Cruising Through Psychological Traffic to Mindful Freedom

Ever feel like you're stuck at a red light in your mind, with stress and anxiety piling up like rush-hour traffic? Join me, Aubrey Baptista, alongside my show producer, Aaron Mittan, as we navigate the signals of our central nervous system and share how to cruise consistently in the green zone. We'll illuminate the traffic light analogy which acts as a guide for identifying our stress levels - from the calm creativity of green to the fight-or-flight frenzy of yellow, and the shutdown of red. As you listen, you'll gain insights into harnessing mindfulness to stay present and mitigate mental traffic jams, as well as practical strategies for shifting gears back to balance and well-being.

Dive into the complexities of motivation, trauma, and our psychological states in a discussion that goes beyond the "just want it bad enough" platitude. We delve into the intricacies of personal growth, challenging the notion that one-size motivation fits all. Rather, we emphasize the importance of setting realistic goals and understanding individual timelines for emotional transitions. This episode doesn't just spotlight problems but provides actionable solutions to maneuver through life's challenges, ensuring you're equipped to positively influence not just your state of mind but also the environment around you. So, buckle up for a ride through the inner workings of our minds, as we, Aubrey Baptista and Aaron Matan from Kindred Art Therapy, lead you down the road to a healthier, more connected life.

Be sure to visit BizRadio.US to discover hundreds more engaging conversations, local events and more.

Transcript

Aubrey : 0:07

Welcome to Kindred Conversations, the show where we shine a light on local mental health professionals, who are the unsung heroes of our community.

Aubrey : 0:14

Join us as we delve into their journeys, strategies and the art of healing minds. Together, we'll break down stigmas and celebrate resilience. Today we have just an exclusive talk with me and my show producer, aaron Matan, and today we're just going to be talking about our central nervous system and how we can map it and why it's important for us to be able to do that in order to be able to live a healthy, vital and joyful and creative life. Ready for that talk, aaron?

Aaron: 0:47

Yeah, sure, let's do it.

Aubrey : 0:50

I don't know how credentialed.

Aaron: 0:51

I am, but I'm a good sounding board.

Aubrey : 0:55

Yeah, no, and you know what this is going to be really relevant to you, because, one, you're a human being, you have a toddler, you have a wife, so you know, I'm sure, that you find yourself oftentimes pretty stressed out.

Aaron: 1:11

I am not averse to the feeling, and that's my daughter, penelope, making a little appearance on the show as well.

Aubrey : 1:20

Yeah, yeah. So it's an important topic to talk about, because our central nervous system controls literally everything. Right, it's something that, in more recent research, has been paid more attention to in the field of psychology, where, you know, a lot of older psychology had a lot to do with, like cognitive science and the way that we think about things which is not necessarily a bad thing, because that does create a lot of our stress but now is also moving more into like the physical realm and like the nervous system and how our body and our mind connect and how we can work on managing our bodies in order to be able to reduce our stress levels and to be able to just live a more healthy and happy life.

Aaron: 2:13

Yeah, and I'm I'm interested to learn more. I mean, there's a lot of that that's applicable, not just, you know, not just raising kids and having having a family and everything, but you have a lot of uh. You have a lot of outside influences that uh kind of blend together as as much as you try to compartmentalize and try to separate. You know. You know, home life is home life, work life is work life. Try not to take it home. It's uh, especially in the entrepreneurial realm. It that's not reality. Your phone still buzzes during dinner and it's a solution to a problem you've been dealing with all day. It's hard to take off of your mind. So I'm curious to hear what you guys say about this.

