133- Tools for Moms in Burnout Part 3- Self-Regulation Strategies

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Welcome to Every Brain is Different, the podcast where we celebrate the unique world of neurodiversity. We are your hosts, Samantha Foote, a neurodivergent, Board Certified Music Therapist and mom to three kids of ADHD and autism. And Lauren Ross, an ally to the neurodivergent community with over 10 years of experience supporting children and adults with autism.

This podcast is for parents like you. Navigating the world of neurodiversity with love and compassion. Together we'll create a world where every brain is valued and celebrated. We're excited to embark on this enlightening journey with you.

Transcript:

Samantha Foote: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Every Brain is Different Podcast. It is Samantha and Lauren here with you today for our conclusion on our conversation on mom's mental load and what to do about it.

But before we get to that, we just wanted to read one quote to you in case you have heard about the causes of autism in the news lately. And the president of the [00:01:00] American Academy of Pediatrics, Susan J. Kressly, Dr. Susan J. Kressly, said, "There is no single root cause of autism, and there is no single medication that will give every autistic child or adult what they need."

And so if you have questions about the causes of autism, or if you have questions about your child's development, or if you're pregnant right now and you have questions about medications to take, please talk to your physician, talk to the pediatrician, and they can guide you in what is best for you.

So, moving along. The first week we talked about mom's mental load, we talked about evaluating our body and what to do when our body is whispering, talking, or shouting. And last week, we talked about how to offload tasks, so not just delegate tasks, but how to give complete ownership of a [00:02:00] task to someone else in your life, whether that be a parenting partner, paid help, or a friend.

And this week, we are talking about what to do when ownership is messy and interruptions pile up. Because as I've learned... in the last day, well, over-

Lauren Ross: Your life.

Samantha Foote: … over my life, actually.

Lauren Ross: But life happens.

Samantha Foote: Yeah, yeah. We live in real life. There will be days when ownership is messy and interruptions pile up, and this is where micro-regulation can save you.

So think of this as just little moments of relief that you can do when stress is piling up, when interruptions are piling up, and you just need a break. You just need a minute or two, maybe 10 minutes, just to recalibrate yourself.

Lauren Ross: Take a step back.

Samantha Foote: Yeah, just take a step [00:03:00] back and reevaluate and get that regulation in place for what you need.

So, the first one we're gonna talk about is the one-minute reset. And for this reset, place your hand on your chest and one on your belly and exhale like you're fogging a mirror, long and slow. Hum on your exhale for 30 seconds. Humming vibrates the vagus nerve and helps your body shift toward calm. After you hum, look around the room and name five blue things, or whatever, just five, pick your thing.

Lauren Ross: Maybe pick a color.

Samantha Foote: Pick a color, yeah. And then orientation pulls your brain out of the swirl and back into the present. And you can do all this in under a minute. So you place your hand on your heart, you place your hand on your belly. I hate that word. We're gonna say stomach. And, I don't know why, it just, like, triggers me. I hate the word belly.

Lauren Ross: I don't know this about you. [00:04:00]

Samantha Foote: I know! I don't know why I don't like it. I just don't like it.

So you place your hand on your heart, hand on your stomach, and then exhale like you're fogging a mirror. And then hum for 30 seconds, and then name five things, pick a color, name five things, and that pulls your brain and your body back into alignment.

The second thing is interruption boundaries. So create a simple hand signal that means give me 60 seconds, and teach it during a calm moment. And you can practice with a timer, and you can celebrate when your kids or your parenting partner honors it. And you can start with one success a day and build it.

So I just do this. I put one finger up, not the middle finger, and I just say, like, that's my sign to my kids. Just give me one minute. And they can go off and do whatever they need to do, or they can sit there and stare at me, whatever. They just know that they are [00:05:00] not allowed to come... It- okay, it's usually when I'm in a Zoom meeting, and so I'll just put up my finger and they'll know that they're not allowed to come into the meeting. They're not allowed to talk to me because I'm holding up my finger. They can see that I'm talking into my camera. They can see that I have my headset on, and that just shows them that I need a minute to process things.

Also, if that doesn't work, I literally physically push them away from me, and that usually gets the point across to them. So practice that in calm moments. So practice that when you're not needing the break, but you can say, "Okay, when I do this, I want you to go set a timer for 60 seconds, and then you can come back." Or, "When I do this, I want you to set a timer for five minutes," or whatever you need. Because if you're in crisis, and like this morning, I had a mini [00:06:00] crisis, not with me, it was somebody else, but I was talking to them about it, and one of my kids kept coming up to me, "Mom, Mom, Mom, look at this. Mom, look at this. Mom, look at this." And she was so excited about what she was doing, but I was in a crisis with somebody else, so I needed her to go away. Um, so that's just something that you can practice.

