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Join trauma therapist & host, Lindsay Faas as we go deeper on the topic of reclaiming self. Today we look at how to use the power of human learning to intentionally work at shaping our own lives in a direction that feels in alignment with the people we long to be. No more living by default, leaving our lives to be written by others - today we are claiming author status and picking up the pen to write our stories.
This podcast is designed for First Responders and Front Line Workers including Law Enforcement (Police, RCMP, Corrections, Probation Officers); Public Safety (Fire Fighters, Community Liaison Officers, Emergency Call-Takers and Dispatchers); Social Services (Social Workers, Community Outreach Workers, Addictions Support Workers, Housing Support Workers, etc.); and Public Health (Nurses, Doctors, Hospital and Health Support Staff) and anyone else who works in high exposure, high risk workplaces. Please help us to help our community heroes by sharing this free resource to those you know in these front line roles.
Show Notes
Show Notes:
The process of considering alignment and experimentation involves asking questions about what might fill my bank account back up. What feeds my spirit? What brings energy? What replenishes? Or, at minimum, what limits the rate at which I get depleted?
Last episode I shared some examples from my own life and what felt noteworthy to me as I shared them was just how small and simple most of them were. Taking a multivitamin, experimenting with when I exercise and what kind of exercise I enjoy most, trying out something silly like crochet…none of it is big or particularly complicated or time consuming. It really is just slowing down enough and leaving my curiosity on that makes the difference. And honestly, what we’re talking about is learning.
The process of learning happens when we try something out, take information from that experience, and adapt that into what comes next. We learn whether we are conscious of it or not – our brains are constantly taking in information, recognizing patterns and adapting expectations to those patterns. For example, if I come home and am greeted by grumpy, snarky kids and a grumpy husband and a messy house, my brain over time learns to expect this and probably creates an adjusted mood of being grumpy too. If you are a brain and behaviour psychology geek like me you’ll know that this is basic conditioning and the model for how we learn pretty much everything.
Harnessing the power of learning gives us conscious level control over the factors and allows us to shape the outcomes. Let me say that again, because this is key – harnessing the power of learning gives us conscious level control over the factors and allows us to shape the outcomes.
The thing about scientists is they don’t just run one experiment, write the results and then stop. They ask new questions, better questions, more informed questions because of what they have learned so far. And they use it to keep on learning. They invest not in the specific outcome but in the process of curiosity and learning. They are in it for the growth, not the end result.
And the thing is, we need to keep that piece at the forefront because we aren’t ever going to be a finished product. The truth about life is that it keeps changing. And the truth about people is that we keep changing because of it and within it. What fit and aligned for you as a teenager probably doesn’t fit or align quite the same way today. That doesn’t mean that it didn’t align way back when…it just means that you’ve grown and need to have what supports you grow with you. It might look like aspects of what once fit for you, but it might have to be adapted to fit who you are now and what your life looks like now. And it might be brand new things you’ve never even considered before, because that might fit better and be more aligned than you ever could have suspected.
What I am saying is that you need to be willing to try, and when you feel like you’ve found a sweet spot enjoy that but don’t get complacent in it. Keep observing. Keep noticing. Keep being curious – because that sweet spot can be amazing but it won’t last forever and if you keep your curiosity on, you’ll notice when it’s not so sweet a lot quicker and be able to adapt more effectively than if you get complacent and fail to notice that things aren’t feeling like they fit for you quite the same way. To some extent I see this showing up for a lot of clients I work with who struggle with low-grade depression – they keep doing what used to work and fail to account for the fact that it’s not working anymore. They feel caught and have low energy and so trying new things, stepping out of the routine and comfort zone, feels so hard and uncomfortable that their depression just won’t let them do it…but then that continues to feed the depression…and it’s a downward spiral of stuck on top of stuck on top of stuck. If we can be open to curiosity, we can catch it earlier, adapt it and find a new sweet spot rather than getting caught in that spiral.
I know we talk about intention a lot, and it’s for good reason – being an engaged participant in our own lives really makes the difference between a life lived and a life well-lived. We need to have our eyes open, we need to be seeing and noticing what’s going on for us and around us, to be able to be active in shaping the story of our lives. Being passive to this allows everyone and everything else to tell our story, to decide who we are. If you want to be the author of your story, you have to own it. You have to sit down, look at your character and make choices that shape that character to be the fullest version of themselves. Life will try to convince you to put down the pen and just hang on for the ride, and it’s your job to do the hard work of sitting down each day, picking up the pen, and writing the story. Just like a book character, you’ll face bumps and hardship, it will test your character and shape you – but you can be active in that process and you can intervene on behalf of yourself to support an ending to the story you can feel proud of.
