Do you feel like you are drowning in a sea of to-do list?

Of course you do.

We all do.

You're not alone.

From daily chores to life-changing goals.

The pressure can absolutely be overwhelming, right?

It leaves you stuck or stressed, or maybe even completely shut down.

In this episode, you're gonna learn three powerful, practical strategies to cut

through, uh, all the nonsense; all the overwhelm and finally get stuff done.

We're gonna explore how to find safety to calm your system, how to soften

your defensive state when pressure mounts and continues to mount.

And you all, you're also gonna learn how to bypass overwhelm entirely with steps

so small that they're almost effortless.

Get ready to discover one simple thing you can do today to move forward.

Hey, I'm Justin Sunseri.

I'm a therapist and coach who wants to help you live more

calmly, confidently, and connected without psychobabble or woo woo.

Welcome to Stuck Not Broken.

This podcast is of course not therapy and not intended to replace therapy.

This episode actually is a, um, a replay of a free webinar I gave to members

of all tier of the Unstucking Academy.

So if you'd like to be a free member, you can join today and get

access to upcoming webinars as well.

Enjoy the episode.

the goal here is I want you to look for, as I go through the lesson, I want you to

look for those moments of like, that's it.

I can do that.

That is the thing.

We're gonna be talking about a lot.

I don't need you to memorize all of it.

I want you to identify one thing in here that really sparks you,

and then like, just hone in on it.

Okay?

I want you to maximize that one thing.

So I want you to identify one thing that you want to make progress

on as far as a life goal maybe.

Identify one step you can take to make progress.

That's the goal here.

You, uh, you have things to do.

If you hadn't, if you weren't aware, you have things to do, right?

You have small daily things, the basic things like

showering, brushing your teeth.

Healthy enough.

Eating.

You got bigger daily things.

You got childcare, work, relationship, maybe, uh, you have things you have

to get done, like taxes and, oh, that reminds me, dang it, taxes.

The city wants taxes from me now, business house maintenance- and so does

the government- federal government- you also have things you would love to get

done if you just had the space for it.

You would love to get these done like a new hobby, maybe starting

your own business, maybe joining a club, maybe going to the

gym or back to the gym, right?

There's things you want to do, things you have to do, and, uh,

you're probably overwhelmed because you're normal, you're human.

It happens.

We got a ton of stuff on our plate.

Yeah, there's just, there's too much to do.

There's not enough time there.

Things pile up and.

You potentially are being unkind to yourself, sadly.

All this means is you have probably some defensive activation, such as, uh,

freeze, which might show up as overwhelm or feeling like stuck or paralyzed,

panicky, maybe even rage, could be shut down where you're, it's showing

up as collapsed; just limp, no energy.

I like, I don't even have the energy to do the basic things, justin.

Stop talking about the bigger things and taxes.

Flight where you avoid it altogether.

Fight.

It's somebody else's fault.

They're gonna deal with it.

Good luck to them.

All right, so that's, that's where we're at.

We're all there, right?

I wanna talk about three big options to get stuff done.

These are the three options.

Number one, feel safety to reduce your overwhelm or

whatever you're going through.

I'll call it overwhelm.

We're defensive activation.

It works the same way.

So feel safety, okay?

Feel defense mindfully until the overwhelm softens and bypass the

overwhelm with small behavior changes.

So those are our three big options.

Um, we're gonna go more in depth into each of 'em, but already

kind of notice within yourself, which of these is lighting you up?

Which, which of these do you feel like you're getting pulled more towards?

And if you can identify that there, there might be something in there, an

avenue for you that you could pursue.

number one, feel safety, and then get stuff done.

So, prioritize, grounding and safety, and then.

Make progress on your, all of the things you have to do.

Ventral vagal safety, the safety state, the ventral vagal safety.

When those pathways are active, it leads to all the wonderful things that

you would love to have all the time thinking critically, feeling calm,

feeling motivated, uh, having a clear mind, sustaining your focus, having

positive, hopeful expectations, et cetera.

All those wonderful positive things come from, of course,

your safety state being active.

So if we can get some of that, then defense will likely go down and

that might create less overwhelm and more space to get some stuff done.

Well, how do you do that, Justin?

That's a great question and I happen to have an answer for it.

Feel safety thing is stuff done.

How to do that?

Number one, surround yourself with safety cues.

Cues are things that trigger your safety state that you don't really have to think

about or really do anything special with.

So I'm in my therapy office right now, the greens, you can't see the

stuff behind the camera, but the greens in this space cue safety for

me and my clients, I think typically.

Um, they don't have, think about it.

They're just there.

And it provides a constant stream of safety cues.

So create, so you wanna surround yourself with passive safety cues.

One way to do this is in your own home, and that's creating

a passive safety environment.

We talk about that in, uh, building safety anchor in that course.

There's a lot of, uh, pieces to that.

But the basic idea that you can totally run with today is, is

there one spot in your home?

You, it does, it doesn't have to be a house.

It could be a mansion, it could be an apartment.

It doesn't matter.

Is there one corner, one room, doesn't matter, one spot in your

home where there's more safety than the rest of your home?

