Lauren Hackenburg, Unknown Speaker 0:03 musical intro Jessica Stover 0:05 This recording is an offering of Networks for Training and Development's Online University. Rosa McAllister 0:17 Hi, everyone. This is Rosa McAllister from Networks for Training and Development, Incorporated. And we are here to start a new series, a new monthly series. And I am so excited that we're doing this! It's called "Muck to Mojo". And we're doing this, it's an idea of Northumberland County, Pennsylvania's Trauma Committee. And it's the idea of all of us trying to move through whatever muck we're dealing with, or trying to deal with, and going, trying to remember that we all have mojo, and trying to grab hold of that, and live with a little bit more gusto... even if it's just a tiny bit for the moment, whatever we can do. So we're going to be doing this, as I mentioned, once a month, towards the end of the month, I think it's the fourth Monday of the month or something like that. We're getting this started. It's just about 20 minutes to a half hour, that we're going to be doing this with you. If you're live with us, that's awesome. And if you're not, this is a will be recorded and available for everyone, too. So please join with us as we just try to breathe together. Remember that we're not alone, that we're in the muck together, and we all got some mojo. And by sharing it together, it helps all of us. So I'm going to pass it to the wonderful Lauren Hackenburg, who's a member of Northumberland County's Trauma Committee, and Lauren's going to help us get it started. And then she's gonna pass it to Ginny Focht-New. Thanks, guys. Lauren Hackenburg 1:54 Well, thank you for that nice introduction. I don't know that, I don't remember the last time I was called wonderful. So I appreciate that. I don't have much. But I just, I was excited because after our last meeting, I found this thing in my pile of goodies. That's, what it is is a deck of cards. I used to use them when I did mobile therapy. And all it is is 52 Relaxing Rituals. I offered to share them with y'all at some point in this, these sessions. And I'm having, I was having a really hard time deciding which one because there's so many good ones. So I've kind of been reading through them and trying to decide which one does anybody want to pick between, I narrowed it down to a few..... what it is, is on one side, there's like a, there's a title. Okay? And then on the other side is the description of what it is to do. And they're just all things meant to calm us down. So I have it narrowed down to about seven for today. That they are as follows: Let your let your cares fly away. Crawl into a picture. Breathe deeply (which we all know about breathing deeply but there was something that was pretty cool about that, I thought.) Guided Imagery. Melt worries away. Bounce off the walls. MRT. And PMR. You know how we love our acronyms! PMR or MRT are the last two. So does anybody have anything that they out of the ones I just read that they're like, really dying to do say that they'd want to yell out, if we can? Rosa McAllister 3:42 I like the bounce off the wall or whatever that one was! I mean, I like them all. But that one sounds super good to me, Lauren.. Lauren Hackenburg 3:48 Okay, awesome then, Rosa... that's that's actually kind of the one that I was thinking about. So again, they're just short and sweet. And if y'all just want to kind of try to wrap your mind around this one. This is called Bounce Off the Wall. And I'm going to read through the directions of what you do. So okay, here we go..... literally and figuratively. bounce off the walls. Try throwing a firm nerf ball at the walls. Perfect for office stress. You can also pretend you are the ball and gently toss yourself around the room in a chaotic pattern, giving your body over to the law of physics. Do remove any breakables first. Which doesn't really make sense to me because you're not actually doing it. You're just sort of thinking that you're doing it. Lauren Hackenburg 4:42 But that's what bounce off the walls is. So I thought to myself, that would be something that we could probably, you could probably do in your office. If you have just a small space and you got like a small nerf ball just kind of bounce off. It shouldn't really make a lot of racket and just kind of doing that motion might provide some relaxation. And then also the part about the, just wanted make a quick comment on the part about thinking of visualizing yourself being that ball and bouncing around, I did sort of twist on this the other day when I was preparing for this, and I was thinking about these. I was at a red light. And it was coming into town. And there was all these really cool, like I looked down the street, there was just you know, different size in height buildings up and down and up and down. And I kind of practiced this a little bit while I was just at that red light and visualize myself like running down the building and like jumping to the next one. And some of them were connected and, you know, kind of like I took it a step up notch. I stepped it up a notch and pretended not you know that I was not so much involved, but like Spider Man just jumping from building to building. And it was