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Episode 283: Solo Episode with Alex on Mindfulness
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Hello, Podwalkers, and welcome back to another episode of the Goblin Lore Podcast! It is Mental Health Awareness Month! Today we have a solo episode with Alex discussing the use of mindfullness and how introduced the "3 Good Things" exercise to his family on a recent trip!
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As promised, we keep Mental Health Links available every episode. But For general Mental Health the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) has great resources for people struggling with mental health concerns as well as their families. We also want to draw attention to this article on stigma from NAMI's site.
If you’re thinking about suicide or just need someone to talk to right now, you can get support from any of the resources below.
- National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 988
- Veteran's can Press 1 at anytime to be taken to the Veteran's Line
- Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741-741
- International suicide hotlines: A comprehensive resource list for people outside the US.
- IMAlive: Click Chat Now to access a live online network of volunteers through instant messaging.
- TrevorLifeline, TrevorChat, and TrevorText (LGBTQ+ crisis support): 1-866-488-7386, or text “Trevor” to 1-202-304-1200
- Trans Lifeline (US): (877) 565-8860
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Opening and closing music by Wintergatan (@wintergatan). Logo art by Steven Raffael (@SteveRaffle)
Goblin Lore is proud to be presented by Hipsters of the Coast, and a part of their growing Vorthos content – as well as Magic content of all kinds. Check them out at hipstersofthecoast.com
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Transcript
Introduction and Mental Health Awareness Month
00:00:29
Speaker
Hello, Podwalkers, and welcome to another episode of the Goblin Lore Podcast. Unfortunately, tonight it is just myself, so I guess I will i will introduce myself. I am Alex, found in the Goblin Lore Discord, not really on social media anymore these days. um And unfortunately, Taya and Hobbs both couldn't make it tonight. um I was... Today today is um May. This is just one of the first episodes we are recording in May, though I do believe we should have one that I've already posted. And May is Mental Health Awareness Month, just as a reminder. And that is a a very important topic for our podcast. And so i was I was thinking about if there was a mental health topic, I could record solo.
00:01:17
Speaker
or if we would have to try to reschedule and stuff. And then I came up with one that um was something that happened very recently for me. So this is just kind of a smaller, going be kind of a smaller conversation, mental health focused, but and in kind of a small way about something that really I just kind of did this last week.
00:01:38
Speaker
ah But I think it will be a a good conversation, kind of tie into some stuff that we've talked about in the past. So rather than doing opening questions or anything like that with just myself here, I'm going to just get into the topic.
Mindfulness Technique Discussion
00:01:50
Speaker
And so I want to talk about, um there's a mindfulness technique that i've I've talked about on the show a number of times. and this is a thing I got from Hobbs, and he has also talked about it on the show. This is a thing. The the the mindfulness technique itself is at at the end of the night, you will think of three things, three good things that happened that day. Three nice things. It can be small. It can be big. And one thing you're looking forward to the next day. I know he said that he has practiced this with with his kids some. And there there was a time when I was doing this myself. I have a little planner. We've
00:02:28
Speaker
talked about the Roadrunner on and off a bunch, but that that particular thing has worked, Roadrunners has worked very well for me for kind of keeping track of some stuff and just keep myself...
00:02:41
Speaker
that's a whole other conversation. Keep yourself organized, but that's other conversation. But the the point is, is like that kind of gave me a place to sit and record this. And it's a thing that I i would do each morning then, twisting it, to changing it up just a little bit. Each morning, I would try to think back, pick three good things from the previous day and and write down those. And then write down one thing I was looking forward to the current day. i kind of do this with breakfast, starting my day, which was ah was a nice practice to try to going to ground myself and remember what I was doing yesterday. And it's so easy life to let little details, just all of the little details just sort of escape and and never really register. And I thought it was a fun practice for doing this, but it was a thing that I i did for a number of months, but did not maintain for a long term. And it is a habit I've kind of talked about and and thought about, but haven't really practiced much in a couple of years
Mindfulness and the Road Trip
00:03:38
Speaker
now. But that changed last week.
