2.46 How to work with the version of you who shows up (with special guest Dr Alison Miller)

Sometimes we have the best intentions for the work we're going to do, but we wake up just not feeling it. We're tired, we lack focus, we don't think we're in the right frame of mind to work. Sometimes we beat ourselves up and force ourselves to sit down and work and other times we just give up entirely. In today's episode, Dr Alison Miller, of The Academic Writers' Space, tells us why she believes we should learn to work with the version of us that shows up. She takes us through some simple exercises that we can use to first understand and then potentially modify the way we're feeling so we can achieve our goals while honouring ourselves. 

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Alison Miller, PhD is a dissertation coach and academic productivity expert. She is the founder of The Dissertation Coach, a coaching and consulting company that has helped over 14,000 graduate students earn their degrees, She is also the founder of The Academic Writers' Space (TAWS), a virtual coworking community designed for academic writers who want to work effectively and sustainably. Alison recently transitioned to running TAWS full-time. She is dedicated to the success and well-being of graduate students and academic writers everywhere. 

Learn more about Alison and the coworking community she founded at: https://www.theacademicwritersspace.com/

Find her on social media at: https://flow.page/taws
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I'm Dr Vikki Wright, ex-Professor and certified life coach and I help everyone from PhD students to full Professors to get a bit less overwhelmed and thrive in academia. My weekly podcast, The PhD Life Coach covers the most common issues experienced in universities, including procrastination, imposter syndrome, and having too much to do. I give inspiring and actionable advice and often have fun expert guests join me on the show. Make sure you subscribe on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

If you already listen, please find time to rate, review and tell your friends!

I also host a free online community for academics at every level. You can sign up on my website, The PhD Life Coach. com - you'll receive regular emails with helpful tips and access to free online group coaching every single month! Come join and get the support you need.

#phd #academia #lecturer #professor #university #procrastination #overwhelm #amwriting #writing #impostersyndrome #timemanagement #support #coaching #highereducation #research #teaching #podcast #community

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I'm Dr Vikki Wright, ex-Professor and certified life coach and I help everyone from PhD students to full Professors to get a bit less overwhelmed and thrive in academia. My weekly podcast, The PhD Life Coach covers the most common issues experienced in universities, including procrastination, imposter syndrome, and having too much to do. I give inspiring and actionable advice and often have fun expert guests join me on the show. Make sure you subscribe on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

If you already listen, please find time to rate, review and tell your friends!

I also host a free online community for academics at every level. You can sign up on my website, The PhD Life Coach. com - you'll receive regular emails with helpful tips and access to free online group coaching every single month! Come join and get the support you need.

#phd #academia #lecturer #professor #university #procrastination #overwhelm #amwriting #writing #impostersyndrome #timemanagement #support #coaching #highereducation #research #teaching #podcast #community

Transcript

[00:00:00] Vikki: Today is another one of those episodes where I have a special guest with me, and I am super excited to introduce Alison Miller, who has been working in this space of supporting PhD students for a really long time, has a huge amount of experience, and I am so excited to have her here today. We had a catch up before this a couple of weeks ago to talk about the possibility of doing it, and we ended up chattering on for Far longer than I think either of us intended.

[00:00:30] Vikki: And so I am really looking forward to this episode today. So hi, Alison. Thank you for coming in. 

[00:00:36] Alison: Hello. Oh, Vikki. I'm really glad to be here. I was telling Vikki that. We both independently have come to very similar conclusions about how to support doctoral students.

[00:00:49] Vikki: We have, yes, so much to talk about. And today we are going to be thinking about how to work with the version of us that actually turns up.

Hello and welcome to the PhD Life Coach where we help you get less overwhelmed, stop beating yourself up and start living the life you want. I'm your host Dr Vikki Burns, ex professor and Certified Life Coach. Whether you're a brand new PhD student or an experienced academic, I'm here to show you that thriving in academia can be a whole lot easier than it feels right now.

Let's go. 

[00:01:27] Vikki: Hello and welcome to episode 43 of Season 2 of the PhD Life Coach. So, Alison, why don't you tell people a little bit about what you do and how you support PhD students before we get started.