Episode Challenge:
Reflect on where you’re at and what you might need by using our free Beating the Breaking Point Indicators Checklist & Triage Guide.
Consider whether our Beating the Breaking Point Resilience Series & Survival Guidemight be the right fit to help guide you in aligning with your goals of health, wellness and resilience both at work and in your life outside of the work you do. Register now for $100 off from October 18th-27th, here!
Additional Resources:
Register for our Beating the Breaking Point Resilience Series & Survival Guidefor $100 off from October 18th-27th, here!
Connect, Rate, Review, Subscribe & Share!
Connect with me on Facebook and Instagram, or email me at support@thrive-life.ca. I love hearing from you! Subscribe and share this podcast with those you know. I appreciate every like, rating and review – every single one helps this podcast to be seen by other First Responders & Front Line Workers out there. Help me on my mission to help others just like you to not only survive, but to thrive – both on the job and off.
This podcast is designed for First Responders and Front Line Workers including Law Enforcement (Police, RCMP, Corrections, Probation Officers); Public Safety (Fire Fighters, Community Liaison Officers, Emergency Call-Takers and Dispatchers); Social Services (Social Workers, Community Outreach Workers, Addictions Support Workers, Housing Support Workers, etc.); and Public Health (Nurses, Doctors, Hospital and Health Support Staff) and anyone else who works in high exposure, high risk workplaces. Please help us to help our community heroes by sharing this free resource to those you know in these front line roles.
This podcast is designed for First Responders and Front Line Workers including Law Enforcement (Police, RCMP, Corrections, Probation Officers); Public Safety (Fire Fighters, Community Liaison Officers, Emergency Call-Takers and Dispatchers); Social Services (Social Workers, Community Outreach Workers, Addictions Support Workers, Housing Support Workers, etc.); and Public Health (Nurses, Doctors, Hospital and Health Support Staff) and anyone else who works in high exposure, high risk workplaces. Please help us to help our community heroes by sharing this free resource to those you know in these front line roles.
Creators & Guests
What is Behind The Line?
Created for First Responders and Front Line Workers to tackle the challenges of working on the front lines. Dig into topics on burnout, workplace dynamics, managing mental health, balancing family life...and so much more. Created and hosted by Lindsay Faas, clinical counsellor and trauma therapist. View the show notes, and access bonus resources at https://my.thrive-life.ca/behind-the-line.
Hey there and welcome back to Behind the Line.
I’m your host Lindsay Faas. If you are new to Behind the Line, what you should know about me is that I am a clinical counsellor specializing in trauma therapy, and after over a decade working with First Responders and Front Line Workers around issues like burnout, compassion fatigue, PTSD and related OSI’s, I have become a passionate wellness advocate and educator for those who sacrifice so much for our communities out on the front lines. Behind the Line is a place for us to talk about the real life behind the scenes challenges facing you on the front lines. I created this podcast with the hope of bringing easy access to skills for wellness – allowing you to find greater sustainability, both on the job and off.
Alright my little scientists – have you been out there experimenting?? I sure hope so! If you have no idea what I’m talking about, you need to go back and listen to last week’s episode because we are building from where we left off last time. Get your lab coat and goggles on, we are diving in a little deeper into embracing our inner-scientist to cultivate alignment with who we long to be.
Ok, let’s start off by doing a quick recap of what we’ve been talking about and a reminder of why this matters for us to continue breaking it down. As people, our tendency is to go into auto-pilot, especially when things get hard or life feels more intense. We hit a survival mode and the days just seem to run together. We’re in them, we’re doing them, but we don’t tend to feel like we are choosing who we are in them – we’re just making it through by the skin of our teeth and then looking back wondering how we got here, to this place where we feel like a shadow of ourselves or like a totally different person than who I wanted to be. We can get stuck in this place and feel like victims of life rather than feeling like authors of our own lives. We’ve been talking about how to be more active participants in shaping the story of our own lives, and working on skills to be able to walk the parts of life that come whether I like them or not, but to engage them from a place that is present, mindful, intentional and engaged rather than being dragged along by it.
Two weeks ago we talked about what it means and looks like to be in alignment with who we long to be. How to slow down and take a look at where we are, where we want to go and consider the steps in getting from A to B. Last week we talked about being a scientist and how the scientific method relates to daily living. We talked about the way in which scientists work to step back and observe patterns and oddities and get curious about ways forward. Today, we are bringing our scientist-selves along with us as we look at how to use the data that comes from our experimentation to learn, adjust, and experiment again; and the value this has in helping us to grow and expand our sense of connection to our selves, which then allows us to be more aligned and bringing a better version of ourselves to the world – whether that is to our work, to our partner, to our kids, to our friendships…we are better versions of ourselves when we are fully living into the people we long to be, and that gift is one we pass along wherever we go.
