A Preview of ADAPT - Wellness for Mothers

I am Shannon. I work as a part-time bookkeeper, I write wellness-guides, and I am a Mom to four; two teens and two tweens. I became a personal trainer six months after my last child was born (bad timing on my part) to figure out how to get and keep results.

Feeling like I was not doing enough and lacking knowledge, I completed more specializations: fitness nutrition, precision nutrition, pre/postnatal fitness, two women’s fitness, and behavior change. Still feeling like I was lacking information and feeling frustrated with myself, I read books on parenting, motherhood, womanhood, nutrition, self-improvement, most were written by PhDs & MDs.

Just as I felt I had enough answers and resources to create programs for women at various stages of life, a pandemic hit the world and everything I worked for was put on hold, for years. Then, another life change led to more time on my hands than I imagined. With that extra time, I whispered words of encouragement to myself, slowly believed in myself, dusted off my notes, and got to work creating self coaching guides for women like me.

My guides are created for the woman that has struggled to feel good in her body. For the woman that is eating healthy, that is exercising, and still feels like her efforts are not enough, and she cannot do anymore. This guide is for the woman that keeps telling herself what she “should” be doing and cannot bring herself to follow through. This guide is for the woman that struggles to listen to her internal whispers or tiny sensations of her needs. This guide is for the woman that is stuck in an exhausting cycle of being critical, unkind, or mean to herself over the things she is not doing or she’s not doing enough of.

Many of us are stuck in an exhausting cycle of feeling horrible about what we are doing, not doing enough of, or what we are not doing at all, that we have become mean and critical of ourselves. Many of us were taught to ignore our desires, our interests, and our internal signals and sensations in order achieve a life, fitness, or body goal.

As a result, we learned to adapt in ways that have disconnected us from ourselves. This disconnection may be what is keeping us stuck, miserable, and exhausted. The key to breaking this cycle is to adapt in ways that make us feel good. A.D.A.P.T allows us to shift our behaviors through several pieces: Awareness, Deconstruct, Accountability, The 3P’s, and Trust.

I will be releasing pieces of this guide on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays over the next several weeks. Over these weeks I am going to give you information and tools and leave you to it.

A Disclaimer

Before you dive in, I want to make sure you are well-aware that this wellness guide touches on a subject that can be hard to explore on your own. I want to make it very clear that information in this guide may bring up “stuff.”

That stuff can be uncomfortable sensations in your body, flashes of past painful memories, or just a general feeling of “nope. I don’t want to go there.”

A reminder that I am not a mental health professional, I am not a doctor, nor am I a leader in my field. I am a woman who constantly wondered, what the hell is wrong with me?! I found answers, but it took me awhile to realize many of my behaviors, habits, and patterns that were working against me were due to my “stuff”. It took me even longer to change my behaviors, habits, and patterns to deal with my “stuff” in ways that supported my wellness.

Dealing with your ‘Stuff’

Dealing with your “stuff” may require the assistance of a mental health professional, a medical professional, or with the assistance of medications prescribed by a mental health or medical professional. If you decide to continue on your own, I invite you to participate when you are feeling good-ish in your body and your thoughts.

If “stuff” does come up and you are feeling overwhelmed, emotionally flooded, anxious, emotionally dysregulated, or feel a sense of dread, put this guide down and take care of yourself (See Below For How-To).

How to Take Care of Yourself

Here are several ways you can take care of yourself and how they are beneficial.

Breathe

Focusing on the timing and pace of our breath can activate different regions of the brain [1]. Focusing on your breath is a form of mindfulness and can help us become aware of our thoughts and sensations in our bodies [2].

Begin with focusing on exhaling slowly, to a count of four or more. Allow your body to inhale naturally. Exhale slowly again, inhale naturally, and repeat until you feel less overwhelmed.

Journaling

Writing down the thoughts you are thinking and sensations you are feeling in your body helps you become aware of how they are impacting your mood, your decisions, your actions, and beliefs about yourself [3].

