Mood Ring

When positive affirmations feel inauthentic, what do we do?For our season finale, host Anna Borges talks to Dr. Christine Gibson, author of the forthcoming book, The Modern Trauma Toolkit and @tiktoktraumadoc on Tik Tok, about the subject of one of her viral Tik Toks: if-firmations.When we’re in need of some possibility in our hearts and minds, they might just be the answerFollow Mood Ring @moodringshowFollow Anna ​​@annabrogesMood Ring is a production of American Public Media and Pizza Shark! 

Climate change is an everyday reality…as much as some may try to avoid it. So how do we conquer our climate anxiety? Host Anna Borges talks to Sarah J. Ray, author of A Field Guide to Climate Anxiety, about how to navigate the crushing waves of hopelessness and despair that come up when we think about the climate crisis — and how to find something resembling hope. Follow Mood Ring @moodringshowFollow Anna ​​@annabrogesMood Ring is a production of American Public Media and Pizza Shark!

Host Anna Borges speaks with Internal Family Systems therapist Susannah Jackson. They discuss how a shift in the way we think and talk about our feelings can help us understand what we’re feeling and why.Follow Mood Ring @moodringshowFollow Anna ​​@annabrogesMood Ring is a production of American Public Media and Pizza Shark! 

There are a lot of reasons to take care of something — like a plant, or a car or a house. It can be a source of purpose or passion or peace or simple satisfaction. Today we’re exploring how taking care of something can be a form of self-care. Host Anna Borges talks with Jené Etheridge — music producer, DJ, community organizer, and an avid cyclist — about how caring for her bike Butter feeds her mental health. Hey Mood Ring listeners, we want to hear what you think about Mood Ring! You can help us out by filling out a short audience survey: moodringshow.org/surveyFollow Mood Ring @moodringshowFollow Anna ​​@annabrogesMood Ring is a production of American Public Media and Pizza Shark! Full Transcript Anna Borges: There’s this old book that I’m willing to bet at least some of you found formative. It’s called The Care and Keeping of You. MUSIC And I hope some of you just went OH, THAT BOOK, but you know for the uninitiated, The Care and Keeping of You is this illustrated American Girl guidebook and it was the first real introduction a lot of us got to our bodies and how to take care of them. It covered everything from how to sit when inserting a tampon to you know proper armpit shaving technique. Legions of preteens referred to that book like a user's manual, myself included. You know, learning as much as we could about maintaining these weird changing bodies that we did not know the first thing about. Understanding what was going on with my body and like the ins and outs in taking care of it made me feel — I mean I don’t want to oversell it but it did — it made me feel like confident and grown up and empowered, or at least more capable of handling the horrors of middle school such as like changing in the locker room and wondering why my boobs looked so much different than everyone else's. These days, I’m kind of still chasing that high if I'm honest. Like shockingly, huh-huh, taking care of myself as an adult is hardly as satisfying as The Care and Keeping of You once had me believe. MUSIC FADE OUT But as I grew up, I did discover that there are a lot of other things that I can take care of, other than myself, and some of them even come with the step-by-step instructions that I was craving. And it turns out, the care and keeping of something else can be as satisfying as the care and keeping of us. THEME MUSIC Hey,  I’m Anna Borges, and this is Mood Ring, a practical guide to feelings even when you’re feeling less than capable of taking care of yourself. I’ve probably said “care” enough times for you to get that we’re talking about care today. Care for ourselves. Care for some thing. And caring for ourselves by way of caring for that something. If you haven’t guessed, I’m on the lookout for something new to take care of because honestly I have not been that great of a job at taking care of myself lately. And sometimes, when we lose trust in our ability to take care of ourselves, I don't know, we need to find ways to prove to ourselves that we still can. THEME MUSIC FADE OUT At least, that’s where I'm at lately. There are a lot of reasons to take care of something for our mental health, whether it’s by giving ourselves a source of purpose or passion or peace or simple satisfaction. So what are we taking care of? There are the obvious suspects: things that rely on you for nourishment and support, like pets or plants or children. But we can also find meaning in caring for nonliving things too -  things like our homes, cars, beaches, sneakers, closets — and in the case of our guest today, bikes. MUSIC Our guest today is a woman of many talents. Jené Etheridge is a music producer, DJ, community organizer and an avid cyclist. She tells us about her relationship with her bike, how she cares for it as she travels the world with it. And how it in turn feeds her mental health. Anna: I would love to just hear how you got into cycling. I just never really got into it. It kind of scared me, but what's your story? Jené: Yeah, so I was in college at The University of Washington in Seattle, and I just needed a way to get around. Also I had a friend um who rode with me like casually. We would go on casual rides and I told him I would have a new commute from U district to SoDo, which is like six miles. And he was like, yeah, I don't think you can do it. And I was like, oh, you don't think I can do it? and basically I was like, I'm gonna do it. It was like motivation for me to, you know, prove him wrong. Anna: My favorite type of origin story. Jené: [laughter] Yeah. This is like a theme throughout my life. It's like, if people say I can't do it, I'm like, oh, okay… Anna: Watch me. Jené: [laughter] I'm Gonna do it then. Yeah. So I just started commuting to work to work, that's how I got started. I just, you know, just did it out of necessity to start and then it just grew from there. And then when I moved to Portland, you know, it's like a really big cycling city, so it was really easy to get plugged in. And then I started learning more about Does this bike fit me? Like What kind of gearing works for the riding that I do? and, and things like that. So yeah. Anna: When did it go from, cuz it sounded like it went from like transit to something you enjoyed pretty quickly with all the sight seeing, but when did it become your thing or one of your things? Jené: I would say just you start craving it when you don't do it for a while. Anna: Mmm Jené: I also did have more community in Portland and I think that definitely helped me like realize it was my thing because it was mostly like women, trans femme, people of color in Portland who rode bikes, which is like a very small community, but they're very empowering and I would just be like, I don't know if I can do this. That sounds crazy. And they're like, yeah, you can. Why don’t, why do you think you can't do it? You know? Anna: Absolutely. So speaking of the bike, tell me about your relationship with it. Jené: Umm okay yeah it's cream colored. I named it Butter because um. Anna: Ohhh Jené: The first time I rode it, I'm like, this is so smooth. Like butter, like - Anna: Perfect. Anna: If you were to describe what Butter means to you, how would you describe that? Jené: [laughter] Um I would say the feeling of like autonomy. Just being able to like leave and go whenever I want to. Jené: I don't know, it becomes an extension of you when you only have one bike for like everything, you know, your body gets accustomed to it. [laughter] Anna: I love the idea of like the bike is an extension of you. Jené: Yeah I mean you really have to be aware and just like aware of your surroundings. And so I'm trusting like my body a lot Anna: Yeah Jené: And also my bike to get me through like just to get to the destination. [laughter] Anna: Oh man. I relate to that in exactly one small way. Cause before this, I was talking to my producer about how, I had an opportunity to get ages ago, um, a motorcycle license and I thought it'd be like a cool thing to do. And I almost didn't pass the test because to swerve, you have to like throw yourself to the side. Like you're gonna like throw yourself down to the ground. And then like yank it back up. And so you can kind of like jump around whatever you're swerving around. And like I did not have that trust. Jené: Yeah Anna: I did not have that trust in myself to pull myself back up. I did not have trust in the bike to not just like—poooffffff Jené: Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. You have to like lean your way into it. Like you really have to like trust. Your capabilities and the capabilities of the bike too, to just like get through these situations. But I don't know. It's like when you, um, do something kind of scary or dangerous and then you make it out and you're like, oh, okay. Like I know, um, I know that wasn't as bad as it looked or at least like I know a little more about how to, you know, handle the bike better next time. So I feel safer. That's a good feeling. Anna: I love that. So it’s — now I'm just like Oh, you grow with your bike! I get, I get like, feels about like literally anything. Jené:  [laughter] Anna: So, don't mind me just sitting here, like with heart eyes. But let's talk about care then. Like how do you care like how do you take care of your bike? Jené: Okay. Well, I mean like there's normal bike maintenance, right? Like you take it to the shop, you just make sure like the chain is looped up and all the, you know, components are working right. But I think  part of taking care of it is like trusting other people to take care of it. Anna: Mmm Jené: Like having relationships with these bike shops, so basically when they see the bike, they already know they're like, oh, that's Jene’s bike. And I think that's, like having that relationship established can help with the care process, if that makes sense. Anna: Yeah. Totally. And I'm like metaphorical, cuz if we're talking about, you know, taking care of, um, like things to take care of ourselves, trusting other people to take care of us too. Jené: Yeah. yeah. Anna: Absolutely. Anna: What does it what does it look like to travel with the bike? Does that require different maintenance? Jené: Yeah I mean I basically have to deconstruct the bike, so I have to like take the wheels off, like un- unscrew a lot of parts so that they can break apart essentially. And then they fit all snug in my bike bag. Um, and then I'll put it back together once I get to wherever destination I'm at. And if I can, I'll try and get like a tune up or just have a bike friend look at it just to make sure everything's running smoothly. So , but it's like, it is crazy. Like it’s taken — it’s broken apart essentially. I put it together myself and then I'm like, all right, here we go. And just [laughter] you have to like trust that all the screws are tightened and everything to start riding so Anna: Totally so when you're like breaking it down and putting it back together so much, is that a ritual that you enjoy or is it more kind of just somethi

