Practicing Connection

How to Get the Most out of Practicing Connection Podcast

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Have you ever asked, “So what do I do with this?” after listening to a Practicing Connection episode? 

Put the pieces together with us on our first Q&A episode! 

Join Erin and Jessica as we answer listener questions on how to start actually doing practices, including must-listen episodes and what practices you can combine.

We share some of our favorite episodes and practices, along with suggestions for listeners to take the next steps in their own practicing journey.

There's lots here, so bookmark this one, these episodes will keep you company for a while!

Episodes referenced in this episode:

Further links and resources for the podcast:

[00:00:00]

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Hi. Thank you for listening to the Practicing Connection Podcast. I'm Erin. My co-host Jessica is here as well. Today we'll be answering listener questions in our first ever mailbag episode. 

Hi Jessica. How are you feeling about answering questions today?

JESSICA BECKENDORF: I am so excited for this episode. 'Cause as you know, I got a peek at the questions, and I'm just really excited. I hope that my voice holds out, as you might be able to tell, I have a little bit of a cold. But I am super stoked about this episode. We've been planning this for a while.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Yeah.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: How are you feeling about it?

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: I'm feeling really excited. I think it's fun to have actual interaction with some questions from others, which is fun.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: And you got to collect these too. So that must have been fun.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: I did get to collect these. It was really fun, and I got to, I kind of selected which ones we're doing, and I think it'll be [00:01:00] really fun because you've been doing this podcast for a while. You've been here since the beginning of the podcast.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Since the beginning of time.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: And I'm new, so I think it'll be really fun to see how different our answers are to questions. Are you ready to dive in?

JESSICA BECKENDORF: I am, and I'll try not to be long-winded. As you said, I've been here since the beginning of time.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: I did not say you have been here since the beginning of time! You just helped found it. You're a founder. It's very exciting.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Okay. Let's do it.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Okay. First question. 

“Hi, I'm new to listening to the podcast. I love that you have interviews and Practicasts. The practices all seem super useful when I'm listening, but I can never manage to get myself to actually do one. Do you have any suggestions on how to get unstuck and actually try something?”

JESSICA BECKENDORF: I do. And actually, the suggestions that I have come from some of the foundational work [00:02:00] that Bob and I were doing when we first started this podcast. 

So, the first one is, touch the treadmill. And what I mean by that, you were about to ask what I mean by that,right?

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: I was. You read my eyebrow perfectly.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: So what that means is, you've got a treadmill, and you've got the will potentially to use it. But also it's very difficult somehow to use. And the idea here is that if you promise yourself that all you have to do is go downstairs or go to wherever the treadmill is and just touch it, chances are you're going to get up on the thing and go for a couple minutes. And you might negotiate with yourself and say, “I only need to do five minutes, and I'm gonna consider that a win for today,” right? 

So the chances of when you go and touch the treadmill of you getting on it are greater.

And then if you get on it, the chances of you going for five minutes, or maybe, you know, you get to five minutes and you're like, “Oh, I can go five more minutes,” the [00:03:00] chances of you doing something with it are greater. 

And so the idea here is getting unstuck. You don't have to try the whole thing. You can just say, “You know what, I'm going to consider it a win if I just do a piece of this practice, or if I just do a piece of this thing.” 

Or if I start by, for example, I know that I want to get up out of bed - my goal is to get up out of bed by 6:30 in the morning. That is really hard for me. And so right now I am happy if I'm getting out of bed before 7:00 AM. It can be one minute before 7:00 AM. It can be 30 seconds before 7:00 AM. I don't care. I'm happy if I'm getting up before 7:00 AM. 

My goal, I know, is eventually I'm going to keep walking that back 10 minutes at a time. But as soon as I start to very consistently get up before 7:00 AM, then I'll set it back to 6:50. So I want to get up before 6:50 AM. So eventually my goal will be to be getting up [00:04:00] before or at 6:30 AM.