And then the third one is sensory swap. So if your body is shouting, lower one stimulation channel. So you can turn off overhead lights and use a lamp. You can put on noise-dampening headphones for five minutes while your child watches a show. You can shut one sensory door to open another. So you can do any of those things. Maybe you go sit in a dark room for a second. I know when my kids are watching TV, sometime they just, like, turn it up louder and louder and louder, like, a little bit at a time, and then I realize that it's, like, at [00:07:00] 100%. And so I either have to go turn it down or I have to put on noise-canceling headphones so that they can watch their show and I can get lower stimulation, because they really like things loud. That's the stimulation that they need. I need things not so loud. So that's just something that you can do if you wanna get both of your stimulation needs met.

And then the fourth one is decision diet. So pre-decide on tiny things to save your brain. Rotate three breakfast choices on autopilot. Wear a weekday uniform. Use a weekly meal theme, like pasta night, taco night, leftovers night. Do not reinvent the wheel when the wheel is tired.

Lauren Ross: I like this one.

Samantha Foote: I did not come up with that line, but I really like that line.

Lauren Ross: That is, I- So- I like, I like the line, I like this

Samantha Foote: Yeah, so-

Lauren Ross: Small thing that's forgotten that we can easily do.

Samantha Foote: Yeah. I [00:08:00] know some people that in their closet, they have five outfits, Monday through Friday, and they wear the same outfit every Monday. They wear the same thing every Tuesday. They don't have to make that decision. If that's you, that's totally cool. I also know some people who never wear the same outfit twice because they're constantly, like, mixing and matching things. I can't do that. The way I do it is I have pants and shirts that go together, and I know that I can grab them, and they go together, and that's what I wear together. My friend who never wears the same outfit twice, like, she has the same capsule wardrobe. That blows my mind. I was like, "That would overwhelm me so much," but that's how she lets out her creative energy. Different strokes for different folks.

Lauren Ross: Yeah.

Samantha Foote: But, um, yeah. So maybe you do have pasta night, taco night, leftovers night, Chinese night, whatever. You can just do those different things so that the decision is already made. [00:09:00] Or maybe at the beginning of the month, you plan all your meals for that month, and you write down everything you're gonna eat so that you don't have to think about it for the rest of the month, and you only have to think about it one time. And then if you don't eat a meal one night, that's okay. You can just do it the next night or not eat that meal or whatever. But yeah, so think of where you can minimize decisions that you have to make and how you can, like, combine things or just take that off your plate so you don't have to think about it anymore.

Lauren Ross: Love it.

Samantha Foote: And then the fifth one, the fifth and final one, is a daily white space block. So plan 5-10 minutes to do nothing. Whatever you wanna do, just make that a white space in your calendar. So plan it at a predictable time. Put it on the calendar like an appointment. You can sit on the back steps. You can drink water. You can stare at a wall. You can do whatever you want for those 10 minutes, but put it [00:10:00] in your calendar as an appointment. And I do this between appointments sometimes just so... I have a calendar that people can book appointments on, and I put space in between those appointments so that they can't book them back to back, so I'm not doing-

Lauren Ross: Mm-hmm

Samantha Foote: I'm not doing meetings all day long.

Lauren Ross: Yeah.

Samantha Foote: And-

Lauren Ross: Block out time for yourself.

Samantha Foote: Yeah, yeah. And the point of this is to let your brain stop scanning for a few minutes and just relax. Just know that this is a pre-built-in time. You have permission just to chill and do nothing. You can stare at a wall, like I said, drink water, eat a snack, whatever you wanna do. Just don't look for other things to do while you're taking that time, because this is not the time to look ... It's not your makeup work time.

Lauren Ross: Yeah.

Samantha Foote: It's not like, [00:11:00] I built 10 minutes into my day of free time and I'm gonna unload the dishwasher during that time.

Lauren Ross: No, don't do that.

Samantha Foote: No. Stop. Just sit and do nothing. It's fine.

Lauren Ross: I did that yesterday. I was zoned out of life yesterday. And so at one point, and in order for me not to irrationally lash out at my poor boyfriend who did absolutely nothing wrong, I just sat there and stared at the wall. Like, he knew at that point he had to give me space, but I just stared at the wall, and it was slightly comforting. I just stared at the wall. At one point I started to like, pinpoint what I could hear and that really helped just let everything else go. So a l- a lot of these simple things can help in the moment, for sure.

Samantha Foote: Yeah. I love it. A lot of times I will play the piano or listen to music because that's my regulation strategy. When I was in middle school, high school, elementary school, whenever I felt [00:12:00] really big emotions, I would go play the piano, and by the time I was done playing, I had them all sorted out and I was good to go.

Lauren Ross: Mm-hmm.