[00:01:41] Alison: So glad to be here. 24 years ago, Within a few months of actually finishing my PhD, I started offering coaching services to graduate students. And at the time, there wasn't an expression that I knew of called a dissertation coach. This is in 2000. And, in 2001, I met somebody named Sally Jensen, who was probably the first dissertation coach, like official one on the planet. And she and I independently had a similar idea, which is, A lot of doctoral students don't finish, have very painful journeys, takes way longer than they wanted to, and are honestly under mentored and under supported. And I knew that there was a way because when I got my PhD, I got my PhD in clinical psychology at the University of Illinois at Chicago. I was just a crazy procrastinator. As soon as I got to grad school, I was completely overwhelmed with I am not smart enough to be here. I felt like I kind of tricked my way into the program, even though obviously I didn't, and it didn't matter how successful I was. I really thought it was like I was going to be found out.

[00:02:59] Alison: And what I believed was that I wasn't smart enough, but I was articulate. So I could trick people into thinking I was intelligent. And it really felt like the giant smoke and mirrors act. The whole time I was there, even though I did actually do research that mattered to me and I had a very supportive advisor. So I had some really good things in place. I, by the time I was almost done with my master's thesis, I was so sick of myself and my procrastination and my TV watching and snacking and avoiding and trying to perfect 2 sentences and spending 3 hours doing that, that I thought there has to be another way and I, some kind of out of just like sheer pain, I started working in a more structured way and all the obvious things of like break things down, have a plan.

[00:03:53] Alison: But what was really fueling it was the insight that I had one day in a particular day where I caught myself in the midst of going to get a snack and watch TV of not remembering how I got up from the desk and how did I end up in the hallway? And every time something got hard, I would think and feel ways that didn't feel good to feel and they weren't unpleasant thoughts to think and I would move away from those thoughts and feelings and sensations in my body instead of recognizing that what's happening was something is hard right now.

[00:04:25] Alison: It's supposed to be hard. I'm doing something I've never done before. Can I stay here? Can I stay with this? And that kind of broke open a whole approach to coaching graduate students. So in May of 2000, I took my very first dissertation coaching client and opened a business, the dissertation coach, the coaching consulting company that I ran for nearly 24 years. And I actually sold the business to a remarkable human named Jessica Parker. And then this is the, the best thing that happened to me in that whole journey is I When the pandemic started, the dissertation coach was almost 20 years old. We had clients all over the world. And I felt like as a business owner, I had a responsibility to respond thoughtfully and compassionately to this experience our clients were having all over the world. And some of our clients were living in places where the lockdowns were very severe. And graduate school is isolating enough, but add a pandemic on that. I was really genuinely worried about people's mental health.

[00:05:33] Alison: We, our company were worried about what was going to happen with mentorship and we felt like we needed to do something. So we started offering 5 free coworking sessions over zoom every week. And we put out a plan to do it for 3 weeks, not realizing how long the pandemic would be. And I was pleasantly surprised by how many people attended the sessions that we did. And how quickly they started to ask for more and. In the beginning, I mean, I really hadn't, I just was like, Hey, let's get together and co work. And we had this idea. We're going to chat for 10 minutes, set goals, go off and work for 45 minutes. Then we'll check in for 10 minutes in the middle, see what's working, what's not working, kind of reset, recalibrate ourselves for round two, go off and work for 45 minutes and then do a 10 minute kind of like check in how to go. What did you learn? What would you do differently next time? And that is actually a structure that we still use. And what ended up coming out of that was a new business that I now run called The Academic Writer's Space, which is acronym is T A W S. So, it's much easier to say TAWS than The Academic Writer's Space and so we opened up a co working community where now we offer over 100 live facilitated sessions a month, and they're facilitated by highly experienced dissertation coaches, and I happen to know a lot of them because I ran the dissertation coach for 24 years. So we've created a community of academic writers around the world, where we come together to learn how to work in a way that actually works.

[00:07:16] Alison: And how do we work in a way that we can reliably, reasonably, reliably progress our work, get things done. You know, that we all, academics, we all love to cross stuff off the to do list. Yeah. And we're getting work done in a way that is truly humane and sustainable, that it is honoring of the human who is doing the work. So I would describe TAWS as a place where we are learning a self honoring path of productivity, real productivity, real results and well being while you're doing it. 

[00:08:00] Vikki: I love that so much. And hearing, hearing your story, I obviously knew how you built this business and things, but the fact that you took yourself from being somebody who was procrastinating and feeling like an imposter and things, and you realize so much of this mindset stuff for yourself. I'm just, I'm just blown away by that. I did not. I muddled through on sheer enthusiasm for a really long time. And it was only when I started to get coaching and things myself that I realized some of the things that you realized. So I know people will be reassured to hear that you struggled with all this stuff too, but I'm just super impressed that you as a graduate student figured out what you needed to do to change things. I think that's amazing. 

