We're Just Having a Human Experience

In this mini episode, Carrie emphasizes the importance of self-compassion and acknowledges that feeling more depressed, anxious, or uncertain is a normal human reaction during these challenging times. Carrie suggests focusing on small moments of positivity and taking breaks from social media and the news to alleviate the overwhelming negativity. She also recommends engaging in activities that bring comfort and joy, such as listening to music or watching comforting shows. Overall, the episode offers support and guidance for navigating the ongoing collective trauma.

Have a question for the Who Asked Me segment or a story you want to share? Please reach out by sending an email to carrie.always.talking@gmail.com
I've also created a facebook group for this podcast as another way for us to connect. www.facebook.com/groups/carriesalwaystalking/

Transcript

Hello and welcome back to Carrie's Always Talking. This is the second episode. It's going to be a mini episode. This is a podcast all about stories and connection. I think people telling their stories to one another is the main way that we connect, the main way that we build empathy and humanity with one another. And that's something that I believe that we could use a little bit more of in the world right now. I am your host, Carrie McNulty. The way the structure is going to work. 

Moving forward is one week I'm going to do a larger episode and on the off week I'm going to do a smaller mini episode which is what today is and the main focus of the mini episode is going to be the Who Asked Me segment. I want to give a huge shout out to anybody who listened to my first episode I just want to tell you how much I appreciate you and how awesome you are and that it means a lot to me that you would take the time to listen to me ramble for 47 minutes in some odd seconds so thank you very much for that. 
and I hope that you'll continue to listen in if you like it, that you'll share it with other people in your life. my goal is to reach a larger audience if possible, because like I said, I feel like, you know, bringing people together and reminding us that we're more alike than we are different is part of the goal of this for me. So being that this is a who asked me segment and that I just launched the podcast this week, I don't have emails yet from people who may have questions or things they want me to cover or looking for advice or suggestions, things like that. It could be therapy related. It cannot be therapy related. It could be whatever. It could even just be comments about it. So I had mentioned to my husband earlier in the week, a couple of days ago after I had released it, I'm like, well, I don't have anything for this segment yet. And I didn't get any email. So I'm just going to have to come up with something, which I can talk endlessly. So of course, I'm going to come up with something. But he took it upon himself to then send me an email. 
And I made the mistake of reading it right before I logged on to see a client yesterday. So I'm going to read it to you. I told him that I would. I got a question about your podcast. It seems from episode one that your husband is a jerk. Is that correct? And the answers that they give you, Gmail gives you automatic responses. And they are, yes, it is. Good question. I think it is. 
So just to clarify, because I said I would answer questions. No, my husband's not a jerk. He's very funny actually. And if I made it seem as though he was in my first episode, then I must have done a very poor job of communicating. So I am appreciative of getting the opportunity to clear that up. 