00:03:42
Speaker
So last week, my parents and I so took a road trip. ah This is a trip we'd kind of been planning. My dad and I had kind of been planning on and off for about a year, something we'd kind of been talking about. But then something came up that my mom wanted to do in the same area of of what where we wanted to travel. And it was a perfect sort of impetus for us to just pick that date, that kind of pick the date for us. And then we could start to actually build concrete plans rather than just talk about doing this thing. So this turned into a fun road trip that we planned for the three of us to drive out there. I actually had some friends who lived roughly in the area. So then friends I don't get to see very often. And so it sort of turned into kind of a two phase trip, one where we are going out there together. And then on sort of the last day of the first phase, at least for me, my dad and i went out and did some stuff and then I met up with some friends of mine and spent a weekend with them and and I flew home while my parents then did some of my mom's stuff. And then they drove home themselves after that. And it was very nice. It was a very nice time. Um, but one of the things that because we were driving, it was ah we we were driving for four days and we haven't done a big road trip, um,
00:04:57
Speaker
together for a while and the ones we used to do were kind of generally in done in a day um we would road trip like we had much shorter we even call it like a two-hour trip to the cabin a road trip but then we had some um some number of years in my kind of late teens or i don't think it was in twenty s i think it was more midday mid mid to late teens late high school years um we went out um i had some family who was had an uncle who was in the Air Force and he moved around a bunch, was in Germany for a number of years, but then came back to the US, was stationed.
00:05:30
Speaker
15 hours away from us, but it was back in the US. So so several years in a row, we we would take Thanksgiving trips out to spend the the the weekend with them, um which was nice. But that was always ah a one shot. We would get up early, we drive out there, we'd get there late, and then we'd spend several days and drive home in the same manner. This is kind of the first trip I took with, it it is absolutely the first trip I took with just my parents. My sister, you know no siblings are there, no dogs. We had dogs with us when we took a different trip because when we were gone for a couple of weeks, visiting them and kind of taking the long way home to get some tourist things. And so this is the first trip I've taken with them in a long time in the first trip just with them. And so as we were kind of talking about our plans, one of the things my parents brought up is, you know, obviously we had a we a skeleton. we knew We knew where we were staying each day. We had hotel reservations leading up to when we kind of got to at least their final destination for the trip. um
00:06:28
Speaker
But the sort of skeleton in between, we hadn't we don't have all the we we had the skeleton of we didn't have all the details figured out.
00:06:39
Speaker
So one of the things that my parents were were saying they wanted to do was each night we would get to our you get to the hotel, check into our rooms, respective rooms, maybe grab dinner. And then after dinner, before we kind of went our own ways for the night, just have a nice chat about what our plans were for the next day. When did we want to get up? When did we want to eat breakfast?
00:06:59
Speaker
So all the hotels it was part of all had breakfast. So it was nice. We could eat breakfast at the hotel before we left. But based on, you know, how long are we traveling? Because you can try to break things up into equidistant chunks, but you got to make sure there's somewhere to stay at that equidistant chunk. So each day that it wasn't quite equal each day, though, my dad did a good job of making the travel time pretty equal.
00:07:20
Speaker
but you know, just kind of going through all these things, we had time zone change, which kind of shifted hours and things. So it it made sense to kind of sit down and and have a chat each night just about what was what was the plan. And, hey, if, you know, we're going through this area, is there anything you want to do here? Is there anything you want to see? We didn't want to linger too much, but, hey, maybe we can grab lunch at a particular place. I'll say we went up to Ohio. and I made sure we we stopped at at a Skyline Chili for a meal because then I got to i got to try some Cincinnati-style chili for the first time, which is which is fun. And if that's something you're not familiar with, yeah, go ahead and look it up. It's kind of fun. Skyline Chili is ah is a chain, like a fast food chain in Ohio around it a little bit that serves a a style of chili called Cincinnati Chili, which I actually kind of enjoyed, particularly on the hot dogs. I got to love a chili hot dog.
00:08:10
Speaker
But... ah Well, my dad was kind of mentioning this the night before because he actually came down and and stayed ah at my apartment before we then both went up to their place because they live about five hours from me. So this was actually like a five day road trip for me going up to stay with them for the first day and then the four days of the road trip proper.
