S3 E10: How to Prioritize Self-Care

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  • Diathesis-stress model suggests the more stress we experience, the more likely we are to develop health challenges. However, with aspects of self-care, we can buffer against this risk for health issues.On the one hand, self-care can be preventative in the sense that it may hold back health issues from arising. On the other hand, self-care can be healing in the sense that it may reduce or least minimize the symptoms/issues we already are experiencing.This is not to suggest that all of your health challenges are simply the effect of whether or not you are engaging in self-care. It can be more complex and self-care may not be the only factor that contributes to your health challenges.Self-care can be difficult to integrate into our lives for many reasons. For some, using structure, routines, and rituals can help bring self-care more into your life. For others, it may help to be flexible in how self-care is integrated into your life if it’s difficult to ‘force it’ into your daily routines.Stress in America (apa.org)Ideas about self-care can go as far as you figure out how to integrate the ideas into your life. Sometimes even a small change is progress, even when there are ups and downs in how well we can care for ourselves.It helps to understand what changes you are considering rather than just diving into making a change. In other words, try to understand what goes into the change in the first place, what factors influence how you can make the change, and what factors can support you before you leap into the change itself.It is likely people in your life have already told you or suggested that you change, which may lead to resistance to change. And so, change is so often made when the person is motivated to make the change. Additionally, there may be so many nuances in what the change could look like for it to work out, which can take time to reflect, discuss, and consider rather than just using the first idea that comes to mind. For this reason, slowing down the process to discuss this (e.g., in therapy, with close relationships) can help identify these nuances. Sometimes the best ideas are a combination of different people’s ideas and seeing how it applies to you as an individual and within your context.Scott Barry Kaufman - Psychologist, Speaker and Author considers ideas on growth and transformation, including a re-think and re-frame of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.It can help to feel safe and secure before making a change.In making any change, it starts with checking in with yourself. Our attention can be pulled in different directions even in an unconscious way, so it helps to tune into what you are feeling physically, mentally, and emotionally, which can give you insight into how aspects of life are affecting you and what you need for your well-being. An example is checking in with your body when sitting at a computer for multiple hours of the day and realizing you need a break, a walk, stretch, something. Noticing when you are not feeling well is not a bad thing, it’s a signal that you might need something.What you pay attention to is what becomes important to you. We so often give away our attention at the expense of our own self-care.When being absorbed by a virtual reality, even social media, may interfere with interacting with and tuning into the immediate tangible reality in which you exist and with the relationships/interactions around you.Be creative in how you identify self-care ideas that might work for you. Even sharing how you feel in an authentic way with someone safe and secure can be a powerful form of self-care.Making a change can feel like an admission to a vulnerability or that something is ‘wrong’ within them (or in their life), which can create resistance to enacting the change. Take the judgment out of the change so it’s not about who is right or wrong, but just doing what makes sense for you and others.

• TRANSCRIPTION

  Alexis Reid  00:25

  Welcome to Episode 10 of season three of the Reid Connected podcast. Now today we're gonna talk about self care. And self care is a term that we hear all the time, especially in the United States. It's even a colloquial term that we have been saying to each other forever, and in conversations and interactions by saying, take care, take care of yourself, or how about the old, don't forget to take care of yourself. I'm sure you've heard these adages in many different contexts over the course of your life. We all know it's important, no matter how often we neglect this advice, or sometimes push ourselves to our own limits. While the concept of self care has long been debated given it can be interpreted in so many ways, today, we're going to try to simplify things. It's been a theme of this entire season. And we want to think about how self care implies that we actively do things that are good for our physical and mental health, as well as well being. On the one hand, self care can be preventative in the sense that it can help us maintain our health and well being in the midst of any types of stressors. This comes from the diathesis stress model, suggesting illness comes from struggling to cope and buffer the effects of stress. For example, this model suggests that the more stressful experiences a person endures, the more likely they are to experience mental and physical health issues. However, this model also suggests that there are protective and restorative factors that can help you maintain health despite such stress.

  Gerald Reid  01:58

  We want to acknowledge that there is nuance to self care, we don't want to imply that you are responsible for every single aspect of your mental and physical health in terms of how things are going. And nor do we want to imply that your mental and physical health is solely due to whether or not you engage in self care, you know, it is one factor. It's not, you know, the whole picture. But it's way more complicated than that. And so try to broaden the idea of self care, because it is, you know, something you can control in life that's so unpredictable. And there's a lot of things that are outside of our control. Self care is one aspect that we can integrate into our lives as a way that we can feel more in control of how things are going. And it's not a constant self reliance, though, at the same time, you know, it could be relying on other people; relying on other people can actually be considered a form of self care. So you know, we don't want you to run away with this episode thinking, you got to do everything by yourself to take care of yourself, you know, we do have to rely on other people as well. On the other hand, self care can also be restorative in the sense that even when we are not healthy mentally or physically, self care can really help reduce our symptoms and improve our well being. So not only is it preventative in nature, but it can also be restorative in nature when we are suffering from mental or physical illnesses. In other words, another way of saying that is in some cases, self care can be both preventative and it could also be healing in some ways as well.

  Alexis Reid  03:21

  In our constant frenetic, go go go society, we're encouraged to work hard, but also take care of ourselves. Is it possible to strike that balance? In my work, I often say that that balance is so hard to achieve. I work towards that every single day. And to find an actual equilibrium and balance on any given day is really a monumental task, in my opinion. (Gerald: is there a math equation for that, by the way?). I wish there was, it's not like A plus B equals C. Like you like to say in our former episode. But you know, I really think that it is all about aiming for that balance rather than feeling like we have to achieve it. Because if we're constantly putting that pressure on ourselves, it creates an additional stressor that can throw off the balance even further than you're trying to achieve. And some may feel like the rigid structure that allows for self care in their life with routines, habits, and rituals, it might be helpful, and sometimes it might be too much. And my recommendation to the people I work with and my reminder to myself is, you know, go easy with yourself. Don't feel like you always have to do one thing all the time because that again, creates more stress in your life than less. But for others, some kind of balance really isn't realistic or attainable. And so being flexible in what you do, makes sense for self care across time and contexts. Even if there are ebbs and flows, it might work better to aim for it than to not. So regardless of how you integrate self care into your life, I think we can all agree that self care is truly important. Our mental and physical health are not only intertwined and impact one another; but they impact the very quality of our lived experiences.

  Gerald Reid  05:04

  And furthermore, according to a report by the American Psychological Association, and the report is called Stress in America; since 2019, which feels like a century ago. Not too long ago, right now it's 2024 in January. Since 2019, Americans in our country are feeling more stressed and experiencing an increase in both mental health and chronic health conditions. And roughly 25% of adults across all age groups report feeling stressed at a level of eight out of 10. Okay, so 10 being like the most stressed you can subjectively report feeling, eight out of 10 is pretty high. And that's a quarter of our society right now. Wow. And the high stress levels reported by at least 1/3 of parents with children under the age of 18 years olds as well. So you know, certainly have to acknowledge the parental stress, which has always been there, you know, raising a child is one of the hardest things to do. You know, it's a lot of responsibility. There's a lot of uncertainty, there's a lot of aspects that go into it. But certainly, it seems like it's gotten even more in terms of the stress level for parents as well.