Pick that spot, and then we want to amplify it by adding in or taking away,

cleaning up, tidying, organizing, just creating a space in your home where

safety is built up or we're getting more passive cues than, than danger cues.

Okay.

That'd be in your own home.

And it, I mean, just one thing goes a long way.

If you don't have that, can you find one?

This would be things in your neighborhood, maybe it could be a

park, it could be a neighborhood lake.

It could be a quiet corner of your local library.

Or maybe it's just going out in your backyard and, um, you

know, being there with your pet.

Or maybe it's, uh, standing on your balcony and looking up

at the sky or, or out at the horizon, if you have an apartment.

That's not something you create.

It's more like something you find, well, I guess the backyard.

You could create that.

But the, these are places that you find.

That you can go to to increase safety and decrease overwhelm and

potentially get some more stuff done.

So that that's passive.

But we want to be more active about this as well.

Uh, so the next step would be to take one of the passive cues in the environment

and can mindfully connect with it.

That means you bring all your attention to that passive cue.

Uh, so how do you mindfully connect with something?

This is the easiest way I can break it down.

Uh, basically you want, here I'll grab, I have a candle in my therapy office here.

Citron, Mandarin.

You take your cue.

This, if it's lit, I can smell it, but it also just kind of creates

a smell in the environment, right?

That's passive.

But if I breathe it in, um, now I'm mindfully connecting with it, and

I can take it to the next level by asking myself, do I like it or not?

That's just one level.

And then I can take it to the next level and ask, well, when I breathe

in, what happens to my breathing?

Like on the next breath, maybe is it calmer?

Is it lighter?

Is it tenser?

I could also notice when I breathe it in, I smell it.

What happens in my muscles?

Do they relax or do they tense up?

And I could also, this is probably more difficult, but I could

breathe it in and notice what happens in my internal sensations.

Do I feel more energized?

Do I feel more, I don't know, excited more?

Is there like a fluttery experience?

Is there a pulling down?

Is there a heaviness?

So that's how you mindfully turn.

What would otherwise be passive into more like a mindful experience.

If you can do that, that is more safety anchoring than the passive cues.

So if you can do that, overwhelm may come down along with it and

you can get more stuff done.

It's easier than you think.

Okay.

Safety cues are everywhere.

It, it is very possible that you are someone that like you really,

really, really struggle with this and that, that's totally possible.

If that's you, I would stick with do I like it or not?

And if I like it, let's do more of that.

As long as it's not harmful.

Um, but it's easier than you think.

There's safety cues everywhere.

There's probably stuff you already have at home, like a candle, a blanket, a

tea going outside el- maybe elements of nature in your home, like pictures

or, uh, sounds of waves on your phone.

Uh, you can put music on.

These are easily passive cues, but you can turn these passive

cues into mindful safety anchors.

If you can connect intentionally, just like I did with the, with the candle.

Use those questions to connect with it intentionally.

Overwhelm comes down with it.

Okay, let's see an example here.

Jenny.

Jenny needs to study for a test in three days.

The test is coming up in three days.

She's put it off, prioritizing things to distract herself like her phone,

and spending time with her friends.

Her dorm's a mess and her roommates have people in and out all the time.

The pressure to study is mounting to the point of overwhelm.

So, she decides to study after anchoring into safety.

How does she do this?

Number one, she goes to a pond located in her university campus.

Her dorm's not gonna work out, is not a great place for her.

So she goes to a pawn that's, you know, a short walk away.

She sits under or sits at a bench under a tree, feeling a little bit of calm.

She closes her eyes and mindfully listens to the ducks, feels the air

on her skin, listens to her thumb flipping through her books, pages.

She notices what she likes while doing these things.

She notices if she likes it or not.

She notices what happens in her breathing.

She notices, um, what happens in her muscle tension, and she also

notices what's happening internally.

So Jenny focuses on anchoring and safety.

First, she turns passive cues into mindful anchors.

If she can do that, she's a heck of a lot more likely to study

and get something out of it.

Okay, so that's number one and how it can look.

Number two, and by the way, this is pretty fast paced 'cause uh, I wanted

to get it under, under hour and have a little bit of time for q and a.

So I think we'll be able to do that.

Number two, soften defense, then get stuff done.

I'm gonna break this down into three different options as well.

Number one is be proactive.

Don't wait, don't wait for the defense.

Um, don't wait until you're in a moment of overwhelm to do something about it.

That's typically what we do.

I would really push you to do something about it now.

Now what you can do about it now is before the overwhelm comes anchor

into safety and then compassionately connect with your defensive activation

that's probably already there.

Overwhelm- it kind of mounts and mounts and mounts, but it's

there on some level already.

So waiting for it to- don't wait for it to spike.

Wait for it or like, just notice what it feels like currently.

Anchor in a safety just like Jenny did, and then bring your attention

over to that level of stress or overwhelm and validate it.

That just means acknowledge it, normalize it, and then give

it permission to be with you.

But we don't wanna like go into it.

We're not really feeling into it.

That's, that's higher level stuff.

The other option is when you anchor into safety, imagine defense ahead of time.

So anchor to safety, imagine it ahead of time, and then mindfully

give it permission to be there.

So that is actually to let you feel a little bit into it.

And then once you feel a little bit into it, just acknowledge it and then

come back over to your safety state.