And so to me, touching the treadmill is 6:59 and 59 seconds. If I get up, right, then that is still a win.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: I love this. We call this breaking inertia. That's what we talk about at our house, where it's like once you get started, it's easier to keep going, but finding the momentum to get going is the hardest thing. So you can come up with the most laughably easy success.

You know, we do this thing where we'll do walks every day in the winter, and sometimes before we like fully went into it, I was, I did a lot of saying, “Okay, I just have to stand outside. I just have to get dressed and put shoes on and go outside.” And then once I was out there, I was like, “Wait, actually it's nice out here.”

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Yep.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: So that's me retelling the thing you just told [00:05:00] again,

But -

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Well, and these are both physical examples. I want to give also like a maybe non-physical example. So I really value and enjoy creative writing, and yet I hardly ever do it, but I've been doing it lately because I had to touch the treadmill of attitude about it. 

And I'm like, all I have to do is open Scrivener, click through a few of my chapters, maybe read a couple things. I don't have to even do any of that. All I have to do is open Scrivener and just like look at the project for a second. That's the touch the treadmill.

And then once I'm in it, I do tend to read through what I've got and maybe I'll add a few words here or there. Maybe I don't. Sometimes I don't, but I still feel like I won, because I did something in that space.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Awesome.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: And the other thing that I would say of getting unstuck and actually trying something is to remember that you don't have to do anything perfectly the first time, or ever. You don't ever have to do anything perfectly.

There are [00:06:00] systems that I have followed, what is that, David Allen's Getting Things Done system. I tried that so many times. It doesn't work for me, but you know what, there are little pieces of it that work for me really well. And so I stole those few little pieces and I started assembling my own thing.

And so one of the things I always say comes from this yoga teacher that I had once, that it's yoga practice people, not yoga perfect. It's yoga practice, not yoga perfect. 

And so remember that anything that you're doing is practice, and you can just take from it what you want. You don't have to do the whole thing in its perfection, the whole in its entirety, just because someone else developed this thing for you to follow.

You don't have to follow everything. Just take the little pieces that mean something to you.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: I love that. Okay, so my initial thought when I read this question was about “switch [00:07:00] costs.” Have you heard of this term?

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Is this sort of like context switching, or is it something else?

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Kind of. Essentially it's: brains kind of default to what they're familiar with, what routines and what you've done before. And that's kind of your default. 

And so when you make a change, there's a cost to it, and sometimes your brain is just resistant to it. Even if you think it'll be a good change, your brain is trying to protect you from wasting time, energy, resources, danger.

Because sometimes change can read as danger, and so your brain is just like, “Oh, it's not worth doing.” And a lot of times, I heard about this first in creative spaces where people had been working for a long time, or also in entrepreneurship, which is funny. People will work on something for a long time, and right before they're about to go public with it, they just have the major energy slump crisis of, “Am I able to pull this off?”

And it's this kind of “switch [00:08:00] cost” place. The best advice I've gotten for navigating switch cost, when suddenly your brain's telling you, “Oh, this is gonna cost too much to try,” is something called spread of alternatives, where basically you imagine, “Okay, what will it be like if I stay the same?”

And then you also imagine, “What could be different in a good way if I tried the new thing?” It's a lot like visualization.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Or I always like to say, “What could this make possible?”

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Yes. And that helps your brain freak out less about change to imagine. You can kind of see, okay, what will it cost me to keep doing it the way that I'm doing it, and what could benefit me from doing it a new way?

And that kind of helps shift the balance in your brain into a new thing. So I don't know if that's what's happening for the person asking this question, but to me it sounds like often I hear a similar question from people [00:09:00] who are maybe overwhelmed, or have a huge workload on their plate. And so adding one more thing feels impossible.

My response to that would be that your workload is never going to change unless you start trying something.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Mm-hmm.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: So change isn't the enemy necessarily, and here's a way to help you decide if a change is worth doing.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Oh, I love that. 

Well, what's our next question? Let's, I'm, we're warming up here. I appreciate that first one. I like the order you put this in.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Oh, thank you. Okay, so question two: “I just started listening to the podcast. What are your top must-listen-to episodes from past seasons? There are too many to listen to them all.”

