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Nonprofit Radio for March 31, 2025: Mental Wellness Among The Chaos

Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio, , , ,

Jennifer Walter: Mental Wellness Among The Chaos

When the chaos is the point, let’s help you avoid getting overwhelmed or checking out. Jennifer Walter, a Swiss sociologist and mental health coach, has strategies to gain agency, recharge and build resilience. You need to be good to yourself first, then you can help others. Her practice is at JenniferWalter.me.

 

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I hope you remember that I wished you happy Saint Patrick’s Day on time, not a week late. I’m quite proud of that. Welcome to Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio, big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host and the podfather of your favorite hebdominal podcast. Oh, I’m glad you’re with us. I’d come down with catalepsy if I lapsed into a trance because you told me you missed this week’s show. Here’s our associate producer Kate with what’s on the menu. Hey Tony, I hope our listeners are hungry for. Mental wellness among the chaos. When the chaos is the point, let’s help you avoid getting overwhelmed or checking out. Jennifer Walter, a Swiss sociologist and mental health coach, has strategies to gain agency, recharge, and build resilience. You need to be good to yourself first, then you can help others. Her practice is at Jennifer Walter.me. On Tony’s take 2. Has from the gym semper fi. We’re sponsored by DonorBox. Outdated donation forms blocking your supporters’ generosity. DonorBox, fast, flexible, and friendly fundraising forms for your nonprofit, DonorBox.org. Here is mental wellness among the chaos. It’s a pleasure today to welcome Jennifer Walter. She is a Swiss sociologist, mental health advocate, and equal parts rebel and marshmallow. She admires potty humor. Through her podcast, the scenic route. And her coaching and consulting work, she’s making the world a gentler place one conversation at a time. You’ll find Jennifer on LinkedIn and her practice is at Jennifer Walter.E. Jennifer Walter, welcome to nonprofit Radio. Thank you so much for having me, Tony. We’re gonna make the world a gentler place with this conversation and adding one more to the gentle. Yeah, like, will it ever be gentle? Maybe not, but at least I don’t know, I always say it’s not, it’s not your fault that you found the world as it is, but it’s your fault if it’s still like this when you leave. Oh, very good. We all do have a responsibility. Yeah, I do believe so. Yes, I do believe so. I’m not sure it’s a gentle, but as you said, gentler, yes, yes, make it more gentle. What that means to you, right? But basically, I don’t know, you can sum it up and just be more kind. Be more kind is very good. Yeah, that’s a great, that’s an ideal admonition. We need more of that. Yes, we need more of that on a lot of different levels. Well we’re gonna be working on the personal level, right? So, here in the US, the administration is causing turmoil, chaos. Hellscape, uh, not only here in the US, but, uh, we’ve become very good exporters of all of this. It feels like we are. Hit with a hurricane followed by a tsunami followed on the 3rd day by a wildfire, followed on the 4th day by mudslides. It was a rocky start into 2025. It still is. It still is. So what, what do you, overall, we have, we have a full hour together. We have plenty of time, but just, you know, generally, like how do you make sense of this for, for us? So first and foremost, uh, uh, maybe a disclaimer how a Swiss makes sense of American politics might be different than an American makes sense of American politics. I could use some, we could use some foreign perspective. I, I’m no expert in American policies by far, but what we see here is, is a pattern that we see, um, not just in the United States but also in large parts of Europe, right? This um. This kind of moving towards totalianism and fascism, and whoever shouts the loudest, the first is kind of like wins the race. And um it not and doesn’t matter so much if that what is said is. Kind or smart or reasonable, but you’re just the first to shout at the loudest, so. Yeah. How do we make sense of that? Like. On one hand, it doesn’t, when you speak to historians and philosophists and sociologists, they’re all kind of like, yeah, this is not really like a surprise. Um, when you, when you have people who feel In despair over a lot of things, right? Like you, there’s not enough money at the end of the week to get you to your next paycheck. You’re struggling to pay rent. You don’t know what’s gonna happen, your healthcare costs are through the roof. You don’t know what’s gonna happen to your children. You don’t know what’s gonna happen to the planet like. All these Ideas feed of despair. That paired with. The systems we’re in, who all at the front is surely capitalism. Um, As well, where we’re like, OK, we just need to exploit every resource there is. Pairing that and and and also looking at the decline of. Education of freely available education of uncensored education. The decline of empathy and compassion. We’re kind of like in a recipe for disaster, really. So, and, and this has trickled down to Our listeners, um. In, in, in forms of questionable funding for, for a lot of US nonprofits that do work abroad. Uh, there are individual nonprofits like, uh, National Public Radio, for instance, and Planned Parenthood or being individually targeted, so we’re seeing it at a sort of a, a subset of the community of the nonprofit community level, you know, those doing foreign aid work, but also at a micro level and individual nonprofits. And so this, this makes our, our listeners. Uh, uh, in the nonprofit community generally, um, uncertain, you know, uneasy. No longer, things are not stable like they were just 2.5 months ago, um. And so we take this on to ourselves, you know, we, we, uh, this trickles down, the shit trickles down to the to the, to the people, to the individuals, and we have, we have nowhere else to pass it on to, you know, right, we are the last, but we’re also the first from the bottom up, right? So you have a lot of, you have a lot of advice on the, on the personal level about burnout and let’s start to explore the. The bright thinking that motivated me to invite you to, to come and, and talk to our listeners. Yeah, well, like, for instance, you know, you, yeah, you say that you know you burn out, uh, uh, feeling a burnout is not a personal failure. Can we start there? it’s a natural response. Can we start there? Yeah, for sure, yeah, I think that’s one of the key things to, to realize, right? It’s, it’s not just you. If we look around, we, everyone I talked to and uh they are emotionally overwhelmed or feeling burned out, um. There was just recently, but this is for Switzerland. I don’t know what the US is just today or yesterday was published like the, the happiness, the happiness report, like which countries feel the happiest and yeah, because we’re, we’re recording on International Happiness. Yes, exactly, that makes sense. The reports came out today. Um, Switzerland is, I think the first time ever it’s not in top 10. Which it might surprise people, but if we’re looking here like, yeah, OK, it makes kind of sense. So it’s really systemic, right? This whole overwhelm, especially when it comes to politics, right, we had, I mean, we had Bannon. Like the ex, um, like exact concept of pro he. He was the one who turned like the, the, the phrase flood the stone with shit, right? To have so much, so much coming out that you’re trying to like keep up and keep up and keep up. Which is kind of like almost impossible. So this whole overwhelm. This chaos and crisis, this is design, and this is also what Naomi Klein amplified in her book Shock Doctrine. Although now it’s She might, she argues it’s even a step further, but basically it’s using chaos and crisis to push through. Um, changes because people are too disoriented and to like know what to focus on and to know what to resist. Right, so this is a this is a feature. You you’re you’re citing, uh, yeah, it’s by design. Naomi Klein, you were citing Steve Bannon. Uh, to, um, to flood the zone with shit, so, so it’s, it’s by design to overwhelm us. So this is, that’s important to recognize, yeah. Because you, you, because you can resist by not being overwhelmed. Yes, that would be ultimately the goal if you cancel, right? You, you, if you process information, if there’s, um, if we go with conman, he says, well, you have basically you have system one and system two, right? System one is all the quick, quick thinking you do and the reacting you do and kind of like the ad hoc crisis mode and system two is deep thinking, reflective thinking, critical thinking, so. We hardly, it’s really hard now to go to be like, oh now I do some critical thinking on this, right? Because there’s so much coming out every now, every like every minute of every day. And also, we, I don’t know, we might have to relearn really critical thinking and also engaging with content that is longer than a 22nd reel on TikTok. So kind of like there are many different things that are coming together, um, but yeah. If you So how to kind of like deal with this overwhelm if we know it’s by design. Right, um, and one. One thing is that I find is really crucial is. To say, OK, you know, if it’s a structural point. Hey, what, maybe I don’t really have to keep up with everything. Right? What if, if I only focus on the 2 or 3 issues that are really close to my heart? And that are really and fully aligned with my values. Right, it doesn’t mean that I don’t care about the other things. But I think every listener now has. Their topics that they are feeling deeply passionate for. And maybe just focusing on those instead of trying to like keep up with everything. We don’t want to keep up with the Kardashians, we also don’t want to keep up with everything else that’s going on. And focusing. That’s the reframe doesn’t mean being ignorant, right? It means remaining capable of acting. Right? If you consciously choose which topics are relevant to you, if you don’t chase after every media wave that’s coming at you. But focus on the essentials that was what’s most valuable to you, to your community, you will regain the clarity, you will be able to. Stay focused and do the work, because I think now is really the time where we’re all called to do the work. It’s time for a break. Imagine a fundraising partner that not only helps you raise more money, but also supports you in retaining your donors. A partner that helps you raise funds both online and on location so you can grow your impact faster. That’s Donor Box, a comprehensive suite of tools, services and resources that gives fundraisers just like you, a custom solution to tackle your unique challenges. Helping you achieve the growth and sustainability your organization needs. Helping you, help others. Visit donorbox.org to learn more. Now back to Mental wellness among the chaos. So we’re not lazy or, or dispassionate or uninterested if, if we’re, if we’re just focusing on two issues or three or maybe even just one, you know, whatever our, whatever we think our capacity is, you know, if it’s just one, you know, maybe it’s USAID funding, that’s it, you know, that’s where I’m putting my, so we’re not lazy or, or uninterested if we’re, if we’re paying less attention. To all the other cacophony that that accompanies that that are are chosen. Yeah, I, I truly believe that, right? If like don’t beat yourself up because you can’t keep up. That’s the intent is that