Our mental well-being starts with the basics such as proper nutrition, sleep, stress management, etc. But if you are new to being on your own, the basics may require developing new habits, learning how to set yourself up for success, and admitting that you might not know everything. In Episode 5, Part 1 of 2 of Finding Your Balance: A Mental Health Podcast presented by Peace River Center and Southeastern University, Kirk and Tiffani discuss the ins and outs of minding the basics.

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Thank you for joining us today for part one of our two -part series on Minding the

Basics. Hello everybody, thank you for joining us on our podcast. Whether you're

viewing us or listening to us, glad to have you back with us. Today Tiffani and I

are going to be touching base on Minding some Basics and the hope with our podcast

is to, you know, get out there and educate on all things kind of mental illness

-related or mental health-related, especially for those transitioning from teenage years

into the college years

and looking at some things. And we thought this time around we would take a look

at some practical things that folks can start to think about if you're in your late

teens and looking to transition into the college years, or if you're already in the

college year arena, or even older, thinking about some of the basics out there that

you may not often think about, and how this relieves some anxiety as you break into

the world. - Yeah, and if this is your first time, thank you, thank you. My name

is Tiffany. I am I am the Director of Children's Services at Peace River Center.

I'm a licensed mental health counselor and my expertise is working with children and

families and Kirk your expertise in my opinion is all things

Not quite but My name is Kirk Fassauer and I am the Director of Crisis Response

Services at Peace River Center We have a mobile response team with 24-hour crisis

hotline and text line for individuals who are in any type of crisis, but crisis

work is my little arena of work. So I do cover a lot,

suicide, trauma, and psychosis. So a lot of the things that we'll share will be in

a research space, but also the practical experience that we've kind of built up over

the years working with children and families Some struggling with crisis some

struggling, you know just day -to -day, but also some just navigating You know the

world of mental health and mental illness and how it affects our day -to -day, so

let's jump in all right so when we talk about minding basics what we're hoping to

to get you to start thinking about if you're starting to break out into your your

own world and start at college life or breaking into

You away from family and being out on your own, some things to start to think

about if you're at that phase or even if you're already in the midst of it, okay,

take a step back and reassess what's going on there. 'Cause it's good to do a

reassessment every once in a while. Even in the older years, I could take a step

back myself and kind of reassess, okay, where are things going? What could I improve

upon? What are some things that I yeah, what are what are some takeaways for me?

And I think minding the basics It's such a good thing to cover because as you

mentioned, you know transition from you know late adolescence to early adulthood There

is a significant change in that season. There's a change in what are you responsible

for? What are the expectations on you to figure out for yourself? What are things

you should automatically know and you know, going through that season ourselves,

there's so much that I didn't know and there's so much that I feel like probably

should have been prepared in some way, but was it? - Right. - Right? And then I

think there's this sort of like, well, what's wrong with me that I don't know how

to do these things, but on the flip side, you know, maybe you are later on in

life and maybe, you know, you've had to balance, you know, mental illness and

sometimes implications of that are, you know, being marginalized and missing out on

these opportunities to learn skills that you might have been able to learn had you

not been using so much of your emotional energy and so much of your resources

balancing, you know, mental illness. And so I think that this topic is so crucial

for anybody, but especially for college age students in embarking on adulthood, but

also for those of us who might be, you know, figuring out a new season that we're

in, maybe even if we were later on in adulthood. So Kirk, what would you say,

like, are the main categories that we want to focus on? Well, kind of taking a

step back and looking at, okay, financial planning. What does some of, you know,

when you're a teenager, you finally get that first job and you can kind of,

job and you've got your income coming in and you really don't have to focus on

saving too much money, but how do I do those kinds of things?

Some budgeting, some check writing stuff, how do I even, something as simple as

opening a bank account and nowadays with a lot of things being online, how does

that work? Then taking a look at Meal planning, I mean,

now that you're out on your own, you don't have mom or dad sitting there planning

your meals for you. You can now eat whatever you want. I'm going to eat Doritos

for the rest of my life. Well, okay.

