284 - Daily Transitions
Recalibrating your brain
Having to transition quickly between different tasks, different social situations, and even different partners can take a toll on your mental health. Unlike computers, we need time to change our mindsets when switching from work to family time or date time, for example.
Make sure you have adequate time for transition: have clear time boundaries and think about ending dates/starting to wrap things up a little earlier than you feel like you need to in order to provide enough time to transition.
Find ways to settle from one headspace to the other, such as stopping at a park on the way home, taking a walk, or something else to help you relax before starting your next task.
Work/home balance
Having clear divisions between work and home or other tasks can also help. Disrupting your flow when you’re already in the zone can be stressful and disorienting, so giving yourself dedicated blocks of time can increase productivity and elevate your mood.
Carve out specific blocks of time with no phone/email/social media time. Even 30 minutes can be helpful.
Change your clothes between work and home, or between dates, to give yourself a sense of starting anew.
Change the air if you need to, by incorporating some fresh air, a nice smelling spray, or a candle.
Mental spaces
It’s important to actually leave a mental space when you say you are. Try to make some time at the end or work, vacation, a date, whatever, to collect your thoughts, and write them down if necessary. This lets you "save your progress” and come back to it later when you need to.
Alternatively, when you need to get into a mental space, actually get into it:
Reread what you wrote when you were leaving the space previously.
Associate it with a goal if you can: “What do I want from this?”
If any of this is particularly difficult, it might mean that your mind is trying to get your attention. If you find yourself dreading a certain part of your life, ask yourself:
Is there something about the space you could change?
Is there something you’re not communicating to the people around you?
Is there a clearer or more interesting goal/purpose you can come up with?
Is something actually wrong here?
Time for yourself
Don’t underestimate the value of making time for yourself. Make sure that you’re taking at least one evening or time during the day throughout the week to have to yourself. If that’s not realistic, try to at least save 90 minutes. Take some time to think and explore anything you feel you may be missing out on lately.
What to do during your “me” time:
Unstructured time.
Read or watch your own shows.
Writing or journaling.
Walking, exercising, or doing something physical.
Organizing your environment, if that brings you joy.
Masturbating.
Avoid things like browsing social media, catching up on email, reading the news, or other stressful things.
Transcript
This document may contain small transcription errors. If you find one please let us know at info@multiamory.com and we will fix it ASAP.
Jase: On this episode of the Multiamory Podcast, We're talking about Daily Transitions. We've talked about life transitions and big things like that in the past, but today this is about the little transitions that you go through every day. Whether that's transitioning from one partner to being with another, to being on a date, to being back home with your kids, to going from work to vacation, or just relaxing in the evening. All of these little transitions that are so much a part of our day, but can often be really challenging to do effectively, and so we're going to be covering a variety of things about all of those in this episode today.
Dedeker: We do get a lot of emails and people who reach out to us asking about this particular topic we did recently get a comment, I believe it was in our Patreon, in our Facebook group, specifically from Melissa talking about transitioning their time from being with one partner who was a newer partner to going back to their partner who was an older partner, and also sounds like they were nesting with his partner as well. There was things like having to go back to the cooking and the cleaning and helping the kids with schoolwork and stuff like that. Having a hard time, I think, reconciling that abrupt shift in energy and in feeling between these two relationships in between these two households, both alike in dignity.
Emily: Nice. Nice to
Dedeker: I didn't think I'd say the word household and you have to follow it with that. I've definitely experienced that, like for suresies. I think it's inevitable, especially if you're in any kind of non-monogamous or multi-partner relationship, just out of the sheer fact that every single relationship, every single partner has a different history, different baggage, different responsibilities, different commitments and different levels of emotionality and intimacy. Of course, there's always going to be a sense of shifting gears slightly from one person to the other.
Emily: Well, and even if you live alone, if you're very solo-poly, and don't have a nesting relationship, transitioning from being with people over to not being with people transitioning into your maybe every day like at-home life, or currently right now, many of us are on stay-at-home lockdown type orders and things like that. What is that versus being with a partner and being alone? There's a lot of different transitions to delve into here.
Jase: Absolutely. As the person who commented pointed out, there's really not a lot of resources about this. No one seems to be talking about or writing about that transition specifically from being with one partner to coming back home, to being with another and how that can be jarring. I've heard a lot of different versions of this. Like the example that Decker talked about about the new partner, it's all very exciting, and then it's coming home to the daily life with a partner and having to do the dishes and take care of the kids.
I've also heard it though, where it's I'm out with this partner and we have this one particular sexual energy or some BDSM dynamic to our relationship. Then when I go with my other partner where maybe we have the opposite roles from that, or it's just a very different type of relationship, maybe it's more of a queerplatonic relationship, whatever it is that switching between headspaces can be challenging.
In researching this, most of the research out there about switching mental states has to do with going from work to not work or from going from your daily life to vacation. It's an interesting field of research about why people come back from vacations and the effects like the good effects of having a vacation go away incredibly quickly most of the time.
Emily: You don't say.
