S3 E31: Balancing Scattered Energy: My Favorite Tips for Spring
Spring is a time of rebirth but also a time of big transition - if you often feel scattered, jittery, and unfocused around this time of year, you’re definitely not alone! Even with positive transitions, there's a lot to process, and coming out of hibernation poses its own challenges and adjustments, so you might have to shift your self care practices with the seasons.
This episode is full of my favorite tips for balancing spring energy (or anytime you feel scattered), including grounding techniques that will calm and focus your body and mind, to support your productivity, creativity, and overall well-being.
If you missed the live workshop, you can still build your own seasonal self care survival kit of bite size, manageable actions that won’t stress you out or add to your schedule - having practices to support yourself in times of depletion and celebration will have a huge impact on how you feel and what you can accomplish!
RESOURCES DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODE:
My Free Resource Library includes all of these tips in one handy PDF
My post on the Digital Munchies
Self Control app (for Mac)
TRANSCRIPT
Hello, everyone, I'm back! It was nice to have a break from podcasting for a few weeks, because, of course, there's a lot of work that goes into making a podcast. But I also missed it a lot, and missed showing up here to share things that are helpful for all of you. So, glad to be back!
Thank you to everyone who joined me for the spring Build Your Seasonal Self Care Kit workshop last week, it was really fun. If you missed it, you can still get the recording. I'll have that up for probably all of April. I haven't decided the exact date I'll take it down yet, but I'll warn you, for sure. There are details in the show notes about that.
On the topic of spring, today, I'm going to talk about balancing that spring energy. It's been spring on the calendar for a few weeks now here in the Northern Hemisphere. But as the amount of daylight is continuing to grow quickly, by quite a bit each day, it really still feels like a transitional time for me. There's a lot of extra energy to process, I'm definitely still feeling it. Are you feeling it too?
I really resonate with the traditions that consider the spring equinox to be the start of the new year. It really feels like more of a beginning to me than January 1. If you follow astrology at all, that's the start of the wheel of the year, the astrological calendar, and Aries season, which we're in right now, is considered to be very energetic and intense. I really feel that matching up with how I usually feel at this time of year.
Every season has its own set of feelings and mental states and needs that come along with that. For me, spring is always my favorite season. Every year I'm excited about it. But I've also found it historically pretty exhausting, pretty anxiety inducing. Part of that is because I've been a gigging musician and accompanist, you know, in the before times. April and May were times when I basically didn't have time to come up for air because I was doing so many recitals for other teachers, and just performances in general, lots of extra work. Also, that's when social stuff starts to ramp up when everyone's coming out of hibernation.
So in the past, it had been kind of an intense time of year, and I didn't have the energy to enjoy it, which is sad. Once I started to realize that I had this anxiety even before the activity started to ramp up, I figured out that it was kind of a seasonal cue.
I think this is more common than we think. There's a lot of romanticizing of spring because of people who don't like winter and feel that they have less energy, it's exciting. There's often nicer weather. But with all of that, even with positive transitions, there's a lot to process. Coming out of hibernation poses its own challenges and adjustments, and, you know, maybe spring is actually a tough mental health time for you, even though it's supposed to be, on paper, this really great thing. So, that's why I've started talking about this, because I think it's more normal than we think to have a hard time moving into spring.
Now that I know that I have this increased anxiety starting in mid-March or so, or maybe early March, now that I live a little bit further south than I used to in Minnesota, I know I have this restlessness coming up. It's just much easier to handle when I know, and I can prepare for it.
So, we might have to shift our self care practices in order to deal with that, which is totally normal, you're going to feel like you need different things in the winter than the spring, summer fall - not that these are hard and fast rules, but just kind of general trends.
So, today, I'm going to tell you my favorite tips for balancing that kind of scattered, jittery spring energy. The first thing is to focus on activities that make you feel more grounded in your body. That can be a wide variety of things. I like doing a body scan meditation for that, where you give attention to each part of your body and you can intentionally relax it, or just kind of observe what's happening without changing anything. You can take a few minutes to feel your feet on the floor, or go outside and like put your feet in the grass on the ground.
You can use grounding or calming scents. Like I like vetiver a lot, or lavender or cedar wood, for that sort of grounding feeling. If you have a local co-op or health food store, you can maybe sample some stuff there and see what you like, if you don't know.
Soothing touch, like petting your cat or dog. Hugging somebody, hugging yourself, taking care of your skin, like putting on some lotion that feels kind of luxurious. I really like putting a hand on my heart to take some deep breaths - that feels very soothing to me. Having my back rubbed, whatever it is for you, try that.
I really like acupuncture for balancing and unblocking, that stagnant energy. Any kind of body work can have this effect, too. Or if you don't have access to that, or if it doesn't feel safe yet, because of COVID, there's always tapping or EFT, which kind of uses those same meridians. Using your voice by singing or chanting or yelling, whatever feels good, and wherever it feels like you can just let it out, let that excess energy be expelled.
If you're not quite sure what it is that makes you feel grounded, you just feel like you're bouncing all over the place. Maybe set a regular daily time to check in with yourself. Maybe it's right after you wake up, maybe it's right after a meal. It's good to attach it to something that you already are doing, so that it doesn't just get forgotten. You can check in with yourself and say, “What really makes me feel grounded?” and maybe try some of these things, and you'll get new information about what actually feels good. Maybe what feels good one day won't feel good the next day, and that's fine, but this is all really good information.
Moving your body is a favorite practice of mine for this type of energy. Whenever I feel anxious, I will just go for a walk as fast as I can. Maybe you like running or biking or something else. Maybe just a dance break for a few minutes, or just standing up and just shaking all of your limbs as fast as you can - whatever kind of movement feels good for you, try it out.
