AUDIO Is Isolating Good, Bad, or Both_
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[00:00:00] Welcome to the Neurotribe, the podcast where authenticity meets empowerment. Your host, Teresa, is a certified business executive and life coach navigating the intricate tapestry of neurodiversity. She's someone blessed with ADHD and dyslexia and gifted a widow and a mother to four incredible neurodiverse children.
So each episode of The Neuro Tribe is an intimate exploration of life, love, business, and parenting. Through the lens of neurodiversity. Subscribe to the Neuro Tribe on your favorite podcast platform or on YouTube and never miss a story. And if you really like this show, be sure to like, subscribe, rate, and of course, share the podcast with anyone who needs to hear it.
Join us on this unfiltered journey where no topic is too challenging, [00:01:00] no triumph too small. Let's unravel the layers of our community's experiences, embracing the struggles, celebrating the gifts, and finding empowerment and authenticity in every episode. And let's start right now. Friends, welcome back to the NeuroTribe.
I am so grateful to have all of you here. Thank you. Thank you. As we get into fall, I am loving watching the leaves change and I kind of think it's fun because Sometimes it's like the end of the tree branches, the leaves are changed to red and then they kind of go to yellow and then green and it almost looks like the trees are on fire at the ends.
Anyway, I love it. I love the fall. I always have. I love shifting to my fall clothes. I love combining dresses and boots. I'm a shoe person. I love [00:02:00] boots. I love shoes. Dresses and skirts and shoes are so cute. I've always thought so. And I had a pumpkin spice chai latte today. That was so good. Just saying, super good.
I'm going to talk to you about isolation and isolating. And this might be something that you're like, Oh yeah, I do that. Or it might be kind of a hot button. Whatever it is for you, we're just going to talk about it, okay, because I told you rules don't apply. Now, some people use isolating as a way to prevent burnout, and that is awesome, that works, that is great.
Maybe it's that you are needing isolation because you are feeling a little bit more overwhelmed, more than usual, or your sensory needs are heightened. That Maybe your schedule [00:03:00] is to fall, or you're feeling more anxiety than normal for some reason and isolation is just better for you to have that downtime so you can kind of regroup, check in with yourself and figure out what you were needing at the time.
There's also this way of isolating when you just feel like your schedule is too full and there's not really much you can take off of it. I'm kind of one of those people, right? I have a very full work day with clients and writing and meetings and budgeting and running my business, right? I am also a widow with four kids and they all have their very needs, whether it's.
therapy or a sports activity or robotics or whatever it is, right? So needing downtime and [00:04:00] isolation in some instances, almost like it's, it's, that's the only way that I get alone time to charge my battery, right? So it depends what you're using the isolation for. It could be that you are just one of those people that needs a lot of downtime.
Whether you are an introvert or an ambivert, meaning inter and extrovert, and just needing some downtime. And that is what you need to maintain yourself all for it. It could be that you have had burnout before and you're really not keen do it. Bye. Bye. So you very much protect your time and your alone time and your time to recharge your battery, or maybe it's that you are recovering from burnout and burnout takes two to [00:05:00] three, but two to three, no, burnout takes three to five years to recover from burnout.
So it could be that during that three to five years, you just need a lot of time alone. You need a lot of time alone in the quiet where you don't have any kind of demands on you to be able to fully recover from the burnout. It might be that you have a lot of social demands and you need that time. To be able to not have any demands on you, to just be a person, just be you, and not have anyone wanting or expecting anything from you.
And quite the opposite, you're moreover spending that time with a pet or your favorite person or, [00:06:00] you know, watching movies, playing video games, whatever it is. That you are enjoying yourself without any kind of demands, especially gifted folks, autistic, ADHD, all of us in past or all of us, sensitive folk, it could be that we are in a type of career or job where we have a lot of physical and or mental and emotional demands on us.
