Whatever with Heather - Mindset, Parenting & Personal Growth
From mindset, to parenting, to life's ups and downs... nothing is off the table. This podcast is here to encompass the many sides of us all.
Whatever with Heather - Mindset, Parenting & Personal Growth
38. Stop Ruining Your Own Day: The Daily Five & Letting Go of Control
In this episode we explore how to navigate life's unknowns and stay mentally healthy through simple daily practices that build resilience.
• New podcast format includes full episodes and shorter "pep talk" episodes
• The "Daily Five" practices that help manage anxiety and depression: stillness, movement, breath, intention, and growth
• Importance of "parenting yourself" by making yourself do what you know is beneficial for mental health
• How trying to control the uncontrollable creates unnecessary anxiety and ruins our own day
• We can control our actions but not outcomes or most external circumstances
• Anxiety often comes from the false belief we can control the future through worry
• Learning to surrender to life's unknowns brings more peace than fighting them
This week's challenge: commit to practicing your version of the Daily Five and recognize where you're trying to control things you can't.
Hey y'all, welcome back to another episode of Whatever with Heather. The last episode was in June. We took the summer for a breather. In July we went to Wyoming and worked on a property there and then we headed back home and then it's been fast and furious living up the last few days of summer and then straight into kid activities and straight into school. Today is our kids' first day of school and I am back here filming.
Heather:This podcast is going to take on a little bit of a new rhythm. There will be two episodes a week one full episode and then one what I want to call pep talk episode or just a shorter mini episode. I was listening to some listener feedback and even some conversations I've had with friends when we've gone on walks, and the feedback I've gotten is that sometimes we just need a little pep talk, a little something help us feel empowered and capable and resilient and able to handle life. These shorter, what I'm calling pep talk episodes some will be meditations, some will be breath work and some will just be straight up pep talks. And I definitely see in the future, and maybe near future, pep talks that you can share with your kiddos, especially middle school and teenage kiddos, on just some real talk about life. I'm excited to start some shorter format episodes to better serve y'all, and at the time of recording this episode, we are also at over a thousand downloads of the episodes and having a thousand downloads across those first 37 episodes. I'm just so thankful. So thank you for listening and for sharing.
Heather:Now let's dive into it. Today we're going to talk a little bit about managing and dealing with the unknowns, the constant ebb and flow of life, and how to deal with that. Now I know there's a lot of portrayal online of people having things figured out. People don't like to show that they are still actually going through life, like they may have tools and frameworks to help them navigate life, but they are still living life and still going through hard things and are not perfectly managing or dealing with them. I am no different. In a past episode I talked about my struggles with anxiety and depression, and in no way do I want it to seem like I have it all figured out and I don't experience anxiety and I don't experience feeling depressed, because I do, and this last school year where I worked as a teacher, it really brought to the surface where I still have some things I definitely need to figure out, and maybe even less so figure out and more so do the things that I know I need to do to keep my mind right. I feel like for most people who experience anxiety and or depression maybe both there's kind of this understanding that there are times where it is heavier and more front and center and times where it is less so.
Heather:I really like to view anxiety and depression as flowing in and flowing out, just like any other emotion. Happiness comes in and then it goes out. Anger comes in and it goes out. Depression same thing and anxiety the same thing. As opposed to like this constant undercurrent. They just flow in and flow out, but there are times where they flow in and they stay a while and they hang out and they get real comfortable.
Heather:And during my year teaching, this is what kind of happened to me. I never really sat in just a constant state of anxiety. I would feel like anxiety was kind of the more forefront feeling I felt. I felt on edge, like I was having to watch my back, which was actually kind of true but anxiety came in and it would wake me up at night and I'm still dealing with some of the after effects of this ebb and flow of feeling anxious or stressed and therefore, when I'm feeling a lot of anxiety, I can feel a lot of demotivation, a lot of meh, which for me is depression. Right, that feels like depression to me this lack of motivation, this lack of being able to, like, grit myself forward or compel myself to do the things that I love or that I know I need to do. And with this year of teaching, it was a lot less coming in and going, but more like anxiety came in and stress came in and I was in an uncomfortable situation that I couldn't escape and I really had to deal with that. And at this point I'm still kind of dealing with some of the after effects of that and, on top of that, the stress of starting a new business and all the unknowns that come with that. This summer has really been a time of having some time and space to get myself to do the things I know I need to do, to have my mind right, and I want to share those five things with you really quickly.