  Alexis Reid  06:14

  I would say that any kind of caregiving is probably one of the toughest jobs to take on.

  Gerald Reid  06:19

  Absolutely right. And the pandemic, as we know, which was around, you know, 2020; 2020 hindsight, we look back on that, and we can see the effects of it. And some suggest, you know, the APA, the American Psychological Association is suggesting that we have residual trauma that we've collectively experienced, that we're still kind of grappling with and recovering from, right. You know, it's such a long lasting type of experience, the stressful experience, that we're still finding our equilibrium again. And certainly life has changed a lot since then, as well, in terms of how we, you know, work and with remote work and stuff like that. And let's not even get into the fact that the mental health crisis of our youth has been going on not just in the past couple years, not just in the pandemic, as we talked about with our episode and doctor with Dr. David Langer. But this has been going on for the past decade or so, or the past two decades that, you know, the mental health of our youth has certainly been getting a bit worse and worse, as time has gone by, there's theories about why that might be. Are we recognizing it more for kids and identifying more? Or is it truly getting worse? You know, my opinion is probably both, you know, it's probably a bit of both this could be truth on both sides of that. And so stress, mental and physical stress, no matter what it is that stress is real, no matter who you are, no matter what you're feeling, you know, stress is stress, you know, as therapists were trained to see pain as pain no matter who we're working with. And so, at the same time, we want to acknowledge some feel it worse than others. But you know, stress is certainly stress.

  Alexis Reid  07:49

  Perspective is everything. So what is stressful one person may not be to the other, or what we think might cause stress, at some level might not for somebody else. So we need to just, you know, keep our scope wide, and be empathetic, as we're all going through these experiences together. So we hope that season three episodes provided or will provide if you haven't listened to all the episodes yet, some guidance, idea and food for thought that you can consider in your own life, and with the support of professionals that you may be, or could be working with yourselves. And we really want to stress that, as Jerry said before, that you don't need to do this on your own. Jerry and I are huge advocates, as you could imagine, of leaning in and leaning on each other, and others that can be supportive, whether they're trained professionals, mentors, educators, family, friends, you know, a little bit of vulnerability and acceptance of community through communication and relationships is so important. So here we go into Episode 10. 

  So there's a reason why wellness and self help and self care in this industry is a 10s of billions of dollars industry, right, all around the world. Billions of dollars are spent each year on self help and self care. However, you know, all of the Adam Grants, Mel Robbins, Andrew Huberman, Scott Barry Kaufmans, James Clearm Brene Brown, all of the people that I personally listened to and appreciate and have such respect for those books and podcasts will only take you so far right? The books that you buy, the things you listened to, those are all great to get us the wisdom and information we need. But really, the truth is that people who want to make these changes and incorporate self care in their into their life. This idea of personal growth is not about the people that you listen to or are informed by or inspired by. They can only give you some tips and advice. It's really up to us as individuals to take that next step to work towards personal growth. And personal growth can potentially develop as we get older and mature right sometimes natural really some of this stuff comes online as we have more experiences. Like we've said in many episodes, sometimes those extra data points and interactions with our world and environment helped to shape us as we learn and grow. But ultimately, when we want to be change agents in our own lives, we need to think about what's most important to us, right? And we can have all the support from the experts and people in the field and things that we open ourselves up to learn from, maybe this podcast is one of those for you, too. But ultimately, you know, it's really about each of us understanding how we can activate our own change. And I want to just have this little disclosure that sometimes big changes aren't always necessary. You know, I'm a super reflective person that everyday at the end of my day, I reflect a lot, it's probably what interferes with my sleep sometimes to be honest. I reflect a lot and try to process okay, how did things go today? What can I maybe tweak or change for the future? What was helpful was not what do I want to leave behind? What do I want to work on? But some days, it's like, Okay, I just need to keep going. Right? I don't need to make big changes. So before we get into all of this, like, how do we change and improve our lives? I really want us to acknowledge that. Sometimes we're okay being okay. And I'm gonna say that multiple times throughout this podcast, because I think we as a society forget that, that sometimes we've gotten to a point that is good, and it's okay.

  Gerald Reid  11:23

  Yeah, I really appreciate what you said. And kind of going behind the curtain of being a therapist and supervising therapists in training. One of the main tenants that I think I have to convey to my students in training, and then I'm supervising and also myself, as a reminder, is that change takes time. And and the people we work with in therapy, right? I said to my students, there's probably many, many people in their life who already have told them to change. So for you to say, Hey, change, you're just going to be another voice, right? That's not always the case, though, right? There are some times when you have good wisdom, good conceptualization, good understanding that's different than other people that can; people want advice, right? Sometimes people are like, well, I need a different way of thinking about this, and you suggest it, and you suggest it, and that that really resonates. And they do change, and they make important changes, even if they're small. But at the same time, change is a whole process, right. And we have to remember, it's a unique position to be in, to be patient to first understand before trying to help someone change, you know, Vince Lombardi, he's one of the best coaches ever, a long, long time ago for the Green Bay Packers, and I'm pretty sure yeah, he had a quote that said, you can't fix something you don't understand. And so, you know, I always, you know, my, one of my core tenants in therapy is first try to understand, and you can't understand someone in one session fully right, that takes time. And so as Alexis was saying, you know, reflect on yourself, you know, before you try to just jump into making a big change, reflect on yourself, try to understand the change you're trying to make, try to understand, like Alexis said, the barriers to having better self care. And then thirdly, you know, there could be a process, you know, for me, sometimes people, you know, something, they have to kind of go through something to really want to make the change fully, or to be fully committed to it, or to fully appreciate it, you know. And who knows where that comes from? It could be something bad happened, right? Or they get that news or bad experience. And that's like a wake up call, or maybe they just need to see it for themselves. Right? Sometimes I'll ask my patients like, Well, what do you think you tell me what you think you've been living with this your whole life? You know, you you tell me and it's so so to your point Lex, and I'll stop here is, you know, it's a process and as a therapist, we have a unique perspective to help create a context for people to change rather than just force people to change. And also, like, I may not know the exact way to help someone to change, right? They there could be so many nuances, I have to allow to come out in our sessions for them to communicate to me and to themselves to reflect on it that maybe there's a nuance to change that really will help them that my idea that I had in that moment in the beginning was not the exact way of helping them because there's more nuances that had to unfold and to be understood and to be elucidated to to really get to the core of it, and to really help facilitate change that will last or at least, you know, take that first step to, to make a change. 