But because I didn't get anything else, I decided that I would come up with something this week that I think that maybe could be universally helpful to everybody, myself included. So keep in mind whenever I'm talking here that I am talking just as much to myself, maybe sometimes if not more than I am to anybody else who it might resonate with. Because I think it's important that I give myself these reminders just as much as I would give it to anybody else, whether it be client, friend, whatever as a disclaimer, I'm always going to say this before I do this part, this is not therapy. This is not a substitution for therapy. This is meant for, you know, you to take it or leave it and hopefully it's helpful. so with that being said, one thing I thought would be useful to maybe talk about is a theme that I've been getting from people coming in to see me more often lately, in therapy and also something that I have noticed in myself. And that is this feeling. 
that we have right now in the world of everything being so heavy. And for those of us who feel the weight of all of that and are just trying to get through the day a lot of times, it can feel oppressive and it's sometimes kind of hopeless. One way I know that I'm not doing as well, that my anxiety is higher, is that I will find myself saying internally, I just have to get through this day. 
I just have to get through this day. I just have to get through this week. Once this week is over, then I don't have an answer to then. I don't know what comes after that. And I'll catch myself and I'll be like, to what end? Like, what am I trying to get through? What am I trying to get to? And I don't have an answer for that other than I can think of maybe a sense of peace or a break. cause everything just feels so heavy all the time. I talked in my first episode about my cancer diagnosis and 
The biggest, one of the biggest reliefs for me in that diagnosis was eventually getting my treatment plan, coming up with what we were gonna do. And then they give you this schedule, this calendar of when you're gonna have your treatment, what the dates are, what treatments you're gonna be having, what you can expect side effects wise. You get it all right there and you can check it off your list. I did this one, I only have this many more to go. I only have this many more to go. I only have this much more time. 
I should start seeing my hair grow back around here. You get an idea and that is such a relief of like, I know what this is supposed to look like. I know when this is supposed to end and that is what makes it possible for you to get through it. People will say, I don't know how you did that. I don't know how you did that and you did school at the same time. I just did it cause I had to and I was in business mode. That's what I like to call it. I didn't think about the impacts of anything. And you know, I come to realize and I have come to realize that when you're going through a traumatic event, your brain clicks into this way of coping that you are just focused on the next thing in front of you. Getting through that next task, you're not processing, you're not thinking about the outcome of it. You're just trying to get through day to day. And the fact that I am now looking at the world as I just have to get through today. 
I just have to get through this week. I don't have a calendar that tells me when everything ends or when everything gets better like I did before. So it's exhausting at times to be week to week like I just have to get through this. And I don't know when it gets better. I don't know when it gets better for me, and I don't know when it gets better for my clients. I am about to briefly talk about a topic that is very polarizing. And people feel very different ways about this. This is not to say one way is better than the other. This is not to tell people they're wrong for feeling the way they feel about it. But I'm about to use the word Covid 
COVID was and still is a trauma that we are collectively going through as a society all around the world. 
We don't know when the effects of it or when the actual illness will come to an end. We don't know. We don't have any of that information. And so we try to find our way of getting through and whatever that looks like for people day to day is different. Some people have gone back to a way of living that is similar to how it looked prior to the pandemic. Other people have not. But the one thing that we can collectively agree on is that the world is a different place. I think another thing we can collectively agree on is that we have so much access to world events and to what's going on everywhere around us at all times. And in fact, it can feel inescapable, like it's everywhere. And typically we're not inundated of stories that are going great, awesome news around the world. I wish that would be awesome. I wish somebody would create a newsfeed of only some good things. There's some people I follow on TikTok that do good news only. And I like that because I think we need more of it because there are other things that are happening in the world that are not terrible. 
We're just not inundated with that. So it becomes this layering effect of one thing after another outside of ourselves. So on a global level of things that are not going well, that are very scary, that we don't know when things are going to end, and it seems not that hopeful. And then we have the struggle of day -to -day living on top of that. 
So being worried that you might not be able to pay your bills, being worried that you're sending your kids to school and they're getting sick all the time, being worried that you can't afford food or that your housing isn't secure, being worried about your job not being secure. We have so many reasons to be living in fear right now as a society. That's what I mean by the collective trauma is still ongoing. And taking it back to what I was saying about when I was sick and that mindset of I have a plan and when I get through it. Once I got through my treatment, that's when it hit me. That's when I became aware of the huge amount of trauma and the significance of losing body parts and multiple surgeries and doing that stuff finally hit me. Right? And that was a lot to wade through. And at times it continues to be a lot to wade through because the fear of that coming back never really goes away totally. The problem with what's going on in the world right now for all of us and for myself included, is that we don't have an end date and therefore we can't process it. 
One analogy I use a lot to help describe this is that you cannot heal a burn that you have on your hand if you are still actively holding it over the burner on your stove. 
It's this ongoing gaping wound that we're trying to move through, live our normal lives, normal in quotes. I don't think anything is really normal. It probably never was, but we're doing the very best that we can. And that's the thing that I want to point out to you all. If you are somebody who is really struggling, if you are feeling more depressed or if you're feeling more anxious, you are normal. 
There are so many things going on around us that those are normal human reactions. I was just having a conversation with a client earlier this week where we were talking about the fact that the way they were feeling was not abnormal given their circumstances. If you are feeling more depressed or more anxious or more uncertain or I don't really know what to do next or how do I help or how do I make things better, you're having a very human experience during an ongoing crisis and trauma situation. 
There's nothing abnormal about that. And so what I'm working with people on is having, if they can't get to a place of having more self -compassion and understanding that they're doing the best they can, maybe then they can at least be neutral with themselves and just look at the facts of their situation rather than finding a place where they can have a lot of compassion. 
because listen, we all have skills as human beings. We all have resilience. If we didn't, none of us would be alive right now. I wouldn't be talking to any of you. We all have it in us. When we go through times of struggle and crisis and uncertainty, we don't access. These newer parts of ourselves where we know these skills as often and we can revert back to feeling ways that we are surprised that we're feeling, you know, after all these years or things that are triggering to us that you wouldn't expect or we're more irritable. I know for myself that is a major sign that I am not doing well. I will become incredibly, incredibly irritable. So I guess I'm just saying to anybody else who's noticing these symptoms in themselves, you are not abnormal. You are human. You're having a very human experience. 
And the cool part about being a human is that we do have the ability to change our circumstances more so than many of the other creatures that live on this planet with us. So some of the things that I do to help me and some of the things that I've talked to some of my clients about that can be helpful to get a little bit of a sense of control over your day -to -day life again are very basic things because that's what we can control is our day -to -day moment to moment things. 
So making sure you're sleeping the best you can and eating the best that you can. And if you're on medication of any kind that you're taking that, just those basic foundational things. But on top of that, looking at points in your day where something actually went OK, or something actually went right for you, those things do exist. 
You know, we tend to, when we're in this place where we're struggling a little bit more, focus on the things that are negative and the things that aren't going right. And I am by no means promoting toxic positivity. I just want to make that clear. That's not me. That will never be me. You can't be raised by the person I was raised by and have that be your outlook in life. That is not me. That is not at all what I'm promoting because I also am not a fan of shutting down any emotion that you're having or denying any emotion that you're having. We don't move through them that way. They stay like open tabs in your brain. 
So acknowledging when things are hard, but also acknowledging when things are going OK. That might look like something as small as, my cup of coffee was pretty good this morning. I don't drink coffee. I'm a tea drinker. So some days, the best I can do is really looking forward to that cup of tea this morning, and it was pretty good. And that's where we are. Other days, there are more things that I will notice that really make me feel connected to something outside of. 

