Episode 158: Restorative Behaviors
What are the actions and practices you can take on a regular basis to restore your health, creativity, and wellbeing in your life & biz? This week I bring you a conversation in the woods from the cabin I stayed at to unplug. We'll talk about questions you can ask yourself and grounding activities.
Transcript:
You are listening to episode 158 of the Mindful Productivity Podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Steckler. And this week, we're going to be talking about restorative behavior specifically in your business and when it comes to creativity, but also because we are humans and we are the bodies and faces behind our work. We'll talk about some practices that we can develop as human beings to help this process along as well. I don't know if you can hear it, but I'm actually out at a cabin recording this podcast episode right on my iPhone. My hope is that by doing so, you'll be able to hear some of these nature sounds. And I'll also be able to tap into this really awesome place that I'm at right now in terms of feeling really grounded and connected to who I am and what I want to do. And it's been a long time since I felt this calm in nature getting outside of the apartment finally, after so many months stuck there. And I'm excited to share all of this with you. So we'll be talking about restorative behavior, and I have four important questions that you can ask yourself to help facilitate that process.
All right, let's go ahead and get into it.
Welcome to the Mindful Productivity Podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Steckler, and this is the place to be to live a more mindful and productive life. If you're ready to turn daily chaos into calm and start your days with intention, then get ready to join me as we dive deep into mindful living and personal productivity. It's time to connect with your true self so you can live the life you want to live. And it all starts now.
Back on episode 156 of the podcast, I talked about creative nesting and how I was really craving some time in my business to not only unplug, but also work on things that I'm really passionate about, or even tasks that don't necessarily move the needle in my business. But they bring me a lot of joy. In that episode, while I didn't have an exact plan for how I would do it, I asked some questions and gave some examples of how you might be able to start the creative nesting process in your life in business and how you can incorporate more of that time as more of a ritual or regular practice instead of something that you only use when you're already burned out. Spending some time out here as a cabin has been really nice. We will be out here for three nights, and at the time of this recording, we have one more night left. We have had a lot of fun. I've spent a lot of time doing things I love, like planning outside and making hot dogs on the fire, all that good stuff. But I've also had some time to really rest, and I was telling my husband how nice it is to be able to rest and take naps completely guilt free because that's what we're here for.
I don't have the temptation of walking into my office at home and working. I can literally do whatever I want during the day here. And because we don't have Internet access and I don't have my computer, then guess what? I have to make the decision to not work. And it's been interesting how many times I've had a moment of free thought or a moment in between different things that we're doing. And my first impulse is, you should work, or what could you be doing in your business? And I realized lately that during the pandemic and times before as well, I spent a lot of time really thinking about my identity as a business owner and really tying so much of my selfworth and who I am by how my business is doing, how successful it is, how much money I'm bringing in, how big a launch is. And I realized that whatever it took for me to get to that point was a lot of work and consistency. And I don't regret any of that. But I'm now in a place in my business where I'm realizing again, very obviously that life is so much more and so in creative nesting.
I've also been thinking about restorative behaviors, behaviors that we can use to restore our health to the best of our ability. Now, restorative, the definition of it is actually having the ability to restore health strength or a feeling of wellbeing. So it's also important to remember that it's having the ability. And I know there's many people based on circumstances, based on systemic issues that sometimes don't have the option to take restorative actions for their health well being or take a vacation in the woods if this is something that is available to you, we'll talk about some ways to do that in this podcast. But it's also important to recognize that we also live in a society that makes this very difficult. And I think that just perpetuates the problem even further. Restorative behavior and restoration is also the ability to restore your consciousness, your vigor, and your health. And so that can look a lot of different ways. So this is one of my favorite ways to do it is to come back to nature and really take a break. But keep in mind as you're listening, that your example of restorative behaviors could be very different.