  Alexis Reid  14:25

  Totally. I often say to my clients, students, parents, I work with educators I work with, that I can guide and support you, but you're really the captain of the ship on this journey, right? Like ultimately, it's up to you. And individuals, like we know ourselves better than anybody else. And sometimes in a therapeutic situation or relationship. people show up and they're they're still kind of behind a wall. They don't always share everything. So even though you get a lot of information from an individual, it doesn't mean you have the whole picture the whole story. And I think this is a really important point to zoom in on in thinking about how we give feedback to people who maybe we can see from the outside maybe could benefit from change. Or we're recognizing like, Hey, that's not working well for you, maybe there's another option that could work. Because when you said, Oh, you need to change or in the How To Be Present episode, we started out by saying focus more pay attention and be present, right, that can be really abrasive to people. And in fact, that can do the absolute opposite of what the well intentioned person in pointing that out might have intended to stimulate or to spark for the person that they're talking to. So really thinking about, you know, can we get curious in these situations when we notice that maybe a different approach is important. And I got to tie it back to executive functions, because this is what I do, you know, sometimes being flexible in your thinking, both cognitively and psychologically, to be quite honest; it's a development, that's a skill that gets developed over time. And often at different points in our life, whether we are younger children who that part of our brain hasn't fully developed yet, we haven't practiced thinking flexibly, thinking about other options, seeing the bigger picture, or if we're really stressed, or anxious or depressed in a moment, where sometimes we can't see anything except for what's right in front of us, or what's right in our mind, that may or may not be accurate and true. So even being able to see the big picture to say, Oh, this might be helpful for me to explore and investigate, might be really difficult for people at different times. So you know, my recommendation, and I think you would agree to Jer, is, get curious, you know, don't be condescending, and questioning, be careful about your delivery. But really, we can ask some good helpful questions to help to get to the individual that we noticed might benefit from a change, to acknowledge like, oh, yeah, maybe that wasn't the best approach. Maybe that didn't give me that desired goal that I was aiming for. Maybe there's something else I can do. I can't think of what that might be for myself. But let me ask somebody, if maybe they can support us?

  Gerald Reid  16:56

  Definitely, yeah, because none of us, none of us are perfect, right? And, and I'm going to take it a step further and say, treat yourself the same way. You know, like, be okay with knowing that you're not going to do everything that's healthy for you all the time, you're gonna you're gonna maybe be not have all the answers for yourself, or maybe that what you're doing is not working for yourself. Like, that's humility, and, you know, sometimes, you know, think of big picture of values that you can help guide the way that you think through things. And maybe humility could be one to say, like, look, it's okay, if I, if I don't do things perfectly, or they make mistakes (Alexis: or I don't know yet), or I don't know, yet, right, the kind of the growth mindset, but also just like humility, that allows you to process things clearly without the defensiveness. Without that, and to be open to what's right versus who's right. You know,

  Alexis Reid  17:53

  One of my favorite Buddhist principles is the fact that, like, we need to accept our own ignorance. We don't know what we don't know. And that's actually a part of being human.

  Gerald Reid  18:03

  Yes, definitely. And that's how change actually happens, though, the irony of that, right, you know, to to admit, that is actually what, because you can't be open to maybe the next best idea, unless you can admit that your idea right now is not the one that's working. And this is complicated. It's not black and white, right? Because it's like, you may not get to the best idea, until you have conversations, you got to hash it out with people and go back and forth. Like, Alright, I'm going to take like 30% of your idea, I'm gonna take like 75% of my idea. And maybe like 5% of this other, like things can come together to make it work for you. So what the reason I'm saying this is have a larger context, that helps you to feel more grounded when you're trying to make changes.

  Alexis Reid  18:45

  And again, like I said, a lot of times, it's hard to look at the bigger picture, some people literally have not developed that skill yet, or they haven't practiced that skill yet. And that makes sense. And that's why it's helpful to recruit somebody who's either trained professional, like you and I or somebody else. But you know, looking at the big picture is a really important piece of this. And, you know, you brought up values. And that's exactly where I was headed thinking about how Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, an Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, especially really focused on the core tenet of understanding our values, right? The whole premise of that work is in embedded, you know, this idea of getting clear about your values and what's most important to you. You know, in in my own work, my teacher guides me similarly to consider it through my meditation practice. And what are the key characteristics and categories of what makes up this map of me which I really love that terminology that he uses. And with my clients, I often have them use Scott Barry Kaufman’s model that I've mentioned before here on the podcast of human needs and taking Maslow's work to a different level and leading towards transcendence, like how do we actually continue to grow rather than constantly changing? I like this idea of transformation and growth over the course of our life, because that's naturally happening, like I mentioned before, but where do we have some agency of what that looks like across our life. 

  So the idea of feeling safe and secure is really the thing that we want to be mindful of before we start to make any change in our lives before we analyze and understand what self care is, before we hit order, or pay for the newest fad that we see on social media. Right? We want to really take this moment and this time to assess what's important to us and what we need to be able to feel secure and safe and ready to take on any new challenge and change. Because like you say, all the time Jer, change in life are complex and challenging, right? Life is hard. Change is hard. But it doesn't have to be completely daunting. But if we can kind of take a step back and think about, okay, what are these things that allow for us to make these changes? And where do we go from here. And again, this is where thinking about working with a professional, a mentor, a teacher, a friend, to kind of do this assessment, have these discussions is so important.

  Gerald Reid  21:07

  You know, your head, you're hinting at a lot of different ways that we can take care of ourselves different aspects of life, feeling secure, feeling a sense of belonging with other people, there's so many versions of it. So let's kind of rewind a little bit and say, like, what are the practical steps, and I would say, I think you'd agree, the first step is checking in with yourself. You know, to make any kind of change and to understand self care in your life, you got to check in with yourself. And you know, today's day and age how technology is so much grabbing our attention, Lex talks about this a lot, our attention is manipulated and pulled in so many directions. In a way, that's a lot of times unconscious, and just habitual and automatic. So, so the first thing is to, you know, if you want to really prioritize self care, take back your attention, even if it's for a moment in time, you know, it doesn't have to be that you're like, focused in in the present moment, as we said, couple episodes ago, you don't have to be present all the time. But the very least you got to prioritize it a little bit to be able to check in with yourself. And the reason checking in with yourself is so important. And it's kind of a lost art, is because you have a lot of wisdom in how you're feeling. Right? You know, we talked about this in the episode with in episode nine about physical health, you know, when I was teaching, and even when we're in our work day, if you're sitting down for the whole day, for like, long, multiple hours, right? Sometimes people are their work, their workstation, just sitting down, check in with your body, your body may not feel right. That's not a problem. Checking in with how you're feeling and if you're not feeling great, that that's not bad. So even emotionally, right? If you check in with yourself and you feeling depressed, or anxious or, or lonely or frustrated; checking in with yourself and feeling not great feelings is kind of like feeling like something's off or feeling distressed, even stressed. It's not; don't treat that as something bad. Treat that as a as an opportunity, and also a challenge to yourself - oh, this is an opportunity for me to see what do I need for myself? What is this telling me? So for instance, if you've been sitting all day, and your body feels off and you feel drained, your energy is drained, that's great. Like, don't don't be like, Oh, this is terrible, be like, Oh, this is great. Now I know I need to get up and just walk around. You know, like, so that, like, I'll just take a lap around the office, find reasons to walk, I'm like, let me just gulp down my entire water bottle so I have a reason to go get more water for the office. So checking in with yourself is essential.

