17 5 tools for hard times
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Speaker 4: [00:00:00] And welcome to the scary goals club. I am your host, Hazel Robertson. And I believe that to make the impact that you know, you're called to make in the world, it requires setting bigger, scarier goals, and then becoming the person who creates them. That is what I am here to show you how to do. That's what we're diving into.
Mindset tools, tricks, really simple, practical, actionable steps. You can take and start applying straight away. Cause. Or whatever you believe, we have this one life that we definitely know about. Start making the impact you know you want to make in the world. Fear is not a reason to stop. We keep going. We work through the fear.
That is what we do in the Scary Ghouls Club. So come on in, come join, hit subscribe, and let's get started.
Hi, and welcome to this episode of the Scary Goals Club podcast. Now, gosh, this episode's maybe going to be a little bit different. [00:01:00] I wanted to be as honest as I can on these podcasts, and sometimes that means recording them when I really don't want to. And this morning, I I've been going through my usual like routine to try and get myself in a really good frame of mind and a really good headspace and a really good energy to record these podcasts.
And this morning I noticed that there was almost this like lump in my throat and there's not in my stomach. Just quite heavy emotions that I could feel in my body that weren't really moving. And I had gone for a walk. I did some breathing. I did a meditation outside, which was so nice, and snuggled my dog maple at the same time, and sun was on my face.
I could hear the birds in the background and it was still there. And I could, like I, I knew that there was something that was holding me back from actually getting on and recording because. [00:02:00] I find myself wanting to go on my phone, I find myself wanting to do like, Easy, quick, other things and stuff that I had already scheduled for my calendar for the end of the day.
I was wanting to do that stuff now and just not get on and actually record this podcast. And I just let myself sit, got like a spare bed in the spare room and I just sat on the spare bed and like breathed and was like, okay, what is actually going on? And noticed where I felt the feeling in my body and.
I just started crying and I realized, and I, I don't know, I might start crying. I'm not sure. I realized that I was almost like, what is the point of standing up here and like coming on and recording this podcast about scary goals when there's so many hard things happening in the world right now? Okay, here we go.
Like, what is the point when there's people being [00:03:00] bombed and there's like, Young people and kids and families all dying and
the world is warming and species are going extinct and just so many heavy, heavy things happening at the moment. So many hard things and it's almost like, what is the point of like me coming up and talking about this when there's so many hard things happening? And I know that this has come up for me before.
So during. During COVID, again, just watching like all of the unfolding and all of the hard stuff that was happening with that. I didn't post on social media for over a year from that same thought, that same belief of like, well, what is the point? Like, what is the point of me? What am I even going to, what could I possibly post about?
Like when there's all [00:04:00] of this heavy stuff happening, like it just feels so trivial and like, what is the point? I know that that's not helpful. And. Well, I know that that's just normal, but I also know that there are things that I can say that can be helpful to someone. And there's things that help me like ways of working through this heaviness and hard things of witnessing hard things happening to people and to nature and to animals and, and knowing that like us as humans, we find that really hard.
Which is why we feel these heavy emotions, because it, it feels unjust and it feels unfair, and I know that there's things that, like tools that help me, that I can share. And so that was the, the way that I find it helpful to actually be able to get on here and, and share some of those things today because I just wanna offer that.[00:05:00]
Yeah, sometimes it can feel like things are really hard. Oh, I'm. I'm really heavy. And like, I know that I've been wanting to speak more about some of this stuff. And personally, I've just felt like I've not had almost extra reserves or energy or like space to be able to do that. I feel like the last few months, certainly since like last summer and into kind of only up to a few months ago, like a lot of.
A lot of what I've been focusing on has been in sort of felt like I've been in survival mode of getting through the day to day, like things really, really heavy, beating myself up a lot, coming to terms with, well, I'm moving house, but coming to terms with a lot of like personal things, including my ADHD diagnosis and like beginning to manage that.