So you're shifting your attention from this anchored, mindful place

over to, I do have some stress here.

This is what it feels like.

This is where it lifts my body.

And then come back over to, to safety.

Bring your mindful attention back over to safety.

If you do that a couple times, that's called pendulation.

But even doing it once, you know, safety to the mindfulness of, um, defensive

activation and then back to safety.

That little just one pendulation can actually go a long way.

But that's before it's too much.

Before it's too much.

Well, what if there already is defense?

And this is usually where we're, where people go to at that point.

We, we do the best we can to cope.

But what I like to do, tell people if it's too much, what I like to

recommend is mindfully permit it.

And this is your process.

Number one, validate it, acknowledge it.

Number two, normalize it.

Does it make sense why it's there?

For Jenny, yeah, it makes sense why it's there.

I haven't studied at all and, and my time's running out and then

give it permission to be there.

But when you give it permission to be there, specifically, I want you

to do a couple things after that.

The first step is to give the experience an image using your imagination, and then

invite it to be there with you while you also make progress on whatever it is you

gotta do- whatever it is you have to do.

Okay?

I'll give you an example of what this looks like, but we're not feeling into it.

'cause that's probably too much.

If you're in a, if you're in the overwhelm, like if it's spiking, if

it's like an eight outta 10, seven outta 10, that's probably too much to

really feel into it compassionately.

So at that point, we just want to bring it down enough, um, to

maybe permit it at a deeper level.

But really it's just kind of, we gotta get some stuff done.

So let's just bring it down enough by permitting it, using

imagination and invitation.

I'll come back to that idea.

But there's a third option here, which is more like restorative,

charging your batteries kind of thing.

After the overwhelm, after you come crashing from overwhelm,

actually allow yourself to collapse.

Actually allow yourself to recover from what you went through.

So if you're at work and things are terrible and it's just stress

and people and issues, and you come home and you're still wound up,

like actually let yourself collapse, actually let yourself decompress.

Give yourself silence.

Um, my client work, uh, a, a recommendation I'd love to give

is like when you come home from work or school, wherever, like

just fall face first on your bed.

Give yourself 10 minutes of silence and just breathe and maybe

connect with your pet or something.

But like that is restorative.

Just even that little time is way more impactful than like

coming home and watching tv.

That's not.

That's not rejuvenating.

Okay?

So we have before, during, and after.

I highly recommend before focusing more on that, and then after get rid of

that one before and after, uh, during is probably where you're gonna get

the least amount of benefit, and you really have to work your way up to that.

Let's come back to Jenny.

So Jenny has already anchored into safety.

She did that in the last example.

This is how she softens defense.

She validates that she feels stressed.

She just acknowledges that I feel stressed.

She says to herself, she normalizes why she feels that way.

She says, uh, yeah, I put it off too long and this is important.

And my dang roommates, of course, I feel stressed out.

And then she permits it through visualizing her stress as a heavy rock.

She gives it an image, her brain comes up with an image.

It's a heavy rock weighing me down.

I'm gonna let, I'm gonna put it here on the bench next to me and it can

hang out with me, you know, heavy rock.

You are invited to be here with me while I also study, while I also

open my textbook and start reading.

So it's not rejecting it, it's giving you permission to be there, but it's just

kinda using an image to help contain it.

It doesn't solve the problem.

It helps soften it so that we can get some stuff done.

That's the idea here.

All right, so that's, that's in the moment when she's trying to study,

but she continues the process.

She builds on the success.

So she goes home and she uses her room as a Passive Safety Environment.

Um, she has stuff in there that's gonna cue safety for her.

So at home, in that environment, she anchors again.

She uses maybe a candle or, I don't know, whatever she mindfully connects

it with it and lets it be there.

Or mindfully connects with her safety state, excuse me.

Then she imagines the stress of the test that's coming up.

It's two days away now, and she imagines sitting at the desk in

class and feeling stressed out.

She just lets her have it because it's coming anyways, she mindfully permits and

feels the stress through her imagination and then when she feels that doesn't go

too far and into it, but lets it be there, and then shifts her focus back to safety.

And she could totally do that a couple times and pendulate between the two.

What that does is it builds up, it's just like putting in practice

or reps for anything else.

It puts it- it tells the body this level of stress.

We, we have felt this before.

We know this 'cause we've practiced it mentally days ahead of time.

So we, we know this and the body will naturally, without even have to think

about it, if you practice it this way, the body will recognize that stress

level and pendulate it right away.

My client work as we practice pendulation at a much heavier level

in, in, you know, uh, one-on-one work.

Uh, a lot of times they'll use their, a dog or a pet as a

coagulator, as a connection point.

And so as they feel defense, uh, one thing I'll prompt them to do is I'll

ask them, Hey, how's your pet doing?

And they'll smile and connect with it.

And that process builds up their safety state.

So a session or two down the road, what they'll do without being prompted

is as they feel defensive activation, their hand right away goes to the pet.

And they can sit with both of those things without even being prompted to.

Their body knows how to anchor in safety while having defensive activation.

So that's what the imagination can do.

It's very powerful way, but simple.

All right, so that, that's two, two passes.

