Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and welcome to steph Mom never
Speaker 1: told you a production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works.
Speaker 1: In the past few episodes, Samantha and I have been
Speaker 1: discussing therapy. We even went through therapy sessions on air,
Speaker 1: which was so scary, But we know that therapy isn't
Speaker 1: an option for everyone and there are plenty of other
Speaker 1: ways to cope, and honestly, there are ways to cope
Speaker 1: on top of therapy, even if you can afford it
Speaker 1: or if it is a good fit for you. And
Speaker 1: we've discussed what bad coping looks like, so in this episode,
Speaker 1: we want to look at ways of good coping and
Speaker 1: some trigger warnings before we get into it sexual assaults,
Speaker 1: mental health and substance abuse and okay, so basics and yes,
Speaker 1: as should be obvious. Samantha and I are both aware
Speaker 1: that these basics are easier said than done. So getting
Speaker 1: good sleep, eating a healthy amount of healthy food, drinking
Speaker 1: a lot of water, doing something active, meditation, taking time
Speaker 1: to do an activity for yourself, reading, writing, sharing with
Speaker 1: your support group how you're feeling, how you're doing, making
Speaker 1: time to hang out with friends. I'd say, having check
Speaker 1: ins with yourself, setting goals and being honest about how
Speaker 1: you're doing what you could improve on. UM. Those are
Speaker 1: all examples of good coping, taking care of yourself For
Speaker 1: me personally, UM, writing, hiking, playing games with friends, UM,
Speaker 1: cooking while listening to music, making costumes or other projects
Speaker 1: like that. UM, those are things that I do. I
Speaker 1: also have rules in place around social media when I'll
Speaker 1: interact with it and when I stop engaging with electronics
Speaker 1: at night so that I will fully sleep. Oh, we
Speaker 1: have more discipline than I do. Because I can't do that.
Speaker 1: I just keep wanting to play Candy Crush that we played. No,
Speaker 1: you're you're talking to I forgot one thing We heard
Speaker 1: from people as we did this project, and we would
Speaker 1: ask them about how they what are their methods of
Speaker 1: good coping. A lot of people told us that their
Speaker 1: experience UM kind of working through it with artwork or
Speaker 1: through journaling or writing. We spoke with Jessica Caldus, who
Speaker 1: has channeled her experience with sexual assault into art right
Speaker 1: as In fact, she just recently had her m F
Speaker 1: A show I believe, UM, and it was incredible. I
Speaker 1: didn't get to see it. I just saw pictures of it,
Speaker 1: which I'm really sad about Um. It was called living
Speaker 1: Hysterically and I like the whole concept when she talks
Speaker 1: about later is fantastic. Also, actually UM got to know her.
Speaker 1: I'll say that in quotes, because she didn't know me.
Speaker 1: I just need UM. When I was at a screening
Speaker 1: at Brave Miss World, which if you've never seen a
Speaker 1: film of about a woman thinks she was in this
Speaker 1: world essentially and she it was UM involved in sexual assault,
Speaker 1: and then she came out and all of the things
Speaker 1: that she had to go through to prove her point,
Speaker 1: essentially improve her case and get justice. It was a
Speaker 1: fantastic film. But it was featured UM by a nonprofit
Speaker 1: here in Atlanta called Athena's Warehouse, which is a fantastic
Speaker 1: program that works with underserved teen girls. And it was
Speaker 1: a fantastic film, and she actually came on to talk
Speaker 1: about her personal experiences as well as her artwork and
Speaker 1: how it was important for her and then later advocated
Speaker 1: with the founder of the nonprofit who was one of
Speaker 1: our state representatives. She's just an awesome person who has
Speaker 1: a lot of heart and is just a powerhouse when
Speaker 1: it comes to advocating. Most of my work deals with
Speaker 1: women's issues, And primarily what I'm most known for is
Speaker 1: gender based violence. So that could be domestic violence, it
Speaker 1: could be sexual assault, it could be sort of everyday violence,
Speaker 1: like things we experience on the street, or sexisms, or
Speaker 1: like the kinds of things that are so normalized that
Speaker 1: we think of them as nothing even though they really
Speaker 1: are something. So I started making artwork about these stories,
Speaker 1: and and it was artwork for many reasons because for me,
Speaker 1: as an artist, it's how I process the world and
Speaker 1: understand the world. Um. But also I kind of instinctively
Speaker 1: knew that art can function as a way to share
Speaker 1: stories and talk about things that are really hard. Um.