00:08:29
Speaker
So he mentioned that and I and and i just sort of in passing, I mentioned like, hey, you know, there's this mindfulness technique that, you know, my my friend co-host has kind of talked about that I've used a little bit. So I kind of talked to him about this three in one sort of thing. And he's like, oh, that's that's neat. Well, then when we get up to their place and we're kind of talking through this stuff all together, all three of us, my dad mentions it to my mom. She thinks that's fun.
00:08:53
Speaker
And then the idea is like, well, do we just bake this in to our plan then? Do we put this in as a piece of our um our our plans for each night? And that's what we did. And so...
Practicing Mindfulness with Family
00:09:05
Speaker
Um, each day we sat down, we talked through the details of the next day, and then we each in turn shared, um, three good things from that day for us. And one thing we were looking forward to the next day. And like said, I have done this a little bit myself. Um, I, I, it was a few months. It was, I did it for a little while, not a, not a ton of time, but also it it wasn't too short of a period. And while i I liked it as a keeping me thinking about the previous day, thinking about the small things I really found. And, and my, my parents gave me the same feedback. I really found that I was paying more attention each day, especially the second and day onward.
00:09:49
Speaker
Because I wanted to, it to be honest, the first thing was I wanted to remember those items and fill that list in more easily.
00:10:00
Speaker
Because rather rather than sit and take a bunch time, which, of course, my parents, none of us would mind if it took us a little while to sit and think. But... It's a whole, you know, it was still that was kind of the first moment of my my brain trying to be like, well, I should I should remember this so that I can say this. And I realized I shared this with him actually is one of my three good things for that day is like I realized that doing that as part of our practice at the end of each night had me paying more attention to all the little things that we did. It had me paying attention to, you know, read I remember the weird bird sounds at the the rest stop in Indiana that we're pretty sure were were recorded and being played to, i don't know, keep something away from the rest station. We're not sure, but it was a strange sound as soon as we got out of the car and we all looked at each other and it was really funny. And I remember that.
00:10:55
Speaker
I might have remembered that otherwise. It's a striking moment, but I was paying more attention to all the things at that point. And so maybe I think I'm retaining more of these little moments just because we shared this. Um, and then beyond that, like I said, part of this trip was that we were also going to kind of go our own way at a certain point. Um, um,
00:11:22
Speaker
did They're driving for for four days. And then on that fifth day, my dad and I ah went and did some stuff. And then I went and spent the next two days with friends before flying home um the day after that. And so my parents and I were talking about it. And to be honest, I sort of then jokingly when when they asked, well, how are we going to share these? I kind of jokingly said, well, you guys can text me.
00:11:46
Speaker
And then that's what they did. We have a group chat with the three of us, you know, for we just use it all the time as we we chat every so often about various things or if my parents are coming down or we're looking for stuff. But so they both sent me a text Thursday night while I was at my friends with their three good things that happened that day for them and and their friends.
00:12:09
Speaker
thing they're looking forward to. And then I responded in kind with mine. And we did that for the last several days of the trip. And it was nice that a there was this continued sort of mindfulness thing that this was doing. But also it was nice to get that check in with them like beyond it just, hey, how is it going? And you can go, oh this was fun. And maybe they have an anecdote.
00:12:32
Speaker
But this is like they each had three things that they wanted to share for things. I mean, three things about their day that they wanted to share. and And then one thing that they were looking forward to the next day. And I also got to share the same with them about what I was doing while they, you know, were were off doing their own thing.
00:12:49
Speaker
and it was, it was really nice to do that. And so I was just talking to Hobbs about this a little bit and and I told him, I'm like, I think, I'm going to start doing this whenever I go to events like this, whether I'm i'm sharing with the the folks that i'm I'm there with, or if it's a, you know, every so often I'll go to some conventions and stuff by myself. And so in those cases, maybe it's just me writing this down again, but I...
00:13:16
Speaker
I really, this really helped um all of us. I have, I think, A, it helped us all have, pay more attention. Remember, notice these small things and have, you know, kind of ah a better time and be more grounded because there was, you know, there was some struggles, there was some rain in the mountains and some days where things, you know, the driving felt a little long and stuff, but, At the end of the day, even if we were stressed and even if we were tired, which I could tell you we were both and at various times during this trip, um this exercise really helped us to it's keep keep the positive things at at front of mind.
