Filling your bucket
One of the ways to get started in managing stress, anxiety, overwhelm, etc. is intentionally including “bucket fillers” into your daily routine. This is just as important as paying attention to the bucket drainers and minimizing those where possible.
I’ve also noticed when I start out with this in sessions, it’s the easiest to dismiss or gloss over.
It may seem like these little drops in the bucket won’t really matter, or do much to help with the bigger picture. When you’re dealing with a marriage falling apart, or a child who won’t talk to you, or you need a job yesterday, and none of the hundreds of applications you’ve filled out have led to anything, I get why you’d scoff at the idea of taking a few minutes out of your day to do something that brings you a moment of peace.
When your body and brain are operating in survival mode 24/7, your nervous system is like an alarm bell, constantly ringing until you don’t even hear it ringing so loudly anymore. You may become numb. Or you may keep moving forward, distracting yourself so often that you start to lose your connection to yourself and your ability to pick up on cues that tell you what you need and when. And this is what we really don’t want to lose when everything outside of you is chaos. If your guidance system is down, how will we figure out where to go?
Your internal guidance system is priority #1. Especially for my clients trying to heal from betrayal, and/or trauma. For many of you, someone in your life has already disrupted your internal guidance system by years of deception, gaslighting, and/or emotional abuse. That’s why this approach, this annoyingly simplistic approach, is actually just what we need to start with. (Since I love metaphors, look at this quick post about an example of how quickly those drops add up.)
If we start building in moments, however brief, (working up to longer, more intentional experiences) we can start to send signals that your nervous system can come out of high alert, even if for a bit. This pays dividends in your ability to get out of panic mode and into “I’m choosing where to go in this moment” mode. This is empowerment. So often, choice was taken away from you. This is where we get to take some choice back.
So it starts with a pause. You take a big breath, you drop your shoulders as you slowly let it out, and you ask: “What do I need right now in this moment?”. Not “do I leave this marriage?” or “how do I reply to that text?”, for most people those need to come later out of necessity when you recoup from the initial shock and emotional flooding that can happen in these situations. (If you’ve made the decision to move forward with ending a relationship this principle is even more important to help give you some oomph - it’s likely you’ll need some reserves of energy.)
If we’re on a hike, and cut open our arm on a sharp branch, we work on patching it up first. It wouldn’t make sense to first decide which fork in the road to take while we bleed out. Those decisions are important - and they come after we’ve focused on our first steps.
For more info on what bucket fillers look like and how to get started, check out this post.
*If you are currently experiencing symptoms from trauma related to betrayal, an APSATS coach or therapist, or someone trained to work with betrayal trauma can be a helpful resource. If I don’t serve your location, or you have a hard time finding someone, send me a message and I’d be more than happy to help you with a search in your area. Also know that if you’re struggling with depression, anxiety, overwhelm - that isn’t something wrong with you, it’s something right with you, because your body sees that you are trying to cope with a very unsafe/painful situation. It may take time to be able to find safety within and around you - and you’re worth this care and support.