We got safety, we got defense.

Option three is to bypass overwhelm.

You might be like, oh, that's the one, that's the one I want.

I wanna introduce you to, to a concept called kaizen.

I love this.

I build this into my life, my into the Untucking Academy.

Um, it's not explicitly there, but it's built into everything that we do there.

It means good change.

Kai means good, zen means change.

It was popularized as a Japanese business philosophy of continuous improvement.

It actually came from America, uh, during World War ii and

then was exported over to Japan.

And they, they took off with it and then we kinda lost it.

Uh, but it's small steps to produce sustainable habit toward a larger goal.

So that's, that's the idea.

Kaizen, the things you wanna accomplish, they trigger defense.

The, there're the task we have in life.

Even brushing your teeth for some people, sure.

The goals you want, you know, joining a gym like these trigger

defense, the thoughts, the, they trigger your defensive activation.

Change is scary.

I mean, period.

Right.

But even if something you want, you, you might want to change

something about what you're doing.

And that is scary, even though you want it.

And even though there might be a daily task that is, is easy or should be

easy in your mind, like showering every day, that might be too much because

it's a new habit, it's a change.

I just wanna put that out like as a blanket statement.

These things can be challenging, especially if you live in more

of a defensive state if you're stuck in a defensive state.

So we use kaizen principles to find small behaviors that don't

trigger fear, that don't trigger panic, don't trigger overwhelm.

If you're overwhelmed, you could use Kaizen to help still get some stuff done.

I'd rather you do things more proactively rather than waiting for a problem and

then using Kaizen or anything else.

I'd rather you do things proactively when- when your

emotional state is more manageable.

So these small kaizen steps, they should be so small that it does

not trigger defensive activation.

They should be so small, it does not pose a challenge.

You should be 99% confident you can accomplish it.

And it might even seem silly when in my client work, when I talk about

this stuff and we come up with Kaizen goals, they kind of like laugh because

it's like, yeah, I could do that.

That's silly.

Of course I could do that.

And that's what we want.

Because at that point there's no friction at that point.

It's just momentum.

And then great, like it seems silly.

Cool.

Now let's go execute on it.

And if you could do that, let's do it again the next day.

No step is too small and I'll, we'll, I'll show you some examples of this.

No step is too small.

30 seconds is better than none.

If you're trying to, I don't know, walk more or exercise more,

30 seconds is better than none.

If you're trying to be mindful, 30 seconds is better than no seconds.

Five reps of something is better than no reps. Planning is a step toward doing.

That's better, right?

One minute of planning is better than zero.

Imagining your goal is better than avoiding it.

I, I'd rather you make a vision board than do nothing at all.

And I'd rather you write down some notes in a notebook than not do a

vision board walking around your block.

That's better than not going to the gym, right?

Walking halfway around the block is better than nothing, and putting your

shoes on and walking to the front door, that's better than nothing too.

So small, small steps.

So this is how you make things smaller.

You ask yourself these questions.

What is the smallest step I can take today to move closer to my goal?

How can I make this goal feel effortless and even enjoyable?

What is one simple way I can fit this goal into my existing routine?

And what small action needs to happen before I can move forward?

You don't have to answer all of these.

It might be helpful if you do.

Uh, but if you can pick one and match it up with a bigger goal you wanna

achieve and, and identify a step like that would be better than none, right?

That'd be great.

So, we'll, I'll show you a few examples here and then we will,

we'll go through one together and then we'll apply it to yourself.

So recently, within the Untucking Academy, we had a challenge, um, a

community challenge where every day we were gonna practice mindfulness.

Now, if I told someone you're gonna do mindfulness 20 days in a row, good luck.

That would probably be overwhelming, right?

So instead, I created a challenge day by day thing, and I told 'em exactly what

you're gonna do for 30 or for 20 days.

Excuse, excuse me.

Okay.

So this challenge had to be- I implemented Kaizen principles into it.

The goal was to build safety state a little bit, or at

least become more familiar with mindfulness and your inner world.

That was the big goal.

We had to make things smaller.

So what is the smallest step I can take today to move closer to my goal?

Around 30 seconds per day of mindfulness, and then each day

would get slightly more challenging.

Okay, that was the first thing.

That is the super small step, right?

30 seconds a day of mindfulness.

That's, that's, that's very doable.

And then slightly in increasing the, um, challenge per day.

So on day one it was like, use your sense of smell to identify if you

would like or dislike something.

The day after that, it was use your sense of smell to identify how

something, uh, affects your breathing.

The next day was how it affects your muscle tension.

The next day was how it affects your will- um, are you more or less likely to smile?

I think it was.

And then the fifth day was, uh, the sensations in your body.

So it got a little bit more complex each day.

And then we started over with the next sense.

So we did four rounds of four senses, well, five days of four senses.

So how can I make this effortless and even enjoyable?

We did it with the community.

That was I, to me, it made, I, I participated.

I loved it.

It was a really good experience, and they were small, small moments.

What's one simple way this can fit into existing routine?

Around 30 seconds.

I mean, if you can find 30 seconds in your day, you know?

Yeah.

Like, you can do that.

There was days where I forgot it and I was, I saw, I was prompted by

like a, a community notification.

