Tag: wellness

Categories
Mindfulness and Cognitive Science Neurobiology and Behavior Raising Capable Kids

Why I quit my business

Back at the start of 2017 I went through a long process to uncover what this next year would look like. I couldn’t shake the feeling that what I kept working toward and what I value most were in conflict. After identifying the sources of my self-contention I made the decision to step out of the online business highway so I can live better aligned with my own values + my family. This post is to tell the story of that decision and what’s next over here at alisanelson.co.

Warning! The following content contains radical ideas such as: People should think; Empathy is addicting; And leveling up requires discomfort. Proceed at your own risk.

 

If we’re being entirely honest here, my story isn’t really the point. I want to disclose what I’m up to as I still intend to use this website but there are a handful of key principles that I think I’ll just lay right out:

  1. A willingness to let go of what you thought was true in the face of new [evidence-based] information is an invaluable skill.

  2. Your rate of success on reaching whatever goals you set for yourself largely hinges on 2 things: 1) how well you can make yourself do the stuff you don’t want to do and 2) how well you understand the system you’re working in…not on a specific [procedural] formula.

  3. A guru or expert will never be able to replace the role of you doing your own thinking…even if they claim they can. They can provide a framework for how to think about their domain. They can give you the working principles and the language. But you will still have work to do. If they claim otherwise, run away…They’ve spent their time on the wrong stuff and you’re not going to see sustainable change.

  4. The brain’s survival mechanism works against us in the above 3 points. Letting go of what we felt certain of, doing the stuff that’s hard + painful, relying on our own thinking…they all leave our brain screaming for happy chemicals. So we go running back to the “experts” or pick a new one since “that just didn’t work for us.” New = dopamine rush. Community = oxytocin rush. Both have the potential to keep us stuck.

  5. Community and empathy are great. But they don’t necessarily help you solve problems. So you may walk away from a webinar or girls night feeling all lit up and understood, but that doesn’t mean you now have what it takes to face your life tomorrow. The good feelings, however, can mask that reality and you’re back to square 1 trying to figure out why you still have low motivation, low follow-through, and no plan for how to change things.

 

Now is where I’ll go into a bit on life right now and what I’m working toward but that up there is the meat + potatoes. It’s what I’ve always wanted people to understand through my coaching. My frustration over how many women don’t seem to understand that you can’t talk about how you want to be fit/mindful/happy/successful and then keep thinking the same way you always have is part of what kept me in coaching…I wanted to do my part to bring change. But as you’ll read, I’ve chosen to let go of that as a “career” goal. It’s deeply rooted in who I am, no change there. But right now running a business around that is not what I’m going for. I think there is a better way to apply my passion and skills.

 

A final word as I dive in, where I’m at today is because I stopped resisting the reality of that list up there. I’m no more immune to survival brain as anyone else. So it’s my hope that in sharing some of the story you will have an example to think of as you seek to embrace them for yourself.

 

The original intent: January – May 2016

Originally I created alisanelson.co to be my first step into coaching creative entrepreneurs on how to maintain their mental + emotional health while scaling their businesses. It was my transition from in-person personal training to online business. However, as I began I started to see there was a cost to that path that I wasn’t interested in paying. I don’t think details are all that important right now – I simply believe it’s my responsibility to continuously analyze how my current actions will affect the future. The future before me didn’t interest me enough to apply my energy in that direction and worse, my trying to force a fit was sucking energy away from my family. Self-contention will do that.

 

So on to the next idea: September – December 2016

I began interviewing women last Fall who were in positions that demanded a near-constant outpouring to other people. Teaching, Nursing, Ministry, Motherhood, etc. I wanted a better picture of where these types of women were getting stuck and how to come alongside them using my experience in wellness and my interest in high performance living. I assumed developing a coaching program would be the next step. And I was certainly moving in that direction, taking a course on marketing and reading up on programming methods.