Heather:I sat down years ago and I came up with what I felt like were the things that, if I do daily, really help me keep anxiety and depression at bay, really keep my mind in a space that I like to be in or enjoy to be in, more than feeling anxious or stressed or depressed or meh or bleh. And the thing about these things is that you really have to parent yourself, meaning you have to make yourself do the things you know you need to do. Like, if you know scrolling your phone makes you anxious or stressed, then you have to parent you and make yourself get off the phone. So this can be about things that we need to stop doing and also things we need to do. And here are the five things that I found that, if they're in pretty much my every day, I'm in such a better headspace. I call them the daily five stillness, movement, breath, intention and growth. Those are the five things that, if they're in my daily life, I function so much better, I'm so much more capable and able and ready to handle the waves of life whatever comes in. I'm just more resilient. And it's really small, small things.
Heather:But I found that when I was in the middle of this really stressful work environment and didn't have a ton of time or space and, if I'm calling myself out, did not make or create the time and space to make sure I was doing the things I needed to do to keep myself mentally healthy. That caused the anxiety to just kind of hang out and simmer for a little bit. Part of getting older is becoming really good at parenting yourself, becoming really good at calling yourself out when you are not doing the things you know you need to do. The problem with like feeling anxious and depressed is that those things further make you not want to do the things you know you need to do, and parenting yourself is making yourself do them anyway. This is challenging and, as someone who has navigated anxiety and depression and I don't feel like they're so constant in my life to have them show up this last school year and show up with such a presence, especially like feeling anxious and stressed and like on edge, to have them show up was very eye opening to me that I am not holding myself accountable to doing the daily things I know I need to do, to be in the right headspace, because as I went through all of this, I was not doing these things, I was getting in movement. I did pretty well with that, starting in January when all of this was going on, but then I was still kind of missing these other pieces. If you think of it like nutrition like you can get all the protein you want but you need carbs and you need fats to be a fully functioning human being there will be losses psychologically and physically if you don't have all of the building blocks, all of the building blocks, all of the macronutrients that you need. So I could fit in movement and know that it helps my anxiety, but for me that's not using all the tools that I have and know that I need to be a well-rounded, fully functioning adult, mentally and physically. I've talked about these before on my Instagram, I believe on this podcast, but just a quick recap.
Heather:Stillness is anything from meditation to coloring, to reading, to anything that helps you be in the present moment that you are in. Stillness is time away from the noise, the phone and the demands of other people. Whether that is 30 seconds or five minutes or an hour for me does not seem to actually matter that much. It just matters that I have time for that and not that I actually have time. Let me reword that and be clear. I make time for that, I carve out time for that, even if it's an apparent pickup, and I turn everything off and I just sit there in stillness, no music, on no phone, and I just breathe, because breathing is another one of the daily five. If I sit in stillness and breathe three deep breaths and I try to fill up a little more with air each time and empty out a little more with air each time, it could be sitting at a stoplight and taking conscious breaths, paying attention to my belly filling up with air. I find that to be so centering. And then you have the stillness piece, where you turn off the noise and get really present in the present moment. Sometimes stillness for me is doing watercolor with music on in the background.
Heather:It's not about being right or doing the right thing. It's about how can I find a way to be exactly present in this moment, even if it is just parent pickup, and I'm sitting here with myself and my breath hitting two of the daily five. So we have stillness, we have breath. Breath can be tied in with stillness or breath can be completely separate and we need to actually be spending more parts of our day taking intentional breaths, paying attention to our breath and using it as a tool to calm ourselves or bring a sense of presence and being in our body instead of being so in our heads, which is where a lot of our anxiety sits. We also have movement going on a walk, stretching, working out no right or wrong. If I am moving my body intentionally once a day, even for five minutes, my depression anxiety much more manageable or not even present.