Grab a random envelope, a half-used notebook, or get a dedicated journal and write. Write down the thoughts you are thinking or write about the sensations you are feeling. Or draw simple stick figures or detailed images. If there’s too many, scribbling is acceptable.

Move your Body

Movement can help improve your sense of control, distract you from your thoughts, can be an outlet for your feelings, and help release muscle tension [4].

Rock, sway, clean, dance, exercise, or go for a walk. You can also tense you muscles and then relax them; start with your toes and work up your body to your head.

Nourish

Is defined as promoting the growth of development of something. We can nourish ourselves by identifying our physical (hunger, touch, activity) and emotional (comfort, belonging, and enjoyment) needs. Nourishing ourselves improves our mental and physical wellness.

To nourish yourself, grab a drink of water, get a snack or make a meal, move your body, give yourself a hug, wrap yourself in a comfy blanket or put on comfy clothes, anything that will help you feel nourished.

Distract Yourself

Distracting yourself can help reduce the intensity of distressing sensations, can interrupt unhelpful thought patterns, and may provide a mental break from emotional distress. Breathing, journaling, moving, and nourishing are all forms of distraction.

The above strategies are not enough, watch something comforting or funny or empowering. Or read something comforting or funny or empowering. Or find tunes to match your mood or shift your mood.

A.D.A.P.T – Awareness – Part 1

Awareness is a very empowering tool. Awareness is defined as knowledge and understanding that something is happening or that something exists. In other words, it’s real, it affects us, or it influences us in some way.

Many of us have been taught that in order to be successful, we need to do “whatever it takes” to reach a goal. We are told to change aspects of our personality, we’re told to deny the signals from our brains and bodies, we’re told to remove the ‘wrong’ kind of people from our lives, we’re told to invest our money and time in the things that will get us closer to our goals.

When we can no longer sustain those behaviors, we’re told we did not try hard enough, we don’t want it bad enough, we’re full of excuses, we’re lazy, we’re incompetent, or we lack discipline. As a result, we become mean and critical of ourselves and stop trying.

The reason we fail to copy other people’s successes is partly due to our genetics, our upbringing, our experiences, and our environments. Our health behaviors, habits, and patterns are also influenced by our genetics, our upbringing, our experiences, and our environments.

Many medical and wellness professionals are taught to look at health as the treatment of disease of the mind or of the body.

Health & Wellness

Health, as defined by The WHO (The World Health Organization) is a state of complete physical, mental [emotional], and social well-being; not the absence of disease or disability [5].

This means individuals living with chronic health conditions or disabilities are able to live healthy lives and experience well-being (aka wellness). Wellness (well-being) is most often defined as the combination of feeling good, functioning well [6], belonging, fulfillment [7] and the ability to manage the ups and downs of life [8].

Wellness encompasses many mutually interdependent dimensions. To achieve optimal wellness, attention should be given to all dimensions [9]. If we focus too much attention on one area, other areas are adversely affected, and our well-being may be negatively impacted [9]. Our attention doesn’t have to be equally balanced but balanced in a way that feels good to us [9].

For the purpose of this guide, I am focusing on physical, emotional (mental), social, and financial dimensions. Within each dimension, there are three core needs that need to be met (tomorrow’s post). Let’s look at another interconnected system, your body.

The Systems of the Body

The body is made up of several interconnected systems that work together. This guide will briefly explain the following systems: the central nervous, the skeletal, the muscular, cardiovascular, respiratory, digestive, and endocrine systems.

The Central Nervous System

The central nervous system (CNS) consists of the brain, spinal cord, and includes several other nervous systems that work together [10]. The brain is the command center for the nervous system and it enables thoughts, emotions, memory, and movement [11]. The brain and nervous systems receive, process, and respond to sensory information. The response comes in the form of targeted chemical signals that travel from the brain, through the spinal cord via nerves to muscles and organs. Some responses we have control over and others happen involuntarily.