They could involve being around more people or doing more high energy activities. That is for you to decide and to come up with real quick. I want to share a little story about something that happened this morning. So we're at this cabin, and we're at a state park, and they give you a Pin code to enter into the cabin. And I thought I memorized it, but didn't I also send a photo of it to both me and my husband so we would have it on our phones. And this morning we stepped out with our coffee and with Bella, our Bulldog, and we're drinking a coffee when I wanted to go back in to grab something and we were locked out. For the life of me, I could not remember the Pin code and I was starting to get very angry. Luckily, my husband is super sweet. He's a wonderful human being. I think he's a better human than I am, and he tends to be very calm. So his first reaction was actually to laugh and to smile, not at me, but just to say, wow, of course this would happen, right? He remained really calm and he actually had opened up a bunch of the windows in the cabin, so he was able to pop out a screen and easily jump into the cabin and unlock the door.
I felt a little embarrassed that I had gotten so upset and so angry and said a couple of things that weren't helpful. And he just looked at me and he said, I love you. And then he said, Calm is contagious. And I started thinking about that, not only from a human to human perspective, but also in our bodies and in our minds. It can be so easy to be reactive when it comes to something not going our way, or when it comes to just feeling out of control or feeling like we're not making the momentum we want to make or moving the needle in our business. But I really like this reminder that calm is contagious. And how can we facilitate more of that in our bodies and in our minds? Coming back to a place of calmness activating your parasympathetic nervous system, taking in deep breaths. The four, seven, eight breathing exercise is a great way to do that. But also when things get frustrating or when you get frustrated that tech isn't working in your business, for example, sometimes we can want to push through for hours on end when really all we really need to do is take a break, step away from our computer, step away from our project, go on a walk, go make some tea, go drink some water, move our bodies, stretch.
That won't necessarily fix the tech issue, but sometimes it will give us access to another part of our brains that allows us to assess the situation in a new way and come up with a solution. Very much like getting locked out of the cabin. I just got angry and couldn't think of another solution other than trying to remember the Pin code. I also found out that upon three error entries into the Pin code, the cabin lock will seize up and not let you try again for a few minutes. My point is that the more we can stay calm and collected when we need to in our businesses and with our creative projects, the more likely we are to create sustainable actions over time. So I've also been thinking about what facilitates deep restorative behavior, things like what can we do to restore deep sleep or deep relaxation or deep thinking? And again, some of these things are privileged activities, but what are ways that we can do this? So I hope that you're thinking about this as you listen to this podcast. A couple of the ways that I've been kind of tapping into this is really noticing where I might be hyper aware in my body or with sound as I get older.
And as things change, I notice more about my personality. I noticed that I'm very hypersensitive to noise and audio, and I can't remember if I shared this back in another podcast episode or not. But I know that I shared that I recently bought some earplugs. They're like these rubber malleable earplugs. I got them on Amazon, and you can roll them up and mold them to the shape of your ear, and then you can sleep on your side, too, so they go flat up against your ear canal. Well, the first time I put them in my ears, I started crying because everything was so quiet and my whole body calmed down. I realized that for so long I was in a hyperaware state when it came to noise. We live in an amazing apartment. We're right up against a wetland forest, and it's beautiful, but we're also not far away from a pretty busy road, which means there's a lot of car noise every now and then, and it seems about every 30 to 40 minutes there's an ambulance or a fire truck or something, and those noises become very distracting. So do the noises of my Bulldog, Bella Whining, because she doesn't get what she wants every second of the day.
She's a Princess. And just other noises, common noises. And I mean, we don't have any kids right now. We don't have any screaming children or things like that. And our neighbors are super quiet. The building is super quiet. But I didn't realize how hyperaware I was. So when I took that sense away for just a moment, I began to cry because I felt a sense of relief in my whole body. Like everything got still, like as if I was in a pot of boiling water and someone came and plucked me out just for a second to say, this is what the air around you feels like. This is what silence feels like. And when there wasn't all that extra activity buzzing in my ears and distracting me, I could think for the first time. I could feel and notice my body in a deeper way than I had taken time to do in a long time. And it was amazing. I ended up leaving the ear plugs in for about 15 or 20 minutes, and I just sat there on the floor in awe of how nice it felt. So for me, that was a practice that I can start doing more often.