But yet again, as the New Year approached and I started thinking about goals, I looked at what I could have accomplished by 2018 with my current path and I was just not interested. Somewhere along the way my trajectory was getting pushed off target. It was frustrating, to say the least. I could identify my hang ups but the glaring question of what to do with this passion of mine made me uncomfortable. [I’m sure I’ll look back at those journal pages and laugh one day.] So I did what I’ve learned to do when things don’t feel (or look) right – I pressed pause. Midway through an email sequence with my subscribers introducing them to new services. After already taking on my first beta coaching client. Talk about a rush of cortisol. But cortisol always subsides eventually and my priority was to understand the self-contention I was experiencing so whatever direction I went in would get my best effort. I didn’t want to go searching for a new idea that would send  my dopamine surging…the “crash” after was too familiar: Hustle, hustle, hustle. Experience exorbitant amounts of self-doubt, anger toward my family, and soon-to-follow emotional flatness / depression. I couldn’t do it again. There was something off and I had to get to the root cause.

Warning: I’m about to get on my soap box.

Pressing pause helped me learn something important about myself. Or more accurately, helped me stop denying something about myself: I don’t want to help people obsess over their health. And I definitely don’t want to enable people to stay stuck.

The marketing course I was taking stopped me in my tracks as it described the kinds of businesses that are especially successful: Businesses that teach people about money, relationships, health, and spirituality. [All major shame triggers.]

Get clients addicted to your content then profit off their cortisol/dopamine fluxes.

Now is that what everyone is consciously doing? No, of course not. I have no doubt there are many who are actively trying to help people overcome obstacles and encourage them to think for themselves. I would argue they tend to be found on a different level (and that what looks like helping is actually not). Overall, you are being promised something, and perhaps you get a taste, but for the majority, all it really ends up being is enough dopamine to tide you over until you get stuck again…you haven’t gained any real new insight into how to solve your own problem. Instead you’ve created a habit loop that tells you to go running to these “experts” every time you feel uncomfortable.

People are addicted to encouragement, quick fixes, shiny objects, over-spiritualized nonsense, and survival-based language that puts up the brain’s panic antennae and induces stress (the stupid-waste-of-time kind). The system actively inhibits a person’s ability to truly move forward in their lives. Instead it encourages obsession over the stuff that should be the background of our lives…the food we eat, our clothing brand, if we sweated enough, if we ate too much, if our self-doubt and anxiety is a sign of not enough prayer/grace/dependence/surrender, etc!

I get that people want examples and they want empathy. But empathy is also addicting. You don’t need 100 strangers empathizing with your self-doubt or #adulting struggles. You need to turn your brain on, learn how to learn (which is more than reading obsessively, btw), get curious, and expect yourself to do more with your life than live on survival-mode repeat. Which is what the majority of people are doing. Yes, even if you consider yourself “woke.”

You don’t need another person telling you how to meal plan or giving you 10 more jumping jack variations (#stopit). All the choices are eroding your confidence + hijacking your brain’s ability to think critically.

I see people blindly following “experts” (don’t get me started), demanding to know the brand of their leggings, exact meal ingredients, and how they got their hair to do that….as if morphing their exterior into this other person will restore confidence and purpose to their lives. They are caught on loop – try one thing, works a little, see people doing something else, get anxious over “doing it wrong”, try new thing, repeat.

 

My years steeped in the science community have integrated into my way of thinking well enough that I can’t willingly participate. I just can’t hand you a quick “superfood” recipe, sprinkle some happy dust, and send you on your way. But “it’s more complex than that!” and “it may take years!” and “the things you believe are probably wrong!” and “you’re going to have to get really uncomfortable!” don’t market very well on their own. They intrigue a small percentage of people who are sincerely pursuing high performance and accomplishment in their domain. So to continue in the direction I was going would require that I either choose to alter my values (and my priority scheme) or dissolve the goal.

 

So what am I doing now?

Surprise! I dissolved the goal.

