Posted by Lieutenant Commander Serena Stone (Executive Officer) in Business As Usual - CNS Office - Tag Kingston

(snip)

“Well, it depends. If I’m overwhelmed, I’ll usually take a few minutes to brain dump and re-prioritize. Most immediate or important things get handled first. Or if I’m planning for the next day I try to eat the biggest frogs first. If you have to eat a frog, best way to do it.” Serena thought for a moment. “I try to deal with most things directly. Letting them pile up is bad and just makes things worse. If it’s handled early, it’s a non-issue. I try to make sure communication is clear and thorough, so I’m not seeing problems where there aren’t any and start spiraling. And I get stuck in an anxious ‘what if’ loop, I’ve learned to interrupt it, or reframe it. Instead of ‘What if I screw up’ or ‘What if x bad thing happens’ …” She sighed, then took a breath. “‘What if it all works out?’ Or… ‘What if we pull x thing off? Then what?’ The former is all about failure and disappointing people. The latter looks for success, for the right outcome, but it’s not wishful thinking. It’s giving the reticular activating system better programming.”

She chewed her lower lip for a moment. “When there’s something I don’t want to do, but need to do, I’ll tend to use The Five Second Rule. I count backwards in my head from five. Five, four, three, two, one… And go. It interrupts the pre-frontal cortex, breaks the cycle, makes a decision. And if you can start, the rest gets a lot easier. Starting rituals. All I have to do is work on whatever it is a little bit. Five minutes. A paragraph. Whatever it is. Soon as I get started, it gets over the hump and builds momentum. The resistance is just mental. It doesn’t actually mean the task is any harder. It’s just how I’m feeling about it.” She shrugged one shoulder.

“I guess I’ve picked up some tools over the years,” she added.

Lt Cmdr Stone, XO

Janna made some notes on her PaDD, leaning forward and gazing up at Serena when she wasn’t making notes. She smiled and nodded. “Those sound like excellent tools and ones that will definitely help in the moment with whatever is going on. On a more pulled back view what do you do for self care? What things do you do on a daily or weekly view that help manage anxiety and other issues that might come up?”

~Jann Kingston, CNS