  Alexis Reid  23:43

  I think that's so important. And if we go back to the boat metaphor, like, we don't always pay attention to that navigation board, that often like on a boat, or in a car or on your cell phone even is like, Oh, you're running out of this, you know, your battery power is low, or maybe you know, maybe your guidance and navigation. I'm not a boating professional, somebody else can take this metaphor in a better way than I. But you know, thinking about how a navigation panel might give you a signal that says, hey, something's wrong here. Or maybe you need to chart a different path or beware of, you know, the something that's ahead that maybe you can't see it's underwater, right? That's like all of these signals that you're describing there inside of us that unless we press pause, to be able to say, Okay, what do we need right now, we can potentially just keep going. And this is where burnout comes from, when we're not checking in when we're not noticing. But then the opposite is true that sometimes we over check that could actually make us more anxious, and more distracted.

  Gerald Reid  24:40

  Fair, right? That there's nuance to it. That's fair.

  Alexis Reid  24:42

  And the other thing too is, you know, so important is that when we think about sensory perception, right? Some people think there's there's five different senses, but we also have these internal senses as well, which we'll go into in a different episode. But just noticing that like sometimes we need a cue or a prompt to say, Hey, are you tired? Is your body stiff? Because you've been sitting all day? Are you hungry? Are you full? Are you thirsty? Our brain signals sometimes can get crossed. And when we're actually thirsty, we might feel hungry. We might start snacking or when we're tired, we should be napping, but we start snacking, like all these signals can get crossed and make us think we need different things than we actually need.

  Gerald Reid  25:24

  That is 100% true. Sure, right. Right. Exactly. Right. Are you stressed? Are you really hungry? Are you just stressed? Or tired? Or any other addiction that people can fall into? Right? You know, I always ask people when they have addictive challenges, I'm like, what emotion were you feeling before that happened before you kind of went to the addiction? Whatever it was, there's plenty of versions of it's not just drugs and alcohol, right? There's plenty of addictions people can fall into. And I always ask, what's the emotion. And so Lex, also said something that was really important. So it's not always good to constantly check in on ourselves, but that can become obsessive. And like, if I'm working with an athlete, and I'm trying to help them with their anxiety, I'm not gonna say like, okay, when you're dribbling the ball up the court, it's like, the beginning of the second half of the game, I’m not going to tell them like, okay, just stand there and check in to see how your anxiety is feeling while while the defensive player comes and steals the ball from you. The point I'm trying to make here is that it is important to check in with yourself a lot. But it's also important to strategize. You know, when you're not in these situations. A lot of self care is pulling back. Let's use the sports metaphor, right? The coach is going to call timeout, and say, hey, let's regroup and strategize so that you have a plan to kind of know how to respond in these situations rather than just react. 

  Alexis Reid  26:47

  That's a great a example of like that lighthouse, kind of like shining a light on like, oh, maybe we need to do something different. Let's strategize let's, let's zoom out for a minute instead of just being in it. This is why we said before that like being too present sometimes isn't good, because we might miss something else that might be helpful for us.

  Gerald Reid  27:03

  Right? Or focusing on maybe the wrong things when you are being present. Yeah, for sure. Like you had said before. And so even when there's so many engaging, amazing TV shows, movies, right, we have access to it. I still cannot believe that you put your TV on and just through the internet, get all these movies. I was reflecting on this, because he got me that book, ‘How does the internet change our brain’, I started like flipping through it. And like I went back in time and like, I couldn't think I could have ever imagined that the internet will be so powerful that you have anything you want. That just pops up on your screen. Like we used to go to Blockbuster to rent the movie, or have to like wait for like TGIF to come on a Friday night. It's so fascinating. Those things have changed so rapidly, you know, quickly, the internet just keeps getting faster and more powerful. And it's like, where's this heading?

  Alexis Reid  27:55

  And it changes our brain. And you know, that's a little bit of a plug for more to come about understanding attention, and how the Internet and screens have changed our brains and changed our attention and our focus in the way we show up in the world. So it's so important to think about that. I often say that, you know, we prioritize, and we give our attention to the things we see most of right. And that's, you know, a big part of marketing, right? The more you see something, the more you hear it the more you're gonna think that's the thing that's important. I had a great conversation with a student the other day about history. And he was doing an exploration on Egypt. And he said, oh, one of the greatest discoveries was King Tut's tomb. And I asked myself, Why do you think that was one of the greatest discoveries and we dug a little deeper to learn, I don't know if anybody else knows is in the audience to learn that most of the other Egyptian tombs were actually looted back in ancient days that like they couldn't find anything because most of those tombs had already been robbed. Right. So the discovery of King Tut's tomb was so important. And maybe that's why it's such a big part of history is because we, we know about it, but there's so many other things we don't know about. That might have been equally important. Maybe more important, I don't know. But the same thing happens in present day that like, the more we see something, the more we hear about it, the more we think that's the thing that's important. 

  Gerald Reid  29:17

  Okay, let me expand on that then. And I thought a lot about like, what is what is it like to be in a virtual reality? Yeah. So like, we are subtly in a virtual reality by being on our phones all the time and being on social media, right? Because it's not a reality that exists with our eyes around us in our in our senses around us. It's something that we're almost imagining through perception. Right, we're seeing an image we're seeing videos, right. It's not actually happening, right? Right. It's literally not happening.

  Alexis Reid  29:49

  It like isn't it isn't there's like, there's like this delay. And it's funny because like, in normal times, like if there's a sporting game you're watching and there's a delay we get frustrated. Right, right, right. But in this digital reality, people are delayed. And I will actually say that it benefits some people because they have a pause to think and organize their thoughts before they contribute.

  Gerald Reid  30:08

  For sure, for sure. But like, in the present moment, physically, it's not happening. I just want to make that clear, right? Physically in your presence. It's not happening. It's happening either somewhere else, or it happened in the past, and it was recorded. So I'm trying to, like meditate on this and like, what, what is this like, for people, and to your point, your attention becomes what's important to you. And I think this is the reason why, you know, people have such a, this can really affect relationships. Because it becomes so much more important to look at this virtual reality than it is the people around you. And I think that's why, you know, it could impair social skills, relationships, it could impair; you know, so much of life is tuning into the present moment to see like, you know, how do you communicate well with people? How do you engage in a fun silly way with people, which requires presence and nuance and empathy and understanding each other and noticing things around you that you're experiencing? And so, you know, I'm afraid that that can be lost, as time goes on. And we get more embedded in this kind of this reality that's not tangibly in front of us, that's not with us. And if we don't notice it, we're gonna think it’s normal, right? We normalize things. And so again, pull back and tune in with yourself, because I think there's a reason why if you watch TV shows for five episodes in a row, which is like five hours, which I can never do, I get through one episode or two, and I'm like, Oh, my God, like, I have to go do something else. Now. It's because I'm trying to tune in, I think we have to try to tune into how we feel when we do these things. And to say, like, Oh, I feel drained. You know, it's talking to a kid, I talk to people, I talk to patients about this, right? When you play video games for like seven hours straight. How do you feel after? You feel drained? I think it's because you're just not in reality. It’s also because you’re not moving your body. But I'm wondering what that's doing to our bodies. And you have always told me the kids you work with say, I kind of love social media, but also hate it. 