Samantha Foote: It's a little bit harder as an adult because children want to play with you, and they will come and play with me while I'm playing, and I'm like, "I just need you to go." But if I really, really need them not to be playing with me, I'll tell my husband and I'll say, "I need some time just to play the piano. You need to take care of the children." But then I also want that time to play with them and make music with them. And so yeah, but it's just a little bit harder, you know, as an adult. Um-

Lauren Ross: Yeah, and as a parent.

Samantha Foote: Yeah, as a parent.

And so just as a recap, these are the five things that we talked about. The one-minute reset where you put your hand on your heart, hand on your stomach and just breathe and hum. And then interruption boundaries is where you have a sign that you can make to your children, [00:13:00] to your parenting partner, whatever, just to let them know, "I need time. You need to go away." And then the third one is sensory swap, so you know, if it's too loud in your house, put on some noise-canceling headphones. If it's too bright, shut off a light, anything like that. And then the fourth one is decision diet, so pre-decide on tiny things such as what you're gonna wear, what you're gonna eat, different things like that. And then the fifth one is a daily white space block where you book a time during your day where you have 10 minutes just to do nothing, or do whatever you want.

Lauren Ross: Plop on the couch and exist.

Samantha Foote: Yeah, yeah. I would recommend during that time not to doom scroll because that can activate your stress- It depends on what you're watching.

Lauren Ross: I want everyone to know that Facebook and [00:14:00] Instagram have time limits that you can use. I've set mine for 30 minutes in the last three weeks, and it has been a game changer.

Samantha Foote: Nice. Nice. Yeah, the, the app will just shut off after that time limit. And so you can do that if you do tend to doom scroll.

Lauren Ross: Yes.

Samantha Foote: But I would recommend not doing that during this time during the day, just because it tends to activate people's stress and not calm them down.

Lauren Ross: Yeah.

Samantha Foote: So just a quick, my opinion. I, yeah.

And then another note on co-regulation. Many of us are teaching emotional regulation to our kids while our own bodies are in the red zone. So it's okay to step back. It's okay to say, "I want to help, and my body needs a minute to calm down. I am going to the bathroom to take five minutes to take deep breaths, and I will be right back." And you are [00:15:00] modeling the exact skill while you're doing that, that you want your kids to do. So wouldn't it be amazing if your kid was, like, in the red zone, and all of a sudden they said, "I will be right back. I'm gonna go take deep breaths"? I would love that. And so that is exactly what we're trying to teach our kids.

So model what you want your kids to do. And just remember that it's okay to take a break. It's okay to take a break when your kid is escalated and you are escalated. As long as your kid is in a safe place, take a break. It's okay. It's better than damaging the relationship by yelling or slamming things or whatever. It's better just to take a break and come back.

Okay, so let's put this into a simple weekly routine or rhythm that you can try. This is just an example just to get your creativity flowing on what you want to [00:16:00] do. But for example, on Sunday, you can have a 10-minute family meeting where you review the four lanes that we talked about last week and confirm the owners of each lane, and then look at the week. Kids can choose their jobs that they have for the week, and keep it light. Don't make it like a heavy meeting. Just be like, "Okay, what are you gonna do this week?" So we have in our house paper on our bulletin board that-- well, our corkboard. We don't have a bulletin board, whatever. It's a corkboard, and it just says, "Jobs for the week," and what my kids are responsible for. Have we changed it in the last month? No, we haven't, but they keep doing the same jobs, and it's fine. So you can change it weekly, you can change it monthly, whatever you wanna do. But it has each job that they need to do every single day or as needed. So for example, taking the garbage out is one of my son's jobs. We don't need our garbage taken out every single day.[00:17:00] Maybe like every other day, he needs to take the trash out to the trash bin outside. But that's as needed. And so that's something that you can do. It's giving them a visual schedule of what they need to do. And then Monday through Friday, have one white space block for you and one for the kids. Maybe after school, you set a timer for 10 minutes and everyone chooses a quiet activity, no questions asked. That's just something that you can do to model for your kids what you're already doing so they can grow up and not have to learn these things. They already have them as they grow up. And then Wednesday is you can have a swap night. So if you have a parenting partner, trade lanes for one evening. If you are solo, ask your support person to take one lane for the day, and this shows your brain that the system can run without you, and that is super important, 'cause so many moms, I mean, dads can do this too, but I [00:18:00] know so many moms that think that things cannot run without them, that if they're gone, everything will fall apart. And this is just showing that things will survive. It's gonna be okay without you there. I would say make sure that you tell people what done means and what doing the job actually entails so that you just don't say, "Hey, will you clean the kitchen tonight? Take that over." Well, cleaning the kitchen to me and cleaning the kitchen to my husband are two-

Lauren Ross: Very different things?

