If My Plate Could Talk: “Handling Crisis After Crisis”

What's up, Kaja Sphere? I'll tell you what, I got a dose of my own medicine today. So ironically, the focus of tonight is on handling crisis after crisis. And then when I tried to do the live at our normal time of 6pm A crisis occurred. But I got it down. I figured it out. Thankful for the support that's around me that said breathe, don't panic. Thank you for the hearts because my heart was like, what is going. Could see some of you in the live stream. It wouldn't let me in the live stream. It doesn't matter.

We're here, we're together and that's all that matters. I'm going to give everybody a moment to find us again. If you were here early or I appreciate you coming back. How are you doing? I really want you to think about that. You might even need to ask yourself, yeah, how am I? I want you to take this time and take an opportunity to check in while your whole week was filled with crisis. So I've got some nuggets for you. Good evening. Maria from Southern New Jersey. Hello from Statesboro. Love those of you that are also rating your week.

That little moment I just had, I would rate it a one. But now that we're here and things are good, my heart is at a 10 again. If your plate could talk. This is your first time here. I'm so glad that you came and decided to share space with me. I'm Dr. Charisse Johnson, a licensed clinical mental health therapist, mindfulness practitioner and author. And I come into this space twice a week so that we can support each other, gain insight and really work on our well being. I'm sorry to hear those of you that have the flu that you aren't doing very well.

But I'm so happy that whether you're doing great or whether you're struggling that you chose to come and show up for yourself. You know, as I was thinking about what might be helpful not only in this season but, you know, to give us things as we look ahead, I wanted to kind of come in and talk about what's called crisis convergence. So tell me if this resonates or you can use a reaction. Have you ever been in a season where you felt like things were happening faster than you could process them, crises were happening faster than you felt like you could manage, whether that was something personal, something professional.

If you're listening to this in the moment 2025, beginning of the year, I believe that many of us could also resonate with seeing things happening around the world and as those things are happening, we are just constantly taking it all in. So the focus of what I want to share about tonight, I think can be helpful. And again, you may not be in a situation in this moment when you are in direct crisis, but you may know someone that is, and we will all get there. Let me define crisis before I move on.

Crisis doesn't have to be some big, huge, horrible thing. It's anything that's coming at you that is dysregulating, that changes your energy. It's anything that's on your plate that is coming too fast, that feels too heavy, that you are uncertain how to manage. And when all of that piles up as we think about what's metaphorically on our plate, it creates a crisis within us because it takes us to a space where sometimes we don't know where to begin and we get overwhelmed. So when you're in situations where there's a continuous overlap, stress piles up faster than you can process.

It's called crisis convergence. C O N V E R G E N C E Let me also add too much too fast, too soon is also a classic definition of trauma. Often little T trauma, which are the little things that happen to us and constantly nick away. It could even be with people in your life. It could be with people that you support, people in your family. Crisis convergence. When this happens, your nervous system is pushed to its limit for such a long time that survival mode becomes your baseline. If you've been there, give me a heart.

Survival mode at some point in your life has become your baseline. If I could push hearts, I would be pushing them right now because I have absolutely been there and it is a very uncomfortable place to be. And sometimes we're in survival mode and we don't even know that we're there. Before I move into some signs and symptoms that you might be in crisis convergence, let me also say when it comes to how long does it take for us to process something that happens on Average, low end, 6 to 12 weeks. Low end.

We need 6 to 12 weeks to manage one one instance of something happening that we didn't anticipate and we don't feel ready for. Sometimes we don't get six to 12 hours. Sometimes we don't get six to 12 days. Sometimes, let's be honest, we don't get six to 12 minutes before something happens. If you're there right now, let me say this to you, you are not broken and you have not failed. Because one of the things that we do to ourselves, unfortunately, is we have all of these things happening to us and around us and to the people that we love.

And we still expect ourselves to show up like nothing's wrong. And that's just not possible. So please give yourself some slack. If you're in a state of crisis convergence, you might be experiencing constant exhaustion. You might feel like you are tired. Regardless of how much sleep you get, how well you're eating, how well you're hydrating, there's this exhaustion, specifically a mental exhaustion, that feels like it is just hovering. You might find that it's difficult to manage your stress in these moments.

You will feel like stress is coming quickly and the things that you would normally do, which is another sign, isn't working for you. In the same way you might find that you're trying to rely on coping mechanisms that no longer work. Tell me this if it applies, what's a coping mechanism in your life that you know this has worked before, but I'm in a season where it's not working the same way. I'll say for me, which is really interesting, exercise. Now I'm going to give exercise later as a coping skill, which is helpful for crisis convergence.