Host Anna Borges speaks with poet Nichole Perkins about doing things without the expectation for excellence. They speak about Nichole’s new painting hobby and how her confidence in writing poetry is fueled by her creative license to be a hobbyist painter. Hey Mood Ring listeners, we want to hear what you think about Mood Ring! You can help us out by filling out a short audience survey: moodringshow.org/surveyFollow Mood Ring @moodringshowFollow Anna ​​@annabrogesMood Ring is a production of American Public Media and Pizza Shark! Full TranscriptAnna Borges: Hey everyone! Pop quiz for you. When you discover a new hobby that you’re really enjoying, do you: A. Strive to improve so you can be really good at it.B. Brainstorm ways to monetize it because hey, if you have to make money, you might as well have fun doing itC. Stress about other things you should be doing instead of indulging in said hobbyorD. Just..en…joy? Enjoy it? Wait, some of you can actually do that? Hey,  I’m Anna Borges, and this is Mood Ring, a practical guide to feelings—even when you feel like you can’t relax and enjoy yourself. Today, we’re talking about the importance of no strings attached hobbies. You know, activities that don’t have to be productive or impressive or useful and even something you’re good at. Hobbies that don’t have to be anything other than…enjoyable. But a lot of things can get in the way of actually enjoying them, whether baking to relax turns into stressing about getting an Instagram-worthy loaf of bread or you get stressed out when you don’t discover a secret hidden talent the first time you pick up a paintbrush. You know if you’re anything like me that’s exactly what I do! Letting ourselves relax and be free to do something without the expectation of a performance or an end goal is hard. Even more so when the something we love overlaps with what we do for a living. That's where the no strings attached hobby comes in. Today’s guest is Nichole Perkins, a writer, poet, and the host of the podcast This is Good for You, where she helps people stop feeling bad about the things that they love to do. I also wanted to talk with her because as a creative, I assume she got the struggle of the work-hobby balance well. We dug into the beauty of trying things that we aren’t good at and how we can still enjoy our hobbies, even if they do come with strings attached, like overlapping with what you do for a living. Anna: Can I start by hearing something that you're bad at? Like something that you were just like awful at, but that you love? Nichole: Oh, um, so I recently started trying to figure out, um, acrylic painting, abstract acrylic painting. I don't know what I'm doing. I really don't know what I'm doing. I cannot draw a straight line. I cannot, I have never been able to perfect, um, a winged, you know, liner look because I cannot, I don't know what I'm doing. So that's something that I know that I am bad at, and I would never like really share that work with anybody because it's so bad, but it's also been really relaxing for me. Anna: I love that so much. so I have to ask, cause I feel like there are like two camps of people, largely there are people who can do that and enjoy that. And there are people and I'm in this camp who will do that and be like, this is gonna be like relaxing. I'm not gonna like pressure myself to be good. And then I still am like, but what if I want this to be good? Then I wind up in the boat of like Googling art lessons and oh my God, how do I get better at this blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So like, are you, are you in one of those camps, have you felt the pressure to become good now that you've started? Nichole: Yes, absolutely. Because there was like this one tutorial on YouTube that was like, you know, easy beginner thing and it was the sunset and it's supposed to be with, uh, power lines and beautiful trees and maybe like a little shadow of a house, right. And I tried to draw the power lines and I was just like, oh yeah, this is not, I can't do this. And I mean, I ended up kind of being still pleased with the results of what I had done, because it actually still looked like a purposeful painting. But I do want to get to a point where it looks really good, but I am still very  intimidated about trying to go, you know, find actual lessons or something like that, because I feel like I'm still very childish with, with, you know, learning this thing and I don't want to be in a classroom or whatever, you know, a workshop environment where there are people who are like, oh yeah, I used to draw, but then I stopped and now I'm back and they're like, you know. Anna: Or they're like, I'm so bad at this. And then you look over and you're like, excuse me, if you think that’s bad, don’t look. Nichole: Yes! Anna: But that's the thing is like you, I want the natural talents. I wanna be naturally good at things like I don't want to have to work to be good at things. Nichole: Yes. That's exactly my problem as well. So there are a lot of things, a lot of hobbies that I will try or say, I'm gonna try. And then I get frustrated because I'm not good at the first attempt. And… I really have to sit and think to myself, there are very few people who are, you know, experts at something the first time they pick it up. Like, yes, there are prodigies and all that kind of stuff. But the people that I admire on a creative level, they all had a natural talent, but they still have to practice and practice and practice and practice, you know. Like I love Prince, you know, he had natural talent, but he had to learn everything that he did and learn how to combine all of that, all of his musical skills, all of his lyricism into creating the legacy that he has now. Um, the same with like the writers that I admire. Yes, there's some, there's some natural affinity to it, but they still have to learn. Anna: And how do you remind yourself of that? Do you have to actually give yourself the Pep talk as you're doing it? Nichole: I do. I have to, I have to like say okay, practice, practice, practice. It's okay. I know that this is not something that I can make a living at or that I want to make a living at. So it's okay. If it is not perfect or consumable. Anna: Why did you pick something that you're taking classes for then or not classes, but at least like watching YouTube videos? Nichole: But I still want to like see satisfaction in my own improvement. I just wanna be able to like sit and do it without feeling the pressure of performance or like I said, that end, that end goal. Anna: Absolutely. Nichole: But you know, with writing, obviously that's very different, writing is something that, um, has been a part of my life for a very long time and I've always known I wanted to make a career out of it. And I just didn't really know how, um, because there's so many different ways that you can become a writer or, or make a career out of writing. I still have a lot of goals that I want to accomplish. So that's, that's more when I freeze up and let, like, I don't think I'm a perfectionist, but that fear of someone seeing my mistakes or seeing the worst of what I can do. Um, really like puts me in a choke hold sometimes. Anna: Absolutely. Yeah. Oh, I can't wait to dive into all the writing stuff because selfishly love writing, love, love talking, writing, and art. Can you kind of, I don't know, this is a big question, but like kind of tell me a little bit more about your like current relationship to writing? Cause I know for so many of us it's work, it's like therapeutic, it's fun, it's creative, it's personal. It's like all of these things that are like seemingly at odds for each other. And I'm curious what it is kind of right now for you. Nichole: Right now it is 90% work and then 10% just personal creativity and that personal creativity usually is my poetry. I have published a poetry book. So that was very much a goal of mine. I still, I, and I have other poetry that I would like to publish one day, but right now what pays the bills is culture writing. You know, writing books, script writing for podcasts, um, and that kind of thing. And I hope to eventually get into, um, screenwriting for film and television. Um, and I just, I want to ultimately continue to write until my dying breath.Anna: I can’t lie, some days, it’s harder for me to really have fun writing, thanks to how much I associate it with work. After the break, I explore poetry as a potential no-strings-attached hobby and we talk more about how to protect our favorite activities from outside pressures like work.MIDROLLAnna: Hey, welcome back to Mood Ring! Before the break, I was talking with Nichole Perkins about why it’s so helpful to have hobbies that don’t overlap with what we do for a living. Next up, I may or may not have asked for an impromptu poetry lesson.Anna: One of the reasons that I was so excited, um, to talk to you specifically is because growing up, I used to write a lot of poetry and I never had aspirations to do it professionally. It is just, poetry is what I associate with like playful writing, exploratory writing, me writing, all this kind of thing. And so when I started thinking about, Ooh, what can I dig up for this episode? Poetry did come to, come to mind. Oh. And so I'm, I'm kind of curious if I like asked if, like, if I asked you to just write a really God awful poem right now, like where would you start? Nichole: Oh, well, for me, it, that would be, um, a rhyming poem. Um, and not just like in iambic pentameter, like I, I do try to do like, um, um, inside rhymes or, you know, that kind of thing. Try to switch up the, you know, where the rhyme falls, but rhyming poetry has always just escaped me. Um, and I am not good at it. So if I were to try to write something that I would consider bad, it would be rhyming. Um, and making sure that like I threw in the moon… Anna: I do love me some moon imagery, sorry, poets. Nichole: Right, all poets love the moon, right. Ann

Host Anna Borges talks with therapist Latisha Taylor Ellis about the benefits of group therapy during times of loss. Ellis is the creator of Thank U Next, a virtual therapy group for the brokenhearted. When we feel we have no one else to turn to, does opening up to a room full of strangers help us move through grief?Hey Mood Ring listeners, we want to hear what you think about Mood Ring! You can help us out by filling out a short audience survey: moodringshow.org/surveyFollow Mood Ring @moodringshowFollow Anna ​​@annabrogesMood Ring is a production of American Public Media and Pizza Shark! 

Host Anna Borges speaks with Mood Ring producer Georgina Hahn about her concept of Lamby. They explore the unique way of being tender, supported by a conversation on inner child work with writer and mystic Bernice Angoh.Hey Mood Ring listeners, we want to hear what you think about Mood Ring! You can help us out by filling out a short audience survey: moodringshow.org/surveyFollow Mood Ring @moodringshowFollow Anna ​​@annabrogesMood Ring is a production of American Public Media and Pizza Shark! Full TranscriptSOFT GUITAR MUSIC PLAYS Georgie: Close your eyes and take it way back. Try to remember a quintessential childhood moment, something that encapsulates the best parts of being a kid. Getting lost in your own backyard. Long summer days. Cartoons in your jammies. Playing make-believe. Can you remember the feeling of possibility and wonder? Anna: That is Georgina Hahn, one of our producers on the show. And she’s telling us about something that’s very close to her heart - letting our inner child out so our most authentic selves can shine. And she even has a name for it. Georgie: I call it Lamby. Lamby is writing in my room, surrounded by the soft and tender, exploring my thoughts and feelings. It’s waking up to my roommates cooking breakfast, and cuddling my stuffed Lamby in my matching adult-sized pajama set. But it’s about so much more than that, too. Lamby is kind of a way of life for me, reaching out to my inner child, taking care of her, looking out for her, helps me create a life of curiosity and openness. To go easy and not be so concerned with what other people think. It’s about giving ourselves permission to be, well, unapologetically Lamby. MOOD RING THEME Anna: I’m Anna Borges, and this is Mood Ring, a practical guide to feelings—especially the feelings so specific, you make up words for them. As you might have guessed, I tapped Georgie to kick us off because—well, I’m not very lamby. Or at least, I didn’t think I was when Georgie first introduced me to the idea. It sounded cute and optimistic and happy, and when Georgie explained it to me with like the earnestness of a baby lamb, I had to admit to her that I had never related to anything less in my life. So, naturally, we had to do an episode on it. That is the challenge we set for ourselves, right? To occasionally give something a try, even when you’re convinced it is not for you. Which is exactly why I wanted Georgie to steer us today, so we could learn direct from the source: what can channeling our inner child look like when we don’t associate childhood with tenderness and softness? Or, what might be getting in our way? First, I talked to Georgie about all things Lamby. Anna: For our listeners, but also still for me, I feel like I go back and forth whether or not I understand Lamby, so, what is Lamby, when and how did you come up with it? Georgie: Okay. Lamby is being unapologetically connected to your inner child and those desires and being tender and being soft and also really leading with that, putting that on your sleeve and putting the sort of gentle vibe forward. And it came about from a stuffed animal that my grandma sent me on Easter when I was 20 or 21, living with my best friend. And we got this like cute little lamb and we would like, just bring her everywhere and do photo shoots with her. And like, just like she was a character in our house. When I moved to New Mexico, I had a radio show called the Lamby Hour on a community radio station. I made a ton of friends through the radio show who were all Lamby? And so I was like, just really beautiful that I feel like the, the energy I was putting out there was really coming back to me and who I was getting to know. Anna: What I love is before this interview, I was like, please use Lamy in a sentence. Is it a verb? Is it an adjective? And it, it's like a state of mind, it could be an adjective. Like you're so Lamby. But it's also kind of stands out as like a value, like a value system for how you make decisions in your life. You know, like, is this Lamby, is this not Lamby? This place is not Lamby. This place is Lamby. It's, I'm, I'm really into it. Georgina: A hundred percent. And I think also it helps me sort of make decisions about like what environments I put myself into. Cuz it just feels like so important that I like try and keep that constant in, in terms of like the people that I spend time with, the activities, the, the food, the clothes, like literally down to just like how I feel in my body. Anna: So, if people who are listening are also kind of doing the same thing, like, what is that for me? Do you have a recommendation of where they start? Georgie: I think it's just noticing when do I feel cozy? Kind of like when, when do I feel like safe? Is it just that moment when I make myself a cup of coffee and like feel the warmth to my body? Like who are the people and what are resources around me that are going to kind of evoke that feeling?  I think also like putting aside some time each week to be like, I'm just, I'm going to have an afternoon to myself and just do what I'm gonna enjoy doing. [Anna: Mhmm] Also, yeah, like when you wake up, like, okay, is there any room for some Lambiness today? Is there any like, anything on my agenda that I can approach with softness instead of, um, my usual hardness?Anna: Have you, have you felt pressure to not be Lamby and like had to reclaim your lambiness? Georgie: I think it was hard in high school and college to be in a very like, like NYU was so cool. You know, like everyone was trying to be so edgy and cool that I think it took a long time to stop trying to be cool and just embracing kind of the nerd. It’s not even nerdy but… Anna: Ooh, this thing that Georgie completely made up is speaking to me. But as people may or may not know, if they follow me on twitter I recently fell back into like being like into fandom and fanfic too. And like, I've like kind of like been unabashed about talking about it with like people I work with and some of them are like, I don't know how to respond to this. Like isn't’ that a weird thing? And I've like, felt like, so for lack of a better word, annoying, but it's because I'm not like worrying about sounding cool. And the kind of like unselfconscious, I don't know enthusiasm. Georgie: Yeah. And I think to be honest, you will weed some people out, like some people will be like, that's weird. But then on the other side you'll then become like a magnet for people who are your same kind of vibe. And that's really cool to see happen.Anna: Okay, so I did find a way to connect with this idea after all. But I still wondered… what do you do if this lamby stuff doesn’t come so easily? After the break, we talk with someone who helps us understand our inner child. Stay with us.MIDROLLMOOD RING THEMEAnna: Hey, welcome back to Mood Ring. Before the break, our producer Georgina Hahn and I were chatting through some ways we can channel our inner child. But even though I was starting to get on board with the concept, I still had some questions. Like, what happens if my inner child wasn’t very joyful or tender or free? What if I’m not sure who I’m connecting with?To help, I talked with Bernice Angoh, a writer, mystic, poet and author of Dear Me: Love letters to my inner child. She gave us some more perspective on how connecting with our inner child often needs to start from a place of healing and discovery.Anna: If you could kick us off by telling us a little bit more about inner child work and what that even means, I'd so appreciate it. Bernice: Oh, okay. No problem. First of all, how do we define the inner child? I define the inner child as the original you. The you before all the conditioning from culture, from religion, from society, from politics. So, who were you when you still had that sensitivity? That joie de vivre, you know, like you just had this wonder, this great imagination and that's the part of you, that's your inner child. When there were no limits to anything. Anna: Oh man. In my head I'm like, oh, who is that? I don't even know anymore. I feel like there's a lot of, a lot of bull crap piled on top of, of, of her. Bernice: A lot, a lot. Because we are born into our families and we spend so many years of our lives trying to retrace our steps, to go back to being that free unapologetic, authentic self. Anna: Absolutely. And so inner child work is the work of, reconnecting with that authentic you. Bernice: Yes. But in order to reconnect, you, you do have to, to retrace your steps because you have to take a, a deep look into your family history, into your family dynamics, into so much of what has made you, you and into your society also. Cause a lot of the times we end up becoming what our family and society has prescribed for us. And we basically, I always say we put our inner child in a perpetual timeout. It's like, hush, I don't want to hear anything you have to say, who are you anyway? You know? And so being able to re-parent or to nurture our inner child, that's where the healing, you know, begins to be able to know where the shame comes from, where the guilt comes from, where the blame comes from, and all that hurt and hiding comes from. Anna: Man, so how do we like begin spending like time with this inner child? Bernice: So, the first thing that I usually tell people to do is to get- look for a picture of yourself when you are a child. I have this picture of me when I was five years old, and I used to put it in my wallet. I used to put it on, you know, on my phone, on my screen. And when I start to have that negative self talk, I would look at that little girl and imagine that that's the person I'm talking to. And I'd be disgusted, like how dare you? You know, this child didn't know any better. They were young. They didn't, you know, they didn't deserve this to happen to them. So, you start to speak to yourself with a, with a little more tenderness and compassion and forgiveness. This child needs your guida

Host Anna Borges talks about her past with an affinity for personality tests. Myers-Briggs, Enneagram, Buzzfeed quizzes, you name it. Our guest Saeid Fard is the CEO and founder of Anna’s latest obsession: the personality test app, Dimensional. Can personality tests help us improve our lives and mental health?Hey Mood Ring listeners, we want to hear what you think about Mood Ring! You can help us out by filling out a short audience survey: moodringshow.org/surveyFollow Mood Ring @moodringshowFollow Anna ​​@annabrogesMood Ring is a production of American Public Media and Pizza Shark! 