you not be able to keep up. Exactly, that’s true, that’s why it’s important to realize, you know, this is, this is you said, it’s a feature, it’s by design. So if you’re trying not to follow the design and disrupt kind of like that system or that pattern. This is where you kind of like gain some sort of agency back. And of course, If you’re a news outlet that might be harder to do just to focus on one issue, but if you’re, I mean we, we have to like a lot of charities are single issues charities for a reason as well, right? It, you’re narrowed down, you’re focused, you know, you’re, I don’t know, maybe it’s reproductive rights or mental health, climate change, whatever it is. And The fault I, I have to pay tribute to the lineage of that, like the fog goes back to Bell Hooks and Audre Lorde of like this whole. The idea of self-care and self-love, right? That is a radical form of resistance. We need to consciously look after our own well-being, physically as, as well as mentally. We need to recover and reflect and recharge because I know you’re listening who are who are, they know like this is not like a sprint. This is a marathon and it’s, and I probably most likely, most definitely will get worse before it gets better. So we need to act sustainably and with foresight and we need everyone to replenish their batteries and recharge. That’s a smart metaphor. Um, it’s really an analogy. That’s a smart analogy to sing single mission nonprofits, right? We don’t, no, no nonprofit takes on every issue that is, uh, that merits money and time and, and needs improvement. No nonprofit does that. Um, I don’t know, but no, no, no, no, we’re focused, so our missions are focused. So, you know, on the, on the individual level, the analogy goes we should remain ourselves singularly focused, or maybe two issues, you know, whatever, again, whatever your bandwidth can take, but I just think that’s that’s it’s it’s, it’s a very apt analogy for our, for our listeners, um. You just mentioned recharging. You know, what are some, uh, aside from, you know, focus and, and recognizing that. Your focus is your resistance. What can we do to, to recharge, take care of ourselves in in other ways here? Um, So One thing that I also really. That I practice myself, um, and again, this might not work for. Your nonprofit organization on an organizational level, it might not, but it’s kind of like a 40 hour wait period until you like. React to something. Right, because all these controversial, often like emotionally charged topics, like he, he, he put tariffs on Canada then less than 48 hours they were gone again, right? If we would just have waited 48 hours before we would get like really worked up about it, it’s already poof gone again, so. Maybe we don’t need to react. On a personal level to everything that’s happening, so maybe we can give ourselves a briefer might not need to be 48 hours, but maybe we can sleep on it. Or do we really have to do like a TikTok right now? Like, it’s really asking yourself, do I contribute to the frenzy or to the solution? And often it’s just more noise. Um, Something else I really is kind of like goes that goes into this is. Don’t try to not let yourself be controlled by the outrage, right? Um. This is really hard to do, but if, if a topic is super emotionalized and you wanna like say your piece. I always ask myself, OK, who benefits from the fact that I’m now getting super upset, super worked up. And is this. Outrage is this addressing a real problem, or is it just adding to the frenzy? Is it just generating attention? And often it’s the latter. So, and then worst case you’re becoming part of the problem, right? Um, Um, and the big one. And this is, I feel really tough for us as as a as a collective as a society. We need to build resilience and that we can also sit with things that are. Uncertain and unpleasant. Right, for example, hm. Many of these political and social issues, right? They are very complex. They have no quick solutions. Everyone who tries to sell you a quick solution either doesn’t have like a fully developed frontal cortex or is leaning towards fascism. And like these so-called wicked problems, right, climate change, for example, where all the variables are constantly changing. It’s, we need to know that it is OK to feel uncertain. About certain topics, right, that facing up to the uncomfortable. Is Instead of looking for hasty explanations or culprits, is also a really great way to We to practice resilience and be like, oh no, OK, it’s OK, I have to sit with this instead of Oh, get me like a quick fix solution or a distraction. And this is really hard because I feel a lot of us struggle with this at times, right? How often are we like, oh no, this makes me feel uncomfortable. Quick, let me distract myself with something. Whatever this may be, it’s totally individual for everyone, right? And then we’re wondering why we as a collective have A hard time with Uncertainty with sitting with uncertainty or Having these Having people come to power who offer quick solutions. And easy solutions that are often in the binary and never really working out. What about, um, broader, you know, self-care, um, you know, like time away, things that distract you that you enjoy. They’re not, they’re not really distraction, but they distract you from, you know, uh, whether it’s family or needlepoint or, you know, these other, other things that we can do to get ourselves out of the, the, the, uh, the, the news maelstrom. Oh, of course, I’m, I mean, all activities that you do that you feel are truly recharging you. And God, please do them and please do more of them. But at the same time. I talked to other people when I asked them, oh, what’s your hobby? They look at me like. But like I, they have like this theoretical concept of a hobby, but. They’re like, well, when, when, when should I have the time to like follow like a leisurely pursuit of something. And Also, to really go back to maybe some of us really need to learn again how to rest and to know the difference between Well, I know I’m sleeping and like really resting. So, yeah, whatever you, you know, the activities that you that you hold close that you know are fully recharging you, go do that. And for some, it might really be thinking of, OK. Maybe I start doing only one thing at a time. For example, I. I just uh mentioned this recently um on another podcast and led to a beautiful conversation there. It was very fitting, but For example, when you make your morning coffee. Right? What if you just watch your coffee brew? Instead of, I don’t know, cleaning out the dishwasher, cleaning up the kitchen, doing this and that. Right, these little moments where you, where you really kind of like decompress, breathe. And just be Those can also be small moments of rest. Instead of doing everything at the same time. Watching coffee brewing. Now, I am not personally a coffee drinker. I don’t drink coffee. I know I’m, I’m not making excuses. I was gonna say what I was thinking was. That sounds like uh I don’t know, doesn’t take 6 or 7 or 8 minutes or something for a pot of coffee to brew. So that’s 6 or 7 or 8 minutes that you’re just, you’re doing something that’s probably gonna bring down your heart rate and your blood pressure, right, as long as you breathe in and out, you’re consciously breathing, you’re really like getting in touch with your body. Yeah, sure, 100%. Just don’t spend that time thinking what’s going on in the world? What, what, what headline am I missing? I need my phone. Where, where is it? You know, that’s not the way to spend your 6 to 8 minutes of coffee brewing time. OK, taking, you know, taking a pause, right? just. To the extent we can, um. I saw something where there were families experimenting with locking their phones up during meal times. And, and I, one of the videos, I think the, the woman actually smashed the, the glass jar that the phones were still sealed in. That may have been a, that may have been a comedy thing, but the concept is real that, you know, we can, we can step away. It’s, it’s OK to step away from, from the, uh, you know, from the chaos. Yeah, and it does not make you lazy or ignorant or whatever. I mean, if those stories play in your head, then it would be really interesting to ask yourself, well, why are they playing? Why does me watching my coffee brew make, like, why does that play the story in my head of, oh, you’re lazy. Look at that. Or you’re ignorant or whatever the story is, whatever kind of story that comes up, that would be the interesting question. They’ll be like, why is this story playing? Or even selfish, it’s not selfish to take care of yourself, you know, uh, uh, self-care is not selfish. So I mean I think when you go ahead. I’m sorry, you, you. Just to make the right, like, it’s, it’s always the first thing when you’re on a plane, you put on the life jacket on yourself first. Mm. Take care of yourself before you can take care of others. I, I espouse that widely. Uh, I, I talked to. Listeners and uh folks in nonprofits about that, you know, we all do giving work, but to give and to care for others at whatever level we’re doing it, whether you’re the CEO or you’re doing the house visits, uh, you know, as a nurse’s aide, we’re all caring for others or some other, some other entity like the climate or the oceans beyond ourselves, we’re all giving, but if you’re gonna give and take care of others. You need to take care of yourself first. Yes, that’s not selfish. No, no, absolutely not. It’s really you. You protecting yourself. To To have all these compassion to give towards your cause or your people, your community. And to be able to, to, to give longer, right? To sustain, to really kind of, as I said, we know this is, this, this will not just be over. In a year or 4 years, who knows, right? Um, and it was like, yeah, I said, it probably will get worse before it gets better. So this is really this idea of that this is selfish is really something we have to let go of. It’s time for Tony’s take two. Thank you, Kate. Tales from the gym semper fi. There were these two former Marines who met at the gym and I was over in the corner doing my floor work. And I heard the whole conversation. Uh, it was really, it was, it was kind of touching, the way these two guys bonded instantly over their Marine Corps service. Uh, and they started getting into, you know, the, the, the, the acronyms, of course, uh, MASOC, JSOC, SOI 0311. What were you? 0311? Oh, I was 0311. So I, so I’m thinking, uh, I’m trying to remember these things while I’m doing my, uh, my, my, uh, planks and and my push-ups, and I’m thinking, all right, I gotta remember more so, JSOC, uh, you know. So I went back and looked these things up and uh. JSOC is the Joint Special Operations Command. And Marsak is the Marine Forces Special Operations Command. So these guys worked in some kind of special operations. Um, and SOI is School of Infantry. Which made sense uh with uh 0311 cause 0311, I figured was the, this is something that I remember from the Air Force, the, it’s called uh I figured it was their MOS. It’s a military occupational specialty. I, I forgot what MOS stood for, but we used to just say MOS. It means what, what kind of job you had. It’s a code for what kind of job. So, so they were talking about SOI School of Infantry, and they were 03 11, and that is an infantry. MOS infantry specialist, 0311. So these guys were in infantry, uh, not together, but they, they certainly shared that bond. So it was, it was quite interesting listening to Marstock and JSOC, etc. Um, one of them is named Roy, you know, I like to refer to these folks as like, you know, we met