Speaker 1: And so that's what I did. I started making artwork
Speaker 1: about these stories. And this is sort of a lead
Speaker 1: up to the work I'm currently doing, which is much broader. Right. Um,
Speaker 1: At that time, it was like all domestic violence all
Speaker 1: the time. But now you know, the issues I'm addressing,
Speaker 1: really they get broader because, um, because when you start
Speaker 1: in one place, what you find is that there's all
Speaker 1: of these other things that intersect. Right. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: part of domestic violence is often sexual assault. Um. Part
Speaker 1: of you know, normalizing violence in an everyday way is
Speaker 1: the way we normalize sexism and small microaggressions and things
Speaker 1: like that. UM. Not to mention, of course, like thinking
Speaker 1: about other issues that are tied into it, UM that
Speaker 1: are broader than women's issues, like criminal justice system or
Speaker 1: race or class or things like that. That I started
Speaker 1: making work specifically about sexual assault in two thousand and sixteen,
Speaker 1: and UM, so almost right after that session with the
Speaker 1: rape kit bill, UM was the ten year anniversary of
Speaker 1: my rate, I happen to have an exhibition that I
Speaker 1: had curated. UM. It had my own work, it had
Speaker 1: work of many different women, and the whole exhibition was
Speaker 1: dealing with themes of intimacy and sex and education and
Speaker 1: love and like thinking about how all of these things
Speaker 1: work together in negative and positive ways. And the idea
Speaker 1: was to have UM different artists approaching these different themes
Speaker 1: from different perspectives, but also working and partnering with organizations
Speaker 1: and advocates and having panels and discussions and UM. It
Speaker 1: was sort of a at that point the culmination of
Speaker 1: this idea I had that art was a way to
Speaker 1: create space for conversation UM and and really hard conversation
Speaker 1: and sort of make it easier and so UM and
Speaker 1: that exhibition happened to fall you know, it's like a
Speaker 1: month and a half long, but um, the tenure anniversary
Speaker 1: of my rape happened to fall within that exhibition. So
Speaker 1: I decided I was going to do this performance piece.
Speaker 1: The performance piece was going to talk about my experience
Speaker 1: with trauma and recovery, because I was really interested in
Speaker 1: this point also, like not just representing trauma, which is
Speaker 1: super important and talking about like different kinds of stigmatized
Speaker 1: like issues in a public way of super vice it all,
Speaker 1: and that could be enough for me for the rest
Speaker 1: of my art career, but I'm really interested in recovery too,
Speaker 1: especially because for me, recovery has been this like super
Speaker 1: rocky path. Like for years, I didn't even call what
Speaker 1: happened to me rape, Like I just didn't even talk
Speaker 1: about it. I didn't think about it, I didn't call
Speaker 1: it anything, you know. Um, And and then I like
Speaker 1: sort of dealt with it a little bit and I
Speaker 1: tried to go to therapy and then it was like
Speaker 1: a little bit better, but I definitely was still engaging
Speaker 1: in some like less than healthy behaviors as like sort
Speaker 1: of a you know, just dealing with it. One of
Speaker 1: my favorite pieces that I haven't done a long time.
Speaker 1: Is this like durational piece where I make a chalk
Speaker 1: X every seven seconds wherever I go for usually like
Speaker 1: a month, because that's how frequently sexual assault or attempt
Speaker 1: to sexual assault occurs in the US. And so it
Speaker 1: was the projects I had been doing had been these
Speaker 1: sort of like broad or um, you know, statistics based
Speaker 1: but still educational projects, And this was the first sexual
Speaker 1: assault piece that I did that was like, this is
Speaker 1: about me and what happened to me and UM. And
Speaker 1: what I found is that actually people really responded to
Speaker 1: that in a different way. Like I'd gotten good and
Speaker 1: really interesting responses to other work, but for whatever reason,
Speaker 1: something personal actually opens up a window into the work
Speaker 1: that I thought would be closed off by making it
Speaker 1: so personal. What I'm trying to do is create a
Speaker 1: space that people enter and kind of open up to
Speaker 1: somewhere where they can confront these ideas that they may
Speaker 1: not agree with or they may not understand completely um,
Speaker 1: and be given space to like challenge themselves, think about
Speaker 1: how they think about these things, ask questions, and just
Speaker 1: like kind of visually understand it through this like embodied experience,
Speaker 1: so coping skills when I'm in the studio or working
Speaker 1: on projects or advocating. They range, and sometimes I am
Speaker 1: better then other times. Like you said, it can be
Speaker 1: really hard to take care of yourself when you you
Speaker 1: have this like I feel like this pressure to like
Speaker 1: I gotta keep doing this work because it's important and
Speaker 1: it needs to happen. UM. But I think the first
Speaker 1: thing was like I got better, like recognizing when I
Speaker 1: just needed to stop for a minute or like a day,
Speaker 1: or like you know, i've been working on this for
Speaker 1: three hours, I can go work on something different. UM.