Samantha Foote: …totally different things. And so-

Lauren Ross: Be specific.

Samantha Foote: ... if I want, if I want the kitchen clean how I want it cleaned, I have to tell him that. And if I tell my husband, "Hey, will you clean the kitchen? This means doing the dishes, wiping out the sink, wiping off the counters, sweeping the floor." If I tell him that, he will do all that. But if I just say, "Hey, clean the kitchen," and he [00:19:00] just does the dishes, I can't be mad when the rest of the things aren't done, because in his brain, that's what cleaning the kitchen means, you know? And so be specific in what you want. And then Friday is rest and celebrate. So have a quick round of what went well, what needs a tweak, and end with something tiny that feels good. So, a song you love in the kitchen while everyone cleans up, a favorite show, a warm shower alone, or any of those different things. You can also do this at your Sunday meetings where you go around and just have a celebration. I love starting meetings off with celebrations. They can be big or small or whatever. You just say a small celebration, a small win that happened that week, and then you start off the meeting super, like-

Lauren Ross: Positive ...

Samantha Foote: positive. Yeah, super positive. So there is a story we tell ourselves, though. Many of us hold the belief that rest must be earned or that a [00:20:00] good mom can handle everything. I want to offer something new, a different belief.

A well-supported mom is a better regulated mom, and a better regulated mom co-regulates better with her kids. Everyone wins when you are not the only person running the system and you are overwhelmed and just completely, well, overwhelmed. You can't do anything. You're burned out. So everyone wins when mom is happy and not burned out and can actually co-regulate with your kids and not just be completely overwhelmed.

So if you are listening to this and thinking, "My partner will never do this," or, "My kids will refuse," just start small. Choose one lane to offload this month, even if it means your partner and your kids are sharing that lane. Maybe you just offload one task in a lane so you can tell your partner and [00:21:00] kids, "You are responsible for cleaning the kitchen this month. I am not cleaning the kitchen." And then talk to them about things that they wanna do. So it's, you're just not like a dictator being like, "You're gonna do this, and you're gonna do this, and you're gonna do this." You can talk to your family about what they wanna do, and you can say, "What would you like to do this month? What task would you like to do?" And then after that's done, ownership is given to them. Choose one small thing that you can do every day to relieve the pressure, relieve your stress, and just do one small thing every day. It's not-

Lauren Ross: Baby steps.

Samantha Foote: …yeah, baby steps. Just be consistent. And remember that progress in neurodivergent families may not look the same as in other families, so you can use visual timers, you can use practice runs, and be generous with your patience. You're [00:22:00] building a new pattern in a real home with real people, and it's not an overnight thing that happens.

Lauren Ross: And people throw wrenches.

Samantha Foote: Yeah, people throw wrenches in the plan.

And so here is your homework for the week, if you choose to do it. The first thing is to make the four-lane list and highlight one lane to offload. If you feel like you can't offload an entire lane, offload one task. And so the lanes include medical and therapy, school and activities, home operations, and emotional labor. And then the second thing is to teach the 60-second hand signal and practice it once a day. The third thing is to schedule a 10-minute white space block for yourself. Put it in your calendar like any other appointment and hold to that appointment. Don't [00:23:00] just blow it off and be like, "I don't have time for this."

Lauren Ross: It's just as important. Yeah. You're having a meeting with the CEO of your life, and that is you.

Samantha Foote: I love that. Yes. Yes. And then the fourth thing is to pick one child's job to move to ownership with a checklist for them how to get it done. So- Try this. Let us know how it goes. Let us know if you have any questions. I'd be happy to answer any questions that anybody has. And if you are looking to offload tasks, I love, love, love, love Citrus Pear, if it's in your area. Citrus Pear is a company that makes freezer meals, and they make the freezer meals, and then they deliver them to you. And then you just have- It's not like a full meal in your freezer that you have to, like, cook it, put it [00:24:00] together, and all that stuff. But you don't have to think about what's for dinner, because they have, like, they do, like, 20 meals at a time. You can pick if you want 10 meals or 20 meals. And they have different sizes of meals, so if you have a small family, if you have a big family. And I just put mine in my Instant Pot for the most part. There are some that you can't put in the Instant Pot. But I just put mine in there and cook the rest of the meal, and I love it. It's, it's amazing. And so we will have a link for that in our show notes if you're interested. And yeah, let us know how this goes.

Please, please, please book blank space in your calendar and hold true to that.

Lauren Ross: Yes.

Samantha Foote: Yeah. And we'll be back next week with a new episode.

Thank you for listening to today's episode. We hope this discussion on neurodiversity has provided you with support, understanding and inspiration. If you're looking for more support, Or you can go to everybrainisdifferent.com and download the ultimate guide to parenting your neurodivergent child.