The Skeletal System

The skeletal system is made up of bones, cartilage, ligaments, and tendons. Our bones provide the shape and form of our bodies, protect our internal organs, and provide support during movement [12]. Cartilage acts as shock absorbers in the joints, ligaments hold our joints in place and connect bone to bone [12]. The skeletal system also produces blood for the body and stores minerals [12]. In females, the skeletal system undergoes changes during pregnancy to provide space for a growing fetus and for birth [13].

The Muscular System

There are three types of muscles in the body: skeletal, smooth, and cardiac [14]. Skeletal muscles are attached to bones by tendons to help stabilize the body and to produce movement [15]; from chewing your food to running [15]. Smooth muscle lines the inside of blood vessels and organs. Smooth muscle acts involuntary and moves food through the digestive tract and blood through the blood vessels [14]. Cardiac muscle is only found in the heart and it is responsible for pumping blood around the body [14]. Signals from the nervous system control the rate of contraction (heart pumping) and is involuntary [14]. In females, the muscular system undergoes changes during pregnancy and during the birthing process [13].

The Cardiovascular System

The cardiovascular system includes the heart, blood vessels, and blood [16]. Its primary function is to transport nutrients, hormones, and oxygen-rich blood to tissue (bone, tendons, ligaments, muscles, nerves, skin, etc.[17]), organs, and cells of the body; and to carry deoxygenated blood back to the lungs. The heart has it own nervous system, it was discovered to have 40,000 neurons (brain and nerve cells) [18,19]. The heart can sense, feel, and remember [18]. In females, the cardiovascular system undergoes changes during pregnancy to nurture a growing fetus [13].

The Respiratory System

The respiratory system includes your nose, mouth, throat, lungs, diaphragm, and blood vessels [20]. The lungs are located on each side your heart and are protected by your rib cage [20]. The respiratory system has several functions: allows you talk, to smell, to inhale to oxygenate cells and to exhale to remove waste gases from cells [20]. Your diaphragm is a muscle that assists in breathing [21]. This system also undergoes changes during pregnancy [13].

The Digestive System

The digestive system includes the mouth, esophagus, stomach, small intestine, large intestine, anus, liver, pancreas, and gallbladder [22]. The digestive system breaks down food and liquid into nutrients (fat, carbohydrates, proteins (amino acids), vitamins, and minerals) to be absorbed by the body, and transported through the bloodstream to where they are needed [23].

When you see or smell food, the CNS sends signals to prepare the digestive system. The enteric nervous system (ENS), a network of nerve cells that extend from your esophagus to rectum also controls the digestive system [23, 24]. As food moves through the digestive tract, the stretching of organs activates hunger and fullness cues as well as the need for elimination [23, 24]. The CNS can influence the ENS by controlling the rate of nutrients moving through the digestive tract [23, 24, 25]. During pregnancy, the digestive system can become squished or blocked by the uterus and the fetus grows [13].

The Endocrine System

The endocrine system influences almost every cell, organ, and the functioning of our bodies. The endocrine system is made up of glands, reproductive organs, and other organs. The endocrine glands regulate and release hormones into the blood stream to travel to other areas of the body. There are hormones that control metabolism (digestion), control energy levels, control reproduction, control growth and development, control body temperature, and influence mood. Hormones are affected by stress, infection, and changes in the balance of fluid and minerals in the blood.

Forewarning

Next, I will be bringing your awareness to core needs and how they influence our bodies, our wellness and our health. Before you move forward, a gentle reminder that the following section may bring up “stuff.” That “stuff” can be uncomfortable sensations in your body, flashes of past painful memories, or just a general feeling of “nope. I don’t want to go there.”

Come back when those sensations become less intense — even if that is days, weeks, or months later. Or seek out services of a licensed mental health professional.

Core Needs

In order for humans (yes, everyone) to experience greater well-being, there are core needs that need to be met in the physical, social, financial, and mental dimensions of wellness. These core needs are physical safety, psychological safety, and choice-agency-control. Let’s look at each of these closer.

Physical Safety

Includes basic needs like food, shelter, clothing, and it also includes touch, connection, comfort, guidance, and support. Physical safety encompasses expecting that our needs will be met consistently, and our safety will not be threatened or violated when we voice our needs.