Jase: Yes. There's a whole body of research about why that is. For this episode, I'm actually excited to take that research and those ideas that come up in those articles about different types of transitions and how those can apply, not only to something like work or getting into a project or going on vacation but also switching between being with different partners or even just different people who are close and important in your life.
Dedeker: The first thing to bear in mind is that it turns out we're not computers. I hate to break it to you.
Jase: What?
Emily: The thing is, Jase is so sad about this.
Dedeker: I know.
Jase: I listen to all that electronic music to try to become one.
Dedeker: It's true though. Emily, he'll be in the middle of coding in the middle of the day and I'll come in and he'll be blasting on his headphones, electronic music that you don't normally listen to. That's not normally your scene, but he's always like, "I'm trying to become one with the computer."
Emily: Wow. Well, whatever works I guess does it.
Dedeker: Do you find that it helps, Jase?
Jase: I do find that it helps. That's why I do it.
Dedeker: Really?
Jase: I don't do it every day. The other day I also listen to a full day of a handle Renaissance music or Renaissance and Baroque music. I change it up, but often it's like, I want really hard, very like, electronic music, so I can be one with the computer.
Dedeker: I would listen to very intense and fast electronic music if I was late to a gig and knew that I had to pull some dangerous maneuvers on the LA freeways that would pump me up enough to get my courage, to be okay, I can do this.
Jase: Oh dear. That sounds dangerous.
Dedeker: I pretend I was in Toronto or something. Anyway, we're not computers. We can't just like a computer immediately switch between tasks very easily, and we can't switch very easily between vastly different social situations as well. No, it's something we do all the time. This is a very day-to-day situation where you're going from work to not work to friends, to your partner, to another partner, or whatever. However, if we spend, for instance, your whole drive home from work, or if right now you're working from home, your whole walk to the living room where your family is still thinking about work. Puzzling overwork, then trying to immediately switch to on time, family time, date time, often it can be difficult. Sometimes just playing won't work.
Jase: It's like, you're still in work mode and then your partner or your kids are like, "I'm hungry. Where's food." It's like, it's jarring. It's like this. You're trying to talk to me about one thing when I'm totally in a different headspace.
Dedeker: I definitely know for me that, especially if I've had a very, very long workday and a very packed workday, it feels like it takes significantly longer for me to get out of that mode. Like when my brain has spent a solid eight or nine hours in one particular mode that it feels like it takes a whole solid hour. I feel bad sometimes because I feel like I'm just spacey and not very present and want to talk to my partner about work stuff that they can't really help be with necessarily. I definitely feel like my mind getting stuck in that mode. As far as tackling mental recalibration, it's really important to make sure that you're able to give yourself some time for the transition. Now, this isn't going to be always available to you in every single situation. Sometimes we got to go back-to-back and just, boom, boom, boom. If you are able to carve out time for a transition, a mental transition, definitely take it.
Emily: I do appreciate being able to drive somewhere for that mental recalibration sometimes. The opportunity to get to be at a workspace and then drive home to your other destination, whether it be home or another partner somewhere is nice because it allows for that time, and it allows for that maybe quiet moment to yourself. Unfortunately, not all of us have that opportunity right now, so we have to have different boundaries for our time. Maybe if that's just directly after the workday ends, sitting there quietly for 15 minutes by yourself and transitioning personally and internally out of that time.
Jase: A big part of it is intentionally transitioning. Specifically in the commute, one thing that came up a lot in different articles that I read was this idea of it's not just enough to be in the car on your way home from work, it's that people would say things like I have a specific landmark. There's this one big tree that's 15 minutes before I get to home and when I see that that's my cue to, "Okay. I'm going to stop rethinking about work stuff and trying to solve these problems, and now I'm going to start switching into my being-at-home brain and get myself in that headspace. That same thing, Emily, like you said is making that time intentional instead of, "Oh, I've got-- maybe I'll schedule 15 minutes between things." Then I spend the whole 15 scrolling Facebook.
Dedeker: This could look like starting your wrap up at work earlier if you're able to, or maybe even ending a date slightly earlier than you think that you may need to. I know that's something that's really hard to do when you're in NRE, and just every single little last-second feels precious, but you may consider when you're making transitions between partners of actually giving yourself a little bit of that time to transition.
I know that this is something I've been puzzling over for years, because in my life I spend big chunks of the year living with Jase, alternating with chunks of the year living with my other partner, Alex. That transition, I'm used to it at this point, just because it's happened so many times, but I will say that it's often this week of really, really weird emotional space of being really sad that I'm now separated from a partner that I just spent all this time with, combined with being really excited to be reunited with a partner that I haven't physically been with in quite a while.
It's not a bad space to be in, but it's definitely weird. I've certainly tried to puzzle over like, "Huh, what do I need to do about that transition?" It's not always feasible for me to be like, "Well, I'm just going to go somewhere else on my own for a week and just deal with it that way." I don't know. That definitely is something that I've also tried to puzzle over. It's like, "What's a way to ritualize that or make that transition feel a little bit more intentional like you said."