amazing! So I got to that intersection and I was like, "Oh, well that was fun!" And of course I didn't do it. I was just doing it in my mind. But that's that's a lot like you know that card for for our Muck to Mojo. So, there you have it, just something simple. Get a nerf ball, bounce off your wall at the office. And if your boss says anything, say you're practicing self care. And and or just visualize being that ball or that Spider Man or you know, whatever it is that that works for you, you know, I tested it and tried and seem to work pretty good. So hope that works for somebody out there today. And that's it, unless you want me to do another one. Rosa McAllister 6:27 That's awesome. Thanks for getting us started, Lauren, can't wait till next month when we hear another one. Lauren Hackenburg 6:32 Okay. Either one of those or another one from the deck if I find a better one, so great. Rosa McAllister 6:40 And Ginny, I'm gonna pass it to you now. Ginny Focht-New 6:43 Thank you. Thank you both Lauren and Rosa. So I love this. And I think we should just kind of bounce off this idea! Where if we think about a ball, so it just reminded me that I have this like squishy ball that I keep on my desk and that if I start feeling tense or upset, I can use a squishy ball. I was wondering though, if everybody might think of a ball that you would really like to have to use in some way. What color would that ball be? Mine is purple. Anybody have a color for a ball? Okay, green, you have green. Think also about like, what would be the size of your ball? Like do you need a ball that's big enough that you could sit on and bounce and do your work at the same time? Lots of people do that. That can be really stress reducing to be able to move your body. I took purple. That's right. lilac, I love lilac. That would be lovely... turquoise. Beautiful. Kris says she has a ball and she got it at Networks at a training event and it's dark blue. So kind of Muck to Mojo is all about, you know, here we're in the muck, right? How do we divert our attention away from the muck for a minute to remember our mojo? Rosa sitting on a blue yoga ball and bouncing. That's also helpful. We're not always sitting in one spot in the same way. Lauren has a UFAC blue ball that she uses when she's driving to work her arms. Yep. So we could use balls for different purposes in our imagination. They might be in reality, they could be helpful. Let's see, hmmm what else can we do with this ball? Let's, let's take a deep breath. Because you did mention that, too, Lauren. And I think that's something we should think about doing all the time. So let's just take a nice deep breath in. And then breathe out. I'm going to breathe loud so people can hear it on the podcast. Breathe in again. And then breathe out. Can you think of ways that you might use a ball for relaxation? So sitting on it and bouncing it. What other ways might help with relaxation using a ball? While you're thinking about that, I find that my well used to be my son's but now my grandkids I watch them play lacrosse, soccer, baseball. And I find just sitting outside and watching people, other people use balls to be relaxing. Okay, rolling the ball on the arch of my foot. What a great idea! Being able to use a ball of yarn and untie things to keep my mind and fingers busy. Some people take that another step, don't they? And they, they knit or they crochet while they're doing other things. Sometimes we need to keep our hands busy. It helps our mind focus. Playing catch with someone. Bowling. I haven't bowled in years, I used to love bowling. Ginny Focht-New 10:26 Great. Anything else? All right, a wooden Tai Chi ball. Yeah. So we can think about Tai Chi, and imagine a ball of energy in front of us. And we can move that ball of energy and move our body. So you can take that ball of energy and move it to the right. And take that ball of energy and move it to the left. And in the process, we are helping to relax our body. Sometimes maybe feeling how tense it might be. Skee ball. Bouncing balls. A dog toy. What a great idea where we could take our dog out and throw the ball and have our dog catch that. We used to have these, I can't find them anymore, these little squishy kind of nerfy, they were about the size of a golf ball. And we have a cat who we used to throw the ball through the house as far as we could get it and she would run and get it and bring it back. That gave us lots of entertainment and relaxation. I don't know what Fun Zeros are. That's a Lauren suggestion. Lauren, can you add something to tell us what that is? Lauren Hackenburg 11:45 I think that's a funny correction... cause she said skee ball and, and it autocorrected to fun zero! So I don't know what fun zeros are! Rosa McAllister 11:52 I love auto correct and hate it at the same time! Right? Dodgeball in the office with squishy balls. Great idea! Lisa has a ball that she uses, another squishy ball. That's great. Okay, anyplace else, when we might find little balls of things? Maybe when we're cooking, we might create little balls like maybe we make something and make a meatball or a meatless ball. Or we might make cookies and you roll the cookies up into a ball and then you squish them. What else, can