:12

Sleep hygiene is super, super important. So I strongly encourage people to step away from their devices if they can, at least an hour before bed. If they can't, put the blue light filter or night shift on your phone. So you're getting that kind of pinkish, warmish orange glow versus that bright blue light. That bright blue light that most of our devices emit tricks our pineal gland into thinking it's still daytime and it messes with our circadian rhythm. And so we don't naturally start to fall asleep as we normally would if we didn't have that constant blue light. And then that's a great time to do some reading, actual a book or a magazine, not a device.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:56

Yeah, do not read on a device. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:01

Try not to eat three hours before you go to sleep. That's a great time to think about some gratitude for the day, to do a couple of intentional deep breaths. And gratitude, again, if you're practicing gratitude before you go to sleep, you're thinking about the positives that's gonna settle your brain, and the breathing is gonna settle your body and really prepare you for a good night's sleep. Most of us are not getting a good night's sleep. And so it's, you know, there's challenges to that. Don't eat in your bed. If you have a partner in your bed who snores, you might want to think about sleeping separately. Pets can be comforting, but also again, they can disrupt sleep if they're getting up to pee and do all the different things. Or if you have cats, my sister has a cat who's trying to constantly play with her at two in the morning, you know what I mean? Like, come on, let's swat around. Um, you know, so that's all very important because sleep is is very, very important. It's when we convert short-term memory into long-term memory and our body really repairs and rejuvenates during that time. It's necessary.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:05

We could probably do a whole hour-long discussion on sleep a lot. Absolutely. I could tell you the horror stories of my sleep patterns for yeah, I'm living on so yeah. I mean, if you want to, do you have a way for people to reach you? Do you have tools that are available for people that if they're interested, they can check check some stuff out for that you have out there?

SPEAKER_00 1:05:28

Yeah, so people can definitely reach out to me. I'm in the process of building a new website right now. And so hopefully once that's done, I'll have some tools available for people. But if not, they can reach out to me at A Feller. So it's A F S and Frank, E-L-L-E-R 2002 at gmail.com. I have some worksheets I'd be happy to share with people. They can come to my wellness center. I have a biomat and they can lay on the biomat for 30 minutes and just listen to some soft music or nothing at all and just have a moment to themselves. And yeah, and happy to go anywhere else and talk to other groups about stress management.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:11

So if I can pry if I can price some of these worksheets out of her folks, I'll post them and a link to her website. I mean, when it's available, as well as her email. So you guys can all have that in the in the description. So, as always, I love talking to you. Um I always thanks for having me. I love joking around with you, and I I obviously you're an inspiration to me. You are somebody that I really admire, and really happy that you were here to do this with me.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:39

It was really a pleasure to do it. I enjoyed it very much. So thank you.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:50

Okay, as always, we covered a lot of ground today, but there's here's the kind of reality for you. You might not be able to change your circumstances tonight. Right? Things may take a little bit longer. The paperwork is still there, health issues may still be there, the system's still a mess. But today you learned that you can change how your body and your mind and your very soul reacts to it. Whether it's a deep breath while you're stuck in traffic or a specific scent or an oil that reminds your brain that you aren't ex you aren't really under attack, that Sabertooth Tiger's not around the corner. I want you to pick just one tool from the toolbox today. You're not failing because you're stressed. You're human because you're stressed, and you're stressed because you're human. Take 30 seconds for yourself before you move on to the next task. Thanks for hanging out with us today. We'll see you the next time on Holding It Together, kinda.