Aubrey : 3:00

Sure. So before I kind of start talking about this idea of like regulating the central nervous system, right, first by kind of addressing the idea that mindfulness is so important and I know I've talked about this in previous episodes as well, about how important mindfulness is, but it really is so key because of the importance of bringing attention and awareness to the present moment. Thich Nhat Hanh talks about how, like the power of now, right, that like, if we are in the future, if we're in the past, that that is going to create a lot of our suffering. So if we can be in the present moment and fully experiencing what's here and now, that can actually help reduce our stress levels significantly. But what I want to talk about today specifically is around like this idea of how to map our central nervous system so that we can be in what I like to call is like the green zone. So and I've started teaching it to people in the way of like a traffic light, right, and we regulate traffic because it's so important to be able to have productivity, to have connectivity, to be able to just have like a well functioning society that works well together, and so regulation is not necessarily a bad thing, in fact, like it is what leads to being able to have a more productive and happy life. So the idea being is that, you know, through mindfulness, we can regulate our central nervous system by using this visualization of understanding. Okay, are we in the green zone? Are we in the yellow zone, or are we in a red zone? Right, so I'll define what each one of those are. The idea with the green zone is that this is a more calm, creative, collected and connected type of state where we feel like we are productive, that we have ideas that are generating and flowing, we're taking action, like we feel good on a day to day, we're connecting with people, we're making eye contact, we're happy. This is a state that is ideal, that everybody would love to be in, but the reality is is that, you know, our nervous systems are not built to be robots. We can't be happy all the time, we can't be creative all the time, but we can try our best to maximize that. We'll talk more about that later.

Aubrey : 5:34

The yellow zone is about like an action state. It's like a fight flight. It's that stress response, and so there's people like, oh, okay, well, I just am always yellow, productive all the time because, like, I'm always feeling like I'm being driven and that I have to get things done, and I'm worried about whether or not something's going to get done. But what they might also identify in that state is that they have a hard time being able to solve problems and that when something drops on a hat that like they weren't expecting, and they're getting really upset about that thing. There's lots of other things that come with being in the yellow zone right, being frustrated and agitated, etc. Etc.

Aubrey : 6:16

What can happen if we are overloaded, either over a long period of time or a lot all at once, is that we can end up shutting down, and that's what that red zone is is like depression, or completely just like blanking out, not really being able to think of what comes next, not really being able to think about our problem, solve anything really. Like that's where that red zone comes in. And a lot of people who are struggling with depression are like, okay, well, how do I get out of this right? Like it's just so, everything's so hard, it's really uncomfortable.

Aubrey : 6:52

It's like, yeah, actually, in order for you to move out of that red zone, you're going to have to move into the yellow zone, because that's just part of how our central nervous system works is that you have to like from green, you go through yellow into red and then vice versa, like from red to yellow to green. So that's just like kind of the intro talk to that. The other thing that's important to know is that our central nervous systems actually mirror one another. So if you're in a room, um, so like if you're in a room with your daughter and your daughter is having a meltdown and a temper tantrum, it's going to be kind of hard for you to stay regulated in that moment, right?

Aubrey : 7:36

yeah, preaching to the choir as we speak yeah, you're like trying to like breathe, you're like stay calm, stay calm yeah, and it's, uh, it's.

Aaron: 7:52

it's interesting to, especially for you know, people that that work from home or, um, you know, have to or take care of a child, while while staying focused, I think, I think one of the biggest inhibitors is not so much the okay, the, the noise level is up, the um, you know, there's just a lot going on and for some people that is overwhelming as well, um, but it's, it's finding ways to stay engaged and in in what's in front of you, like this perfect example that you heard kind of earlier in the show my daughter is kind of yelling and I'm passing her my phone and trying to give her snacks while staying engaged in the conversation. And I think what you're talking about is pretty spot on because there are some tools you can try to use to navigate those situations. But at the end of the day, you know, in this particular instance, where we're recording a show and mics are on and there's, you can't have yelling. So once, once you hit that yellow stage where you know, it's interesting to hear you differentiate between like oh, yeah, that's just a perpetual state of being for me, because, yeah, on the front end of that description it's like yep, that's pretty much how I exist, uh, but that also results in lack of productivity or, um, kind of that feeling of of not being able to get a grip on whatever you need to accomplish.

Aaron: 9:36

Um, you know, in in it, just kind of reacting off of off of what you're talking about it. Um, I would imagine that some of the tools that could be applied would help you navigate inside of each one of those zones. But you know, I guess my question is what. You know, what's the best pathway to go ahead and shift zones, like shift from red to yellow or, you know, hopefully, yellow to green?

