Small and Often

If you’re struggling to make consistent changes in your life, it could be because your body has gotten used to operating as if there is a ticking clock above your head. Perhaps everything feels like it needs to be done NOW, while thinking of 8 other things. Or maybe you get so overwhelmed, you feel frozen and depressed, so doing anything feels monumental. 

When I am in one of these over or under active states, I have an all or nothing approach to life. If I can’t do 30 minutes of meditation, it’s not worth it. If I can’t work out for an hour, it’s a waste of time. If I can’t cook an entire meal, might as well skip it or just eat snacks. This way of approaching life left me with shame, disappointment, anxiety, and burn out. 

I once heard trauma described anything that is “too much, too soon, or too fast” or “too little, too often.” Another way to put that is- anything the nervous system perceives as all or nothing.

So, what can we do? Enter in the concept of moderation, or the “small and often” approach to healing.  

The idea behind this came from chemistry. Chemists found that when you try to mix some chemicals together all at once, they won’t mix and remain separated. But when one chemical is added to another one drop at a time, the chemicals begin to mix together or integrate. 

Before I began practicing the small and often mindset, any free time I had between work would look like this:

Quickly read texts and respond without thinking or forget to respond, try to do notes quickly and leave out critical thoughts, eat something quickly, or scroll on my phone. At the end of the day, I felt frazzled, tired, and had no capacity left over for myself or loved ones.

I could place blame for feeling tired and stressed on my job. After all, being a therapist can be tough. Or I could own that I was doing things that weren’t allowing my nervous system to rest, discharge energy, and reset.  I was adding to my nervous system’s dysregulation rather than having boundaries with myself and others that would allow me to feel better. 

I decided to start making small changes, and to do them often. Instead of checking my phone, I would leave it. Instead of scrolling, I would breathe. Instead of cramming a random snack in, I would sit and digest a meal. These changes weren’t huge, and they could possibly be dismissed as not enough to make a difference. And yet, I began to notice the difference in how I felt at the end of the day, but also how I was able to show up for others. I realized that chronic stress is not a huge event, but a constant drop in the bucket. If drops in the bucket could fill up my metaphorical cup, then small changes might also allow it to be emptied. 

Now throughout the day, I do some mixture of the following: 

Breathe. Meditate. Stretch. Listen to Music. I schedule time to do notes and answer emails. This feels unnatural. It induces guilt at times.  But when I do this, everyone gets a better version of me. My friends are responded to slower but more thoughtfully. My clients get better clinical care. My notes are more clear and helpful. My body gets a chance to release and relax. At the end of the day, I’m not in physical pain and stressed out. 

The small and often approach is how I attempt to handle more things in my life now. I might not have time for an hour workout, but I do have time for 20. I might not have time to grocery shop for the week, but I can stop and pickup a few meals. I might not have time to write out a perfectly curated answer to someone, but I can respond and let them know I will get back to them. The less I’m doing with anxiety or burn out running the show, the more space I have for relaxation, joy, critical thinking, feeling, and being present. 

This approach, along with my support meetings, trauma therapy, and all the other ways I take care of myself has been so powerful that my medical lab work even showed improvements after I began practicing this. I hope today you can take small steps and remember that even small drops in the bucket make a difference.

If any of this resonates with you, please look at our depression treatment and anxiety counseling pages to learn more about how we can support you at Relationship Enrichment Center.

Trusting the process,

Jessica