Ep. 23- New Year's Toolkit

As the year 2020 draws to a close, Becky, Tiffany, and Autumn gather virtually to share and discuss their New Year’s Toolkits.  They also talk about what helps them the most moving forward into a new year, not just about getting away from the previous year (*cough* 2020 *cough*).

~Tiffany~

Tiffany starts the podcast sharing her yearly act of reflecting on and expressing gratitude for the last year.  She starts by listing this of note, things that mattered to her over the last year (world, family, personal, and relationship things).  Things that were influential to her over the last year.  She then journals about the year, fully processing her feelings about the year.  Tiffany says she expresses gratitude for the year, “names” the year ( year of growth, year of change, etc…), and then says goodbye to the previous year.  She shares that she begins all of this with a prayer or meditation to get everything out.

Sometimes we don’t let go of things.  This is a way to let it go.

Looking to the next year, Tiffany then list of things she knows will happen and are expect to happen in the next year (graduations, missions, etc…).  She like to also add things that she wants to happen and things she would like to do.  Tiffany says she considers herself an optimist combined with a realist.  She then journals about her fears and hopes about the year.  

Then to end it, she says “Welcome 2021”.  Tiffany shares that she also does this on a small scale each month.  She feels this practice can help with all the negative energy and keeps a more positive focus.  This practice is about looking forward to the next chapter.  Like closing files in your brain and lets your brain rest.

Tiffany also shares that she likes to pick a word for the upcoming year for herself and her family.  She says that there were years she couldn’t do it, but she has been able to do it recently.  She doesn’t over focus on the word and if it feels too hard, that she doesn’t do it.  You can do this with the whole family and work together.

~Autumn~

Autumn shares that they come together as a family and fill out individual forms about a year-in-review.  When her kids were younger, they drew pictures.  Things included on these forms are name, age, favorite things from 2020, favorite food, book, color, activity, and favorite memory.  Autumn shares that they also include a section about the greatest lesson learned from the year, the hardest and easiest thing from the year.  Then they list what they are looking forward to for the next year, including- what do you want to learn, get better at, wishes for the year, and they set ONE goal.  Autumn shares that in her personal experience in the past, she had 20 goals and couldn’t accomplish that.  It was too much.  

Autumn then shares that she looks and finds a personal positive word for the upcoming year. It may be a word that she needs help with or to look forward to.  She likes to look up the meaning, pray about it, find quotes on it, and affirmations on it.  She says she puts the word on the wall in her office so she can see it when she works and also puts it in her bathroom to reflect on daily.  Autumn says she also tries to pick 3 things each day to focus on with her yearly word.  

Autumn is also a big supporter of checking-in with ourselves.  She does a weekly check-in with physically, emotionally, sexually, spiritually, and her self-care.  She shares that she also does a yearly check-in with those areas.  

Over all this year, what have I done in those areas to build myself?

Finally, Autumn says she deep cleans ONE area.  One space that she occupies- a medicine closet, closet, her shoes, etc… She says she like to have one thing to focus on deep cleaning and reorganizing.  

“It pushes me into a better mindset.”

~Becky~

Becky shares that her family started a family word or phrase last year and laughed as she shared tthat their phrase for 2020 was “Into the Unknown”.

New Year’s is a time of change, to look back to reflect and to look forward.  Becky says that with betrayal trauma, New Year’s can feel like it’s a really hard time.  She shares that sometimes she would look back and think “How am I still in this place?”, “How does it still look like this?”.  Or she would try to look forward and struggle to find hope.

Becky shares that it’s important to talk about our feelings this time of year and not just focus about “change and do more and be more and say more”.  She says, “I don’t want us all to get caught up in that”.

If this year has been really hard for you and you look and reflect and recognize that there is not as much good as you want-

Be kind to yourself.

If you are still in a relationship that isn’t where you want to be, be kind to yourself.  Be gentle with yourself. Self-compassion is one of the greatest things we can do to take care of ourselves and the people around us.

Be gentle with yourself.

Becky shares that if you look back and recognize that this last year was not what you were hoping it would be, and you see that it may have been a year of resting, its ok. It’s ok to have a year of resting.  If this was a year of germination for you, be gentle about it.

Instead of goals, Becky says, she sets intentions.  “What do I want different, better in my life?  What can I focus on?”  She tries to give herself space to remember and be more gentle with herself.…   She shares that with goals, she would beat herself up for not accomplishing things.  Instead, with intentions for the year, Becky was able to give herself more space to grow.

Becky says to not be be afraid to start a new tradition or new things in your life.  If something is not working, it’s ok to try something different this year.  She shares that 

We, by nature, grow.  We are built to grow.