Aubrey : 10:10

Yeah, for sure, and that's a really important question and that's something that I talk about with all of my clients in individual therapy is kind of mapping out what their nervous system is, what it looks like for them to be in each one of these zones the green zone, the yellow zone, the red zone and for each person it's going to be individual for them about the things that are able to help them move from one place to the other. Now, there are some universal things that will move people from one place to the next, and that's why I like to really emphasize mindfulness, because, like, that's one of the top ones that I emphasize. The next one after that is movement. Any kind of physical movement can help move you into that place. The next one after that is is creative engagement, right. So if that means that you like to play guitar, if that means that you like to draw, if that means that you like to like sculpt things, like, it doesn't matter what the creative engagement is right. It's about like doing things that engage your mind creatively so that you can think in ways that are beyond where your current thinking is.

Aubrey : 11:24

But first and foremost, I would say, definitely, like mindfulness and and movement are going to move people into the green zone and and those are so important, right because, like, if you are in a red zone where you're shut down and you're, you're depressed, you're not going to want to move, it's not going to feel very good to move, it's going to be really uncomfortable. You're probably going to think about it a lot because it's like, oh, I know I need to do it, but I don't really want to do it. And that's what that yellow zone is right. It's that anxiety, it's that kind of like revving up, right. But the action phase of that, of actually being able to do something, on the other side of doing something is, oh, I did something, and then you get to feel good.

Aaron: 12:13

Yeah, yeah, and we were. We were just talking about um before the show. We were talking about, uh, working out and um, opportunity for decompression, uh, and, and both of us agreed how important that is and um, you know, for for me, one of the one of the things that I do is, um, you know, I'm, I'm a little, I'm a little quicker flipping the switch, um, or changing hats when I come home, or um, uh, then then my wife is uh, so, you know, usually the decompression time for me is, you know, five to 10 minutes of just getting changed, or, you know, having some type of ceremony when I get home that allows me to flip that switch. However, if I don't, I work out in the morning.

Aaron: 13:12

However, if I don't I work out in the morning, usually like around like 7.30, 8 o'clock or so, and if I don't do that, then I find that a lot of the other challenges that I encounter for the day are harder to navigate, because and that that's kind of what puts me I, I find that I can, I can stay on the the upper green to lower yellow area if I can get that workout in, because I'm starting the day with the accomplishment. And, and you know. Same applies to little things, whether it's you know, say, there are people that can't afford a gym membership or people that don't have time or whatnot. You can do those things on a micro level as well. When you get up out of bed and make your bed, start your day with an accomplishment and, as at least for me, that really helps.

Aubrey : 14:10

And um what that yeah, that's a military teaching right. That's something that you learned in the military.

Aaron: 14:15

Yeah, yeah, that's um, that's exactly what, um, what it's all about is is instilling the discipline, and and I have, I have an idea, more so applied to the gym but, um, you know, I think I think that, uh, nine times out of 10, you know some of the, some of the things you need to do to achieve, um, you know, mental health, readiness and, uh, a, a productive and happy life kind of um, blows down to the disciplines you have in your life and, you know, you hear a lot like, oh, I just don't have the motivation to do this, that, and that's a very real thing. I mean, everybody, everybody on earth, will wake up and just not an important.

Aubrey : 15:04

Important part of that, though, right, is that the motivation doesn't come first.

Aaron: 15:08

Exactly exactly. The discipline is getting to the gym, and I'm just relating it to the gym. This applies to all kinds of things, but you know, the discipline is getting to the gym. If you go to the gym, you're going to do something. At the gym, the motivation is when you're there is finding motivation to get through that set, or add another set, or, um, you know, maybe a certain playlist gives you motivation, finding little ways, using motivation as as a bonus, like Ooh, I have, I have this, this extra burst of energy, or this, um, you know, I'm, I'm really feeling it right now. Motivation is a is a good tool, but it's not the. But it's not the. It can't be, at least in my experience. It can't be the default. You can't make your life decisions and relating it to this subject, I don't think if you're reliant on motivation, I don't think it would be very achievable to cross from, you know, red to yellow, yellow to green. Am I correct in saying that?