Host Anna Borges shares her secret past of being a Tumblr fitspo influencer and unpacks women-targeted diet tips with Good Enough cookbook author Leanne Brown. Anna and Leanne chat about owning our food choices to stop judging ourselves and reframe nourishment.You can find information on Leanne Brown and all her cookbooks on her website.Hey Mood Ring listeners, we want to hear what you think about Mood Ring! You can help us out by filling out a short audience survey: moodringshow.org/surveyFollow Mood Ring @moodringshowFollow Anna ​​@annabrogesMood Ring is a production of American Public Media and Pizza Shark! 

 Host Anna Borges explores our processes of faith and belief with astrologer Jessica Lanyadoo, and how “woo” can be used as a non-judgmental tool for guidance and self-determination. Follow Jessica’s work on her website and through her podcast Ghost of a Podcast.Follow Mood Ring @moodringshowFollow Anna ​​@annabrogesMood Ring is a production of American Public Media and Pizza Shark!Full TranscriptAnna: Guess what? It is time for an astrology episode. Because let’s be honest, I wasn’t going to make it through a season of Mood Ring without one. But also because I think a lot of us could really use it right now. DRONING MUSIC Jessica Lanyadoo: People turned to astrology for lots of reasons. A big common reason—especially during this global pandemic and time of social unrest—is anxiety. If I'm looking for a way to not feel anxious and an astrologer rattles off a ton of stuff and a ton of advice, in a way, in the short term, it's scratching that itch. I want order, I want to be told what's real. I want to be told what to do. Okay. This person's telling me. This person seems to have a grasp on the, on the universe and they're telling me what to do this week. THEME MUSIC I’m Anna Borges and this is Mood Ring, a practical guide to feelings … and sometimes, if I’m being honest with you guys, I do wonder if being TOO practical can hold us back. You just heard Jessica Lanyadoo, an astrologer, psychic medium, and today’s guest. I invited her on because I love astrology as a self-care tool and definitely wanted to talk about it, but, at the same time I’ve always felt like there was something kind of holding me back from really getting the most out of it. Because on the one hand, I feel exactly what you just heard Jessica describing. I want to be told what to do. I want to be told what’s real. I want to believe my horoscope when it tells me how I can find happiness and trust when a meme tells me that my Leo Venus means you know, I’m really good at love. But on the other hand, my skeptical little Virgo brain is like, “Uhhh. You don’t actually believe in this, do you?”  So, that’s what we’re talking about today—how we can turn down the volume on our logic and our doubt to really lean into, well as Jessica calls it, “the woo.” Jessica herself specializes in helping people cultivate self-understanding and emotional intelligence through what she refers to as … woo. And I am ready to embrace the woo! If you’re sitting here thinking, “Can’t relate, fuck astrology,” this doesn’t just apply to that. You know, you might have another complicated relationship between something you doubt the effectiveness of, or the truth of, but that you really kind of want to believe in. Our brains reject everything from the magic of meditation to our own self-worth—like haven’t you ever stopped to wonder, like “Hey, what would happen if I just trusted the process? Like, would I start to believe in it? Would it work?” So, that’s what I wanted to talk to Jessica about. Why it’s so hard to embrace the woo, and how we can. MUSIC Anna: I feel like the question that comes up whenever people talk about astrology is, do you really believe in it? Like, I hear that all the time, whenever I express an interest and I'm curious: A, I mean, do you and B, what's your reaction to it? Jessica: Hmm. I don't believe in astrology. [Anna: gasps, whispers “amazing”] I don't believe in astrology, and I don't believe in ibuprofen and I don't believe in the internet. I use them because they work. And that's how I respond to people asking me about it. And it's also how I respond to people being like, I don't believe in astrology. I say, cool. Yeah, me neither. Anna: You’re like no, yeah, me neither. Jessica: It's a tool, it’s a, it’s a system and a tool. And I think, I should just pull back to say, when someone asks me about astrology, I don't think about memes. I don't think about apps. I don't think about AI. I don't think about sun signs. I don't think about compatibility and I don't think about stereotypes. Or like, “I would never date a ———,” to me none of that is astrology, That's like pop culture around astrology. Anna: That's like a good response and I'm gonna steal it. Like, what do you think people are really asking when they ask, do you believe in it? Like what's real, what's beneath that question? Jessica: It depends on who's asking. A lot of the times people have asked me that question, what they're really saying is, “I went to university. I'm really smart. I don't want you to think I'm not smart. And, I just think it's fun.” But usually they're trying to affirm their intellectual prowess and competency as a person and that is what they mean, I think, yeah. Anna: But like the reason that I start with the question of like people asking, do you believe in it is because my little gremlin brain asks that all the time. Like every time I kind of wanna like shut up and enjoy and like lean into it as a tool, in the back of my head there's like a little voice going, “Is this even real? Like, what's the point of doing this?” [Jessica: yep] So every time I wanna give myself to the woo, embrace the woo, logic gets in the way! Jessica: I, first of all, really like reclaiming words that are used to minimize or, like, belittle. So, you know, not so much anymore, it's 2022, but in the nineties I was dyke-identified because you're not gonna call me a dyke and get me, get me mad. I'm going to call me a dyke and enjoy it. And woo is something like, oh, that's, woo-woo, that's like, you know, a way of being dismissive. And so I'm really big on embracing it. So that's one part of it. But in terms of like, what I think woo is, I think it's a really big umbrella of … esoteric spiritualities that are not necessarily part of any kind of religion. I think they can be associated with like new age stuff. But even like, I don't even know what new age exactly means. It's woo. I can say astrologer, psychic medium, animal communicator, tarot reader, but that just feels like a lot of fucking words to confuse a person with. So woo. It just really kind of works. Anna: Absolutely. Yeah. I, I connect with that so much, and then have like, kind of the underlayer of knowing that I probably lean on it to signal to other people who might judge, if I said astrology or tarot or whatever that like, “Don't worry. I don't take it too seriously. I know it's woo.” Jessica: And think like, this is, this is like, I'm glad you said that because this thing of … there's so much judgment, especially towards women, or, women and femme people for being into things that are not quote “proven.” But I can use astrology to tell a person when a thing happened in their past, when a thing’s going to happen in their future. I was able to see an airborne pandemic coming in 2020 through astrology. There's no religion that gives any kind of like … evidence. Right? Because people do attribute astrology to faith and it is spiritual, right? So it’s, it's just really an interesting thing to me that people have to distance themselves to prove their intelligence. When in fact studying astrology takes years, it means learning a new language and there's a lot of math. But most people don't know that. Anna: This is why I can never fully embrace the woo! Math. Jessica: Math is hard! It’s not a joke. Anna: Math is hard! [laughs] I'm really glad that you mentioned like faith so early on, because when I was like getting ready for this interview and this episode, I did realize that it's like, not so much about astrology as it is, “How do I develop a sense of faith that I can trust? The same way that I'm not great at trusting my gut or trusting all of these things” ‘Cause I think so many of us second guess anything that we can't point at and be like, “Factual. Valid. Cool.” Jessica: Yes. Agreed. Well, you know, I'm one of those people, I don't have faith, easily or frequently, but I, I'm a fan of evidence. And so for me, I think a lot of people are surprised because I'm a psychic medium and an animal communicator and astrologer, people assume that I believe in the things I do. I don't. And people who assume that I am a faith-based person. I’m not. I would like to be more, honestly. And also I love evidence, and I don't think there's anything wrong with requiring evidence of the things that guide our lives and guide our choices. But, but like to answer your question in a way that's, I think, slightly more helpful, is … it is hard to have faith in others or in, or in, other things, when we don’t have faith in ourselves and we don’t know how to listen to ourselves- Anna: Ugh! Jessica: I'm sorry! [Anna and Jessica laugh] Anna: I mean it’s true, but you don’t have to say it, Jessica! Jessica: I know, I know. It was like I slapped you. You were like, ouch! I’m so sorry. But that’s it. That’s what it is, is like. If you give strangers on the internet—or like, whatever people, your mom, your ex—power over your self esteem and your identity, like if we have that habit to do that with others, then we're really likely to do it with like faith-based things. And it is a, kind of a survival mechanism to say, “I'm not going to believe in things if I don't know how to assess whether or not they're accurate. And if I make a mistake, I don't know how to take care of myself around that mistake.” That's the key. Anna: There’s like risk in trusting your faith or having faith. Jessica: Yes. The risk is that you're going to be wrong. That you're gonna be silly, that you're going to be dumb. That risk is that you, you know, you will lose yourself. You will give away your power. There's so many things that people can do in the name of faith. I mean, I think it's wise to have a critical relationship with where we give our faith, with what we believe in, and the tools that we use.THEME MUSICAnna Borges: Well. Wow. Jessica just pretty much summed up exactly what’s so scary about giving ourselves over to the woo, huh? It takes a lot of self-trust to let go and that can b