[00:08:52] Alison: Well, I was in a clinical psychology program, right? I was in psych program and I started doing personal growth work, development work while I was doing my master's thesis. And I don't know that I consciously made this decision. I knew that what was going on with me today to day wasn't working and was going to be a problem for me in my life if I didn't do something about it.

[00:09:17] Vikki: I think it's amazing. So, what we're really going to focus on today is thinking about this notion of working with the version of you that shows up. So tell me a bit more about what you mean by that and why that's so important.

[00:09:31] Alison: Well, there's always a version of us who shows up to work. And the version of us who shows up to work is usually different than we imagined when we made a work plan for the day, for example, and the most important thing that I think anyone can do to help themselves work in a way that works that's effective and sustainable. The foundational practice of that, because working in a way that works is actually a practice. It's not something that we attain and we don't have to work on anymore. We're just, we're always working on it. And the core practice of working in a way that works and everything that we work on in our co working community, the foundation of all of it is being able to observe the version of you who is present.

[00:10:26] Alison: And it's a particular kind of observation, and this is actually necessary. It's a kinder observation. It's as if you're observing the version of you through like your own heart of, "Hey, Hey, Hey, and let's see, how are you doing right now?" So I've got, I woke up with so much anxiety this morning. My chest feels tight. Oh, my stomach doesn't feel right. I just really don't feel like working right now. That's what's going on with me. See, if that's the version of you who is present. And you don't tune in and recognize that that is who is here, it's going to be really hard to do what you said you were going to do or move in and write, edit, crunch numbers, whatever you're doing. And there's the version of us who is present right now. I might be engaged, ready to go. Great. Let's get in there and work. I might be feeling kind of irritable and annoyed. I might be feeling really pressured. Like I got to make up for lost time. Okay. It's really important that I recognize that the state that I'm presently in cognitively, emotionally, physiologically, the state of my nervous system has a huge impact on now what happens when I aim to take action.

[00:11:50] Alison:  The version of us who shows up may not be as compatible with working effectively and doing the work that you planned as is ideal. So, once we've observed the version of us, who is present and it takes a lot of practice to be able to do that to remember to do it first of all, that's why we're always reminding people of that in our community and to be able to do that with kind eyes. A kind heart, right? Let me look and see. Hey. Who's here and you can hear my tone right now. You see, hi. 

[00:12:28] Vikki: Yeah. 

[00:12:30] Alison: I'm softening and slowing down, stepping out of the intensity and the pressure and the rushing and the multitasking and doing, doing, doing, doing, doing, and stopping the action. So it's like if we had a snow globe and I shook it, we're putting the snow globe on a shelf and letting the snow settle, okay. It's kind of like dropping into the space. If you've ever been somewhere after a snow, and it's incredibly quiet. That's the direction we're pointing ourselves in and you're not going to necessarily feel that- it's, it's uncomfortable to observe the version of you who is present, so this is a practice that takes time and everyone, I invite everyone to go at their own pace. Because it does involve feeling. In order for me to observe the version of me who is here, ultimately, I'm going to have to feel what feels hard to feel, but it is the way, you know, uh, it's a key way anyway. 

[00:13:28] Alison: So there's a version of you who's here right now. And then there's the work. Well, the second movement after observing yourself with through like a kind lens is to observe, is the version of me who's here right now and the work I'm aiming to do, are those two things compatible? This is a game changing practice for people, is to pay attention to compatibility.

