Dr. Nicole Cain treats grumpiness as a signal of unmet needs across three areas: psychological (thoughts and feelings), social (relationships and stressors), and biological (sleep, hydration, blood sugar). She walks through free-association journaling, checking social triggers, and reviewing physical factors to find what's actually wrong, then fix it.
Chapters
This is a meta morning. I was having a lot of grumpies this morning, and I thought that I would just jump on and see if anybody else is with me. It's easy for me to get on here and just talk with you about things that I'm learning and to come from the perspective of the educating educator, the clinician, the warrior. But I wanted to get on this morning and just be with you in the space of somebody who has, I don't know, the Monday grumpies or whatever it is, and to just say good morning and hi and how are you feeling this morning? Has anybody heard of the Sunday scaries, where on Sundays oftentimes people get a little bit of anxiety or stress before they start their new work week? And it's really interesting because we could get Sunday scaries even when we love what we're going to be doing on Monday. It's kind of a phenomenon that lives in the nervous system and maybe not even your logical brain. And I think that a lot about when I'm having grumpy days is when what part of the brain is producing this experience? And so this morning I'm sitting here in my office and I just feel grumpy. I don't know if you've ever felt that way before. And then you talk to somebody and they tell you all about how. How you have no reason to have a grumpy and it's not very logical. And then you feel shame for feeling grumpy. You feel shame for not feeling grateful. And so what I like to do in moments or days like this is to try to be a curious observer of the grumpies. So if you're anxious this morning, or if you feel sad this morning, if you're just irritable and everybody is driving like an idiot, this morning is. Let's lean into that together, you know, sometimes, yeah, we have somebody who's on the live who's talking about so many symptoms, one after another. Some can last for months, some can ebb and flow. And that's exactly what I'm talking about. And so I'm. I'm having a grumpy morning and I physically experience it in my chest, like a little bit of heaviness in my chest and tired. And then when I try to think and be creative, it's just the proficiency of thought, isn't there? So if we lean into that, if we think of these symptoms, these sensations, these feelings, we can get data. And this data is the body, the mind trying to communicate to us about an unmet Need. And so with the unmet needs, I always think of it on three planes, which I teach about the anxiety breakthrough program. One is your psychological cast of characters. I'll tell you about that in a minute. The second is your social cast of characters. And the third is your biological cast of characters. So you wake up, you're feeling anxious, you're feeling irritable, you're feeling kind of sad. You just have the grumpies. Okay, we have data. I'm noticing it, I'm feeling it, But I'm gonna put a comma at the end of that, and we're gonna collect that as data. So if we start and we say, okay, do I have an unmet need in my psychological cast of characters? Are there parts of myself that are feeling upset? Do I like my job? Am I feeling supported? Did I get enough sleep? What could be going on in my mind and my emotions, my feelings, my thoughts, my logic contributing to how I'm feeling? And so a way to decode that. And all right, we're going to explore why you have the grumpies this morning. A way to decode that is to free associate journal. So beachy chick, feeling anxious, feeling stressed, Same sister. So let's reassociate journaling. When we get off of this live today, when we get off this conversation, everything that is in your brain, just dump it out, write it out, even if it makes no sense, maybe right from the perspective of the grumpiness, the anxiousness. So pretend your anxiety and write everything that anxiety is dealing. So that's the first one. Psychological cast of characters. What kind of unmet needs is this symptom trying to tell you from a psychological perspective? And then the second is social cast of characters is, are you lonely this morning? Were there people in your lives who were speaking critically to you or who disappointed you, who weren't supporting you? Or do you have a meeting with somebody that you feel nervous about? The social cast of characters are all of those people in your world that surround you. But it's not just local people. This social cast of characters can extend from family, friends, neighbors, people in your community, people in your city, people in your country, the government, politics at large. I have a friend right now who I have observed. She's very depressed and she's very anxious and she's very upset, and she's in this whirlpool because she's so stressed out about politics. And so for her, that would be a social cast of characters, right? That could be expressing or triggering a trauma trigger or an unmet need. And then the third is biological cast of characters. And so I wake up this morning and I'm feeling the grumpies. And maybe you're, you know, a couple people have replied on here like, yeah, you're feeling that way too. And so, you know, someone may go to you and say, oh, well, you should be grateful. It should be this and this and this. Think of all your blessings. But maybe that symptom is there for a reason. Maybe there is an unmet biological need. And what could that be? Is your blood sugar low? Do you need to get your thyroid checked? Is your gut out of balance? Do you need to rehydrate in the mornings? You know you've been fasting from water for eight hours or so while you were sleeping. And we know that impacts your nervous system, your neurotransmitters and, you know, biological. Could be medication. So maybe you take a medication at a certain time of day and it's losing effectiveness, or maybe there's an interaction. There's lots of things biologically that can make us feel depressed, anxious, irritable, wonky, tired, lethargic. And so when you feel this way, and I'm saying this to myself with you because it's a grumpy morning for me, think of it as data and allow that data to speak to you about an unmet need. And when you identify that unmet need, then you suddenly have solutions instead of just spinning in it and spinning in it and spinning in it. And one of the things that is really common is that feeling discontented in our lives. You know, we have a question that just came on the live. Can unhappiness be a root cause of panic? Absolutely. Panic is just simply your body trying to give you information. It's all data. And so if that thought keeps coming up that you wrote down in the live, if you have this unresolved situation or this unresolved feeling, this is data. This is an opportunity to explore that so that you can really, truly heal, whatever that looks like. Right? So this morning I'm going to get off this live here in a minute. I'm in a free association journal. So if you are stuck in a situation and it's troubling you, journal it. If you're feeling really anxious, journal it. If you're like, wow, I haven't had any water today. I've been sleeping all morning, or I slept all night, then drink water. Think of it as data. Acknowledge the grumpies, acknowledge the anxiety. Acknowledge the brain fog, irritability, despair, panic, whatever it is. Acknowledge it and then allow yourself to ask, what is that unmet need from the three realms, psychological, social and biological? All right, this has been. Dr. Nicole just wanted to get on here and just be really real and authentic with you and hope that you are able to do the inner work and that it provides you invitations to get your life back so that you can really live a life that you were put on this earth to live.