It's totally okay if I want to go put in some earplugs and sit in my bathroom on the floor and close the door and turn the lights off and be in kind of like a sound dunk tank, if you will, a deprivation tank of some sort where there's no sound and there's no light and I can just breathe. I had a similar experience years ago when I did a float tank where you lay in a bunch of salt water and it creates this amazing buoyancy and you just float. And it was an incredible experience. It was so quiet and my mind was so still. But I did have a weird reaction because even though the float tank I was in was not very deep, I mean, at any time I could touch my foot to the bottom, it was like inches below me. The way the water felt and how still everything was, it felt like I could have been in a giant ocean. So my issue with a float tank was that at one point my mind came up with this idea that I was in the ocean and I'm terrified of Sharks. So I actually had to remind myself that there was no way a shark could be in the float tank with me.
Very bizarre, but maybe someone else can understand. Coming back to the main focus of this podcast just really thinking about what ways you can facilitate deep experiences. Rest and even breaks don't have to be excursions out to a cabin for a week or a weekend. Sometimes they can be 15 minutes of less noise or less bright light, right? I think it's why a lot of us who have worked at home during the pandemic have enjoyed not being in front of all these fluorescent lights all day. There's something nice about tuning into natural light and warm light and not feeling that constant static environment. So whatever comes down to facilitating deep relaxation, deep thinking, those can get you started. I also thought this was interesting. I talked to a lot of my business friends throughout the week and one of them checked in with me right around the time I got to the cabin and I told her I was like, oh, I'm taking a break this week. I'm going to be out in nature. And she said, that sounds amazing. And one of the questions she had asked me was, what are you working on?
And I said, well, you know, I'm behind on a lot of things that I both want and need to do in my business. But I also have been thinking, So the fuck what? Really? I think we create all these different rules for ourselves, and sometimes we just have to remind ourselves that it's okay if those things don't happen. It's okay if you take a little bit longer on a project. We all have deadlines in our business and things we need to do to make money. But sometimes there's other projects that can take a little bit longer, especially if you don't have a huge team. So in thinking about all these different things to consider with restorative behaviors for your business, for your creativity, for you as a human, I have four questions that I wrote down while I was journaling this week of possible questions that you could kind of ask yourself to get started. So we'll go ahead and walk through those. So the first one is, what are the practices or activities that remind you of what it truly means to be human and to be alive? Maybe this sounds a little corny, but every now and then I really think about my life, and I remember that sometimes I don't think about my life outside of my business.
Maybe for you it's outside of your job or outside of your role as whatever, right? A mother, a father, a sister, a wife, a husband, whatever it may be, whatever pivotal thing you may define your entire life around. Sometimes it's nice to take a minute to be like, who am I without that? Or in addition to so for me, coming out here in nature reminded me that I'm also a very amazing human. Without my business, if I didn't have my business or it somehow evaporated into thin air the next day, my life would still be very valuable and there would still be a lot of things that I could contribute to the world. So really thinking about, what are the activities that remind you of that? Not just being alive in terms of the thrill of that we all will die someday and remembering that, I think that's important, too. But what are the things that remind you of your breath and your breathing and your lungs and your body and what it means to get tired as a human being and what it means to really get excited about deep sleep? What are the things that make you remember the primitive nature of what it means to be alive and just coming back to the things that you get to be grateful for every day?
Food on the table, a meal, a warm meal in your Bella. All those things, the things that we know, we know, we know that could fill up endless gratitude lists. But how often are you actually taking time to do those things? The second question that you can ask yourself is, what type of environments help facilitate guilt free relaxation? What are the moments and opportunities that you can create so that you can actually rest without guilt? This may be difficult, but I think it could be possible. For example, sometimes I just need my husband to take our Bulldog away to a park without me, so that I can have a few hours at home to just lay on the couch without distraction, without feeling guilty that the dog might need something or that something else might be happening, or that I should clean or I should work on my business. What are the things that you can do? Again, time of the cabin this week has facilitated that and that I have felt no guilt about taking a nap at any given time because that's what we're here for, to relax. No one else is waiting on me.