She reminds us that doing something new doesn’t have to be big.  Start small and as you look back over your year, you will see growth.

And finally, we all want to encourage everyone to reach out more.  Always reach out more. Almost every single podcast we talk about reaching out.  

We encourage you to reach out a little bit more in the new year.

It has been a great first year and you are in our prayers!  

Please reach out with comments and questions.  We would love to help provide more support and resources in the upcoming year.

Becky closes with this: I want to thank my cohosts who are all amazing beyond compare.  And with a shoutout to Richard, my husband- who is our tech guy and we couldn’t do it without him.

New Year’s Song:

Rise Up (Lazarus) by Cain

Ep. 22- Meditation and Betrayal Trauma, Ryan Raleigh, LCHMC

Becky and Autumn sit down with Ryan Raleigh, Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor with LifeStar Salt Lake and Redwood Therapy. Ryan has been married for twenty years and has eight kids. On this podcast, he shares his personal and professional journey and insights about meditation and provides a guided meditation during the podcast.

Ryan shares that he experienced betrayal trauma both as a child and in his first marriage. He identifies with and remembers the agonies of betrayal trauma, such as the hard-to-manage invasive thoughts, feeling crazy, and feeling like a private detective.

Ryan says began integrating meditation into his personal life and his counseling practice several years ago. He describes meditation as

the process of “looking inward” on your body sensations, thoughts,

images floating by and what is happening all around you.

Ryan asserts that you can do meditation anywhere you want; it doesn’t even have to be quiet around you. He explains that when you meditate and your mind wanders, be really gentle bringing the focus back. 

Like bringing a bubble over with a feather.

Ryan says there are no “have tos” in meditation, and that even a one-minute meditation is okay. He explains, however, that meditating for at least three to five minutes is enough to change you.  Ryan shares he began his meditation journey with guided meditation and there are many other types of meditation including transcendental, yoga (moving meditation), and mantra (a repeated affirmation over and over).

Ryan is particularly interested in how meditation can heal trauma. “Trauma scars the brain,” he says. “It creates ruts and neuropathways—it hurts the brain in ways we’re still trying to understand.” Betrayal trauma is particularly harmful because “the person you want to talk to is also the enemy,” he says.

Ryan reminds us that trauma is stored in our bodies, not just our brains. Because of this, we often feel like our body is betraying us and letting us down. However, Ryan shares that our bodies are actually trying to protect us, and he invites us to:

 Love that protection instead of shaming that protection.

Meditation can help the rumination, invasive thoughts, and triggers associated with betrayal trauma. Ryan describes that, “So often we’re acting in a reactionary mode. But just the understanding that we’re being triggered helps us to slow down.”

Ryan says that during a trauma response, blood is going to the center of our brain and it doesn’t have access to the prefrontal cortex. But when you can recognize that trigger, we re-route the pathways to our brain to allow more blood to the prefrontal cortex.

Kindness to ourselves, Ryan shares, is of paramount importance. “If we were to shame our reaction and our trigger, we stick ourselves in place. But if we are to be kind, we can move through that.”

If we are kind to ourselves, then we can grow.

Ryan reminds us that, while meditating, we’re not going to use judgement, but we’re just going to notice.

Becky shares that one of the things she loves about meditation is you can always make it your own. Ryan explains further that he started, years ago, with guided meditations, but now does self-guided meditations. These self-guided meditations often involve utilizing his authentic, higher self to help heal.

When asked about what restoration means to him, Ryan responds: “All my mistakes will be accounted for my gain. All those struggles and trials will serve to strengthen me. The parts of me that I hate the most, I have to learn to love those. God can help us love those. The atonement was accomplished by equal measures of love with equal measures of pain”.  He shares that 

Restoration was always meant to happen.

Becky reminds us that, “the pain is an essential part of this process, of this life.”

Autumn shares that she feels like this pain is generational because we take on our ancestors’ DNA, their problems and what they left behind, and we are healing that. For her, restoration involves “repairing what has been broken before and giving love and light ahead.”  

Ryan encourages the practice of meditation by inviting us to “Take something that you’re struggling with and allow your mind to focus on it. When your mind wanders and you bring it back, that’s one push up. When our mind wanders and you bring it back again, that’s two push ups. And so on.” 

With meditation, the “right” way is the way that works for you. Honesty is essential to this process. 

“When we hide,” he says, “we can’t be healed. That’s freedom—to let ourselves be seen.”

Ryan’s favorite resources:

Honesty

Self-Kindness

In meditation, let your mind wander and practice bringing it back

Meditation app that works for you (“Calm”, “Breathe”, other free apps available)

Music- pay attention to notes and your body

Practice!!!

Ryan’s Song: 

“If We’re Honest” by Francesca Battistelli