Tina 00:00:00 I can't think of another time where we've been exposed to so much stress, anxiety, fear, all of all of the feelings then, right now. And I myself have felt quite overwhelmed sometimes, and I've decided to really look into how I could start to take charge and control of my emotions and stay positive as I move forward. So today, I'm going to be sharing with you five different ways that you can still thrive and still stay positive during times of chaos. Let's get into it. You are listening to the Soul Aligned Self-care podcast. I'm your host, Tina Stinson, and I had a stroke at the age of 39 from stress and burnout that shook my world. Now I'm laying it all out. The deep level self-care practices and mindset shifts that I needed that kept me healthy, balanced and thriving. Join me in this intimate space as we explore healing, resilience, and the soul's journey to alignment. This is where real conversations about deep level self-care happen. Let's get into it. Hey guys. Welcome back to the Soul Alliance Self-care podcast.
Tina 00:01:25 I'm your host, Tina Stinson. And as I said today, we are talking about five ways that you could stay positive and thrive during times of chaos. And I created this episode and which is based on a blog post that I just wrote. out of necessity, really for myself. I'm taking my headphones off because it's making my voice sound very muffled. Maybe to me, maybe not to you. But anyway, I've created this. This. I wrote that podcast. I wrote that blog post for myself because I was feeling at times overwhelmed. I was going in and out of all the emotions, just like spiraling, you know, like stress, anxiety, fear, you know, hopelessness, you know? And then I'd feel fine. And I was just going in and out, in and out. And I felt like it wasn't a healthy way to spend the next couple of years of my life. And so I decided that I was going to figure out a way to take charge, make myself feel more comfortable, and build resilience so that I could deal with whatever is handed to me on a daily basis.
Tina 00:02:30 And I want to share this with you, because I think it's really, really important for us all to be on the same page. Now, what works for me might not work for you, so I would encourage you to just like, take what resonates with you and just leave the rest behind. And I hope that if this does anything, it spurs some creativity and imagination and how you could do this for yourself. If not use all the same practices that I'm going to use. Before I get started, I just want to, let you know that over in my community on my Patreon. Now, if you want to support the podcast and soul aligned self-care, you could go over to my Patreon and join one of the tiers. There's many to choose from, or you can go over there and follow me for free. And I wanted to share that a lot of the practices that I'm going to be talking about today on the podcast, I'm going to be talking about in or on my Patreon also.
Tina 00:03:29 And a lot of the content that's I think will be helpful to a lot of people will be free. So you could follow me for free, but if you can support the Soul Alliance Self-care podcast and that page, it would be wonderful and I would love to have you join me to as many, many benefits to also becoming a member. So with that said, let's get started. Let's like get right into it. So as I said, I can't remember another time in my life where, it just feels so stressful. As I said earlier, I'm feeling like all the emotions just spiraling around and around and around. And I do believe a lot of people, most humans in the world right now, are also feeling these things. and even though we seem somewhat divided on other issues, I believe that most most of us want the same things. And so if we could all, like, just gather what we want as human beings and connect there at that point and then together move forward, not divided, we would have so much power.
Tina 00:04:38 And that's a little bit about what this, this podcast episode is about. So, you know, we want what do we want as human beings. We want to feel safe, right? We want to have affordable shelter. We don't want to worry about losing our homes. We want to have adequate amounts and healthy food. We don't want to be fed poison like we are being fed in the United States. We want to be able to thrive while still giving back to our communities in a beneficial and purposeful way. So this would be like our work, you know, or our purpose. We want to do something we enjoy where we can give back and, you know, share that with our community. We want to explore and have fun with our friends and our families, and we want to feel good and be able to maintain our health without maintain our health without like a struggle. These are really just the basics, right? We we all should have all of these things. Every person on the planet, no exceptions.
Tina 00:05:36 And so in order to create that for ourselves, we have to get on the same page and move forward in a positive fashion. And I believe, you know, just start, Art, you know, from the from the bottom up. I did hear someone say, I can't remember who it was. I actually think it was Bernie Sanders. But like, we make change from the bottom up, not from the top down. And so I think we have to think in terms like this, we as a whole have a lot of power. We have the power to create the narrative that we want to be in. So why would we not try to do this? Why would we not focus on this? I feel like this will look differently for everyone. Like I said, we all have different strengths. We all have different talents, we all have different wants needs, and we all have different things that we want to share with the world. So grab onto yours and embrace it, master it, and then share it with the world.