Nothing else is waiting on me. You can do whatever you need to do. The third question that you can ask yourself is what experiences take you out of routine and help you remember what you're grateful for? So again, these all kind of play on each other, but what are the experiences that take you out of your daily routine? I mean, I think essentially, this is why we love vacations, right? We love getting out of our routine. But also thinking about that when you're taking breaks, are you actually taking a break from your normal routine, or are you just trying to recreate your routine in a new environment? There's a movie, The Beach with Leonardo DiCaprio. Great movie. And in it, there's a quote where he talks about how so many Americans don't actually travel. They just go to different luxury hotels in different countries and recreate their life at home somewhere else. That always stuck with me because I think in a lot of ways we think we're taking a break or we think we're getting rest when really we're just trying to recreate the same exact structure and routine and habits that we know kind of what we're used to.
They might not serve us, but recreating that structure in another environment makes us feel safe, right? It's normal. Even if it doesn't feel good, we know it. We're used to it. So what are some things that maybe can get you out of your comfort zone? Or what are some new activities that you can do this week that help facilitate that restorative behavior that take you out of your routine? Maybe it means going on a walk in a different place. Maybe it means doing something by yourself. Maybe it means not sitting down in front of the TV this evening and instead grabbing a Journal or a notebook and sitting out on your balcony with a cup of tea. These tiny things can be just that. They can be slight differences, but they can help you tap into a different reality, a different purpose. And those things can be interchangeable throughout your day. You don't have to wait for six months to go somewhere in order to feel those differences. Okay, I have one more question for you. And this is number four. What are the selfimposed rules and deadlines that only generate stress for you? So what are the self imposed rules?
And again, when we look back and we talked about creative nesting, I mentioned a TikTok video where this mom cleans her countertops for her kitchen the night before, but only for the space she needs. She doesn't worry about keeping the kitchen perfectly clean it's just what she needs. So what are some rules that maybe will help you, right? I was having another conversation with my husband this week. We're talking about workouts and new routines and the cardio we want to do. And he was talking about, oh, I really would like to do the cross trainer for an hour every morning. And I said, well, what if your goal is 20 minutes? And he said, well, but I'd like to do an hour. And I said, right, but if the goal is 20 minutes, maybe you go every day, right? If you had less time, that all or nothing behavior. Excuse me? That all or nothing behavior of well, I don't have a full hour so I can't go versus I'll go regardless. In College I was really great about that mindset. So every day I just had a goal to move my body and some weeks was harder than others.
But even if I only had half an hour, I would still run down to the track, do a couple of apps in five minutes, take a shower and be done. Even though my workout was only five or ten minutes, it was still better than nothing for that day. We can think about our businesses and our deadlines the same way. Do you really need to finish an entire project by Friday or do you just need to start the outline first? Can you move things? Is the deadline that you've created helpful for you or is it stressful for me personally? Deadlines help drive me. So I like having deadlines in my business and I like saying things like telling my students that something is going to be done by this time because it helps me actually do it. But there are other deadlines for people that can actually just create more stress and be less helpful than that or whatever. So those are the questions to ask yourself. But I hope that if anything, this podcast episode and also 156 about creative nesting and the last episode, 157 about seven things that you can do to create functional behaviors and restorative behaviors in your life and business help you.
So consider this a little series on restorative, health or restarting or recentering and grounding yourself in your creative business or otherwise. Thank you so much for listening to this week's podcast. As always, you can tag me on Instagram, let me know you're listening. I'm at mindful productivity blog. I'd love to reshare your post, have a conversation with you in the DMs or at least just say Hi. You can also find all of my courses, learn how to create a planner or buy one of the planners I've created by going over mindful mindful productivity podcast. Publish a Planner.com. Thank you so much for listening. I hope that you can do something this week to restore your behaviors and come back to feeling grounded. And I will see you back here next Monday.