00:13:55
Speaker
um and And it also helped us kind of talk through little annoyances with each other, little annoyances, maybe not so much directly with each other, but of just kind of what's going on. So could be more mindful of, okay, you know, this is struggling, you know, Alex is struggling with this her mom is struggling with that. And then we can be more mindful about each other.
00:14:16
Speaker
in those cases too. And so this, um it was very nice. And at this, i said it's ah it's a thing i will I will probably do going forward. And I think it, I've talked about this a bit on the cast here and there. I don't know if it's a practice that you're interested in or thinking about, but i
Daily Positivity Routine
00:14:33
Speaker
really i really liked this use here and this was great for me. And so To to that end, i i will I figure I will close this fairly fairly short episode um giving my three good things today and and one thing that I'm looking forward to tomorrow, just share that with with everybody. And then hopefully we we will be back later this month with with another mental health topic with more folks in the cast and maybe something that's so a little bigger and denser episode than than this one today.
00:15:05
Speaker
but So for my my three good things, I want to start with Work went pretty well today. So I was off for a little over a week. And that can always be a little hairy to come back to, especially for my team. I have a coworker who is semi-retired, so she does not work on Mondays, which is great.
00:15:23
Speaker
But it it means that when I come back from a vacation on a Monday, we're always a little bit shorter staff than normal. or Mondays are a little shorter staff than normal. And then, of course,
00:15:34
Speaker
when I'm coming back from vacation that I've been out of town for, ah you know, a while that leads to lots of emails, lots of little things. Unfortunately today was, went pretty smooth. I mean, it took me a little while to run through all the emails, but there wasn't a whole lot in there for me to do.
00:15:52
Speaker
Mostly things were taken care of, uh, by other people on my team or there's just sort of informational things. And so that that didn't take me too long. And, um, and then the rest of that today went, went,
00:16:03
Speaker
pretty smooth, was able to get the normal daily work done, even though I'm i'm doing a process I don't work as regularly because, again, person was out, so I'm kind of covering their normal process. as That went pretty smooth, even with what could potentially be a major issue occurring with it. But fortunately, um for other reasons, one of the IET folks who supports us to pretty directly was was on hand and working on something else, so he was able to get us ah a quick workaround to make today go well. And he's kind of diving on fixing the actual issues. So even there, you know, delayed me just a little bit and I just worked on a few other things and was able to kind of get back on my normal, normal tasks for, for, for this process. And that I'm, I'm honestly surprised, really surprised that the, that a day back like this a Monday back went as smoothly as it did.
00:16:57
Speaker
So my my my number two, this is kind of cheating a little bit. And of course, with opening questions, I always cheat. And so when I do a little closing thing like this, I suppose I should cheat as well. um So I want to talk about fudge from a place called Bucky's. So this was one of the things that we did on our road trip. We stopped at a Bucky's for the first time in our lives.
00:17:21
Speaker
And that place is kind of ridiculous in a good way. It's like a giant convenience store. So a gas station convenience store, but it has a ton of their own stuff. They got a lot of different jerkies and they have sandwiches and and pastries and brisket sandwiches and um different barbecue and and a pound and a half box of fudge samplers from 11 different flavors. And i it was a it was fun. I liked i thought the place was great. And I shocked that they had like their T-shirts were like $13. Like I'm used to weird merchandising and and
00:18:05
Speaker
Tourism, kind of tourism merchandising being really expensive. And also, I'm a larger person and I got a 3X t-shirt. I'm used to those also being more expensive because typically, you know, they're they're larger they're larger shirts. They tend to require more material and and and be more expensive. But even even with that, it was...
