This is my submission for the IndieWeb Carnival July 2024 - Tools by James. I know what James was looking for in the prompt but I took some creative liberties and talked about some more meta (and more important) tools that I use.

What feels like forever ago, a friend told me about some tool that she learned in her therapy sessions. I don’t remember exactly what she called it but it was something that she was using to improve her mental wellbeing or to regulate an emotion.

I do remember snickering and thinking how ridiculous it was for someone to need to have mental “tools” to live their life. Still in high school, I was light years away from any shred of emotional awareness after shoving any and all issues down and out of view for my entire life. I thought I’d never be so weak as to need tools or therapy for anything in my life.

This sentiment followed me throughout the rest of high school and college. Like everyone else, I had struggles to get through. There were times when I wasn’t happy or thriving, just putting one foot in front of the other, wading my way through life. Whether it was a school holiday, final exams, or a summer job, there was always something in the near future that if I could just get there, I’d be OK. What else could be done besides just grin and bear it?

My perceptions finally started to change when I became a Peace Corps Volunteer. For two weeks, we sat under a scorching hot tent outside and got training on, among lots of other things, resiliency tools. After that, we met every two weeks or so to learn more. Throughout those three months of training, there was still a part of me that thought it was silly that US taxpayer dollars were paying for these tools to be developed and taught across the organization.

Finally, I set out to live in rural Morocco and start the hardest thing I’d ever done in my life. That was over a year and a half ago.

I now recognize that I wouldn’t have gotten where I am without a whole rolling chest full of relationship and wellbeing tools, skills, frameworks, and systems. I wouldn’t have the relationships and experiences that I have and I certainly wouldn’t have made it this far living in Morocco. Who knows where I’d be.

I need to use my VSPIRED tool to check-in with my wellbeing each week or else I feel out of touch with myself. When I inevitably find myself in a mental slump, I make sure and do activities from every part of the Healthy Mind Platter, lest I slip deeper into it. I need my Feelings Wheel, Mood Meter, and Atlas of the Heart cheat sheets to identify what exactly it is that I am feeling. My younger self would be in stitches if he heard this.

Using these tools, though, is what allows me to become the person that I want to be. They give me a foundation to create, show up for others, and fully engage with life. Most importantly, they allow me to have the agency to take control of my own wellbeing. You don’t have to wait for things to get better.

This post is part public apology, part gentle nudge for whoever may be reading this to do something to make themselves feel better, and part documenting some of the tools that form the foundation of my wellbeing.

Firstly, to my friend: I’m sorry for making fun of you when all you were doing was trying to live happier and healthier. I’m proud of you for doing what you needed to do and I’m happy that you’re happy now.

DFCR is my first line of defense

I picked this tool up from a Mastodon bot. It aligned so well with my own personal observations that I made it into an initialism.¹ Usually, I can feel myself slipping into what I call a “slump” and the first signs are neglecting to do one or more of these four basic things:

• Dressed? Get out of the NASA-themed basketball shorts you’ve been wearing for two (or three, or four…) days and put some jeans on.
• Fed? Eat something nourishing. Oatmeal is an easy one.
• Clean? As embarrassing as it is, showering is usually the first thing for me that goes when I am in a slump.
• Rested? Take a nap if you’re tired. Leave your phone in a different room.

DFCR is where I go first when I’m not feeling good mentally. It sounds simple but I have days where doing even these is difficult. Then, once I finally get the gumption to do them, I’m always surprised how much better I feel when I do these simple things.

Healthy Mind Platter for sustainable wellbeing

The Healthy Mind Platter (HMP) is usually what I go to next when I am trying to get out of a slump or avoid slipping into one. I learned this one from a Peace Corps training.

The HMP is basically the Healthy Eating Plate but for your brain. It has seven daily activities that ensure that you get a healthy and balanced brain “diet.” There’s no specific amount of time that you should spend on each activity each day because circumstances and needs change. The important thing is to note what activities you might not have been getting enough of recently and make an active effort to engage in them, even if for a short amount of time. The seven categories are as follows:

• Sleep time. Are you getting enough rest? Have you been sleep procrastinating or doom scrolling too late into the night?
• Play time. Have you done anything creative or novel recently?
• Down time. Down really means down here. When was the last time you let your brain just wander without needing music or something to focus on to occupy it?
• In time. In stands for introspection. Reflect internally by meditating or journaling. What exactly are you feeling or thinking?
• Connecting time. Have you actually talked to someone or shaken someone’s hand recently? Sometimes you need just that bare minimum and sometimes you need some proper connection time with people you belong with.
• Physical time. How much have you been moving lately? We all know exercise is good for the brain. Take a walk, stretch, or do some housework. Even a little bit is way better than none.
• Focus time. Make the effort to focus on and complete a task. Is there something you’ve been wanting to learn or a project you’ve been wanting to make progress on?

Again, there’s no rule here for how much time you spend on each activity. Go through each one and recognize which you are lacking in. What matters is that you are proactively putting in effort to maintain healthy mental balance. Some of these can be harder to do than others. It’s hard to get any tasks done when all I want to do is lay in bed and scroll on my phone. This is where DFCR comes in; it’s a prerequisite to doing anything from the Healthy Mind Platter.

I have a sheet of paper on my wall with these seven categories each in their own box. I stuck a sticky note in each box with some specific activities that I can do for each one. This minimizes the friction between recognizing I need to do something and actually doing it. For example, play time usually gets thrown out pretty quickly when I’m in a slump. The last thing I want to do then is think of something fun to do. Instead, I look at the list of fun activities I already thought about (do a crossword, play Marvel Snap, read a fiction book, etc.) and choose one.

VSPIRED for longer-term direction

Another acronym and another tool that I learned from Peace Corps. This tool is more proactive than the others. I do this journaling activity once a week as part of my weekly review and it helps me see, from a higher level, the bigger trends in my life. Each letter represents an area of wellbeing.

• Vocational. Having an occupation that provides a sense of fulfillment and is aligned with your skills and values.
• Spiritual. Having a sense of purpose and meaning in the world.
• Physical. Exercising regularly, eating well, sleeping enough, and using substances responsibly.
• Intellectual. Engaging in deep learning or novel experiences.
• Relational. Nurturing healthy relationships with yourself and others.
• Emotional. Accepting all emotions and reaching towards resiliency.
• Digital. Using technology in a way that adds to your life rather than distracts from it.

For each area, I ask myself: “To what extent have you felt this principle in your life during the past week?”

I answer on a scale of one to ten and write a few sentences as to why I chose that rating. These are subjective ratings so don’t overthink them. There is no right answer.

The areas are flexible so you can pick and choose which ones are important to you. I originally learned this as just SPIRE and later realized that “spiritual wellbeing” had turned into “how work was going.” So, I added the V to give me a space to write about my vocation separately from my spiritual wellbeing. I also sometimes fall into the trap of being on my phone too much. I wanted to reflect on that each week and so I added digital wellbeing. These pillars are all inter-related and affect each other. Harvard has a center that lists other dimensions to pick and choose from.

The three tools I laid out here are parts of a system that all work together to help me thrive and stay healthy. When I am in survival mode, DFCR is the only goal. After that, I maintain a balanced mental diet from the Healthy Mind Platter. Then, I check-in weekly on the overarching themes and factors of my wellbeing.

This isn’t the only system that I use to live a better life but it is the most foundational. It is the baseline everything else stems from.

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