We just need a time where we're not talking or we're not holding that clean space for other people. We're giving ourselves that clean space, right? And these are all really good ways to utilize isolation and have isolation for ourselves. The question, moreover, is what is too much isolation? When have you taken it from something that is a utilizing [00:07:00] something that's a tool that we can utilize to now it's gone to the other end, it's reached that other end of the double edged sword, right?
And this is when you are noticing that your mental health is impacted. When you notice that you are. Are in a negative thought loop and these negative thought loops are causing a lot of anxious feelings inside or they're causing a lot of sadness inside or anger maybe or anxiety inside and you can't quite get a grip or or hold on those negative thought loops.
You know that isolation's gone to the other side. If having this isolation isn't giving you the desired results, meaning if you're isolating to fill your cup or recharge your battery, but you're [00:08:00] noticing that when you need to do the things that you're doing, you're not getting your cup refilled and you not are not recharging your battery.
Moreover, you're feeling more tired, more fatigue. You're feeling sad. Maybe your sensory needs are going up. Maybe you're feeling irritated a little bit more. Maybe your executive functioning is on a decline rather than an incline. So you might be thinking to yourself, Wait a minute, Teresa. Is isolation a good thing or a bad thing?
And the answer is yes to both. We can utilize isolation to our benefit and also it can be one of those things where it's not serving our greatest good, right? So if you are noticing that you're sad, you're anxious, you're more tired than you were before, you're, you're not feeling the grievance that you have, even though you have been [00:09:00] isolating, that is time when it's time to kind of reassess as to how can we help you or how can you help yourself in a way that is going to work, right?
Because maybe isolation was working before, And it isn't anymore, or you were isolating, but the time has gone on and gone on and gone on, and it's too much now, and it's been too long. And now your, your body and your mind is giving you clues that it's time to kind of come out of the, isolation, or it's time to come out of the cave.
So some questions you can ask yourself is where is my comfort zone? So, if I am going to start coming out in this isolation, where do I feel comfortable? Maybe you are wanting someone to come over, hang out next to you by the [00:10:00] fire, or come over and sit out on your front porch. Maybe you feel better in the woods, you want to go on a walk.
Or, you know, there's a favorite park that you really love or a beach that you love. Maybe it is that you really feel good at this certain restaurant or your favorite food is at that certain restaurant. We all love coffee. I know we do. We all love coffee and tea. So maybe it is a favorite coffee spot or a favorite tea spot.
So figuring out what is your comfort zone, where do you feel the best? Another question is, who do you trust? Who do you spend time with or are around that you end up leaving their presence and you feel good, or you trust them to see you in a vulnerable state? So asking yourself questions like this can be helpful.
Another really [00:11:00] good one is, do you have a time limit? If you've been isolating and it has been a long time. You might have a time limit, all right? It might be an hour is good enough for now or two hours is good enough for now or Maybe it's I can handle a 20 minute walk and then I want to rest Whatever that, I froze again, whatever that time limit looks like for you Ask yourself ahead of time, figure that out ahead of time and then you might surprise yourself And be able to have more time out, or you notice maybe you had a half an hour or an hour to visit with a friend or a family member.
But then since you're out, you're going to stop by the store on the way home anyway, or maybe you want to pick up some more yarn or go to the craft store or whatever it is, but you're already out. So, hey, why not? Right? And even though you're not with somebody while [00:12:00] you're running errands or while you go out to do your hobby type things, It still feels good to get out and about a little bit more.
Asking yourself at this time, as you are kind of pulling yourself out of the isolation, how often do you want to make plans for yourself? If you have plans that you already have in your business, or your work day, or your kids, or whatever it is, that's fine. It's totally fine. And you're not changing that.
That's totally fine. But as you're coming out of the isolation and you've figured out who you feel good around and you figure out what, what your time limit is, and you figure out where are the favorite places that you like to go. Also, how often do you want to come out? Maybe for a while it, okay, I can handle once a month, I will go out and socialize, or I will.