My current path began with a question I’ve asked multiple times (in slight variations) at this point. “What if I took coaching off the table.”*

[*The past few years of business iteration (and motherhood) have afforded me ample opportunities to practice abandoning ideas or flipping the way I see something. As I grow in my ability to analyze and predict how a situation will play out I also see a growing openness to paradigm-shifting information. A much-welcomed skill.]

Taking coaching off the table allowed me to then consider what best aligns with my family and with my desired growth trajectory. I don’t want to participate in the deep rut of the current system. It’s not good for my own life (I feel the tug toward “quick fix” just as strongly as anyone) and it’s physically painful to see women miss the point over and over again. Seriously – anxiety, depression, headaches, muscle tension, etc have all decreased substantially as I’ve released my grip on trying to force my methods into the current wellness climate.

Instead I’m returning to what I’ve always wanted to do but had stopped letting myself consider it (while in the SAHM-entrepreneur box). I’m in process for starting work on my PhD in Fall 2018.

 

Now we have reached present day.

I’m in the process of preparing my application for PhD programs in molecular biology** – studying for the GRE, refreshing my mind on the basics as well as exploring where research is at right now in my desired domain, making my list of schools to apply to, etc. And I’ll tell you, it’s not easy to step back in to this field after so many years away but, despite an increased amount of discomfort + uncertainty, staying focused on the goal has felt effortless in comparison to what I experienced trying to wedge my way into the wellness industry. It’s been 6 months of consistent growth + attention to what matters most to me.

[**If you know my motherhood story then you probably know that I had already finished applying to PhD programs when I found out I was pregnant. I received an invitation to interview at the U of M a mere two days after I took a positive pregnancy test.]

When I tell people about grad school their typical next question is what will I do with the kids…will we put them in school? And the answer is that we still intend to homeschool. Knowing that I am going to be dramatically increasing my load, I’m using these next 15 months or so to systematize our home life. Coming to grips with the brevity of my remaining time as a full-time SAHM has given me a new perspective on our current arrangement. I’m diving in deep to fully enjoy this waning season with my kids and working hard to prepare all of us for what is coming.

 

So then what is happening with alisanelson.co?

I mentioned above that trying to influence the current system from where I’m at right now doesn’t work. I also mentioned that I’m not immune to the siren call of quick fixes and ample empathy. So as I tune my ears to the sweeter song I intend to keep writing. About what? I will maintain this site on a more personal level. Documenting what we’re doing to prepare for the next season and providing insightful information to you as you seek to improve your own environment. My hope is that I can provide an example (not a step-by-step blueprint) to living intentionally in the direction of real accomplishment.

Namely, I expect there will be articles related to my various personal aims in the following sub-identities:

  • wife + mom seeking to provide a good environment for my family as we learn, grow, work, and rest together.
  • athlete seeking ways to push my body + mind for the goal of being as fit as I can within my current constraints (I subscribe to the Crossfit approach to defining “fitness”).
  • aspiring homesteader cooking 90-95% of our meals at home (active on Pinterest but also making my own recipes as I experiment), developing my gardening skills, and always looking for ways to increase the quality of what we produce + consume.
  • woman who has struggled with mental health issues since the 6th grade – I’m seeking to better understand my body + mind across scientific domains so I can cultivate habits that bring mental clarity, energy, self-awareness, emotional balance, etc.

 

These articles will be written for the purpose of consolidating my own understanding and passing along a more synthesized look at various topics. There will also be the more nitty-gritty posts about systematizing our home life – self care, nutrition, movement, homeschooling routines, etc. As per the above rant you can expect that my writing invites you to think critically about your own life and environment. I write so you can walk away actually being equipped to think about your problem effectively + take action…not so you can blindly copy what I did and not know what to do the next time you get stuck.