Um, Um, adjusting to being a mom and a business owner and [00:06:00] having all that stuff going on. And I feel like just even in the last month and a half, couple of months, I have come out the other side of what's felt like a period of, quite a lot of heaviness of myself and I've almost just like had my focus a bit narrowed.
It's felt like it's just been getting through the day to day a bit more. And now I feel like, okay, I've actually been taking care of myself and I'm able to then Think a bit more broadly and I don't know, almost have capacity for some of these bigger, harder things. I've almost not been able to have capacity for it.
And I know that that's a very privileged position to be in. And I found actually, when I had Flynn, I had a lot of postpartum anxiety.
I had a lot of intrusive thoughts and I found anything. anything about human suffering, especially with young people or about like the future of the planet and the world he's going to be growing up in. I just, I almost like, even though I'm going to start crying thinking about it, but I just find it so hard to think about and thinking [00:07:00] about like, Like anything happening to him or like imagining what's like his future is going to be like in this world that we are living in now.
And I almost didn't have the capacity for some of these bigger emotions of grief around that. Like they would come up a little bit and I would just have to push it away. And I really cut down on what news I was taking in. I deleted all news apps. It was very, very focused with understanding what was going on.
And then I just had to kind of let some stuff go because I just find it to almost, I didn't have the emotional capacity to take that on. And I feel like now I do. And of course it still feels really hard. It still feels really upsetting and really sad. I'm kind of processing this right now, but it's so important because it's, it's part of the human experience is part of this shared experience.
life on this planet that we have. We are not in isolation. We are not just [00:08:00] operating on our own. Like everything is connected. Everything is connected at this bigger level and it can feel really hard being aware of some of this stuff and really heavy. But the more that we can actually be present with it in all of the layers of the grief and the sadness and whatever comes up, that's how we can connect to the shared human experience of like, these things are not right.
Like this isn't what we actually want. This isn't the future that we want. This isn't the way that we want things to be in the world of like fighting and killing and polluting and taking so, Um, what I wanted to share in this episode was five things that I find to be really helpful when things just feel so hard, when there's this heaviness of, You know, news coming in and it just feels like relentless and horrible and really, [00:09:00] really hard.
And so I'll read them out and then I'll go through what they are. Okay. So the first one is to be present with what's there. The second is to be kind to yourself. The third is to prioritize rest and self care. The fourth is to be selected with your inputs and the fifth is to do one thing. So I'm going to give, as I go through these, I'll explain a little bit more and then I'm going to give some examples of tools and practices that you can take away if you are also feeling a lot of heaviness and a lot of like, there's just a lot of hard stuff going on at the moment.
So the first one is just to be present with whatever is coming up for you. And even this morning, you know, I was trying to avoid like push this feeling away. That's not this clenching, this like tightness in my throat that now I understand is grief. Oh, grief for me feels just this like really hard feeling to be with and I just wanted to avoid it and run away.
And when I actually just let [00:10:00] myself be present with it and I sat, it did ease, like even now taking some deep breaths, like it has eased, it doesn't feel as constrictive, it doesn't feel as tight. I allowed myself to just process it through and I'll talk through. A way to do this of how I do it anyway, and once I processed it through, I was able to actually stand up here and talk, whereas before
I was trying to avoid the grief. And it's almost like we push it away. Like when we resist what's there, there's this phrase, what we resist persists. So when we are resisting a feeling, a really uncomfortable feeling, it's almost like the analogy that I've heard used is pushing a beach ball underwater.
And the more that you push it down, the more that it's going to push back on you. And so when we push it away, push it away, it's going to come out in some other way. Like it's still there. It's still driving our behavior. It's still. Like sitting is trapped in our body somewhere. And when we actually just sit and be present with it, it just flows through us.
It like [00:11:00] releases the energy, just releases. And oftentimes a lot of my clients, when they start doing this work, this is a lot of the work I do with my clients is really processing through feelings. So just. The feelings that are holding them back from doing things we process through them and often they're really scared that if they sit with the feeling.