Heather:The other one is intention. Now, intention can seem a lot like stillness and breath, and then we have intention, but intention is actually separate from those. Intention is going through your day in the way you want to go through your day, and not just on autopilot, not just on habits. Now, if you've built good, productive habits that lead you forward in life, yes, rely on your habits, but if you know that you are on autopilot that is not any sort of life you truly want to live then it's time to get really intentional. And if you are living a life out of habit, can you get present and be intentional about making sure that you're finding time for stillness and breath? So the fourth thing is intentions. We have stillness, breath, movement, intention, and the fifth thing is growth. Now, I don't think you need something that is growth-oriented every single day, but we're talking a book, listening to a podcast, setting goals, dreaming big or dreaming small and just saying, hey, I want to be more present with my kids and then being intentional and finding ways to do that. When I'm doing those five things daily, or at least three of them daily, I'm a different person. I am way better equipped to handle the ebb and flow of emotions and the unknown that come in and go. And, as I found myself at the end of last school year, I was only like doing movement and the other pieces weren't there. And this summer has been about parenting myself, and it still continues to be about parenting myself and making myself do the things I know I need for my mental health.
Heather:We have to make ourselves do the things we know we need to do. Health. We have to make ourselves do the things we know we need to do. We have to make ourselves have a well-balanced nutritional diet so that we're physically healthy, and we have to make ourselves do the actions that help us be mentally healthy. Sometimes we hold ourselves to a low, low standard and we do not call ourselves out and call ourselves to just do some of these really simple things. So we call ourselves out because we know we want something different and we know and kind of understand what we need to do and it's not as complicated as we might think it has to be or should be. And that's sometimes why it's more difficult, because it seems so simple. It shouldn't make that big of a difference if it's so simple, but it really truly does.
Heather:So when I'm doing all five of those things, my mental health and therefore my actual physical life is in such a better place. And when I am slacking and not doing those things, downward spiral guaranteed, or anxiety and depression come in and just sit. It is not an ebb and flow anymore, it's just a hangout of anxiety and depression that maybe I don't notice because I'm pretty good at, like, maneuvering through life. But then, like when I get really still, I'm like, oh, dread. Or I get really still, I'm like, oh, I'm very stressed out. That's how I know I'm not doing the things I know I need to do. It's in those moments of stillness or when your sleep is interrupted because you're so stressed out and you haven't done the things you need to do to regulate yourself. That's how you know it's time to maybe step up and make sure you're doing the things you need to do to stay mentally healthy, and for me, it's those five things. Now we can do those five things or we can do the things we know that help us manage anxiety or overwhelm. And also a huge part of this is our mindset. I know mindset's a buzzword it's even part of what I talk about in this podcast but mindset is huge.
Heather:Today, when we took our kids to school, one drove herself and she was late, so I don't know how she felt about that, but we drove the other two to school and they were late. We have talked a lot as a family about being late to things, and I remember it was back in 2020, I was cleaning people's houses and one of the houses I was going to be probably like five minutes late to. I had forgotten some of my cleaning things, so I had to turn around, go back home and get them. And as I was driving to this house and I knew I was going to be late there was no changing that fact I was going to be late I started feeling like stress, like oh my gosh, I'm going to be late, and then I thought and so what? Like I am going to be late, that is a fact, and by stressing about it on my way there. All I'm doing is ruining my own day further, and there's really no reason to. I'm already late. That's a fact. I'm going to be late and stressing about it now literally changes nothing Zero. So when we were on our way to school today, our kids could see other kids were late as well, but I'm always just reminding them and me that I change nothing about us being late. By stressing about the fact that we're late. I just ruin my own day. The car behind me doesn't care that I'm sitting in the car freaking out that we're late. The car in front of me doesn't care that I'm freaking out. I'm literally only ruining my own day and probably the day of the people in the car with me by me freaking out and worrying about it.
Heather:This can be expanded to other parts of our life as well. For example, right now we are opening a business. Well, we've opened the business. We are in the growth phase of business and in every business you have a phase where you are growing and expanding and the hopes you have and the dreams you have for the business are on their way, but they have not arrived yet. And the crazy thing about business is you do not know when they will arrive. So if you're late somewhere, you know you're probably eventually going to get there and you might even know exactly what time you're going to get there, thanks to Google maps.