And so it was like, oops, 30 seconds.

Oh, I could do this.

It's, I'm not behind.

I could easily do this.

I'm sitting on my couch.

I saw the prompt come up 'cause someone else had done it that day.

And so I just stopped what I was doing.

I touched my couch for 30 seconds, mindfully using my hand.

That was it.

Real simple.

Didn't have to do anything special.

Check, check for that day.

What small action needs to happen before I can move forward on day zero?

I told people, if you wanna do it, type in the comments I'm in.

That was a small action that got the ball rolling, and then you click

the button and start the challenge.

That was pretty much it to start moving forward.

So let's see what Tatiana, how she does this.

She wants to start an org origami hobby, but she's been putting it off forever.

Every time she tries to start, she thinks about the struggles of leaving

the house to go to the art store, dealing with people, spending money.

So even though it's a small goal, it's just like, yeah, buy paper.

But for someone who may be stuck in offensive state, it's like, no, no, no.

There's all these steps that come into play that are gonna

challenge me every step of the way.

So the goal is start an origami hobby.

Okay?

A smaller goal is to engage in origami three times a week.

That's not bad, but that still might be too much.

The kaizen goal is fold the piece of paper every day.

As a start.

So what's the small steps you can take?

Find one sheet of paper, any paper, and fold it.

It could be a piece of, it could be a post-it note.

It doesn't matter.

The point is to make a small step and start building the practice to make, to

start moving forward without overwhelm.

How can she make this effortless?

Uh, keep it in her pocket.

You can fold a piece of paper no matter where you're at.

What's one simple way to put this into her routine?

Uh, fold it while watching tv.

Fold it while your hand's in your pocket on the elevator.

Fold it while, uh, cooking.

Maybe she has a cookbook and she could fold the cookbook page.

Although, I wouldn't like that personally.

I also don't like cooking.

What small action needs to happen before she can move forward?

Find the first piece of paper right now.

That's it.

All right, James.

James wants to improve his health, lose weight and build muscle, but

he's been putting it off for years, prioritizing work and family.

Instead, the thought of going to the gym makes him feel

overwhelmed, self-conscious, and exhausted before he even starts.

He worries about the time commitment, the effort required,

and whether he can keep up.

Maybe the money too.

Doesn't want to feel alone and insecure.

So what's the goal causing defense?

He wants to lose weight and build muscle in the gym.

The smaller goal is to build a gym at home.

Maybe get some dumbbells or a bench or something like that.

The kaizen goal.

'cause that could be overwhelming and very costly.

So the Kaizen goal is well just go for a walk every day.

Let's start there.

That could be an option.

There's, there's many options.

The smallest step he can take today to move closer is to go for a walk, maybe

lift a milk jug, maybe pick up his kids.

That's better than not, right?

How can he make the goal effortless and enjoyable?

Walk with his family, uh, maybe make a game out of it.

What's one simple way he can fit this into his routine?

Walk around the office during phone calls, park further away from the entrance.

Um, stand up during non-screen time at work.

Those are really easy ways to start being more mobile instead of going

to the gym and being overwhelmed.

What small action needs to happen before he can move forward?

Ask his family to join him.

Maybe email, HR about a standing desk if you just find something

to have to lift around the house.

So this is where I wanna hear from you.

This is Heather's predicament.

Heather wants to go back to school, but she's been putting it off.

She feels overwhelmed, worried about her work, school life

balance, and she's unsure about financial and time commitment.

So you don't have to answer all of these.

Let's do this as a, as a little group here.

What, what is the goal causing Heather's defense?

Or what's a possible smaller goal, or what's a kaizen goal?

I wanna hear from you in the chat, if you don't mind, please.

And then after this, we're gonna, we're gonna apply this to yourself and I

want you to come up with your own goal.

Just, just self-reflection.

You don't have to share with everybody.

What do you got though?

What's the goal causing Heather's defense

Returning?

Yeah.

Pretty simple, right?

What's a possible smaller goal?

And if you can, what is a Kai angle?

What's a super small goal that she could not fail doing a short course?

Yeah, absolutely.

Tasha, good job.

How would you, how can we make that even smaller?

What is a tiny thing she could do in the direction of getting back to school?

Yeah.

Tasha says, Kaizen goal.

Could be reading a book on the topic or watching YouTube

video listening to podcasts.

Yeah, just kinda get the, get the wheels moving.

It could also be, maybe the smaller goal is to do, um, you know, like a smaller

class or a course or something like that.

A kaizen goal could be just research it.

Today, you research it.

That's it.

Today you spend two minutes, um, looking up the program.

The next day you spend two minutes finding another program.

That's it.

Okay.

Yeah.

There you go.

C says, visiting a website of an educational institution.

That's it.

So we wouldn't tell Heather, yeah, you should do that today.

You should register and do the research and figure everything out today.

Good luck.

That's easy.

You could do that, Heather.

That's probably too much.

It, it's too overwhelming.

She says she's feel overwhelmed.

It's a huge change.

Alan says, yeah, course.

Mary Jane.

Mary Jones, excuse me.

Course catalog.

Peter chatting to people who are already taking short courses,

us all, all great ideas.

So Heather could totally do one of these today, one tomorrow, one the next day.

