Ixchell Reyes 0:00
We’re living in unprecedented times, and there’s so much confusion. How do we cope with a barrage of societal changes while trying to maintain our compassion and humanity?

Brent Warner 0:21
Welcome to the DIESOL podcast, where we focus on Developing Innovation in English as a Second or Other Language. I’m Brent Warner, Professor of ESL, and I’m here, of course, with Ixchell Reyes, award winning educator innovation and professional development. Ixchell, how – Well, here’s the question, how are you?

Ixchell Reyes 0:43
I’m fine. Thank you. And you?

Brent Warner 0:44
I’m fine. Thank you. (laughter) Okay, so we’ve been gone for a couple months, little break, little break. Part of that was, you know, you were moving around. There’s just it was lots of shifts in schedule.

Ixchell Reyes 1:02
Some fires in there.

Brent Warner 1:04
There were some fires. There was some of you might have heard about this election that has changed things. So, okay, all right, obviously, this is, this is a big issue, and so part of me too, Ixchell I shut down for a little while. I’m like, I just, I don’t know I like, I do. I just need to focus on other things, right? And so. So really, the question, how are you doing? Like, for me, the answer has been, not great. How are you coping? Yeah. How are you coping? Is everything okay, right? And the answer is generally, no, not really doing very well at all, like not seeing positive futures, or, you know, things to help other people, or just, you know, just even to help ourselves too. Yeah, exactly I mean. And that’s so we’re going to get into this. But like, you know that the the metaphor of, like, you know, the God and I, even these metaphors are terrible now too, the the, you know, but like, when, when there’s a plane emergency, the mask, the oxygen mask, yeah, take care of yourself first, and then take care of the people next to you, right? Like, and it’s like, okay, but even that metaphor now, with the airplane crashes and the fires, about metaphors, oh my God, everything is hard to deal with, and I think that’s part of what we’re trying to talk about today, is understanding that right? You’ve been dealing with a lot of this stuff too. You’ve got all sorts of issues. So first, are you okay? And this is for Ixchell, but it’s also for people listening. Are you Okay?

Ixchell Reyes 2:34
I am okay.

Brent Warner 2:37
Okay.

Ixchell Reyes 2:38
How are you, Brent? How are you really?

Brent Warner 2:41
In the moment I’m okay. So I So, I am not an anxious person normally, but I definitely had a lot of anxiety coming in on through the first week, and that kind of has faded down. I had a real, like, kind of punch gut in my stomach thing going on, you know? And, but now I’m like, I was really, really scared there was going to be other problems, and some of those things haven’t quite come out or at this point, anyways, but, but for right now, I’m feeling… trying to cope, I guess. We’re all we’ll we’re all trying to cope. I don’t know if I’m okay, but, but we wanted to talk about a few things. So first, you and I are not psychologists, right? We need to be quite clear on that.

Ixchell Reyes 3:23
Not psychologists, no therapists. We’re just two people who talk about the things that are happening…

Brent Warner 3:30
I think that this is, you know, this new presidency, all of these things are going on are hard for us and also hard for our students. And one of the things Ixchell that I’ve noticed is a lot of people are just not saying anything, right? There’s just kind of a lot of quietness or concern or, like, what do I do? And, you know, that’s that’s a worrisome part. We’re still early in on this. It’s still only a couple of weeks at this point, but, but it is, like a hold on a second. Like, I was like, Why isn’t anybody talking about it? You know, everybody’s just trying to either stick their head in the sand, which works for some parts of time, but others also, just like, Are people scared? Are they worried about, like, what they post on social media might come back to haunt them later, right? All of these kinds of things, where, before

Ixchell Reyes 4:20
it’s all of those, right? Yeah, it’s, it’s a little bit of all of those.

Brent Warner 4:25
And how about you, have you felt like alone in sometimes, you know, like alone in this sometimes, I

Ixchell Reyes 4:31
think, I think that’s the whole, that’s the part, that’s the where, when you ask, are you okay? I think it’s the part where you feel, you do? You start to feel alone if you’re not hearing like I definitely don’t want to hear the negative aspect of it, but I want to feel connected, because at the end of it all, we’re all in it together. We just haven’t shared our experience. Perhaps we’re shocked by it, or we’re scared, or both. Yeah. Yeah, it’s the whole fight or flight response, and we’re fight or flight or freeze or freeze. So I think that that’s kind of what my experience has been. Is for myself, I’m anxious person, so I knew right away, oh my goodness. Okay, keep calm. But the reality is, now, what do I do? What Can I Do? Do? I just sit here, and what can I do? Because now I feel helpless now, and I can’t, you know, let that take over.

