Rachel’s Room🛋️Resetting & Slowing Down

Happy Wednesday, Cadre crew, good morning. At a different time today, I've just woken up, so I'm having my coffee and just had my breakfast. Took my pup out. He's being very cute on the couch. You guys want to see Milo say hello? There he is, the little boy. He just got a haircut. And every time. Leslie, good morning. I was just saying, every time Milo gets a haircut, he, like, completely loses his confidence in his ego. Like, his ego just, like, completely shifts from, like, I'm a big, big, tough dog, to, like, I miss.

I'm a little, tiny little dog, and I have no. No power and no. And no fur to protect me. It's very interesting. A psychological thing to. To discuss. I am talking to you earlier today because I have an appointment this afternoon that will conflict with my regular live schedule. So that's why we are together this morning instead of in the afternoon. But I kind of like it. I kind of like having coffee with y' all. So maybe. I don't know, we'll see if this vibes, and then maybe this might be my new regular time.

We'll see. Today, I want to talk to you about the concept of resetting and slowing down, and I'll kind of give you some context and as to why I want to talk about that, what that really means. But if you're someone who finds yourself sometimes, maybe multitasking a lot or feeling really rushed or feeling like you have. You are really overwhelmed because you have so much to do or too much to do, but have a really hard time actually slowing down, this could be really helpful. Also, if you're someone who.

And these are all. This is all me. This is all me, too. So no shame if it is you. If you're also someone who, you know, maybe rushes through projects or if you have a goal, but there's overwhelmed about how long it's going to take, so you never start that goal, this could be helpful as well. This is something that I have struggled with for a really long time. I was trained as a human being both at work and in school. Growing up to be a multitasker, it was like you're. If you. If you cannot multitask, you cannot get a job.

If you cannot multitask, how are you going to finish your homework if you cannot multitask? Multitasking is highly, highly valued, and in a lot of ways, it still is in a lot of industries. Like, I work in the service industry still. And being able to multitask is key. And our brains are not designed to Multitask, period. Our brains are designed to single task. So every time we multitask, we're actually putting our brains in a state of hyper vigilance, which can make us feel like we are in danger.

And I'll kind of explain that a little bit. But essentially our brains at a base level, at a survival level, operate from a desire to survive. That is how we are wired as human beings. We want to survive, we want to live, we have a propensity to survive. And so we have this whole system built up, our nervous system inside of us to help us manage threat and danger so that we can avoid danger, fight danger, in some ways, keep ourselves safe and assess when things are safe so we can relax, rest and enjoy our life because we know we're safe.

So our brains and our bodies are constantly assessing the world for safety and danger. It's kind of like a battle between these two things. And I can do a different video about this another time. But essentially, if we are constantly in a hyper productive mode where we are constantly multitasking and doing lots of things at once, this signals to our brain that there's not enough time and that we need to be productive. We need to be doing a lot of things all at the same time, which means that we were running out of time, which means maybe we're in danger because we're rushing and we're in a fast paced motion.

So it can kind of communicate to our nervous system that there is danger. And when we're in that state, we're in that fight, flight, freeze state. So that's why sometimes we might feel high anxiety when we're multitasking or if we've been multitasking or overproductive for a long duration of time. We just experience this kind of overall feeling of like urgency all the time. And like, even though I know I have time to slow down, it feels like I cannot, like it physically feels like I cannot slow down.

And so, so it's really important for us to, after periods of multitasking, give ourselves a break, give ourselves a rest, give ourselves an opportunity to reset so that our nervous system can get back to a baseline and we can feel that sense of calm again. Otherwise we get into overdrive. We can experience things like chronic stress burnout, which does not feel good physically or mentally. And then we really can't do anything. So the multitasking is kind of pointless. So resetting and slowing down can look like a lot of different things.

Again, it will feel really, really difficult to do this because our bodies are Kind of already in a state of hyper vigilance and urgency and feels like we have to keep moving. The reality is that you do not. So things that we can do to reset and sort of slow down are. There's a dialectical behavior therapy practice called one thing in the moment or one thing at a time. And it's literally like narrating one thing at a time. So I'm making my coffee this morning, for example. Normally when I make my coffee, one of my hands is putting my filter in while the other one is beginning to scoop.

Once I've started scooping and pouring water into the other into my mug. And then when I'm pouring the water, I'm already turning the thing on. I am multitasking while I'm just making my coffee like it is. And I don't need to. That's not saving me any time. All it's doing is making my nervous system go into overdrive. So I narrate out loud. I'm opening my cabinet, I'm pulling out a coffee filter, I'm putting it into the machine, I'm pouring water into my mug, I'm putting water in the machine, I'm turning it on.

And by narrating each step, I can actually only do one step at a time because I cannot speak and multitask. So this is a really helpful skill for me to start doing things one step at a time, which forces me physically to slow down. The other thing that I find really helpful is making sure that I'm taking ample breaks. And so like if I'm working on a project, I make sure that I set a timer for like an hour or 45 minutes and I force myself to take a 10 minute break. I often sometimes find myself when I get into these modes of hyper vigilance or like over productivity or multitasking.

Like, I won't even get up if I have to pee. Like, like girly pop has to pee and she will not get up for like another 30 minutes, which is not okay. We need to listen to our body. So making sure I'm scheduling in breaks and forcing myself to pause and slow down and step away and recognize that I actually have time to take a break, that I'm not so pressed for time that I can't take 10 minutes to breathe, to step outside and reminding my nervous system and my brain that actually it is safe, I can slow down and there is time.

The last thing is trying to find ways to reduce multitasking. If I'm working on a project, for example, on my laptop, putting my phone on DND so that I'm only using one device if I'm working on a video on my phone, making sure I'm not also having the TV on or music in the background. So doing things that I can reinforce solo tasking rather than having lots of different things going on at once, which reinforces this idea that I can focus on lots of different things. So those are my little tippies.

I hope that's helpful. I'm going to try and practice that today because I woke up feeling like I did not have enough time to do anything and I literally have so much time to do the things I need to do today. But I felt my whole body go into that urgency mindset of like I don't have, I don't have time so I gotta just start doing things right now at a rapid pace, which is not the reality. So I hope that was helpful. Let me know in the comments your thoughts and I will see you next Wednesday, probably same time, 2am if not, I will let you know.

But I kind of like this little morning yak with my coffee. I felt I was feeling it today and it was nice to see some new faces in here. So either way, I hope you have a lovely Wednesday and if you have any sort of things you want me to chat about or go live about, please let me know in the comments and I'll do my best to accommodate. See you guys next week.