My previous few blog posts provide a taste of what I expect to produce. If you’d like to keep in touch, I encourage you to sign up for my newsletter. I’ll be resurrecting it in the next few weeks (after my GRE test date) to provide reading lists and a more personal approach to helping you grow (I can’t help it…). That is also where I’ll be best available to answer questions or chat about your own aims.
If you don’t yet follow me on Instagram, I play around a lot with Stories to document our day to day life and sometimes talk about things that are on my mind.

Categories
Mindfulness and Cognitive Science Nutrition and Meal Prep Self Care

How to embrace the limits of the season

We walk through grocery aisles that give us any food we want at any time of day. We scroll websites and find clothes ready to be sent to our door. Hop on a plane and experience a summer day in the middle of your winter. Each one a [mostly] beautiful development in our society that can serve to simplify our lives and widen our gaze beyond our individual contexts.

And easily transformed as the channel through which we expect to have everything we want as soon as we think of it.

 

Sustainable wellness can only come if you're willing to embrace - not resist - the present. Read more: http://alisanelson.co

 

 

What’s the quickest route to overextending yourself? Start seeing life through the “never enough” lens.

As a North Dakotan-turned-Minnesotan, limiting seasons like winter have always been in my life. It’s a rhythm we have to embrace because we cannot will the weather to comply with our hopes and dreams. For a large part of the year, it is dark and cold and windy. We find alternatives to Vitamin D and eat a lot of soup with root vegetables.

What if instead of trying to turn your winter season into summer, you embraced the limitations and let them do the work they are meant to do?

At our house, winter is a time to slow down and get close. We build fires, feed birds, read lots of books, and learn new skills. All things we start to move away from (or do differently, at least) once we can be outside [without 5 layers] again.

I can easily transfer this concept to any area of my life. I’ve had seasons of motherhood where I’ve needed to pull in – huddle closer to just the essentials in order to preserve my energy + focus for going deep and heavy into raising little people.

As a family we have been in seasons of setting limits on our time and the types of things we do because we’re working together to grow a business into a sustainable living.

If we choose to zoom in on the stuff we can’t do, then we will grow to resent the present. We will try to force the season to be different. We will say yes to things as if the commitment somehow makes our lives different. Overextension, overcommitment, always reaching for what we think we must have right this second.

But what is winter, really? Sure, on the surface we see dormant trees and green >> brown. We see creatures go into hiding. But why do they do that? To gather their strength. To prepare for a new season of extension and outpouring when the necessary resources are abundant.

If you’re in a season where the stuff coming in is more limited, by necessity, let that change your level of output. It’s not giving up. It’s being human.

The giant oak tree drops its leaves and goes quiet in response to the waning hours of sunlight and decreased access to water. It knows that trying to produce acorns in January would likely lead to death (“knows” being a loose term, of course). But by flowing with its environment, it can come forth again to do what it is designed to do >> provide beauty, shade, and make new little oak trees.

Rather than lamenting what you can’t do, look instead to what you can. Living simply – a well-worn path to sustainable wellness – includes doing the work for today that will, little by little, prepare you to plant new seeds and reap new harvests. In the time that is allotted.

Nodding your head with me? Read these articles to get started:

  1. A call to wellness: How you see yourself matters
  2. How to start a wellness journey
  3. How to transition from work >> home
Categories
Mindfulness and Cognitive Science Neurobiology and Behavior Self Care

16 signs you’re nearing burnout

Does it sometimes feel like you have to hit bottom before you can really change? You can see the warning signs…the negative effects of overcommitting yourself are probably pretty predictable. But how do you take action now? (As opposed to when your body forces you to or when the next break gets here).

Burnout often happens in a cyclical fashion. With unsustainable habits it’s always just a matter of time before your tank dwindles down to empty again. But it’s difficult to make changes to those habits when it feels like you have to choose between having fun and sustainable energy.

 

Burn out can be difficult to recognize >> we've acclimated ourselves to a lower level of wellness. As if uncontrolled eating or constant overwhelm is the "normal" we must accept. Learn 16 signs you're habits are unsustainable PLUS 3 steps to start making changes. Read more at http://alisanelson.co

 

Hold up, do we really have to choose between FUN and WELL? Screw that. I think the choice lies elsewhere, in fact, I demand it lie elsewhere. We just might have to dig a little bit to find it.