Jase: I think that there's an element of communicating to your partner about it, or to the people around you, to your family or your friends, and let them know that you need a little transition time. If you can though, it's great if you can find a space to do that. Maybe having a whole week to yourself is a bit much scheduling wise.
Something else that a lot of people talked about with making the transition from work to home or this is actually a really, really good one if you're actually going out on a date. You're out of the house, spending time with someone, is on your way back to home, especially if you live at home with another partner is to stop somewhere on the way home. Stop and get a coffee or something like that, or stop at a park nearby and just take a little walk or do something to give yourself a moment to come down from one thing and prepare for another rather than just rushing from one to the other. That's something that came up a lot.
If you're stuck at home right now, then going for a walk is a nice alternative for that. That's something that Dedeker and I have actually started doing fairly regularly, not quite every day, but is when both of us are done with work. We'll say, "Should we go for a walk now? Yes, let's go for a walk." We'll both just get together. Even sometimes it's really short. It's 10 to 15 minutes. Sometimes it's a longer walk, but it just is a signal of, "Hey, we're getting out of that space. We're moving into a different space." It often takes me at least the first half of that walk to get out of my work brain.
Dedeker: Yes, have I talked about Cuddle Club on this show before?
Jase: I don't think so.
Emily: No, not that I recall.
Dedeker: That's the silly transitional ritual that I have with Alex at the end of the workday, and especially, when we were in the same house, once lockdown was the thing and we were both working from home. Yes, Cuddle Club is just sitting on the couch for five minutes, cuddling ideally name. I found that was a super useful transition, and again, its like no phones or not watching something on TV or whatever.
It's literally just five or 10 minutes of just us time, just talking about the day or whatever, then maybe we'll go for a walk or make dinner or figure out what's going to happen for the evening or go our separate ways or whatever. Yes, I found that having that touchpoint. Again, it's your brain really loves these repeating symbols and repeated rituals and cyclical nature of things. It was that touchpoints. Like, "Okay, I've arrived at Cuddle Club and-- " Don't laugh at me.
Emily: No, I love it. This is very sweet.
Dedeker: It's a very exclusive club.
Emily: Yes, it is.
Dedeker: Became just that much easier to know, "Okay, I can transition into a relaxing time now or transition it into whatever's next, that's not work."
Emily: See, I use my walk in the morning. It's the first thing that I do in the morning, and to me, it offers a transition of, "Okay, I'm up now. I've had some water to rehydrate my body and now, I'm going for my 45 minute or hour walk. Then I can tackle the day after that. I think that it can be used in whatever method or way that works best for you in order to transition into the next thing.
We're going to talk about clear divisions between tasks during working when you are at work or at home. Okay, getting in the zone. It's a very great feeling, and it can be really stressful and disorienting to constantly be interrupted from that flow like Jase, specifically, I'm thinking of you with this.
Dedeker: Jase wrote this line, so obviously.
Emily: I feel like half of this podcast is just Dedeker or I being like, "Are you there? What are you doing? Hello?"
Dedeker: Jase, Jase, Jase. What are you doing Jase?
Emily: Yes, because he often like thinks Jase gets in the zone so much. It's very difficult to grab him and take him on to the next thing even though-
Dedeker: It's a great thing.
Emily: Yes, it is. It's impressive.
Dedeker: There's so much research out about how flow, and theta waves-- not theta waves-- is it theta waves?
Jase: Yes, some kind of waves.
Dedeker: Theta waves of the brain are really important. It's really good to be in that flow and in the zone, and really good free creativity and productivity, and all the stuff like that. Jase is really, really great at that.
Emily: Yes, but we all can be better at this though creating these boundaries or these barriers around certain blocks of time. It can really do great things for your productivity and for your mood. All three of us have a hard time stepping away from work, maybe Dedeker is the best at it, but I know Jase when Dedeker is not with you often you'll be like, "Yes, I'm working at 9 pm in the evening."
Just like, "When does work stop." I don't know. "I'll probably, often work on the weekends, even though maybe I should really delineate between play and work time." It is important to have those very strict boundaries around your work and playtime. It can be really good for your mood and your overall sense of well being.
Dedeker: It's nice to have boundaries. You can also apply this to how you approach your partners as well. Again, it's really nice to have a ritual. Like with the Cuddle Club thing. It's like, "Okay, yes, it's five or 10 minutes where we're not on our phones, we're just hanging out talking, touching each other having a good time." This is very similar to that. That it could be, "Okay, we're going to sit down for a meal without our phones, and maybe my other partner knows that for this period of time, I'm not going to be super responsive via text or things like that."
That having boundaries and really protecting your time and protecting the time that you have with your partners can really, really help to maintain these divisions so things don't feel quite so muddled or disorienting.
Emily: Yes, and especially with things news too. It's good to get your phone away from you at times just because there's so much between all the doom and gloom on Facebook and Twitter and all that, and then all the doom and gloom in the news. It's really good to just distance yourself from that for a time, whether it's 30 minutes or an hour or whatever, and just maybe up that from there, however long you can stand, but especially if you can truly disconnect from your phone and then be able to sit there and be present with your partner. It's a lovely freeing thing.