Host Anna Borges (The More Or Less Definitive Guide to Self-Care) hears from listeners about their relationship to money, whether it’s colored by guilt or generational shadows. Then, Anna has a chat with Mood Ring producer Jordan Kauwling about her recent reflections on how money has shaped her life—and her relationship to work.We want to hear what you think about Mood Ring! You can help us out by filling out a short audience survey: moodringshow.org/surveyFollow Mood Ring @moodringshowFollow Anna ​​@annabrogesMood Ring is a production of American Public Media and Pizza Shark! Full TranscriptAnna Borges: There was a time when I was constantly debating quitting my job. If you've been with us here since the beginning of Mood Ring … you may remember a work-related breakdown I had on the shower floor? Yeah, that was this job. So week after week, I would go back and forth debating about whether or not I wanted to quit without anything lined up for the sake of my mental health. Because here was the thing: I could. I could do that. I grew up with a lot of financial instability, so savings has always been really important to me. And by that point in my life, I was in a privileged enough position that I could afford unemployment for a couple of months if I wiped out my savings. But, I just couldn't get myself to do it. Like, sure, yeah money could buy me freedom from a job that was making me cry every time I woke up and faced the thought of yet another day. But money was also buying my health insurance and rent and security and peace of mind and all of the things that I needed to buy in my life. And, I mean, I’d experienced what it was like before without a financial safety net. And I didn’t know what would be worse, like all the feelings I was dealing with at this job, or all the feelings that came with losing that security? Which is all to say, oh my god, there are a lot of feelings to be had around money. The stress of the things we do to make it. The decisions we have to make about spending it. The shame of having it, the guilt of not having it. The attitudes we’ve adopted about it or inherited.  I mean, grappling with privilege or changing financial circumstances. Just overall how money, or lack thereof, can make us feel vulnerable. Or judged. Or obligated. Or a million other emotions. THEME MUSIC Anna: I know that’s something I say a lot on this show: things make us feel emotions. But…man [sighs]. That’s the thing: No matter where we’re at financially, there are always new feelings to wade through or new ways for our money baggage to show up. So yeah, maybe money could help my mental health in one way, but there was always another problem that needed money thrown at it. So how much was money really helping my mental health? I mean, a lot. A lot. Money helps my mental health a lot, and it would be bullshit to pretend otherwise. But it’s still not that simple. I’m Anna Borges and this is Mood Ring, a practical guide to feelings—both the feelings you can put a price on and the feelings you can’t. Every episode, we’ll explore one new way to cope — with our feelings, with our baggage, with our money baggage, with our brains, and with the world around us. Anna: Today, we’re talking about money and how sometimes it can buy—maybe, not happiness, exactly, but a whole lot of stuff that supports our mental health. Like, not just in big ways, like access to mental health care and being able to meet our fundamental needs, but also in small ways. You know, like, the ability to buy things like time, energy, and support in the form of things like…child care and meal delivery and time off work and all of these little things that support our ability to feel, like, slightly more well. We wanted to tackle this topic by hearing from you about your relationship with money and kind of the connection between money and mental health and how you experience it. And your responses, you know, made the heart of the episode super clear, and it’s that unpacking our relationships with money and all our feelings about it is key to understanding the role it plays in our mental health. For better AND for worse. Maybe you’ll recognize yourself in some of today’s stories, and maybe you won’t, but the point is to get to know your own story. You know, because this shit is complicated, and we have to meet ourselves where we’re at with lots of compassion. Alright, so without further ado I just want to dive right into some of the stories we got from our listeners.  Kevin: My mismanagement of money has gotten me in a heap of trouble at home with my spouse. Spending beyond my means and really had to curb the amount of dumb shit that I buy, which has been helpful because I’m able to talk myself out of making purchases now and say, “You know what? That’s not going to help me. That’s not going to make me feel less depressed or less terrible. So I don’t need to do it.” And yeah, when you don’t have a lot of money it’s fucking stressful. Because you’re worried about how you’re going to make it to the next paycheck. You worry about spending your money on the wrong things. You worry about just like having enough to take care of an emergency if something comes up. Yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s rough when you’re already struggling enough as it is, tossing in thinking about finances and how poorly you handle them and poor decisions that you make and how people are disappointed with you when you piss away your money on dumb shit. That doesn’t make you feel any better. It makes you feel a lot worse and that’s, that is a one-way ticket to couples therapy. Anna: Okay, raise your hand if our listener Kevin just echoed your internal monologue. We can judge ourselves SO harshly for how we spend our money—even if we’re doing it in the name of just trying to feel better. At the same time, feelings hold information—and like Kevin and our next listener Ronald point out, sometimes they can help us figure out whether or not money is actually doing what we want it to do. Ronald: I don’t know if, you know, ordering food on UberEats makes me happy. I don’t think it makes me happy. It makes me like satiated, for sure, but I don’t, I don’t know if participating in a system that is exploitative is necessarily nourishing for people either. Anna: I don’t know that anyone really knows that. I mean I don’t! How do we even begin to untangle all the ways self-care has gotten wrapped up with consumerism, and all of the sticky, tricky ethical and human questions that come with it? A similar theme that came up a lot? Guilt related to our financial circumstances. Harper: I have immense financial anxiety that is disproportionate to my circumstances. And I have a lot of I guess like financial survivor’s guilt about that. About the fact that I have all these resources and yet I still feel so unsafe and I feel so guilty that I have this much when others do not. I also have a lot of child of immigrants’ guilt around it because my family came from so little, they gave me so much. And whenever I am unable to succeed it feels like I am failing multiple generations. When I was a kid a hate crime happened to my family and we were able to move and that was because of the way that my parents had made their financial choices and the financial standing that they were in, that they were able to do that. So that’s just really emblematic, I guess, of what money has meant to my family. When I, when I got laid off from my first job, I had had a lot of money saved because saving was always really important to me, and I felt really confident because I also had a really great resume full of great internships and good experience and I felt like it would be a couple of months and then I’d be fine. And then that ended up not being the case and thus began the major financial trauma of my life which is that I had spent several years after that being unemployed, underemployed or fully employed at places that were really abusive. And so I burned through all of my savings and then I had to rely on my parents after that. I felt like “wow, there is no amount of money that I can save that will ever keep me safe.”Anna: Like I said at the top of the episode, that point about safety is so important for me, too, and for so many of us. And when we start to feel like no amount of money will keep us safe, what are we supposed to do with that? I mean, I wish we had answers, but in talking to people in our circles and hearing from our listeners, sometimes we have no choice but to just kind of…keep on trying to make it work the best we can. Ronald: You know I am the child of immigrants. My parents kind of came here via the Refugee Act of 1980. And I think for a lot of those immigrants you kind of navigate poverty the best way you can, usually by like leaning on the community that you … you’re living in and your fellow immigrants and then you find a way to kind of straddle, class straddle into the middle class. And that, you know. My mom is a CNA at a nursing home. And I would say, you know, my aunt works in the medical field. My dad was a respiratory therapist. And so, you know, you kind of do what you can to survive and then you find a very steady work where you’re usually like … taking care of dying rich people. Harper: I feel like all I’ve ever wanted to be able to do is three things: I wanted to have enough money to be safe, I wanted to have enough money to have a decent margin of error for when I made the wrong choice, not just for when circumstances screwed me over, and I’ve always wanted to have enough money to be able to be generous. That’s really all I want, and I have been able to do those things at different points in my life, but I really don’t feel like I’ll ever have enough to truly be safe. And that scares me. Anna: That scares me, too. A lot. I feel like these days, I can’t open Twitter or talk to my friends or anything without hearing jokes about the shitty existence under late stage capitalism—and those jokes are funny, but b

Host Anna Borges (The More Or Less Definitive Guide to Self-Care), who was famously dragged on Twitter after making a few jokes in reference to mental health, revisits mental health meme culture and how it can be a useful tool to find community during dark times. She’s joined by Memes To Discuss In Therapy admin Priscilla Eva for a discussion on “shitposting,” finding the humor in our collective struggles and how social media can actually breed compassion for ourselves and for others. We want to hear what you think about Mood Ring! You can help us out by filling out a short audience survey: moodringshow.org/surveyFollow Mood Ring @moodringshowFollow Anna ​​@annabrogesFollow Memes To Discuss In Therapy on Instagram or on Facebook. Mood Ring is a production of American Public Media and Pizza Shark! Full TranscriptAnna Borges: They say that everyone remembers their first time—I know that I do. Slowly waking up in the morning. Bright light streaming in through the window… …the sound of my phone rattling on the nightstand as a stream of notifications flooded in. MUSIC PAUSE, PHONE VIBRATION SOUND EFFECT Sorry, did you think I was talking about something else? Yeah, no, I’m talking about the first time I got absolutely dragged on the internet. MUSIC It was early 2016 and I was a writer at BuzzFeed. I’d been tasked with the challenge of finding a way to make mental health content shareable, and relatable, and viral. And that might sound like a ridiculously easy job in the year of our digital lord 2022, but it wasn’t that long ago that the landscape of mental health content looked very different than it does today. Like on big mainstream websites, it was pretty much limited to serious and earnest personal essays and serious and earnest resource articles. And everything else was kind of like… you know… niche. Like it existed, but just in certain corners of the internet. So, I decided to try doing what I’d long done in my little corners of the internet, I joked about my depression. And it did not go well. RECORD SCRATCH, CROWD GASP, YOUNG GIRL SHOUTING “YOU NEED TO LEAVE” The roundup in question was “21 Tweets About Depression That Might Just Make You Laugh.” A quintessential BuzzFeed list that I thought would make people laugh, and, you know, more importantly, maybe make them feel less alone. And [laughs] man oh man, was I wrong. Instead, the comments and the emails and the tweets just came flooding in. SOUNDS OF CROWD JEERING Anonymous Commenter: “I feel physically sick after reading this. This post is horrible.” Anonymous Commenter: “You clearly have no experience with depression if you think these are funny.” Anna Borges: And, and I can’t emphasize how mild these tweets were. You know, it was stuff like, “It’s not called a nap, it’s called a depression sleep.” And like, “I can’t wait for my winter depression to end so I can get a start on my spring depression!” Just completely innocuous tweets that you would probably see seventeen of a day these days. And the comments just kept coming. Anonymous Commenter: “This is disrespectful to people who actually struggle.” Anonymous Commenter: “You have no business writing about mental health.” Anonymous Commenter: “Depression isn’t funny. Period. It never will be!” Anna Borges: And I couldn’t help but immediately panic and wonder if I’d made, like, some grave mistake. I was like, “Are they right? Was my chosen coping mechanism disrespectful and out of touch? Should I have kept it a shameful secret? What is wrong with me!?” Was joking about my mental health really so wrong? MOOD RING THEME MUSIC I’m Anna Borges and this is Mood Ring, a practical guide to feelings…even when some people think your jokes about those feelings are pretty fucked up. Every episode, we’re exploring one new way to cope — with our feelings, with our baggage, with our brain, with the internet or with the world around us. Anna Borges: Today’s episode is about laughing about mental health. Our mental health. Specifically, laughing about our mental health by following accounts we find relatable and making it part of our regular social media diet. Now to be clear, disclaimer up top, it’s totally okay if jokes about mental health don’t feel particularly funny to you. What makes us laugh is, you know, an extremely personal thing, especially where mental health is concerned. And far be it for me to try and tell people that they should find my tweets about wanting to die hilarious. It’s not for everyone. All that said, I’m really relieved that joking about mental health on social media is way more accepted than it used to be. Because now, all of my feeds are full of reminders that I’m not alone, and they offer new ways to frame how I think about my struggles. And, I mean yeah,  they make me laugh and laughing is great. So let’s dig into why following mental health accounts is, you know, a small way to show yourself some love. Joining me is Priscilla Eva, who runs one of my favorite mental health accounts, Memes to Discuss in Therapy. And when I say memes to discuss in therapy, I don’t mean wholesome memes that would make my therapist proud. I mean memes that would make my therapist like start scribbling a lot of notes. And by that, I mean total shitposts. You’re good if you’re not actually familiar with this whole mental health shitposting thing—the main thing you need to know is that they’re the kind of posts that probably seem inappropriate or insensitive or dark from the outside. But when you are in on the joke? It’s kind of like finding shorthand for the experiences that you thought no one else understood.So let’s dive into my conversation with Priscilla. MUSIC FADE OUT Anna Borges: I would love to start by hearing from you, just for people who aren't familiar with the page how you would describe it, just to like anchor, anchor our listeners into like, what the f we're talking about. Priscilla Eva: It's just a meme shitposting page. And I like to say I specialize in curating and making memes for mental health and chronic illness. Because those are the two things I care about, mental health and chronic illness related things. And, those are the things that I find most resonant and like to share and repost or make memes of. Anna Borges: So can you give me kind of the origin story of how you started this page, and like what led to it? Priscilla Eva: So my friend Tyler, they actually started the page about five years ago. And they started it for the same reason, wanted to just basically shit post mental health stuff. [Anna laughs] And it started as a Facebook page that was just, you know, sharing with a few friends. And then they made it public. And so I started helping, about four or five years ago? Anna Borges: Oh, wow, I didn't realize the page had been alive for so long. I, I feel like a newcomer, like I'm a poser. I'm like, Oh, I've been a long term fan of memes to discuss in therapy. And it's like, oh, no, no, Priscilla Eva: Our growth only really, I think took off … a little bit before the pandemic started. [Anna: hmmmm] And I think the pandemic did a lot for people, you know, realizing that they maybe had mental health stuff that they wanted to address for just a plethora of reasons. Anna Borges: It’s, it became more mainstream. Priscilla Eva: Yes. And so then we got even more followers from that. And then, we started the Instagram, so we could cross post. And, that's kind of where we grew to where we are today. Anna Borges: So before that, what was your relationship with social media like, or was that really when you dove full in? Priscilla Eva: Actually always had, you know, sort of flirtation ship with social media. I've had my SlyFox persona since high school, which was back in the MySpace days. Anna Borges: Same, same. I was a scene queen, you know, just being sad on the internet since 2004. Priscilla Eva: Yeah, so I've had my SlyFox persona since then. And I kind of use it as my, like, online posting alter ego. Anna Borges: I feel often similarly when I talk about my mental health online. It's like there's how I talk about my mental health with my therapist and my friends, and then how I talk about it with it online and that difference there, but, it's not, so it sounds like you're someone who has always been comfortable on the internet in some way. Like an Internet person. Priscilla Eva: Yeah, I, oh gosh. I was very into AIM back in the day, the instant messenger. Yes, and MySpace, all that. Had a lot of online friendships. So it's like people I actually know, which is parlayed into what a lot of my relationships are as an adult. There's a lot of people I know from school, college, you know. And now from, like, my chronic illness stuff, different walks of life. People I've met in real life, but we usually only ever talk online because I have my chronic illness stuff like, you know, during the pandemic, since I'm immunocompromised, couldn't go out at all. [Anna: yeah] So, that kind of compounded it. But there's a lot of relationships I have with people that it's, you know, just messaging each other back and forth a few times a week, sending each other memes. And I'm surprised how similar it is to the AIM instant messages I was sending in high school. Anna Borges: I am so glad that you said that, or so excited that you said that because literally, literally one of the things I was gonna, wanted to just share is that that is how it functions for me. Like my relationship to the memes, specifically, your page is one that I use a lot, is reposting them to stories kind of as an away message. You know, it used to be like emo song lyrics on my aim profile, and now it's like sad memes. And I just kind of like throw it out there to give people visibility into my sadness, so. Priscilla Eva: Yeah, just kind of like an update as to what's going on or what you're feeling. Wow. I really can’t overstate how massively important platforms like AIM, Tumblr, MySpace… all of that were to those of us who needed a place