Tina 00:06:35 So here are some of the things that I'm going to be doing that I think maybe you would like to consider or do it in your own way. And as I said, take what works for you and leave the rest behind. Excuse me while I take a sip of my tea. Okay. It's very dry because it's so cold and the heat is running. So I just feel like I have to constantly be drinking something. So the first thing I decided is almost most important would be to support and build your your resilience with your mental health. This is one of my main focuses with myself and with my clients. So for me, I'm a naturally anxious person. I just have that anxious tendency, and I need to be really intentional when I'm trying to take care of myself, and especially lately. So how I do this, and how I plan on continuing to do this, is to check in with myself a few times a day. Just take five minutes in the morning, in the afternoon, maybe at the end of the day.
Tina 00:07:38 figure out what works best for you. Close your eyes and just take a few deep breaths. Slow down your breathing. Get really intentional and tune in to your body. Maybe do like a scan. Where are you holding your stress? where are you feeling it? start to learn the signals that your body gives you when you get stressed out. So my eye twitches when I get stressed out. Also, that is a little bit caffeine, too. But it's mostly stress for me because even sometimes when I stop the caffeine, my eyes still twitch, twitches, and so I'll notice my eye twitching and the top of my back gets really tight. And I injured a muscle in my back, like under my, like, you know, like my shoulder once. And so when I get really tense, that muscle gets sore. And so I know that when I feel these feelings, this means that I'm too stressed out and I need to do something. it's usually pretty bad at that point, and I, like, really need to pay attention to it.
Tina 00:08:40 So from this point forward, you know, I'm going to be checking in with myself in the morning, the afternoon before bed. And so what works for me is first thing in the morning, even before breakfast, as soon as I wake up. And then I love checking in in the afternoon after I get a bulk of my work done in the morning. usually this is after lunch, or at least like 2 or 3:00. and then, you know, maybe like before dinner, maybe before bed. I like to check in again. I like doing it around dinnertime because, Well, I love dinnertime. I don't know anyone who knows me, knows I love to eat, but I love dinner time. But also, it gives me some time to, like, really, really, handle that stress before I go to bed. So I'll do, like, a bedtime routine. Maybe I'll do some, like yoga, meditation, yoga nidra, whatever. I feel that's going to help me in that moment.
Tina 00:09:34 So some of the things I use are some of those things that I just mentioned. Breathwork. Breathwork is so powerful to me. I'm actually currently working on getting certified as a breathwork facilitator, so I'm going to be starting to make some, recordings for this starting this week actually. And I also use meditation. I use yoga yoga nidra, which is very different from yoga. If you don't know what it is. Go online, check it out. You can go on YouTube and find some, those are very powerful for me and they work. Any type of movement also works for me. Walking, running, hiking, just anything. And because of the state of the energy in the world right now, I plan on doing some or all of these practices daily, even when I feel okay, even when I'm feeling good, because I'm not just looking to heal and take care of myself at the deepest level, I'm looking to build resilience. Like I said at the beginning of this podcast, so that when something comes along, you know, I'll be able to face whatever might be headed my way.
Tina 00:10:43 With power and grace, I'll feel okay. It's not going to knock me down. It's not going to surprise me. I'm going to be able to say, okay, you know, and I'm going to have like this, you know, this full cup that I've been filling and filling and filling that can handle anything that gets thrown into my path, or I should say almost anything. So, your action step is I'm going to give you an action step for each one of these five things is to check in with your body and start to figure out what your body tells you when you're stressed out. How does your body respond to stress and know the signs, and give yourself that extra TLC and decide what daily self-care that you can add into your life every single day to build resilience. And like I said at the beginning of this podcast, if you want help with that, go over to my Patreon. You could follow along for free. There's so many free things that I give away over there, but if you wanted to support the podcast, you could join one of the tiers and get a little bit of extra some of the recordings that I put on there so you could find all these practices there.
