Excerpts from the "Humans Not Robots" Newsletter
What if we recharge ourselves as often as we charge our phones? As MyTheraBox is provocatively asking on Instagram?
Isn't it a brilliant idea? It would be so great if every time my phone is off and demanding recharging, I take a break and recharge too, or I apply some energy booster. Let's go further in analyzing the similarities of us and our beloved devices: we both are constantly connected, getting so much information in the background (having 4G/wi-fi turned on). And then all the alerts and notifications, buzzing and sounds! It makes your phone tired, it makes you tired as well.
This is how I got the idea of using "sleep mode" more often. It saves the phone battery, but it also saves my battery so much. Not checking the phone when writing, not checking it when reading a book or a longer article, and especially not checking it when being on a call with colleagues or friends. Being present in one place with only one intention in mind.
When I don't know what to do with my hands, I scribble, I doodle, I color.
Rather mindlessly because the purpose is to break the habit of checking the phone, not to create art. For me, checking my phone is a manual habit. Your reason might be the FOMO (fear of missing out), or it might be about something else. It's worth exploring what does it give to you. And then decide if you want to keep going or if you prefer to change it.
A friend once told me that because he used his phone so much, he had the policy of "charging on the go" - and that meant charging it every time he could, so the phone would survive the whole day without it going completely dead. How this would look like for the human body and mind? How would your personal human power bank look like? What can be a substitute for the power bank you put in your bag or backpack knowing electricity plugs won't be available on the way?
Trauma Changes Our Approach To Self-Care
Second thought is fundamental of my approach to coaching:
You are not a failure if you find it difficult to do things that others seem to take for granted and find easy. Sometimes just knowing the potential source of why we are struggling allows us to offer ourselves patience while we work to feel more resourced.
Andrea Papin writes about the developmental trauma, but I find this notion relevant to all of us in a broader sense because we all are different. Not only it's good to know where our struggles come from, but also that humans vary and we all deserve to get the individual VIP treatment.
I believe in personal agency and building tailor-made self-care plans. One size fits all is just not the right approach here. We come from different places, we carry different baggage, we operate in different frameworks. Even only these 3 vectors create an infinite number of possibilities, and there are many more vectors we can add to this equation. Moreover, they change in time! So a one-time solution is also not enough. That is how during the coaching process we not only look for a solution but also learn about the vectors and how they influence the need for agility. Of course, there is science (for instance the psychology of motivation or of crisis or even what is burnout), and some important ingredients (like knowing what is important in life for us and being able to prioritize) to help but applying them to the individual's specific conditions is the key to building the self-care plan.
This is an excerpt from my newsletter from January, once every two weeks I send a "Humans Not Robots" Newsletter exploring something that is deeply human in complicated reality of XXI century. Besides the perspective, in every newsletter you can find some digital goodies, along with news on where you can find me and what is new.
You can subscribe here: https://www.annakuliberda.com/newsletter