Host Anna Borges (The More Or Less Definitive Guide to Self-Care) is joined by Dr. Renee Lemus and Dr. Christina Rose–hosts of Las Doctoras podcast–about rewriting the stories we tell ourselves about who we are and rewiring the messaging that comes from the world about who we’re allowed to be. Follow Mood Ring @moodringshow Follow Anna @annabrogesFollow Las Doctoras podcast online at lasdoctoras.net. Mood Ring is a production of American Public Media and Pizza Shark!Full TranscriptAnna Borges: Let’s kick things off by reading an old journal entry of mine from freshman year of high school. And I guess that comes with all of the disclaimers that you would expect. [sighs] All right… I wrote… I need to get my shit together. It sounds so easy, but why have I always failed so miserably? I don’t know how I let myself get so far behind, or why I can’t delay instant gratification, or when I got so fucking lazy. I know what I have to do. Why can’t I just do it? What is wrong with me? I know I only wrote that in freshman year of high school because of the date at the top of the page. Because to be honest, like, I’ve probably written some variation of that a hundred times over in the decade and a half since then. And maybe you have too? Berating yourself for something - for not being good enough, or fast enough, or a million other things. And for me, it was my inability to focus, to accomplish my goals, to function, basically, the way that I thought I should be able to function because it seemed like everyone BUT ME could do it. It was a recurring subplot in my journals for years. And then, eventually—like 15 years later eventually—I got diagnosed with ADHD. THEME MUSIC [laughs] So…yeah. Which, that cleared a lot of things up in hindsight. And while I felt some relief at having an explanation, I also felt this, like, sense of grief for this person I thought I knew. Like, how could it be that all of these core beliefs about myself, as unkind as they were, were suddenly just…wrong? What do you do when you discover you’ve been an unreliable narrator of your own story this whole time? Hey friends, what’s up? I’m Anna Borges and this is Mood Ring, a practical guide to feelings—even when your feelings about yourself feel like cold hard facts. Every episode, we’re exploring one new way to cope — with our feelings, with our baggage, with our brains, with the world around us. And with the unkind stories we tell ourselves about ourselves. And today, we’re talking about how the stories we’ve told ourselves about ourselves can burrow their way into our brains and impact our self-worth and even our whole self-concept. And a lot of those narratives come from messages we get about who we’re supposed to be, or how we’re expected to function, or how our lived experiences fit the mold of what we’re told is normal or acceptable or right. MUSIC After my diagnosis, I started to wonder, like: how many of us are carrying around stories that we believe wholeheartedly, stories that tell us we’re not good enough or smart enough or talented enough or worthy enough? So this episode is about stories. Stories we tell ourselves and stories others tell us ABOUT ourselves, and how we can do the work to untangle it all. To help us with all that untangling, I reached out to Dr. Renee Lemus and Dr. Christina Rose. Together, they host the podcast Las Doctoras and run a writing course that seeks to help students decolonize their writing and use storytelling as a form of healing. Through their work, they help people reclaim their voices and rewrite their stories in a way that’s authentic to them. MUSIC FADE OUT Anna: Dr. Lemus and Dr. Rose, thank you so much for joining me today! I'd love for us to just dive right in and start talking about these narratives that we have about ourselves and where they come from. Specifically, it can be this feedback loop, you know? Of … stories that we've been told about ourselves that we then go on to tell the world about who we are or tell ourselves about who we are. So kind of a big question, but how does the outside world and all of the messages that we receive from it impact our own messaging? Dr. Lemus: You know we're, we're gender studies professors, right? We're women's studies professors. We're always going to have that feminist perspective on things and add that lens. I think a big, we've always named that a big part of what we do in our classes is to give language to our experiences, right. But I think we live in a world that wants to say that if we experienced oppression, it's our fault. It's something that we did wrong or we didn't do something right. And I think, or, or wants to gaslight our experience and say, no, you didn't experience that. Like, that you're [Anna: yeah] you're just being too sensitive. And so I think we always come in to say, like, to validate that experience and say, yes, you experienced sexism. Yes, you experienced racism. And to give language to things that we already know in our bodies, right. And, and validate those experiences as some, and to know where to place, not the blame, but to place our frustrations. And so I think for us, we, when it comes to our story, we can feel empowered to tell our story, because we know that … we're not the only ones experiencing it and it's not our fault. Right. It's not, it's not a flaw in us that we can't meet every need of our household and our children, because the structures of society don't give us enough support to do those things!Anna: I, I, I work with therapists all day. So like, I'm like putting the answer out there as though I know it, but like, I imagine gaining awareness of these type of narratives and messages that you've internalized has to be this first step, because otherwise, how can you start to rewrite them? And so how, how can we start to gain that awareness? Dr. Rose: Well we're learning, I think to check in with our bodies, you know [Anna: yeah!] I think our bodies can really tell us those things, you know? I think that, you know, again, that narrative that would have us basically sacrifice ourself for any cause, anything or just, I don't know. For, for labor, for, you know, the common good, for religion, for family and all these things. Really takes a toll on our whole being. And sometimes it is our body that can, can really give us the, the truthful and not like not, or a real, like it doesn't. I say, my, my body doesn't lie. You know, it's like the, the book, that, My Body Keeps the Score or something like that. But if my back hurts, you know, or if my shoulders hurt, like, that's undeniable, it's like, it's kind, it's not like I can, from this air, you know, earthy air perspective, kind of convince myself. I can just think about my feelings, right. We were talking about that too. Like, I actually need to feel them. I need to cry. And that's, so I know when I'm crying or I know when I actually do some things for my body that could be movement. It could actually be like artwork. It could be like meditation, it could be stretching. You know, I think that's, that's where I know I'm doing, I'm taking at least the first step, you know, and when my body talks to me and I listen, maybe that's even the, the, the step before.Dr. Lemus: If we're tired, we're tired. Right. And we're going to, so I, I definitely think it starts with really just a lot of self-reflection. I wanted to say, I think another important part of this is like, where do we start is community. [Dr. Rose: Yes!] Who you [laughs] you, you've surrounded yourself with, because I mean, and, and I would say like, for me, there's different communities, right, that I'm in, and some give me this certain part that I need and this other, you know. But I think again, when you're in academia, right, or in any kind of, let's say mainstream or even corporate or whatever kind of environment that you don't feel is like your safe environment. You need somewhere to feel safe, where you can let go, where you can [laughs] you can call and rant and say, oh my God, I experienced this thing, you know? [laughs] Which is basically what our podcast is, is just about ranting about things. But I think community where you can feel safe, where they can validate your experiences. Where you have very similar values. Where you're invested in the same things and feel supported so that … you're not always having to be productive. Where you can pick up where each other left off. Because I have community, I'm able to validate my experiences more and I'm able to feel empowered in my story more because I'm not being gas- like society's gonna gaslight us all day long. So when you have a community and somebody to say, no, yes, you deserve to rest or you deserve … it's okay that you're angry. Then that just, ugh, it feels like you can, you know, rest a lot more. [Anna: oh!] Dr. Rose: I just want to name that that's intentional too, like, you know? Just, you know, society, or like the Western framework really wants us to be like an, like a disembodied head that just like, like does stuff, you know, produces things…Anna: …and questions our experience too.Dr. Rose: And also yes. And it wants us to be isolated too. Like, it's, they do wanna create this abusive relationship dynamic where you can't reach out to your community, like you should handle this alone. So I just think those messages are real. And I just wanna, I wanna know, that everyone to know that it's not, you, you know, and, and liberating yourself from that, you know, reaching out and to other people and, and, and to your body is, you know, radical, radical feminism.Anna: It’s really stuck with me, the point Dr. Lemus and Dr. Rose make about how these harmful narratives we have about ourselves can fester in isolation. Because I don’t know about you, but when I’m alone, I don’t stop to question the voice in my head that says I’m defective. I don’t think to ask, “Wait, who’s voice is that and how did it get in there?” And when those thoughts go unchalleng

Host Anna Borges (The More Or Less Definitive Guide to Self-Care) chats with Southern Solidarity co-founder Jasmine Araujo about mutual aid, creating community, and leaning on others during difficult times. Plus, Anna has a conversation with Mood Ring producer Jordan Kauwling about what a recent experience with expanding her community means to her.Follow Mood Ring @moodringshowFollow Anna @annabrogesTo support Southern Solidarity and learn how you can get involved visit southernsolidarity.org. Mood Ring is a production of American Public Media and Pizza Shark!