Val, Mrs. Blood and Soil, um, so, you know, I like to have names. One of them was named Roy. The other one, he didn’t get too much airtime in the conversation. So I, I’m sure he said his name, but I didn’t catch it and he, uh, yeah, I missed his name. So I only know Roy as, uh, one of the two. Former Marines. So I, I thank the unnamed Marine and uh and Roy for their service. In JSOC and more so and. SOI And that is Tony’s take too. Kate, Tony We’ve never really talked about it. I don’t think, I mean just you being my uncle, I knew you were in the Air Force, but what is like the one Great takeaway that you took, like one great takeaway that you took from your time in the Air Force, maybe like uh. I don’t know, like a saying or something you just remember like, I don’t know. No, I would say it’s the, it was the teamwork because I had an unusual job. So talking about these guys, Roy and the unnamed Marine, you know, infantry, that’s a very common thing, you know, right, hundreds of thousands of people or at least 10s of thousands are in in infantry. That’s the fighters, those are the fighters. Um, but I was in a specialty, even in the Air Force, something that was unusual. It was Minuteman. Missile operations. Minuteman was a nuclear weapon system. And there weren’t that many people who did that kind of job. I mean, there were, there were probably 1000 or something across 6 spaces or, you know, so it’s a small number. Um, and so, you know, you got to be a very close team cause you did something special, unusual, and, but you did it all together. And on my base, there was probably only Maybe 200 or so people who did out of out of many thousands. So, it’s kind of a camaraderie, I’d say, camaraderie, teamwork around an an unusual kind of job operating Minuteman missiles. That’s really cool. You know, it uh it served its purpose in the Cold War. It was a, yeah, yeah, thank you. We’ve got just about a butt load more time. Here’s the rest of Mental Wellness Among the chaos with Jennifer Walter. Where else would you like to go, Jennifer? What, um, what else would you like folks to know about coping, I don’t know, self-care, whatever, you know, you’re the, you’re the, uh, the, you’re the Swiss expert sociologist. Well, it’s really going back to Being curious. I think true self care also has at this level is component of being curious, right? When you realize, oh. There is this thought creeping in, oh, you’re selfish for doing this, or you’re arrogant or ignorant or. To really be curious and ask yourself, oh, why is this thought coming up? The same with emotions, right? If you, if you do something and it makes you feel anxious, or if it makes you feel angry or resentful to really be like, oh, OK, can I like channel my inner scientist and ask like, oh, why? Why is this coming up now? Why could that be? Interesting. So this is really kind of like where a lot of. Change on a personal level happens if you’re curious enough to, to ask the question, just being like, oh, interesting. Some introspection. Yeah, and a lot of if. Sometimes if people are at the beginning of their journey, they’re like, oh, but how can I like self-reflection feels really hard, like, do I have to. Meditate for an hour a day to have gained like introspection and so. Well, no, sometimes it’s just really Slowing down enough to recognize what thoughts or feelings are coming in. And be curious about them and ask, oh why, why this particular feeling emotion fought right this second. Interesting. What other advice Do you have that we that I haven’t, uh, I haven’t, I haven’t teased out of you yet. Well, let me ask you this. Well, how did you get into this work? How, how did you get into sociological studies and, and, and coaching of others, helping people cope on an individual level? How, how did you get into this work? Oh, Well, I think the sociologist was in me when I was already like very, very young. I was a small kid I was always like, why, why, but why? And I always had this deep sense of justice of like, oh, but this is not fair. Why can they when I cannot or why can cont day and I can, um. So that was kind of that felt very like a logical conclusion to be like, oh, OK, I’m gonna study sociology because that’s basically the question of. Who profits from what we said right at the very beginning, who profits from you being emotionally worked up about this? Right? And so who, like the power dynamics and everything. So that’s, that’s really one of the key questions of sociology, like, OK, who, who profits? And this is, this goes into every aspect of our life, right? If People who uh who identify as women. Growing up, we had all these images of how it also goes for men, how women are supposed to be, how men are supposed to be. And if you feel bad, if you’re made to feel bad about the way you look, Who profits off that? It’s not you. You’re feeling like crap. So. Looking at the systems in place that are trying to tell you there’s something wrong with you. And we need to fix it, and look at that, we also just have the solution to fix XYZ. And that kind of like naturally translated in. Also in in coaching people, right? Because we often are led to believe that we need something outside of ourselves to. To deserve to feel what we want to feel, to get where we want to go, um. And I don’t know, 9 out of 10, 9 out of 10. There’s nothing internal, external, it’s something internal. It’s the internal job you have to do, um. And it’s no I don’t know, yes, you can get. I don’t know, you can get a crystal to help you relax. But ultimately it’s a, it’s a tool or a crotch. And Just the crystal itself will, I don’t know, very unlikely make you feel relaxed. Yeah, confident. Whatever it is, it’s it’s, it’s false, it’s a mistake to look. Outside yourself for. Validation or we mentioned happiness because it’s happiness, World Happiness Day, to, to, to, to need externalities to approve of you. Versus Approving of yourself or or maybe approval is not the right word, but acceptance you need that you need it from outside versus you should be able to find it within you. Well, if you need it. Like externally from an external source. You most likely at some point you will run into this corner of it is never enough. Right, if you need external validation, I don’t know, maybe in the form of, I don’t know, likes to your social media posts, followers, money. Number of friends whatever. I don’t know. Will you ever truly know when when is enough? When is enough external validation? From what I’ve seen so far and read and seen so far, like it, there’s hardly ever enough. Right, if you’re accumulating and accumulating. You will always, this will always wear off, and then you’re right, right back where you started. Then you kind of like need to earn even more money or to have even more followers, and then you feel like, oh, validated again, and then it starts fading again, because you have no internal knowledge of this to back it up. You have no, you haven’t kind of like built this internal muscle to back it up. So you kind of like fade, so it fades out, fizzles out. want to leave us with um some. Final Words of uh of hope. And, and, or even just reminders of how to cope, if, if not, if not overall hope, but Oh, I’m that’s, no, I mean, I am, I am truly hopeful. I’m always like the glass is half full. That’s also why my description is like I’m always, I’m always going to be half marshmallow. I’m, I will believe in the good in people until like the very fucking end. Um But I had this, yeah, it’s really like. Being mindful with our attention. Right? Where does our attention go? and so often we’re not really conscious in choosing where our attention goes. But where our attention goes, our focus goes. And if we can use our attention in a very targeted manner, very focused, we can really strengthen certain topics, highlight certain topics that would otherwise be lost in the flood of information or in the flood of shit when we go back to ban it, right? So really. Yeah, be be reflecting critical enough, OK, that not every breaking news story has to be commented immediately and really not just be outraged for the sake of being outraged. Because like this whole where your attention goes, your focus grows. It’s kind of what we consume, right? What we consume, how we talk about it, the words we use, they build the world we live in. So And what we think. We pass on. And that shapes others. So when you understand that consciously directing your attention is is a very valuable resource. It can have really kind of like put back agency. Into yourself and the work you do, and I think this is really crucial because if you feel hopeless. Reminding yourself of agency and the things you can actually do control, such as your attention. And even if it is no smartphones after 8 o’clock. Then go do that. I want to thank you for uh for saying shit and fuck. But, but we get both from one guest. Usually I, I need scores of guests to get just one of those. Maybe this is the divide. I don’t know. No, it’s, it’s. But you didn’t get any potty humor. True, true, but this is like. I don’t know. Those are things that never really work on command, but they have to be. Yeah, no, I’m not gonna say I’m not gonna say a toilet joke. No, it’s, it’s organic like shit and fuck, you know. But in fairness, my, my son, he’s 5, and he really had, he came home from kindergarten the other day and he really had. The most beautiful, most innocent of potty humor jokes I’ve heard in a long time, and it was truly precious. All right, well, so with that kind of build up, you can’t leave us. So what’s your, what’s his joke? OK, so now bear with me because I have to translate this from Swiss German to English, um, on the go because I’ve never told it in English. Well, so basically, there is a poop walking down the street. Then he meets another poop. He says, hey, you know. What you doing? Oh, I’m just gonna go rob a bank. Oh, that sounds cool. Can I come with? Sure. So two poops walking down the street, they meet another poop. Hey, you look like a good piece of poop. What are you doing? Like, what are you two up to? Well, we’re just gonna go rob a bank. OK. Can I come with? Yeah, you look like a solid piece of poop, you can come with us. So they walk to the next corner, they meet diarrhea. And just like, oh, you two look like fun fellas. What are you doing? And like, oh, we’re just gonna go rob a bank. And then everything’s like, oh, sounds fun. Can I come with? Nah, sorry, this is only for hard guys. OK, 5 year old, humor, but it’s it’s precious. It’s cute, yes, yes. All right, well thank you for translating in from uh from Swiss German. She’s Jennifer Walter. You’ll find her on LinkedIn. You’ll find her practice at jennifer Walter. Me. Jennifer, thank you very much for sharing your thinking, your, your advice, your wisdom. Thank you so much, Tony, for having me. Thank you so much. Next week, nonprofit leadership for current and aspiring. If you missed any part of this week’s show, I beseech you. Find it at Tony Martignetti.com. We’re sponsored by DonorBox. Outdated donation forms blocking your supporters’ generosity. DonorBox, fast, flexible, and friendly fundraising forms for your nonprofit, DonorBox.org. I saw you you out, faked you out with a false. Breath. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff. I’m your associate producer Kate Martignetti. The show’s social media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our web guy, and this music is like Scott Stein. Thank you for that affirmation, Scotty. Be with us next week for nonprofit Radio, big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. Go out and be great.

