Dr. Liz: [00:00:00] Now more than ever. We have an opportunity to be a positive force in the world to help heal the divide, to treat each other and ourselves with respect. Well, there's so many tools out there from meditation to physical training, proper nutrition therapy, and so many others. We all need a little help navigating all the options.
Join us as we share in-depth information, insights and thought provoking discussions that will help answer your questions about how to stay calm, cool, and connected. During these times. Welcome to calm, cooling, connected your guidebook to peace of mind.
Hello and welcome to calm colon connected. I'm your host Dr.
Elizabeth bay. And our culture of busy. It's almost a badge of honor to be overly stressed, busy, even overwhelmed. And if you can relate to this type of lifestyle, it's probably worth asking yourself what is the value of living under so much stress and really what is the impact on our mental and emotional.
Joining us today is crystal Jackson, a licensed professional [00:01:00] counselor, a group practice owner, and a mental wellness speaker. Crystal is joining us to talk about the importance of obtaining ease in both work and your personal life, and to provide some ideas on how to do so. Hi, crystal, and welcome to our show.
Hi,
Krystal Jackson: thanks for having me.
Dr. Liz: Thank you so much for joining us before we jump in. Let's talk a little bit about your background and the work that you do in the mental
Krystal Jackson: health. Yeah. So I really love working with helping professionals. I think we've seen a huge need for mental health support for people who are so they value so much helping other people to be well.
Right. So one of the things that I had to focus on for myself was my own healing and my own self care. And that's really why I enjoy talking about this very topic that we're speaking about.
Dr. Liz: Yeah, and it is so important and it's so important as I referenced in the introduction that we really are a culture of busy and of chaos.
And so we just think that that's normal [00:02:00] and the impact that it's taking on our mental health is really serious. How would you describe when you talk about the ease in work and personal life, what does that mean to you? How would you describe it?
Krystal Jackson: Yeah. So I think a lot of the focus is really on self care.
Right? We see it as very trendy people talk about it, but for me, ease means really shifting, incorporating, you know, self care, not as something that is a reward for us, right? Because we accomplished so much or something that we have to do because we need to recover. But as something that is integral to our wellness and just the very definition of ease is having the absence of difficulty or making something.
Painful. So I think we need to really start with looking at our overall life daily habits, right. And what things that we do each and every day that helps us to support our wellness. And that helps us to feel more at ease.
Dr. Liz: Absolutely. I completely agree. What are some areas that you might start to dig [00:03:00] in with when you're starting to work with a new client?
So we can look at this from the angle of, you know, what are some of the things that they're doing, that's creating disease. And what are the, some of the things that they're not doing? And so where do you
Krystal Jackson: start with that? Yeah. Dr. Fedrick, you're absolutely right. We have to definitely start with looking at what are the things that we're doing right now that are working right.
Things, what habits, what appointments, what interactions are we having that help us to feel well, do more of that. And then looking at what things bring up and stir up a little bit of that uneasiness and discomfort for us paying attention to how our body is responding to things, how our energy feels after we were engaged in.
With people or, you know, efforts at work and meetings or certain clients. Right. That is very important because that gives us information. So a lot of times that's where we start, what's working, what's not working. How can I do more of what helps me to feel well and how can I make shifts and what doesn't, what contributes to me feeling [00:04:00] drained or not as.
Dr. Liz: Absolutely. And what are some of the barriers that you see your clients face when you're exploring through, you know, th these are some things that might be helpful. This would be a good place to set a boundary. What is some of the pushback that you might get from a
Krystal Jackson: client? Yeah, I really, I will tell you one of the major things is that people, how people define what it means to be productive.
Hmm, right. We are. So, especially in the us as Americans, we are, it's so ingrained in us to equate our value with what things we can get done. And I saw a quote that said to be productive is really about attaining a goal. So if my goal is to rest, if my goal is to have more ease, is that then not productive.
Am I not reaching that goal. So really helping people to shift how we're defining what it means to be valuable and what it means for us to, to, to, to, to be productive, not necessarily about what we're giving out, but also what we are able to keep, [00:05:00] or, you know, incorporate for ourselves. Yeah, I
Dr. Liz: love that.