Tina 00:11:50 Number two, support and build your physical health just as important as your mental health. this has been at the top of my mind lately. I really do consider myself to be pretty healthy. I mean, over the holidays, that always kind of kind of goes in the shitter for a little bit. you know, I want to be really healthy and I want to do all the right things, but I also don't want to be too obsessive, too serious. You know, life is about having fun. Food is fun. Food is social. And so I'm not going to suck the fun out of that. And so I, I want to really focus on the things I know are going to benefit my body, my and my physical health, but also my mental health. This is really highly connected to your mental health. So the first thing I want to say is eat real food now. That sounds so simple. And it is. It's very simple when you say it out loud. But it's not always easy to do, especially if you're in the US and you have, you know, a lot of things that are presented to us and the and the supermarkets, the grocery stores, the food stores, whatever you call them, that are extremely unhealthy.
Tina 00:13:03 But one of the definitions that will help you decipher what real food is, is things that don't have an ingredient list. Start with that. Like an apple, like rice, like things that are just whole foods. then then move on to when you're buying something. Things that have a limited ingredient list. Maybe five or less things on the ingredient list. Now, this is still quite hard to do, right? So then the next step is look at the ingredient list, read everything on it, and if you don't know what something is, look it up. Now, some of those things that have those big, long words and like, I don't know what the hell that is. And you look it up. It's not always bad. Sometimes it's some type of, a vitamin or something like that, some, some kind of a nutrition they're trying to add back into the food, which is, which is great. But at the same time, if you eat more whole foods, you're going to be adding a lot of nutrition back into your food.
Tina 00:13:59 Eat organic when you can. go to EWG and look at the, Dirty Dozen Clean 15 list. When you do that, I just lost my notes. Okay, there we go. When you do that, you'll learn some of the foods that are the most sprayed with pesticides. Those are the ones that you should buy organic and the ones that aren't on that list. Then you don't have to worry about it as much. So it's a way to save money when you're shopping. Now, I know food is really, really expensive right now, and I feel like it's probably going to get more expensive. So we're going to have to be really strategic on how we can do this for ourselves. But I would I'm just going to emphasize how beneficial this will be to your physical health, your strength and your mental health. And so if you're in a place and you're lucky enough to have farms around, you, go to the local farm stand when you can join the CSA. CSA stands for Community supported Agriculture.
Tina 00:14:58 Usually the way it works is you sign up, you pay a certain amount, and then each week you get this big bundle of vegetables from the farm. It's so fresh. If you have this in your area. Take advantage of it because it's absolutely wonderful when you can grow your own food, even if you don't have a lot of space, even if you just have a patio. Grow one thing. Grow kale or spinach or just lettuce in, you know, in a little bin. Grow things on your windowsill if you can. If the only thing you can grow is herbs, grow fresh herbs. Do what you can. And don't stress about the rest. Just do the best that you can. so eating real food, automatically adding all these beautiful foods into your diet will automatically just cut out the things that shouldn't be in there, like the processed foods, the extra sugar, the extra salt, the extra chemicals. So don't focus on not eating things. Focus on what can you add to your diet that's going to build your health? So, something that I find really, really interesting is that our whole body, like, regenerates within.
Tina 00:16:05 I think it's like, I don't know, 7 or 8 years, which is kind of bizarre when you think about it. Like our bones, our skin, everything, it just like regenerates. So you have like a totally new body in eight years. And so I like to think of it as you're building the body that you're going to live in. So you have your, your soul and then you have, you know, the meat suit that you live in and you have to take care of it. So it's kind of like taking care of your car, so to speak. So like if you want to like, run like a Lamborghini, then treat your body like a Lamborghini and do what you can to, you know, build that body for yourself. That's going to be the healthiest. Now, another reason why I want to focus more on this myself is because I'm quite aware that the health care system is really, really circling the toilet and not at the fault of the health care workers.
Tina 00:17:03 And so I, I don't feel very supported when it comes to health care. And I feel like a lot of people feel the same way. And so my way of dealing with that is trying to be the healthiest, doing everything I possibly can, even if it's not everything. You know, like all those things I mentioned. A lot of people can't do that. A lot of people live in a food desert. There's no farms like you have to do the best with what you have. And so. I'm going to do the best I can to keep myself healthy and thriving and take really good care of the body that I'm building every day so that I feel good. I have energy and I could stay away from the doctor's office. So those are like, those are my goals. Now, if you do live in a food desert, focus on buying like frozen foods from your, you know, your local grocery store. Don't think that frozen foods are bad. Actually, a lot of times frozen foods have more nutrition than them in them because they're not.