Psychological Safety

Includes being able to show up as your full, imperfect, authentic self. It also includes being able to express your needs, desires, faults and be met with respect, kindness, love, belonging, validation, or understanding. Psychological safety encompasses expecting our safety will not be threatened or violated when we voice our opinions or show up as our authentic selves.

Choice-Agency-Control

Choice means having options presented to us, even options we do not like. Agency includes being well-informed of all the options presented and having the means (time, money, energy, etc.) to pick an option. Control is an active process and involves trying, evaluating, changing your mind, moving on, or looking for different options.

Let’s look core needs within each wellness dimensions. The following list is not complete or universal.

Physical Needs

Having a clean, safe, comfortable place to live in.
Enough food available for everyone in the household.
To express food preferences without being criticized, judged, or shamed.
Having access to foods that are enjoyable and nourishing.
Having safe places or access to safe places to move your body.
Being able to move your body in ways that you enjoy.
Having the time & opportunity to move your body.
Having safe spaces to sleep comfortably and soundly.
Having your sleep needs honored and supported.
Having your preferences for touch be honored and respected.
Having a safe space to rest and relax.
Having your needs for rest and relaxation be honored and respected.

Financial Needs

Having enough money for expenses, saving, investments, and for fun.
Being compensated fairly for work.
Having access to your earnings or shared earnings.
Knowing how to access your earnings, shared earnings, and other financial accounts.
Access to education around earning, expenses, spending, saving, and investing.
Being able to spend, save, invest without hiding or justifying your choices.
Being informed of financial transactions.
Being included on decisions regarding finances.

Social Needs

Having people in your life that are kind, supportive, respectful, caring, authentic, trustworthy, enjoyable, accepting, etc.
Having a choice on who you spend your time with.
Having the choice on how frequently you spend time with certain people.
Having people that share your interests.
Having people that support or encourage your interests.
Having your social needs honored and respected.

Emotional Needs

Being able to feel, tolerate, and explore your feelings.
Having the ability to identify your feelings.
Being able to express your feelings.
Being able to express emotions appropriately.
Having a supportive person during emotional responses.
Being able to set boundaries around others’ emotional responses.
Being able to regulate your emotional responses.

If your physical safety, psychological safety, and choice-agency-control are not met, not met consistently or if your physical, financial, social, or emotional needs are ignored, invalidated, mocked, disregarded, or overlooked; those experience can change the way you view yourself, view others, and view the world around you. Unmet core needs can trigger our brain and nervous system to sense threat.

When the Brain Senses A Threat

Recall that the brain and nervous system receive, process, and respond to sensory information. The brain is constantly scanning our environments. When it senses a potential threat, it activates the sympathetic nervous system (SNS). The SNS works with the brain (remember, the brain enables thoughts, emotions, memory, and movement) to determine how to respond to the threat.

When we think of threats, most of think about being attacked by a person or an animal. Threats can also come from people or things that feel like they will cause harm, more on that later.

If the brain and SNS determine we are bigger, stronger, faster, or smarter than the threat, it prepares our body to do what it needs to do to survive – freeze, fight, flight, or fawn. If the brain and SNS determine the threat is bigger, stronger, faster, or smarter than us, it prepares our body for the pain of not surviving.

How the brain and SNS respond to threats depends on our past experiences with a particular threat, our lived experiences, how well nourished we are, our current stress levels, and our current environments. We do not have control over how the brain and SNS respond, and those responses can be different based on the situation.

During a threat response, changes occur to the systems of the body. The heart rate increases to direct blood flow (cardiovascular system) to the arms and legs (muscular system) and away from the internal organs (endocrine and digestive systems). Our breathing rate (respiratory system) changes in order to get more oxygen into the blood. The logical, rational, and reason parts of the brain (central nervous system) go offline and our eyesight, reflexes, strength, and endurance improves. These changes help our bodies react quickly in order to freeze, fight, flight, or fawn.