[00:13:53] Alison: And just to give a parallel for people to understand. In the relational world, let's say, Vikki, you and I meet up for lunch, and I'm really stressed out about something that happened, and I'm constantly checking my phone. And I'm just really not present what's happening is something happened to me that now I showed up to lunch with you and I'm actually not in a state that's compatible with relating well to you. We have a relationship with our work, and sometimes the here's the reality. We just plain aren't compatible with what we said we were going to do. Okay. You know what, I'm going to work on my references because I'm compatible with that. And I'm going to see if working on my references can help warm me up and get me to a state where I'm now compatible with that that ugly drafting that I need to do . And by the way, it's not a binary. It's not. I'm not compatible. I am compatible. It's a continuum. You might be less than ideally compatible, but you could probably get yourself there or you're like, wow, I am, I'm just not compatible and I don't see anything I can do to get compatible enough to do that. If that's the case, then change the task or take a nap, cry, eat, drink a glass of water, Go outside. And then on the other side, and this is where, where I believe there's enormous opportunity, no matter how stuck, how much you're struggling. And by the way, if you're the listener, who's thinking about quitting, I want you to know what I'm talking about right now can get you there. This is how you get to the finish line because let's, this happened to me in December. I fell ice skating, I injured my left arm and my right knee. I didn't need medical care, but I was bruised up, but I still wanted to work out. Well, you know what this body wasn't compatible with the workout I wanted to do. So what did I do? I worked out by modifying. We are maybe only a few modifications away from increasing our compatibility with what we said we were going to do or with our plan to being able to actually take action. So, a modification could look like. You know what? I'm going to take a few deep breaths and just stretch a little bit and remember that I have a body. Okay. That feels a little bit better. Okay. Let me look and see. Am I compatible enough yet? Nope. Still not compatible enough. Okay. You know what? I'm going to write down what my mind is telling me right now so I can see what's going on, the beliefs that are active and see if there's something there that's holding me back. Oh, wow. I'm the, you're not smart enough conversation or why is this taking you so long? Boy is present. Okay. What's another way I could see it. Okay. That's a modification. Um, paying attention to biological needs. Sometimes the lack of the real issue in the lack of compatibility is you're exhausted. You're dehydrated. You're hungry. You need to pee. I mean, we will sit at the computer and not let ourselves pee. You can't pee till you write three more paragraphs, right? Maybe you need to cry. Like there's something biological. You need to scream. You need to stretch. You need a hug. There's something that you need that's like more of a primal need, but we're ignoring. Modifications could come in the form of co regulation. You call someone, you get on a zoom call. That's what we do in our community. We are co regulating. We are borrowing each other's nervous systems. So, there's endless lists of ways that we could modify, but when we notice that there is insufficient compatibility to be able to move into the work, reasonable effectiveness, we want to look and see what are the modifications that we can make internally and externally that can help us move back into the work.

[00:17:43] Alison: And let me just speak one last thing here about external modifications. When I'm not compatible with working, one of the reasons I'm often not compatible is because I have 75 tabs open. I don't have clarity on what I'm actually doing. There isn't a written plan. I don't know where the documents are that I need to do the work. I'm going into a meeting without an agenda. I haven't actually done the kind of environmental alignment work. What I mean by that is, getting the physical and digital world set up in a way where it's much easier for you to move in and do that thing. You separate finding and organizing things to be worked on from the doing of the work. By the way, finding things and organizing things to do the work is the work. It's part of the work. And then there's the actual execution that comes in. So it's kind of like you're being a executive assistant for the future CEO who's going to come in to do the work. And that's a really important modification that everyone can do that's easy to overlook. 

[00:18:46] Vikki: This is such a good example. If people are watching on YouTube, they will see me smirking. And the reason I'm smirking is because about two episodes ago, I did an episode called how to be your own best personal assistant where we're talking about exactly the thing. So it's just another example of you and I coming at this from completely different places and realizing some of the same things as each other. But what I wanted to ask was, I love this idea of modifications, because what I see with my clients a lot, and with myself, to be honest, is that sometimes you sit down to do some work. You're not feeling it. And the easiest thing to do is either to like force yourself in some way to do it anyway or more often to then almost be like, Oh, well, I'm not in it. I might as well go and having this quite sort of binary thing of either I force myself or I indulge myself. So how do you support clients to kind of stay there and take that moment to think specifically, why am I not in this? Because I think often we don't figure that out. We're just like, I'm, I don't feel like it today without really thinking about why that is. And then to actually try these modifications. How do you help them to stay in that uncomfortable space of, figuring this stuff out.

[00:20:19] Alison: This is tough to do by yourself. It's not that I don't think it can be. If I were someone out there that wanted to do this myself, you have to make it your number one priority in your life to soothe, calm, regulate your nervous system. Ground connect inward. And the good news is there's untold numbers of things for free on YouTube and Spotify and I think everyone can find their own pathway. If I could save you the, who knows how many thousands of hours and and dollars I spent on something I could have done at the very beginning, which was to be absolutely dedicated to paying attention to how you are and seeing if you can improve your well, being even just a little bit. You can get a little bit more peaceful, a little bit calmer, a little bit clearer, a little bit more confident, a little bit more engaged, just 1 percent more. You have to have a dedication to doing something reliably that moves you in that direction. And in the beginning, you have to do it, even though it's not working. It takes time for our system, especially in academic environments that are often unhealthy, downright toxic, abusive scary. I mean, I don't I don't think I'm overstating it. Academic environments can be really, really, really challenging and so we don't realize how fearful we are, how dysregulated we are, how overwhelmed we are, how pressured we are. How we're moving at a pace that is totally incompatible with working effectively. So there has to, it's like a devotion to self. I'm going to pay attention to how I am doing. Inside, I'm going to pay attention to the internal atmosphere, the weather. And you might maybe just having reminders for a while. So, the interesting thing that we've observed in the academic writer space is that these things that I'm talking about today are all practices and they are perishable. They don't work. If you don't do them, there's no forever strategy that we can figure out that, like, here's the thing. If you this is the thing, if you do this you're going to figure it out and you're not going to have to work on this anymore. We've come to the conclusion in our community that the forever practice is observing the version of you who is present. You don't like do that a thousand times and now you don't need to do it anymore. It's like the daily hygiene, it's basic emotional wellbeing hygiene, you know, and we all need to be housekeepers, , you know, of our own experience. Like, this is your house, this is your home.