Brent Warner 5:26
Yeah, so I think with with that in mind, with the idea that we’re not professionals, but but also kind of keeping in mind that this is the way that we are thinking about these things, is also think about our students too, right? Like what’s going on with them, and they feel even less connected, especially for the ones who are immigrants in the States for different reasons, right? It’s like, wait a second, I came here because this is the world that I understood America to be. And now that’s all shifting, right? And, and a lot of our students don’t have the language in English to deal with sudden problems that might come up, or, you know, all these things. So so we have to kind of keep that in mind too. But you and I decide one, you know, people listen to the show. It’s like, why we we’ve complained about other organizations in the past, saying, Well, why aren’t you speaking up? Aren’t you saying anything? Aren’t you like helping people out? And then you and I are here, sitting here guilty a certain way we’re

Ixchell Reyes 6:22
going to say something, right, even if it is talking back and forth about it, because really, a lot of the issues we do talk about on the show is because we know if we’re thinking that, or if we’re wondering that, then someone else out there might also be wondering the same so, so this is a community, and I think it’s important for us to to reach out, reach back us through our episodes, and let you know that we are still here. We’re still a community. Yeah, yeah.

Brent Warner 6:52
So we’re going to share just a few thoughts and again, you know, take them as they work for you. You know, people might disagree or say, Hey, that’s not enough, or whatever else it is, but I think anything that you do is enough at this point, right? Like trying to get yourself into a better state of mind or whatever it is, so we have just a handful of suggestions or things coping mechanisms. Again, it might not be the same thing as works for everybody, but, but, you know, these are things that I’ve heard or that I’ve kind of, some of them are for me, some of them are from you, but, like, just ways to make a little changes. It

Ixchell Reyes 7:28
might, it might help you to think of your own ways that we haven’t listed. So it’s a starting point. Yes,

Brent Warner 7:35
okay, so I’m going to start with the first idea here, which is I was talking to to the editor for my book, and shout out to Steph for that. But, you know, I was saying, Well, you know, it’s like, oh, what do I do? What do I do, right? And then she said that she had read somewhere that, you know, what do I do? Feels so separated from anything, right? There’s like, it’s just like, is there an action, right? But she said, she said, and I, whoever said this deserves, you know, the actual accreditation, you know, credit for saying it originally. But I don’t know where that came from, which was, instead of saying, What do I do? Say, what can I make? And so that could be anything like us right now, recording this episode saying, Hey, we’re actually making something, being a little bit productive, trying to help towards something. It could be baking cookies, right? And just kind of saying, like, Hey, I’m going to get into the hands on work of doing something directly in front of me. But I think that what can I make makes action much more tangible than what do I do? Yeah,

Ixchell Reyes 8:43
and I think a part of that is remembering that right now, many of us go to social media because we want to hear the latest update. We want to know what’s going on. We want to know what people are saying, but the reality is that that’s just pulling you back into that space. So instead of connecting online, connect in real life. I have had quite a few friends of mine who recently have told me I’m going offline. I just wanted to make sure. And they text me on the phone and they say, I want to connect in real life, spending time outside, doing physical things with the people that you normally would connect with. And I understand that social media or social media platforms allow us to not have to be so far away physically from certain people, like if your relatives or friends are in another part of the world, but what about the people that you have around you? Right? So I think it’s really important to connect face to face in real life. And

Brent Warner 9:47
you know, another approach to that, too Ixchell. Just the other day, I went for a walk by myself, and a friend called me up, and I was talking to her while I was walking. So you know, we weren’t together at the moment. Yeah, but like, we were having conversations, and it was like,

Ixchell Reyes 10:02
Yeah – phone calls, good old (laughter)