You know, [00:13:00] have somebody over once a month and that is good for you for a while. Maybe it could be a year that you have this routine where once a month, you have some sort of it's me time or it's me and my friend time. Is there a friend, a family member, or a loved one that you can actually hick a day at a time, once a month?
Where you guys are continually getting together with and going for breakfast at your favorite breakfast place or whatever it is. I'm going to give a couple of different examples here because everybody is different and everybody thinks differently and everybody responds differently. But this is to kind of help yourself gauge where are you as far as how far down the dark rabbit hole you have gone.
I, I think this one's important [00:14:00] because you kind of want to, to gauge As to how much do you need to seek for help for coming out of your isolation, right? How long have you been in isolation? How much depth of negative self talk or, worrying thoughts have you had? Right? So if you were to give yourself a gauge onto 1 to 10, and 10 is like you are doing amazing and awesome and you are ready.
To come out and go to the beach and hang out and whatever. And one in, this is the worst you have ever been in your entire life. If you are like a follow five, then that is when you really got to ask yourself, Am I open to contacting a therapist? Am I open to asking [00:15:00] and receiving help? What result do I want to get from that?
Right? Is it, do I, do I feel better talking to females? Do I feel better talking to males? Do I feel better talking to non binary? Figure out what works for you, but if you were on a scale of one to five and you're less than five, that is the time where you really want to ask a team to help you. Ask family members, ask friends, contact a therapist, find a neuro friendly therapist, of course, and, you know, ask help for an ND coach.
Feel free to reach out to me. If you are below a 5, I also suggest working in team or tandem with a therapist. Now for some of you, working on a scale of 1 to 10 is just not, It doesn't compute, it doesn't work, and that's totally fine. The question is more over how do you feel inside? [00:16:00] Most days, are you feeling neutral?
Most days, are you feeling you are not doing good? Or most days you're feeling like, I got this, right? Wherever it is on the scale for you, do you have people that are expressing concern about you? If you have people that are expressing concern about you, that's probably time to ask and receive help. There can be this beauty in asking for help when people get it, when people truly understand what you've been going through and they get it, and that's not to mean where they get on that negative bandwagon with you and, and you guys spend your time of.
Woe is me, woe is me, this is so hard, this is so hard, I know what you mean, I hate this, I know what you mean, I hate this, I hate this person, I hate this person, I hate this [00:17:00] situation, I hate this situation. There can be a little bit of camaraderie in I get what you mean and that bothers me too, but there's a difference when you are talking to people and they get where you're at and they get your neural complexity.
And your cognitive differences, and they can kind of help guide you to help yourself pull out of that. Does that make sense? There's a big difference between hanging out with someone or a group of people, whether it's online or in person. And they're all on the bat, the negative self talk and the negative, Yeah.
bandwagon of all of the things that we hate. And then there's the other where you have people who get it and get you and love you and support you and also kind of pull you out of [00:18:00] the negative tailspin that you might be feeling. As you've been in isolation for too long. So as you are noticing that it's time to come out of isolation and you are asking these really important questions such as where is my comfort zone?
Who are my people? Who do I reach out for out? Who do I reach out to? Is an ND coach something, someone I'm willing to work with, or do I want to, or need to be working with? A neural, a neural friendly therapist, right? Or maybe both. The question that you really want to ask yourself is, are these people, this person, these sources that you're going to be reaching out to, are they going to then get in the mud with you and wallow around in the mud with you?
Or are they going to get in the mud with you and help you find a [00:19:00] way out of the mud? That's the biggest question. Because if you are using isolation as a tool, and it worked great for a while, and now it's not, the most important thing is to find new tools. And use the isolation the way it's meant to be used and also get new tools that can help you feel good and be able to take care of yourself and manage your mental, emotional, and physical state long term.
Thank you so much. I so appreciate you listening. If you enjoyed this, please like, subscribe, share, go on to TeresaMinnok. com, check out the mini courses, set an appointment, join our NeuroTribe. I love you all. Take care. Bye bye.