Jase: Yes, this is something that for a lot of people the idea of not being accessible on their phone is a stressful thought. Maybe that sounds it'd be nice but it's, "I need to be available for my kids or for my partners or for my family or whatever it is." If that's how you feel, something that can be helpful is to just start with a small little block. Say, it's at the start of your workday, or it's after your workday is over of having just 30 minutes of time where I'm not going to respond to anything on my phone.
I'm not going to check my email, I'm not going to read the news, I'm not going to be on social media. I'm not going to do those things. I could still be on my computer playing a Sudoku game if that's something that's fun for you. You could be doing something on technology but just not getting pulled into those things that suck you out of time for yourself and instead put you into time for everybody else. Just taking that little bit and then see if you can grow from there. It can be a really amazing transformative thing. It might be addictive enough that you're saying, "I'm going to make more time like that during my day."
Emily: I really like this one. Change your clothes between your work and your home time. If you're going on a date, then generally, you want to be picking out your perfect outfit, or whatever. I do love this idea of, you have your work clothes, Dedeker, right now, I'll paint a word picture, she has on a very nice lovely buttoned-up shirt. I'm assuming when you're doing your fun, let's hang out and do Cuddle Club and eat dinner or whatever, you're probably not going to have that on.
Dedeker: As soon as we're done recording, I'm ripping this thing off because it's really uncomfortable.
Emily: Exactly, and that's really nice.
Dedeker: It's like taking the bra off transition at the end of the day.
Emily: Yes, I can't wait.
Dedeker: It's just so nice.
Emily: It's got to come off. I'm done now.
Dedeker: I will say though, I have been resistant to this one for a long time until quite recently when I started forcing myself to do it more so because often, I don't know, I have to be totally honest. Since I'm so used to working from home, I dress for comfort generally to look good, but be comfortable. Often, I'm just like, "I can wear this the whole day," Or, "I'm not that sweaty, I don't need to change my clothes," but still making myself do it anyway. It's really nice. It's just really nice.
Jase: I've also found that it's nice, even if it's not a big change. It's not like I'm dressing up all the time when I work. I'm wearing a t-shirt right now, but with slacks on the bottom half, but just wearing a t-shirt. My change in the evening might just be to put on shorts, or to change my shoes, or put on different slippers, or something to just make it feel different, that there is a clear, "I'm not the work me now." For me, it's putting on slacks, it's putting on pants. It's like, "I'm in work mode. I want to change into shorts, or sweatpants, or something that's home mode.
Dedeker: It's funny, Emily, you've mentioned the sprucing up for a date because that's one that, I think, feels very natural to people that, "Yes, I'm going on a date, especially with someone new, of course, I'm going to try to dress my best and make sure I look pretty and smell good and I'm groomed the way that I want to be groomed." We're used to that transition. I think we don't realize how much that transition in itself can transform you. We tend to lose that either when coming back from that space, coming back from the date, or when we're preparing for date-time with a long-established partner.
That's one of the things that very quickly gets lost is that date-time or quality time becomes, "Let's just schlub on the couch." Schlubbing on the couch is fantastic. I love it so much. It is very needed sometimes, but there is also something of, even if we're going to schlub on the couch, if tonight is an intentional date night, we can still change our clothes potentially. Again, it doesn't even have to be super fancy necessarily, but there is something about that-- I know that I work with a lot of people where their partner starts dating someone new and they have a really hard time watching their partner suddenly putting all this effort, shaving, and showering, and dressing up and, put on the makeup. You know, they’re just like, "Well, I don't get that anymore."
Sometimes, roping that back into your relationship is really nice as well, especially to help get you in the mode of like, "This is date time and it's not necessarily time when we're co-parenting or adulting, or figuring out the bills, or whatever. It's truly date-time."
Emily: I have been here in this house with my partner for the last four months. That's basically been it, haven't really seen many other people, except for when I'm at work. Every Saturday, it's our day together, so I'm really trying to put in a little bit of extra effort and put on some makeup and maybe put on a dress, "Wow, I have those. I should use them, even though I'm not going anywhere." It's been really nice, just that transition, and putting in a little extra effort so that he also knows that I appreciate him and want to look nice for both of us, for me and for him. That's a nice thing to be able to do for yourself and for your partner.
Jase: That's a nice way to look at it, too, if it is something you're doing to also get yourself in the mood. I like that.
Emily: Sometimes I get tired of looking at myself with no makeup on, just in sweatpants. I'm like, "Good Lord, put in a little effort here, person."
Dedeker: Thinking about the original person's comment about making the transition between partners, it reminds me of a book. Oh, gosh. There was this series of books that were hot in the early 2000s. It was a series of disaster preparedness handbooks that were a little bit tongue-in-cheek, but they were actually quite realistic of, "This is how you fly a plane. This is how you wrestle an alligator. This is how you birth a baby."
Jase: I remember those.