Brent Warner 10:05
Remember phone calls? But it was great, you know, I mean, it’s like, Okay, I’m getting the physical activity, I’m getting the movement, and I’m getting that conversation. I can’t be with that person, you know, in the moment, but we could have the conversation. And so, you know, maybe planning, you know, time to chat with people while you’re doing your walk. I see people do this all the time, you know, they always have, but it’s like, but now it’s like, okay, we’re, you’re, you’re kind of doubling down on it. So I like that as a possibility too. By, by the way, I’m just going to add in getting out in nature is so, like, grounded. So, you know, like just a hike, right? Like real nature with, if you get out there for a little while. Just adding that part into it is big. So okay, my second one here is tuning down the time on social media. Now, I think you, you’ve already done this for a couple of years, and that’s fine. That’s great. And same, you know, I’m like, I’ve pulled away a lot. So the one big thing, and I don’t know if I’m advising everybody to do this, although I think it’s been great for me, is removing all social media from my phone. So I only time when I go and look at it is when I’m sitting down at my computer with the intention of looking at it. So that’s one. But then the other part with the social media too, is like, you can, kind of you can give the algorithms an adjustment by spending time more. The language that I use was kick your algorithm in the nuts. I don’t know if that’s bad language here, but so, but changing the things that you’re looking at on the social media intentionally. So if like spending more time, like looking at the kitten videos, or, you know the for me, it might be like, you know how to make coffee videos, so trying to push those types of conversations more up in your your feed, instead of doom, scrolling and rage, scrolling on things that are not so good. So figuring out making proactive moves on your social media, I think, is a big shift that a lot of people are in desperate need of, but it’s hard sometimes when we’re, you know, trapped with trying to keep up with things, I

Ixchell Reyes 12:16
think it’s also a good time to go back to pen and paper and use writing as an outlet for energy or typing, I suppose, if that works for you, and it doesn’t have to be writing for public sharing, I think it could just be for yourself. Oftentimes these days, maybe you don’t want to share how you’re feeling with someone else, but you might want to write how you’re feeling. And you know that is an outlet, right? And you can just throw something away at the end if you don’t want to have to reread it. Sometimes I do that when I’m frustrated, I just write I am feeling angry, or I’m angry, and not even a whole sentence, just brainstorming and letting all the thoughts that are in my head having them elsewhere, so that they’re no longer in my head, and I’m not going on them. But I think writing to whatever degree you want to take it, I think it’s, it’s a really good thing to to to use as a coping mechanism, even doodling, or, you know, the coloring books, the adult coloring books, yeah, because you’re you’re channeling energy, and that’s one of the things you want to do, is get rid of that anxious energy or sad energy, and you keep your brain moving and you’re able to produce the happy chemicals. So, yeah,

Brent Warner 13:34
writing, writing, yeah. And can I come back to your point a little bit here? Ishchell, about the you said, like, Hey, you don’t always have to share it publicly. Yeah, I guess I just want to kind of reaffirm for anybody, you know, I think there’s a sense for for people who are online a lot that, like, if you’re not doing it online, you’re not doing the work, or if you’re not showing like, all of your steps, then, like, it doesn’t count, you know, kind of thing. And that is a, you know, it’s an insidious mindset, I guess, right? That is not productive for us. Like, hey, if people don’t see that, I’m doing this thing. And this is actually kind of helped, held me back from saying, Well, what do we do for our next episode, right? We, we skipped our 2025 or 25 we skipped all these things, like, we’re supposed to be productive and showing work. And it’s like, well, you don’t always have to be showing those things, right? You don’t always have even an episode like this, right? It’s like you don’t have to do these kinds of things to be taking care of yourself, right? Or to be participating in society, or to feel like, Hey, I am going to resist certain things, or I am going to make local changes, right? I think all of these things are one, you know, if you if you want to share them publicly, and it’s important to you, that’s fine. But also, don’t make the public. Sharing the reason you’re doing or not doing something you know, like that is secondary, tertiary or beyond. Do

Ixchell Reyes 14:58
it for yourself. You gotta do it for yourself. Health, because at the end of the day, again, it’s a coping mechanism and it’s a strategy. And in the same way that we teach our students, you know, write things down, write things down, let energy out. I know in my sister’s school, my nephew is lucky to be he’s, I think, in second grade, and he’s lucky to have a school that’s very pro mental health awareness, and so they talk about writing or doodling or and, you know, at eight years old, that’s a very good skill to to be practicing.