JESSICA BECKENDORF: So the, my first thought when I saw this question is, “You think I'm going to be able to narrow this down very much? 

I mean, yes, I can narrow it down for sure, but as we've [00:10:00] established, I've been here since the beginning of time on this podcast. And so, I did make a few notes. It's certainly not all-inclusive because if I had been all inclusive, It would've just been too long of a list, but I'm going to start with one of our most recent episodes. 

I really loved the conversation I had with the mayor of Havelock, Will Lewis. That was published in February,

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Yeah, last episode of February.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Yeah. And frankly, I love a lot of our interview episodes. Bringing other voices on the podcast, but also just learning from others. 

So I loved talking with the mayor of Havelock. Havelock has done some amazing things and created some really strong partnerships, and collaborations across disciplines, public and private, the installation nearby, and the city officials. And I just think they've done a tremendous job there. 

Another one that comes to [00:11:00] mind really strongly is the More Than a Meal with Chef Mary Long. Her work is at the US Army North Vogel Resilience Center in San Antonio. She has these really innovative cooking classes, and she talked a lot about how the community that's built up around this center has been really important for the service members who have been taking advantage of that in their families. 

And some of our Practicasts that have come to mind: this is one I told you I was going to mention it, even though it has not been super popular with the listeners. I love this practice and it has helped me tremendously. 

There's an episode we have called Energy and Engagement Tracking. I don't know, maybe it's the name of the episode that isn't playing very well, but it is not as well-loved as I thought it was going- it's not like the hit I thought it was going to be. But I love that episode, and I love the practice that we shared during that. It's [00:12:00] something that I literally have used - all of our practices we have used - but this is one that I keep coming back to and using. 

Another one using the Feeling Wheel to Understand Emotions. This one is well-loved among our listeners. Any of our strengths-based ones, so like the Via Character Strengths, as you know, I talk about them all the time. I've had a lot of training in them, and I speak about them way too annoyingly often.

So really any of our strengths-based episodes. But one in particular is Listening for Strengths. I think our Ecosystem of Military Family Support with Nicola Winkle was one of my personal favorites. 

And then we did three episodes that were based on improv, and I bring it up here and there, I try not to mention it too much, but I did used to perform improv, and really have learned a lot about the application of theater and improvisational theater tools [00:13:00] in life. And I've brought a lot of that to my work. And so we have three episodes on that that we did with a tremendous guest, Shannon Hughes from Enlivened Studios. 

I just loved doing these episodes. There were three of them. They are: Yes, And vs. Yeah, But, Make Your Partner Look Good, and Notice Offers & See Them as Gifts.

And all of those ones I just mentioned, they're all some of my personal favorites.

I have many personal favorites on the podcast, and I'm not trying to sound like, I don't know, I really do feel like I've created something that I would listen to. And so it's very genuine love for this podcast when I say that I could have gone on and listed more, so I could keep going.

And the last thing I'll say is that any of our interviews really are such a joy for me, and I think that any of our interviews are a must-listen. And we've even spoken with Amy Roddick, the Director of Military Family and Readiness policy a couple of times, [00:14:00] those have been really great conversations and I look forward hopefully to more.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Wow. Okay. So I think that's a great list. I'll keep mine super short because I don't want to overwhelm people with 20 episodes.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Like I just did.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Um, yes. Also, because I have to go hunt all of these down so we can put links in the show notes.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Yes.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Do not despair. Every episode we mention in this episode will be linked in the show notes, even if it ends up being 20. Just so that you don't have to go find them, they're going to be right there. 

I think one of the first episodes I ever listened to was Adventure Ready, Strengthening Military Families Tthrough Teen Camps. That was last year. And it was this really cool episode where our colleague Kristen came on with some of her coworkers from Kentucky to talk about these really cool 4-H adventure camps that they do for military youth and their parents, where they can [00:15:00] go with their parent.

