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

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.

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

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

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

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, Meme

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,

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 hi

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

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

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

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 h