Dedeker: They came out with a couple of different versions. One of them was for social situations as well. I remember, this is really terrible, but they had one that was about how to successfully pull off an affair, essentially.
Emily: Wow.
Jase: Wow.
Dedeker: Yes, I know. Even in the book--
Emily: Can you just switch the language a little bit and be like, "How to successfully pull off a polyamorous relationship."
Dedeker: Well, ugh-
Emily: No, okay.
Dedeker: If you wanted it to be a very secretive and possibly hurtful polyamorous relationship, yes, instructions. They were even like, "You shouldn't do this, but should you want to, here are some things to try." One of the things was, keep a change of clothes in your vehicle and change clothes in between partners. I guess their intention was less of, give yourself a mental transition, and more of a, preventing you from getting caught, I guess, the old lipstick on the collar situation. I could see this actually being very effective if you're driving back and forth between two partners and having a hard time mentally transitioning between those relationships, that that could be something as well, to switch clothes and just and just see how that feels.
Emily: What's this Marie Kondo thing that you wrote?
Dedeker: I don't know if you remember, but I remember in Marie Kondo's show, she had this really funny moment where she's talking about, I wish I could repeat her Japanese in her perfected-Japanese.
Emily: Try.
Dedeker: No, I'm not going to embarrass myself in that way. She's like, "If you're going through the process of trying out your stuff and you get stuck or blocked, or you just get frustrated, or whatever, then change the air. It's like ." That's what she would've said.
Emily: I'm going to spray this lavender fragrant now.
Dedeker: Yes, exactly, things like spraying a room-spray, or lighting some incense, or lighting a candle, or opening a window, or something like that. I actually really took that to heart. For me, when I'm working, if I come up against a task, or if I'm writing something and I get sick of it, I try to , change the air by doing those things. That's also something to consider, I think, when switching between work in-home, or from your home-office space, whatever that is, to going into home-office space, or if you don't have an office, and it's just like, "I just work in my living room," That's a good way of being able to transition that space as well and not only changing your clothes, but also like, "I'm going to light this incense, or light this candle, that's going to be the queue to me that I'm no longer in work mode, I'm in chill mode."
Emily: Josh has palo santo that he just like smudges all over the house. It's from Argentina. You just light it and then it has a very strong scent.
Jase: Interesting. All right. The last thing I want to say about the clothes actually is that I found this one to also be really helpful for getting in the mood to do chores.
Emily: Or workout.
Jase: Or workout, yes. That's another good one. Often for me, they're the same. If I can put on workout clothes to do chores and be like, "All right, I'm going to do it." If I can get myself in that mental headspace, I enjoy myself a lot more than being like, "Here I am. Now, I'm sweaty in my work clothes." It's that same thing of having a change of mindset for it.
Now, we are finishing with some kind of mental headspace, whether that's work, or that's being on a date with one partner, or whatever it is. When you leave that mental space, try to actually leave it. We talked about this a little bit at the beginning. It's easier said than done. It's that idea of, can you leave work at work? Or it comes up in articles for athletes of, how do you get into the zone? Which is, how do you leave everything else behind? How do you let go of whatever drama is going on in your relationship, or whatever, so that you can focus on the task at hand?
Basically, when you're leaving any one mental space for another, there is things you can do to try to clean up and unload that previous task from your brain's RAM. Again, we're all computers after all.
Dedeker: We really wish to see you as a computer. Of course, actually leaving a mental space behind can be hard if you keep on thinking about it, which is what our brains just want to do, they just want to. It can be helpful to make some time at the end of work, or at the end of a vacation, or after a date to collect your thoughts and write them down. It can be as simple as just opening the notes app on your phone and just scrolling a couple of things, it takes barely any time at all.
I think this is especially helpful if maybe you're coming from one relationship where there was conflict with that partner, you had to tackle some heavy talks and now, you're coming back home to your nesting partner that you live with, or going on a date with another partner, that it's helpful to have that space to write out those thoughts. They're on the page and not bouncing around in your brain anymore.
By writing them down, you essentially give your brain permission to not be holding onto them anymore. It's like hit and save, do a little Control S, a little apple S, or going to a little save point in your game.
Emily: I didn't realize I could do that, thank you for
Jase: Oh, gosh.
Dedeker: Emily is not a computer.
Emily: No, I always I'm like, "Jase, how do I do this?" Then Jase sometimes is like, "Dedeker, you know apples better than I do. You should do this." I'm very grateful for both of you.
Dedeker: Maybe together the three of us barely make a computer.
Jase: Yes, okay,
Emily: Sure. I'll be the aesthetic side.
Dedeker: Yes, you're the apple sheen.
Emily: Okay. Definitely.
Jase: Wow. Also, I love this idea for dates. This is something that I have not thought to try yet. In putting this episode together I was like, "This is a really cool idea," but doing that same thing you might do at the end of work of saying, "Okay, this is what I worked on today. Here's what I still need to do tomorrow," and writing it down and leaving it on your desk so that tomorrow, when you come in you, have it there so you don't have to keep thinking," Oh no, I got to make sure I don't forget that. Got to make sure I don't forget that," while you're at home. That on a date on your way back from it or right after the day, take a moment to yourself to just write down, "This is what we did, this is what was great. I felt so amazing. This thing gave me a little bit of pause. I'm a little curious what's going on here. Maybe something to look into or ask about another time."