Brent Warner 15:30
Yeah, yeah, that’s awesome. Okay, so my next one, and Ixchell, you’re going to have to kind of forgive me. I’m going to read this whole thing, I think. But it’s a little bit long, but it’s a thread that this woman wrote. Her name is Mishell Baker. She wrote it on blue sky, and she has cancer and she has terminal cancer, right? But she wrote this really interesting thread that was very helpful for me, and so I just want to read it out. It might take a couple of minutes here, so bear with me as I go through the reading. And I’ll link to this so anybody can re access it later. Being a shy or sorry be being a person with deadly, incurable cancer who is nonetheless still alive for an indefinite time frame gives me an interesting metaphor that helps me deal with things like large scale corruption in government or commerce. Bear with me for a second. While I try to explain. So there are times when I need to pay attention to the cancer, like when I have to go to a doctor’s appointment, take medication on time, or make choices regarding self care to increase my quality of life. But when I’m not doing those things, thinking about the cancer is actively harmful. There are moments when I feel okay and my daughter wants to play a video game with me, or when I have a chance to see a cool movie and the urge to write a story. I cannot do these things if I’m paralyzed with horror and dismay thinking in detail about what’s happening in my body, whether there’s the chance for a one day miracle if I live long enough, is irrelevant. The point is, I am alive today, and at some point I will not be so in a given moment I can make my or someone else’s life better, uh, sorry if, in a given moment I can make my or my or someone else’s life better, that is what I should be doing, rather than obsessing over my illness. People might not. People might see me laughing my ass off at Futurama with my daughter, or niggling over lore details of video games, and think, How can she just ignore that she’s dying of cancer. She’s in denial, sad, opposite of sad, not in denial, in full acceptance of the entirety of my situation. In my mind to ignore all the good fortune of my situation, just because one, however huge and monumental shadow over it is its own kind of denial in gratitude. I am loved, I am financially secure, I am inventive, and live in an amazing city. How many people have all that? It genuinely does not matter the size of the horror that looms over one, even if it threatens one’s very life. When it is time to deal with that horror, to ameliorate, evade, conquer whatever is available to you, you will know, by all means, focus on the task. But every minute you focus on that horror when you are not actively doing something to evade or improve or ameliorate the situation, for example, receiving chemo, taking zelfran, listening to the doctor, etc. You are wasting what’s left of your wild, precious life. The same goes for all of you. Most of you have more time than I do, and it has taken a lot of work for me not to rage at that and to feel genuine happiness and hope for you, but none of you have forever. You have opportunity after opportunity to create something lovely for yourselves or others. Every moment you choose to sit and think about the horrors beyond your control, every moment, every time you make the choice to look for more and more details about just how bad you are turning away from those opportunities, there is no calamity so huge that there need, that there is not beauty and humor and joy to be had in the moments between actively working on solving or evading it, learning to take those moments, embrace the hell out of them, is what will make it all worth it at whatever point you reach the end, sorry for Getting really heavy and personal and quote, unquote poor dying me for a moment, but I thought there was a chance that the dramatic metaphor might at least help a few of you. I wish happiness for you, no matter what happens to and around you, and I believe you can find it that is kind of where it wraps up. And so I just, I don’t know, to me, when I read that, I was like that really gave me perspective from a person who’s struggling totally different heavy, heavy things that are much more immediate in some ways and so. So anyways, I thought that might be useful for a few people to think about, to reflect on. I’ve been I’ve gone back and read it. Several times, just over different days to kind of, you know, give myself that level of perspective, too, and I don’t know, but I hope it’s useful for someone out there listening,