Speaker 1: And so just even like knowing when I'm just tired
Speaker 1: and and being able to like say, okay, it's okay
Speaker 1: to be tired, I can go work on something else, UM,
Speaker 1: and then having something else to work on. For a
Speaker 1: long time, this was the only kind of work I
Speaker 1: was making in my studio, and that UM that actually
Speaker 1: did get really hard. My relationship with both recovery and
Speaker 1: trauma changes constantly. So you know, even this past year
Speaker 1: with UM with me Too and then later Kavanaugh, I
Speaker 1: had some really different reactions to both of those, particular
Speaker 1: like big news items, the things that I hadn't experienced
Speaker 1: in a long time. UM, me too, was a little
Speaker 1: bit less heavy, like I found in some ways like
Speaker 1: I was able to embrace that a little bit more
Speaker 1: because I was hearing stories from friends and people that
Speaker 1: I had not ever heard before. Um And a function
Speaker 1: of my work is that people often disclose to me,
Speaker 1: just people I don't know, people I know, whatever. So
Speaker 1: hearing news stories from people i'd know who had never
Speaker 1: talked to me before, it was like kind of novel
Speaker 1: and like did that whole like empowering, Like, Oh, we're
Speaker 1: hearing each other's stories and we have power, and there's
Speaker 1: like recognition and like a feeling of community in this.
Speaker 1: But I was much less able to do that when
Speaker 1: the Kavanaugh hearings happened, and I actually ended up retreating really,
Speaker 1: um really like into myself during that period because um,
Speaker 1: I think partly I had just finished the installation of
Speaker 1: that piece and then this kabinet stuff was happening, and
Speaker 1: I was just like, this is too much. I can't
Speaker 1: handle this. I'm like having trouble getting out of bed.
Speaker 1: So I basically like turned off the news, which I
Speaker 1: think people sometimes like criticize folks for doing this, and um,
Speaker 1: and I definitely talked to other folks who like felt
Speaker 1: like they had to say something or they had to engage.
Speaker 1: Especially if you're like already vocal about these issues, then
Speaker 1: people kind of expect you to and that's a lot
Speaker 1: of pressure on a situation that can already be really hard.
Speaker 1: So I, you know, I figured out a while ago
Speaker 1: that I like, giving into that pressure is not healthy
Speaker 1: and not good for me. So I was like, noop.
Speaker 1: So Jessica also found supportant lean community. I'm in this
Speaker 1: collective now, this collective of women are collective and we
Speaker 1: we formed officially last year. We're called Living Melody Collective
Speaker 1: and it's actually this UM. It's five artists on one
Speaker 1: of them, and we have been working together for years
Speaker 1: on different projects UM, and we sort of made it
Speaker 1: official last year, and it's been literally one of the
Speaker 1: healthiest things I've ever done for myself. These women are incredible.
Speaker 1: We have like the same values, care about the same issues.
Speaker 1: We all come from super different backgrounds, but you know,
Speaker 1: everyone's just so open. We're like super vulnerable with each
Speaker 1: other and and a lot of us all except for
Speaker 1: one of us, we're all mothers, so there's something in
Speaker 1: that connection as well. And it's like, honestly, I get
Speaker 1: like very emotional. I've talked about this in a couple
Speaker 1: of things, and I've ever time I get a little
Speaker 1: teary because these women are like they have become like
Speaker 1: the source for me of support and like they just
Speaker 1: hold space for we. I mean, we all do for
Speaker 1: each other, and it's just there's I haven't experienced something
Speaker 1: this healthy, you know, outside of my family, you know,
Speaker 1: in a really long time, and it's incredible. So that's awesome.
Speaker 1: So we're making work together too. It's just that to
Speaker 1: the point, do you guys have like a site or
Speaker 1: anything that they Yeah, it's actually attached to mine. But
Speaker 1: the easiest thing is actually to watch us on Instagram.