Heather:When it comes to things in life, we don't know when they are arriving. We have very little control over when things arrive. We can do the work we need to do and do the things we know will help move us forward, but we can't Google Maps ourselves. We can't direct ourselves or route ourselves to our future and say, oh, it's 37 days from now. That's what makes life sometimes very stressful when we're working towards a bigger goal or a high risk situation. But in like these moments where we're doing this, like spiraling of anxiety and stress, we can do the same zoom out that we do when we're driving somewhere and we can ask ourselves am I just ruining my own day by stressing about things I don't have control over? Because, once again, here I am sitting in my house and the people next door to me actually very great people the people next door to me don't know if I'm freaking out. Also, my business that I'm building doesn't know if I'm freaking out, the only person currently experiencing the horrible reality of me freaking out is myself and possibly my family.
Heather:Us trying to control the future first of all is a little insane if we're being real, but we want to be able to do it. We like the thought that we can control and pull the strings that will make everything happen how we want it to, in the timeframe we want it to. And in reality, that belief makes us ruin our own day. It could even be in working out and you're trying to work to some sort of fitness or aesthetic body goal. You don't get to choose when that happens and we drive ourselves crazy and ruin our own day-to-day life by thinking we do have control over the future and there is this duality of control. And I think this is where we get stuck, because we do have control over our own actions. So whether or not I go work out, whether or not I record this podcast, whether or not I am patient with my kids, I do have control over that, but the bigger picture of life I have minimal control over. I don't have control if I'm on my way somewhere and then there was an accident and now I'm really late. I could have done everything perfectly and been perfectly prepared, but life is unknown and unknowable.
Heather:We make predictions on what we think might happen in the future based on what is currently happening or what has happened in the past, but that doesn't make it real or fact. And yet we have this thought or this belief that we somehow can control and manipulate so many parts of life, and yet so many parts are unknown. The unknown is always there, even when we think we have it quote unquote handled. And so then, when the unknown pops up, we're like what? I had that handled? I don't get it. And we're shocked every time. Every time the unknown happens, we're like what? But yet that's just as constant as the sun rising, as cheesy as that sounds. The sun comes up each day and the unknown happens every day, and sometimes it's a bigger, more life-changing unknown, and sometimes it's a small thing.
Heather:But we so often let our belief that we can control the unknown ruin our day-to-day life and the thought that we can control or manipulate the future ruin our day-to-day life. Life is going to throw curveballs. So we zoom out and we ask ourselves am I just ruining my own day, and for what purpose? So that I can pretend I have some sort of control over the unknown and unknowable of life. As I'm saying this out loud, this is kind of a little pep talk for myself.
Heather:I wake up sometimes stressed at night about the things I have no control over and I ruin my own day stressing about the things I have no control over. I don't want y'all to think this is my everyday life and I'm stressed all the time. No, that is not reality either. There are times where I am so aware of my inability to control the future and then there are other times where I guess I'm a crazy person, like all of us are, and we think we have some sort of future control powers and when we can get based in reality that we have control over our actions and how we try to navigate the world, but not even like necessarily perfect control over those. We have to give ourselves grace and understanding that we're just human, just as human as everybody else around, and that we have very little control over the future. Even the next hour. I have very little control over what happens in the next hour. I have three kids at three different schools. I can't make them be safe, I can't make them have a good day, I can't control any of that and I can ruin my own day by thinking that if I think about it enough, I somehow control it. A lot of life is learning to surrender and show up.
Heather:When I think about this trying to control life, it makes me think back to when I had first graduated high school and I was in college and then I moved to another state and I listened to a lot of audiobooks and in one of the audiobooks I listened to it was a self-help book. It talked about that when someone is driving recklessly around you, it often makes you mad. Right, you, they're driving recklessly, maybe they're driving and they're really, really mad and they're angry and that's why they're driving like that. And then they're like tailgating you and going around you and you kind of like pick up on that energy and maybe you start tailgating them because you want to be fair and you want things to be just. And now you've changed your whole mood of the day because of somebody else having a bad day.
Heather:And in this audio book it said something along the lines of that if someone is driving aggressively or recklessly, just let them go past you and let them just go get in an accident somewhere else and not with you. I remember thinking you're just going to let them get in an accident. That's like rude. But then I also was like, wait, but by me matching their energy I'm now putting myself at risk and them at risk and everyone else at risk. So I started this practice young, 18, right Of, when a car was driving aggressively around me I'd be like, okay, I'm just going to pull over to the right in the right lane, let them pass me and let them go get an accident somewhere else, and I just let them go. Hopefully they didn't get an accident. But the reframing of I don't have to match their energy, I don't have to feel what they're feeling. I can just pull over, view it as me driving safely, not trying to be fair, not trying to control the outcome, not trying to show them I'm mad too and I'm upset at how they're driving. No, I just get in the right lane, let them pass and let them move on with their day and I move on with mine.
