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My client shared a very cool story with me last week...
We've been really focusing on helping her practice caring for HERSELF first and foremost, as well as cultivating a lifestyle outside of work that focuses on HER deep health. She is a PRO at putting her all into her work and caring/worrying about others. These are wonderful human qualities. However when they are tilted too far one way, it's that human's deep health that suffers.
A few details to put this story into perspective:
-This client works alot (nature of her work) but has also allowed work to consume her 24/7.
-This client (like so many) spends ALOT of time on her phone scrolling social media, taking away from herself. (We've done time tracking experiments in the past and she was shocked at the results - and has improved that habit since).
-Combine her phone habits and practicing "work-sleep-repeat" for a long time with getting home late from work (due to her job), clearly she was experiencing negative sleep habits. Quality and quantity of sleep, in addition to her habits around bed time were poor.
-In addition to her work, she worries about her son's mental health and as any good mother does, she has tried various things to help him as best she can.
By adding a little colour to her days, an "Ah-Ha" moment was created
As always, we approached this client's deep health with longevity and sustainability in mind first and foremost. So small, realistic and simple change(s) were the target. We began to address the sleep issue and I learned her regular routine was to get home late and scroll social media before bed (and not just for 5min.... ). Among other things, this was the target; Let's discuss together ideas of how to practice slowing her mind down before bed. She mentioned she had a colouring app on her phone that she would sometimes do. EXCELLENT!!!
You may be reading that saying: "Well sure Coach, but then she's still on her phone before bed. Aren't we supposed to NOT be on our phones?" In an "ideal" world, sure! You're right. Blue light from our screens signals to our brain "wake up". Add social media "noise" and often stress to that and you have a recipe to NOT sleep well.
But we're not looking for "ideal" or "perfect" are we? We're looking to help this client get more and better sleep by controlling her time around her sleep. If we're talking "perfect" scenarios, shouldn't we all be taking care of ourselves and our deep health regularly!? We stress so much about the details we miss the foundational truths about how we CHOOSE to live each day. We don't need "perfect". We need what works for US and INDIVIDUALS.
So, my client and I chatted about making her colouring app her go-to pre-bed routine right now. She liked that! Think about it logically from the client's perspective as well: We're not saying "the phone is bad" or "don't do that" like she's a kid. We're saying if YOU choose to go on your phone, let's try something that will relax the mind and practice focus, rather than doom-scrolling and then wondering why we can't get to sleep (or stay asleep). Our new target for this client led to some progressive changes over the coming weeks...
She slowly had less social media time in her days.
She did her colouring app as planned before bed most nights.
A week or two after this discussion, she got an adult colouring book given to her. That same day, she went to Michael's and bought herself some new pencil crayons.
Over the next couple weeks, she did some colouring in her book AND in her app (depending on how she felt that day).
Ready for the most colourful part of this story?
She shares with me on our walk last week that sleep's been pretty good overall, she's done her colouring in her book and app and ... that she hadn't been on TikTok for a week!! Wow!!!
When I asked how she felt that week in doing that she said that she really didn't feel like she missed anything. She popped on the other day, but it didn't cause any stress having been away from it for that length of time. What an awesome progression and "ah-ha" moment for this client.
But that wasn't the end of the awesomeness...
Her son, had seen her several nights colouring in her book and he seemed interested in it. She told him, he's more than welcome to colour in it anytime and/or help with her current picture. A day or so later, he had finished one of the butterflies at the bottom of the page!!
THAT was AWESOME to hear!!!!
This story is a wonderful reminder of a couple things:
1) Our environment determines our ability to change MUCH more naturally than forcing something on ourselves.
By having her colouring book on her island where she usually sits to scroll social media, it serves as a regular reminder of what she wants to do.
By practicing something that "fills her cup" rather than empties it, she created a desire within someone she cared about to do the same.
2) Focusing on HERSELF and HER deep health, she leads by example and ends up naturally helping her son at the same time (with less effort and stress).
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This story is a wonderful reminder that we can approach our health and caring for OURSELVES in a MUCH LESS stressful way. In doing so, focusing on one day at a time and implementing realistic and simplistic practices in a way that works with where we're at NOW, we can CREATE POSITIVE CHANGE not only for ourselves, but for those we care about as well.
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