Speaker 1: So it's at de Living Melody Collective. You'll be hearing
Speaker 1: more from Jessica in future episodes, but for now, that's
Speaker 1: one example of good coping and we have another one
Speaker 1: for you. But first we have a quick break for
Speaker 1: a word from our sponsor, h and we're back. Thank
Speaker 1: you sponsor, And we're back with some clips from an
Speaker 1: interview we did a while back with two other women
Speaker 1: that you turned me on to. Samantha. Yeah, she and
Speaker 1: her wife Michelle started a group that pretty much goes
Speaker 1: hiking as a part of healing and do some journaling
Speaker 1: and all of that. And I was really excited when
Speaker 1: we started talking about some of our good coping because
Speaker 1: one of the things she talked about was being empowered
Speaker 1: and walking through trauma and working through some negative feelings. Yeah,
Speaker 1: when you tell me about it, I I was. I
Speaker 1: was so excited because I loved like all of those things.
Speaker 1: I love hiking, I love writing. Um. And as we
Speaker 1: recorded this interview, it was the week of their big event,
Speaker 1: we hiked to Heal, which is a part of the
Speaker 1: Outdoor Journal Tour. Here's Kenya the first four sheheel here
Speaker 1: and Michelle so Outdoor Journal floor. UM. The Elevator Pitch
Speaker 1: goes once to week is a HydroD health organization that
Speaker 1: combines the health INNO states about their activity with introspective
Speaker 1: journaling and mindful meditation. UM. And so that's what we
Speaker 1: you know, that's kind of it in the nutshell, what
Speaker 1: really do when we take them in outside we encouraged
Speaker 1: them to digger into their personal development by using things
Speaker 1: like journaling, meditations with your circle, exercises and guided conversations. UM.
Speaker 1: So just think like a tiny retreat. We had to
Speaker 1: Heal is kind of UM all of the all of
Speaker 1: the things in the mission of the Outdoor Journal Tour,
Speaker 1: and that's basically UM just to kind of connect women
Speaker 1: to themselves, UM, to their communities and to the outdoors UM.
Speaker 1: And with that, throughout the month of March UM, which
Speaker 1: also of course is women'ist three months Women's Wellness months UM,
Speaker 1: we thought it was a great time to do this UM.
Speaker 1: Basically throughout the entire month UM Kenya developed a kind
Speaker 1: of a curriculum basically the Mindfulness Resources UM that she
Speaker 1: spent out every week UM kind of like journal prompts, exercises, UM,
Speaker 1: different activities to trying to get you to UM, ask
Speaker 1: yourself some questions, produce some you know interspction UM. And
Speaker 1: then at the end of the month, the last Saturday
Speaker 1: of the month, March thirtieth, we have basically is the
Speaker 1: highlight you. Hip to Heal Day is when all of
Speaker 1: our partners get together and they host their group hikes
Speaker 1: all of the same day UM, all across the country.
Speaker 1: So this year we have thirty six UM thirty six
Speaker 1: we Hip to Heal group hikes UM thirty four in
Speaker 1: the United States and two in Canada. UM and it's
Speaker 1: it's kind of like this really meet collective consciousness. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, all of these women and men coming together, um,
Speaker 1: you know to empower women, UM and to connect them
Speaker 1: to their community, connect them to themselves, and UM to
Speaker 1: the outdoors. So, like I said, when I heard about this,
Speaker 1: I was very excited about it, and I decided to go.
Speaker 1: I woke up early on said her day, and made
Speaker 1: my way out to Stone Mountain. UM. The day started
Speaker 1: with Myrna Valerio a k. The renovator, the woman behind
Speaker 1: the blog Fat Girl Runs, an author of a beautiful
Speaker 1: work in progress, and she was getting us all warmed
Speaker 1: up with exercises at us saying hi to people we
Speaker 1: don't know. So jealous I missed that I would love
Speaker 1: to meet her. Oh yeah, she was awesome. She gave
Speaker 1: it like a little motivational speech later and it was
Speaker 1: pretty great. Her whole instagram is motivational. It is. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I follow it. Um. Yeah. We hiked up the summit.
Speaker 1: We meditated, We did exercises like saying nothing but positive
Speaker 1: things about our lives for two minutes to a stranger
Speaker 1: and then switching places, which I highly recommend because it's
Speaker 1: like rewarding and surprisingly difficult, or maybe not surprisingly um.