So like, you know, say for me this morning, like if I sat with the grease that we would get stuck in it. Actually, the opposite is true. When we resist it, when we avoid it, when we go and do other behaviors to avoid it, like we go and eat or we drink something or we, go on social media or do something to distract ourselves from it.
It's still there. We haven't actually solved the root cause, which is the feeling that's there. We haven't actually helped ease it and processed it through. So it's still there. So the more that we avoid it, the longer it sticks around. And oftentimes like grief in and of itself is neither good or bad.
It's when we start to avoid emotions and suppress [00:12:00] them and push them away and resist them. That's when they'll come back in other ways. So maybe we'll get ill or maybe we'll be exhausted by the end of the day. And it's not that we've maybe done that much. It's just that we've been ignoring and avoiding emotions that are there.
And so just knowing that whatever you are feeling when you can be present with it, it's going to ease it. It's going to be less intense and it's also not going to last for as long. And I almost imagine it like this wave that like passes through us and it'll sometimes come in waves. So I felt wave these waves of grief and sadness have come like throughout the morning.
And then there's been other times I felt totally fine when I was scrolling on my phone, social media. Leviathan had forgotten it and then I could feel the not being there again. It's like, okay, it's still there. And so when we actually process it through, like it, it will ebb and flow and then it will dissipate kind of like waves flowing through you.
And so the way to do this is just find a calm, quiet space, close your eyes and that [00:13:00] helps you be present with what's in your body and just notice where you are feeling that pattern of energy. Notice if you can describe it, what if like what you're noticing coming up, imagine you're describing it to someone else and then if you can putting a label on it.
So rather than I am feeling. grief. It's I notice the feeling of grief, or I notice the pattern of energy that is called grief. it's not that we are the feeling, it's that we are noticing this pattern of energy called, that we're calling grief.
somewhere in our body. And the more that we can separate ourselves from that, the more we realize we are not our feelings. And we know that we are not our feelings because we can be present and we can observe whatever is happening in our body. So for me, it was like, I feel this lump like really tight.
It's like in my throat and I feel this not in my stomach and almost kind of in my chest as well. So I, I can notice that. So I know that it is not me. I can be aware of it [00:14:00] and be almost like the watcher of it. So the more that you can separate yourself from what's actually going on, the easier it's going to be to feel like you're not stuck in it and just notice almost with this curiosity, like, Oh, okay, this is what's happening right now.
No judgment. It's not good. It's not bad. It just. is. And so I really want to offer that as something that's going to help you whenever things feel really hard is just taking a few moments and just being present with whatever it is. And that's why sometimes in, Oh, sorry, sorry, my alarm going off to remind me.
Anyway, I've got a call with someone in, half an hour. It's to remind me to prep for that. So it's almost like sometimes if we are busy, busy, busy, go, go, go, go, go, like meetings, meetings, meetings, to do's, to do's, to do's, always doing things, we're almost distracting ourselves from what is actually going underneath.
And sometimes in those quiet moments, that's when maybe anxiety comes up or grief or sadness, or we notice [00:15:00] this unease, that is there anyway. and it's actually driving your behavior. That's maybe, you know, for me it was like avoiding going on social media. If it's anxiety, sometimes it can lead to rushing or whatever is the feeling is always there driving your behavior, even if you're not fully aware of it.
And so sometimes then in the quiet moments, it can come up and feel a bit more intense. That's a good thing, because the more you can be present with it in those moments and create that quiet and that space, it's going to come up less and less and it's going to ease.
The first one is just be present with whatever you're feeling and whatever's going on in that moment.
So number two is being kind to yourself. Now, however hard things are and however hard things feel in the world, if we are mean to ourselves, if we are beating ourselves up, it's just adding this extra layer of judgment and of heaviness on top, this extra layer of guilt or shame. And so however you are [00:16:00] responding, however you are processing and dealing with the hard things that are going on in the world, there is no right or wrong.