  Alexis Reid  32:12

  Yeah, totally in there's there's a lot of experiments going on around the world, I think, which I'm excited to see more of the research on later, where there are spaces that do not allow technology, right, there's some schools that have taken away smartphones and kind of integrated in a way to communicate, but it's not as interactive as a smartphone is. There are some schools that don't have technology at all. You know, it's funny that the folks in Silicon Valley are, you know, if you if you read or listen to any of the interviews with some of the people who developed a lot of this technology, they don't let their children interact with this technology. And there's so much great research on thinking about how, you know, before, you know, as, as infants and toddlers, like they really shouldn't be interacting with screens, because it's changing the structure and the development of their brain in a different way. But again, like you said, like this didn't exist at this level, 20 years ago.

  Gerald Reid  33:07

  No. Right. So for the entirety of our human existence.

  Alexis Reid  33:10

  Right, but the children and the individuals who grew up with this, yeah, it's a different reality for them. This is just their life.

  Gerald Reid  33:18

  Exactly. You're born into it. Can you imagine? Okay, so let me just pause and say, we're not anti technology. No.

  Alexis Reid  33:24

  Absolutely not. 

  Gerald Reid  33:25

  Please,

  Alexis Reid  33:27

  I have my iPad in front of me.

  Gerald Reid  33:28

  Ya know, technology has done some incredible things. And medicine has done some incredible things for helping people like, Like, right now you're listening to this because of technology. You know, it, there's so much you can learn so much. Like there's so many benefits. But everything has pros and cons, though, like, be realistic about life. It's not just technologies, it's almost everything in life has pros and cons, if you were to think critically about it.

  Alexis Reid  33:50

  And when we think about self care, it's like, it's the same concept. It's like, if you do too much of anything, it's probably not going to be the best for you. Like, if you're only going to focus in like, Oh, I'm just going to exercise like three times a day. And that's the thing I'm going to do to work on my own self care and to have my wellness at the level I want to be. Or I'm just going to focus on this one thing, like sometimes one thing is a good start and an entry point. But if that's what you're going to obsess on, and constantly checking in with the same way, it's not great to constantly check in with our phones and our technology all day long. Because it's distributing our attention. Which attention you know, so many experts in the field are using this language, which I love. It's like attention, I would say time too, are our greatest resources. How are we using it? How are we prioritizing it? Why are we giving so much of it away? I think we miss so much of what's happening around us. When we're just constantly looking down. We're constantly checking. If I had students who are constantly checking their work as much as they're checking their phones and their notifications. I think we would have a whole different learning landscape that we do today.

  Gerald Reid  35:00

  Wow, that's interesting. I mean, well, some some have anxiety, they do actually check too much.

  Alexis Reid  35:04

  Too much. But that's the point. We can't do too much. We don't want to do too little. We kinda have to find the place in the middle. Yeah. And really think about self care. Often the answer lies in the middle. Well,

  Gerald Reid  35:13

  well, Barry said that Dr. Spiering last episode about physical health. You mentioned this, if you exercise too much, your body actually doesn't get more strong and in terms of performance and strength, because you're not recovering? Yes. And he was saying, you know, once you get to a point of building up your strength and performance, you, you you maintain that with, you don't have to do as much in terms of length of time that doing more could actually injure you or just not give you the benefits you're hoping for. That's not how the body works. It needs recovery.

  Alexis Reid  35:43

  Totally. And, you know, I love what Dr. Wu` said in our episode on sleep specifically, you know, She was such an advocate for naps. And I love hearing her say this, and I know you're an advocate for naps yourself, too. But you know, I shared this at a school that I was doing professional development with it earlier this week. And I said, you know, it looks like we're all pretty tired today. At the end of the day, on a Monday end of January 2024. I said, you know, one of the things that actually helps us to replenish our attention and our focus like literally bio-physically helps to like it helps to monitor the blood flow to our brain and the oxygenation of our brain is to rest. And I shared with Dr. Wu about when she grew up in China that, you know, everybody at a certain time of the day, including teachers needed to go home and take a nap. Before they continue their day, they continued their learning, they continued their work. And pretty much everybody was like silently cheering, it's not everybody's face light up, like, oh, we should do that. And I totally agree, I wish our society would adopt that more. And to really prioritize rest, I know that when I prioritize it, I benefit from it. And sometimes we get caught up in the things we are passionate about. And that's I think the challenge of balancing growth and expansion in our own lives. When we find purpose and passion, like we are so blessed to have found in our work in our lives Jer; that like sometimes that doesn't feel like work. And we just keep going and we don't pay attention. And this is, you know, what self care is all about. It's really about paying attention, reflecting, and refining, pay attention, reflecting and refining. 

  Gerald Reid  37:21

  Alright, so we covered a lot here, I made a list of some things you can do for self care. This is not like a checklist. I know there's you can do internet search of self care, you get like probably 10 hundred thousand things.

  Alexis Reid  37:34

  Can I just say to you before you go through this, I love I love this because it's so practical and important. And the thing that I both love, and it and it like irks me a little bit too is when people say just tell me what to do. It's like when in your life do you listen to when people tell you what to do? Right? I hear this all the time. And I hear this from the educational sector more than you would imagine where the teachers are like, this is great, I understand to understand the psychoeducation behind what's happening for the students and what their experience is and that’s so important. But just tell me how to fix it, how to do it. And I'm like, well, it's not about a-thing. So all these things you're about to list we know are helpful there are scientifically and empirically based. And they're not going to work for everybody all the time.

  Gerald Reid  38:19

  No. And so so. So here, here's, so this list is more of a way of thinking creatively. (Alexis: I appreciate that. That's great.) Yeah. So to your point, this is more like think outside the box for yourself. So here's some like practical examples. Okay, a massage would be nice, right?

  Alexis Reid  38:38

  Or, like you said in the last episode, using a foam roller, give yourself a massage. 

  Gerald Reid  38:43

  You just took the words out of my mouth. Right, okay. Or maybe save some money up and get a massage chair or even like the ones that just fit in the back of your chair that are that are portable, right, that are cheaper, if you have the means for them.

  Alexis Reid  38:56

  Or even just lumbar support sometimes helps your body how you're sitting a good chair makes it different. 