[00:23:19] Alison: We have to decide that I want to have a quality of life. Recently someone in our community said, my most important goal is to learn how to do this work in a way where I feel good. And I don't think we talk about that nearly enough in academia. We think it's like, I've got to survive it and get through it. And then we're in this constant illusion. Like after I get my master's degree, after I get my PhD, after I get a job, after I get tenure, and then we can spend decades of our lives not enjoying it. It's really helpful to have a community of people around you who are also practicing observing the version of them who is present because what you find out is that what you experience privately in side is a shared experience and it isn't anything to be ashamed of.

[00:24:12] Alison: It's what naturally arises in it. If we don't show up to attend to the frightened, overwhelmed, irritated, angry, upset, dysregulated versions of ourselves, then our work can never get the upgraded version of us that it wants. 

[00:24:33] Vikki: Yeah, no, for sure. And it's something I see a lot with. So I do group coaching rather than coworking, as you know. And so people are then seeing what each other are saying within those contexts. And it's all this shared experience of that often we are showing up with very similar worries and very similar concerns and is really empowering to see and what I see with. My clients is they reach a stage where they can kind of understand why some of the habitual thoughts they tell themselves are not necessarily helping them. Then they have compassion for where they came from and things like that. But then they enter this space where they're frustrated because they know that these thoughts that I'm not good enough or whatever aren't helping and they can see exactly why and they cognitively know that they also believe these other things that they can do hard things and whatever and they get really frustrated with the fact that it's not a sort of immediate fix.

[00:25:35] Vikki: And so I think it's really interesting that whether we're in the kind of co working space or in the coaching space, there's this same thing of accepting that this is work we have to keep doing and that we have to, you know, we're constantly going to be thinking about whether it's how our bodies are feeling or what thoughts are running through our heads. We're going to have to sort of look after that in a loving and nurturing way. 

[00:26:02] Alison: Yes. 

[00:26:03] Vikki: For the whole time we're trying to do anything. 

[00:26:06] Alison: Yes. We all have probably countless patterns, autopilot patterns, and then we start to form kind of beliefs and we just, we have, like, for example, a lot of graduate students that I have met are expert catastrophizers.

[00:26:29] Vikki: Yep. 

[00:26:31] Alison: In our community, we call it doom casting. 

[00:26:35] Vikki: Yeah, it's a thing. 

[00:26:37] Alison: It's a thing, right? We have patterns and they're very, very fast moving. It's like, if you got on a computer and you clicked on a program and it just opened immediately, all of our reactivity is quick, quick, quick, quick, quick. Okay. What starts to happen when you're in a coaching group or coaching relationship, our coworking community. We start to wake up in our pattern. And we realize, wow. When I believe these things, these are really not helpful to me. This is really good news. Now it's easy to get frustrated in this stage of growth because you're awake in a pattern and you can see the pattern is unhelpful, but you actually are still in the pattern. I think people should be encouraged when they get that frustration because it's a sign that you're getting done with being stuck in that pattern. 

[00:27:27] Alison: You know, we have, we often have to be awake. I mean, I have patterns that, it's been such a long wake up. And even in the time that I've been woken up, it's taken a long time to start to feel free from those patterns, but I know that it's worth it to work on it all the time. And the more that you actually do intentionally work on it and you practice new ways of engaging with your work, including paying attention to compatibility, you start to start to have some freedom. It's like a snake shedding its skin.