And just not shaming yourself for not doing things a certain way. Like I know that it has been a very privileged position to just keep things internally to myself over the last few months. And I get that. And now I have more energy and capacity to actually speak up on some of these things. I'm not going to shame myself for how I have responded a few months ago.
because that's just not going to help. it wouldn't help me want to stand up and do this It's not going to help me continue to speak out it's just not going to help. So there is no right or wrong. I'm just being kind to yourself that you are doing the best that you can with what you know how you're doing the best that you can with the tools that you have, the situation that you are in, and just being kind to yourself for what you need.
Whatever is going on for you right now, okay? the more that we can start speaking to ourselves, like imagine how would you speak to a kid or your kid or you as a kid [00:17:00] in the same situation? How would you speak to one of your teammates? How would you speak to them if they were in the same situation as you, they were saying the same things.
What if you started speaking to yourself like that, because here's the thing, the way that we often talk to ourselves, our internal dialogue for however we are responding to something, however we are showing up in the world is often things that we would never say to anyone else because it would be so mean.
Like imagine someone just kept coming in and saying to you like, Oh, you shouldn't have done that. Oh, that's not very good. You're not good at this, you know, kept coming in every like, I don't know, 15 minutes and like knocking on your door or being like, excuse me, tapping you on the shoulder and seeing those things.
It would be, like, be horrible and yet that is often what's going on in our head when we are speaking to ourselves and just knowing that
we often think beating ourselves up is what will make us change and maybe sometimes in the short term it [00:18:00] can, but never in the long term. Beating ourselves up, shaming ourselves, guilting ourselves, making ourselves feel terrible about what we should or shouldn't be doing, it's just exhausting. And so just being kind to yourself, knowing that you're doing the best you can with what you know how, the kinder you can be to yourself, the easier it's going to be to continue to show up, easier it's going to be to move forward, and the easier it's going to be to be present with whatever emotions and not judge them, not judge yourself for feeling a certain way, just be like, okay, this is just what it is right now.
So being kind to yourself is so, so important when there's hard stuff going on in the world. Okay, number three, prioritizing rest and self care. Now, this is kind of about being kind to yourself, although that was more, I was meaning about like the internal dialogue, like what we tell ourselves.
Prioritizing rest and self care, That is, are you building in time away from your screen, time for walks, time for exercise, Are you eating well, [00:19:00] sleeping well? Are you doing things that energize you, that create joy, that light you up? Are you nourishing yourself? Are you spending time with people who light you up?
Are you reading amazing books Are you feeding your soul things that, It will help you feel energized and be able to give more because here's the thing, self care or whatever, rest, however you define rest and there's so many like rest doesn't have to be naps. It can mean going for walks, it can be reading books.
listening to music, dancing, like, there's different ways of resting. Being out in the mountains, camping, it can be anything. Something that restores you and energizes you. When we prioritize our own rest, our own creativity and joy and aliveness, we have more to be able to give. When we are depleting ourselves, when we are not allowing ourselves to rest, when we are just like go, go, go, forcing, forcing, push, push, push, push, push, even if it's maybe from a place of [00:20:00] I have to do more, whatever I'm doing is not enough, which oftentimes when we're working on like climate change or justice or any of these bigger issues, it's like, It can be easy to get into the mindset of, well, whatever I do is not going to be enough, so I have to do more, do, do, do, do more.
But oftentimes that leads to less impact. It leads to less because we burn ourselves out and no one else is going to prioritize rest and self care apart from you. Like no one else is going to do it for you. And so the more that you can actually see rest, see self care as a selfless act,And seeing rest as your human right. If you've ever read rest is resistance, such an amazing book. It's not about we do the productive things and then we get to rest. It's like rest is part of it all. It's part of being human. Our whole nervous system, it's like our brain body connection, like rest is so important for our bodily functions, for.