Ixchell Reyes 20:10
yeah, I think that’s right. I think being present, because we spent so much of our time worrying about what has happened, which we have no control over, because it has happened, and what could happen, which we also have no control over, because it hasn’t happened. And so I think, you know, as you’re reading that, I’m thinking, yeah, you’ve got to be present. You You’ve got to be present. And with that, your mental health is, of you know, utmost importance, if there, there are, I think some people may benefit from talking to a counselor or a therapist, because all of this is traumatic, and sometimes we don’t, we don’t, we’re not able to resolve those internal conflicts by talking to colleagues or by ourselves or by Reading. We just need someone else to hear us out and help us to resolve those internal conflicts. You could also do things like yoga, getting some plants so that you have something to take care of and you can nurture because the reality is, you still have the power to nurture something, even if it’s only a plant. And I think it’s important for us to remember that we are able to do those things. And while you’re nurturing your mental health, your your your you start your chemical the chemical composition of your brain starts to change. And I think that’s what we want to strive for, is to get to that place where we can be at peace. And then, of course, our thoughts will be more clear because we’re not blocked. Our frontal cortex isn’t blocked by anxiety or scary thoughts. And so we want to find ways that we are taking care of our mental health, and I know that once that’s better, we’re able to help others come to that come to that place as well, or lead them, or give them resources, yeah,

Brent Warner 22:05
if you’re a person who’s never done any of those kinds of things, right, give yourself the the grace to explore that as well, right? Like, what’s it mean? Because I think a lot of people, you know, I think most of our listeners, maybe not so much, but there are still people that kind of have, you know, oh, if I go talk to a counselor, that means that I am crazy, or, you know,

Ixchell Reyes 22:25
whatever, I can’t I can solve my own problems. Yeah, what it means? Yes, exactly.

Brent Warner 22:30
Oh, I watched it. I watched a video on Facebook that, you know, helped me. And it’s like, okay, like, some of these things are fine. Like, even, you know, rereading that thing from before, like, it can help you in certain ways, but it’s not you, right? It’s not someone helping you process through yourself. And even, even if it’s yoga, right? You’re not necessarily talking it through, but you’re, you’re experiencing your body and so and trying to kind of understand what you’re going through in those levels. So see if trying something like that helps, I guess, right. Okay, my last one here Ixchell is the news. So news is a mess, you know? I mean, it’s all over the place. But here, here’s kind of my approach to it, is go international or go local with your news. National News, especially in America right now, is, I mean, it’s, getting criticized like crazy from both sides, for a reason. It is not doing a good job, and it’s kind of focused on sensationalism, overwhelming. And, you know, part of, I think what this administration wants is for you to be very, very overwhelmed and feel like you don’t have a place you can move to. So the international news is great. So I watched, you know, the Japanese news, or, you know, go, you can read the English ones, like the English version of Asahi Shimbun, or, you know, whatever, whatever you’re interested in, BBC or whatever. But that kind of strips away all the like, junky stuff that doesn’t really have major effects, right, or doesn’t have major impacts, whether these be like new policies that are coming out, it kind of focuses on the ones that are going to really affect us, but of course, it’s going to miss ones that affect us on a local level. So then you need to focus in on, what are you getting from local news for, and then finding resources that provide those useful ones. So maybe it’s your unions newsletter that says, like, Hey, be aware of this and this and this, right? Or maybe it’s, you know, you know you’re part of, I don’t know, some sort of group that talks about and tracks things that you’re interested in or that are important to you. Get the get the news from someone who has collected and curated that information that focuses in so you’re not going to go, Oh my God, look at the horrible thing that happened here every single time, right? And so being more picky and focused with your news choices can really alleviate the stress to

Ixchell Reyes 24:59
mm. Yeah, I think international news often will you’ll, you’ll start to see very clearly the difference between our news programs and overseas, what gets reported overseas and how it gets reported overseas. So try that out. All right, so my last coping strategy is more comedy, more jokes. And I know that, you know, at times people said, Oh, how can you laugh at a time like this? No, no, no, this is how societies, we got some of the greatest art because people were were drawing comics. Or, I think there’s a famous Japanese photo with the frog and a hair, and they’re, it’s like a really old photo, and people like the history of it is that people wanted to find humor in times of difficulty. And so, again, it’s a strategy. It’s, I think it’s a human strategy, to to get through the difficult times. And of course, what happens when you’re laughing is you’re releasing energy and you’re again, your your brain is generating more of that happy hormone. And if you can, you know, find something to laugh at for half an hour that already will dramatically change the way you felt after that half hour. And I would say light hearted things, you know, we I think one of my favorite go to shows is the Unbreakable Kimmy Smith, oh yeah, I can watch two or three episodes and by and then just laughing. So find the one that that brought you joy before and put it on in the background and share with others and and, you know, more jokes. I think that that helps to change how you’re if you’re feeling stuck, good, love it.

