Spring is a particularly potent time for new beginnings.

By Heather Brummer

Spring is a time for starting. The long, quiet stillness of winter that at first felt comforting, has become dull and monotonous. While the slow-down feels welcome at the end of autumn, it now feels suffocating. In the anticipation of starting something new, it’s common to experience feelings of irritability and discomfort. Like, “I gotta get moving, but I don’t know where/how/why”. And then the push to get moving might feel overwhelming and even debilitating (“See, I started something, again, and didn’t finish it… again!”)

Benoît Stella alias User:BenduKiwi is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

In Chinese Medicine, there are 5-Elements, or States, of nature which are reflected in body processes (we are inseparable from nature, after all). These are dynamic, non-static forces and states of being that influence the health of the body-mind. And they are impacted by the changes of external environment, including the seasons. The Element-State associated with spring is the Wood element.

The Wood element is associated with Growth, Movement and Perspective. Having new insights and a broader “vision” is essential when embarking on a new project, such as changing your health. Broadening your perspective and getting clear about where you’re going are the first steps.

Once you have set your sights on where you are heading, you need to take action. However, in the split-second before taking action, is the instant of decision-making. After all, if you have been stuck at a fork in the road and then have the clarity that your destination is “That Way”, in order to take that first step, you must decide to do it. You must decide to pick up your foot.

We don’t tend to think of that moment as a conscious choice, but it is. It’s important to recognize this as the accomplishment that it is, because that decision-to-take-action is what fuels your resolve to take the next step. You took one step, it’s possible to take another. Again and again, as you make the changes you envisioned, you will be faced with that decision-making process. Sometimes, it will go by in a blink, like an instinct. Other times it may plod by at a glacial pace. But always, as you build your confidence in your ability to successfully take action, you hone your skills for taking action. I call that a forward-falling cycle: the more you accomplish something, the better your ability becomes to accomplish something! 

“If you have been stuck at a fork in the road and then have the clarity that your destination is “That Way”, in order to take that first step, you must decide to do it. You must decide to pick up your foot. ”

— Heather Brummer

Fatigue, Feeling-stuck, and/or “lack of motivation”: So how does this process work when you’re feeling completely drained, or lacking motivation, or discouraged from previous attempts at taking action? Maybe you’re recovering from a prolonged illness. such as Covid, and you still don’t quite feel like your normal self. Or maybe you’ve been struggling to take action in your health for years, and Covid-Times exacerbated the issues you had already been facing? Maybe you were used to being able to “power through”, but now the “Just Do It” energy seems to have evaporated. For whatever reason, the ability to move forward feels overwhelming now.

It is important to identify the physical factors impacting your ability to take action. Intuitively this makes sense, if you don’t have enough gas in your tank, you can’t be expected to drive all day. At the same time, it’s also important to NOT WAIT until you feel 100% better or for things to be “perfect” before you start. That keeps you stuck.

Long Covid is a new condition, one we will all continue to learn more about with time. The physical experiences of this condition appear to predominately be chronic low energy, brain fog, anxiety, depression, insomnia, shortness of breath and/or joint pain. Increasingly, there also appears to be evidence of a higher risk of developing diabetes. All of these symptoms have been around for many years; post Covid, they-re just going to be more common. Taking small steps to address them can decrease their disruptive nature.

What I know from my work with people with anxiety, depression and fatigue is that figuring out how to work your way toward your health goals in spite of these challenges is as important as figuring out what the physiologic causes are.

If you’re feeling overwhelmingly stuck, for whatever reason, and are in Washington State - let’s work together to get you moving again.

If you’re feeling overwhelmingly stuck, for whatever reason, and are looking for supportive resources, check out these free materials:

• Blog posts about self-care

• “How full are your buckets” worksheet

Spring is a particularly potent time for new beginnings.

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Pandemic Fatigue Fix

Self-Care moves you into a brighter moment. Image by John Hain from Pixabay

Are you or someone you know struggling more in the last 45 days?

What I am seeing is the following:

• Fatigue

• Insomnia

• Increased anxiety

• Increased maladaptive emotional coping tools: alcohol, cannabinoids, sugar, binging on Netflix, to name a few…

We are exhausted from the pandemic. This makes sense, there are messages:

• Hope and disaster

• Relief and don’t change your behavior

• Grief and longing, as well as excitement

• Plus, we still don’t know the rules. Sigh…

A year ago, I wrote a blog on the importance of self-care to keep our immune systems functioning. If you are experiencing pandemic fatigue, I would encourage you to focus on self-care again. This time it will help your brain and body to have the energy to process the enormous changes that are about to come and find a stable platform to stand on.

Rather than focusing on what we’re doing wrong and then punishing ourselves for it, let’s do a 30-day experiment as a community, or with our family, friends, or clients, to see if we can each do a small compassionate act of self-care and see if we can have more energy and mental clarity as we move into May?

Here is a worksheet to help you commit to the 30-day challenge and track your progress.

In the next year, we’re going to create a new world together. I want us each to change what Kristen Neff has found in her research. After the pandemic, I want her to find that we are more self-compassionate and that we prioritize self-care because we understand that self-care is not self-indulgence. It is the one thing in the research that leads to better physical and mental health, less implicit bias, more connections to community, and more bandwidth to deal with change.  

“I found in my research that the biggest reason people aren't more self-compassionate is that they are afraid they’ll become self-indulgent. They believe self-criticism is what keeps them in line. Most people have gotten it wrong because our culture says being hard on yourself is the way to be.”