Heather:This is when I began the practice of choosing peace and choosing my own vibe in situations I couldn't control, and choosing my own vibe in situations I couldn't control. This was my like early self-training of mastery of self in a chaotic and unknown world. I mean, I didn't realize it at the time that that's what I was doing, but I was like, yeah, I don't have to match that energy. So this is where we have this self-check moment. When our day is stressful or we're feeling really anxious about something that's in the future or even something now, we can ask ourselves am I just ruining my own day by stressing or being mad or trying to control something I can't control and thereby probably ruining the life experience of the people I love most around me because they are dealing with me, trying to puppeteer and manipulate things I can't control? And then I'm overwhelmed because I'm trying to control the world and I can't. And then I become this version of me that is stressed and anxious and then can't do the things I love because I'm depressed, because I can't do everything and I can't manage it all.
Heather:This is how a lot of us are operating. We are operating hoping and believing that we could just worry or fret or stew on or think about or catastrophize enough that we can control it all. And we can't that. If we just were stressed enough about it, we would have control. That if we just were mad enough about it, we would have control.
Heather:Life is this roller coaster of unknown. It's a roller coaster of feelings and emotions, like we feel excited and we can also feel heartbroken. In the same day, even in the same hour, the same three minutes. Life is also this roller coaster of times where we trust the unknown, we surrender to the unknown, and then also time where this fear of the unknown comes and sits and the fear of the unknown tries to convince us that we can somehow control it, and then we just ruin our own day, and then we do that day after day after day, in this anxious spiral of fearing the unknown and thereby trying to control it.
Heather:It's the belief that we can't control things we can't control that makes so many of us anxious. And then, when we realize we can't control them, we feel depressed and hopeless. What if we just accepted the fact that we can't control so many things about life? What if we surrendered to that? We cannot control them and instead find ways to enhance our experience of life and enhance our day-to-day, instead of ruining our day-to-day by trying to control and manipulate the future or even our current reality of unknowns, as we parent ourselves and make ourselves do whatever it is that we know we need to do, and I believe that you are capable of starting to figure out or know what you need.
Heather:But if you're feeling overwhelmed and don't know where to start, I would start with the daily five. Are you moving? Are you finding time to be still? When was the last time you noticed your breath and breathed intentionally? Where are you being intentional about your life and where are you on autopilot in a way that's not serving you? And what can you do to grow or to dream? I invite you to even just try the daily five and then also just start to be aware of where am I ruining my own day? Where am I trying to exercise control over things I have no control over and thereby ruining my own day? Where am I trying to exercise control over things I have no control over and thereby ruining my own day?
Heather:By beginning to make peace with the fact that we are highly out of control of a lot of things and therefore being intentional and doing what we know we need to do for the things we do have control over. That gives us some grounding, that gives us some anchoring in our life, but then it also allows us to surrender so many things that we currently are trying to control. So my pledge is that I will be doing the Daily Five and sharing about it on Instagram and how it's going, and I invite you to do the Daily Five as well Stillness, movement, breath, intention, growth and see how things change. And if you know there's something else that you know you need, maybe you take out one of those or you make your own list and begin to hold yourself accountable to doing the things you know you need to do, to stay mentally healthy, to begin to reframe life in general If you are constantly anxious to begin to get real about what you actually have control over and maybe laugh at past you or current you that just thinks you can manipulate and control it all because you can't, I can't, you can't. So for the next week, we are going to work on doing the things we know. We need to do Three to five of them, whatever they are, or you can do the five that I suggested and we'll check in a week from now and see how we're doing.
Heather:Thank y'all for being here for this episode of Whatever with Heather. Stay tuned for another episode this week, a pep talk episode, a shorter episode to just give you a little boost of you know, whatever, a boost of whatever with Heather oh man, that's cheesy. A boost of whatever. Am I going to leave that in the podcast, potentially, and I will see y'all next week for another episode of whatever with Heather. Talk to you soon. Bye.