Mood Ring

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.

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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...

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.

Host Anna Borges interviews guest Zachary Zane about platonic intimacy.

Follow Mood Ring @moodringshow

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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...

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...

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

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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.