That may not be the best thing for you, but how do you even go shopping? Those

are some things that really start sparking ideas for you. So, Looking at sleep

patterns and how that impacts your next day. Sleep management,

screen time issues, we hear a lot about that in the news and how to de-stress

yourself as watching your screen time, whether it be on the computer, whether it be

television, whether it be your little smartphone that you're walking around with,

looking at how do I stay healthy physically, getting out there and coming up with

some exercises and then some really basic stuff like changing tires on a car,

how do my cars not working, who do I call, dad, mom, how do I do this or you're

on your own, how do you figure it out, how to make some simple repairs,

things to start to plan, So, that's what I mean by, you know, minding the basics,

if you will. And you don't need to be an expert at any of this stuff, heck,

you know, up in years and I'm not an expert in a lot of this, but, you know,

it's good to at least start thinking about it.

And nowadays, we've got the good old internet out there that is able to help us

with anything and if you watch YouTube and you're seeing us on YouTube, there are

other YouTube videos out there. I was surprised, Tiffani, to find a whole YouTube

channel on repairing just about any appliance you can think of in your house.

Really? Yes. It's called the Repair Clinic. It was like, "Wow, they really take

those things apart." So, yeah, I had an issue with my washing I'm not my washing

machine, my dishwasher. And we're trying to figure it out. So I came across this

channel. I was fascinated by the detail that they went into.

Wasn't it, you know, glitzy, glamorous thing? It was really basic step by step.

Here's this part, this screw, this, it's like, wow. So that's a resource for any of

you listening and not knowing, okay, how do I do You know that there are some

things out there. I mean I joke with people sometimes yeah You can find just about

anything on YouTube even how to clip you could toenails if you need to learn how

to do that

It's all out there. Well looking at like the financial aspect I'm thinking through

like my own personal, you know life experience and I mean, I vividly remember,

you know setting up a bank account. I remember you know getting checks, but I don't

think anyone like set me down, I said, well, this is how you do taxes. Or I don't

think anyone really set me down and said, well, this is how you do budgeting. I

remember whenever I was applying for college scholarships, I had to read through

everything. No one explained it to me. And I think part of that is, well, did no

one explain it to me because I didn't ask for help? Or did no one explain it to

me because there was no one there to explain it. And I think that sometimes as a

new adult, right, 17, 18, there's this feeling that I've got to prove myself,

I have to show how adulty I am, and so I can figure this out. And I think there

needs to be an element of, I don't need to prove anything. My goal is to learn.

One of the things that we have the responsibility of at our agency is, you know,

we have interns lots of interns and I think there's this level of expectation that

they have is I have to prove to you why I should be here. I have to prove to

you How much I know the only thing that you need to prove to me is that you know

how to learn Exactly, you're willing to ask questions, right? And so when you're 17

18 19 Give yourself that grace of like you're allowed to learn and you're allowed

to not know anything on this list. - Exactly. - But that's like the starting point

of like learning. And so going down your list budgeting, oh my goodness, I remember

when I was graduating from college and trying to figure out, okay, well, where am I

gonna live? And, you know, all of these things, you know, obviously I needed to

figure out a job to pay for those things. And Kirk, I kid you not, like in my

mind, I didn't know, well, how do I even know how much money I need, right?

Exactly. And I remember sitting down with one of my uncles, and he was a football

coach, you know, straight ahead, like, this is the plan, like, let's come up with a

plan. And he said, all right, well, let's write out all of your expenses. Let's

write out every bill that you have, you know, and when you're 18, hopefully, you

know, not too many, You know when you're you know 19, 20 hopefully not many more and

we wrote down all of my bills very simple And we wrote down okay. Well, this is

how much money. I need to pay to someone every month Let's look at you know,

what are you know ballpark prices of apartments in that area, you know You know if

you know if you were gonna live somewhere, okay add that in okay? This would be

you know adding food adding gas, you know, this would be your monthly expense. So

you need to make at least this much, but more than that, because what if you do

get a flat tire? What if you have to go to urgent care? You know, those things

that are unexpected that pop up, and it sounds like such a simple concept, Kirk,

but just that very straightforward approach, no one had set me down to talk about

that. - Right, and hopefully that's what we're getting you to do is to stop and

think about these things.

Those simple little approaches, the expenses and what's coming in.

Just taking a look at, okay, so what do you hope to achieve? Can you afford that

high -end meal versus kind of something a little bit cheaper, but still a little bit

on the healthier side. Those challenges, and you're right, unless you've got somebody

in your life that can sit down with you and do that, you're kind of figuring it

out as you go. And what I've read about quite a bit is,

and you hear about in the news, is credit card debt because the College years that

happened with me college years. They were primed and ready for hey, we got a Build

your credit and then in building your credit. It's important But temptation is

definitely there and it it can send you into debt relatively quickly. So you want

to be Be aware of that, you know because then now you're Oftentimes now living

above your means and so you got to plan for that and then on top of that those

credit cards have interests which compounds things so. Well and that right there is

like a foreign concept sometimes if you're new to money that interest that's what's

gonna get you. Exactly. And I remember even with my student loans at one point the

interest amount was more than even the cost of my student loan would have been.