And I think what I loved about that is, camp is familiar to me, both my mother and one of my best friends have done the running summer camp thing. And so it was very familiar. It was a context I understood, but I hadn't really understood the military layer until I listened to that episode. 

And they were talking about how they do all of the normal camp things, but there was one major difference, which was, military parents were expressing, “We don't want to be separated from our kid. We're already separated so much. We want time to do things together. We want experiences together so we can have quality time with our teens.”

And then they developed these camps out of that idea. And I, first of all, loved it. The camp sounded super cool, super fun, and it's clear that they're really being intentional. And it was just a delight to hear this group. You should definitely all go listen to that episode. They're still running the camps. I think [00:16:00] registration for this year opens like next week sometime.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: I was going to say, it's got to be coming soon because we did this last April.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Yeah, that would make sense. I think April is the Month of the Military Child, so definitely a season in which we do it. I'll put the links to that episode and to the camp also in our show notes.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: That's also any branch too, right?

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Yes. There's a registration fee of like $60 for this camp. But otherwise, the camps are completely free and include equipment, lodging, and meals. So it's a very exciting opportunity.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: And you don't have to be in Kentucky, right. You can be from anywhere. 

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Yeah, that's what I thought. 

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Yeah. That was a great conversation, and I saw that you listed it, so I didn't put it in my list, but it is one of the interviews that I loved last year. 

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Yeah. So much like deep thought was put into what people were doing, and it was clear they were so passionate about what they were doing and so it was just pleasant, and [00:17:00] everybody had really lovely sounding voices. You know, every once in a while someone's voice just like hits the perfect spot.

Anyway, I really enjoyed that episode. And one episode I really loved that I did, I was kind of like the lead writer for it, was Beyond Sleep: Four Kinds of Rest We All Need, where we walk people through how to do an inventory of different types of rest that you need.

And part of why I love it is because after we recorded it, I kept having conversations with all of these people where they were just saying, “Oh, I had all this time off, and I'm so exhausted.” I was like, “Hey, it's possible you're not getting the rest you need.” 

So then I ended up referring a bunch of people to it and having that conversation, and actually doing that inventory with a couple of people to help them come up with new ways of resting 

And getting to actually see people have these transformative experiences [00:18:00] because of a practice that I was the lead writer on was really invigorating. Selfishly, I loved it because it really helps motivate me to write specific and thorough episodes. You know, we think pretty deeply about what we're sharing, and it's really encouraging to see, ‘Oh yeah, this is actually helpful. It's not just helpful to me personally. It is helpful to a broad audience.” 

So those are kind of my top two.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: I love that. I really loved that episode. Also that Practicast you mentioned. And it makes me want to actually go back and listen to it because, I mean, yes, I know I need physical rest right now because I'm getting over a little bit of a virus. But, I'm reminded that there's other kinds of rest that I could use right now too.

So I kind of want to go back and listen to that. 

Our next question?

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Yes. Okay. 

“Thanks for introducing me to habit stacking as a productivity tool. Do you have any [00:19:00] recommendations for how we could stack practices? Is that a thing you can even do? What practices could we combine for greater impact?

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Okay. So, Erin, you might suspect I'm going to mention something about character strengths.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Okay, sure. Sure.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: So, I mean, I would say I will always answer questions like this with telling people to lean into, learn about and practice anything to do with building your character strengths. 

And then I would say combine that with emotional intelligence. Things like knowing and regulating your emotions. And we do have some episodes using the feeling wheel to help you know your emotions. We have some other episodes about regulating your emotions as well, if I recall. 

So anyway, combine character strengths with emotional intelligence, and then if you can mix in a little like “yes, and…” or, any of those, you know, making your partner look [00:20:00] good or the idea of seeing everything in front of you as an offer, including the environment, what people are saying to you. Those are all offers that you can build with. 

So those kinds of things combined I think will help you be present with others, will help you just be present period. Not just present with others, but just be present, period.