I also like to cut back or totally avoid sugar as a regular practice, but I'm extra careful about it in the spring because I know it's something that makes me anxious, makes my anxiety feel worse. Maybe caffeine is something to look at, too. Not to vilify these things, but just to say that maybe they're having more of an effect on that anxiousness and scattered energy than you think, so do an experiment. Eating nutrient dense foods so that your blood sugar feels stable can be something, too, eating when you're hungry.
Really, just taking stock of what your feelings are. When it feels like you're moving so fast, it can feel really hard to even slow down enough to know what you're feeling. But just taking a second to go, “Okay, what am I feeling, and can I label it?” can go a long way, and you’re planting the seed of being aware of these things. Feelings can be fast moving, they can be hard to identify.
A favorite of mine, as well, is embracing your inner child, doing something you love doing as a kid. Maybe it's something active that also burns energy, but maybe it's just something that feels good. If this feels unfamiliar to you, maybe think about yourself at a certain age, and ask that version of you what they want to do right now.
I have a picture above my desk of me as a four year old. It’s my fourth birthday, because there's a birthday cake in the picture. I keep little four year old Rebecca up there because I don't want to forget what she wants and what she needs. I really like having that visual reminder up there. You can choose whatever age feels free and fun to you.
Then whatever your inner child wants to do, maybe you can fit that into your day, even if it's a mini version of it. If they're like, “I want to go on a waterslide,” maybe you can't go to a waterslide, but maybe you can do something that involves water and splashing around, that would be fun. It might sound silly at first, but maybe it's just the thing. Oftentimes our inner child is wiser than we realize, and we're just not really listening to them.
Speaking of the micro version of something, I'm a really big fan of the micro vacation, which is really just you breaking your routine in a fun way. Sometimes it can feel unattainable to actually take a vacation or take a long break. The micro version is almost always attainable. It could be just a spontaneous break, just sitting in the sun, it could be taking a walk in a beautiful place, it could be taking a different route home from somewhere you drive regularly, just to mix it up a little bit and give yourself a little novelty, which I know I'm really seeking in this time where we're still at home, or starting to maybe come out of that.
Limiting distractions in general is huge. I find that I get the digital munchies really badly. If you haven't heard me talk about the digital munchies, that's my term for when you're on your computer, and you've opened 15 tabs already. You cannot stop scrolling and opening new things, and just consuming, consuming, consuming, and you're barely even taking it in, but you just feel this ravenous need to keep going because of the anxious energy. Ironically, it usually makes you more anxious, because it's too much stimuli to take in at once. We're really susceptible to it when we're already feeling scattered.
If you can do something like putting your phone in a different room, I also really like the Self Control app for Mac, which lets you block websites. Whatever you need to do to just put a barrier between you and the distraction. Reducing sensory input that makes you feel overstimulated can go a long way, too, like, if you're sensitive to lights, maybe you could be in a darker room. If you're sensitive to sound, and you usually listen to music while you work, maybe you could just work in silence, and see if that makes you more able to focus. Maybe smells are something for you, too. I know light and sound are kind of the big ones. But whatever sense is overcoming you, maybe you can just reduce your input a little bit.
Finding ways to channel your excess energy into something productive is also great. Maybe that's work that takes more active energy. Maybe that's brainstorming because you feel like your brain is going so fast with ideas, and you just need to talk into your voice recorder, so that you can capture them all. You might be experiencing the flip side of that too, which is that you just can't focus and you're not getting anything done.
There may be some level of acceptance with this, that maybe you don't have the capacity for as much focused work right now until you're acclimating to the season. The more you can focus on those more sensory and more bodily things, and supporting yourself in these various ways to resource yourself. Maybe it's just going to be tougher for a couple weeks, it doesn't mean you shouldn't try. But just kind of accepting that it's not that something is wrong with you, it's just that you are reacting to the conditions that are happening, and that's totally normal and okay.
Paying attention to when your energy wanes, and resting when necessary is huge. Also, like maybe you have a biorhythm that makes you more energetic in the morning, and more tired in the afternoon. So resting in the afternoon really takes advantage of what your natural rhythms are already.
This shift in the seasons takes a lot more of your body's resources than you realize. Especially if you are someone who suffers from spring allergies. I personally don't have like the traditional stuffed up nose and all that kind of stuff. But I know that my immune system is doing something because I'm always just super tired and my throat will get a little bit scratchy, and I've discovered that, oh yeah, my immune system is working on that, and that is making me tired. It's not leaving me with enough energy to do as much as I had hoped.
There's nothing wrong with you if you feel less energy than you think you “should” during this time of year. There's nothing wrong with you if you feel stressed. There's nothing wrong with you if you feel anxious, or just are having a hard time processing the uptick in energy. So as much as you can, just accept things as they are, accept that those energies are happening, and be extra kind to yourself. It doesn't mean that you have to stop trying to do the things that are important to you, but maybe you just approach them with a little more ease and a little more kindness.
So, I hope that's helpful. If you're someone who likes to read information and see it on paper, this list is in my free resource library, and the link to that is in the show notes. There's all kinds of great lists and resources and tools, definitely check that out.
And if you want to use these suggestions, and even more suggestions, and the framework of nine types of rest to make your own menu of your go-to self care practices to support you throughout the spring season, definitely check out the Build Your Seasonal Self Care Survival Kit workshop.
That's it for now. I'm really glad to be back. I hope you're all doing as well as possible and enjoying spring, and I will see you next week.
Pianist and composer