  Gerald Reid  39:01

  Yeah. Like, you know, you know, obviously, you know, finances is important. So, you know, maybe you need to take time to save up or something like that. But.

  Alexis Reid  39:10

  Or you could even just roll a towel behind your back. You don't actually have to purchase something new too. But considering, I think the point in the psychoeducation behind this and thinking about your body physiologically, like makes a difference for sure. Cool.

  Gerald Reid  39:26

  All right. Next one big music concert right let's say you want to go see Taylor Swift. I don't know how much Taylor Swift concert tickets are? 

  Alexis Reid  39:34

  Quite a lot. I've been told.

  Gerald Reid  39:36

  Celtics games I wanted to go home like wow. So So like let's say you you know you can't get maybe logistically you just can't get to a big music concert you want to see. Well, like some other offer. What are some other options would you say?

  Alexis Reid  39:49

  I think the beauty of living in or around the Boston area is that there's free music concerts, performances all the time. (Gerald: Or cheaper ones). Or cheaper ones, you know? Go into your community libraries, seeing what events are there, whether it's music or listening to a speaker. That's I think the beauty of being in a community is to actually check in with some of the events and things that are there, which also reinforces this idea of community which we'll talk more about next season too.

  Gerald Reid  40:17

  Definitely, go see a local band that's playing whether the playing cover music or, or, or original music, you can go see frog salon. Mike Madera, our producer right now in the Boston area. But there's, you know, there's musicians everywhere, right? Maybe in your area, there's not musicians that you're into, or, or your job are a wide variety, but they're certainly local musicians, they play in a local pubs and so on. 

  Alexis Reid  40:42

  Coffee shops, even, you know, places of spiritual worship to write, whether it's, you know, orchestral music, or choir music, so many beautiful options.

  Gerald Reid  40:50

  Yeah, for sure. Okay, and maybe even just simple as good, you know, saving up for a speaker system in your house, you know, just jamming out and listening to your favorite music, making a playlist, like, you know, make your favorite, make a bunch of playlists, you know Back in the day when we had CD burners, and I would just make like, all these really cool playlists that I would give them to people and stuff, because I'm like, you know, music is important. It really is. There's different ways of doing it. So find your way.

  Alexis Reid  41:16

  And like we said, about in the communication episode about sharing meals and communicating the other I think, you know, making a playlist is also a great point of conversation, which can connect you to people and you can communicate that way, too.

  Gerald Reid  41:27

  Yes, absolutely. And next season, we're going to interview some musicians and talk about how, you know, it brings a sense of community and so forth, it’s gonna be great. I'm so excited about that. Okay, how about eating at nice restaurants right. Now, maybe, you know, you just you're not able to get to one of the finest restaurants in the country or the town or the city. But what are some other options? 

  Alexis Reid  41:49

  We talked about this on the Presence episode, when we were in grad school, we were scrappy. And we would try to find the best restaurants where we can get the best deals, but also had the best bread options. Because oftentimes, usually not everywhere these days, sometimes you have to pay for the bread, apparently. But when we were in grad school, we would find the places with the best bread and the meals we would have, we would truly appreciate them. The term you coined, which I love, is like this is an eye closer, close, shut down as many senses as you can and just focus on the taste of what you're eating. Or you can prepare a meal at home, which is also practicing your executive function skills going through the steps prioritizing, think about that process of creation. And there is a creative aspect to that too, which is really nice. 

  Gerald Reid  42:36

  Definitely, it's an art you know, people who like cooking they they always say like sometimes they like it better than baking because they can kind of play around with it; do their own version of it. So learn and look technology, hey, benefit of technology, pull up YouTube; you can pull up any recipe and everything. Really? Yeah. Oh my God, we could just make one up right now. I don't want to do that. Because it might turn out kind of weird. 

  Alexis Reid  42:58

  Jerry has a tendency of adding some very interesting ingredients when he cooks, but they always come out great. I'm impressed by his curiosity and creativity and experimentation.

  Gerald Reid  43:07

  Experimentation. Sometimes not great, sometimes great. But that's the fun part. So okay, there you go. So there's another idea. You know, vacations, right? You know, you can't afford a vacation. Or you don't have the time for it. There's plenty of ways to create joy. And you know, one of the things about life is people are different. People are similar, and they're different at the same time. We're all human, which makes us similar. We have similar emotions, we have similar experiences as being human, what it's like to be human. But we're also different. And people are different in personality, life's experiences, environment, culture, all that stuff. (Alexis: preferences, interests). So many, so so find what works for you. But, you know, think back to you know, being a kid right? By the way, kindergarteners take naps. Like, let's not forget that.

  Alexis Reid  43:59

  Let’s go. Kindergarten mindset.

  Gerald Reid  44:01

  Like, they have fun doing the silliest things. Oh, share the story about the raindrop.

  Alexis Reid  44:06

  Oh, this is so great. Okay, so, you know, we're trying to stay away from like, the things that you've heard a million times in social media about, like how to take care of ourselves. But there's something some things that are so simple that we're trying to shed a light on and one of the things I do with the clients I work with is, is helping them to just press pause. There's a lot of research shows that like if you can actually quiet your mind, quiet your bodies, you can show up and activate your executive functions and be able to take on challenges. So I've been practicing with a lot of my clients to be able to just press pause, close your eyes, and just just be for one minute. So I practice this in my office with my clients and I give them a challenge to go home and practice this on their own. And one of my students came in, this is a sixth grader who I've known for a while and is so creative and was so into this challenge that he said - I got up to like two or three minutes. And he said - one day it was raining and in instead of closing my eyes and just focus on my breathing, I was just looking at the window. And it was raining this day. And I noticed that there were raindrops that were coming down the window. And the thing I was paying attention to was how quickly the raindrops were going. And all of a sudden, he starts telling me the story that he's narrating about these names. And it took me a second to follow. And also, he told me that he was naming the raindrops that were racing to see who would get to the bottom. Out of nowhere, I don't know if this is the name. He's like, Pablo, or Peter or something, Peter, all of a sudden came out of nowhere and then won; and I'm like, What are you talking about? And then it came all together that he was watching the rain trickled down the window. And that was his moment of mindfulness of just like being just noticing, and not really focused on too too much. Right. And it was the most beautiful thing. And it was the greatest story. And so, you know, in these moments, when we're trying to find times for self care, even if we're aiming to just be or do nothing, bring a little joy to it. See, look through a child's eyes or child's mindset to think about what would you notice? If you've never noticed something before? 

  Gerald Reid  46:06

  Yeah, definitely. Love that. Okay, so there's there's different ways, different versions, you got to do what works for you is kind of the main point here.

  Alexis Reid  46:14

  I love the idea that you shared that, you know, babies and dogs aren't the only beings that exist that require routines to thrive.

  Gerald Reid  46:23

  Oh, right. Yeah, that is true, right? You know, routine is important. And you don't want to have too much structure in your life that you become kind of suffocated by it or limited by it. But certainly, you know, self care could be just creating more routine in your life, more structure, and that can kind of calm things down, certaintly.