Speaker 1: Then we meditated for a few minutes and the weather
Speaker 1: was so lovely and it was so wonderful, even though
Speaker 1: I got We made body promises, promises to ourselves to
Speaker 1: treat our body better. And then we all wrote out
Speaker 1: um our trauma or something that we had been working through,
Speaker 1: and then we read them all out at the same time,
Speaker 1: and you can read them at whatever volume you wanted,
Speaker 1: like quietly, loudly, um. And it was really powerful. People
Speaker 1: were crying UM. And I think that it's a great
Speaker 1: example of the power of writing something down in the difficulty, honestly,
Speaker 1: of like giving voice to something that maybe you for
Speaker 1: so long have not given a voice to. Kenyan Michelle
Speaker 1: spoke about the value of journaling. I've been writening since
Speaker 1: I was thirteen, um, fiction nonfiction journaling, you know, recounting
Speaker 1: my day. And what I what I realized later on
Speaker 1: life is that just read, reading and recounting what happened
Speaker 1: on those days and rereading lot entries was something that
Speaker 1: was therapeutic for me. So I really liked going back
Speaker 1: and reading how I felt last week. We're reading how
Speaker 1: I felt yesterday. So in order for me to do
Speaker 1: that I have to write something new today, right. Um.
Speaker 1: So that that was part of it for me, But
Speaker 1: you know, as got older, I also really enjoyed the
Speaker 1: idea of asking myself how I felt about things and
Speaker 1: being a hundred percent honest about that, which we can't
Speaker 1: always do um with with other people. Um. Sometimes we
Speaker 1: feel like we can't be a hundred percent honest, so
Speaker 1: we can't say exactly how we feel to others, but
Speaker 1: in your journal you absolutely can't. I think what's interesting
Speaker 1: was journaling for me now is that I realized that
Speaker 1: I don't know that I think the things that I
Speaker 1: think until I write them down, like somehow their subconscious maybe, um,
Speaker 1: you know. And if i'm you know, if it's a
Speaker 1: journal prompt or if I'm just writing about how I'm
Speaker 1: feeling about something, um, and I'm really just kind of
Speaker 1: you know, free flowing. Um. And I go back, you know,
Speaker 1: and and just read what I wrote, and I'm like, holy,
Speaker 1: I didn't know that that's what it was, So I
Speaker 1: thought it was something completely different. And you know, here,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm discovering that Okay, you know, maybe this
Speaker 1: is a part of a a bigger thing, you know,
Speaker 1: a part of you know childhood or past um, you know,
Speaker 1: trauma or problem that I had that just kind of
Speaker 1: popped up in a different way. UM. And I think
Speaker 1: what's really cool is once you start noticing about those patterns, UM,
Speaker 1: you start to understand how you respond more, which is
Speaker 1: which is really interesting because it's hard to stop yourself
Speaker 1: sometimes from responding the way that you naturally respond or
Speaker 1: your default I guess, UM, but you can't take away
Speaker 1: that awareness, and that awareness really pushes you to think like, okay, Michelle,
Speaker 1: is it's really what you want to do or you
Speaker 1: just you know, kind of responding on autopilot. How do
Speaker 1: you really want to respond? Um? So I think it's
Speaker 1: really just helped me get in touch with that part
Speaker 1: of myself that I just wasn't pretty too. Before we
Speaker 1: have some more of our interview, but first we're gonna
Speaker 1: pause for a quick break for word from our sponsor
Speaker 1: m HM, and we're back, Thank you sponsoring. We also
Speaker 1: asked Kenya and Michelle the four advice around healthy coping
Speaker 1: skills in terms of dealing with a trauma. My first
Speaker 1: mind is to say, like, if it's someone that has
Speaker 1: experienced significant trauma, I think that for even though it's
Speaker 1: not always a perfect system. I would definitely advising to
Speaker 1: seek professional hope, you know, definitely seek you know, someone
Speaker 1: who is licensed in training and do this for a living,
Speaker 1: because we want to make sure that UM people are
Speaker 1: getting the type of help that they need. UM. So
Speaker 1: in addition to that, if there is space in the
Speaker 1: schedule and face and the heart, I would say, find
Speaker 1: something that feels good to you. UM. You know, in
Speaker 1: my work with the different women that I work, because
Speaker 1: I do do one online sessions, always tell them just
Speaker 1: because everybody is meditating right now, just because they're abody
Speaker 1: and yoga, that doesn't mean that has to be your thing.