To have both of that, of this just reminiscing about how great it was but also, "This is something I might want to ask about." I think could actually be really helpful for those early phases of a relationship where you're so high on brain chemicals when you're with them, that it's like, "Oh, right, I had all these things I wanted to ask or I wanted to check on something that I wasn't sure if I understood them correctly when they told me about their relationship with their family," or whatever it is. That you have that so then you have a record of it instead of just it flips out of your brain or that you wake up in the middle of the night going, "Right, I need to ask them about that thing."
Emily: In terms of writing things down, I'm just going to say from a to-do list task standpoint, this is a really important thing to do too. So often I'm on a walk or I'm working out or I'm doing dishes and I'm like, "Shit, I need to do this, this and this today." Just being able to take a moment, take a transition and write something down and then go back into the thing if you need it is very important and something that I definitely could be better on. You can use that in very many ways.
Jase: Now that you've left behind the mental space you're in before, it's time to transition into the next one. First, we're going to transition into talking about how to support this show and keep this around for everyone for free.
Emily: Once you get back into a mental space, we should actually get into it. We just talked about leaving a mental space and actually leaving it, but then if you want to transition back into a space or go to a new mental space then, yes, we're going to talk about some ways to actually insert yourself into that space. Instead of saving our progress, we're loading it back in. I wasn't even going to say CD ROM drive. I had the image of a floppy disk in my head, loading it in.
Dedeker: Really old school.
Emily: That was a long time ago.
Dedeker: Jase, you talked about the fact that there is quite a lot of information about that. About transitioning away from work. There's less information out there about the opposite. About preparing yourself for work or for when you're coming back to the task that you need to do that day or things like that. A thing that you need to focus on that day.
Jase: The resources about getting into a task I found tend to show up most in two specific arenas at least in my searching. One is for athletes, about getting in the zone of how to get into that mental headspace, and then the other is for creatives. It's like how do you get into the creative zone to do your writing, or how do you get into the zone to do your computer programming or how do you get in the zone to do your painting? I find those are the two arenas.
I actually think it applies in a lot of other ways as well but people don't tend to think about getting into the flow when it's vacuuming or something like that
Dedeker: Well, I do know some kinky people who need some transition time when they're going to do a scene or when they're getting into dumb-mode or their sub-persona or whatever it is. Some people I know can just switch into it super easy and it's super great but I know other people really appreciate having that time, having that space or having something intentional that they do that helps them get there as well.
Emily: If you did write something down when you're exiting a situation then this would be a good time to take a look at what you wrote down from that last interaction or that last space that you were in and refresh yourself. Have a little refresher. If you check your journal before a date or read a to-do list before starting work, just a mental inventory of what you're going to do. This I found to be very interesting, associating what you wrote down with a goal. Asking yourself the question of what do I want from this interaction, what do I want from this day, what do I want from my time with my kids? Do I want to closer relationship with them, do I want to cleaner space and that's why I'm about to do the dishes again after this meal that I cooked?
Yes, I don't know. Do you want to improve your podcast and so I'm going to sit down and do this work for it? Something along those lines. I really like that idea because it doesn't just add to the monotony of, "Oh, I'm trudging through this a day yet again, or I'm trudging through this moment in time but I have a goal associated with it and maybe it adds a little bit more lightness to it or excitement to it."
Dedeker: If you want to be goal-oriented about it it's good to make them small and doable. Even better if it's small and doable within the time frame that you're at work or at the task that you're wanting to focus on or on the date or whatever, as opposed to something lofty and amorphous like, "I want to get a promotion or I want to have a perfectly clean house," or things like that. I know that something that I would do sometimes when coming to work is, I would more ask myself what is it that I want to focus on today?
It could be something more like, "Okay, I want to focus on keeping my cool even when someone has said something that's very triggering to me, for instance, or I want to focus on really just focusing on one task at a time and not trying to multitask." Things like that of stuff that I can try on that feels doable.
Jase: I found for myself that having a focus can be really good but also having a goal that's more of a-- it's almost more about what I want to appreciate about the work I'm doing or what would make this work. Something that I could be proud of if even in this very small way of I'm proud of how the floors are vacuumed or something like that. It's focusing on finding some goal like that. It's like, "Okay, today my goal is going to be that I want to do these dishes and be really mindful about how I'm doing them," or "I'm going to do these dishes and I'm going to experiment with a different way of holding the dishes to see if it's more ergonomic for my hands."
It can be whatever. It can be esoteric or it could be just very concrete but like Dedeker is focusing, it helps I think especially with work for me. It really helps me to think, "I'm going to try to get my stuff done but my real goal for myself is I want to make the code that I'm writing today really organized." Or "I want to make this really clear and easy for me to come back to in a year and still understand what I was doing." Something like that. Something that's a little bit bigger of an idea but it's something that I can do in every moment rather than it's like, "Oh, it's completed. Check, done."