  Alexis Reid  46:43

  Yeah. And on the how to de stress with EF when we think about executive function, you know, the behaviors related to those cognitive skills is like, how do we organize things? How do we establish a plan that's going to be helpful? How do we give ourselves time to unwind so we could recharge ourselves and be ready for whatever comes next? So some of the real quick tips that, you know, are known in my work and with my clients as Alexis-isms are like, how do we - we can't always predict but we can plan, right. And in planning, we can have a little bit of a routine. And I love a good nighttime routine to prepare for the mornings, we hear all the time that not everybody is a morning person, right. And sometimes mornings are rushed are tricky. And especially if you have children or you have to get to work or you have to get to school, or whatever the case might be; taking a few minutes in the evening, to prepare what you need for the morning helps to reduce so much stress and anxiety because it's already for you. Whether you're meal prepping, and you know getting your lunch ready or having breakfast or coffee set, if that's what you do, or your shoes by the door, or you choose your outfit the night before. Those are all things that you don't have to do first thing in the morning, that you're not necessarily automizing that your brains turned off, but you're minimizing the amount of choices you need to make in a potentially more stressful situation, to make the ease of starting your day feel a little bit better. 

  Gerald Reid  48:05

  Yeah. And so here's like, a simple outside of the box is, here's this simple way of doing it too. You can do it the reverse way. So one day I thought to myself, you know, I would like to have a little bit more time. I like to have some more time in the morning, I kind of really enjoy the mornings, where I get to just take my time listening to music, do my thing, make breakfast and, and kind of just ease into the day. So I'm like, why don't I just go to sleep 15 minutes or 20 minutes earlier. So I can wake up 15 or 20 minutes earlier.

  Alexis Reid  48:35

  It’s such a novel idea. And it's so true, right. And again, what we prioritize what we value, what we find helpful for us, we can make little tweaks, you know, 15 minute adjustments, you know, in the grand scheme of things isn't a huge change. And maybe you shut down a little earlier, maybe you have a cut off time for your electronics or your social media. I have a timer on my social media of how much time I can actually engage with it, whether it's for work or for connecting with friends or learning information, whatever it is. I only have so much of it. Right I'm trying to be a little bit more mindful of creating those boundaries around my time. So I can expand my own resources and replenish when I need to. Maybe you have a routine at night that's helpful to wind down. This is something that, you know, we talked about with Dr. Wu that we don't take enough time to process our day. And sometimes that keeps us up at night. So paying attention to all that is so important, whatever your routine may be, and in my work and in your work, and many professionals work and hopefully integrated more in the schools in the workforce, to be able to prompt people to pay attention to your morning and evening routine. How we start and end our day can really determine you know, our own wellness throughout the day and how we show up how well we do what we do and how we interact with others.

  Gerald Reid  49:56

  Absolutely Lex. That's so important. Another simple way that you can self you another simple way you can self care, let's, let's make it a verb.

  Alexis Reid  50:06

  We’re gonna make it a verb, we’re self caring now. 

  Gerald Reid  50:10

  Now, another way you can self care is, you can do this anytime every day. You can simply check in with your body and just give yourself permission to relax. And say like, Okay, let me release some of the tension has noticed that tension like a body scan release, but but most importantly, just remind yourself in this present moment, there is no catastrophe. Things are okay, right now. And there's sometimes when like, there's problems, there's crises, and you don't, this doesn't apply, right. But there's so much time in our lives where we worry, and we ruminate too much. And a lot of the things we were in ruminate about, they don't even happen, or it turns out, it was kind of a waste of time to think so much about it. I'm not neglecting like, like I said, in the other episodes, it's important to worry and think, right, that's adaptive, it helps us to problem solve and tell us to pay attention and prepare, right, but as we said, like there's there's limits of things and sometimes you do too much of it i's not healthy anymore. So every now and then, you know, it's almost like relief. Relief is an underrated emotion. Just take a deep breath and just be like, You know what, right now? Like, here I am, I'm okay. Like, nothing terrible is happening right now. Isn't that nice? You know, it's like, for me, it's like eating an olive. Like, olives are so underrated. I’m like let me enjoy this olive. 

  Alexis Reid  51:37

  Mindful eating. Yeah, you know, and I, one of my other Alexis-isms is this idea of like, checking in with what you need. And one of my students actually named it AAA. Right. So what do we need? Do we need a breath, a break, or assistance? And sometimes that breath, you know, I was thinking about this other day when we panic sometimes, like, you're like, gasping for air? And, and that's really prompting us to breathe. Right? Can we maybe proactively notice when these stressors start to come up? And sometimes it's easier than others? But can we proactively notice in our bodies, what we feel when we were starting to get overstressed? Or were anticipating a stressful moment? And think about, okay, what do - I What can I do in this moment, and I always say, one of the best things that we can do, it's so simple, it's free, really doesn't require much, you could do it in a lot of different ways. Thinking about universally designed multiple means of representation. You could write, you could record you can draw whatever you want - what's a list of things you know, help you to feel good. It can be anything, it can be looking up at the sky, it could be, you know, when I go to the ocean, just seeing the water makes my whole body feel differently. Notice it. Listening to music, connecting with somebody you care about or love, eating a good meal, all these things like listed all out. So we encourage you to do this. And we're not going to tell you what those things are that bring you joy, or make you feel good, or lead to your own version of self care. But list out all the things that you know, help. And give yourselves maybe categories of like, this is something I can do in a moment. Just like the triple A, a breath only takes a moment. You know, a break maybe is a few minutes, or longer depending on what you have available to you. And assistance maybe requires the recruitment of somebody else to help you. 

  Gerald Reid  53:32

  Yes, don’t be like you need to take everything on by yourself, which is relief again, like oh, maybe I need more information. Or maybe I need someone to take this part or prior or delegate or something. Yeah, yeah. 

  Alexis Reid  53:42

  Yeah, and co-regulation, I think is something that is often underutilized. 

  Gerald Reid  53:48

  Yeah. Or it can be misinterpreted as codependence yeah, great point. And that's the extreme version of it, right, which could become unhealthy for sure. 

  Alexis Reid  53:55

  But like co-regulating and like asking for a hug, asking for suggestion when you feel stuck. Oftentimes, we stay in our own heads, like you said, before we get fixated on like, I can't do this myself, therefore I can't do it.

  Gerald Reid  54:08

  Yeah, I mean, when I see like two grown men talking about, like, their stressors in their life, like, it was the I was like, wow, I don't know how much that happened in the past. But like, how great is that? They're like, talking about their feelings about their experiences and stuff. Which is probably why I have you know, quite a few male pet patients, you know, and I'm like, This is great, you know, open up, let's talk about it. They're like, I'm like, How do you feel now that you've talked about this? I always ask that question. I'm like, have you talked to anybody about this? Ever? You know, the, the nuance, which by the way, it takes time to really get to the deeper levels of like, what they really feel what they really mean. And they're like, No. I'm like, and I always ask this. How do you feel now? Like, oh, feels good. 