Nonprofit Radio for April 19, 2021: Team Care

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Susan Comfort: Team Care

Susan Comfort wants you to go beyond self care, which gets a lot of attention, to team care. Yes, take care of yourself, but then look after your team. She’s founder of Nonprofit Wellness, and part of our 21NTC coverage. This week’s show is shorter than usual, so you can spend more time taking care of self and team.

 

 

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[00:00:02.84] spk_2:
Hello and welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio big non profit

[00:01:37.84] spk_1:
Ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host of your favorite abdominal podcast. Oh, I’m glad you’re with me, I’d suffer the effects of dengue fever if you bit me with the idea that you missed this week’s show, Team Care. Susan comfort wants you to go beyond self care, which gets a lot of attention to Team care. Yes, take care of yourself, but then look after your team. She’s founder of nonprofit wellness and part of our 21 NTC coverage this week’s show is deliberately shorter than usual so you can spend more time taking care of self and team tony take two Go take care were sponsored by turn to communications pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o here is Team Care. Welcome to tony-martignetti non profit radio coverage of 21 ntc. Do you know what it is? It’s the 2021 nonprofit technology conference where we are sponsored by turn to communications turn hyphen two dot c o with me now is Susan comfort founder of nonprofit wellness. Susan Welcome back to nonprofit radio

[00:01:39.87] spk_0:
Thanks Great to be here.

[00:01:49.24] spk_1:
It was roughly a year ago. Last april when 2020 20 NTC was not in person. And we talked with mo abdullah about coronavirus and Team care.

[00:01:54.34] spk_0:
Indeed. And here we are a year later and we’re facing the same issues except worse.

[00:02:00.64] spk_1:
Yes, because it’s multiplied by because we’ve been in this for over a year.

[00:02:05.89] spk_0:
Exactly.

[00:02:15.14] spk_1:
Okay. And so your topic is very, very similar. Team care, not self care building. Resiliency in an era of burnout should be resilience. Should have been resilience, not resiliency

[00:02:20.94] spk_0:
building resilience building resiliency. I think they both work.

