Honor Your Energy: Build Rhythms That Restore

Renae: Welcome to this episode of It Doesn’t Have to Be This Way. I’m Renae, and today we’re talking about building rhythms that restore, especially when life gets louder. If your calendar is getting fuller, there are all sorts of things that are. If your calendar is getting fuller and you’re noticing that there is less and less Space and time to dedicate to things that you need to and want to do. And maybe your energy is feeling a little bit thinner. I want to remind you, this is not a sign of brokenness.

It’s a sign that your rhythm has changed. During seasons when things are progressing as normal, there’s not as many interruptions or it’s not holiday or vacation time. We we build a sort of pattern, a rhythm that helps to support us as we’re going through life and addressing the challenges that occur and the stressors. But when we hit these seasons where there’s more expectation, there’s a change in schedule, there’s a change in the requirements of energy that’s needed, whether it’s to accomplish tasks or to be around different groups of people or to to enjoy celebrations or traditions. It changes our rhythm.

One of the things that we can do is look at how we’re scheduling things, and when. A default for a lot of people is time blocking, which can absolutely be helpful. But during stressful season, it sometimes ignores your nervous system. And the truth is, your nervous system is running your show. So today I’m going to offer some approaches that might be a little kinder to your nervous system. The basic one is energy based scheduling. It’s creating these tiny patterns that fit what our capacity actually is and helps us to end the day, maybe with more resources than when we started.

I’ve been a big fan of time blocking for my business for quite a while. It was the fall of twenty twenty two, when I encountered a program that helped me to take a look at my entire quarter for that fall and tell the truth about my expectations versus reality. And I’ve done project management, and I’ve done planning for teams and for myself, and in large scale projects where I had to map resources to outcomes and inputs and all of those things. But I hadn’t had this is the first time I had a business, and I was doing it for myself. And as the, the owner and the the in charge adult of my business when I recognized is I was not being realistic about what I could actually accomplish in that particular time and space.

I didn’t know how much energy it was going to take to have a business. I didn’t know what it was going to cost me to have these major transitions out of corporate settings and organizational settings, and to be responsible for myself, what that drain was going to be on my nervous system. And so when I was breaking down these tasks and assigning times to them, I was assigning that to a different version of myself that had a different reality. And so it didn’t actually work because not because I didn’t have discipline, but because I wasn’t aware of what was really happening with my energy. I was so used to just going and doing and making the things happened.

That’s how I’ve lived my life for a really long time. But I didn’t have that same scaffolding and that same support system in place, so it didn’t. It just didn’t work. So what did what did I do? I had to move from time blocking, which was organizing my hours and saying, during this, this section of time, this is the task that I’m going to be focusing on so I can limit distractions. And again, there are absolutely places that this is very helpful when you have a predictable support system, when you have a predictable scaffolding, when you have a container that is not rapidly changing or affected by other things or, that is different, that you have had time to develop the container that’s going to support those that time blocking, instead looking at energy based scheduling.

It organizes capacity, right? It is being aware and honest and thoughtful about the reality that you’re living in in that moment. So there’s two shifts that can make it really kind for ourselves. When we’re thinking about moving from time blocking to energy based scheduling. The first is we let energy lead and time follow. This feels very different than our productive culture, right? That’s focused on outcomes and deliverables and that we we only.

We all have the same amount of time during the day, but we don’t all have the same energy. We don’t all have the same responsibilities. We don’t all have the same challenges or support. Okay, so that’s number one. We let energy lead and time follow. Second, we add buffers and caps so that we’re not stealing from other parts of our week. Okay. So we’re not producing more right. It is not that we are that we’re moving things over and then ending up with a time deficit, or pretending that we can take time from another space.

We are telling the truth about what we have in the moment, and what we can and cannot do. And we’re predicting we’re protecting our ability to keep going. We’re protecting our sustainability. So we’ll talk a little bit more about those buffers and caps in a moment. But I want to invite you to just do a quick energy audit with me If it’s available to you, you can grab a writing utensil, a pen or a pencil paper, or do this digitally and create three columns for yourself one with morning, one with afternoon, and one with evening.