Anna Borges interviews notOK app creator Hannah Lucas about how to get help during intense mental health moments. The conversation covers how the app works, how communication can deepen trust, and how it can be challenging to voice our needs.Follow Mood Ring @moodringshowFollow Anna ​​@annabrogesMood Ring is a production of American Public Media and Pizza Shark.Full Transcript Anna Borges: There’s a word people associate with me a lot: vulnerable. Like, my work is vulnerable and thank you for being so vulnerable. And honestly? It couldn’t be further from the truth. I SUCK at being vulnerable. If that’s surprising to hear, it’s not just you. I didn’t know that about myself for a really long time. My therapist was kind of the first one to float the idea and I didn’t really buy it. She kept at it, though. She was not gonna take no for an answer. At some point in our work together, she looked at me and said, “You talk openly about vulnerable things, but is that the same as actually being vulnerable?” THEME MUSIC My therapist wasn’t impressed by my ability to write an essay about wanting to die or to tweet my way through a depressive episode. She wanted to know: Did I ever reach out to a friend when I was feeling suicidal, or did I only tell them about it when I got through the worst of it alone? Did I cry in front of other people? Like really cry? Did I let people sit with me when I was too depressed to talk, just because I needed company? Did I ask for help? That’s the kind of vulnerability I struggle with—because honestly? Vulnerability, in my opinion, is exposing whatever is toughest to expose. And that’s what’s tough for me. And whether or not you struggle with it too, or another kind of vulnerability, I figured we could all use a little guidance around how to actually ask for support when we need it. Hey I’m Anna Borges and this is Mood Ring, a practical guide to feelings, even when those feelings are big and scary and you really want someone there with you. Every episode, we’ll explore one new way to cope — with our feelings, with our baggage, with our brains, or with the world around us. Reaching out to a loved one when you need support is the type of advice you hear everywhere. We know that’s what we’re supposed to do, but a lot of us just can’t get ourselves to do it, or don’t know how. Sometimes, instead of psyching yourself up to send the text or figuring out what to say in the first place, it can just feel easier to weather the storm by yourself. So that’s why I wanted to talk to today’s guest. Hannah Lucas is the co-creator of the notOK app. She worked with her brother Charlie to make it easier for people to reach out to loved ones when they’re, well, “not okay”. And we’ll get more into how the app works in our conversation, but for now I’ll say: It’s exactly the kind of thing that I need and what today’s episode is all about: Finding ways to ask for help without actually having to ask for help. Anna: Hey Hannah, I'm so excited to chat. Hannah: Hey! Anna: So you created an app with your brother, so for our listeners who haven't heard of it or aren't familiar, can you just give us a little bit of history there and tell us about how it works? Hannah: So the notOK app is essentially a digital panic button. That when pressed it alerts the user's up to five preselected trusted contacts that the user is not okay and needs help, along with the user's GPS location, just in case the trusted contacts need to physically go get them. Anna: Absolutely, and what inspired you to create it? Hannah: I came up for the idea for the app when I was a freshman in high school, I had just been diagnosed with a chronic illness called POTS. It stands for postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome. And because of this, I was passing out all the time. I was being bullied, harassed, the whole nine. And it just made me spiral really deeply into depression and anxiety. Until one night I just, I couldn't handle the pressure anymore and I had a suicide attempt, but luckily my mom saved my life that night and I'm forever grateful for that. And that's when I knew, I desperately needed a tool to take my independence back from my chronic illness and my mental illness. Anna: Thank you for sharing that, first of all. And I'm, I'm so glad as someone who deals with suicidal ideation and self-harm a lots always- nice isn't the word to hear, like to connect with other people who, who can relate. Like it's not nice because I hate that we can relate– Hannah: It's comforting. Anna: But it’s comforting. Exactly, exactly. So if someone wanted to use the notOK app, when kind of do they use it, what kind of moments is it for? Hannah: The notOK app is a crisis tool as well as pre-crisis, my therapist and I, we like to put it this way. I rate my stress and anxiety on a scale from one to 10, one being the lowest, 10 being I need emergency services right now. So when I feel myself building up about a four or five and I just feel it rising higher and higher, I normally press the button. So it doesn't always have to get to a crisis point. But of course crises do happen, every once in a while. So the notOK app is here for that. It's here for those tough moments where you don't know the words to say, but you need help. Anna: So I loved what you said about how it can be really, really hard to find the literal words. Why, why, it's a big question, but like why, why is it so hard?! Like, like you, you, as you say, like, we are kind of in this … cultural moment where there is, I think a little bit more mental health literacy going around. Like we have a little bit more vocabulary, like not quite everything, but at least on social media, like but in the moment, in the moment, why is it so hard to reach out and to say, Hey, I'm not okay. Hannah: Let's face it, mental illness lies. It tells you that you're not worthy. It tells you that nobody around you cares, that you don't have people around you. So mental illness really just shuts you up and it is so difficult to break that, that silence. So I just wanted to make it as easy as possible, because sometimes it's just like, I'm sitting here and like, I'm so overwhelmed and I'm so stressed out and I'm like, I need help, but I don't know how to ask for it. You know, I don't wanna be a burden. Anna: I'm so glad you said that because one of my, perhaps more embarrassing personal questions, is if you have any tips or guidance or solidarity for people who are nervous about asking people to be their trusted contact in the first place, you know. I feel like my, my brain goes, no, you're a burden, you don't wanna like ask them to be your go-to person. That's too much. Like how do I shut that up? Hannah: So whenever I add someone new as a trusted contact and I feel just, I just feel so anxious and I feel so nervous about it. I'm like, what if they say no, this is a big responsibility. I don't wanna be a burden. But then I honestly think to myself, what would happen, like if I just wasn't in that person's life anymore? And I know that's a bad way to think about it, but it's like thinking logically about it. There would be a hole in their life, you know. Like all of my relationships, I try to keep it 50/50. So, you know, just for healthy boundaries and everything. But it's like, they would miss me, you know, like they're choosing to be in my life, they’re choosing to be my friend. They're choosing to be my support. So of course, you know, they would be okay with being a trusted contact, you know, they're already putting themselves in that position for me. Anna: Absolutely. And have you found that asking them or hitting the button and reaching out to them has brought you closer with any of your trusted contacts? Hannah: Oh, definitely. I have to say my favorite feature of this app is when you go and initially add a trusted contact, the trusted contact actually gets a text message that says, “Hey, so and so added you as a trusted contact for the notOK app.” And it gives them resources, and it tells them what a trusted contact is, and it tells them the responsibility and how to help the user. Which really is incredible on so many levels [Anna: yeah!] because a lot of people don't even know that their friends are struggling. And this opens up the conversation to say, “Hey, how can I be here for you?” You know, “how can we be there for each other? What's going on? You know, you don't always have to be perfect. It's okay. You know, your flaws are what make you beautiful.” Anna: Yeah, oh, I love that it opens up a conversation because I, I wanted to ask, like, do you have any tips around how you might approach that conversation? Hannah: Be vulnerable. It's the most difficult thing to do. But it's the most rewarding thing you can ever do in your life is just being vulnerable with the people who care about you. I’m not saying spill all of your secrets! [laughs] But it is okay to show them a softer side of you, you know? I don't wanna use the word damage, but … a side of you that isn't so perfect, you know, give them that chance to love those flaws of yours, you know. After the break, we’ll talk more with Hannah about coping with her peers and keeping it real. THEME MUSIC FADE OUT MIDROLL THEME MUSIC FADE IN Hey, welcome back. I’m Anna Borges and this is Mood Ring. We’re talking to Hannah Lucas about the app she helped create which is sort of a digital panic button and that helps you reach out to trusted friends and loved ones when you need support. Anna: So you're, you're gen Z. Like, so just, I was just talking to my producer, Georgie, about how, you know, when I was growing up on the internet, like the life that I was putting out there, you know, like on Instagram or on Twitter was definitely like a better view of my life, but I never felt the pressure for like perfection. Hannah: Yeah, exactly. But it's like, I was striving so hard for, for perfection. And it's like, all you see on social media is those perfect moments. You know, you

 Host Anna Borges interviews guest Zachary Zane about platonic intimacy.Follow Mood Ring @moodringshowFollow Anna ​​@annabrogesMood Ring is a production of American Public Media and Pizza Shark.Full Transcript Anna Borges: The first time I realized I was touch starved during the pandemic is when the world started opening up and one of the first things I did was go and get a wax for the first time. And as my wax tech was like painfully ripping the hair off my body, I thought, "Huh, it's so nice to be touched by another human again." It's not that I didn't realize that I was lonely or could really stand to have been fucked or cuddled — I live alone and I'm single, so during the height of pandemic lockdown, I was … very, very isolated. But it wasn't until I felt this visceral rush of relief when I typically felt excruciating pain that I realized, Oh, I needed this. Like, actually needed it. Because when I say I was touch starved, I’m not being cute or  dramatic. Tough starvation is a real thing. It’s also known as skin hunger or touch deprivation, but whatever you call it, we know that going for too long without human touch has real psychological effects. Starting with when we bond with our caregivers through touch when we’re infants, we’re wired to need touch, for our development and for our mental health. So what do we do when we’re not getting any?     Hey, I’m Anna Borges and this is Mood Ring, a practical guide to feelings, even when you’re feeling so untouched like a 2007 pop song. Every episode, we’ll explore one new way to cope—with our feelings, with our baggage, with our brains, or with the world around us. Anna Borges: Today we’re talking about cuddling with your friends, which might seem like kind of a leap from a bikini wax. But that's because I didn’t know until the last minute that I wanted this episode to be about cuddling your friends. Before that, I knew I wanted to do something on touch starvation, and, you know, ways to scratch that itch. We thought of massages, or loving self-touch and yep, getting waxed, but, you know, none of them really felt right. Because sure, all of that involves getting touched, but none of it is intimacy. And I was missing intimacy as much as I was missing the touch itself. And then I had this exchange on Twitter. SOUND OF KEYBOARD TYPING I was doing what I do—AKA tweeting about whatever thought comes into my head and conveniently forgetting that my family and coworkers follow me—and I was basically like, “Hey, show of hands, who else hasn't had real physical intimacy since the Before Times?" And lots of people chimed in and long story short, the tweet led to some talk about why platonic intimacy isn’t more of a thing. Like, why is so much non-sexual touch still reserved mostly for sexual and romantic partners? And one of the people who chimed in is actually one of today’s guests. I slid into his DMs like, “Hey, want to platonically cuddle?” and by that I mean, “Do you want to come on my podcast?” And thankfully, he said yes. Zachary Zane is a writer who mostly focuses on sex and bisexuality in his work. He’s behind the erotic nonficiton zine Boyslut and is a columnist for Men’s Health. And most importantly, he’s someone who, quite frankly, seemed to have a lot of platonic intimacy in his life. So, I wanted us to learn from him together. Anna Borges: Oh, I'm so excited to chat today! Were you luckier than I was during the pandemic and, like, got plenty of touch? What, what was it like for you? Zach Zane: Um, I- initially, no, I did not get any touch whatsoever and that was not fun as I, as you can imagine. And then I actually, one of the few people that managed to find love during the pandemic, which I know is probably problematic to say. But uh- Anna Borges: I hate you. I'm so jealous. Zach Zane: And, and then, so we kind of cuddled up together. So I had a primary partner who I was able to see and cuddle with, towards the kind of end of it. Cause there was that lull kind of the middle, during the summer where I was like, okay, I feel safe meeting people, and that's when I met them. And then we kind of went back into lockdown and then we were with each other. So I was very lucky. Anna Borges: Ugh. Oh, and for our listeners who aren't familiar with, like ethical non-monogamy and polyamory, can you just give like a quick one liner on like what you mean when you say primary partner? Zach Zane: Sure. So primary partner for me, I … it, it just like, I actually practice, like, non-hierarchical poly, but so maybe saying primary is not the correct term. So essentially when you have multiple partners, this is kind of like, for me in the sense was kind of the, the main one that I was kind of hanging out with, the main one who I'm in love with, the one who I call my boyfriend. And then I kind of have more casual partners, which are almost like, honestly, friends with benefits. Although poly people just kind of love putting terms to absolutely everything, unnecessarily. But, so this was more the person who I'd spend my time with more consistently. Anna Borges: Got it. Got it. And I love, I love that you say friends with benefits because immediately my brain goes, okay, well, this episode is about cuddling your friends. First, I would love to just hear about your experience with platonic intimacy and how, and what that means for you and what it looks like in your life. Zach Zane: I think I'm very … lucky that I've been able to have it, but I'm able to have it because I am queer. And I recognize that, where cuddling with another man platonically, I feel like it's much more accepted in the gay community, in the queer community, than if I was completely straight. And then I think it would just be more challenging if, you know, if you're straight, you have to be really comfortable with your masculinity to be able to platonically cuddle another straight friend. Anna Borges: Hmm, absolutely. What kind of experiences have you had in this area? Zach Zane: Yeah. And I really think in that regard, it's more like relationship anarchy. Again, there are a million terms and I know it's annoying, but kind of relationship anarchy, one of the  key … parts of that is the idea that you don't prioritize kind of romantic relationships over your friendships and your friendships can be equally as important and equally as fulfilling, even though you're not sexual, even if you’re not in, in a romantic relationship. And I kinda love that about relationship anarchy. Anna Borges: But I’m curious how you, if you ever had the expectation that touch and physical intimacy was only for romantic partners and if you had to release the expectation of that and accept that it could be with platonic relationships, or if it’s always been that way for you? Zach Zane: No, I think I definitely had this idea that … you know, touch, whether it's cuddling, or touch that extends beyond sex, was definitely still for romantic relationships or sexual relationships. I think the only exception is when you were, like, sad or crying. Is, if I'm looking back on it, it's when you're crying. That was the only time it was kind of more acceptable to have these elements of platonic touch as a means of comfort. Like why do I have to reach a point of such despair in order to, for it to be socially acceptable for me to have platonic touch. But I really think, the thing that changed was, again, I- was being queer, and just, I was part of this community where people were platonic touching. Being like, Hey, let's cuddle, let's get in a bed or just holding each other or in a way that was just the norm … or definitely more of the norm in a way that wasn't weird or necessarily sexual. Anna Borges: Absolutely. So it does sound like you have, like, no lack of channels for platonic intimacy. Zach Zane: No I 100% agree, but I also wanna be like, I'm in the minority and I'm very lucky to have this, and I'm lucky to have my friends and my community and my partners. And again, it's all part of the queer and poly world, and that's why I've been able to get this. After a break, we’ll get some advice for listeners who might be ready to snuggle up with their friends but don’t know how to ask, so stay tuned. MIDROLL Hey, welcome back to Mood Ring, I’m Anna Borges. Let’s get back to my conversation with sex writer and activist Zachary Zane about cuddling our friends. Anna Borges: So, I'm curious if you would have any advice for listeners who aren't in these communities, but who might wanna take some of this wisdom to apply to their friendship. And they're like, I really want platonic intimacy, but as you called out, unless you're in a space where that's normalized and acceptable, it could be really awkward. Zach Zane: I’m, I'm always just a fan of asking for what you want and then being, the key about asking for what you want being okay with rejection and not being weird. That’s the key to asking for what you want, is being super okay with rejection, not making it weird when they get awkward or uncomfortable. Cause they've never been asked that question before. And they might just say no, because like they're like, no, no. And then they might come back being like, actually that sounds really nice. So just, the key is in how you take their rejection or they might be like, Hey! Actually, yeah, I’m really touched starved, too. And especially now, I think because of the pandemic, it actually creates more of an entry point than potentially what you've had before, because you're like, I had no touch for two years completely and I’m starved for it. Makes it an easier entry point, I think. Anna Borges: Yeah. And, and that's on, even on the physical side, and on the emotional side, it does involve being vulnerable and admitting like, Hey, I'm seeking something because I lack it. And I'm lonely. Or I, you know, I wonder if, because this is so normalized in your circles, if you still deal with that or if you ever did, or if it's something that's come with practice. Zach

Anna and the Mood Ring team are all still reeling from the horrific shootings over the past two weeks, and if you’ve been following along with us so far, you know that we believe strongly in not forcing the show to go on, and giving ourselves space to be human and feel our emotions in experiencing things as they are happening to us, rather than numbing out attempt to pretend like everything is normal.So, in lieu of our Mood Ring episode this week, we wanted to share a conversation from yesterday, May 25, about coping with prolonged grief as terrible things just continue to happen, produced by our friends over at Minnesota Public Radio and host Angela Davis.  We thought some of you might find it useful right now with everything going on.We’ll be back with a regular episode of Mood Ring next week and we really hope that you are able to take care of yourself in the meantime.In the light of the recent tragic mass shootings, Minnesota Public Radio News host Angela Davis talks with listeners and with two therapists about the waves of loss many people experienced over the past two years, they discuss how people can cope with prolonged grief and trauma.Her guests are: Bravada Garrett-Akinsanya is a psychologist who specializes in African-American mental health. She is the president and founder of Brakins Consulting & Psychological Services and the executive director of African American Child Wellness Institute, Inc. in Plymouth.Fiyyaz Karim is a lecturer in the University of Minnesota's masters programs for integrated behavioral health and addictions counseling. He has worked in the areas of grief and loss associated with unemployment, relationship break ups, chronic illness, addictions and, most recently, the pandemic.