But the caveat is it's not doing what it used to do for me because I need more than just what I get in the morning. So it doesn't mean that I would stop doing it, but it would mean that I need other things. And any coping mechanism that we have at seasons may not feel like enough. That's why we want to have a toolbox of different tools and skills that we can use. And it's also why we have to be patient. Other things that you might be experiencing in this state, you may be feeling overwhelmed by small tasks.

Anybody there? That was me this week. I was able to navigate and manage through and kind of knock things out. But anytime another, even just really small task came on my plate, it felt really big. That's a classic sign that we're in crisis convergence. Fatigue, increased anxiety or irritability, difficulty concentrating and disrupted sleep patterns. I'm going to go through those again and I want you to give yourself a check mark or a slash for each one that you've experienced over the last 30 days.

So, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. And then you're going to give me your number out of eight. So the eight symptoms or signs are constant. Exhaustion. Give yourself a little tick mark if that's you. Difficulty managing stress, Reliance on coping mechanisms that no longer work. Feeling overwhelmed by small tasks. Fatigue. So sleeping more than normal or not feeling rested, increased anxiety or irritability, difficulty concentrating or brain fog, and disrupted sleep patterns. Out of those eight, and this is not an all encompassing list, I could give you plenty more.

How many out of the eight have you noticed over the last 30 days? So we rate ourselves sometimes doing a self regulation that is in the moment for a few days and this is like a monthly self regulation dynamic. Again, if you find that you're in a season where you're like, oh my goodness, I am there you are describing me. You are not broken and you're not failing. But here are some things that you can do to support yourself. First, prioritization. If you ever have a season where you feel overwhelmed by all the things that you need to do and handle, prioritize them.

Focus on what are the things that I can do that are going to give me the greatest sense of relief. 2. Break large tasks into smaller goals. So that means if you have something that you need to do and it needs to be done by Thursday, then maybe you work on it a little bit on today and then Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday so that by Thursday it's completed versus the part of us that will kind of push it off and wait until Wednesday night to try to get it done and use that adrenaline that is not helpful even though that you think that is.

That is procrastination. And procrastination leads to burnout. 3. Limit your social media exposure. I want to pause here on this question. What are you noticing about the way you are being impacted by what you're seeing on social media? This is a high season where there's a lot going on. There's always a lot going on. But I want to check in there for a moment. What are you noticing? Tell me a little bit in the chat if you're comfortable about how you're responding or reacting to the social media that you're consuming right now.

And so again, as we think about how to support yourself against crisis convergence, number three is limit social media exposure. Number four is physical activity. But it's helpful to make sure that you are doing physical activity that is in line with the state of your body. So if you're in high stress, you want to do physical activity that creates low stress. If you're in high stress, high crisis convergence and you do physical activity that is too strenuous, you will crash your adrenals, you will feel like you can't get through it and you'll be really frustrated.

Thank you. For those of you that are sharing about what you're noticing about how you're interacting with social media and then number five, social support. Limit the social media exposure and get connected with people that you enjoy, get connected with people that love and care about you and have conversations that don't have anything to do with what you're experiencing. Crisis convergence is something that I just want you to tuck away. You may or may not be there at this moment in this season, but you could be there at any point.

And if you're there or someone that you know is there, have them come back and listen to this live and hear some things to help them recognize they haven't done anything wrong. And here are a few things that they can do to support themselves. I always want you to leave our moment and think about what's on your plate. What's on your plate metaphorically, and what have you noticed that's on your plate tangibly? What are your eating habits telling you and showing you about what you're carrying Sometimes what's on our plate, what we are eating, how we're nourishing ourselves or under nourishing ourselves gives us a bigger indicator of anything else of what's going on.

Are you craving things that are outside of your normal? Are you noticing that your appetite has changed outside of its typical realm? Are you fighting to eat? Are you noticing that there's a part of you that's isolating, that's feeling numb and you're not getting enough? We want you to have harmony. We want you to have a level of balance and a level of variety. Those nutrients are crucial for your physical well being, for your biological well being and for your mental well being. So please make sure that you are taking care of yourself.

As always, it is such an honor and a joy to come to talk to you and to share with you as you go throughout the week. I want you to pay attention to how you're feeling and what you need. If you notice that you're starting to get overwhelmed Pause. Let's go through those five kind of coping mechanisms again. Prioritize what needs to happen and what needs to be accomplished. Take big tasks and break them into smaller parts and goals. Limit your social media exposure. Engage in physical activity that does not take you to a place where it feels like too much and causes you to feel burnt out or overwhelmed.

And most importantly, social connection, real in person social connection where you can co regulate with someone, hugs and snuggles. Honestly, if you have someone in your life that is able to appropriately give that to you is one of the most powerful ways for us to get through all that we're experiencing. Until we meet again. I hope that you have the best week possible. Remind yourself that every day you have a fresh start. I promise that if you continue to take care of yourself, even though things may feel extremely overwhelming right now, it will get better.

It always does. I'll see you soon. Have a good one.