Making sure we don't get ill, for making sure we're sleeping properly, for thinking at the [00:21:00] highest level, for being able to actually work on some of these bigger challenges and problems. Rest is essential to be able to continue to do that. If we don't, if we just keep going, keep going, and we're in this stress state in this almost fight or flight state, our body will force us to rest and it won't be a convenient time.
It's not going to be a time when we choose we're going to get sick. I have literally had these over the last six months, so many. At times I've had mastitis and been on antibiotics and had nursery bugs back to back. And even recently Luke and Flynn got ill and I've managed to avoid it. And I think it's because I am properly resting because I am in a completely different mindset and headspace and I'm not beating myself up just over these this last month and a bit.
It's been so much easier to not get ill. Because I am prioritizing rest. So just knowing that when things are feeling hard, when there's a lot of heaviness in the world, the more that you can rest and know that It's so, so important for your body
And [00:22:00] yet our society and our culture is like more, more, more capitalist society. humans as resources, time, time, time, productive, productive, productive. It's just completely mad when you actually zoom out and you think about it, West is just fundamental to how we are as human beings.
And so taking care of yourself, prioritizing that rest, prioritizing in like white space in your calendar, free time to play and to just dream and just be a human. The more that you can do that, the easier it is going to be to continue to show up and not get burned out when there's, you know, big, heavy, hard things happening in the world.
Okay. So number four is to be selective with your inputs. yes, it is important to understand what's going on, but just being aware of, okay, where are you getting your information and what is the energy that you're in when you are taking it in? Are you in a consuming doom scrolling, like staring into your phone, the void, or like listening to the [00:23:00] news on repeat and just like.
In a consumption mode, or are you being very conscious thinking, okay, I'm going to go and listen to this. I'm going to go and read this article with intention and being in a very present place and then going, okay, that is enough. And now I'm stepping away. So just checking like, what is your energy?
Because one of them, the doom scrolling and like more, more, more, that's often when we are in survival mode, our brain is like wired for novelty, wired to look for danger. And so this 24 hour news cycle and yeah. new news updates feels very addictive to our brain. It's like, I need to know more, need to know more, need to know, need to know more in case something might happen.
And it can induce a lot more anxiety than is actually necessary. And it's just going to cause your body to be in this stress state.
And again, Um, when you're working on some of these challenges and wanting to be able to help people more, the more that you can, yes, take information and then step away, be with whatever's [00:24:00] there, like process it through, the easier it's going to be to continue to show up. Okay. So just checking, like, what are your inputs and are there things that you can reduce?
So thinking, okay, what inputs am I getting? When am I consciously going to take them in during the day? And then when am I just switching off and maybe putting my phone away and not going on social media and not going on the news and being with whatever is present.
for you at the moment.
And then the final piece is do one thing. So often when there are these bigger, heavier things going on, it can be so easy to slip into like, well, what is it I can do? I am only one person. There are these huge things. I can't change the system. I can't do this.
I can't do that. It can be very easy to feel powerless of like, well, what's the point. This needs to change. This needs to change. I can't do anything. I am one person. Like, what can I possibly do? And just knowing that when we're in that powerless state, that's often when we will consume, consume more news or just zone out, hide and just not do anything.
And then it's like, well, if we believe that we can't do anything, of course, we're not going to be able to do anything. We're [00:25:00] just going to check out. We're not going to actually do anything at all. We're not going to speak up. We're not going to show up. We're not going to try and change things. So just knowing that that's totally normal.
And I just want to offer that that is not true. We have so much more influence than we ever, ever imagine, especially with social media, especially with, you know, mediums like this, like podcasting, even connecting with people around us, our families, our communities. There's so many other people that are feeling anger and grief and sadness and feeling moved by these same things.
