5 minute read
Self-Care
While Re-Orienting
COLUMNIST
Breana Cross-Caldwell, BS, CI and CT Portland, Oregon
Breana Cross-Caldwell holds her CI/CT from RID, B.S. in Interpretation from Western Oregon University and is a Certified Life Coach. She has led thousands of interpreters in preventing burnout and finding the passion again in their lives through developing habits of self-care. You can find her on Instagram @brighterfocus.
Change can be hard. When things are shifting around us, uncertainty, anxiety, anger, and resentment are common. Our nervous systems love boring - and times of change are anything but.
Over the past year and a half we’ve lived through and continue to navigate many unexpected, life-altering events, circumstances, and tragedies. Each thing we face has the potential to activate the nervous system. Navigating the re-orientation of RID is no exception.
When activated, the nervous system employs a survival response. This response allows us to run from a lion or fight off an attacker without needing to think. This response is
an essential tool for our survival.
What our survival response does not handle well is how to respond to an angry email, or what to do when an invoice goes unpaid for another month. Executive function, creative problem-solving, perspective-taking and professional communication are all handled in the higher-thinking part of the brain - which goes offline when the survival response takes over (Siegel, 2012).
There are many names for these two control-centers, but let’s refer to them as the wizard brain - higher-level thinking center, and the lizard brain - survival-response center.
Safety is the primary responsibility of the lizard brain. In order to access the wizard brain during times of stress, we must convince the lizard brain that we’re safe.
1. Soothe your nervous system
Convincing the lizard brain of its safety can be challenging when you’re still perceiving a threat. But in our modern lives, many threats to our safety do not require fleeing or fighting, they are interpersonal conflicts that require wizard-brain skills like self-awareness, thoughtful communication, and
In order to soothe your nervous system, you’ll be stimulating its calming-branch called the Parasympathetic Nervous System, or ‘rest and digest’ function. It can be helpful to recognize that soothing the nervous system does not mean a lack of input or activity (although it can!), it means stimulating the parts that regulate feel-good hormones and blood flow. It can be active, and therefore can feel more controllable during times of stress.
Deep belly breathing is one of the safest, gentlest, fastest and most accessible ways to stimulate the Parasympathetic
Nervous System (André, 2019).
Here are some basics to help you unlock the soothing power of deep belly breathing: • Relax your chest and neck - often our shoulders creep up toward our ears when we’re feeling tense or stressed. • Sit or stand up straight to allow the lungs to expand fully. • Breathe in through the nose. • Inhale deeply, filling the belly like a balloon. • Exhale fully, out through the nose or mouth. • Aim to make your exhale at least as long as your inhale, if not longer.
There are many breathing patterns that can be helpful to practice often so that they’re readily available when we need them. Some breathing patterns and mnemonics: • 4/6 breathing • 4-7-8 breathing • Box breathing • Smell the flower, blow out the candle
Here are some other ways to stimulate your rest and digest response:
• Forward fold - putting your head below your heart • Laughter • Lightly touching your lips with your fingertips • Massage • Slowing down • Gratitude practice • Guided visualization • Time in nature • Contemplative practices like yoga, prayer, meditation (Gerritsen and Band, 2018).
2. Navigate by your values
With your nervous system regulated and your thinking brain back online, you have access to the best compass
around - your values.
Brené Brown defines values as a way of being or believing that we hold most important. Nations have values, communities have values, families have values, organizations have values, and individuals have values. During times of change, when you may feel uncertain and disoriented, values can ground you in your foundational truths - those things you do feel certain about.
Here is a list of values to inspire and questions to consider the next time uncertainty, stress, or the need to make a decision is present:
• What’s important to me in this situation? • What quality do I want to act from? • If I look back on this decision, I’ll feel more at peace if
I’m able to act from a place of (value) .
3. Create healthy habits
Soothing the nervous system and navigating by values can feel like a heavy lift when we first try them out. This weight can make hard times harder, and values-aligned action less likely.
Practicing these behaviors regularly, especially during times of lower stress, will wire-in a new default so that the next time it’s easier.
Start by choosing a daily time to practice soothing yournervous system. This could look like 30 seconds of belly breathing when you start the coffee maker each morning, or a minute of stretching each time you get up from your computer.
Keep your values at the top of your mind by creating reminders that include them - like an eye-pleasing image centering on your core values for your phone lock screen or a handwritten sticky note by your bed. Practice a go-to decision-making question, like, “What value do I want to act from?” and start using it every chance you get.
Closing
Navigating times of change is inherently challenging. We are bumping (sometimes crashing) up against longstanding systems, beliefs, habits, and comforts - both within ourselves and in society at large. This is messy work.
Soothing our nervous systems allows us to care for ourselves and to self-regulate, in order to make decisions that are aligned with our values. Practicing in the smaller-stakes, less stress-inducing moments will make these skills more readily-available in the tough times.
In the end, re-orienting is a process that affects and calls on each of us. May we commit to participating fully and thoughtfully. What our survival response does not handle well is how to respond to an angry email, or what to do when an invoice goes unpaid for another month. Executive function, creative problem-solving, perspective-taking and professional communication are all handled in the higherthinking part of the brain - which goes offline when the survival response takes over.
Resources
André, Christophe. (2019, Jan 15). Proper Breathing Brings Better Health. Scientific American. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/proper-breathing-brings-better-health/
Brown, Brené. List of Values. https://daretolead.brenebrown.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Values.pdf
Brown, Brené. Values definition. https://brenebrown.com/definitions/
Gerritsen, Roderik J. S. and Band, Guido P. H. (2018). Breath of Life: The Respiratory Vagal Stimulation Model of Contemplative Activity. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 12, 397. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2018.00397
Siegel, Daniel J. (2012, Feb 28). Dan Siegel - "Flipping Your Lid:" A Scientific Explanation. https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=G0T_2NNoC68
