Log in

goodpods headphones icon

To access all our features

Open the Goodpods app
Close icon
headphones
Mood Ring

Mood Ring

American Public Media

Mood Ring is a practical guide to feelings. Every episode, host and mental health writer Anna Borges explores one new way we can cope with our feelings, our baggage, or the world around us—especially in a society where access to mental health care and the ability to practice self-care are both huge privileges. Through Anna's self-aware humor and vibrant guest interviews, the podcast shares creative self-care ideas you may not have heard before, as well as realistic takes on classic mental health tips.
bookmark
Share icon

All episodes

Best episodes

Top 10 Mood Ring Episodes

Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best Mood Ring episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to Mood Ring for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite Mood Ring episode by adding your comments to the episode page.

Mood Ring - Be Lamby

Be Lamby

Mood Ring

play

08/04/22 • 16 min

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/survey


Follow Mood Ring @moodringshow


Follow Anna ​​@annabroges


Mood Ring is a production of American Public Media and Pizza Shark!


Full Transcript


SOFT 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 th...

bookmark
plus icon
share episode
Mood Ring - If-firmations

If-firmations

Mood Ring

play

09/15/22 • 21 min

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 answer


Follow Mood Ring @moodringshow


Follow Anna ​​@annabroges


Mood Ring is a production of American Public Media and Pizza Shark!


bookmark
plus icon
share episode
Mood Ring - Embrace Your Sh*tty Coping Mechanisms
play

05/05/22 • 19 min

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.


MUSIC


If 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 MUSIC


Hey 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 ...

bookmark
plus icon
share episode
Mood Ring - Introducing Mood Ring
play

04/13/22 • 2 min

Mood Ring is a practical guide to feelings. Every episode, host and mental health writer Anna Borges explores one new way we can cope with our feelings, our baggage, or the world around us—especially in a society where access to mental health care and the ability to practice self-care are both huge privileges. Through Anna's self-aware humor and vibrant guest interviews, the podcast shares creative self-care ideas you may not have heard before, as well as realistic takes on classic mental health tips.

bookmark
plus icon
share episode
Mood Ring - The One Minute Rule
play

05/12/22 • 20 min

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 Transcript


Anna 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 MUSIC


I'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 ...

bookmark
plus icon
share episode
Mood Ring - Build Your Self-Care Kit
play

05/19/22 • 18 min

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 Transcript


Title: Build Your Self Care Kit


Description: 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 MUSIC


Hey, 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 y...

bookmark
plus icon
share episode
Mood Ring - Coping with Prolonged Grief
play

05/26/22 • 49 min

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.

bookmark
plus icon
share episode
Mood Ring - Cuddle Your Friends
play

06/02/22 • 14 min

Host Anna Borges interviews guest Zachary Zane about platonic intimacy.


Follow Mood Ring @moodringshow


Follow Anna ​​@annabroges


Mood 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...

bookmark
plus icon
share episode
Mood Ring - Don’t Ask For Help
play

06/09/22 • 15 min

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 @moodringshow


Follow Anna ​​@annabroges


Mood 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. S...

bookmark
plus icon
share episode
Mood Ring - Take Care of Something
play

08/25/22 • 17 min

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/survey


Follow Mood Ring @moodringshow


Follow Anna ​​@annabroges


Mood 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.


<...
bookmark
plus icon
share episode

Show more best episodes

Toggle view more icon

FAQ

How many episodes does Mood Ring have?

Mood Ring currently has 22 episodes available.

What topics does Mood Ring cover?

The podcast is about Health & Fitness, Mental Health and Podcasts.

What is the most popular episode on Mood Ring?

The episode title 'Name Your Feelings' is the most popular.

What is the average episode length on Mood Ring?

The average episode length on Mood Ring is 21 minutes.

How often are episodes of Mood Ring released?

Episodes of Mood Ring are typically released every 7 days.

When was the first episode of Mood Ring?

The first episode of Mood Ring was released on Apr 13, 2022.

Show more FAQ

Toggle view more icon

Comments