[00:02:39.64] spk_1:
You do All right. I think one works better the other. All right after I’m not I’m not strictly a grammarian. I’m only a curmudgeon. I’m not a grammarian or uh Entomology. I’m not an entomologist. I’m just curmudgeonly. Got it. Some reason I see. Billion resilience. Alright?

[00:02:42.58] spk_0:
Hey, as long as you build it, I don’t care what she calls.

[00:02:52.64] spk_1:
We’ll get we’ll be resilient. We’ll be resilient. Alright? So yeah, we need to keep taking care of ourselves and our teams through this and and beyond right beyond the pandemic. We’ve still got to be thinking about team care.

[00:02:57.54] spk_0:
Well, let me ask you, this was a self care. Mean to you. tony

[00:04:03.04] spk_1:
I can give examples. Is that what you is that what you mean? Like? It means uh Not so occasional daytime naps. It means um glass of wine. Maybe, no, not every night, but several nights a week. Glass of wine after work. It means ending work at a decent time. Even though, Well even before the pandemic, my home has always been in my office has been my home for about 15 years, maybe 20 years. So, uh but you know, so I don’t have trouble closing the door. So there’s that boundaries around time, in terms in in other words, um there’s some examples walk on the beach. I live across the street from the beach and the ocean. So walks on the beach. Love it. Some examples. And why do I think it’s important because I can’t I can’t be good to other people if I’m not good to myself 1st. And I I take that to heart and I think I take good guy. I mean, I exercise, I eat right, I’m cautious about too much meat and processed foods and think, you know, so there’s a lot, there’s a lot that goes into it for me

[00:04:37.44] spk_0:
for sure. And we all have the same human body. And so we’re feeding it were resting it, we’re hydrating it and we’re moving it. Those are physical kind of self care impetus is right, that you just gave some great examples of, and we know that were in charge of self care, right? There’s nobody else in charge of our body. And we’re told that were in charge of self care. Hey, don’t forget to self care, take time for self care, set your boundaries. Well, guess what? In the nonprofit world and in the education world where we’re increasingly working, people aren’t so great at self care naturally on their own. You remind me of self care, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to do it or do it well.

[00:05:09.54] spk_1:
And particularly we’re working in our homes, it’s so easy to lose the boundaries between work and personal. That’s where you’re not allowed in. You’re not allowed in after six PM or what, you know. But, but if you’re not accustomed to that, you got thrown into it in an instant, there was no, there was no teachings going on in, in, in february and early March about how to do this. You got, you got slammed with it.

[00:07:07.44] spk_0:
And at first we saw it maybe as a benefit like, hey, no commute. But then we thought, ah, that commute was the one hour a day I had to myself or to listen to the radio or to listen to my book or to detach and create that boundary from work to home. Now you’ve been working from home for a while, you’ve kind of gotten practice at this, but you’re right, everyone else is kind of new to it. Not so good at it and being told in a time of unprecedented stress and pandemic. Hey, don’t forget about self care when you know what, we probably weren’t good at it to begin with. And so that’s why, well, that’s one reason why we focus on team care, because we’re just not good at self care. And the second reason is especially in a world where we’re serving others, were educating others, were giving to others in the nonprofit world. We are usually, but it’s also because we’re in this unprecedented time, self care won’t cut it. Going back to the regular, old normal we used to have isn’t going to work, it wasn’t working then we weren’t caring for ourselves particularly well then. And it’s not getting any better with bad solutions on a new framework. So we have to take this new framework, a pandemic informed world and say, well, how are we going to do things differently next time when we return to the office is what’s going to be different when we return to our teams, how we’re gonna manage differently? How are we going to work from home differently? How are we going to communicate differently? All of these things are opportunities to reset our culture? So we we coached teams, nonprofit schools, et cetera. How to take that world changing energy and reset your culture. So we’re actually turning our superpowers on each other, taking care of each other, which were really good at doing so that we can take care of ourselves better because having longevity in this career is crucial. Turnover is a silent epidemic facing the nonprofit and the education worlds. Some of its measured often it’s not. But if we don’t keep people in these jobs longer term, keep the relationships, keep the commitment, keep the knowledge, then we’re not going to do a very good job at educating Children are changing the world.

[00:07:27.94] spk_1:
All right. You have some resources for for us taking care of ourselves. You have a personal stress prescription and a stressor scorecard. Yeah. Can we, first of all, can listeners get these somewhere or is it something you create on your own? You don’t need a template?

[00:09:24.74] spk_0:
Well, both. You don’t need a template. We created it for you to use as a discussion tool or a self care tool, but you don’t need our form. What we did and you can download it at nonprofit wellness dot org slash resources. What we did was put together a list of about two dozen evidence based stress relief solutions. These are things that have been studied that are proven to both either lower your cortisol, the stress hormone that’s released when we’re stressed or to reset our bodily systems or to relax us. And there’s good and bad things on the list or quote good, quote bad, right? Like friendships you might think of as good, but some friendships are toxic right intoxication you might think of as bad, but actually you have a glass of wine some nights it’s good. You mentioned it as part of your self care, right? But for some people, it might be a challenge. Um, I stopped drinking three years ago. For me it was more of a challenge than a benefit. And so I cut it out because that was easiest, but everybody has to make their own decisions. Is it a glass of wine? Is it not at all? Is that? Hey, I need to go out for happy hour or more because I’m a little uptight. You get to make your decision on the personal stress prescription what works for you. And I guarantee there’s stuff on the list you’re already doing great, celebrate that. Do it more because that’s low barrier to entry if you’re already doing it. And then there’s stuff on that list that maybe you should pick up something new, something different, new world, new strategies and then there’s stuff on that list that you could really be doing with a team of doing with somebody else and that’s going to help you actually do it. Have more fun, go longer. And those are the things that we need in our wellness, right? When we actually do it, when we have fun and when we go longer and harder, right? That’s what having a buddy or having a team and accountability aspect to our care. That’s what it does for us. And the research shows it. So we need team care, not self care. I mean, not just self care. We need team care and self care, but we like to be a little bit polemic and say team care, not self care because we want to differentiate ourselves from everybody destroying self care. Don’t

[00:10:01.24] spk_1:
forget we need both. So these are at nonprofit wellness dot org slash resources. I did not uh now I’m bringing out my curmudgeon again that I did not, I didn’t I didn’t uh I didn’t miss that. You snuck in template. It’s template, it’s template. How do you get template? You know? And you? No, and there was born and raised in Maryland. I was in New Jersey, weren’t that far away, but it’s template. Nothing

[00:10:05.92] spk_0:
tony How do you spell curmudgeon?

[00:10:14.04] spk_1:
C U R M U D G E O N? Well, because I hustled you about resiliency being wrong

[00:10:16.98] spk_0:
if I want to talk real ball Mariza, I say with her and I say you can go down the ocean and you can walk on the beach all you want hon, but you don’t have to invite me or you can have your own self. You want me to do a Maryland accent the whole time, tony I’ll do it.

[00:10:32.14] spk_1:
It sounds annoying. Um, yeah,

[00:10:36.05] spk_0:
I worked at a crab house five summers. I’ve got the Baltimore accent down pat.

[00:10:40.24] spk_1:
You worked at a crab house.

[00:10:42.03] spk_0:
Indeed.

[00:10:42.69] spk_1:
A servant, servant?

[00:10:44.44] spk_0:
Yeah, yeah. Even after I was a vegetarian, I served recently killed uh steamed crabs right onto

[00:10:50.67] spk_1:
your table. This number. All right. So as a vegetarian, is it inappropriate for me to ask you what what what type of crab meat you believe is best for crab cakes? Is that the lump is the jumbo lump at the back?