  Alexis Reid  54:49

  Yeah, regardless of your gender. You know I think that there's a lot of societal stigma around sharing different parts of yourself. (Gerald: Definitely not just men. Yeah.). You know, it's so important and this is one of the benefits I think of social media is there's there's a really great podcast and social media site called man enough. I hope to have you know the host come on and talk about this too, because I think you and he would relate to it that, you know, there's so many things that sometimes don't get discussed. Even in the world of psychology. This is what turned me on to Scott Barry Kaufman's work essentially, is that he mentioned the word love in the realm of psychology. Right? How often do you think about love or talk about love in a psychological therapeutic relationship, it often doesn't come up. But I think love is a big part of building trust and having respect and going through this journey of growth, it is a part of Maslow's hierarchy to going back to what we were talking about. And being able to both share and receive love is sometimes a really difficult thing to do.

  Gerald Reid  55:50

  I agree 100%. And many of my songs that I've written produced with my producer, Mike Midura, by the way, he's an incredible guy; use the word love or talk about the concept of love, so much so that I can't overdo it. But it's important and the concept is nuanced. There's a lot to what you love could mean to people.

  Alexis Reid  56:14

  I think it's so important. And you know, just bringing it back to the practicality, you know, in self care really starts in understanding ourselves and having love and respect for ourselves, which we can have, you know, week long conversations about. But just to mention, you know, some people are like self love is a little bit too much for me. But what are different versions and levels of love that makes sense for you. Where you can appreciate yourself, where you can recognize that doing things that help you help you to show up in the world and the things you do in the relationships you have in a little different way, and help you to going back to the sailboat metaphor, pave that path, navigate the waters that you embark upon, to be able to think about how to shift and adjust when needed, changing the sails; being open to the winds of change coming to guide you. All of this is so important. And giving the space and time to do this work, whether it's five minutes at the end of your day, where you're just reflecting on your day. That's the point of self care, being able to ask for help or support guidance, that’s self care. Having an extra drink of water, getting a good night's sleep, nurturing your body with good nutritious foods, exercising, moving your body. You know, recruiting the wisdom and guidance of a trained professional, being a little bit of planful preparing for whatever may or may not come up all the things that we discussed about in season three, and we often come back to in the podcast in general, are all helpful. So make that list. Categorize when and where these different things might be helpful. And really tune in to what makes sense for you in the here and now. And what works for you today might not be the best option later. And be open to that change too. And not be so hard on yourself. As you're trying to show up to be the best or just the most okay version of yourself in any given day.

  Gerald Reid  58:17

  Yeah, like let go of the judgments while you're doing this. You know, just accept things for what they are, accept yourself for who you are. Everybody has strengths and vulnerabilities. And if you don't accept that, you're not going to do anything to help yourself, because here's the thing - to change is to admit that you have vulnerabilities you see. So like, to change is to admit there's something that you can judge. So that's what I'm saying, take the judgment out of, because if you're changing, you're basically admitting that there's something that is not working for you that you're doing or about yourself. And so like that could make people feel like, oh, that's gonna prove that everybody telling me to change was right, I want to prove them; I don't want them to be right about things I've been doing that are not healthy for me or I don't want to admit that I'm not perfect or their vulnerabilities by changing right. There's kind of a dynamic there that is underappreciated. So my advice in therapy and with people's like, just humanize yourself, like you said. Love Yourself, unconditionally. And naturally, you will make changes just naturally because they’re gonna make sense. There's not a judgement, there's not these power dynamics between you and other people. Just naturally you'll just do what makes sense for you when you can appreciate and love yourself unconditionally.

  Alexis Reid  59:31

  Yeah, and if for being proactive, preventative, and planful. I think we could make little tweaks as we continue to grow and be a part of our own journeys and joining others. I think it's a really beautiful thing and we're here for it. We're here with you and we look forward to sharing more information on the podcasts and also through our social media. If you want to listen to some songs of love - Music Jerapy – and on my Instagram page, I'm sharing more and more of some of these tips that might be helpful and that might inspire and guide you in your journey and whatever you might need. And please feel free to share some of the things that resonate with you, we would love to hear from you, you can pop into our social media share things that you want to hear more about things that resonate for you, things that you like things that you want to challenge all of the things, I think it's really helpful for us to engage in these discussions. You know, Jerry and I do this work because it's not one sided. And because things are complex, and we need to hear different perspectives, different expertise, and, you know, we encourage you to explore, right and know (Jerry: Just do it respectfully), respectfully, but explore for yourself and figure out what you need in this stage of your journey. And we're grateful for you to be a part of ours.

  Gerald Reid  1:00:51

  This has definitely been myself care, doing this with you. And so what a what a joy this has been to do the podcast with you. So thank you.

  Alexis Reid  1:00:58

  In every challenge, it's important to find and appreciate the joy. 

  Gerald Reid  1:01:03

  Yes, you grow through challenges. And by the way, before we end, take good care of yourself, Lex.

  Alexis Reid  1:01:09

  Thanks. Appreciate it. Take care. And as we like to sign off, be curious, be open and be well.

  Gerald Reid  

  Thanks for tuning in to the Reid Connect-ED podcast. Please remember that this is a podcast intended to educate and share ideas, but it is not a substitute for professional care that may be beneficial to you at different points of your life. If you are needed support, please contact your primary care physician, local hospital, educational institution, or support staff at your place of employment to seek out referrals for what may be most helpful for you. ideas shared here have been shaped by many years of training, incredible mentors research theory, evidence based practices and our work with individuals over the years, but it's not intended to represent the opinions of those we work with or who we are affiliated with. The reconnected podcast is hosted by siblings Alexis Reid and Dr. Gerald Reid. Original music is written and recorded by Gerald Reid (www.Jerapy.com) recording was done by Cyber Sound Studios. If you want to follow along on this journey with us the Reid Connect-ED podcast. we'll be releasing new episodes every two weeks each season so please subscribe for updates and notifications. Feel free to also follow us on Instagram @ReidConnectEdPodcast that's @ReidconnectEdPodcast and Twitter @ReidconnectEd. We are grateful for you joining us and we look forward to future episodes. In the meanwhile be curious, be open, and be well.

In the last nine episodes, we have covered topics related to the theme of caring for one’s self. For episode 10 of season 3, Alexis and Jerry discuss what it takes to prioritize self-care in our lives. Tune in to hear about how to integrate self-care as a protective factor to minimize stress, focus in on living in line with individual values, and amplify positive aspects of life that can help to aim toward growth.

Be curious. Be Open. Be well.

The ReidConnect-Ed Podcast is hosted by Siblings Alexis Reid and Dr. Gerald Reid, produced by and original music is written and recorded by www.Jerapy.com

*Please note that different practitioners may have different opinions- this is our perspective and is intended to educate you on what may be possible.