Dedeker: It's really natural for the mind to wander, or for distractions to just arise and that's totally okay. I think many of us have the experience of spending time with a partner but maybe your mind keeps going back to a really stressful interaction you had with somebody that day or your mind keeps going back to work. Or you're hanging out with a partner but your kids keep running in to ask for things. It's natural we're not going to be perfect at this and so that's why it's really good to-- I don't want to say the word recommit because I've sounded so Christian so I don't want to say that.
Again, just bring yourself back to the what and the why of the mode that you're in right now. Whether that's I'm in partner mode or date mode or work mode or things like that. It can be a little bit easier to get back into it. It can be helpful to recruit help in this as well. If it feels appropriate for your relationship you can be honest like, "Oof, okay. Sorry, I'm a little distracted right now. My mind keeps going back to this thing." You could evaluate. Is it, "I would love your listening while I talk through this to help me get my thoughts in order or is it I would just love your help in grounding me in and keeping me here, and let's talk about something else," or something like that.
Jase: I think that's an interesting one and a nuanced one when it comes to going on dates and coming back from a date to another partner is that there's some negotiation there with maybe it's, "Hey, can I come back from this date and talk to you about how I feel for 10 minutes?" For some people that might be, "Oof, that's awful. That's exactly what we want to avoid because my partner feels hurt that I'm so focused on this other relationship and not on them when I come back." Maybe that's the opportunity to take 15 minutes to call your best friend and gush about it so that you can get it out, or externalling, or it's something to let that go. Finding someone else to help you with that is a really cool way of doing that.
Emily: All right.
Jase: This next one is the tough one. If we go back to the original example of, "I went out on this date and then I dread coming back home to having to do chores and whatever this thing." Let's talk about some techniques for changing your mindset and things like that, but if that dread is consistently coming up with anything, whether that's work or your home life, or a particular partner or something, very likely that's a sign that is your brain trying to tell you, "Hey, something is bad here. Something is wrong here."
It doesn't necessarily mean that person's bad or that job is bad, or that your home or your family is bad. That's not what I'm saying. This could be a sign that you really need to examine this and try to change something.
First question to ask yourself if you find that repeatedly coming up, is there something about this space that I could change? My workspace, my home life, whatever. Is there something I could literally change? Like changing the air like Dedeker said. Maybe it's redecorating, maybe it's spring cleaning, maybe it's getting rid of some things that bring up negative memories or have negative associations or something like that.
Next question is, is there something that you're not communicating to the people around you in this environment that you should be? Is there something that you're holding on to that's festering inside of you and you're not being honest about and upfront about and clear about? Then, is there a clearer or more interesting goal or purpose that you could be coming up with for why you're doing this at all? We talked about with the goals, but is there something that's more invigorating for you or a different way to think about this interaction?
Emily: Now, if you've done all of these things and if you've tried various tactics to change your environment, change maybe your thinking and it's still not really working, it may be time to ask yourself, "Is something really wrong here?" Sometimes a small change of environment or a change in the thinking it can make a huge difference, but then other times there is something more serious underneath that dread and that is really something to examine. In places like a relationship or places like your workspace, it could be anything from maybe needing to have a very serious talk and beginning a restructuring process. Do you need to move jobs? Do you need to talk to your boss about something very difficult? Do you need to find a way out of the relationship that you're in for example? Things like that.
This can be really challenging because our brains and I think just to ourselves as people do want to hold on and we've talked about that in various episodes in the past. We don't want to like change our space so much that it completely makes a huge upheaval to our lives. Yet, there are moments in time where maybe that is just the thing that we need. It's important to examine that.
Dedeker: Lastly, we're going to talk about something that's really important for this if you're constantly going back and forth between work and home. If you have a very packed schedule, or if not packed schedule, packed scheduled with partners, potentially. How important it is to find a way to have time for yourself? It's so easy to get caught up in moving from one obligation to another. It even includes things like leisure time that we normally think of as leisure time like having to be on for a date or spending time with family at home where it's not just that I'm a partner but I also have to be a parent. Things like that.
Of course, everyone has different needs for the amount of time that they need by themselves and different people have different access as well to how easy it is for them to carve out time. Having something like a whole evening or an entire day time once a week that is just yours and isn't available for others to schedule is great. That's not realistic for some people for other people, they're able to do it. For some people, even if they live at home with a partner or with their family, they can still carve out, "This particular chunk of two hours on this particular evening is my time when I'm going to in my room and just have quiet time." We can onboard people in the family with being okay with that. Again, it's going to really depend on what you need and the people around you as well.
Jase: Dedeker, what's the reference that you always make to Mrs. so-and-so's special time?
Dedeker: What? Ms. Lippy's special time.
Jase: For some reason, I was thinking about that.
Emily: Mrs. So-and-so's special time.
Dedeker: From Billy Madison, yes. Out of Taylor film.