Episode four of Mood Ring is a collection of self-care tools explored by Anna Borges. Anna shares clips submitted by listeners describing how they deal with the onset of a negative mental health moment.Full TranscriptTitle: Build Your Self Care KitDescription: Episode four of Mood Ring is a collection of self care tools explored by Anna Borges. The host shares clips submitted by listeners describing how they deal with the onset of a negative mental health moment.–Anna Borges: I want you to picture something for me. Feel free to settle in and close your eyes.Think about what it’s like to have a … common cold. Think about how your body aches. How heavy your limbs are. How runny or stuffed up your nose is. [Sound of sloshing water] Think of that underwater sensation in your head, how out of it you feel.Now picture what you do to take care of yourself when you have a cold. What makes you feel better? What foods and drinks do you gravitate toward? Warm soup. Ginger Ale. Toast. A mug of tea. And, what do you do? Maybe you go straight back to bed. Maybe take a shower and change into clean pajamas. Maybe you drag the coziest blankets to the couch and burrito up. What shows do you watch? Who do you text? What supplies do you gather? The whole ritual.Now I want you to think about a moment when you weren’t feeling so hot mentally. Choose a type of moment that comes up occasionally, like a cold does. Something that’s no fun, but something familiar. Maybe there are times when you’re so frustrated by work you could scream. Maybe there are weekends that you don’t have any plans and feel extra lonely. Maybe sometimes your to-do list reaches a certain point … that you can feel nothing but overwhelmed. Or maybe you don’t have a specific moment or reason—maybe sometimes your sadness or anxiety or hurt or pain just flares up, and you know you’re in for a rough day.Whatever situation you choose, remember what it’s like, how you felt.Did you know what to reach for? Did you know what would make you feel better? Did you know what you really needed in that moment?For a long time, I didn’t. A lot of the time. We know what to do when we’re sick. Why do we know so much less about what to do when we’re angry? Or sad? Or lonely? Or overwhelmed? Or anything?Why don’t we have a plan for that?THEME MUSICHey, I’m Anna Borges and this is Mood Ring, a practical guide to feelings...even when you’re not exactly sure what will make you feel better. Every episode, we’ll explore one new way to cope—with our feelings, with our baggage, with our brains, or with the world around us.Anna Borges: This episode, we’re kind of cheating—we’re not exploring just one new way to cope. We’re exploring, like, a whole ass coping kit. Because it doesn’t matter how many self-care tips you know. Like, when you feel something strongly or you’re in that moment when you’re upset or pissed off or in your feelings, it can be hard to access the tools that exist in your head, and remember what makes you feel better.That’s where this thing I like to call a coping kit comes in.Sounds fancy maybe but, really building a coping kit just means making a plan, and having a set of go-to tools or activities at the ready so you don’t have to worry about it when you’re in a bad place. You just go, okay, that is what I do when I feel this way. A coping kit is about making it as easy as possible for Future You to take care of yourself in moments when it’s not easy to remember how the fuck to take care of yourself.So, let’s talk about how to make one. For help on this, I put out a call on social media because no two coping kits are the same. And I don’t just mean what’s in it. I also mean how it comes to life.Anonymous: “My coping mechanism, which a lot of people actually judge, but, has been to sort of like post funny Instagram stories.”Kevin: “Pretty much anything off of Carly Rae Jepsen’s Emotion album. I do a lot of finger-pointing.”Anonymous: “I tell my spouse I'm going to go flop, which is code for this state of sort of like, I don't care and don't expect any level of productivity or substantial response from me.”Anonymous: “I actually also do jigsaw puzzles online. I think they’re a really good way for me to focus on one thing, without having to think about the rest.”Pooja: “I’ll do like two reps on the leg press just to get some blood flowing, and then I'll come back up.”Anna Borges: As you just heard, there’s no one way to make a coping kit. Our producer, Georgie, has a physical box of things that she reaches for. And yours can be whatever—a beautiful spread in a bullet journal, a list on your phone’s app. Just make sure it exists somewhere outside your head.So, how do you get started?First things first, you have to know what your coping kit is for, since it’s not a one-size-fits-all kinda deal. I personally have several kinds of coping kits and I keep track of them in a spreadsheet. If we’re sticking with the whole sick metaphor, what you need when you have a cold is different from what you need when you have the stomach flu. And what you need when you’re pissed at your boss is probably different than what you need when you’re spiraling about climate anxiety.There’s no need to get hyper-specific with the situation like that though. A lot of the time, it’s enough to start with the feeling you want to make a plan for dealing with. A coping kit for anxious moments. For frustrated ones. For insecure ones. Whatever feels like a good place to start. Whatever feeling or situation you build your kit for, the central question is basically, “What do I need when I feel that way?”And if you’re like, ugh, I have no idea? Don’t worry. I have a few categories that might help get your juices flowing, plus we have plenty more examples from my cast of coping kit volunteers. We’ll get into it all after a short break.MIDROLLHey, welcome back to Mood Ring! This is Anna Borges. Before the break we were talking about identifying the feelings that we want to soothe with our coping kits. So, now let’s get to actually building one.Anna Borges: Think again, before we get started, of that moment or situation or feeling that you want to make a game plan for that’s really helpful to have at the back of your mind. Whatever theme you landed on. So like I mentioned, when I’m brainstorming a new coping kit, I tend to think about it in terms of a couple of different categories.The first big bucket that I tend to start with is, well, literal things. Physical objects, tangible items that you can touch or use or wear or see or feel. They might be things that engage my senses—you know like a really soft blanket to curl up in, or … an aromatherapy neck pillow I can throw in the microwave and get all warm and toasty. And I also think of comfort objects, like photos that bring up happy memories or a sentimental stuffed animal.One of my favorite object-related ideas that I got from my callout was pretty unexpected—lightbulbs. It just goes to show that these kits are very personal and specific.Anonymous: I have a couple of things that I do to cope when I've had a bad day at work or when I'm just not feeling very good and I don't want to get out of bed or something like that. I really enjoy, I got the Phillips hue, like, the colored LED lights and I set up a scene based on a sunset photo I took at the beach years ago. And it was just my favorite spot and it is my favorite, like, blend of warm lighting. And, that has helped me so much because I can just transport my back there to those warm moments.Anna Borges: The next kind of umbrella category is activities. And that is a very wide umbrella, but consider that soothing activities, distracting activities, fun activities, relaxing activities, just any activity that has the power to change your mood for the better.My coping kits tend to be pretty heavy on activities, you know across the board. I think I'm probably not alone in that because we got a lot of fun activities-related submissions. So I’m just gonna go ahead and jump into there because I like them better than mine. [laughs]Anne: When I feel out of control, or depressed in a really restless way, the thing that will always make me feel better is cleaning. I will do my dishes, which is my least favorite thing to do, but I'll put on a really trashy podcast while I do them. Or I'll sweep, which I love because I find it very fulfilling to see all of the amount of like dust and dirt and grime coming together and being disposed of.Anonymous: When I feel overwhelmed with everything that's going on in my life and trying to plan for the future, I take a walk over the Manhattan bridge. From my apartment to the bridge is a 30 minute walk. And over the bridge is another 30 minutes. I get 60 minutes to myself to clear my head, to think about my current state, and to think about my future state. I do not listen to a podcast, I do not listen to an audio book. I typically listen to instrumental music, or actually some booty shaking hit,s just to get the creative juices flowing. And I immediately feel better having that time to truly clear my head, be in nature, and get moving.Anonymous: I experience intrusive thoughts that suggest I do very bad things to myself. So, in the bad thoughts space, I pull out a few of my favorite responses to the yuck! Taking a super hot shower. I invested a couple of years ago in a teakwood shower bench so I can sit down, but not on the floor, which feels, like, too sad for me. This way, I'm able to relax more muscles and just kind of be in the steam, like, highly recommend this one.Anna Borges: We also got a lot of submissions around activities like exercise or arts and crafts and hobbies. Playing with pets was a big one, too. Really just anything that keeps you occupied.The next thing might be more of a subcategory within activities, rather than its own category, but I like to call it out separately. And I'm thinking of activities like therapeutic exercises. You know, specific meditations, workbooks, tha