00:18:26
Speaker
It was pretty cheap. So i bought a t-shirt. I got a Buc-ee's t-shirt and I love it. It's also, it it's like really nice, comfortable material, but I'm not talking about the Buc-ee's t-shirt. I'm talking about the Buc-ee's fudge. So I got this sampler pack of fudge that has 11 different flavors and I am like slowly going through and trying a few yesterday and cutting little half slices so I can try like,
00:18:49
Speaker
Tried more flavors without overloading myself with sugar as I go. And tried a couple today, and they have a blueberry. And blueberries, I love blueberry-flavored things. And their blueberry fudge was really good. So that's going to be my my number two thing. and And my number three good thing today was what the thing I'm doing right now is recording this podcast. you know I'll be honest, I'm still kind of tired from the trip. I don't always sleep super well in hotels. I slept better at my friend's place, but still not incredible. And so I've only you know had ah had, I guess, two nights back home now at this point, but one being a weeknight, and I didn't go to bed as early as I should have yesterday because I was finally home for a full day. And
00:19:37
Speaker
You know, it would have been easy for for me to just decide that taking a night to, you know, watch some anime or watch some random YouTube and then go to bed early would be nice. And and honestly, there are times when that is that is self-care and that is perfectly acceptable. There's nothing wrong. There would have been nothing wrong with me making that decision, especially. A Monday coming back from a week off, trying to record a solo episode, can be tough. um And so there are definitely circumstances and days if today had been tougher at work, I may have chosen to do that and that would have been fine.
00:20:08
Speaker
But I'm really glad I took the time to do this instead. Unfortunately, it's going to be kind of a short ah shorter episode, which does give me a little bit of time sort of to to chill and and go to bed early like that. um But I'm glad I sat and talked about this. It's not, you know, one of our our kind of bigger mental health episodes, but I think this is still a a good, smaller mental health topic. And it is nice to to get something recorded. Now, we don't have to stress about rescheduling and recording this week. we all can kind of I have some stuff scheduled, and Hobbs and Taya both have their things going on, and now they don't have to worry about that. We have an episode in the bank, and and we can you know start working on getting the next one ready.
00:20:54
Speaker
So um i'm
Anticipation for Pathfinder Group
00:20:55
Speaker
I'm glad I did that. And then the last part of this, after the the three good things, it's one thing I'm looking forward to tomorrow. And tomorrow is I'm going to be, it's not our normal day of the week, but i'm going to be playing with my Pathfinder group.
00:21:09
Speaker
which is always a lot of fun. I love playing with that group. And so, and then as a sort of extra of this, this is a smaller, we're going to have a smaller group because we're doing some folks on the group can't play this week. And so the smaller group of us is going to be playing a side campaign that is a lot of fun, not necessarily more fun than the other campaign, but it's one that is a lot harder for us to play because we want to play with the whole group when everybody's available.
00:21:42
Speaker
But then there's there's a couple of who tend to miss together if there's something going on. They're both attending it, which is totally fine, but it just means that more most frequently when we had to cancel due to a couple of people being out, it left the same four of us.
00:22:00
Speaker
you know, good to go just without anything to play. And so we kind of started this as a, as a thing we, we try to get to every few months, but it isn't always easy. So again, we have to, you know, we are absolutely prioritizing the main campaign, but then also, have to deal with our own schedules. So if if one of us is missing, then that doesn't help.
00:22:20
Speaker
So I'm looking forward to to playing, get doing our side campaign, get to do another evening of that, which will be a lot of fun. So I guess I will leave you all with that.
Mental Health Resources Reminder
00:22:33
Speaker
Just want to remind everyone that it is Mental Health Awareness Month. um the NAMI, the National Alliance of Mental Illness, is a very good resource if you are looking for if you're looking for resources either about mental health things or if you are looking for potentially opportunities to to do stuff. like They have a lot of good information out at at NAMI. And I know within our show notes, we still we have the help lines. if If you need to talk to somebody, please check those numbers. We have a lot of international ones in there as well. It's not just the United States where where we're based, but I know Hobbs. Had a list of numbers from other nations as well. And it just, you know, take care of yourself.
00:23:17
Speaker
It's hard out there right now. Life is tough, but there you can be some good things even while some harder things are going on. You have been listening to the Goblin Lore Podcast. Goblin Lore can be found on Blue Sky at GoblinLorePod or by going to our link tree for all of our links, especially to our Discord and our discounts.
00:23:37
Speaker
We welcome all feedback through social media or by joining our Discord, which is very active. And now, goblins, I just want to remind you that goblins, like snowflakes, are only dangerous in numbers.