anybody else think of other ways that we might use balls that would be something that would be relaxing and divert our attention? Because that is really what we're trying to do build a whole group of maybe tools in our toolbox or a ball creating a ball of tape, or rubber bands, because they are also something that you can pull apart, put back together again, something to divert our attention. Tea ball, oh for having a cup of tea! We can use a ball and fill it up with lovely tea and then put it in a hot water. A ball of tin foil. I just learned that a ball of tin foil, this is not necessarily relaxation, but it is for your clothes... that you can if you have wool balls in your dryer, if you put safety pins on them that helps to reduce the static electricity. And if you put in a ball of aluminum foil, make it into a ball and throw that into your dryer that also reduces static electricity in your laundry. So it's relaxing your clothes. Not you... well, maybe it saves you from ironing. Does anybody ever iron anymore? I don't know. I don't think so. Frozen dipping dots! Yeah, little tiny balls like all go together that tastes yummy in your mouth. Very nice. Hitting golf balls at the driving range. Of course. Maybe even there's like other ways to use golf balls, right? You could go to a putting green or play miniature golf. Oh a snowball fight! Yeah, we could use snow balls to play with. Maybe we would make bigger balls of snow and create a snowman or woman or animal of some kind. Very nice. Anything else anybody can think of that might come in around a form like that? So let's talk about how you feel then, when you are able to maybe use a ball and divert your attention. Oh, Captain Kangaroo and ping pong balls! Love it. Thank you, Kris. Love it. Ginny Focht-New 15:00 So how does it feel when you're using something like this, to divert your attention? For me, it gives me a little break. My mind is going all the time, what do I have to do next? What I have to do now? What did I just do? And so sometimes we need to just give our give ourselves a little break. Have do you feel? And are some of these things while you're thinking getting ready to write, I'll just add that when we're thinking about muck to mojo, that if we can insert enough mojo into our day, even a minute at a time, the muck doesn't seem quite so mucky. Just thinking about my granddaughter who started to ride horses, and now has a job mucking stalls, right? And her brother said the other day, he just doesn't really like going to pick her up afterwards, because she doesn't smell all that good. So we might, it might give us a little bit of relief, to insert a diversion in our day, it might help us to calm our mind. I read in a really wonderful book about mindfulness, about the importance of space. So if we walk through a doorway, the way that we get to do that is that that doorway creates space. For our mind, which might be focused on lots of things at the same time, we also want to create some space in there, we can let things go and bring things up. So we have, Rosa says that she's really upset or stressed or sad, or whatever, squeezing a ball, or bouncing or going for a run, or dancing helps my body slough off some of the muck. The muck and stay there might always be there. But we're better able to handle the muck if we have more mojo. So that that's thank you, Rosa, that that's really helpful that we want to intentionally add some of these things into our into our day. Anybody else? What might help you... oh, cleaning, I actually know what I'm completely in agreement with you that might not be for everybody. That's true. But I find that if things are not organized, that it just feels like chaos, doesn't it? And then being able to kind of sort through it, get rid of some things, put some things, some order in it... all of that is can be really relieving and releasing of that muck... except for when I move things around in my kitchen cabinets and think I'm now way more organized than I was, and I probably am, and then four weeks afterward go to the wrong cabinet. Because my brain pathway says go to this one and not that. So cleaning, what a great idea. Let's take another deep breath. All right. Ginny Focht-New 18:29 And breathe out. Ginny Focht-New 18:34 Let your shoulders kind of relax. We can move our shoulders around a little bit to let go of some tension. Because actually, you have little balls right in our shoulders that are in the sockets there. And they need to be relieved sometimes, so we can just like move them around to let them go. The more tension we let that builds up into our shoulders and our neck, the harder it is to focus on what we have to do or feel comfortable in what we're doing. Kris says she has a friend who used to say, "The first thing I do when something goes wrong is curse like a sailor. It gives my mind a break." We all have to find what works for us, don't we? And if that works for you, that would be pretty awesome. Let's do a little more movement maybe so that we can relax our bodies a little bit because when our mind starts getting tense that directly relates to how our bodies feel. And if you take your hands and rub your hands together, make them nice and warm. Ginny Focht-New 19:51 