[00:28:01] Alison: I'll give you an example. In TAWS, we use technology Zoom and sometimes there are things that will go wrong technologically. And when we first launched the business and we had some technology problems, I just was like, , it was like a tiger was attacking me. My whole nervous system like, Oh my gosh, and people are thinking, and I'm rushing and I'm trying to fix it. And I'm just in this crazy energy, which is completely incompatible with facilitating TAS. And so for a while, I would start to just narrate what was happening, even though I felt powerless to change it. But somehow narrating. Okay. Wow. Heart is racing. You want to move really fast. You're feeling a sense of urgency. You're starting to catastrophize and make up stories about people are not going to want to be members because you weren't there in the first 3 minutes. And it's just an internal hurricane of stuff. And I, so I started to be able to go, okay, oh, and so then you think that, and then you feel this way, and then you feel this way, and now you have all this arousal you feel like really pressured. And I'm just sort of narrating what I'm experiencing to myself. And I noticed over time that I started to better be able to intervene and have another voice that came in that said. It's okay. It's okay. This is a business that relies on technology and technology is not 100 percent perfect. And I think that our members know that I'm dedicated to this company and dedicated to them, and I'm going to figure it out. And so I started talking to myself and now, when problems happen, I have this instinct to go, let me slow down with this. So that I can respond wisely because when I'm reacting quickly, I am disconnected from my wisdom. 

[00:29:44] Vikki: I think that notion that at first, you're only going to see these things almost afterwards. Oh, I got really worked up then, didn't I? That didn't help at all. Okay. And noticing, practicing, doing that compassionately. And then slowly as time goes on, you can notice it a little earlier and still compassionately. Yes. And eventually you get to notice it at a time when you're like, Okay, I'm noticing this at a time I can do something about it. 

[00:30:14] Vikki: That's where I love your analogy with housekeeping right because I think the same deal there. You know, we've all had times where the house has got into a bit of a state because we haven't done anything for a while and it's really easy to then put it off right because your eyes mess everything's a mess I'm such an untidy person, but actually if we can just be like, Okay. Yeah, things have got a bit messy over there. I'll put those away. It's not a big deal. Just tidy that up. And then we sort of, we fix it quicker and I feel like we can do that with our own self-regulation sometimes. That we kind of notice that we've got ourselves worked up or we've got ourselves a bit dejected or whatever, and if we can notice it that little bit quicker and support ourselves in it and move ourselves back, then the kind of adjustments become less dramatic, right? You get to moderate through in a little bit more of a, an even keel rather than these big kind of emotional responses. 

[00:31:13] Alison: Yes. I want to add something because what you're saying is making me realize something really important,. Everyone listening to this. If you're in a pocket of time where it's feeling too painful or too hard to work on things internally, work on things externally. Make work plans, and then actually take time to find the exact documents. Paper or electronic, passwords to websites, you might need things you want to print out and put in a folder and you're going to edit them. Make the environment, you know, what, get 1 of those, like, eyeglass cleaners and clean off your computer screen, especially of a touch screen, clean up those fingerprints. If you clean up the fingerprints once a day. Clean off your glasses. Do things that make the environment more aligned with you coming in to execute because I think what happens is that external environment cleanup and organization will have a cognitive impact. And there'll be a by product that you're going to be a somewhat better observer of what's going on and you're going to feel that feeling of like, that's better, it's cleaner, that's more organized. I know where things are. I have what I need. Okay. Now I'm a little upgraded. It's easier for me to pay attention to okay. What have I been thinking that's getting in the way? Is there something else I can think? Before you sit down to work, choose what technology materials are going to come with you on the ride also, you know. Another thing that is can really help everyone's mental health and I know you already know this and everyone's going to resist doing it. But take actual breaks where you are physically separated from your phone. Go for a walk without a phone if it's safe for you. Go out to dinner with someone who has a phone, but you don't. If you feel like you need someone there to have a phone. But like, I grew up in the 1970s and 80s. My parents just went to a restaurant and left the number for the sitter. I mean, you know, we have to remember that for a very, very short part of humanity, we've had this thing of being accessible all the time. It's not healthy for us. It's not helping us. Another thing you can do to to get your, not restructure, but get your brain working better, get your system more online is to go analog for a while. If you're someone that does all of your writing by typing on a computer, who does everything in the digital world, see what it's like to print a draft and edit on paper. Take a yellow pad of paper to a coffee shop and write freely from your mind. It's not a waste of time. In digital form, we have the backspace. We're constantly editing our work instead of just writing it out and expressing it and going with the flow of the current form it's in knowing you're going to revise it later. So going analog is another thing we can do when we feel like we can't work internally. 