Tina 00:18:05 They usually get frozen right after they're picked, okay? And so they're not traveling to the food store in a truck across country or God knows how far it's traveling. So you're going to get it frozen. And then it kind of freezes it right at that freshest point. And so frozen food is not bad. So if that's all you have available to you, I buy frozen food all winter When my garden is not growing, I grow what I can. And the sunroom that I have. So I grow like greens usually. But everything else I'm buying frozen and I try to buy organic when I can. Not everything is even available organic. Some people live in areas where there's nothing organic available. So if I go to some of my local food stores, I live in a very rural area where I'm lucky enough to have farms and CSAs and all that stuff. But in the winter, if I go to the food store, the grocery store, and I try to find organic frozen vegetables. There hardly is any.
Tina 00:19:04 It's just not something that the food store holds because people aren't buying it because it's too expensive. So I don't really have that available to me unless I travel about 45 minutes. And so I try to freeze as much of my own food that I grow as I can, you know? So it's just about being strategic. What works in your area. So, you know when I love having lots of beans on hand, lots of rice on hand. Because when I'm tired and I don't feel like cooking, I throw some beans and rice in a, you know, a pressure cooker. And I just, like, press the rice button and and then it's done and it's like dinner and lunch for the next day. And it's it's healthy, it's easy and it's cheap. And so there's, there's, there's ways around this. If you do live in a food desert, now I'm just going to kind of, admit that I'm not, you know, I'm not I have no experience with this. And so I'm sure there's a lot of things that I'm not mentioning.
Tina 00:20:05 So I'm just going to say that I don't really know what it feels like to live in a food desert. So I'm sure there's a lot of things and a lot of, other challenges that I'm not bringing up. And I want to apologize to anyone who I might be pissing off, because I'm really just trying my best to, emphasize how important it is to eat real food. And also, I keep saying this, but just do the best you can with what you've got. That's all you can do, and don't stress the rest. now, another thing that I want to bring up is, you know, our physical health, like being strong. So strength is the next thing that is really important to me. I want to feel good. I want to feel strong. I want to be able to handle anything that comes my way. I want to have the energy to handle everything that's presented to me. You know, in this, this, somewhat little bit of a hellscape that we're being handed right now.
Tina 00:21:07 So in order to build this type of resilience, I know I need to be doing something every day to build my strength and my cardiovascular health. Everyone is different and everyone is at a different stage of life. So you need to look at what's going to work for you. So I'm a middle aged woman, so I know what I need to maintain my muscles and keep up with my, you know, cardiovascular health. So I focus on lifting weights, lifting heavy weights, walking mostly I love running. It's not always the best thing for me, I know that, but I love running, so I still run. practicing yoga, which helps with my balance and the strength and all those muscles that I'm not working out with the weights, but it also adds peace to my life. And so it really contributes to my mental health. So I want to stress how important it is to listen and pay attention to your body. So while it's important to be strong and build muscle, you always need to rest when needed.
Tina 00:22:05 The building of the muscle actually happens when you're recovering, when you're resting. So it's a necessary part of the process. And if you don't allow yourself to rest, you're not going to build muscle. There is such thing. Such thing as, you know, too much of a good thing. There's definitely I've definitely done that to myself and I've definitely experienced that. So remember to always rest. So your action step is to eat real food as I said. Simple but not always easy. Move and challenge yourself every single day. Keep the body you live in healthy. Create the body that you want to have in the future and treat it like the Lamborghini you want it to be. Okay. Number three learn to build community and deepen relationships. So I always been challenged with this. Not because I'm a little bit of a loner. I'm just gonna admit that I love to be alone. I also love people, but I, I do. I just really love doing things by myself, and I need, I do need to get out every week, like, at least once or twice.
Tina 00:23:12 So I'm not like a social butterfly, but I need I do need contact with other people. We all do. but I do know, and I've learned, throughout my life that I know it's better if I work with other people. If you if we work together, you get more done, you learn more, you get places faster. You reach your goals faster. So it's my goal to really embrace the people who are part of what I consider to be my community and deepen and strengthen those connections and relationships, but also build new connections when I can. So when we help and support each other, we are so much more powerful, divided. We don't usually thrive, we remain pretty stagnant or we move forward very slow. So now if you feel alone, where you live, or you don't feel connected with the people around you in your community, this is kind of how I feel. It's very rural. There's not a lot of people, I don't really share the same values with a lot of the people around me.