[00:11:13.44] spk_0:
I’m a lacto ovo crab, a vegetarian. So I’m authorized to speak on this matter, of course. Back then you can put anything in a crab cake, but you want jumbo lump and very few breadcrumbs.

[00:11:15.15] spk_1:
Wait, you’re saying it’s back then and jumbo lump.

[00:11:19.14] spk_0:
Well, they’re the same thing. Jumbo lump is just the bigger chunks of back fin.

[00:11:27.34] spk_1:
Right, well, right, the lump or jumbo lump, you get a mixture. Okay, back then. And some lumps, usually in the top of the container, in the bottom of the container. If you

[00:11:32.56] spk_0:
say so, I pick my own crabs tony If you say, that’s what you get, that’s what you get. Just get the best crab meat you can buy in the biggest chunks you can. And if you’re like me, you can pick your own, make your own crab soup. Make your own crab cakes. Just not too much bread. Okay, It ruins the crab cake.

[00:11:55.84] spk_1:
Right? Not too much. I I agree. I just made a batch with very low gluten free plank. Oh, but It was £2 of crab meat and I think A third, I guess it was 2/3 of a cup I think of.

[00:11:59.79] spk_0:
We’re going to be imagining it’s Panko, not plank. Oh, tony

[00:12:04.20] spk_1:
Did I say plank? Oh, I say plank. Oh, I’m going to play this back. No. Did I say plank? Oh, that’s embarrassing. I know it’s Panko. It

[00:12:14.54] spk_0:
sounded like it. You can edit that part out.

[00:12:15.93] spk_1:
All right. I’m not going to edit it. No, no. I called you out twice template. I’m not gonna not gonna cheat and edit out. But that’s embarrassing. I know it’s Panko. Of course, it’s Panko. Thank you for correcting me. All right. It’s very important to know what kind of crab meat is best. Alright,

[00:12:32.97] spk_0:
Indeed.

[00:12:40.24] spk_1:
So, all right. So we take so we get these resources or we just develop our own pursuant Egyptian and stressor and a scorecard. A scorecard worked with the prescription is that they work together

[00:14:18.74] spk_0:
the scorecards under revision. So by the time your listeners here this, there might be a new one. We took the stressor. Scorecard, which was based on the ace Score card stands for adverse childhood experiences. And it’s actually measure of childhood trauma. It’s quite triggering, triggering. But we took the a scorecard and we said, well, what’s the measurement of adult stress? There wasn’t one. So, we made one and we kept revising it and we’ve gone undergone another revision. Or instead of just ranking your stressors. And these are societal stressors, not work stressors. So it might be identity related to who you are in society. It might be a circumstance related to what you’re facing right now in your life. So a circumstance could be like a divorce or a food allergy that causes you stress an identity, might be your gender, your race or your sexual orientation that may or may not given where you are in society, may or may not cause you stress. So if you know the score when you walk in the door, if you know your stress score from society, then technically we should know who gets the most wellness resources. That would be wellness equity. If we knew who got the most stress, then they would get the most wellness resources. But the way it is now is we give the corporate world wellness resources because it’s a $7 billion industry in the corporate workplace, but the nonprofit world and the education world don’t really get sort of wellness benefits or like extra help yet. I would say that we are probably among the most stressed in society. Not only do we face a lot of stressors because of who we are, what we face and our lower incomes. But also we have really stressful jobs that are that depend on us to literally change the world or change people’s minds and that is not the same as a bank job. Sorry. It’s just not. So we have more stress and we should get more resources than we do.

[00:14:39.34] spk_1:
We should get more resources than right. We definitely should. Yes. And at least as much as if you’re gonna write if you’re gonna do it equitably. At least as much as you see in the in the corporate side. I mean you know you have

[00:15:57.94] spk_0:
jobs I don’t want to the other people scorecard it didn’t go into though is is under revision is the strength the growth and the joy that we achieve from these identities and circumstances. So we actually put two scores on the new one where you can rank your stress but you can also rank your growth and joy. So for example I’m a woman and I identify as queer being a woman and a white woman at that in society has not caused me a lot of stress but I would say some maybe a low amount of stress being queer in society has not caused me very much stress. But when I look at both of those and I think of how much growth enjoy being a woman has brought me and how much growth enjoy being bisexual has brought me as a part of the queer community that’s off the charts. I rank much higher my growth and joy than I do my stress. And so in that way I go, hey, what a bonus that I have had this stress in my life. What an opportunity for growth and joy that this stressful thing brought me and that puts it in a whole new frame for me I think. Yeah, I face a lot of stress and my job and in my life. But look at how much I’ve grown and how much joy I get out of life. And so that’s our stressor. Scorecard revision. It’s now called the stressor and resilience Scorecard because again, building resilience or resiliency is super important in a time of constant change and stress.

[00:17:23.34] spk_1:
Thank you for saying resilience first. And then or or resiliency as the second alternative. Alright, so how do we then bring? I’m relentless. If nothing else I don’t let go, it’s time for a break. Turn to communications when there’s something in the news and you want to be heard when you want to get an op ed published. When you want a guest on blogs and podcasts, speak at conferences and be shared on social turn to turn to your story. Is there mission turn hyphen two dot C O. It’s time for Tony’s take two. I want you to go out first. Take care of yourself as Susan is advising and then take care of your team. This is a short show and a short Tony’s take too. So you will use the extra time. I hope to take care. Please go forth and care. That is Tony’s take two. We’ve got boo koo, but loads more time for team care, but not as much boo koo as usual. So how do we bring this now to a team level? Because it’s his team care and not self care. I’ve been wagging my listeners can’t see, but I’m telling you, I’m wagging my finger. We’re distinguishing ourselves from all the, all the nannies who say take care of yourself, how we convey this now to team care.

[00:18:04.54] spk_0:
Well, I’m glad your listeners can’t see it because there’s nothing better than non profit types wagging their fingers at other people telling them what they should do right. Um, it’s really funny. It’s really simple. All you have to do is talk about it. So Burn A Brown has many best selling books about vulnerability and shame and courage and she a pines. I mean the research show shows that when you are vulnerable, you inspire empathy and it’s really the height of courageousness to be vulnerable. It’s not opposite. They’re two sides of the same.

[00:18:12.40] spk_1:
Yes, absolutely.

[00:19:48.14] spk_0:
Yeah. And so if you tony are a vulnerable leader and your courageous enough to say, hey, I’ve been struggling with my physical health in this way. So I’m going to take walks on the beach every morning and I’m going to have a glass of wine every night because that’s my plan for self care and I want you all to support me in that by not scheduling meetings during my walk time and not making fun of my wine selection or whatever it is, right. But by talking about it, people go, oh, tony is being vulnerable with me. That means I can be a little vulnerable with him and say, well, tony I’m struggling with some things in my physical health and I would like your support on this. Whatever it is, it doesn’t mean that somebody has to go on the beach with you. It just means that they have to support and know that that’s something that you need for your mental or physical health. And when we talk about ourselves, we we become a little vulnerable, we keep ourselves safe usually. And then other people have empathy for us because we made ourselves vulnerable. And that builds trust and trust is the elusive element that so many teams are missing. And so if wellness can be kind of a shortcut to that great, But it just means we have to talk about it and that’s why we create discussion tools. We want you to be able to talk about this with your team openly vulnerably and honestly, but also like have, you know, have something to get out of it. Maybe you all could support a new direction with your team care based on your discussions. Maybe instead of pastries in the kitchen, you’re going to have nuts in the kitchen because it’s healthier. Maybe you’re going to go for group walks or measure your steps together. Those are all physical things. But where we really get into the interesting stuff is when we talk about mental health things, which is a little less accepted at work, but that’s the most important thing of what we’re doing