[00:34:24] Vikki: I love that. I remember we had a PhD student once who he'd been working really hard on a paper and we'd gone through so many revisions, but it just didn't quite flow and I couldn't quite figure out what it was. Trying to give him feedback as to why the paragraphs didn't flow, why it wasn't making a good argument. I was really struggling. And what we decided in the end, I printed it out, we chopped the paragraphs out. So each paragraph was on a separate piece of paper. We went to a meeting room and we literally moved around the paragraphs and we're like, well, that one and that one basically say the same thing, so let's put those together. And it was so clarifying. And I think, yeah, getting away and actually being able to physically manipulate things, just can give you a completely different perspective and it was just a much less frustrating way of working, right? So we're standing around a table moving bits of paper with scissors and sellotape rather than cutting and pasting and trying to scroll up and down and work out what we're even doing. So yeah, I'm a massive fan of that. 

[00:35:30] Vikki: The other thing that struck me as you were talking, it was interesting that you went on to talk about disconnecting from the digital stuff was when you were talking about tidying up and things like that. One of the things that I know I'm not necessarily good at at the moment, but it works better when I am, is doing that stuff while not listening to other things. So often my tendency will be, I need to tidy up a bit, so I'll pop a podcast on. And I know this is a great irony that we're a podcast, we're hoping people are listening, but actually to be able to not have anything in your ears while you tidy your desk, wipe your screen, sort your notes out, so that your brain's mulling over what you're doing next, how you're feeling, and you're not deafening it with my voice or anybody else's on podcasts while you're doing it, I think is really useful too.

[00:36:27] Alison: I agree and I put on a lot of music that's instrumental that's designed to soothe and calm a human being. I do a lot of things to signal to my system that I can stay back down here in my body and I get pulled out of it all the time. But the more devoted I become to practicing going back inside, the more honestly decisive and clear and capable I feel and it's taken me a really long time. I hope it won't for your listeners. To be devoted to things like separating myself from technology, you know, actually resting for real. And I know it's really hard to prioritize the rest and recovery and rejuvenation that people need. You'll actually be more effective at working though if you do prioritize it truly.

[00:37:30] Vikki: So my final question, because this is something that comes up a lot with my clients is people who worry that if they start being more introspective and aware of their emotions, they'll almost become too compassionate and become this kind of self care, self soothing, can't possibly get myself to do anything situation where it'll just be too much. How do you respond to those people?

[00:37:58] Alison: Well, I don't know if everyone who's experiencing that has some version of this belief. And in my experience, it's often active in people's systems, which is that I need to be hard, mean, tough, intense with myself. If I'm going to get anything done, because that is how I motivate myself. And the reason so many of us have internalized this belief is because we were raised in environments where adults, parents, caregivers, teachers, coaches

[00:38:36] Alison: paired criticism and motivation. In your room! Why can't you get it together? You know, your brother doesn't struggle like this, you know? So we came to associate motivation and criticism. We internalize that voice of the way that you get yourself into action is to be mean. And so as long as that belief is active and it can continue to be, because it doesn't feel safe to let go of that. 

[00:39:10] Alison: I don't know if everyone knows what A B testing is. It's like, you know, a company will test an ad two different ways and compare the results. You know, there's all kinds of A B testing. I think it's worth doing AB testing when it comes to self compassion. . If you're willing to kindly observe the version of you who is present, see who's here, see who you're dealing with, and have compassion for the version of you who's here, and then move into the work or do your typical beat yourself up, be mean and be unkind and move into the work and just see the difference for yourself. See what happens because the reason it's so vital to be compassionate towards yourself... Compassion isn't about like, Oh yeah, I'm just. It's okay. You don't feel like working. So let's just hang out in bed all day. That's not at all what we're talking about. Compassion can be fierce. Compassion is like about caring for people. And you know, we need, we actually need a lot more fierce compassion on our earth. If you ask me, that's coming in and is like, this is not working. This is not how we treat each other as human beings. This is broken. This needs to be dismantled. Humanity needs to think in a whole new way about how we're going to live. . In some ways we need to do that for ourselves. You know, we're saying the version of me who's present is who's here. And that's who's here. If I'm going to allow it to be so, welcome it in kind of compassionate arms and I'm allowed to be as I am? Oh, I'm just really in a bad mood. And I'm really pissed about what my advisor wrote. And feeling super activated. Of course, it makes sense that you don't feel like working. See now, do you see what just happened there is now, a little door is present. And the door is to my wisdom.

[00:40:57] Alison: Okay, well, how would someone who was feeling really activated and upset and angry and annoyed or whatever the thing is, what could be done for that person to help them be more compatible with working? It's a lie that our mind tells us the way to motivate yourself, the way to activate yourself and get you to engage effectively is to be mean, because if that worked. Vikki, you and I would have had to find a completely different line of work. It takes time and practice and honestly, again being able to be around other people that are learning to be kind inside. Because I do believe in a, in a really positive way, it is contagious. 