Speaker 1: You gotta find something that works for you and something
Speaker 1: that feels good for you. And once you find something
Speaker 1: that feels good for you, do that thing and do
Speaker 1: that thing, whether you have to do it by yourself,
Speaker 1: do that thing, UM, even when you don't feel like
Speaker 1: doing it, like when you don't have the interest to
Speaker 1: do it, do that thing anyway, because you know that
Speaker 1: thing is going to be healing. Do and that thing
Speaker 1: it's going to be a positive UM interaction for you. Also,
Speaker 1: when advised people to be honest about it, be it's
Speaker 1: honest and transparent about what's going on with you as
Speaker 1: you possibly can. I think a big, big part of
Speaker 1: the reason why so many of us are struct to suffering,
Speaker 1: especially from the anxiety that we are, is because we're
Speaker 1: not honest with our friends and family about how we
Speaker 1: feel and to take the crisis or a breakdown, uh,
Speaker 1: or a dramatic weight loss or dramatic weight gain or
Speaker 1: something big and and and public to happen before we're
Speaker 1: honest people about how we've been feeling for a long time.
Speaker 1: And so I think letting people in is important. Um
Speaker 1: Renee Brown, who I'm read lot of her stuff. She says,
Speaker 1: a shame cannot survive being spoken, and a lot of
Speaker 1: us we carry the shame of the trauma that you've
Speaker 1: experienced with us because we feel like it's our shame,
Speaker 1: and it is not most of the time. And it's
Speaker 1: not our shame. It's things that have happened to us,
Speaker 1: not things that we have done in preparation other people.
Speaker 1: So we shouldn't be carrying around that negative energy, um
Speaker 1: And I would say, you know, find a way to
Speaker 1: release it when you're ready. When you're ready too, because
Speaker 1: some of us need to hold onto that for a while,
Speaker 1: because we feel like it's hours and you can't prematurely
Speaker 1: release something that you still want to hold on to
Speaker 1: this right, um. But ultimately, you know, you got to
Speaker 1: find something new that so good for you. For myself,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of times where I can go
Speaker 1: out on a high to find my self and I
Speaker 1: get this, you know, huge adrenaline high, and I'm in
Speaker 1: this beautiful place, um, and I just um grounded again,
Speaker 1: and I realized that, you know, I am a part
Speaker 1: of this enormous ecosystem that is so big yet so
Speaker 1: small at the same time. UM. And it really just
Speaker 1: puts things into perspect into perspective for myself at least
Speaker 1: in the moment. You know, of course, something else will
Speaker 1: come out at some point, but it puts things in
Speaker 1: perspective for the moment for me, and I can kind of,
Speaker 1: you know, let out that deep breath and just you know,
Speaker 1: relax into that space and just enjoy the beauty, enjoy
Speaker 1: the vast man um and you know, just understand that
Speaker 1: I am a part of a much larger thing. Um.
Speaker 1: And sometimes that's enough. Sometimes it's okay. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of steps to finding a therapist, right, I mean, I
Speaker 1: don't think that it's necessarily hard per se UM. But
Speaker 1: it's not. It's simple, not easy, you know, but finding
Speaker 1: one that's fit with you, finding one that you know
Speaker 1: maybe you have e A P benefits with your job,
Speaker 1: so you get I think it's you know, most companies
Speaker 1: like eight three sessions. No, it's not enough to you know,
Speaker 1: work through all of your trauma, but it is a
Speaker 1: good place to start. UM. You know, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of emergency facilities. UM. There's there's resources out there. UM.
Speaker 1: And sometimes it's just asking friends or family for help.
Speaker 1: And so sometimes it's a situation where you need to
Speaker 1: ask your you know, friend or family or coworker or
Speaker 1: someone that you trust UM for some help in finding
Speaker 1: the help that you need. UM. And that's perfectly, perfectly,
Speaker 1: perfectly okay too. I think, you know, it's really interesting
Speaker 1: because when people start sharing their stories with UM, their community,
Speaker 1: they realize that it's not just their story, UM, that
Speaker 1: a lot of people identify with their story in one
Speaker 1: way or another, or they have another version of that
Speaker 1: same exact story. UM. And I think it really it
Speaker 1: gives us a sense of belonging and it makes us
Speaker 1: realize that we are not alone. Um, you know, and
Speaker 1: that the things you know, oh that maybe we're not
Speaker 1: so happy or thrilled about. Um, you know, it is
Speaker 1: something that other people have been through and have been
Speaker 1: able to change or improve or or whatever. Something else.