Okay, so three columns morning, afternoon and evening. And so then thinking about your own personal rhythms on a typical day, or maybe we can look at the last number of weeks just for your reality right now and identify which one of those morning, afternoon or evening is when you have the highest energy. And when you’ve identified that, you can put a little star next to that window. Okay, then take a look at where’s your lowest energy? Morning, afternoon or evening?

And when you identify that, you can put a little dot next to that low energy window. Okay. And then thinking about the different types of tasks that you do. We’re thinking about these three categories of tasks now. One is focus, one is administrative and one is relational. And so when you identify a task that is something that has to happen during a day and saying, is this something I need to focus on? Is this an administrative task or is this a relational task?

Then identifying where should this task go in these columns based on when I have energy? So for instance, if I have a work that I have to focus on that I’ve been struggling to start because I know it’s going to take so much of my time and focus, and I want to get into flow. An example for me is I’m currently building this web page for an event, and it’s not just the page, it’s the form. It’s the automations, it’s the emails, it’s the social media. Right?

So all of that coming together means I need a good block of time, and I need to be able to focus during that time. And so that’s something where I need the energy that will sustain me for that focus and for that flow. And so then I would put that particular task in whatever my high energy window is, whether it’s morning, afternoon or evening. What if I have something that is creative or relational where there’s there’s still an energy, component to it? I it takes energy for me to be attuned, to be collaborative, to be creative, to access that part of my brain.

But I don’t have to be in that flow state. I put that into the medium column. For me, that might be something like, uh, maybe creating the graphics for the different sessions of the event. Or maybe it is having a zoom call, with someone or, maybe even it is, spending a little bit of, of time learning something it’s I’m still paying attention, but I don’t have a huge energy drain, so that would be medium. And then an admin or something that’s maybe even restorative that would go into the low column and that could be answering emails or sorting my files or checking my to do list for the morning or for the afternoon to make sure that I’ve addressed anything that’s urgent.

It’s an administrative or in a restorative in that I am putting things into a container so that I can move from one task or one environment to another. I can end my workday. Okay. So thinking about that, that mini energy audit, maybe that is a is a way that can help you to identify if you’re if I’m trying to do these high energy focused things, these tasks, and it’s happening at a time when I, when I have lower energy, maybe that’s that’s not it. Right.

And and for myself, I have ups and downs throughout the day that are definitely impacted by how much sleep I got. Did I get enough protein? Have I moved enough? Do I have enough water? There’s all these things that will set up what’s happening in my biological reality. And so it’s actually a little bit unpredictable. But I do know, like there will be a three o’clock slump. That absolutely will happen. It does every day pretty much my whole life. So I identifying where these these potential dips in energy are going to be, knowing when I can start and stop tasks.

It’s that’s less time blocking and more energy based scheduling if your day is unpredictable. And that’s okay because there are some things that we can do that we can build these micro rhythms that will support us. So let’s talk about that rhythm architecture. And here is a scaffold that I think is is pretty awesome. For now that we have these energy energy based scheduling um, concept There are some ways that we can create a little more structure for that, that tell the truth of us needing to be flexible and adjust when things change.

So there are anchors, buffers, caps and recovery. So if we start with anchors, those are repeatable actions that bookend the day. So it gives me a cue for this is we’re entering into this mode and then we’re we’re leaving this mode. So it could be your full day. It could be your work day. It could be portions of your day. But what you’re building is these these cues that give your brain and body the direction from your practice that you’ve built of it is it is time to transition, or we have what we need to move to the next thing.

Okay. And so thinking about that, there are three anchors that I can suggest for you. You can have others. but these are some three, three basic um move, nourish and connect. Okay. So movement could be whatever type of movement that you need to do. Maybe it is a stretch, maybe it is, standing up. Maybe it is moving from one room to another. it’s some type of movement, something that’s physical. Okay, so that’s one, nourish is the next. And nourish isn’t just for nutrition.

It can also be reading something, writing something, a practice that fills you. Whether that’s, prayer, whether that is, a small art project. It could be there’s all sorts of things that it could be. Whatever it is that nourishes you, it might be a cup of coffee or a drink. It might be a snack, but it can be a lot of things. So that movement so that physical impact the nourish, which is to make sure that you are fueled and content for that moment and then to connect.