The next thing I'm going to talk about, which is taking a step back from social media, taking a step back from the news if you need to. And again, I'm talking to myself as much as anybody else, because if there's information out there, trust me when I say, I want to know it. I want to know what's going on. And sometimes it's all too much. It's just too much, and it's everywhere. And it's all bad, and it's constant. And if you go looking for it, you're going to find it.  So taking a step back from that and giving yourself a break is key. And that can be social media, that could be the news, that... 
Whatever. It's really helpful. I do need to do better with that. And I do think that can be helpful not to put your head in the sand or to avoid knowing anything what's going on, but knowing when you're at your capacity. And so like I said, for me, signs of that are I'm very irritable or I'm just looking to get through my day. Those are signs for me that I need to take a break. For you, that might look like something different. So maybe just getting curious for yourself about what are some signs that I am at my limit or I need a break. 
Other things I like to do, or I suggest sometimes I'm working with people is if music is a resource for you, listening to either some new music or music to you that is very comforting or reminds you of times in your life making playlists of music that makes you feel good or makes you feel in general. Because when we get really overwhelmed, we don't do as well with feeling. We kind of shut down and dissociate a little bit. So music can be helpful for that. and it also holds memory. So if it's fun music or happy music or nostalgic music, that can feel good. Shows that are comforting for me, that's Gilmore Girls. I'm not ashamed. I'll admit it. I watch it a lot frequently. I also like garbage junk reality television shows because while it may seem totally pointless that people are arguing about the things they're arguing about, it's not serious. 
It's just, none of it is serious. And I need a little less serious, a little less of that in my life at times. yeah, these are just very basic things. And you might be like, yeah, that might help for a couple of minutes. Sometimes a couple of minutes is all we need. Sometimes a couple of minutes of a break is all that we need or all that we can get. 

Another option that I think that we can forget about sometimes is that we're always breathing. So our breath is always on us. And I noticed that when I get particularly anxious, sometimes my shoulders are up next to my ears. So if I take a moment to just take a few deep breaths, that's pretty helpful. You know, just pretty helpful for my nervous system in those couple of minutes afterwards. We kind of have to keep grounding and keep regulating when we don't feel good. And that's not always easy to remember. So, there are many, many things you can do. These are just some of the things that I do. And I am hoping that in sharing this, that if anybody else is feeling this way, that maybe they feel a little less alone or a little less like they're not getting it right in being a human, that they shouldn't be so overwhelmed. Because again, we kind of see people out living their lives and everything looks great. And we don't always see when people are having a hard time. And people are having a hard time right now. There's a lot of people having a hard time right now. And that doesn't mean there's anything wrong with you. 
That means that you're human and you're having a very human experience during a very difficult time to be a human. 

So that's my mini Who Asked Me segment. The other thing I wanted to do with my time today is to give a heads up for what's gonna come next week in next week's podcast episode. That I will be giving more disclaimers beforehand, but as a heads up, it's gonna be a story about my mom. It's gonna be a story about her health. 
mainly in the last five years of her life. So that is what's up on deck for the next episode and the future episode. And then there'll be another mini episode. And then I plan to start having some guests on. So if you're somebody out there that I know or don't know, and you happen to be listening to this, and you feel like you have a story that you want to share, please reach out to me. Like I said, my email address will be in the show notes. I also plan to make a TikTok for this. 
I'm going to do that this weekend. And probably a Facebook page too. So yes, look for that in the show notes and please reach out because I am definitely looking for people to join me. Again, I can talk and talk and talk and talk, but I also want to talk to other people and I want to hear their stories. And that's really what this is all about. So I figure if I'm taking the first steps to maybe be open and to be vulnerable, maybe some of you will join me and there was nothing that I would love more than that. 
So that is all I have for this week. I hope that you all have a good and safe holiday. Be well. And I plan to catch you next week for a full episode of Carrie's Always Talking. Take care.