And it's like, ah, and you don't know what you don't know, right? And when you're

17, 18, you know, going into college for the first time, at 18 years old, you

know, signing those student loan papers, um, sometimes that's necessary, you know, you

have to do what you have to do, you know, for the goals that you're seeking to

accomplish. But I think walking into those situations with knowledge and with wisdom,

with informed, you know, inform knowledge of, okay, I know what I'm signing. I know

what I'm doing. And then being wise with your finances because it really can catch

you at the end, right? Without even realizing it. - Absolutely, because you're under

a mountain of bills coming in at you and you're like, where did this all come

from? And you end up working for your bills as opposed to making that money work

for you. So those are interesting bits of advice.

I'm not a financial advisor, neither is Tiffani. So what we're suggesting is just

explore those options that are available out there for you with somebody who can

give you some good financial advice. Because that money is often a big stressor for

everybody, and it's one of the number one issues in relationships that tends to

break a relationship as arguments over money and how finances should be handled. If

you start off yourself with a good grounding of How do I set a budget for myself?

Can I stick to it?" That's another thing, is sticking to it. It does take some

work and take some effort.

We're talking about this in a moment in your life where you're wanting to, "Okay,

I'm breaking free of the shackles of being under the guise of my parents and I'm

wanting to do things on my own." Like Tiffani said earlier, you're wanting to kind

of prove yourself that you can be an adult and be responsible. Planning ahead,

thinking it through a little bit will help you. And, you know, you got to keep

those financial records. It's record keeping, documenting what's going on there for

you. My scholarship experience was similar to yours. I had to kind of navigate a

lot of that on my own and try to figure out, Okay. What does this mean? What do

I need to do in order to help offset some of the costs of going to college if

for many of you that's a goal and how can I make that happen? And looking at

alternatives with even the type of college you go to, I ended up not going to the

college I wanted to go to because it would have been way too expensive, But I di

some exploration and found an interesting little tidbit of facts there that some of

the professors that taught at the school I wanted to go to were adjunct professors

of where I went ended up going to. So, yeah, it was kind of, oh,

well, that's interesting and saves some money there. But explore those kinds of

things. What is out there to offset some things. Does that mean I'm eating Twinkies

and ramen all the time? No. (laughing) - Well, I know for me,

one of the things that I did, I became an RA on college at the time. I'm the

college that I went to. They gave you a stipend for your housing, so you didn't

have to pay for housing. If you were a resident assistant. So I did that for a

couple of years. I also was a teaching assistant and you know had another job on

campus and so I was able to save money by not having to go off campus for work

but I mean you're busy right you're busy and you're tired sometimes and you have to

you know figure out what's my balance going to be and what's my priority and

sometimes your priority has to supersede like what would you like to do all right

and so definitely there are opportunities, but sometimes, you know, maybe you don't

know what they are, and that's when, you know, you reach out for help. And so,

definitely on most campuses, there is someone you can talk to in the Student Life

Department, or in the Financial Services Department, or Career Services Department,

where you can say, "Well, this is where I'm at, and these are my concerns. Can you

help me?" And I can tell you that the campus folks want you to be there,

they want to help find a way to keep you there, and they really are equipped to

navigate those types of things because even though it might feel like you're the

only person in the world experiencing this stress, you are not the first person and

you will not be the last person who needs help navigating the financial independence

that comes with, you know, growing into adulthood. Exactly, exactly. So, Reach out to

those resources, and again, have a plan. That's really the big message in takeaway

here, is to have a plan of some sort. And again, it's a plan and plans can be

flexible. So if you budget A, B, and C, and it doesn't quite work out the way you

want, you just kind of, as long as you're keeping records, you can kind of see a

pattern and figure out, oh, I didn't budget enough in this particular area, so next

time I'm going to start budgeting differently. And one of the things I would

encourage you to do is pay yourself first, and what I mean by that is set aside

some, because you work hard, you know, you should reward yourself a little bit and

put some money aside for yourself for those emergencies, those unexpected things,

flat tire in in a car, what have you. Put some money aside for yourself and just

don't touch it. Open a bank account, throw some money in it and get to a certain

level. Various workshops will tell you different things on what to get at.