And the more that we can connect with that and feel part of something bigger, there's so much more change that we can have. make happen that we give ourselves credit for. So just knowing that doing anything is better than doing nothing. And the more that you can do one thing, however small it feels, it's not discounting any size of any action.
Because if you have the courage to do one thing, It's going to help other people have the courage to do one thing. [00:26:00] Every time that we do something and take one action towards the change that we want to see, towards the future that we want, we are going to build momentum. Action drives momentum. The more that you speak up, that you speak out, that you say how you're feeling, that you're honest about that, that you have these conversations that you.
Reach out to someone that you join a march, a protest, that you write a letter to your MP, like whatever that is, the more that you do that, the more momentum you're going to build, the more confidence that you're going to have, the more that you're going to realize, wait, actually my voice does have an impact.
My voice can make a difference if I follow what I'm passionate about. and find others who are the same. And so lead, like go first, however scary it feels and surround yourself by other people who are doing the same. Take inspiration from others that are doing that and do that yourself.
You have so much more power in you than you think. Ever, ever imagine. And even this is something that I'm starting to have the courage to do is speak up and out about some of these things and [00:27:00] actually say how I am honestly feeling about them. And this was my one thing today. I literally did not want to record this podcast.
I did not want to record any podcast at all. Even the one that I had planned for today, I was like, I don't want to do that. It just doesn't feel like it's not true for how I am feeling and what feels most important for me right now. This feels most important for me right now. And so this is my one thing.
This is my one scary thing is actually being so honest and so vulnerable with how I'm really feeling and speaking up about something that maybe isn't linked to a scary goal, but it kind of is because this is all part of a scary goal of, ultimately. Making and leading the change that I want to see in the world, like that's the bigger purpose of it.
I'm being part of something bigger and part of it of having this platform is speaking out about things that are important to me and that I feel passionate about and hopefully helping others do the same as well. So you are not too small to make a difference. There's so much that you can do.
Just [00:28:00] do one thing. So after being present, well, I'll come, I'll go through the list again. Being present with what's there, processing it through, like go through that process I talked about. Being kind to yourself, like talking to yourself how you would a friend. Number three, prioritizing rest, prioritizing self care.
It's not selfless. Selfish. It's selfless. It's the most selfless thing that you can do is take care of yourself Number four, being selective on your inputs. And then five, just doing that one thing. Like what is that one thing that you can do? And the more that you can be present with what's there, the more you'll feel those raw feelings of grief, of sadness, of anger, of frustration, of injustice.
And then you'll be like, be present with that. And have the energy to go and do one thing that's going to move you forward to the change that you want to see, whatever that one thing is. Even if it's just being present with what's there or resting, like maybe that's your one thing. So thank you for taking the time to listen to this.
I [00:29:00] know it was a little bit different than my usual ones and a little bit different than my usual high energy and enthusiastic, I'm really passionate about being honest with whatever is going on for me right now. Even if it can feel quite scary to rise and to get on here, feeling a lot of grief, feeling a lot of heaviness and feeling a lot of sadness.
So just know that. If you're going through that as well, like you're not alone. We are all in this together. We are all humans. We are all witness to what is happening on our planet and to the people on our planet. And for those of us that are in privileged positions to be able to go to bed at night and not worry about our safety, the more that we can just be present with that.
And. think about what is it we can then do to be that change. Okay. Thank you so much for taking the time to listen. Have an amazing rest of the week and I'll see you next time. Bye.
Speaker 5: Hey, thanks so much for listening. If this was [00:30:00] helpful, please hit subscribe and leave a review. This helps get this work in the hands of more purposeful people. That is more people creating bigger, scarier goals, making an even bigger impact in the world. And if you want to take this work deeper and work with me directly, head to the show note and I put all of the information there.
If you've got any questions or if there's anything you're like, ooh, I'd love you to talk about that on the pod, please just get in touch. I love hearing from you guys. And I'll see you next time in the Scary Ghouls Club.