[00:20:06.44] spk_1:
okay before we get to mental health, let’s let’s keep a little simpler, a little safer. How do we just Open these conversations? Like are we are we having a meeting for this purpose or is this 10 minutes? Uh, at the beginning of a one hour meeting? All

[00:22:00.94] spk_0:
of the above. So, you know, if you have a meeting about it and that sounds like a wellness committee and that would be great because a wellness committee could definitely be a diverse group of voices that pushes the agenda forward rather than like one yoga nut in the office, which is who I used to be, right. But if you don’t have time for a wellness committee or you’re not ready for wellness committee yet. No problem. Just at the beginning of every meeting, maybe you ask a checking question that has to do with health. So like what did you do already today to support your mental or physical health? That’s a quick check in question and people will think about what did I do today just walking my dog. Don’t maybe walking my dog counts as physical and mental health. Yeah. Walking my dog, I’m going to walk my dog more because that’s really good for health. It makes them think about things in a different way and it makes them share. Maybe people didn’t know you had a dog. Maybe somebody would like to go for a dog walk with you. Maybe somebody would like to bring their dog into the office and they know that since you have a dog, you’re going to be more open to it. I mean there’s many directions these conversations can go, but you just have to open it up. So it’s usually like a checking question or maybe a lunch and learn or a brown bag lunch where everybody could talk about these things. But I would say set and it set a topic. Um maybe it’s nutrition, maybe it’s some specific aspect of nutrition. Maybe it’s a movement. You know, these are things that are safe and yet they affect our mental health. So if we start talking about physical things that affect our physical health, then we’re going to start to get into, well, you know what when I take when I exercise, I feel you know happier. Well that’s mental health. And so you’re going to start talking about mental health, even though you’re talking about how you’re feeding, moving and resting your body, which is physical. Mm

[00:22:02.44] spk_1:
Okay. Uh by the way, if you were the yoga nut, then I guess you would have been pushing up against me the curmudgeon if we would have been in the same workplace

[00:22:11.26] spk_0:
probably.

[00:22:28.64] spk_1:
But I’m not uh you know, this is a recent, a recent uh, revelation for me that I’m a little curmudgeonly. I see it in my neighborhood. Like, you know, my my neighbor across the street has has a big piece of construction waste in a role that that that the garbage people are not gonna pick up because it’s been there for over a week. You have to put your garbage in a can. It’s gotta be, it’s gotta be an authorized can with wheels and it’s got to face the right way. But they’re not going to pick up this guy’s big tart, but he leaves it out there. You know that that bothers me. I’m looking at it right now. It’s annoying.

[00:22:48.14] spk_0:
It sounds like it causes you some stress.

[00:22:50.14] spk_1:
Well it shouldn’t be there. It’s not part of it is the injustice of it because he knows it’s not gonna get picked up. It’s been there over a week and we have garbage pickups every monday and friday. So it’s not going if it didn’t go the first day, it’s not going the next door the next after after that. So it’s the injustice of it. I I follow the rules he should do.

[00:23:09.04] spk_0:
I think the

[00:23:28.74] spk_1:
neighborhood neighborhood beautification, you know, what’s that tarp out there on a big role may be the next neighbor will put a little load of uh concrete after he, after he takes his grill out of the concrete slab that it’s been in and they leaves a little to foot chunk pile of broken concrete. There’s

[00:23:29.16] spk_0:
a neighborhood

[00:23:30.84] spk_1:
liberties and then the next and the next next thing I have to sell my home.

[00:23:46.44] spk_0:
That would be terrible. Hey, get a big piece of chalk and create some sort of art out of that rolled up tarp. Maybe it’s a caterpillar. Maybe you write a note on the street and chalk like, I don’t know, I can’t think of something

[00:23:48.29] spk_1:
the hell out of here. Is that well,

[00:23:58.54] spk_0:
that would be curmudgeonly. You want that hilarious. You used to be a comedian. Be hilarious, tony something funny, make them laugh.

[00:24:45.94] spk_1:
You know what I was laughing about recently, I learned David Sedaris has a home in my town and a lot of people in town have pretentious names on their homes. Like when I moved here, it was seven seas. I had that the first thing I had a contractor to rip that stupid 17 1st of all it’s the atlantic ocean. It’s not A C. So it’s misnamed Second of all. These names are pretentious. David Sedaris has his house name is C Section. How good is that? How brilliant is that? Go right to the heart of the pretense. And uh so if I had thought of C Section, I would have had the contract and make those letters. But he took that one. But yeah, you’re right. I could put something in chalk. I have talked to because I have uh

[00:24:46.94] spk_0:
Rafter out loud is one of our top 12 immune boosters. We

[00:24:51.99] spk_1:
just, I mean this is not a

[00:25:11.54] spk_0:
Topic because laughter laughing out loud actually is one of the 12 immune boosters that are masters of public health interns research to find the cheap easy. Absolutely scientific based immune boosters and laughing out loud is at the top of the list. So, uh, you will boost your immune system and everybody on the street, if you can figure out something funny to do with that rolled up tarp, I will follow up with you tony to figure out what it

[00:25:21.74] spk_1:
was. The caterpillar is a good idea. I’ll keep I could make it a big turd, but that’s kind of

[00:25:26.88] spk_0:
yeah, like dinosaur, you know, like make up north Carolina, dinosaur breed and say like this is the ancient, you know,

[00:25:36.63] spk_1:
it’s a fossilized brontosaurus turd.

[00:25:39.74] spk_0:
Exactly, you’re getting there, getting there.

[00:25:46.64] spk_1:
I’m amusing myself, you know. Uh But I just

[00:25:48.61] spk_0:
did it did it for yourself, right, then. It make you laugh rather than making you stressed out.

[00:25:53.04] spk_1:
Okay. But I’d like something for the community to be able to chuckle at two. Exactly. All right. This is uh you

[00:25:59.19] spk_0:
know, David Sedaris or anything, but you’re tony-martignetti and that’s not not

[00:26:25.24] spk_1:
okay. Right. I know my place. I know my place. All right. So, this has turned into an individual mental health exercise, which is not supposed to be so. But this curmudgeon thing is just evolving in my mind about how I’m you know, traditions, there’s importance around laws and tradition and you know, so humans I might have clashed. Uh but I wasn’t conventionally when we would have been in the same workplace. This is only within the past few weeks. I’ve come to this revelation

[00:26:34.14] spk_0:
blame it on the pandemic. That’s what we’re all doing. Many bad personality traits on your lifetime

[00:27:01.24] spk_1:
practice. I mean, it’s a lifetime practice, right? It is absolutely. So, you know, in this phase I have curmudgeonly, maybe in six months or six years, I’ll be out of it. Um, you have some skills like you, your, your workshop identified, but you have some like skills, we can practice your stress for our teams and ourselves. Yes,

[00:27:12.74] spk_0:
I think this is a really good one. This is a really good one. Okay, so what I want you to do is look out the window and anyone listening, just look out the window right now, Tony is going to be looking at a giant dinosaurs turd across the and uh, you want to name five things you see out the window besides the brontosaurus turd, tony go

[00:27:32.04] spk_1:
the ocean, the uh, the walkway, the, the little wooden walkway to the ocean. My neighbor’s homes who I don’t know too well, I’m a little curmudgeonly. Uh, and there’s my, my front yard landscaping, which I’m very proud of.

[00:27:36.00] spk_0:
Excellent. What’s one of the parts of the landscaping? That’s number five

[00:27:41.54] spk_1:
Oh the mexican continues. They’re just starting to bloom awesome. Well grow, they’re not blooming yet, but they’re growing out of the ground green.