Again, student learning, student life offices will help with some of that,

but sometimes there's workshops in the community through your church group if you're

involved in church and we'll have some from some financial workshops that you can be

a part of and lots of times those are free so and they can give you some

wonderful advice moving into nutrition I know that that's a tricky one because you

know when you're living at home you know usually you're not the one doing the

grocery shopping. So you eat what's there and you eat what is made for you or you

eat what you make from the ingredients that are there. And so there's not so much

autonomy for most people when they're living at home. And then you go into a whole

new world where perhaps there's a cafeteria with unlimited everything. And it can be

very tempting to not practice, I don't in how much soft drink or how much,

you know, how many fries or, you know, all those types of things because it is

there and you are stressed and you are, you know, acclimating to a new place and

it can be very difficult to practice those healthy choices when life is hard and

stressful and it tastes so good to eat a plate of fries every day.

- Right, it's good going down, not good in the long run, 'cause you know, the

weight gain.

But yeah, you, I don't know if you remember your first grocery store experience,

but I remember being blown away at some of the prices. And having not considered

some of that, it's like, oh my, that's much more expensive than I thought. Well, I

don't need the 20 ounces, they're a smaller size. smaller size and looking at that

kind of thing and educating yourself on cost per unit kind of things because maybe

you spend a little extra money this time, but it's going to last you longer than

other things.

Some of that goes in with meal planning. So you go into a grocery store and you've

maybe heard of this before. before, if not, I'm telling you now, do not go grocery

shopping hungry because you end up ... Definitely not.

You end up buying things that ... Everything. You buy everything. Yeah, it all looks

good, right? And then you get so tired that when you're on the way home, you're

like, "I don't have energy to cook. Let me just drive through somewhere." Exactly,

exactly.

So meal planning helps with the shopping experience because if you've got a plan for

a meal, then you kind of get those particular ingredients for the meal and those

items for the meal and that helps kind of control the budget a little bit. And

then learning how to cook, I was amazed at how some of my fellow college students

did not know how to cook.

I had very gracious parents who let me learn to cook at an early age,

and that was very helpful, very good little skill to, "Hey, I could cook eggs."

Yeah. "Hey, let's just start.

Toast." Yeah. You know, you think of all these things that you slowly learn over

time, you know, even making like soup and how does that work,

and so planning out those things, learning to cook those simple nutritional meals,

nothing huge, we're not talking Thanksgiving dinner, that's a challenge. We're talking

day to day simple little things. And if you don't have the ability to cook in your

door room or something like that, making those wise choices cafeteria, you know,

most cafeterias, they have salad bars, they have, you know, vegetables and not to

say that you can eat fries, of course, but I think that in every category that we

talk about, there's this level of having moderation and having intentional efforts for

like the big picture, right? Your healthy choices for the big picture, even with

finances, like, you know, every once in a while, splurging on something is fine, But

you have to practice self-control in order to accomplish your big goals. It's the

little steps along the way that get you there. Absolutely, absolutely. So with

planning meals, you know, there's... You eat it, now you need... Food is the

gasoline for your body engine. And so now you're gonna exercise.

Ya know keep that body healthy. And not only does physical exercise help you

physically, but it also helps you mentally. And I'm not talking about running out

and buying a year's membership at Gold's Gym or Planet Fitness.

Not that any of those groups are harmful in any way. They're good organizations and

they help a lot of people. But I'm talking about just a simple routine and develop

a routine for exercise. And I'm talking about getting off the couch and walking.

Just walk around campus, you know, just to walk. You know,

we're fortunate here in lovely Florida to have some decent weather most of the year.

And we can go out and walk around those areas where it's, You know winter can be

a tough road to to handle and getting outside may not be your your thing because

it's so cold You know just moving around inside your house,

you know doing some type of simple exercises. Nothing too complicated We don't want

to overdo it and I think walking especially It sounds so simple, but it does a lot

of things. So if we get, you know, clinically, there's something called a bilateral

stimulation where both sides of your brain are being activated and you may think,

"Well, what does that mean?" But when you're walking, both sides of your body are

being activated, your left side and your right side. So your left side of your

brain and your right side of your brain are, you know, telling your body what to

do. And there's that bilateral movement that is helping you process your day,

it's helping you kind of decompress, and so I know for me even if I'm just sitting

down talking to someone about maybe a conflict that I've had or something that's

bothering me, I mean that is cathartic in a way, but for some reason Kirk it's so

much more effective if we're taking a walk while I talk to you. And so I know,

from my college experience, you know, my university was located in Lakeland, Florida.