And so that connect is to connect with yourself as the check in with yourself. What is it that I need? What will help me to feel content in this moment? Do I have everything to move to the next part of my day? Okay, so having that bookend your day, these anchors of move, nourish and connect. Next is buffers and as I’ve been working with my capacity clients, this is an area that is really pretty fun and frustrating to have conversations around buffers.

Um, a lot of people, myself included, have lived a life of you just go from one meeting to the next, especially with the introduction of zoom and virtual meetings where we’re we could we are moving from one meeting to the next, there, back to back to back. And buffers are actually really important for us, not only for us to be biologically, sound that we have our needs met, but also to give transition so that we are not carrying emotions and stressors from one situation to another. And these are these margins can have all sorts of different time limits, but the minimum would be about a ten minute margin. And this to have that before or after demanding tasks. So it could be certain types of meetings or certain types of technical tasks or certain types of, of movement, maybe even the a commute or a transition where it is just ten minutes, where you’re taking time to breathe, maybe to revisit some of those anchors in that transition.

What what is it that I need right now? And the thing is, is that when we don’t when we have them for a while and then we don’t have them. Boy, do we feel it right when we have them. It is the ease of moving from one Input one place where we are, where investing our energy and our attention, we’re able to recoup some of that. We’re able to take a breath. And our bodies aren’t meant to go from meeting to meeting to meeting to meeting, neither our bodies or brains or task to task to task.

We we actually do need breaks. It’s part of of our recovery system. and so our buffers are boundaries in disguise or maybe not in disguise. Maybe they’re just our boundaries. Remember, boundaries are not what we are imposing on someone else, but it’s something that we are creating for ourselves. A container that helps us to get our needs met. Okay, so that’s buffers. Those are margins before and after demanding tasks. The next one is caps. Now these are important because they are limits that protect our capacity.

And they’re they’re a form of a boundary that we are giving ourselves, that it’s a standard of support. And it could be things like no meetings after four. Or I can give a ninety minute max amount of time for social events, because that’s the capacity that I have. Or I’m only taking two speaking engagements on a day, or I’m only committing to one type of this service work a week, because it takes so much out of me, and I want to be available for for myself and for others the rest of the week. And so it’s the it is not a, a hoarding of our energy or time.

It is making sure that we have capacity so that we can have recovery, which is our next step. And these are the planned pauses that help us to make these transitions when we get to a place, when we get to a new. Part of our day where we need to recover our energy. We start with an orienting. And so it could be noticing something that is around us. but it is looking up and being aware of our surroundings, not in a hypervigilant way, but in orienting way.

Here I am, I’m in this space. I’m noticing these lights. I’m I can see these cats. I’m noticing my skin’s a little cool because the weather is cooling down. I’m noticing a little thirsty. So you’re just noticing things. You’re arriving in this time and space right here, right now, and then anchoring with some breathing. So this can be all there’s all different sorts of breathing that can be for you, but it is breathing in. And exhaling is noticing your spine.

Letting that lengthen is being aware of the breath coming in and out of your body, and part of what you’re doing when you’re breathing in and out here is you’re activating your sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system where you’re meeting your need, you’re coming back to your center in that. So going through a few cycles of that like at least five. And then you can move to your next kind step. What is the next best kind step for myself? How am I going to recover?

How am I going to Renourish. Right. So those are these are these pieces of our architecture that when we we practice them, we are building sustainability because we have structure, right? So we’re still it’s not a rigidity. It is making sure we have the things that we do need to do, what we need to do. If we were looking at this from a mechanical level, right. Because that might be easier to start with. We can look at what does a car need in order to drive.

Right. So we we do regular maintenance on the car. We make sure that the tires are full. Well, why do we need to do that? Well, because there are all sorts of things that can change the air pressure in a tire. We could have hit something. The tire could be old. it could get colder outside. It could get warmer outside. There’s all sorts of things that could change the tire pressure. And so we pay attention to what does the tire need in order to do what it needs to do?

Can we drive it when it has low pressure? Yes. Is there going to be an impact later? Probably. Right. So it’s just making sure it’s that maintenance piece. It’s checking in. What does that tire need? If the car needs fuel, the car needs oil. The car needs an air filter. So it’s breathing in and out, right? So there’s all these things that a car needs. And in, in order to maintain that engine to function for it to stay in alignment, there is a pattern to care.