If you have been feeling lost, disconnected, consumed by distractions, numb, listless, irritable, anxious, agitated, helpless, rudderless…these are feelings characteristic of survival mode. They are what emerge when we have tried to be too much to too many people for too long without leaving room for ourselves.
We’ve talked about this idea before of being like a bank account. When you generously gift from your energy bank account to others but never put anything back in, you are running in energetic debt, quickly. And there is no end to the demand on your bank account to give generously and often. Sometimes we feel like we are giving it, lots of times it feels like it’s being taken – we’ve been robbed.
The process of considering alignment and experimentation involves asking questions about what might fill my bank account back up. What feeds my spirit? What brings energy? What replenishes? Or, at minimum, what limits the rate at which I get depleted?
Last episode I shared some examples from my own life and what felt noteworthy to me as I shared them was just how small and simple most of them were. Taking a multivitamin, experimenting with when I exercise and what kind of exercise I enjoy most, trying out something silly like crochet…none of it is big or particularly complicated or time consuming. It really is just slowing down enough and leaving my curiosity on that makes the difference. And honestly, what we’re talking about is learning.
The process of learning happens when we try something out, take information from that experience, and adapt that into what comes next. We learn whether we are conscious of it or not – our brains are constantly taking in information, recognizing patterns and adapting expectations to those patterns. For example, if I come home and am greeted by grumpy, snarky kids and a grumpy husband and a messy house, my brain over time learns to expect this and probably creates an adjusted mood of being grumpy too. If you are a brain and behaviour psychology geek like me you’ll know that this is basic conditioning and the model for how we learn pretty much everything.
Harnessing the power of learning gives us conscious level control over the factors and allows us to shape the outcomes. Let me say that again, because this is key – harnessing the power of learning gives us conscious level control over the factors and allows us to shape the outcomes.
Let me give you an example. Last spring, 2021, there was a “break” from many of the covid restrictions and kids were allowed to start sports again. While my kids are young, we have a VERY active family and I have a husband with a bad case of fomo who signs our kids up for everything under the sun. So there was this day where I remember looking at my calendar and one week it went from nothing – literally no commitments at all other than work – to the next week being completely covered in multicoloured boxes with reminders going off every 10 minutes about someone needing to be taken somewhere for something. Tball, baseball, soccer, dance, play date, field trip, BMX, archery, baseball again…it was a lot. I literally had a momentary panic attack when I saw it in front of me. My relationship with that level of busy is to want to run away, hide with a book under the blankets, and make someone else do it. But there was no one else to do it, so we went. But you know what happened? I noticed that it wasn’t so bad…and I got curious about that. I got curious about what happened for me during these times that made it kind of nice and relaxing. Here’s what I discovered that I didn’t predict for. Yes, the getting to and fro was harried and I didn’t love that part, but once I got settled and got the kids settled into whatever the activity was, I got to sit in my lawn chair in the sunshine and fresh air while both kids were happily entertained with minimal intervention needed from me. If I chose to, I could bring a book and read during warm ups or when my kid was riding the bench. I could visit with other parents if I felt like it, or be anti-social and sit further away if I needed some quiet time. I could feel the breeze in my hair, the sun on my face, and the rootedness of being forced outdoors when I might normally tend toward being in my home.
Being open to slowing down and being curious gifted me with some learning – I like being outside and benefit from it more than I tend to believe and being forced to be out there more is good for me. Being with my kids but not having to be the entertainer of my kids is awesome and feels like more of a break than I might otherwise give it credit for. Being busy on paper doesn’t necessarily have to feel like busy when I’m in it. And having an e-reader in my purse and a lawn chair that lives in my car is the best idea ever. This experience gifted me the ability to look at a full calendar and rather than being quickly overwhelmed and having a panic attack about being overcommitted, I can look at it and think, “oh, that will feel nice”, or “that will be a great break to catch up on that book” without feeling bad that I’m removing that time for myself from my kids – because they are equally entertained and happy to be doing what they are doing, and are just delighted that I’m there to cheer them on. It has also gifted curiosity that can grow into other spaces of my life – for example I have learned that I dream and goal set better when I’m outside. I’m often struck by great ideas and think clearer thoughts when I’m sitting there waiting for the baseball game to start. As a result, I keep a notebook with me at all times for moments like these – but also I got curious about testing out being outside when I do work that involves planning, goals setting and vision development for my work. If you are on my social media and you ever see photos from my annual work retreat, you’ll see my yoga mat rolled out on a dock overlooking a lake where I lay for hours on end planning the future of the clinic I own and the steps to get us where we want to go. Each week I take an admin day and you’ll often find me on a blanket by the river in Fort Langley with my notebook, or walking one of the trails and finding a bench to jot down some ideas. I have learned to adapt what has worked and invite more of it into my life, giving me more opportunities to flourish. And each of these are in themselves opportunities to notice what works well and continue to adapt and refine the process.