And as the name suggests, there's lots of lakes in Lakeland, Florida. And so it was

not uncommon for my friends and I to say, "Hey, let's go walk around the lake."

Now we could have absolutely walked around the campus, but the lake was really

pretty. And so, you know, we'd go and grab a coffee, you know, that would be our

treat for that week or, you know, for that day. And we would walk around the lake

and it did a couple of things it It allowed us to move our body it allowed us to

be outside where we were breathing in you know the air and the Sunshine right, but

it also there's something about I think for me being in nature That brings a sense

of peace and brings like a sense of anchoring of like okay Well the world is

bigger than the problem that you're facing right right this minute. And also like

look at the world in front of you. It's huge. And look at all of these people

going on with their lives, zooming around you on their rollerblades, and the world

is not just what's right in front of you. And that also created a sense of like

community because it made me have an intentional opportunity to socialize with a

friend. And just the two of you being in the space together, it created a unity.

And I think one of the things that's missing so much when students move away from

college, or maybe even they live in the same town and they move on to campus,

you're craving that sense of connection. And so just moving. It does so much.

It's not just about the exercise. Right. It's a whole experience. And really being

focused on the experience and taking that moment to be mindful of what's going on.

And you mentioned the bilateral. Yeah, that's very important. I worked for 10 years

in New Jersey and had a therapist, a psychiatrist that I worked with.

I loved what she did because one of the first things she did before really

prescribing medications was coming up with a plan for diet and exercise,

I'll tell you right now, that treatment plan goes back to ancient Rome,

ancient Greek, you know, that's lifestyle change and diet and exercise.

Those were key ingredients for individuals who were struggling with any emotional

issues, any mental kinds of issues was to get up, get off your feet,

move around, exercise, real simple stuff.

You know, and even the Greeks and Romans had, you know,

bath time, you know, that was, you know, the hot baths and you just kind of relax

a little bit. So those things help to de -stress and help you process some of the

day, you know, And again, I know recently with COVID and everything,

a lot of people were isolated and didn't get out there and socialized a lot. And

that connectivity that we have with one another really helps us mentally,

as far as being able to process that stuff and doing the bilateral movement with

walking around and helps that all process within the brain, physically and verbally

as well. >> Well, and sometimes there's a sense of like, is my community here

because it's convenient, or is my community support system here because I'm making an

intentional effort to stay connected to them, right? I think that what we learned

from COVID, from really having to have our world reset in a way that we were not

expecting to have it reset, how much of our built -in support system is actually our

support system just because it's convenient, just because that's where we go to work,

or just because, you know, that's how we're around people. But when you do have

those limitations, you can't go into work, you can't go into the classroom, you

know, you can't be around the people. Is that level of support still there, or is

it not? And I think For a lot of us, we found that it wasn't because it was it

really a support system or was it just, well, this is my routine. And so I think

that it was such a good opportunity to reevaluate, okay, well, who are my people?

If I'm having a hard day, who can I lean on? Not that it's, you know, bad to

have a convenient support system, right? Like, it's nice to be able to lean on your

friends at work and your friends at school. But If that stops, do you have a

support system, or does that go away too? One of the things that I discovered about

COVID is that regardless of the limitations, regardless of the obstacles that come

your way, there is always an opportunity to find connection. You just have to get

creative. Exactly. Right? I think that one of the coolest technology, like you

mentioned, you know, before your history with technology is, um, you know, FaceTime

and phone calls and zoom. And there is still a way to stay connected, but some of

it requires being intentional. And I think that sometimes is the missing piece,

right? Are we being intentional about what we want, about our goals, about that

plan, or are we just kind of along for the ride and just letting it happen to

us. Right. Right. And with the planning too, you've got to be flexible with your

plan. This isn't written in concrete, it's got to be a little more flexible.

You want to have a plan because that alleviates some anxiety, alleviates some of the

anxiety of the unknown.

And at least you have of, you know, organization, some kind of structure.

Some sort of structure, right? Yeah. And but going into it cold can sometimes be

very daunting.

We hoped you enjoyed our show and if you did please hit that like and subscribe

button. If you have any struggles emotionally please call us here in Central Florida

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