They will help you improve your relationships and help you build your adaptability and confidence. Adaptability in particular is really important. Things are constantly changing, and I think for some reason we keep denying that that's what's happening.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Okay. That makes sense. Hilariously, a lot of the episodes we recommended as must-listens are ones that would be pretty compatible with each other.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Yeah. I think so too.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Yeah. 

Let's see what else. I had like a few specific ones. Oh, so one of our most recent episodes, I think it's [00:21:00] published, yeah, was about How to Give Pep Talks, or, Encouragement That Works. And shortly before that, we had one about social awareness, Turning Conflict into Collaboration. 

And I think you can take the practice for observing people on your team and imagining them more complexly from the turning conflict into collaboration. So combine that kind of social intelligence, observing other people and learning about them, with how to give a pep talk to give a really, really good pep talk.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Yeah.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Or if you're like going through the practice of trying to write a pep talk and you keep getting stuck, 'cause you don't know what people need to hear or you can't quite figure out what's happening, using that practice from Turning Conflict Into Collaboration to really figure out what is it that's going on with people, what do they value, what's important to them? And then figuring out, okay, how does that connect to my pep talk?

And then maybe even rewriting your pep talk, because I think once you figure out people's values, it's way easier to [00:22:00] write a pep talk.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Mm-hmm.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: So that's one combination I recommend. And I think one other thing is we had an episode last year about ending the day strong with a daily reflection.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Mm-hmm. We have maybe a lot of those, but that's okay. Right? You pick the daily reflection that works for you.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Yes. Basically any of our reflection practices combine well with other ones because a lot of them are about noticing. So if you're trying a new thing, the daily reflection practice, I think is specifically really useful if you're trying a new practice, and you want to see what impact it's having on your experience.

So like start doing that daily reflection before you start another practice, and then keep doing it after to help you kind of notice the impact of it, and if it's worth continuing.

If it's really hitting what you need it to hit, or if you need to pivot and try something new, I also like the Ending the Day Strong daily reflection practice, as like burnout [00:23:00] prevention, and I think it's a useful way to identify if you're missing something. So it could help you decide what kind of rest you need.

Last fall we also had some episodes about awe and wonder, which are other things that really help with burnout prevention. So I think those are also potentially practices you could combine.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Yeah, I love that. That kind of reminds me of, I've just recently started doing something called Interstitial Journaling, and it's basically where you just take like 30 seconds to maybe three minutes, when you have a moment. So it's just in between things and you just quickly say, “Here's what I just worked on. Here's what I'm about to work on, here's how I'm feeling.” 

And you just kind of like write a couple things. It's not meant to be a long journaling session, it's just sort of in-between things. You record the time that you're doing it and you say a little bit about what you did, a little bit about what you're going to do. You can probably say whatever you want in there really. 

But maybe a little bit about how you're feeling. And [00:24:00] it's been super, super helpful. It may not be like an end of the day reflection, but it's been sort of a day long reflection. It's been kind of interesting. It's still an experiment I'm trying, and maybe we'll have an episode about it sometime.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: I love that. All right. Any other final thoughts before we wrap it up?

JESSICA BECKENDORF: No, I just had so much fun with our first mailbag session.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Yeah, me too. I hope that people send us more questions and maybe like harder questions!

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Yes.

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: These are very friendly questions that people have been sending us. You know, it's like, hit us with some hard ones!

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Well, how are they gonna do that? Let's tell 'em!

ERIN CARLSON RIVERA: Yes. All right. If you have a question or a hot take to share, please email us at practicingconnection@oneop.org. You can look at the show notes if you want to see that spelled out. We want to hear from you. 

We do see and respond to every message, and we promise we will ask your permission [00:25:00] before including any of your questions in a future episode.

That's it. Thank you for joining us. We'll be back next week. Until then, keep practicing.


CREDITS: The Practicing Connection Podcast is a production of One-Op and is supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, US Department of Agriculture and the Office of Military Family Readiness Policy, US Department of Defense under award number 2 0 2 3 4 8 7 74 3 3.



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Jessica Beckendorf

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