That is such a good point because when we're all just constantly busy and we're just in the rat race, we it's really easy to just do a lot of busy work. And then, you know, we're not actually being productive. We're not actually solving anything often. We're really just spinning our wheels. And so by really setting these clear goals and knowing when you've achieved something, I love, I love how you're approaching that.
Krystal Jackson: Yeah. And I will tell you one of the things that really helps me when I started my journey was someone encouraged me to schedule time each day to do. Um, Whether that was five minutes, 10 minutes, an hour, whatever it looked like. And each day that can shift right during the weekdays, I may only have 15 minutes to do nothing, but just to get used to being here, being present, you know, one of the reasons why my company is named simply being is because.
We are here. That's our purpose to be here. Not necessarily have all the other things that we, you don't [00:06:00] find valuable. So scheduling and time to just get, be okay with doing nothing is a great way to start incorporating getting comfortable with feeling more of that easily. Yeah. Great
Dr. Liz: point. And what about for your clients?
Who, who say, I mean, this is the infamous line. I always hear. I don't have time for that. I don't have time for rest. I don't have time to do nothing. What is your pushback? Was that.
Krystal Jackson: Yeah. So, I mean, do you have time to be sick? Do you have time to be unwell as always my pushback, right. And if we are doing things on the front end as a preventative measure, right, then that definitely keeps us from having to go back and recover.
Right. So I think helping people to see that there's benefit and making these shifts, and it doesn't have to be anything super grand, right. I'm not asking you to do anything that you have to spend money on. I'm not asking you to go out and do anything. That's elaborate. SIM make these simple. Right. If you know that you don't like waking up early [00:07:00] and kind of getting two things, right?
Why are you forcing yourself to do with them? Right. Let's put it out a space where it's going to be, it's going to be more meaningful, more valuable for you. So then there's not that much conflict. And so I think by helping people to just see that if we're more in alignment, if we understand our habits, right.
And our routines, and if we are in tune with our thoughts, all of these things together are going to help with adding ease to our.
Dr. Liz: Absolutely. What are a couple of your favorite self-care maybe a little bit outside of the box. You know, we talked a lot about the basics of self-care, but what are a couple ideas that you give to your clients?
A really tangible ways to
Krystal Jackson: practice self-care. Yes. So I love looking at the way we start our day and the way we end our day, really paying attention to our routines is going to help us. And so by doing my morning routine, I can do it as short as five or 10 minutes, or I can elongate it right. If I need to.
So really paying attention to. How we're starting Harbor ending because [00:08:00] that helps us to be able to transition and give us this like great bookends, you know, to our day and times to be able to really be more in tune and to check in with ourselves of those. That's really one of the ways that I start with self with self care.
But other than that, it's really. What things do you like doing? Maybe you got to go back to your childhood and figure out what things that you really enjoy. Incorporate more of that. Make more space for that. Write it down on the calendar and make a contract with yourself and, you know, get more involved with the things that bring you joy.
Do
Dr. Liz: you find that your clients struggle with identifying things that they enjoy? That is a really common conversation I have with my clients that they are. I don't know, I don't have hobbies. I don't have interest. I don't know what I enjoy. Do you experience that with your clients?
Krystal Jackson: Absolutely. And so I always say, you know what, just start with somewhere.
What, what have you always said? Maybe I would go back and do this thing. Right. And, and, and start with that. And if you like it, do more of it. Maybe that's not necessarily the thing for you, right. [00:09:00] Also people can inspire us. So there may be something that you bookmarked on your social media or something that your kid or your loved one is saying, let's do this right.
Instead of saying no, say yes, engage in it. You never know kind of what what's going to connect with you until you really start doing.
Dr. Liz: Yes. And I love how you say you take it back to your childhood. That's such a great point. What did you like doing when you have the time and space to do things and doing more of that?
That's a great point. Where can our viewers find more about you? Where are you on social media, your website?
Krystal Jackson: Yeah. So you can learn about our group practice, simply being wellness counseling as simply being counseling that come. I like to hang out on Instagram and I am crystal CJ or on Twitter. I am crystal CJ.
One. I tend to put some tips about mental health and wellness self-care and overall just mindset and how to again, incorporate and live a life with ease. Great.
Dr. Liz: It's so helpful. Thank you so much for being here, crystal. We appreciate
Krystal Jackson: it. Thank you so much, angel.
Dr. Liz: And thank you all for tuning in to this episode of [00:10:00] Collin cooling, connected.
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