Episode three of Mood Ring, hosted by Anna Borges, explores the One Minute Rule. Coined by Gretchen Rubin, the concept dictates that if it takes less than one minute to complete a task — think washing a dish — then you should just get it done right away. Anna interviews behavioral psychologist Dr. Ayelet Fishbach, exploring why following this rule can prove so challenging for some, and ways to reconsider your real priorities.Full TranscriptAnna Borges: Every Friday, I count on the minutes until the workday is over and the weekend begins. And every Friday there is always one thing standing between me and a night of relaxation, a list of chores, as long as a CVS receipt. I always tell myself that I'll do it differently. Next time I tell myself, next week I will wash my dish. As soon as I'm done with it next week, I won't let these mugs accumulate on my nightstand and have to do the walk of shame to the kitchen with them. Like next week, I'll scoop the litter box every day. I will not let these chores pile up and ruin my relaxing Friday night, except I do. I always do. Come Monday, I'll finish dinner and bring my dish to sink. And instead of taking literally a minute to wash it while I'm there, I just set it down and walk away. And then the next day I set another dish on top of it. And then the next thing you know, it's Friday again, and I'm telling myself next week will be different. I just want to understand why is this so freaking hard?THEME MUSICI'm Anna Borges and this is Mood Ring, a practical guide to feelings, even when you're feeling overwhelmed by the smallest of tasks. Every episode we’ll explore one new way to cope with our feelings, with our baggage, with our brains, with our dishes or with the world around us.In this episode, we're talking about something that I hoped once upon a time would solve my chore problem. The one minute rule, it was coined by Gretchen Rubin, an author who among other things specialized in topics related to productivity and happiness. The one minute rule is straightforward: if a task or a chore will take less than a minute to accomplish just do it, don't think about it. Don't add unnecessary steps, like adding it to a to-do list, just do it then and there done. Boom. It seems simple enough, right? Except it didn't turn out to be that easy for me. I tried to live by the one minute rule, probably a million different times, and it's just never stuck or made much of a difference. So why do an episode on the one minute rule? Well, because this rule is known for its simplicity and its effectiveness, and I want to see if there is a way to make it work for me once and for all. So we decided to hit up a psychologist, specifically a motivation expert. Uh, Ayelet Fishbach PhD who wrote the book, Get It Done, surprising lessons from the science of motivation. And I didn't waste any time asking what I really wanted to know. Why do I struggle with this so much?Ayelet: Well we all discount the future? And that, uh, sounds like a fancy terror, but what it actually means is that anything that is in the future worse less than if it happened right now, uh, meaning if, uh, you consider doing work in the future, that seems like less work than if you need to do, uh, the work now, uh, if you need to pay a price in the future, that seems like it's less costly than if you paid now and also for good things. Okay. If you think about doing something exciting next month, well, it's not as exciting as doing it today. So as, as people we discount the future, which means that we, we like to postpone.Anna: Yeah, that is, that is very at least true for me. I think just the instant gratification of it all feels very human at least, but is hard to push against, you know, like, because I think, for example, like when it comes to like goals and stuff, I'm pretty good at breaking things down into smaller tasks and really building toward it. But with, for example, my dish example that is, feels like a lot of effort right now because I'd rather be doing something else, but it feels very low reward. So I'm kind of like, how, how do I change my perception?Ayelet: What do you do?Anna: Yeah, no, like literally what do I do? Like, how do I, how do I change it? So I am motivated like motivated to do things in the present instead of just being like, screw you future Anna.Ayelet: So let, let me introduce another, uh, concept for, uh, research and motivation, which is, uh, a broad decision, uh, frame. Uh, what that means is that you make decision not just for now, but for every similar situation. Uh, in other words, you set a rule. And so it's not about whether I will wash my plate now is whether for the next month, every time I finish my dinner, I'm going to wash my plate. And when you accumulate these decisions together is often easier to see your priorities. It's often easier to see the self control, uh, conflict.Anna: So is the specificity at play there what's important. Like, for example, if I was going to say, yeah, every time I eat dinner, I'm gonna do my dish right after. Is that more motivating potentially than like the overarching 60 second rule or one minute rule that might be too broad?Ayelet: Yes, it is. Uh, more specific. It sets a rule about what to do when you have a plate in your hand, when you finish eating. Uh, I, it's a very example, but every time I, I finish eating, I will wash my plate rule, uh, means that you don't really need to think about it. And whether it's under a minute or over one minute, and whether this will even applies or just like, uh, the ideal is to make all these behaviors like washing your teeth. You don't really debate with yourself or least, most people don't have this like internal argument do I wash my teeth or do I not wash my teeth? It's morning. I woke up, I wash my teeth.Anna: Not if you have depression, first thing to go is my personal hygiene. No one, judge me if you're listening to this, but no, no, I, I definitely, I definitely really love it. Kind of speaks to what I was hoping would happen for me with the one minute rule, which is that these things would become automatic. That if I approached it with intentionality, then eventually it would, I don't know, become like brushing my teeth when I'm in a good mental health place, you know? But what, what's the difference between something that becomes kind of a habit that you don't have to think about and the things that feel like they take so much work?Ayelet: The one thing to realize is that there is a range. Like it's not either it's a habit or not. Okay. So washing your teeth is kind of the extreme example, but how about exercising three times a week, even when people tell you that they have the habit, it's very easy to quit that habit.Anna: I am curious then since the goal doesn't always have to be to make it a habit, even though I personally would love to make these boring things, a habit. Is there a way to make doing them when they're not a habit, feel more fulfilling or be present in these moments or affirming to myself or the life that I want to live,Ayelet: Make it fun.Anna: I can't make doing my dishes fun. How,Ayelet: You know, the music, uh, find a way to, uh, uh, just make it, uh, more pleasant, uh, but seriously, like what's what predicts what we do most of the time. It just, it feels good at the moment. It's not so much, it's important for us in the long run. It's like people with clean houses have found a way to enjoy cleaning.Anna: I'm gonna have to try that tonight. It's as we're recording, it's a Friday and Friday is my deal with all the crap that's accumulated night, truly. It's like all the dishes that I'm talking about not having done, but tieing to like, no, I know this is a podcast about mental health. Like I have my own mental health struggles and I'm sure a lot of people listening do too. And I'm curious whether or not in your experience, something like the 60 second rule can help with motivation or decision making, you know, when things are like things mentally are stacked against you is almost how I put that, but I'm not sure that's how I want to put it, but you, you know, when you're depressed as hell!Ayelet: When it gets to vision. I, I, I think that really is that the most important thing in your life to have clean plates and, and to finish this, to do list, is, is this the reason to, to do things? Uh, uh, because it sounds to me like a, you know, sometimes we just, we want to deal with all these errands. Uh, so our desk is clear and, and we feel that our mind is clear and we can do something else, but really the, the doing something else is the goal. Right? So like,Anna: Well, actually, I, I am really curious about how this ties into your work about like creating an environment that's sets you up for, I don't know the life that you want to live, but you know, how your environment might, might impact things. And so for me, like dishes is a really great example of that. Like, I may not care about my dishes that much, but I'm like, oh, I also know that like my environment being clean does set me up, I think for like, decisions that I wanna make and stuff like that.Ayelet: Yes. And so the way to change behavior is by changing the situation in which the behavior occurs. Okay. And like, that sounds fancy. It's not such a fancy principle. Okay. Like if, you know, if, if you want to wake up in the morning, you set an alarm clock, uh, because if you are in a quiet dark room, then it's easy to stay in bed. Uh, uh, we all do it intuitively. Other changes to the situation are less intuitive, uh, changes that involve, uh, removing certain objects from your environment, because they're unhealthy for you or removing certain people from your environment, because they're unhealthy for you and, and bringing other people to your environment. Uh, these are changes that, that require some, uh, more, uh, sophistication and then a whole new level of sophistication is even in a given environment, change the way that

Mood Ring host Anna Borges talks about coping mechanisms like binge-watching television and late-night gaming. Are those behaviors unhealthy and reasons to feel guilty, or are they fine to help you deal with what’s going on in your life?Anna is joined by licensed mental health counselor Jor-El Caraballo to unpack how we can tell if our coping mechanisms are helpful or harmful, and how to enjoy them without all that shame.Full Transcript Anna Borges: Alright, I’m gonna…I’m gonna tell you something…Every once in a while, I get this taste of what I imagine it must be like to be...well-adjusted? You know like, whole stretches of time where I’m not ruminating or anxious or lonely or sad. I am just...chill....And then, Netflix will ask me…NETFLIX TUDUM “Are you still watching?”And the illusion is shattered. And I’m forced to see my sad reflection in my smudged laptop screen, and all the thoughts and feelings I’m avoiding come bubbling back up.MUSICIf I were the person I wanted to be, this would be the moment I say, “You know what, Netflix? No, I’m not still watching. I’m going to go do all the things I told myself I was going to do today.”But I’m me. So I hit “next episode” and sink back into numb, distracted bliss.Binge-watching TV is a shitty coping mechanism of mine. And if we’re all being honest with ourselves and each other, you probably have one too.Maybe your thing is video games. That’s…also my thing.Maybe you’re partial to falling down the TikTok rabbit hole, scrolling and scrolling and scrolling.Or maybe swiping endlessly on dating apps and window-shopping for validation. Or real shopping. Our producer Jordan loves to obsessively order home goods from Amazon.Most of us have those things that we do for our mental health in the moment even though we know they’re probably not all that good for our mental health in the long run. And that’s fine! It’s totally human to want to distract ourselves, or soothe ourselves, or whatever it is your thing does for you.Except…I don’t know about you, but I probably spend as much time judging myself for my shitty coping mechanisms as I do actually enjoying them. Which kind of defeats the purpose. But that doesn’t mean I have to stop, right?THEME MUSICHey friends, what’s up? I’m Anna Borges and this is Mood Ring: A Practical Guide to Feelings. Even when you feel like a swamp person with terrible coping mechanisms. Every episode, we’ll explore one new way to cope — with our feelings, with our baggage, with our brain, or with the world around us.Anna: If you thought today’s episode was going to be about kicking these shitty coping habits to the curb, don’t worry. It’s not that kind of show. No, this episode is about how we can stop thinking about them as “shitty” in the first place and how we can tell when they’re helpful or harmful, and how we can enjoy them without all the guilt and shame.Here to help us unpack it is our guest Jor-El Caraballo. He’s a licensed mental health counselor and the cofounder of a health and wellness practice called Viva Mental Health and Wellness.Anna: I know how I think about coping mechanisms and what they mean but as a mental health professional, what is your kind of official definition of coping mechanisms?Jor-El: Yeah, it's, it's funny, because coping mechanisms, coping skills, any of those kind of terms we use, are really about the things we do the tools we utilize to manage our feelings and our thoughts manage our mental health. So they could be very sophisticated things. I don't know, like electromagnetic cranial stimulation, or they could be other things like journaling. And it really, it really depends on what someone finds the most helpful. But there's s uch a wide range of tools that we have access to that help us manage.Anna: Yeah, I tend to think about it in terms of things that we can do ourselves without professional intervention. Does that kind of vibe?Jor-El: Yeah, yeah, I like that.Anna: Yeah. Cuz I kind of have, or, at least in my circles, coping like mechanisms, that word has a specific connotation that does lean negative versus like coping strategies. And so I'm curious, like, Are there good and bad coping mechanisms? Like that's how I categorize them? How do you tend to think about that?Jor-El: That's a, that's a really good question because the way I have my default setting, so to speak, is that coping mechanisms have no value. Morally, they, it's really anything because anything that you do any strategy can be good or bad, depending on how or when it's applied. So just for like, a very, like, this is super like traditional psychoanalytic, right? So denial, for instance, is a defense mechanism or a coping mechanism that we all have the capacity for, right? Which basically says, we don't, we don't acknowledge what we're feeling in the moment, if, especially if it's like a painful feeling that comes up for us. So we're just like, No, I'm good, fine. Everything's cool, right? And in some instances, that is actually a really helpful tool, where you might be limited in your use of other strategies or tools. But in other situations, or if you rely on that perpetually, as your one go to, then obviously, you're going to end up in a place where you're very disconnected with reality. Right? Because you're walking around saying, like, no, that's not happening. This is not happening. I'm not here. I'm over here,Anna: Oh, wow! Are you dragging me right now? Is this our therapy session?[Jor-El laughs]Anna: I mean, I basically invited you on to be like, please tell me what I do is okay, give me like a professional stamp of approval. But yeah, so it sounds to me what I'm hearing is that there's also a line between maybe conscious coping mechanisms and like unconscious ones, because I don't know that I recognize in the moment when I'm in denial, but I definitely recognize when I'm binge watching 12 seasons of some show.Jor-El: Yeah, and I think something like denial because it is, you know, as Freud would argue that it is innate. And so it is much easier for that to kind of roll by in our subconsciousness. And so it's hard to kind of catch that that's happening in the moment. Usually, there are those little moments that happen afterwards, at least for me, I'm like, “Oh…I was lying.”Anna: I love that we’re bringing Freud into this. Like very early. Like, welcome to the conversation, Freud.Jor-El: He’s been on my mind lately, you know?Anna: Just always. So I'm thinking a lot about the kind of like conscious coping mechanisms, you know, the ones that we perhaps feel a certain way about in the moment, you know, like I mentioned, mine, it's going to be my go to, I am very into the escapism, play a lot of video games, watch a lot of TV will do it for a very long period of time. And then, of course, as I'm doing it, even though it's like what I want to do, I just feel like guilty and like crap, and like, judging myself and not enjoying it in the moment. Is that common? Like, do you see this in your work?Jor-El: Yeah, I think it's really common. I mean, especially if we're talking about living through a global pandemic. I think it's really common for people to be using some skills that are finding ways to cope, that they're like, Ah, this isn't the best. Like, I don't feel great doing it. And I think, I don't know, I think that everything needs to happen in moderation. And so I always talk to people about having, like, you, obviously going to have your go to is like, I don't know, binge watching. Whatever show, right. I've been binge watching Frasier. You know, unsurprisingly, you know, more times than I can count. But, you know, it's like being able to have various things at your disposal, you should always have a toolbox, because sometimes it doesn't, it's not good to do one thing to escape, maybe you need different things to escape, maybe you need a little space to lean into something, and then you can pop back out, you know, back into escapism.Anna: I don’t pop out. That's my problem. Yeah, I live there.Anna: Hey. I’m just glad to know that all those nights I spent staying up until 3am playing Breath of the Wild or Fire Emblem 3 Houses or whatever my flavor of the week was  wasn’t for nothing. In fact, I think I’m going to go ahead and add playing video games to my coping mechanism toolbox. Officially. For real. After the break, we’ll finish up our interview with Jor-El Caraballo and talk about some of the most common coping mechanisms that come up in his work.MIDROLLAnna: Hey, welcome back to Mood Ring. I’m Anna Borges. Before the break we were talking about our shitty coping mechanisms, and by that I mean our awesome coping mechanisms that we’re working toward embracing,  with licensed therapist Jor-El Caraballo. Let’s get back to it.Anna: I would actually love to pause like, because we're binge watchers, it sounds like but for people who might not be this might not be like their go to I'm curious if you have any examples of other shame inducing, like, quote, unquote, shitty coping mechanisms that like you hear from from people you work with?Jor-El: Eating, it's right up there. Specifically like comfort food. And it's just so interesting, because, again, like, I come from this mindset that even something like that, like comfort food has definitely gotten this bad rap. Because like, Oh, it's just all the bad things you want to eat. First of all, there are no bad things. Second of all, they they're comforting for a reason, right? Either they provide some chemical reaction that we interpret our bodies interpret as really comforting, or… and or. We also have attached memories, right? That really put us in a comfortable, safe space emotionally when we revisit with those things. So it's okay. But again, it's like that can't be your only thing. Because then if you're only relying on you know, comfort food to cope, then you might end up creating some other problems that you have to deal with later, that that are unintentional. It's about finding that