Speaker 1: Kenyan Michelle are big proponents of and is a large
Speaker 1: part of their online materials is mindfulness. You can bring
Speaker 1: mindfulness to any activity. It doesn't just have to be
Speaker 1: journal in meditation. You could be mindful when you fold
Speaker 1: your lines, and you could be mindful when you wash
Speaker 1: your dishes. You could be mindful. Please be mindful when
Speaker 1: you're driving your car, when you're talking to somebody. You
Speaker 1: can be mindful at any time if you just kind
Speaker 1: of bring your attention to the here and now and
Speaker 1: focus completely your energy and your attention on the thing
Speaker 1: that you're doing. That is now a mindfulness pas. So
Speaker 1: you don't have to go on the mountain and fit
Speaker 1: with us in journal and meditate. We hope that you will,
Speaker 1: but I think that if you bring more stillness and
Speaker 1: more attentiveness to your everyday activity, you'll find a slight
Speaker 1: decrease from their anxiety. If you're like I am here
Speaker 1: right now, I am folding missiles, and that is what
Speaker 1: I'm doing, Um, instead of thinking I want to photo
Speaker 1: close and I have to run to jims, I have
Speaker 1: to go to the airport and I gotta You know,
Speaker 1: if you can just kind of slow it down to
Speaker 1: be present for one thing at a time, I have
Speaker 1: found that in me it definitely reduced with some of
Speaker 1: the anxieties. In the trust, we have a teachable score
Speaker 1: where we have different mindfulness resources and classmen and there
Speaker 1: We've got the Journal of Mindful Movement and we have
Speaker 1: something calls this Break from the Grid, which is another
Speaker 1: guy that journal. So we have all of these different
Speaker 1: things for women to tap the two that are ready
Speaker 1: to kind of take the first step towards you know,
Speaker 1: the personal development and their inner healing. And it's all
Speaker 1: on either ww got Outdoor Journal Tour dot com or
Speaker 1: do ww dot We has to Heal dot org um
Speaker 1: and we are at Outdoor Journal Tour on Instagram and
Speaker 1: we just are looking to continue to grow the movement
Speaker 1: and increase the number of women who are involved. So
Speaker 1: if people like what they hear what they heard today,
Speaker 1: if they felt like it resonated with them, we just
Speaker 1: really encourage you to join us on one of those
Speaker 1: platforms signing for a class by a journal and put
Speaker 1: yourself first, you know, um, and and do a little
Speaker 1: something different, do a little something different to treat some
Speaker 1: of the things you might be doner with. We highly
Speaker 1: recommend checking them out. I had such a lovely and
Speaker 1: meaningful experience. Um. Also after we yeah down the mountain,
Speaker 1: there was an after party with yoga and kayaking, so
Speaker 1: super fun. Yeah. As in fact, the Outdoor Journal Tour
Speaker 1: is on Instagram right now and you can actually see
Speaker 1: the different locations that have all over the country. They're
Speaker 1: starting to be countrywide. I love it. Yeah. I think
Speaker 1: even they have some places in Canadah. Yeah. And one
Speaker 1: thing I love about that's something that was in that
Speaker 1: interview is find the thing that you love. Like we've
Speaker 1: been talking a lot about journaling and hiking and art.
Speaker 1: That doesn't have to be the thing for you. Those
Speaker 1: are examples of good coping. But well, you need to
Speaker 1: find or we would hope that you couldn't. You can
Speaker 1: find something that is specifically works well for you. That's
Speaker 1: that's the whole point of finding good coping is something
Speaker 1: that you can gives you join that you can stick to. Yeah.
Speaker 1: As in fact, you heard Jessica talking about her doing
Speaker 1: different types of art as well as you know, hiking
Speaker 1: and journaling. And you heard Rebecca earlier the series who
Speaker 1: actually took her trauma and put it into a play
Speaker 1: and that was something therapeutic for her. So there's so
Speaker 1: many different outlets that we can do. And obviously, um,
Speaker 1: I guess we said as you said earlier, any not
Speaker 1: everyone can afford therapy, and so you have to figure
Speaker 1: out what is best for you, um and at least
Speaker 1: taking small steps, whether it's to do some type of
Speaker 1: outlet or um having small conversations all of that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: for sure. And speaking of outlets, you and your dn
Speaker 1: d yes speaking of outlets all right. For the fact
Speaker 1: of the episode, our group was due ing a a
Speaker 1: one shot, which in theory should take one session, hence
Speaker 1: the name makes sense. Yeah, it took like four because
Speaker 1: we we always take the longest route around. But one
Speaker 1: shots are a good example of letting, um, someone else
Speaker 1: be the dungeon master, run the game, take on that
Speaker 1: responsibility for a little while, um, and then it gives
Speaker 1: you room for more creativity because you know that this
Speaker 1: one shot is going to be over like it's contained. Um.