Jase: Enduring recess and the teachers doing ecstatic dance or something?
Dedeker: Yes, long story short is that Adam Sandler as an adult has to go back to grade school. Don't worry about it. Just assume it's hilarious in the ways Adam Sandler can be hilarious. He's at grade school, the kindergarten teacher during recess comes back into the classroom and catches her dancing around the room with a macaroni necklace doing this ecstatic dance. She's really caught off guard and surprised she's like, "Oh my goodness, you need to be outside with the other boys and girls playing dodge-ball." She has to explain to him, "Billy, recess time is special time for you kids, but it's also Ms. Lippy's special time."
Jase: Love that.
Emily: Going and drinking or what's happening?
Dedeker: No, just ecstatic dancing, that's all.
Jase: She just needs to freaking reset because kids are difficult. I think that makes a lot of sense.
Dedeker: That's how I feel when I go to an ecstatic dance class. I don't want to invite anyone that I know because it's Ms. Lippy's special time.
Emily: Totally, although I would like to see that, Dedeker. I'm not going to lie. That's a great example.
Jase: It's Ms. Lippy's special time, Emily. Let's see it.
Emily: You're right. That's a great idea of a way in which you can make time for yourself. Having things like, "Here's a list." Having things like unstructured time. Doing, I don't know, and you can have an hour or two, or a day of just unstructured time doing whatever you fancy in the moment.
Jase: Something I find I often really crave if I feel like every moment of my day is scheduled with stuff.
Emily: Unstructured, yes.
Jase: That even if I'll end up doing a lot of the same things that I would on a scheduled day like I'm still going to work on this project a little bit, or I'm still going to do some chores, but having it be unstructured, for me, is something I find that if I'm not getting enough of that time where I can evaluate what I wanted to be doing at any given moment, or what I want to be working on, I need it. When I get it I feel a lot better.
Emily: There you go. You could have reading time or watching your own shows. That's nice to be able to have maybe a show that just you watch that your partner doesn't enjoy with you necessarily, but you were enjoying it on your own and get a time to watch that. Writing or journaling, that's a fun one. My personal favorite, walking, exercising, doing something physical. I used to take walks with my partner and sometimes we still do. I really, really crave my own personal 45 minutes to an hour to do that by myself. Get caught up in my podcast. I really need it. I've been doing it every day for a long time. It's great.
Things like organizing your environment, if that brings you joy. I'm not great about personally, but I know the two of you are. You're fantastic at it.
Jase: This is a funny one where we've had some off days where we're trying to relax. She's like, "What should we do?" "We should go start to organize some things in this room. Re-organize the linen closet or something." This doesn't seem like it would be relaxing and enjoyable, but somehow it is, sometimes not all the time. Sometimes it is.
Emily: Masturbating, great one. Always. Then there also things to avoid during this time. Browsing social media, I know that's a tough one. I definitely do that a lot, but if you can as we said earlier, even if it's like, "Take 30 minutes where you really put down the phone or an hour where you put down the phone and devote it to something else. Something maybe not necessarily productive, but not doing that. Probably your cortisol will go down and you'll be a happier person in general.
Jase: Poor boy, yes.
Emily: Absolutely. This also isn't necessarily the time to catch up on your email, or as we said before reading the news or doing other stressful things like that because it is challenging right now. We all are in it together and it's a good opportunity to maybe set that down for a minute and enjoy other things in your life that do not involve looking at all the doom and gloom out there.
Dedeker: Yes. I think it's the thing at least what I've noticed for myself that if I'm ever feeling like, "Oh, I don't have time to make time for myself today or this week or whatever," that every time you reach for your phone to just scroll or just peruse, that's an opportunity that could be actually intentional a little bit of self-time. For me, for instance, in between clients or whatever, that it's a very different mood if I just grab my phone and I'm just scrolling in the five or 10 minutes I have between clients versus when I'm like, "Okay, I'm going to read actually for this five or 10 minutes or I'm going to meditate or--" I don't really masturbate on workdays, but you could if you really wanted to. I don't know.
Emily: I was like period or what.
Dedeker: Or I'm going to go take a walk and we're going to move along from the masturbation or I'm going to write something really quick that that's a good little like opportunity to just squeeze in some of that intentionality.
Jase: Yes. I liked that a lot. Of just having that moment. It reminds me of when I was in high school, my voice teacher was talking to me about reading and the importance of reading for pleasure. I said something like, "Yes, I just feel like I don't have time lately." He said, "I've learned that any time you don't feel like you have time to read is the most when you need to make time to read," and that's really stuck with me of that. There's times when you feel like there's no possible way that I could make any time for myself is when you most need to find a way to make some time for yourself.
Then this time with yourself, this could be spent with someone else, but just be sure that that feels restorative to you. With this restorative alone time, this could also be time you spend with someone else doing something fun, but just check in with yourself and make sure that actually feels restorative to you or maybe a balance of that. Sometimes that time could be spent doing a fun activity with your partner, but maybe sometimes it's also time just for yourself to find your balance, try it out, and see how that goes for you.