Or if she wasn't super rushed, she could do one per week.

You know, the point is to make it small, so small that it's not overwhelming.

So if we challenge Heather to look at one program today, she'd probably

say, yeah, I can handle that.

That's easy.

I can, I can totally do that.

Okay.

That's the point here.

And all of a sudden the overwhelm is not an issue because it's like, oh

yeah, that's, that's laughably easy.

So I'll give you a couple minutes just for yourself.

You don't have to put it in the chat, but thank you for participating

everybody that, that did that.

Um, what is it you wanna achieve?

What's one thing that you wanna achieve?

And if it's just like showering daily and you're struggling with that, that's fine.

Whatever.

If you wanna join a gym or join a local bike club, that's great too.

You wanna start a business?

That's great.

What?

It doesn't matter to me.

What is one thing that you want to achieve or work toward or improve?

What is it you wanna spend more time doing?

So what simple things.

Now you don't have to answer all of these.

Don't, don't try and answer all of them, okay?

But just kinda like latch on.

If one of these speaks to you, just latch onto it and maximize it.

So what simple things do you need to do?

What is it you're putting off, or what daily things do you neglect?

If you, if you're, if in your mind I'm like, I've been putting off, um,

I, I'm supposed to sketch every day and that's part of the, this course

I'm in, I've been putting it off.

Like that, maybe that's the one you latch onto.

If you're getting ancy and you gotta get outta the house.

Maybe there's a, a person or a place that, that's been calling to

you and calling number two there.

Maybe it's time to act on that.

I don't expect you to go like set up the cruise right now.

That's not the point we want.

Make a step in that direction.

Or is there a big thing that you want to take on?

Like a hobby, your project, a business and adventure?

Or is there a movement that just kind of feels, would feel good

walking, jogging, singing, working.

If one of you speaks to you and you're like, yeah, that's the one

I wanna do, just latch onto it.

'cause the next slide is I want you to answer one of these questions.

I don't expect you to have the perfect kaizen goal right now, but

let's take a step in that direction.

So if your goal is woodworking or art practice or whatever, what

is the smallest step you can take today to move toward that goal?

Oh, says her.

That was referring to that.

That's supposed to be for you toward your goal.

So if your goal is woodworking, well, do you have wood?

Or do you have the tools?

And if not, is it time to get it on Amazon or go to the store?

And if that's too much, can you imagine wood working?

Can you just put yourself in that space?

Can you organize the environment for wood working?

Can you make one step today to organize the wood working space?

Nice.

Lisa.

Good job.

Vis, that's super small, Lisa.

Beautiful.

Visualize it.

That is a step in the right direction.

Um, okay.

That doesn't speak to you though.

How can you make this goal feel effortless and even enjoyable?

I'll be honest, Lisa, when you said daily art practice, I'm like,

oh, I wanna do that with Lisa.

I cannot commit to that Lisa.

But the, in my mind I'm like, oh, let's do it with somebody.

There's actually someone I, I really want us to get back to drawing.

I love drawing.

And there's someone locally who's a amazing artist and a good friend of mine

and we try setting up a monthly thing.

And I knew he was not gonna follow through.

And he did.

We met once and that was it.

But it'd be fun to get back into that.

Nice.

Lisa,

Tasha, you're, you're set up.

Tasha, are you more likely to spend one minute out there

versus zero today, tomorrow?

Or would you like to spend one minute, you know, can we go out there into

those spaces and just touch the things and say, just feel it, connect

with it, and then say, I'll, I'll be here tomorrow for one minute.

Uh, what's one simple way you can fit this goal into your existing routine?

If you have a special place to draw or do woodworking, can you walk through that

space on your way outside to the car?

And then what small action needs to happen before you can move forward?

You don't have to answer all these.

I just want you to identify one thing that's like, that's

the one I I got- I can do that.

Just whatever lights you up a little bit more.

Run with it.

Okay.

You already have some really good ideas.

I wanna save some time for q and a. Hopefully this, um.

There you go.

I can try committing to one minute.

Tasha, if you could do 30 seconds, I'm ecstatic for you.

What you'll find.

Heck yeah, Lisa.

What you'll find is as you start doing these kaizen steps, it, it snowballs.

Um, once you do that first thing, you'll be like, that was silly.

That was easy.

I can totally do that again right now.

That's probably what you're gonna find.

Um, I have, with my business that I do, there's things in the back

of my mind, it's like, I, I want to get to that, I want to get to

that, you know, and then I don't.

But then once I make a small Kaizen goal and I, I work with a, with somebody, she

and I are like accountability partners.

We each set up our goals, and once I come up with a small one, I, I'm

really good at creating things.

So I nail it and I'm like, oh, I could.

I could totally do the next thing and just, it just like, it just unravels.

But that first step is where the kaizen, I think really is huge.

And, and the small daily practices as well.

So the, yeah, this quote probably has, hopefully it has more meaning to you.

The journey of a thousand miles begins with this single step.

Before we get to the q and a, I wanted to just interject a little something here.

I know that you are feeling stuck.

Uh, maybe more than feeling it.

Maybe you are stuck.

You've tried everything but but not broken.

You've tried everything and nothing is creating lasting change.

