Episode 164: 18 Reminders to Listen to When the World Feels Heavy

Written By Sarah Steckler

Today I want you to take a deep breath and come on an audio journey with me so we can calm your mind and hopefully dispel some of the overwhelm or dread you're feeling.

It's normal and human to get to a point where the world in general feels like a lot. Which is why it's so important to incorporate mindfulness exercises and prompts into your life to restore your mind and calm your nervous system.

I'm about to walk you through 18 lovely reminders, about the world, about humanity, about yourself that will allow you to reframe a few things and hold space for what you need this week.

These reminders won't solve everything but they can be so lovely to come back to from time to time.

Additional Resources:

Transcript:

You are listening to Episode 164 of the Mindful Productivity podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Steckler, and today I'm going to be reading through 18 reminders that I wrote for you today to listen to. When the world feels heavy, when you feel that weight in your chest, when you feel overwhelmed, when you feel like maybe there's just too much going on in the world and in your personal life and you just wish that you could get a break. I'm going to help you through that process today and remind you to take a deep breath and come along with me on this audio journey so that we can calm your mind and hopefully dispel some of the overwhelm and dread that you're feeling.

So let's go ahead and dive into today's podcast. I hope it brings you a little bit of peace and relief.

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 Kos and to calm and start your days with intentions, 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.

I have recently been feeling the weight of the world and things going on in my personal life a whole lot more lately. In the past two weeks, I definitely have had a lot more hard cries, a lot more crying in the car, driving to the park before I pulled myself together, and a lot more late night having a hard time falling asleep. I don't think I'm alone in this. In fact, I know that we all go through chapters of this in our lives, but with the state of the way the world is right now, and for all of the news and all of the things that we're all tuned into, it can often come to ahead and just feel like so much.

And we can get so down on ourselves for feeling like we're not doing enough, not knowing why. We can't seem to manage everything. And it can also be hard to break away from social media when that's often a place where we can sometimes feel more connected than ever during this time. So it's normal and human to get to this point where the world in general feels like a lot, which is why it's so important to incorporate mindfulness exercises and prompts into your life to restore your mind and calm down your nervous system.

So today I'm about to walk you through. 18 lovely reminders about the world, about yourself, and hopefully these things will allow you to do a little bit of reframing and hold space for what you might need this week. Now, these reminders aren't going to solve everything necessarily, but they can be so lovely to come back to from time to time, and I hope that you listen to this episode whenever you need these reminders. So let's go ahead and get started. So there are 18 of these today that I wrote, and I'm just going to go ahead and begin with number one.

Number one is that rushing often feels like a fast paced way of avoiding self-awareness. When you rush, you are running through and avoiding self awareness in your body and your mind. And it's why when we rush through things, we make mistakes. There are oversights that we experience, right? And we tend to be irritable. So your reminder with this one is that rushing is only going to prevent you from being able to self assess and self-correct as needed. So if you need to slow down, here's your reminder.

Number two, if you feel overwhelmed, it can be helpful to ask yourself the following question, What's the true outcome that I am seeking? I mean, keep it simple here. Omit whatever additions you've added to your plate that don't truly aid in keeping and helping you reach your goal. So, again, asking yourself, What's the true outcome that I am seeking? With business, with work with life, we often add in additional steps or additional things we think we need to do to reach our goal, and they might just not be necessary.

Omit what you don't need number three, you cannot please everyone, nor should you try. Keep on doing your best. Take it step by step. Make sure that you are putting yourself first where you need to so that you can take care of your mind and your health so that you can show up for others. Right. So that you can contribute to society and community care, but don't have the goal to please everyone because it will never happen. And there's a little bit of liberation in realizing that.

Number four, Take everything out and only put back what you need right now. This applies to many things, your mind, what you may be emotionally carrying for others, but it also can apply to things like what's in your purse, what's in your home office. Right. I definitely have to do this on a regular basis to really come back to what I need. Which leads us to number five, which is you can tend to things in seasons. Not everything has to be top of mind or even a main priority all year long.

And I mean this with a lot of things, it could be keeping your kitchen sparkling clean because you want to. Maybe there's certain seasons of your life or weeks or months where the kitchen just stays kind of messy for a while because you have other priorities going on or other things in your business that maybe aren't as top of mind. You are allowed to attend to things in seasons. So figure out what those things are and give yourself permission to do so. Number six, A deep breath and a good, epic cry can change everything.

There have been some days lately where I have felt so overwhelmed and I didn't let myself cry. And then it kind of just happens, you know, when you kind of bottle things up for a little too long, and then you find yourself in a moment by yourself, whether that's the bathroom or a car ride, and all of a sudden the tears start flowing. I cannot tell you how helpful this can be. And if you haven't had a good cry in a while, maybe it's time. These things that we do as humans are built in for a reason, and crying actually helps you tap in to relaxing and activating.

I should say your parasympathetic nervous system. There's a lot of things that do this. Crying is one of them. It also releases Oxytocin, which helps you find release and calm down. Number seven, Many forms of escapism are not only wonderful, but healthy and productive. And what I mean by this are little forms of escapism like making time for movies. You love shows, books and passion projects that make you forget about everything, even for just a moment. Our brain needs these breaks. If there's a show or a fantasy novel that you really love, make time for it.

