If My Plate Could Talk

Hello, Conscious Fear. Welcome to if youf Plate Could Talk, our weekly opportunity to gather together and really look at life. The week, the week ahead, what's on our plate, metaphorically and tangibly, and what do we notice about how everything that's on our plate is impacting or influencing the way we nourish ourselves? So good to see so many of you popping on if this is your first time here. I'm Dr. Charisse Johnson, a licensed clinical mental health therapist, mindfulness practitioner, and author.

And I'm just glad to be here. Where are you in the world right now? I am not in my typical space, but I am still in the Queen City. And that's a good thing because it's always a good place to be. Hello, Dallas. Good to see you. Audrey, you made it this week. Great to see you. Yeah. And, you know, it's one of those things that I love, that it's always here for you, no matter what. So we've been talking a lot about. A. emotional intelligence and the whole dynamic of getting better. Ooh, nine out of ten.

Atlanta, Georgia, in the house. I was there this week, got snowed in for a couple of days. Hello from West Virginia. We've been talking about emotional intelligence. And not to say that we're not intelligent, but just always looking at how are we doing with the way that we care for ourselves? Hello, Statesboro, Georgia. How are we doing with the way that we interact and our lens towards others? And so the five pillars of emotional intelligence, we're going to start to get into those. And the first one is self regulation.

I'm not going to do a whole dynamic on self regulation because I feel like it's one of those things that you pretty much get a gist of what it is. But there's an element, a characteristic of self regulation that I want to focus on, which is an openness to change. There's a Native American fable called the Two Wolves. In this fable, it essentially talks about a good wolf and a bad wolf and the indigenous environment and family and tribe recognizing that whichever wolf they fed the most was the wolf that they had the most connection to, was the wolf that kind of felt like it took the lead.

And that analogy can be used very similarly when it comes to us. So I want you just to kind of imagine with me that at any given day we have a good wolf and we have a bad wolf in us that is going to be influenced primarily by the way we think and the way we behave and the level of negativity that we let in Hello, Statesboro. Hello, Canada. Hello, South Carolina. So when we think about that dynamic, it really can be a helpful tool even in those soft moments to really ask ourselves, which part of myself am I feeding?

We could even really, in some ways think about the brain. Good wolf and potentially bad wolf. Talking about lizard brain, because lizard brain acts on fear and impulse, it doesn't mean it's bad and terrible, but it does mean that that negativity comes in or even reward center versus pain center of the brain and how that's impacting. But it can be just a really useful analogy for you to ask yourself, as I go through this week, as I look at what's ahead, as I look at the way that I am interacting with other people, am I acting in ways that is going to feed my good wolf or feed my bad wolf?

Hello, from Richmond, Virginia. So here's our core thought. I try to give you one of these each week. The more you practice thinking and behaving positively, the less negativity can affect you and your behavior. Now that may sound simple. Let me say it one more time. The more you practice thinking and behaving more positively, the less negativity can affect you and your behavior. Let me break that down for just a moment. Practice. If you are taking notes, underline that, I really want you to consider, do I practice thinking and behaving positively or does my level of thinking and behaving in a positive manner, is it influenced by the way I feel?

I did not say the more you feel positive, the less negativity will impact you. Because that's kind of what we been taught versus thinking and behaving in a positive manner is a practice. That means it's a verb, it's an action, it's something that we have to choose on a consistent basis in our lives. You tell me, pop in the chat. Hello from Alabama. Do you feel like you practice thinking and behaving positively? Never a point of shame, but just an opportunity for us to answer. Ask ourselves a question and answer like, oh, no, I don't know that I thought about it as a practice.

Like, I try to do it when I feel like it, but if it's a rough day, not so much. Because if something is a practice, that means that you're walking in those habits regardless of how you feel. Now, ironically, I wasn't even trying to practice this today, but I've had some opportunities. Life is doing this, you know, in one little area here. And then I notice, like, oh, I'm really going to have to practice in Thinking and behaving with a positive manner. So it's something that I want you to consider making a part of your intention practice a part of your consistency.

And know that practicing thinking and behaving positively is also going to help you when it comes to how to balance your plate, what you allow to be on your plate, what you take off your plate. The goals that you have set for yourself will benefit from self regulation by practicing thinking and behaving positively. So I love some of the things that you're putting in the chat. Not consistently getting better at it. I think until recently I've done this unintentionally, but yesterday's hat run tested yeah, how much you practice positive thinking and physical activity for sure, especially when we're working towards something or really just working towards something, period will test your ability to practice.

Can I continue to think and behave positive regardless of what's happening? And what's amazing is where the mind flows, the body follows. Right? So where mind flows, the body goes. That is something to keep in mind. So hallmarks of self regulation, I do want to go through these three. Trustworthy integrity, comfort with ambiguity, and openness to change. Trustworthiness. Integrity is fairly clear. A level of self regulation means that we can trust ourselves to have a level of integrity with what we say we want to do for ourselves and for others.