The thing about scientists is they don’t just run one experiment, write the results and then stop. They ask new questions, better questions, more informed questions because of what they have learned so far. And they use it to keep on learning. They invest not in the specific outcome but in the process of curiosity and learning. They are in it for the growth, not the end result.
And the thing is, we need to keep that piece at the forefront because we aren’t ever going to be a finished product. The truth about life is that it keeps changing. And the truth about people is that we keep changing because of it and within it. What fit and aligned for you as a teenager probably doesn’t fit or align quite the same way today. That doesn’t mean that it didn’t align way back when…it just means that you’ve grown and need to have what supports you grow with you. It might look like aspects of what once fit for you, but it might have to be adapted to fit who you are now and what your life looks like now. And it might be brand new things you’ve never even considered before, because that might fit better and be more aligned than you ever could have suspected.
What I am saying is that you need to be willing to try, and when you feel like you’ve found a sweet spot enjoy that but don’t get complacent in it. Keep observing. Keep noticing. Keep being curious – because that sweet spot can be amazing but it won’t last forever and if you keep your curiosity on, you’ll notice when it’s not so sweet a lot quicker and be able to adapt more effectively than if you get complacent and fail to notice that things aren’t feeling like they fit for you quite the same way. To some extent I see this showing up for a lot of clients I work with who struggle with low-grade depression – they keep doing what used to work and fail to account for the fact that it’s not working anymore. They feel caught and have low energy and so trying new things, stepping out of the routine and comfort zone, feels so hard and uncomfortable that their depression just won’t let them do it…but then that continues to feed the depression…and it’s a downward spiral of stuck on top of stuck on top of stuck. If we can be open to curiosity, we can catch it earlier, adapt it and find a new sweet spot rather than getting caught in that spiral.
I know we talk about intention a lot, and it’s for good reason – being an engaged participant in our own lives really makes the difference between a life lived and a life well-lived. We need to have our eyes open, we need to be seeing and noticing what’s going on for us and around us, to be able to be active in shaping the story of our lives. Being passive to this allows everyone and everything else to tell our story, to decide who we are. If you want to be the author of your story, you have to own it. You have to sit down, look at your character and make choices that shape that character to be the fullest version of themselves. Life will try to convince you to put down the pen and just hang on for the ride, and it’s your job to do the hard work of sitting down each day, picking up the pen, and writing the story. Just like a book character, you’ll face bumps and hardship, it will test your character and shape you – but you can be active in that process and you can intervene on behalf of yourself to support an ending to the story you can feel proud of.
If you want some help writing that story, I want you to consider registering for the Beating the Breaking Point Resilience Training Program. You already heard that we are running one last promotion of this program this week, but what you may not know is that those who register now will get access to the new bonuses we have planned to release in the new year, along with instant access to the core course. Among the awesome bonuses we are working on, those who register now will get access to monthly group Q&A integration calls with me where we ensure that what you’re learning goes beyond head knowledge and really gets applied into your life. We will also be opening up a private community to connect and support, along with some other bonus tools to support your mental health and general wellness within front line work. The course includes 7 video lessons that walk you through a step-by-step guide to resilience and the survival guide helps you personalize the skills so you walk away with a deep understanding of what serves you as you serve others, and a clear action plan tailored to you. This course is always available but now until October 27th you can register for $100 off and you can find the link in the show notes. I really hope you will let me join you in your journey.
As we wrap up today I want to remind you to please reach out and connect if you have any questions or feedback. You know I love hearing from you and shaping this podcast to echo your needs and interests. I love hearing about what you’re working on and how you are using what we talk about on the show. You can find me on facebook and Instagram, @lindsayafaas, where you can follow me or tag me, or you can email me at support@thrive-life.ca.
To those who love this podcast and share about it to those you know – I want to say a huge thank you. I so value you helping us to make a difference for other front line helpers who risk so much to serve our communities. Know that we can be found online on our website, on most major podcast platforms as well as on youtube. We make all of our resources available to you because the work you do matters, but more than that, YOU matter and we want to make sure you have what you need to keep up the good work at work, as well as in your real life outside of work. So use it, and share it.
Until next time, stay safe.