Tina 00:24:09 Then build a community where you can find it. Well, I think it's really important to have a support system where you are physically. I also believe strongly that you need to feel supported within your communities fully. So if you don't feel completely connected to the people around you, find community online or nearby. It's really important. And this is what I do for myself. So I want you to ask yourself, who do you want to be connected with? What type of values do you want those people to have, and how can you connect with the people that are in your community right now that you feel connected to? How can you connect to them deeper? Who in your community needs support, and then how can you help them be a part of the community? How can you connect with and stay connected with more people in your community? So I like to look at things that I love to do, like gardening. So one of the things I did this year was I started doing volunteer work at a local arboretum and connecting with those people there and helping out at the same time.
Tina 00:25:11 So it's like finding something that you really love and then connect with those people and then kind of build those connections and strengthen them. So also you could say, how can you encourage others to do the same? How can you get more, other, more people involved in community? So building community doesn't come naturally to a lot of people. It definitely doesn't come naturally to me. A lot of us are taught from a young age that it's kind of bad to depend on others. We have to, like, pull ourselves up by our bootstraps or some bullshit like that. And that's exactly what that is, though. It's it's bullshit. Because one of the things that I've learned is that we are meant to be connected to each other. We are meant to work together, and we are meant to live in communities. This is what is natural to us as human beings from the beginning of time. So because this is new to me and I'm not exactly the greatest at building communities, once I'm in a community, I feel like I'm I'm good at being a part of it, but building community is definitely not my specialty.
Tina 00:26:15 So I'm going to be reading some books and I'm going to share over on my Patreon which book I'm going to start with. if you I'll put a link to the blog in the show notes that I wrote because I listed a bunch of books about community that I'm going to start with. I think I put a list of like three of them. and I don't know which one I'm going to start with. I'm going to decide and I'm going to talk about it probably in February. So action step. Ask yourself the questions that I asked above. Like ask yourself all those questions and then take action. Try different things that you like to connect with your community. I do suggest starting with something fun. It just makes it so much easier. Start with hobbies, start with fun things, and then, you know, like for me, volunteering at the local arboretum was not just fun, but it was also something that where I'm adding something to my community. So I'm like, there's the community benefits from me being there, from all the people that are volunteering, being there.
Tina 00:27:17 So I think that's a really cool way to start. And if you're like me and you're not really sure the right way to build community and really kind of deepen those connections, reading some books, educating yourself. and that leads me to the next thing. So I think I'm on number four and that is educating yourself. So I decided that this was so important to me. So I feel like there's a lack of accurate information out there, and it really makes it hard to decipher what is good information, what's bad information. And I do believe that this is kind of being done deliberately to us, especially in the United States. And so I decided, because history repeats itself, that reading books about history, community, people, and even reading things just for fun, which I love doing, I read a lot of books with my kids. It's a healthy way to educate yourself on how to handle the landscape of today. So while I'm aware completely aware that books are written in the perspective perspective of the author who's writing them, I want to hear these different voices.
Tina 00:28:23 It's about, you know, choosing books that you wouldn't normally read, right? Reading them with other people. I want to hear these voices from the past. I want to hear voices from the present, and I want to expose myself to different narratives and hopefully learn outside of the scope of just today's politics and what's being fed to me by the media. And so educating yourself, reading books and finding different things, learning about different communities, I think is, so beneficial to our well-being. And it's a it really adds to how we can move forward in a positive way. So be mindful of the things that you expose yourself to because they do affect your energy. Music. Email, TV, news, people. Books, social media. It all affects your energy, so be intentional with what you expose your energy to. This protects your mental and physical health. A lot of these things we have control over. We don't have to let ourselves be bombarded with the news if we don't want to. I haven't watched the news in ages.