And the same thing for humans. There’s a rhythm that we build for ourselves. And it’s different because we’re not machines. So we’re they’re they’re movable. They’re organic. They’re they’re based in our biology because we are humans. And so that’s why this rhythm architecture scaffold does. So it’s the three anchors, its buffers, its caps and its recovery. Okay, so with that in mind, how does how does this look. You might take a look at that your coming week.

You know we are at the time of this recording we’re heading into more of a holiday season. We’re heading into times where people have some higher level needs in our community. There’s there’s more demand on our energy and our time on our resources. And so this becomes even more important to make sure that we can sustain that. We have a plan, because when we have a plan, our nervous system is more able to regulate because we’re now responding instead of reacting because we have a plan.

And so thinking about maybe you can draw up a a coming week and identify how are you feeling, what’s your rhythm of your week? What’s how does Monday feel different than Thursday, or how does Wednesday feel different than Friday? where are we baking in these times where we have extra recovery or we have buffers of margin, where we are limiting because we know that on this particular day, in the evening, I have this event that I need to go to, and so I need to hold some energy from earlier in the day for so that I have it later in the day. when you’re doing this, I just want to really encourage that. That self-compassion here is very important.

We’re going to get this wrong a lot. And when I say get this wrong, what means we’re we’re going to make estimates or guesses that won’t come to full fulfillment, that will not be fulfilled in the way that we think that they might. And and that’s okay. This is part of our learning. And there’s going to be times that we will we will do something that we’ve been doing for a long time, say, oh, this is something we normally do and then recognize it no longer works.

Whether we’ve hit a plateau, whether the circumstances have changed, whether there are resources that are no longer there. and we will think that they’re there, but we won’t be really aware until we’re taking a look. We’re actually being intentional about looking at what our infrastructure and architecture are around our energy, around our schedule and around our capacity. So one of the things that we can do is to develop a script that helps us to hold boundaries in really kind ways for ourselves and others. Language is really important for that.

So we think of this as a no plus because plus offer. Okay, so I don’t have a hard time, just my personality and my ex experiences have developed a great capacity for setting boundaries for myself and communicating those to other people. And I don’t have a trouble saying no to people. and part of it’s because I have I have learned through painful burnout and compassion fatigue what it is like when I am not being thoughtful and my yeses and my nos. But if that is not where you’re at and you’re looking for a framework or a structure, perhaps this script could help.

And it’s no because offer. So the an example is if you would say I can’t take that on this week because my plate is full, I can revisit this on Tuesday or I can recommend someone else. what you’ve done there is say no, I can’t because of this. Here’s what I can do. that’s that is one thing you can do. you can also, Reset expectations. And that is when you recognize that you’re not going to be able to deliver, um, or that there have been challenges or something has changed.

It is communicating that ahead of time. so that expectation, reset looks like maybe saying, given what’s happened this week, I’m going to move this draft deadline to Friday so that we can keep quality high. Right. So it’s it’s preparing somebody for change and explaining what’s going to happen. Notice that it’s an invitation to enter the emotional and physical reality, along with what the plan is and how that will serve all parties. Okay. And then another one can be, Something.

It’s a good enough reframe or a swap. Okay, so maybe you had committed to, bringing a dessert to a dinner, and you recognize that you don’t have the capacity to bake the thing that you wanted to bake. so you’re communicating this ahead of time, saying we’re bringing something from the store because we thought it was more important for us to be able to enjoy the evening than to show up late and stressed. Right. So it’s thinking about how do we how do we communicate.

And it’s not an apology of that. There’s something wrong with that store brought dessert. It’s just communicating expectations. This is what the capacity that I have. And let’s celebrate that we actually the benefit is we get to enjoy the evening. Okay. So what happens when you have, let’s do some troubleshooting. What happens if you have an unpredictable schedule? think about the micro anchors that you can do in a minute. Remember, anchors are small, repeatable actions of move, nourish and connect.