Number eight, you alone cannot solve the issues of the world with the Internet and social media. We are more connected and tuned into the events of the world than ever before. But it's important to remember that the paralyzing doom you feel from, quote, unquote, knowing everything won't help you take important local and personal action. Which leads us to number nine, do what you can with what you have from where you are. Maybe you can't jump to another country and save everyone there who's going through something horrible.

Maybe you're not in politics and you can't vote on an important issue. But look at what you can do. What can you do locally? What can you do to make sure that you're registered to vote? What kind of conversations can you have with people that are within reach of you and that you have influence over? Think about those things and put your effort there. Doom scrolling on your phone and knowing everything about the current state of events throughout the world is not going to help anyone if it means you don't take action locally and start from where you are.

Number ten, you can start over at any time of the day. Seriously, giving yourself a mental reset can be so important. I say this often to my husband, if we're both just kind of in a bad mood, can we just start over today, or can we just reset the evening, watch a movie, get out of the house. Like, what can we do to make this situation better? The same goes for your work day, whatever. No, you really can't rewind and start over time, but you can do a quick mental reset.

To refresh and start over. Number eleven, you are always your higher self. Many people use the phrase what would your higher self say? But I really believe that we aren't apart from them or any different from them. And I don't think that we need to tap into our higher self all the time. I think they're always a part of us. And what I mean is that there are times when we may have greater access to different mindsets than others based off of current circumstances or what we're going through.

But it doesn't mean that we are any better than other versions of ourselves. Simply, it simply means that we're traversing through a particular chapter. I don't know. For me and you may disagree, I find a lot more empowerment and encouragement and hope in realizing that I'm always my highest self. It kind of just changes everything. I don't know. You let me know what you think. Number twelve, Chasing timelines will always lead you to miserable destinations. Everyone's life unfolds differently, and at various places you are never behind what someone does.

At 20, another person may experience for the first time at 50, allow life to be the way that it is, and try not to get too caught up in the things that you haven't experienced. Everyone's life is different, and even the things you may be longing for, I guarantee you there's things that you've experienced that others feel the same way about. Hold gratitude where you can for what you have experienced. Number 13, Sometimes shitty things happen, and it's not because you didn't think the right thoughts or have the right mindset.

I'm really over that positivity talk or the stuff that says, Well, you brought this upon yourself or everything you experience is the consequence of your own thoughts. I'm not here for that. It's something that I think is dangerous in the spirituality, and I think it's a part of Woo culture that hurts more people than empowers people. Sometimes horrible things happen, and it's not because you weren't in the right vibe or frequency. It's just because life happens and that is the reality of the world. Number 14, you don't owe your past self anyone thing.

Here's what I mean, dreams that you had at 12 may no longer interest you at 34 or whatever age, and that's okay. Move on. Live in the now. You don't owe your past self anyone thing. If you're no longer interested in that dream, or if that dream is no longer a dream of yours, you do not have to pursue it just because you had a moment in the past where that was the one thing you wanted more than anything, right? Gosh if we live that way.

I mean, there were people I thought I wanted to marry when I was a kid or types of people. I thought I wanted to be around all the time, and that is definitely not the case. Why on Earth would I pursue relationships like that now just because my past self thought that's what I wanted. Move on. Live in the now. Number 15, you will need and seek different forms of guidance and support at different times in your life. Be open to the discovery of new ways of working through hardships and struggles.

Stay curious and be patient as you navigate new territory. Number 16, the problems of the past weren't necessarily easier for you. They were what you dealt with during the time you were in. There's no need to discredit your past self. Their experiences were just as valid, valid as the time at the time as yours are now. It can be so easy to look back in the past and think, oh my gosh, if I only knew how easy I had it then, but it's also important important to remember that at the time you didn't feel that way, just like you might not be feeling that way.

Now, be kind to yourself. Past, present, and future. Number 17, you do not need to be productive in order to take time to do things you love and to take care of yourself. You don't have to deserve things. You can simply allow them for yourself. I don't know about you, but as an adult and as a human being, I'm really over the fact that we have to quote, unquote, try and work for things like rest. I believe that you should make as much time as possible for the things you love.

Life is short. Number 18, Sleep is one of the most important components of your health, mental well being, and your bodies regenerative process protected at all costs where you can and when you can. Do not let your phone eat away at your health by keeping you up past you're a bad time. So with that being said, those were the 18 reminders that you might need to hear this week. I would love to know if these were helpful for you, if they were inspiring or instilled any bit of hope.

And I'd love to know which one was your favorite. So come say Hi on Instagram. Tag me in your next post or story. I'm at Mindful Productivity blog. I would love to know that you listened and I'd love to say Hi to you them. Thank you so much for listening to the podcast. I will be back here next week with an amazing guest, and I hope that you make time for yourself this week. See you then. Bye.

Sarah Steckler https://sarahsteckler.com
Previous

Episode 165: Entrepreneurial Outlaws with Melanie Knights
Next

Episode 163: Let’s Do a Self Check-In