And then then we're gonna take our hands and just lay your hands on your face. You can feel the warmth. Now maybe you need cool. And if you need cool, don't rub your hands together so much. And you can feel that. You can gently rub on your forehead and maybe give your scalp a little massage. You want to do whatever feels good to you, if something doesn't feel good, don't do it. Maybe back in the back of our neck is a place where we also hold some tension. So if you can get up there under your hairline, like way up beyond the top of your neck almost to where your top of your skull or bottom of your skull is. And just release some tension in there. Sometimes it helps to make little circles as you do that. And use as much pressure as you feel comfortable, that doesn't hurt. And if you use a circular motion in one direction, then use that circular motion in opposite directions equal both ways. Ginny Focht-New 21:10 Just massage the back of your neck. What else? Another place where we hold tension is if you move your hands up to where your where your jaw is, where the the joint of your jaw, you might find right below that, that bone there, that you hold a lot of tension there. So if you can kind of move your jaw around a little bit, back and forth, front and back. And then just give some circular motion there. By that you can bring that circular motion all the way down your jaw... we carry a lot of tension in our jaw that way, Ginny Focht-New 21:52 all the way down to our chin, Rosa McAllister 21:55 to our sinuses to right now we're in most of us are in homes that are heated, some people are in warmer places than others. But with the heat, sometimes that aggravates our sinuses, so a little bit of Ginny Focht-New 22:15 round our eyes, back up to our forehead, Ginny Focht-New 22:20 back up to your scalp. And then go to any place on your face, on your scalp, on your neck that feels any kind of tension. You can bring that all the way down to your shoulders, rub your shoulders or use that circular motion... It would be a really nice time to have somebody give you a massage. But in the absence of being able to do that, sometimes we want to do that for ourselves. And take a nice deep breath in Ginny Focht-New 23:02 and breathe out. Ginny Focht-New 23:06 Let go some of that tension. Ginny Focht-New 23:10 Just let it go. It's not that there won't be tension in the future. But what we want is to figure out ways to handle the tension when it comes. Because that tension then gets in the way of our ability to figure out what to do about something that's a problem. So we have just about four minutes left with our time. And I think I'm going to stop here. If you have something you want to add. Please add it. If there's something, Rosa, that you want to wrap us up in some way.... I just thought I'd be conscious about our time. Because if we go over our time, then that's going to increase your stress, too! You're already probably thinking about I got to do this next and I got to do that next. And so let's just kind of let it go. Okay. Rosa McAllister 23:59 Thank you, Ginny, so much. And Lauren. I'm bouncing away on my yoga ball, which is my usual chair at my office desk here and I have another little ball that I've been squeezing because I'm still recovering from a hand injury. So I'm using that and I find that helps a lot in many different ways. And, Jeremy, you wrote in "I know a couple who when someone cuts them off on the road, they compete to make up funny names to call the person... it turns their anger to laughter." I love that. I absolutely love that. So yeah, we're going to be meeting again, as I mentioned, this is our first Muck to Mojo session. And we're going to be doing this month from now. So we're going to be doing this again... just about 20 minutes to a half hour each time. Different ones of us, people from the Northumberland County Trauma Committee will be leading the discussion... lauren has agreed to help us get started each time. And we just look forward to sharing lots of fun, lots of little tips, whatever we can do to remember that we're in the muck together. We're not alone, number one. And I know that always helps me. And number two, that even as Ginny said, if we can find maybe it's not even a minute, maybe it's a bare moment, maybe it's a half a moment, maybe it's a millisecond, have a little bit of mojo... just to remember that there's always a little mojo in us. And the more we can shine a light on that, and shine the light for others, the better. We're all going to be just like this idea of turning funny names to people when they cut us off or do things to us on the road, turning it into laughter rather than rage. Kris wrote in here that, "Mash was a great show for learning to curse without cursing." This makes me smile, just to remember so many of the great skits of Mash. So from all of us to all of you, may youremember your mojo, may you find your mojo even on the most darkest of times, and maybe we all shine the lights together. Thank you all so much for joining with us. Bye! Thank you for listening. We hope the information provided was helpful. Don't forget to stop by our website and take advantage of all we have to offer. Transcribed by https://otter.ai