And so what is it something that you can do that helps you to reset and come back to yourself. So breathing might be one of those, stopping to get a glass of water might be one of those, connecting with even texting a buddy and saying things are going differently than I thought. Just needed to tell somebody, thank you for listening. Right. Whatever. Those those micro anchors are something that you can do that helps you to to regulate your nervous system and come back to what you can do and remind you that you’re connected to yourself.

Maybe your executive functioning is feeling a little wobbly. so maybe this needs to be very, very visible externally. maybe you need sticky notes. Maybe you need, calendar invitations to yourself. maybe you need a a schedule that’s listed. whatever those things are, giving yourself the visual cue and the reminder that you are worthy of taking this time, of setting these boundaries, of maintaining your capacity, of building your margin. This this is this external view of it.

Maybe that helps. what if you have, shift worked instead of a typical Nine to five Monday through Friday. Then you can make your rhythm based on sequences versus clock. So it may just be that your your it’s not a habit necessarily, but your your pattern patterns, your rhythm of moving from one thing to the other is not around a time. So it’s not around a month morning, afternoon and evening, but instead it’s based on the sequence I wake up. I’m going to drink some water right away.

I’m going to stretch, I’m going to enjoy some light, and then I’m going to make my list for what I need to do next. Right? Like, this is how we can transition from one state to another. What about if family obligations feel like that? They might be, um. Increasing Creasing or interrupting or overpowering. One thing we could do is to share what our caps are, what our boundaries are, um, in a non-defensive way, but in a, in a way that says, I’m here’s how I am protecting my peace, or here’s how I’m creating capacity for myself.

and then ask for one small co-regulation support. And this is really great to normalize that we need each other and that we’re partnering in these things, in all of these things together as humans. And so an example might be, um, to, to create a code word or a script that activates an action. Okay. So for instance, an example, say when I say reset, can we just pause for 60s and breathe. Before we move on to the next thing, Because I’m recognizing that I’m reaching the end of my capacity and I would like someone to journey with me in this, because if I’m going to reach my capacity, there’s a chance that you might be reaching the end of yours as well.

The short version of that is when we say reset, let’s just pause for 60s just pause and breathe. Remember good things about each other. Remember good things about ourselves, whatever the thing happens to be, coming back to our why, whatever it is. So setting that code word for yourself and then practicing co-regulation. So what is our micro practice that we can try from thinking about all of this information, as we’ve talked about, energy based scheduling Learning versus time blocking.

We’ve talked about how to do a mini energy audit, to think about when we are going to do our focus, admin and relational tasks. Our rhythm architecture with our anchors, buffers, caps and recovery time and our scripts and boundaries. So what if right now you took one action for scheduling one ten minute buffer this week, and then one anchor that you use at the beginning and the end of each day for this is for one week. And that one anchor, when I say each day, I don’t really mean each day. Most days is fine.

So try one ten minute buffer that you’re going to put into this week. Just one. does, one where all you’re doing in that time is recovering. Just recovering. Right. Breathing. Taking care of yourself. And then one anchor that you’ll keep most days. Remember that that’s a movement or something that nourishes you, or a connection that you’ll do most days. And maybe it will help you to have someone that you can reach out to for accountability. You finding finding your identifying who that person is and telling them that you’re going to try something new, maybe text them or call them.

I’m trying something new. I’m for these next five days. These next five days, I’m going to try a new rhythm and ask them to check in with you in five days, and then take a moment at the end of those five days and see how did that feel to schedule that ten minute buffer, and how did it feel to engage in those anchors? On most days. Okay. All right. I can’t wait to hear from you how that went. and if you want support in practicing these types of things, we invite you to join our restoration sessions.

We have them each month, three days of short experiential sessions that will study you. Um, we’re focusing on this November on our holidays. It’s free, with forty eight hour replays. And there is an RSVP, link in the show notes and on the website, reminder that the members of the pause membership, get lifetime access and expanded guides. so you can have ongoing access to it, but it is free for everyone for the forty eight hours after each session is available.

All right. I just want to remind you that your energy is not flawed. You are not broken. You don’t need to be fixed. The limitations that you are hitting are helping you to listen to what it is that you need. Okay, so your affirmation for this week is going forward. My pace is a boundary and a kindness. My pace is a boundary and a kindness and I am worth it. I’m Renae, thanks for being here and see you next time. on it doesn’t have to be this way.