Even though you have talked about your past endlessly in therapy, maybe you've

assigned your feelings, some parts, uh, you've moved your eyes back and

forth, maybe held a couple of paddles, maybe said hello to an inner child.

Rolled around on the floor, gotten special crystals, um, gone on retreats,

joined cohorts and vigilantly, monitored your thinking to root

out any and all negative thoughts.

But what you haven't tried is actually connecting with your

feelings with compassion and patience.

And curiosity.

I know that sounds hard and it is, it is hard.

But when you do that.

When you stop trying to get rid of your stuckness and instead

connect with it mindfully, it can kind of take care of itself.

And I know that sounds weird, it sounds different, and

that's because, well, it is.

It is different, but this is exactly what we do inside the Unstuck Academy.

I teach you how to increase your curiosity and self-compassion

through building your safety state.

And then when you're ready to, I teach you how to mindfully connect with

your stuckness, and then when you're ready to, I teach you how to actually

relieve it and to self-regulate.

I'm gonna make this sound i'll, I'll double down on this.

I'm gonna make this sound even weirder.

I'm not gonna give you a mountain of courses that you need to sift

through and wish you good luck.

Instead, I'm gonna give you one pathway.

You know how trauma recovery and self-development, they're

like a, a journey, right?

Oh, okay, fine.

Well then I have the pathway.

You'll get deep learning and small lessons that are under 10 minutes.

You'll also get skills practices that increase in challenge as you're ready to.

So no, you don't have to sit with it and reflect on past pains and tell

your trauma narratives endlessly.

And the skills that I teach you there, they're, they're not there

to just kind of make you feel a little bit better for a little bit.

These skills are core self-regulation skills that we all should have

gotten, but maybe didn't, probably didn't, definitely didn't.

The Ucky Academy is designed to build lasting change through Skill Mastery.

So you don't need the Unstuck Academy.

You, I want you to graduate.

You and I have spent a lot of time together here in the podcast, so it might

be time to take this to the next level.

You can learn more about the Unstucking Academy at

StuckNotBroken.com/UnstuckingAcademy.

Okay, now to the q and a.

So any questions you have, I'm happy to address 'em.

It could be about what we talked about today.

If there's nothing on that we have time to address, other questions about

Polyvagal theory or, I don't know, whatever else is on your mind that I have,

uh, something to say about, I suppose.

Logically I totally get the idea of baby steps, but at least emotionally,

I feel like it's not enough.

Even though logically, yes, it's better than nothing, I have until X time to get

to Goal Y and I can't afford to go slow.

Well, that's, yeah.

If there's time constraints, that's gonna make it a lot more difficult.

For example, a person with social anxiety thinks I need to get married by the age

of X. Oh, let's, yeah, but they can't handle big steps and they spiral and

free to shut down any advice or nuance.

So where you went rotem is probably where everybody else went.

I went there too, myself when I first heard these things.

Um, so it's like, yeah, it makes sense.

But, um, so we all go there.

There is this internal like pressure, no matter if it's about marriage or

starting a business or a new hobby or whatever, there's this internal

pressure of like, yeah, I get it, but like, come on, that's not the answer.

So I just wanna, I guess, validate that and normalize that.

That's a very, when I talk about this with my clients, that comes up all the time.

And the, so my response is like.

Right.

I agree with you, but you're, you're not doing anything at all.

So let's, let's do a baby step.

Like I, I don't see any other way to argue against that, you know, not that

you're trying to argue, but you know what, what's the option just to keep saying,

yeah, I need more than not do anything.

So, uh, yeah, that, that's my first response to that as far as like, I

need to get married by the age of X.

Well,

that's probably more of a cultural thing depending on where we're at, right?

I mean, I don't, I don't know.

Saying I, I have to maybe, how about say I want to that, that's fine.

Okay, great.

So you want to Totally fine.

Nothing wrong with that whatsoever.

I'm not saying you wrote them, but just in general.

So you want to, okay, well what can we do about that today?

Well, it's too overwhelming and dating and blah, blah, blah.

Like, okay, great, but you wanna make progress so, today, what's

the goal we can, that we can make?

Is it too much to expect you to go find the perfect relationship today?

Yeah, probably.

Someone worth marrying.

Yeah, probably it's too much.

But, um, I have no idea how people meet people nowadays, so I don't even wanna,

I'm happily married for 16 years.

I don't know how y'all do it.

It seems terrible.

So I don't know what baby step that would be.

It might be like, I, I go, go to something in person, stop using devices.

You know, so it's like, can you attend an event?

Can you attend, um, a local meetup?

Can you attend, um, some sort of local biking club or just something that you're

into where you're more likely to be around people that have similar interests as you?

I, I don't, I don't think the principle gets lost, even if the goal is huge

and you, and we feel really pressured.

I don't think the principle is lost.

It's, it's still true.

We'd rather take a, a step forward today versus none.

Thanks for the question.

Hopefully I addressed it.

Anybody else?

We got a little time here.

I had a client who wanted to get outside more often.

Uh, a lot of anxiety.

She wants to go for a walk every day wasn't happening and we can make the goal.

Okay.

Go for a walk every day for her, it was too much, though.