Comfort with ambiguity. How comfortable are you in situations that feel ambiguous, that feel unclear, that feel uncertain? We don't typically like being comfortable in ambiguity, but it is a key aspect of self regulation that we're not thrown off when things aren't settled. And then the openness to change. Here's what happens when we have an openness to change and this is the meat of what I want us to focus on. Although you may find different things that you want to take with you, when we have an openness to change, it reduces our stress and our fear of the unknown.

Who could use that reduced stress and reduced fear of when we don't know how something is going to work out. It also increases our flexibility in problem solving. When we are closed and don't like change and we resist change, then problem solving becomes very difficult because we feel like there's only one way to do this right? There's only one way to train for this. There's only one way to achieve this goal is a resistance to change. But an openness to change says, well, I wouldn't have thought about it doing this way, but I think this is going to work for me.

I think this is going to Work for my body. So when you want to incorporate openness to change, here are four things that you can do. Number one, embrace a growth mindset. Really consider that mindset is something that needs to grow. It needs to evolve on a consistent basis. If we are not pouring into our mindset, it will not grow and we will feel stagnant. We will feel like there are some weeds sucking out the mindset that we have. And sometimes that means being open to developing new mindsets that may be outside of our comfort zone.

Number two, actively listen to different perspectives. It's hard, right? We tend to want to be around people that think similarly. Now there's a balance. You want to be open to different perspectives, but also making sure that those perspectives are discussed in civil ways about any area and that they're never disrespectful and that they don't degrade or diminish your belief system. So I think there's a balance to being open and actively listening to different perspectives. But really the whole key of that is listen to things that help you understand things in a different way so you have something that you're working on for a level of personal growth and development.

Listen to different people talk about that perspective until you get to the point that you're like, okay, aha, I got it. This makes sense to me. Number three, remain curious and ask questions, especially about yourself. Can I do this differently? What am I noticing about myself? What is it saying to me that I want to give up in this situation? What am I believing that is no longer helpful for me? Remain curious and ask questions, not just about what you're doing, not just about the situation that you're in, but also about yourself.

And number four, accept setbacks as learning experiences. There are going to be moments where we aren't going to be able to do the things that we want to do. There will be moments where we feel like, did I make a mistake? Or oh, yes, I messed up. Setbacks are learning experiences. They are not failures unless we get stuck on them. Okay, so four ways to increase your openness to change, which is a part of self regulation. One, embrace a growth mindset. Two, actively listen to different perspectives.

Three, remain curious and ask questions. Four, accept setbacks as learning experiences. Now it's time for us to think about our tangible and metaphorical plate. What's on your plate? If you're open, let me know what's on your plate right now. And then on your own, I want you to consider, is there anything on your plate that needs to come off Is there anything on your plate that you are carrying that nobody asked you to carry, that you just decided to pick it up and put it on your plate, and it's making it metaphorically and emotionally heavy.

Then I want you to think about how you're nourishing your body. What's on your physical plate, what are you eating? What are you drinking? What are you smoking, potentially. And what's the correlation between what's on your plate? Oh, thank you for making me hungry. Steak and Brussels. All right, Audrey. For the first time in my life, I may be like, don't come on here with it, because that sounds so amazing. But really looking at your physical plate and what are you noticing about what you're eating lately?

It will tell you a lot about the things that are on your plate that you're aware of and that you're conscious and know that we can subconsciously have things on our plate that we're not really recognizing or we're not giving ourselves full room to acknowledge. Thank you for your share. Yeah. Our plate can be full of regret and not very nourishing. Yeah. And that's okay. That's a part of life. What about others? What's on your plate? If there's something that you want to share. But I always want you to consider you have the power over your plate.

You really do. You get to decide how you move through what's on your plate. You get to decide if you're like, that needs to come off for now. I'll pick that back up at another time. But right now, I just don't have the capacity to add any more on my plate. It's important for you to own that power now. I'll end you with a success tip of the week and something for you to really consider. I want you to think about your quarter one goal. I asked you at the beginning of the year when we first started doing these on Sunday evenings, to have a quarter one goal.

If you don't have one, continue to work on having one. e. adaptability, would be helpful. You have a goal and you set that goal. Then each month, each week, each day, you're doing things that are gearing you towards that big goal that you have. Because if we focus on too many things, we're less likely to accomplish them. When it comes to how you're working towards that goal, would openness to change be beneficial? Are you being stringent and overly strategic and rigid with the way that you accomplish your goal.

And if you incorporated a level of openness to change, how could that help you actually enjoy working on the goal? How could that help you lighten your relationship with the goal? How could that improve your level of success? All right, so consider all of this as always. Thank you for coming. I'm so glad that you're here. I hope that you found at least one thing that you can use. I want you to have a phenomenal week. I want you to be mindful of what's on your plate, both metaphorically and tangibly, and treat yourself well, regardless of how you feel about yourself, regardless of any uncertainty that you have in life.

I want you to always remember that you deserve to treat yourself well and adjust accordingly. I will see you soon.