- Kristen Neff (Self-Compassion.org)

We created a form for you to let us know what activity you're experimenting with for the Challenge, and to rate your beginning energy level or "power supply". If you’d like, you can check back through the form weekly to track your progress. This form is completely anonymous, but will give us a generalized picture of the community-wide experiment that we can then share back with you.

The Ecocycle as a Tool to Help Reach Your Goals

Adapted from Brenda Zimmerman, EdgeWare & Getting to Maybe http://www.liberatingstructures.com/31-ecocycle-planning/

If you have been following this blog, you may know that in the new year I like to break out the Ecocycle from Liberating Structures. I think it’s such a helpful tool in recognizing where you are at in the process of change. New Years is often a time where we consider new projects. For this newsletter I would like to consider the emotions that are common at each stage of the Ecocycle. Different people are attracted to different stages (and sometimes get stuck in particular stages).

First there is the Conception (Germination) stage. This is the stage where we have a wish for something new, an idea of a possibility, or simply a change that is going to happen but has no structure or resources yet. When we look at the Ecocylce, it can be tempting for our thoughts to jump over to what this new idea or project will look like in the Maturity stage. The brain just wants to step over to maturity and skip following the path around the infinity sign. This is where many New Year Resolutions start and end. I want to exercise more, to change my diet, a new job, to clean my closet, etc. Some people love the conception stage. So many possibilities. It’s exciting to think of beginning, but frustrating that it takes time and effort to move beyond conception.  

The next step in the Ecocycle is the Poverty Trap. This is where we need to understand what we need in order to move the goal into action. Using the Rising Hope language, this is where we convert our wish into a hope. For us to hope for something we need both a path where we can achieve small steps towards our goal and the willpower to do it. In using the Ecocycle this past year to monitor my own change, I realized that as I think about moving something from conception (a wish) to birth (a hope), I need to understand the number of times I need to do something before I feel comfortable just showing up to do it. From other beginnings in my life, I know that it often takes more than 7 to 10 times before my habit brain stops resisting the novelty. Note this does not necessarily make it easier, I just don’t experience so much resistance. This is where willpower comes in. If I really hope to achieve my goal, I need to just do it at the frequency that I commit to, until it becomes familiar and comfortable. Part of this stage is also identifying the time period and resources that I will need to do it. 

The third stage is Birth. Regardless of whether we’re talking the birth of a new project, a new self-care routine, or a child, the pleasure of the experience comes from seeing that our hope will have manifestation in the world.  However, beginnings can be intermittent or distracted, and we may want to stop just as we’re getting traction. For example, the hopes of “I will attend and finish a beginner’s yoga class”, “I will eat a cup of veggies at each meal for a month”, or “I will turn off the electronics at 8 pm for a week” are not going to feel good compared to our established habits. However, there is a pleasure in keeping the commitment to ourselves and the outcome of it manifesting in our lives.

For changes that support our health, different people are attracted to different stages of the Ecocyle. I see a lot of people who can get through conception, the poverty trap and into the birth stage. They can see that the changes they are making to how they move, sleep or eat is helpful to how they feel, and their energy and mental clarity. However, moving to the Maturity stage, where the behavior is mostly automated, is where they get off the cycle. The reason for stopping varies from person to person, but what is generally true for everyone is feeling ok about not doing the new behavior perfectly. Moving something to maturity means tolerating being consistently inconsistent. Yes, I would love to say that I’m going to commit to doing something everyday - however, as an adult, things come up. So, the question is: what do I need to keep returning to it? For me, I need some social support. This is why lifestyle or personal changes around food, sleep and movement are so hard. We’re usually doing it on our own, within our social groups. Finding a class, an online group, or a therapist who will support our change can be key. The reason support is so helpful is that part of pushing something to maturity is overcoming obstacles, stumbling and starting again. If it’s just our willpower we can feel exhausted from pushing on our own. However, if we focus on what is attracting us to our goals, it is often easier to feel motivated to stick with it. In this stage, it’s really important to name what parts we are grateful for and why, every time we are successful.

The next stages of the Ecocycle are the Rigidity Trap and Creative Destruction. The Rigidity Trap is when we have done something over and over and it is automated AND it’s uncomfortable when we deviate from it. For example, my form of exercise for a long time was Aikido. Overtime I saw that my brain resisted going to a yoga class, going to a gym or any other form of exercise. As I aged I saw that I would benefit from cross training and I needed to add activity that would increase muscle mass. My rigidity resisted going to a fitness class on the days that I trained. After I worked my way through the conception and birth phases with the fitness class and it was approaching maturity, it was easier to swap a fitness class for an Aikido class during the week. But I had to enter into a little creative destruction, where I had to let something else in my routine go (in this case, my TV night) to start something new.

After some creative destruction, we’re back to the Conception stage. As I re-read what I have written, I can see that I have focused on the hard parts of change. I don’t want to scare people off because there is a great deal of individual pleasure in working through the Ecocycle and in seeing that we are capable, courageous to keep showing up for, and that we can each be self-determined. These qualities show up in our small successes, just knowing that we kept trying and kept moving forward is worth tracking. What helps me know that I am making progress is having a visual map of it. I have an Ecocycle in my office that I use to track the progress I make toward my goals by using post-it’s to track the stage each goal is in.