Here is how the body may respond to perceived threats.

Freeze

This is usually the first response, this is where the brain determines if there is a threat, sizes up the threat, and what the body should do next.

Feel stuck in a certain part of the body
Feeling stiffness or heaviness of the limbs (arms, legs) Feeling cold or numb
Decreased heart rate
Feeling dread or feeling something bad will happen
Restricted breathing or holding of breath

Fight

If freeze will not keep us safe from the threat, the brain sizes up the threat to determine if we can harm the threat first.

Feeling the desire to strike out, kick, or punch
Feeling the desire to yell. scream, shout, or insult
Clenched fist or jaw
A burst of energy
Feeling hot or flushed Increased heart rate
Increased breathing rate

Flight

If freeze will not keep us safe from the threat, if fight will not work, if fight cannot be sustained, the brain determines it’s time to get out of there.

Avoidance behaviors
Restless movements of the limbs
Inability to focus
Eyes dart back and forth
Shallow breathing

Fawn

If the brain determines that is cannot freeze, it cannot fight, and it cannot flee, it will try to deescalate the threat.

Making self smaller – change in posture or expression of needs
Agreeing, apologizing, offering help
Taking care of the needs of others to one’s own detriment
Unable to say, ‘no’ or dislike saying, ‘no’
Unable to express themselves

When the brain has signaled the body to freeze, to fight, to flight, to fawn and the threat is not backing down; or when it believes it cannot survive the threat, the brain moves to fright, fade, and faint responses. Until recently, these responses have been lumped under freeze. It has now been determined that these are separate responses.

Fright

The body is unable to move when the brain tells it to move. The body feels paralyzed, and the brain is having thought after thought. The brain may replay past scenarios that relate to the threat and get stuck in rumination (negative thought cycle).

Fade

If the threat becomes painful, the nervous system dumps pain-relieving chemicals to make it hurt less and the brain decided it doesn’t want to remember. This could be an out of body experience, unable to recall details of what was said or what happened, or unable to describe what happened but remembers feelings and sensations.

Faint

If the pain is unbearable or terrifying, the brain loses consciousness. Passing out is a great way to not remember.

If we survive the threat, and when the brain senses safety, it activates the Parasympathetic Nervous System (PNS). The PNS controls the smooth muscles (organs, blood vessels) and the cardiac muscles of the body. Breathing becomes calmer and deeper, heart rate returns to normal, metabolism (digestion) is activated, and the rational, logical, reason parts of the brain come back online, and we can begin to process and share what happened to us.

If you are anything like me — you have a lot going on and it’s hard to keep everything straight, or you are in perimenopause, or your brain just does not hold on to information for very long — you appreciate a short recap of information to help you make connections.

Wellness is the combination of feeling good, functioning well, belonging, fulfillment, and the ability to manage the ups and downs of life.

Wellness encompasses many mutually interdependent dimensions – ADAPT touches on the physical, emotional (mental), financial, and social dimensions. If we focus too much attention on one area, other areas are adversely affected and may negatively impact our wellness.

Our focus does not need to be equally balanced but balanced in a way that feels good to us. Our wellness impacts our brain and body. Our brain and body are interdependent on one another. To feel good, we have core needs that need to be met.

If those core needs are not met, are met inconsistently, are ignored, mocked, disregarded, or overlooked; those experiences can change the way you view yourself, view others, and view the world around you.

Those experiences can change your behaviors, habits, and patterns. The brain determines what to pay attention to and what to ignore — we don’t always have control over its response. The response the brain chooses depends on the experiences we’ve had with getting our core needs met within the physical, emotional (mental), social, and financial dimensions of wellness.

Understanding how the body, brain, core needs, and dimensions of wellness are interdependent can offer explanations for why you do what you do and why you don’t do what you don’t do.

Next week’s post will focus on the connection between unmet needs and health.

If you would like to continue to follow along, over the next several weeks, I am releasing this guide on Substack to those with a free subscription. Go here to sign-up.

If you don’t want to wait, you can purchase this guide here.