And, um, so we said, okay, well can you put your shoes

on and walk to the front door?

And she's like, yeah, that ended up being too much for her too.

But, um, she, at this point, she's actually now practicing mindfulness

regularly in small increments in her normal daily routine and do a lot better.

And now she's able to welcome and permit waves of anxiety that come in and out and

she's able to sit with it a lot better.

She's being a lot more proactive.

June and July are my busiest with work.

I get quite overwhelmed and often get sick.

Geez, Louise.

Uh, Tasha, my first thought goes to

the, um, if you mean kaizen, well, my thought went to, um, option

two, which is reducing defense.

So overwhelm work to me that is like, work is work.

We gotta get through it.

It' is what it is.

And so at work, is it possible to do small breaks?

Is it possible to when you're on a lunch break?

I don't, I don't know where you worked, Tasha.

I don't, I don't need to know.

But like, during moments between work, can we mindfully decompress without

being on our phone, without taking on another email, but just can we

truly just decompress and breathe?

After work, can we truly decompress and just like, and just flop and be in

silence for five minutes, 10 minutes?

So when it comes to work, we make it more, um, we make it more benefit from

consistently, uh, reducing overwhelm.

Versus try to find a kaizen goal.

Uh, when it comes to the, to the actual work, and I don't know your

profession, but that's where like the things that we do at work,

how can I streamline this more?

How can I make it more efficient?

What small, one small improvement that I can make to make my life a little

bit easier when it comes to work.

Um, for me, Tasha, I put together this, um, system to make sure I'm

getting stuff done without overwhelm and it's just like three box system.

And in the first box is all the stuff that I don't like doing, but I have to

do like, um, writing progress notes and treatment plan, all, any paperwork kind

of stuff or did you know, screen stuff.

Um, any non therapy, non-creative things.

All that goes in box one.

I have to get this done.

I don't have a choice.

I. I cannot move into to box two until I get box one done.

And then box two is the stuff I like to do, like podcast and blogging

and creating new coursework or refining things in the community.

And then box three is the stuff that I love doing that

doesn't, I just like doing.

It doesn't have any like business payoff exactly in the short term,

but tweaking, you know, design things on my site, playing around with ai,

like tweaking my prompts and whatnot.

Just the stuff that's fun, but like, it's not necessary.

Um, but that's the system I came up with, which is to my three box system.

How to tackle a project or goal that is ongoing source of overwhelm,

kaizen good, but then overwhelm and collapse in between each small step.

Yeah, that, that's kind of how I would lay it out.

Mary Joan, what's the smallest change you can make to streamline

your life a little bit more?

How can we, and even things like if you're working at a certain, um, location

like this, this is my therapy office and I have my own, my home office.

It's really important to me that it is decluttered that I have visual space.

You're welcome, Tasha.

I have visual space, that I have physical space, that I have things organized.

Not like, like I have to, like, it's a compulsion, but it's just when I walk

into a space, I want to feel like, okay, I can focus and I can, you know, work.

So it's, it's pretty important to me that, uh, and it's not like

obsessively clean, but like it's gotta be tidy, clean, organized.

I need to know if I need something, this is where it is, it's gonna be there.

I can get back to work.

And so things like that can be, uh, huge overwhelm release.

It's just little what- what- what little changes can I make to make my

life a little bit more streamlined?

And then, yeah, in between work, after work, how can I

truly decompress before work?

How can I, um, feel maybe a bit more safety or a bit more mindfulness as

a buffer for all of the work stuff?

There was another question here.

This is a tough one, Amanda.

I feel overwhelmed at the grocery store.

How can I reduce the defense of activation in this situation?

So again, Amanda, I want you to think about this in a couple different ways.

Number one is reducing defense before you get there, before the problem.

Number two is during the problem.

Number three is after the problem.

You're gonna get most benefit from number one.

And number three, I think before and after.

During is you can work your way there.

I would say in general, again, in general, I would encourage people to

focus more on number one and number three.

So before and after.

And as that becomes easier than work on when you're there, when I feel

overwhelmed, what can I do about it?

So I would go back through the slides, but to break it down real quick,

um, practice anchoring into safety.

Turning something benign, like a AirPods case.

This is just a, something I like to fidget with, but when I focus on it, I

feel more anchored in my safety state.

And then once I'm in that place, imagine myself going to, and I, I do

this, I have a fear of heights, and I, I, some, I've started doing this

practice, I imagine myself falling.

And it is like, terrifying at first, but it gets, it's getting easier and easier.

So, um, imagine going to the supermarket and being around people

and whatever, you know, the lights and the sounds and all, all the stuff.

Anchor into safety, and then imagine what that feels like

and then come back to safety.

Okay.

That would be in preparation.

And then after you get home, decompress or even in the car, decompress,

tell yourself something kind.

Extend your exhale.

Truly just decompress.

As you use your imagination and imagine it as it gets less reactive, you'll

find that in the store like it's still there, but it's not like it used to be.

It's way more manageable.

And that's actually, I found that with my, my heights fear, that things that

being up high is that I was able to drive over a bridge not too long ago

that was like previously very triggering.

It wasn't triggering at all because I was intentionally putting in

the mental reps ahead of time.