Speaker 1: So long story short because it is quite a long story.
Speaker 1: We stole all of this gold from a dragon, which
Speaker 1: we clearly should not have done, and the dragon was
Speaker 1: so mad. We got a bit of a head start,
Speaker 1: but there's no way we're gonna outrun a dragon. Um.
Speaker 1: And also he had a track groundos which we couldn't find. Wait,
Speaker 1: this dragon was smart enough to put a tracker on you.
Speaker 1: Yeah again, long story, but yees, keep going. Um. And
Speaker 1: there was a timer the dungeon master, she had a
Speaker 1: timer counting down to when the dragon was going to
Speaker 1: find us, based on distance. It was a whole thing,
Speaker 1: and we had one chance to escape. We're gonna telepared
Speaker 1: away um. And we have one person in the group
Speaker 1: who can teleport, and he he rolls the dice and
Speaker 1: he gets a one. Is that teleporting one? That's the
Speaker 1: opposite of that's the that's the equivalent of falling on
Speaker 1: your face and telling the dragon where you are. Um.
Speaker 1: So he rolls the one. The silence was deafening um.
Speaker 1: And yeah, because if you don't know, that's a critical failure.
Speaker 1: It's the worst you can get. So we failed in
Speaker 1: the dragon burned to the village we were trying to save,
Speaker 1: and we still don't talk about it. Um. I was
Speaker 1: so upset about these dead imaginary characters that we failed. Um.
Speaker 1: And on top of that, we could have in theory
Speaker 1: killed the dragon, but just as likely it would have
Speaker 1: killed us, like three of us, three of the four
Speaker 1: of us were dead. The dragon was almost dead maybe. UM.
Speaker 1: So we voted about the risk of it, and it
Speaker 1: put a division in our group that lasts to this day.
Speaker 1: It's like the D and D version of Captain America's
Speaker 1: Civil War. Yeah. No, we don't talk about it. And
Speaker 1: since I'm running the current campaign, I've got a massive
Speaker 1: guilt ship going with a woman carrying around the ashes
Speaker 1: of the city that we failed. Nice. Yeah, I love
Speaker 1: a good guilt ship. Oh, I know, I do. It's
Speaker 1: so good. Yeah, I don't have much. I'm going to
Speaker 1: talk about the new things I'm trying and it's coming
Speaker 1: onto your world. So I try to play portal too,
Speaker 1: I know. And can we talk about the fact that
Speaker 1: immediately I turned the day game on with my friend
Speaker 1: and I immediately follow the cliff like that was the
Speaker 1: automatic and died And I was like, what just happened?
Speaker 1: I just picked up a remote or whatever the controller
Speaker 1: I called it. A remote. This is how good I
Speaker 1: am about this. I don't like games, yes you do,
Speaker 1: but I'm willing to try. And so right now I'm
Speaker 1: pouring all of my frustrate and the fact that I
Speaker 1: do not have the hand eye coordination to play with
Speaker 1: a controller. It sounds like your controller is a little sensitive,
Speaker 1: I hope. So I feel like I should be able
Speaker 1: to blame this thing because it's not a happy time.
Speaker 1: World two is fantast what we'll see Stephen Merchant, Yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll see okay, And that didn't get gladys she's not nice. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but she's hilarious. Whatever, I am glad I can go away.
Speaker 1: I'm trying not to curse about it. Okay, I'm excited
Speaker 1: to see where this goes. Alright, alright, So do you
Speaker 1: have any healthy coping mechanism listeners that you would like
Speaker 1: to share? If so, you can email us at mom
Speaker 1: Stuff at how stuff works dot com. You can find
Speaker 1: us on Twitter at mom Stuff podcast or on Instagram
Speaker 1: at stuff. I've never told you. Samantha has been posting stuff.
Speaker 1: It's been great, and you can talk to me. Please
Speaker 1: talk to me, or you know, write to me. I
Speaker 1: don't know, you know you know what we mean, communicate
Speaker 1: with me. I'm lonely. Thanks as always to our super
Speaker 1: producer Andrew Howard, and thanks to you for listening stuff
Speaker 1: I've never told to you as a production of I
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