Tina 00:29:29 You know, we can choose what we expose ourselves to and how we educate, educate ourselves. So, you know, be intentional with it. So your action step is to create a reading list, or maybe create a book club for yourself. Or in the case of the book club, with your community, read things you normally wouldn't. that's what's great about being in a book club. You're not always picking the book that somebody else picking it, and you end up reading things you normally wouldn't and really enjoying them. this helps you expand and thrive and just be a better part of the whole human experience. So read books to explore other cultures, read the books and discuss them with the people in your community and your book club. I really can't think of a better way to spend some of your time. So, maybe this is for. I don't know where I'm at. Yeah, I think this might be for I don't know. I don't know what number I'm at, but, the next one is resist.
Tina 00:30:28 So under no circumstances will I. And I'm encouraging you not to give in to fear and the doom and gloom that is being fed to us on a daily basis. I refuse to live like this 100% of the time, like it's natural to react to these things. but at the same time, we need to move through them. we need to feel the feelings and just, like, move forward, I will embrace all the things that I just talked about that I'm sharing with you today. And I'm going to, embrace them with, like, every ounce of my soul. Because, I want to move. I want to move deeply into community. Community education and having fun, even when it might seem difficult to do these things. I don't know about you, but I still have a lot of life left to live, and I intend on living it completely and fully and freely. And I will not let anyone be like the Debbie Downer in my life. I will not let anyone do this to me.
Tina 00:31:31 No offense to anyone named Debbie. That's just an SNL reference. And so, like, if you don't know who Debbie Downer is, this definitely shows my age. But if you don't know who that is, look it up on YouTube or whatever and watch a few Debbie Downer episodes. They're hilarious. Anyway, your action step for this one is every time you feel the gloom take over, stop, check in with yourself and do something to give yourself a little bit of love and do something to take action. When we take action, It makes us feel better. It makes us feel like we have some control over the outcome. So all these things that I'm talking about today are actions that you could take. You may be. I'm hoping that some of these things, can help you be creative and come up with more things. And if you do come up with more things, that are helpful to move forward, I would love for you to share them with me. you know where to find me over on Patreon.
Tina 00:32:25 You can definitely, leave little comments on my posts over there. So work can wait. Everything else can wait. All we have is this moment right now, and you get to decide how you experience that moment that you're in right now. We don't have the past. We don't have the future we have right now. And one thing I know for sure right now is that I'm good, I am safe, and I am happy, and nobody can take that away from me. Now there's one more thing. Last but not least, it's really important to have fun even when nothing is feeling fun right now, I'm committed to having more fun this year and the years to come. Putting what is supposed to come first. So what I feel is supposed to come first is myself, my family, and my community. I want to focus on like doing the things I love, like gardening and bracing and creating art, traveling, exploring, just spending time with my family, my dog, just making sure I'm having fun every single day.
Tina 00:33:28 And yes, I know we all have to work. We are all slaves to this hellscape that we're living in right now. But I also know that you could add little bits of fun in every single day, and you need to look past all of that stuff that's trying to bring you down, trying to bring you back into the fear or the doom and gloom. Look past all of that and keep moving towards what lights you up inside as much as possible, even if it's just five minutes a day. Little by little, adding more and more into your life every single day. once again, it's not about focusing on what we need to stop. It's about focusing on what we can add in. Same thing with the food. It's not focusing on what we can't eat. It's focusing on what we can eat and what we want to add in. So adding in the things that light you up on a daily basis and adding in more and more every day is the focus. So the action step is pay attention to what lights you up, brings you joy, and do more of that every day.
Tina 00:34:28 Very simply put, but not always easy. This is my plan moving forward. I wanted to share that with you. I hope that you, want to join me in some of these things or all of these things also. Excuse me. I just feel like I'm gonna cough. Hold on a second. Also, I hope that you could come up with some things that are really focused on the things that you could bring into your community and to the world. The thing, your talent, all the things that, you know, you want to share with everybody in your life. So get creative. Share with me what you plan on doing to move forward. like I said earlier, we are a small and and very powerful on our own. You know, I feel like I could be pretty powerful on my own, but together, we could change the trajectory of all of our futures together. What we focus on expands. So let's focus on what is possible and not on the circumstances we are being fed right now.
Tina 00:35:37 As I said, join me over on the Soul Alliance Healthcare Patreon. The link will be in the show notes. You could follow along for free or support the podcast and the Soul Alliance Self-care page by joining one of the tiers. Okay, love you guys and I will see you next week. Bye.