[00:28:23.94] spk_0:
You can see that their roots have taken hold. So that’s that’s part of a mindfulness exercise where you name five things you can see for things you can touch three things, you can hear two things you can smell and one thing you can taste and it says it’s an anxiety arresting exercise where if you’re feeling anxious, you’re worried about stuff, you’re thinking into the future, you’re worried about the past, you come back to the present moment and how do you do that? five things you see four things you can touch, name them, touch them, see them, say it out loud. That will bring you back to the present moment forces you because you’re engaging all five of your senses.

[00:28:30.82] spk_1:
Yeah.

[00:29:23.84] spk_0:
And that’s the best thing we can do for our mental health is be mindful. The second best thing is to move our bodies because moving our bodies trains our brain and so being mindful, being more mindful, being better mindful. These are all things we can do are things we can all do. Being more movement, having better movement, being movement oriented. These are things we can all do no matter how much we move, no matter how much we’re meditating or mindful, but mindfulness is just being aware of the present moment. But it takes us out of that worrying cycle. It takes us out of that rumination, prefrontal cortex and actually forces us to be in the present moment which is a huge skill. I practice it every day for seconds per day. I’m aspiring to get up two minutes, you know, just being mindful, being present. That is a huge skill that I have been practicing a ton and that is a relief that I don’t have to become a meditator. I can just be a mindful person. What a relief. I don’t have to sit and meditate, I can just be mindful.

[00:29:40.34] spk_1:
Would you count down the five again, please? Five things you can see for things you can touch, then, what

[00:29:47.94] spk_0:
three things you can hear, two things you can smell and one thing you can taste,

[00:29:51.84] spk_1:
Okay, so go and go and do them going,

[00:30:23.74] spk_0:
you just start in the moment like, oh I have a you know, old coffee taste in my mouth, it’s just that moment, that’s what I’m experiencing in this moment right now, you know? Yeah, so the skill that I would ask everyone to practice is just being present. Just taking a present mindful breath several times a day. We take 20,000 breaths in a day. So try and make like three of them. Mindful ones, maybe 10. You know, those are skills we can always practice and always improve and they’re actually good for your brain. It’s not just like, well yoga teacher stuff,

[00:30:31.14] spk_1:
I like being mindful around food that I’m actually tasting it. I’m enjoying the texture smell. I like to I can smell the food before I taste it so that I get an extra sense of taste because the, the aromas wafting over my palette. Yeah,

[00:31:07.64] spk_0:
like in that out you can anticipate food. Like I’m going to have some sort of chickpea thing for dinner and I’m anticipating those chickpeas, you can cook the food mindfully and like be in the moment while you’re cooking and appreciating those textures before they get soft in the oven or you know, just all of the moments of food, it’s not just smelling it and eating it. It’s the anticipation, the preparation, the cleaning up, the discussion about it, the laughs that you had over the meal. Like if you could be present for all of that, amazing.

[00:31:20.34] spk_1:
If we spend a little more time, I’ll give you your own, your own show on nonprofit radio You don’t have to be. We’ve already been like a half an hour because I went on a diatribe about homogeneous and the third and we turned it into a personal thing for me. Well, I haven’t center of the universe, so I think that’s appropriate. We

[00:31:37.14] spk_0:
all are despair of the universe. In fact, we all are of our little universe. Amazing.

[00:31:44.14] spk_1:
So that’s not. So that’s not.

[00:31:48.70] spk_0:
But that’s why people love talking about themselves because they’re the center of the universe. And if you ask me a question of myself about myself, well, thank God, somebody noticed that I’m the center of the universe. I would love to tell you about my food or my exercise or when I am most present. Yes, I would like to tell you about that because I love talking about myself. We all love talking about ourselves in some way.

[00:32:08.84] spk_1:
We do some of us more than others, some

[00:32:11.29] spk_0:
more than others. You know, you could just go on clubhouse and do your show their tony Have you thought about that?

[00:32:16.33] spk_1:
You know what is the clubhouse?

[00:32:18.44] spk_0:
Well, that’s a, that’s a topic for another day. It’s an only iphone only app that is sort of taking over the social media world.

[00:32:41.14] spk_1:
We live obviously dating myself, I’m 59, so I’m not hiding. So I’m not familiar with clubhouse. Um, let’s see. Well, all right. Where can we spend a little more time? Susan comfort. Um, I don’t know. You tell me you’re you’re the person who thinks about this all the time. I only

[00:32:45.24] spk_0:
I think everybody should stop listening and go outside and take a walk. We’re listening while

[00:32:50.48] spk_1:
at the end of the don’t stop now. Keep listening until the end. You

[00:32:59.84] spk_0:
know, you should stop. Stop now. There’s nothing of value coming later. Stop now. Turn it off. They won’t

[00:33:00.54] spk_1:
show you’re killing my show

[00:33:06.54] spk_0:
it off. They’re addicted to you. I can’t wait to see what curmudgeonly thing you’re going to say next.

[00:33:10.34] spk_1:
All right. Uh, So what do you want people to do?

[00:33:40.74] spk_0:
What I what I want to stop the interview. I want people to go actually take care of themselves, but in a team because that’s what I’m talking about. Team care, not healthcare. No, we usually end our trainings 10 minutes before the hour because we don’t want people to be back to back to back with meetings all day because then guess what? You don’t have any time to take care of yourself. So if anybody ever asks me, if they like, do I have any other questions or what else should we do? I say we should stop doing this thing and go take care of ourselves, go outside and take a walk on the beach tony

[00:33:45.74] spk_1:
Okay, I’m going to end the show, which uh, so together with the little sponsored messages I have to put in and my tony stick to and uh blah blah blah. This is going to be about a 36 or 37 minute show and usually they’re more like 45

[00:34:01.82] spk_0:
to 40

[00:34:08.34] spk_1:
five. I’m cutting myself short. No, they’re more like 50 to 50 to 60 minutes is 50 50 50 50.

[00:34:10.27] spk_0:
Look, I need to say I can talk about this stuff for hours.

[00:34:14.07] spk_1:
No, no, we’re taking your advice now.

[00:34:25.74] spk_0:
I’m just saying have me back. People can go listen to me on youtube, whatever, but you don’t need me. People need to go take care of themselves. tony You’re keeping them from it. All right. Just you

[00:34:41.04] spk_1:
were just teasing you were just teasing saying I can talk about this forever. I’m saying no, nobody said shut it off. So we’re shutting it off. All right. We’re building this show around your advice. Alright. Susan comfort. Your pronouns, what are your pronouns?

[00:34:45.34] spk_0:
She her and a Yeah. A spaniel debemos entry entry. The star in espanol, approximate west

[00:35:17.04] spk_1:
next time. Okay, I understood some of that. Susan comfort founder. non profit wellness, you can get the resources that you talked about, the personal stress prescription and the new updated stressor and something else. Scorecard, resilience, stressor and resilience, not resiliency scorecard at nonprofit wellness dot org slash resources. All right. Susan, thank you very

[00:35:18.15] spk_0:
bad. Hope to talk to you soon. Again on the beach.

[00:36:13.54] spk_1:
I’m sure you will. I’m sure you will. Thank you. And thanks to each of you for listening to non profit radio coverage of 21. Ntc. The 2021 nonprofit technology conference were sponsored by 20 y. Turn to communications turn hyphen two dot ceo. And that will almost nearly be the end of this show. Uh huh. What a whirlwind did I did I just say I would have her back. Oh my is that is that a promise next week? Impact Stories and modernizing your I. T. If you missed any part of this week’s show, I Beseech you find it at tony-martignetti dot com were sponsored by turn to communications pr and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission turn hyphen two dot c o. I got to move this along. I don’t want to I don’t want to take away from your your care time.

[00:36:50.14] spk_2:
Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff shows, social media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our web guy and this music is by scott Stein. Mhm. Thank you for that. Affirmation scotty. You’re with me next week for nonprofit radio big non profit ideas for the other 95 go out and be great and take care. Mhm, mm. Yeah.