[00:41:43] Alison: I think that an important thing that happens in connection in the relational world between us, there's a particular kind of transmission that happens that isn't actually verbal. I'll give you an example right now of like, Hi, how are you? You see how different that is. That's taken me a long time to know how to do that inside myself, but that being able to do that opens up whole new worlds of possibility for me of how I can navigate through life. So there's a transmission that happens in community that happens relationally where, when you witness and you, you can feel it. And the interesting thing is people will be able even to feel it over the recording because I know when I hear people do it over a recording, I realize it's not so much the words that they're saying. It's the, this is going to sound super new age, but it's the energy they were in at the time.

[00:42:49] Alison: The words will be spoken, you can feel. This person is speaking from inside themselves. That transmission invites people to, I know this sounds really weird, but this is what I'm witnessing happening in TAWS. It's really just co regulation, right? It's being able to borrow other people's nervous systems. And when you can feel that someone can go somewhere inside themselves, it's an invitation for you to follow. Passion expressed in community is deeply healing for people. So I would encourage your listeners to look around in their program. Who's living in their heart? Connect with those people, deliberately connect with your own hearts, and you're going to be able to solve so many of the intellectual and academic methodological, theoretical, all that stuff that you're conceptual stuff that you can't figure out right now. If you're more compassionate, you're going to figure it out faster, I believe, okay. And you're also going to open up a door to your wisdom where you're going to think, huh, what if I tried it this way? You try it. It works or it doesn't work. If it doesn't work, it doesn't matter. Go back to your wisdom and you'll start to discover for yourself that you already have a roadmap inside of you. Everyone listening to this podcast, fully installed, you have a roadmap that will help you get to the finish line. Part of that roadmap, by the way, involves conversations and help and support from other people. But you already have a lot of intuition, instincts and gut feelings, ideas about how you could engage with your work in a way that would work better for you.

[00:44:24] Alison: But when we're being mean to ourselves and beating ourselves up and, and we're dysregulated and we're really stressed and we're really pressured, the door to that wisdom is locked and it's almost as if it's painted over and you don't know it's there. So self compassion and the prioritization of your well being, which those are obviously interrelated when those things get really prioritized, it is incredible to see the shift that I see in people where it's almost like a different person because the bedrock of their day to day life is. Being kind to what they find.

[00:45:07] Vikki: I love it. If people want to hear more, and I'm sure they will, tell everyone where they can find you and where they can find The Academic Writers' Space. 

[00:45:18] Alison: You can go to the academic writers space dot com. There's 2 S's in their writers space. If you want to explore this a little bit further, then I would say, go on the website and sign up for a free week. What that means is you're going to get 7 days of membership for free. There's 25 coworking sessions in a week. You'll just change your time to your time zone, and you'll be able to see the schedule in your time zone. You do not put down a credit card or anything like that. And then there's different forms of membership. If you're interested in participating in the community, it's like a gym membership where you're basically paying to come to as many co working sessions as you want, if you buy like a full access membership and there's also starter memberships. And there's a video library for people. So people just have a way to feel supported. But fundamentally what I think TAWS is, it's a place to practice working in a way that works over time and reaching your goals. Every almost every week, there's someone defending a few times a month. Someone's defending your dissertation and we were there with them when it didn't look good. And one last thing I just want to say to everybody, I've walked the path as a dissertation coach. And now, as a facilitator with thousands of graduate students. I've seen so many people come back after being kicked out of their programs, taking leaves, being interrupted, having all kinds of challenges and difficulties, unsupportive advisors, medical challenges. You name it who have made it to the finish line. So, like, even if right now, you're having kind of a dark moment about your dissertation. It absolutely can get better and you have a lot of power inside of you just by observing the version of you who is present and working with that, working with your compatibility to climb out of wherever you are, and back to the sunlight and back towards the finish line. 

[00:47:23] Vikki: Amazing. Thank you so much for coming on. I know this is only going to be the beginning of all our conversations. We've got so many more things that I'm sure we'll talk about in future episodes and things like that, but thank you for coming on today. Thank you everyone for listening and I will see you next week. 

Thank you for listening to the PhD life coach podcast. If you liked this episode, please tell your friends, your colleagues, and your universities. I'd appreciate it if you took the time to like, leave a review, give me stars, stickers, and all that general approval as well. If you'd like to find out more about working with me, either for yourself or for people at your university, please check out my website at thephdlifecoach.

com. You can also sign up to hear more about my free group coaching sessions for PhD students and academics. See you next time.