Recognizing the patterns

The cool thing about habits is that they can be easy to spot. Trigger >> routine >> reward. It’s always the same pattern. And your patterns, though unique to you, are also easy to spot. You just have to be looking. I’ve compiled a list of common signs of burnout. These physical, mental, emotional, relational behaviors signal you’re reaching the breaking point where your system (being your life) can no longer withstand the stress of the environment. You’re a bridge just waiting to collapse.

Signs you’re approaching burnout (based on research + personal experience):

  1. Trouble sleeping / falling asleep
  2. Tension in back + shoulders
  3. Headaches
  4. Hard time waking up in the morning (even after a full night’s sleep)
  5. Lack of interest in normal activities
  6. Low energy
  7. Trouble focusing / easily distracted
  8. Trouble regulating behavior (outbursts, losing chunks of time to scrolling social media, unable to stop eating or turn off the tv)
  9. Reversion to “default” behaviors (previous transformations start to unravel)
  10. Easily overwhelmed
  11. Down / depressed mood
  12. Easily frustrated
  13. Prone to ruminating on interactions with others
  14. Crying more than usual
  15. Trouble identifying “why” you feel sad, angry, tired, etc.
  16. Pulling away from friends / family

And I’m certain I’ve missed some.

Now if you’re experiencing these “symptoms”, there is no need to panic. This is a diagnosis or anything like that. My hope is that by looking at this list you will see that some of the things you do that are just a “normal part of life” are actually signs that you aren’t handling the stress you’re under well.

See, it’s not a choice between “fun” and “well” – it’s the decision to raise the bar on what fun really is.

Take action

Don’t let this be something that becomes “oh that’s interesting” and on you go. Choose right now to set a higher standard for the “fun” you let in your life.

The greater the responsibility you have to perform at your best, the more resolute you must be in your standard for wellness. From your nutrition to your free time, the stuff you do needs to set you up for better performance. Your classroom, your clients, your patients – they need you operating at your capability. Which means they need you well, not the bare minimum of “functional.”

  1. Take time to write down your personal signs of declining wellness and what you currently do to cope with it — scrolling, tv, declining invites, dessert, hyper-cleaning or organizing, etc
  2. Choose one of your go-to habits for coping with stress and get curious about it. Every time you see yourself doing it or feeling the compulsion, ask yourself why that might be happening and observe does this actually make me feel how I want to feel? Am I really getting what I’m looking for?
  3. Develop a routine or ritual to go through when it’s been a long day – something that will help you feel the way you really want to feel. Read more about this step here.
Categories
movement Nutrition and Meal Prep Self Care

A call to wellness: how you see yourself matters

What would it look like for you to value your wellness at the same level you value the people you work with? What if we challenged our typical view of always-trying-harder until we simply burn up?

We each contain within us a beautiful system of biological processes that enable us to do things like regenerate cells, find solutions to never-before-answered problems, and connect across space with other human beings. True wellness is the pursuit of living in this fully human experience. The better we get at understanding + supporting our own biology, the more we will be able to step up, engage, and connect with the world around us and our place in it.

 

You are more than a part to be consumed. Your personal wellness will become easier to pursue when you start to see yourself for who you are - biological processes and all. Here's why you need to stop seeing yourself as an organism. More at alisanelson.co

 

There’s a statement I read in an article that has been turning around in my head for so long that I can’t find the article again. It went something like this:

 

We keep trying to treat ourselves like we are machines when in fact we are organisms. We, as organisms, move circularly rather than linearly.

 

We hum along in a rhythmic pattern instead of a droll assembly line. This is why we see so much of ourselves and our lives in the natural world around us – because they too live in rhythm.