Aubrey : 16:09

Well, the one thing that I would challenge you on is the idea of, like, wanting it bad enough, right, like what is it that the person is wanting on the other side of what they're trying to achieve? Right, so say that they're extremely depressed, right, and it's going to be very difficult to think. If they've been chronically depressed for a long time and they don't believe in what their capabilities are and they have a lot of self doubt about, like, the journey and the obstacles that could come along the way, um, then it's going to be really hard to be able to imagine, like that they could one day say, like run a marathon, right, it's like okay, well, that's going to be a really difficult motivator for them because they don't even believe that it's realistic, right? Yeah, so you have to start with something that is, like, believable to the individual. But if you can help them to conjure an image in their mind of something that they believe is possible for themselves, maybe even you know, like a week down the road, right, or a month down the road, or six months down the road, whatever the period of time is is that that individual can muster that energy to really create an image of what that is that's where that motivation is going to come from is like I want this for myself and so I'm going to take these action steps to be able to get to that. So, yeah, the motivation is important, it's helpful, but it's not everything right, because you also do need to make sure that you're taking those action steps.

Aubrey : 17:49

And I wanted to comment, too, on something else that you brought up and you had mentioned your wife coming home and it taking her a different period of time to decompress or shift states than for you.

Aubrey : 18:04

And that was an important point, because different people, it takes them different amounts of time to move between states, and that has a lot to do with their upbringing and their past experiences.

Aubrey : 18:16

And it can also have a lot to do with different traumas and something that you know, trauma is such a buzzword that people kind of throw around, and I think that it can be something that is almost like, if it's not like you had like a really severe and traumatic experience, then it doesn't count and it's invalid, right.

Aubrey : 18:37

But like I think about traumas almost as like ranging from gaping, bleeding, whole wounds to like a minor bruise, you know it's like, no matter which way you cut it, like they're all traumas, but one is just like a more minor trauma, one is like a more major trauma, and so the ones that are like lesser are maybe those ones that are like okay, well, I keep slipping into a yellow zone when this happens. Right, maybe this is what the quote unquote like trigger is for that trauma. It doesn't necessarily mean that it was a severe trauma that they experienced, or maybe it was a severe trauma that they experienced, or maybe it was an ongoing trauma that they experienced. The fact is is that now their nervous system has that encoded, and so their job is to work through that so that they can come out on the other side knowing how to move themselves back into the green zone.

Aaron: 19:34

So yeah, children are a phenomenal representation of that. You know as to where adults you know, say you had somewhat of a stressful day at work, but that's pretty usual, so it's not outside the ordinary that you're in that yellow zone. And then you look at your kid that you know you can't get away from the, the, the, uh microphones and they want peanut butter. You know, um, she is very much living in the yellow zone and so that that level of of psychological trauma of like I want this thing and I'm not getting it and my dad's ignoring me, um, to do this other thing, it's that that kind of displays that it's you know it's not on a tiered scale of my trauma is worse than yours. It's it's living in that zone, is living in that zone, and that that experience is is unique to everybody but has very similar and somewhat predictable effects.

Aubrey : 20:45

Yeah, for sure, and that's an important point too is that, like you model for others, especially children. Children are so impressionable but like really just anybody, like if you're a leader for the station and you showed up to a station meeting and you were like talking really really fast and just having a hard time connecting with the people that you were talking to and not really like slowed down and engaged and connected, like people are going to pick up on your energy, you know, and and it's going to be very difficult for them to feel safe being able to share the things that they want to share, and they're going to be like working extra hard to try to stay calm. It's just going to make for for, frankly, kind of like a hostile work environment.

Aaron: 21:44

So yeah, I, yeah, and I have a funny story on on this. Well, it's not that funny, but it's very applicable. But we we're kind of out of time. Um, definitely would like to you know sure share some of the stories, but, yeah, I mean you. Thank you for bringing me on and talking about this.

Aubrey : 22:03

Sure, and if people like this episode then be sure to check in with bizradious to find out more about this show. Kindred Conversations With this show host. I'm Aubrey Baptista and you can find more about my company, kindred Art Therapy, on arttherapynccom. Thanks for listening in.