Brent Warner 26:54
Yeah. So these are not really like, hey, calls to actions on how to fix the, you know, the world right. Really, what we’re just saying is, like, find ways to take care of yourself first. I think that those conversations are developing, right. Like, you know, how to what we can do as people who believe in helping other people and, you know, making a better world, right? Like those conversations are, I do think there’s been a little bit of scare and shock and, like, what you know, like that confusion. But now I think people are finally going, wait, wait, we gotta, we gotta actually start figuring this out, right? And so for now, we’re really just talking turn inward, like the turn inward conversation. How do you take care of yourself? I think that there will be opportunities to say, like, what are the next steps moving forward, right?

Ixchell Reyes 27:48
All right, Brent, we’re gonna be at TESOL soon. Yeah, that’s next month. I’m on a panel, and we are presenting. And I don’t know if you have any other presentations Other than that, I

Brent Warner 28:02
think I’m on two panels. One is with you, right? And then one is our presentation, and then I’m on one other panel as well. There’s actually quite a few things going on with TESOL that I’m excited about,

Ixchell Reyes 28:17
so that’s coming up, so should be on your radar. So you’re gonna burn.

Brent Warner 28:26
So hopefully, I mean humor, right? But yes, wonderful. So hopefully we’ll see you there, TESOL in Long Beach, coming up in March. Very

Ixchell Reyes 28:39
cool, alright, it is time for our fun finds, and this time, I have a podcast show called The telepathy tapes. One of my colleagues shared it with me, and it’s this fascinating show on non verbal autistic savants and how they actually can communicate with those who are very close to them telepathically. And it’s a fascinating conversation on consciousness and where consciousness begins and where to consciousness become one stream of conscious consciousness. And it’s fascinating. So if you’re looking to distract yourself, that’s something else. It’s not comedy, but it’s pretty interesting.

Brent Warner 29:26
Okay, I’m gonna, I might have to change. I’m gonna do a last minute change based on your more comedy, more jokes. Point here and finding the good TV shows that are positive, right? I might have done this in the past, but I’m gonna bring up both of these because they’re kind of the same, or, you know, they’re two. Sides of the coin is either Bob’s Burgers or the Great North as as really positive. The reason why I like these shows so much is be, and I’ll go with the Great North as my focus, because I’m doing a lot of watching that right now, is that it’s really focused on just people being kind. To each other, even though there’s conflict a little bit, or whatever else it is, like, there’s no nastiness to it. Everybody is like out there, just trying to, you know, support each other, be be helpful, right? Living a, you know, it’s, in some ways, it’s a quaint life, I guess, and it’s, you know, you know, you might poke fun at it in certain ways, like that, but it, but it’s just nice to see this thing where it’s just not about, like, you know, the whole Homer Simpson choking Bart thing, which I know that those are, like, old, old days of The Simpsons, but, like, that’s not what the the family dynamics are here, right? These are really like, hey, we live together. Sometimes miscommunications or problems happen, but it’s still everybody’s there supporting each other, and there are some excellent jokes inside of it too. So I’m going to go with either Bob’s Burgers or the Great North if those are of interest to you.

Ixchell Reyes 30:57
Okay, for the show notes and other episodes, check out DIESOL.org/115, you can find us on YouTube or Instagram at DIESOLpod. You can find us… well you can find Brent. Sometimes.

Brent Warner 31:14
me, yeah, again, yeah, we’re slowing down a little bit, but, or, you know, I mean, we’re there. We’re accessible. But you can find me on most social media at @BrentGWarner,

Ixchell Reyes 31:26
and I’m at @Ixy_Pixy. That’s I X Y underscore P I X Y.

Brent Warner 31:31
Alright, everybody, take care of yourselves. We’re making efforts to get back in the swing of things and reminder that in the future, we’re probably going to be talking just about normal things, right? Like our our normal pair, and that is part of the the what can I make conversation? Right? Where it’s not always going to be focusing on the stuff that’s scaring us, but like, what’s the what are some of the positive things that we can do to help our students as we want to get back into that conversation for all of our benefit?

Ixchell Reyes 32:00
Yes, thank you for listening. See you soon.