 

As I dig in the dirt planting bulbs in the cool October soil I’m drawn to thoughts of how temperature signals my own biological systems to change up the priority scheme. Did you know that the fall is the best time to plant shrubs? It’s the time of year when they will push their roots deep into the earth and focus their efforts on a sturdy foundation, while in the spring and summer they are more focused on reproduction.

 

Whether we are hardwired to think in terms of seasons or if it’s more an long-standing + ingrained cultural norm, I’m not sure yet, but the older I get the more frequently the women around me talk about seasons. Harkening our minds back to the wise King who tells us there is a season for everything (or perhaps a rebellious Kevin Bacon is more your style?).

 

When I’m digging in the dirt or watching my children eagerly wait for the falling leaves, I’m soothed by this reality of seasons. Like the turning tide, it comes because we need it to. Because there are different processes that need to take place for fullness of life. As sleep is necessary on a daily basis for the regeneration + cleansing of our cells so we move through important human moments on a larger time scale.

 

But when I’m talking to fellow moms or women immersed in their own versions of “busy season” it sounds (+feels) more like a prison than the melodic orchestration of a Creator. Like Calvin, who yells at the sky demanding for snow to fall, we ache for the next season to get here. Like now. Right now. Or we resign ourselves to the lie that this is going to be the rest of our lives.

 

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to manifest out loud to my husband that I’m anxious my son is going to be 2 for the rest of his life. As silly as it sounds (especially to the non-moms out there), some days just get us to the point where we think we might actually have to tear out of our skin if we have to live one more day in this season. One more day of anxiety. One more day of too-loud children. One more day of all our efforts making zero difference. One more day of no time for ourselves.

 

So we pat ourselves on the back and try to see a silver lining – “It’s a season!” An exhausting season.

 

How do we get to the point where we can sense the melody? How do we return to ourselves as organisms with bodies flowing + grooving to the beat?

 

I think it’s circular. When we see ourselves as organisms, we feel like it too. We hear the music.

 

A machine can go for a time without a repair. Once it’s built it can thrum along doing its job – giving its attention to others. No need to pay attention to self until its parts are consumed. Then replace them and keep truckin’. It doesn’t matter to a machine if it is day or night, or whether it is running a single cycle or a hundred. It runs the same.

 

But we are not machines. And it is a mistake to believe that we can go seasons without regular maintenance. We can’t just plug ourselves into the wall and go, go, go. We have to circle back to restore our cells and our hearts daily – even more than just during our sleep!

 

We are more like a tree than a car.

A tree can produce fruit because it receives from the roots and leaves at varying degrees throughout its life cycle. It does not stop taking in carbon dioxide or water while it pushes out flowers. This is actually when it is the neediest.

 

We are designed to regenerate on a daily, monthly, and yearly basis. You cannot expect to continue on successfully throughout your career operating as a machine. In your neediest seasons – the ones when you’re swamped with projects or your kids are struggling or your team is trying to overcome an unforeseen obstacle – these are the times when you have to double check your soil is good and get that extra bit of water.

 

But more often we feel the drought and decide it must be that we’re meant to go the long haul on our own. We let our external cues dictate our rhythms instead of the God-given internal cadence.

 

You are not a part to be consumed and replaced.

Your work environment might lead you to believe you are. Your work load might lead you to believe you have to. But that is not the melody you were made for.

 

The path to wellness looks different in different seasons. We wouldn’t call a leafless tree in January “dead.” But does your fall + winter lead to pushing up new shoots in May and a bountiful harvest in August? Or does it leave you clawing for oxygen and ready to sleep when your leaves should be breaking free? Can you rejoice during the holiday season or is it spent in recovery + anxiety?

 

Around here we won’t pretend that everyone’s wellness should look the same. But we will talk about wellness and performance as if you’re an organism that lives in a particular kind of rhythm. And I think you’ll find that when we talk as humans, you’ll start to see + feel the beautiful melody that envelops you inside and out. And you’ll want to dance to the beat.