Durable Dad with Tommy Geary
The Durable Dad podcast gives men the skills and tools they need to be rock solid for their family, their work and their community.
Durable Dad with Tommy Geary
091: Cabin Fever No More: A Dad's Guide to Winter Survival
Short days, long nights, viruses, and temps in the teens. A lot of guys are feeling weighed down or trapped at this stage in winter.
It's an I-gotta-get-out-of-here feeling and it doesn't jive well with our spouse and kids.
Today's episode will leave you with four actionable takeaways that'll zap the cabin fever feeling:
1. Put on the proper gear and get outdoors.
2. Declutter or tackle a project.
3. Change your language because your language defines your experience in the world.
4. Work with your wife to carve out some solo time.
And please excuse the cries in the background inserted by my two-year-old as an enhancement to the overall trapped indoors with kids ambiance. 🙃
This is the Durable Dad Podcast. I'm your host, tommy Geary. This show is going to give you the skills and tools you need to be a rock solid man for your work, your community and, most importantly, your family. All right, what's up? Episode number 91. It's the beginning of March. We are thawing out here in the Midwest. The ice is gone, snow's melted away, days are getting longer. We were just down in Texas a couple weeks ago and it was 45 degrees there and, although very pleasant for us Midwesterners in Texas, that was very cold and I know those Texans are looking forward to their 80, 90, 100 degree days. And it's coming. We're almost there.
Speaker 1:We're almost through winter and the winter months can be a struggle for men I'm sure women too, but this podcast is for guys, so I'm talking to the men out there. There's this part of a man that wants to get out, wants to have adventure, wants to hunt, wants to challenge himself and maybe on an evolutionary level, down in our DNA, spending too much time indoors with little ones doesn't feel natural. The last few weeks, I've coached a couple guys on this sense of what I'm calling cabin fever. They've called it a sense of being trapped inside their own house and this is something that comes up in winter. It's something I have to manage my brain and regulate my emotions around. Something about the cold weather, the lack of daylight, kids getting sick, just the viruses that roll through our houses that makes a man feel cooped up. You know, if we zoom out, we live in these warm homes. When the weather outside is nasty, we're with our families, we're well fed. This is not that big of a problem. It's actually a very great problem to have. We have worse issues, but I think it's important because for me, for these guys that I've coached, this feeling of cabin fever creates a ripple in the household, a tear when dad's walking around kind of grumpy, just wanting to get the hell out of there and at least that's what dad's telling himself and feeling that grumpiness. So I'm going to give you some things that have helped me personally, and it's kind of an action-based episode today.
Speaker 1:I'm going to give you four tactful things to do when you are wanting to solve your cabin fever. Number one is to get outside, and that might seem pretty straightforward, pretty easy, but I hear so many people say the weather's been really crummy, we can't even get outside for walks. I was at a friend's house the other day and that was like the topic of conversation. And we moved from Colorado to Ohio five years ago and when we did, brenda read this book that was called there's no Such Thing as Bad Weather, written by a Scandinavian mom, and I've said it before on this podcast. But our family motto has become there's no such thing as bad weather, just bad gear. And it's from this book, it's from a saying from Patagonia, but in this book the author goes through different research that shows how important or how beneficial being outside can be, especially during the winter months when we can easily get stuck inside. If you get outside, you have more fresh air, you're less likely to get sick, helps your immune system, it opens up your mind to more creativity, more curiosity, and the research shows that it can even lessen the symptoms of anxiety, of depression, of that ADHD that not just kids have but adults have also. So if you are feeling cooped up, get outside and get the family outside too. Get outside and get the family outside too.
Speaker 1:Yesterday it was Sunday and by three o'clock in the afternoon we hadn't left the house and kids were getting restless, testy, and Brenda and I were like let's go. We bundled up the girls, we hopped on our bikes. You don't even have to hop on your bikes, you could just take a walk and after being outside for just like three minutes, the cooped up, tense feeling that was happening between all of us was gone. It was like getting outside of those four walls of our house into nature, like opened up space for our tension and emotions to move more. That's just how it felt and that's how it feels when you go outside.
Speaker 1:So first antidote get outside. Second declutter your house. Not talking about chores, cleaning the bathroom, folding laundry. One of the guys that I was coaching when he was talking about feeling cooped up inside the house, he was like it feels like all I have to do are chores and clean the kitchen over and over and keep sweeping the floors. So I'm not talking about chores here as much as decluttering. You know you have a weekend where you're going to be in the house all weekend pick a closet, pick a room, and the initial starting phase isn't always easy. You got to get over that hurdle. But after five minutes of clearing stuff out, you're going to start feeling better. You're going to start feeling more motivated. This could even be like a home project that you want to tackle, like get something on there that makes you feel productive, that cabin fever feeling is usually feeling more like stuck, like I'm not doing anything, all right.
Speaker 1:So number two is decluttering or getting a project done that you've been wanting to get done. Number three is change the sentence that is going on in your brain. So if you're feeling suffocated inside of your own house, you're probably telling yourself something that's creating this feeling. So two separate guys have said I feel like a prisoner, and that sounds extreme, but our brain can go to extremes and if you are telling yourself you feel like a prisoner, you're going to feel stuck self, you feel like a prisoner, you're going to feel stuck. When I'm thinking about those times when I've felt that I think the sentence that goes through my brain is I got to get out of here, like this urgency to get out, like I'm trapped, like something's wrong, and I'm saying these things with a smile on my face. But when we start to become aware of the sentences that are running through our brain, it can be laughable how extreme our brain gets. And knowing that these are just perspectives that are optional, we can think differently is really helpful in managing our own world.
Speaker 1:If we're thinking I got to get out of here, we're not going to enjoy that time with our family. So the antidote to cabin fever here could be something as easy as I have options. So you notice, you're feeling trapped, pressure is building up, anxiety is. There are options here. I'm not a prisoner, I'm not trapped. I am a grown man that can decide what he wants to do. Whatever that new sentence is that eases some of that trapped feeling, that anxious feeling. That's going to be a start to healing your cabin fever. Change the sentence in your brain.
Speaker 1:And the fourth one is to work with your wife to schedule some free time, getting some solo time in to clear your head, whether it's a workout or it's reading something, or it's taking a walk and listening to a podcast, whatever solo time you need to decompress and come back and enjoy your family. Have a conversation with your wife about it. Now, when you have this conversation, you don't have it from that place of I feel like a prisoner. If you tell your wife that you feel like a prisoner, that's probably going to trigger her. She's going to be like oh my gosh, he doesn't want in this relationship, he's not happy with his life. That's not why you're asking for some free time. This isn't about running away from your family. It's about some solo time to recharge, to fill up again. So tee it up with how much you do enjoy time together as a family, how happy you are 90% of the time or how fulfilled you are 90% of the time, and let her know.
Speaker 1:I notice, when we're not doing anything for long periods of time and we're all together and we don't have anything scheduled on the books, I can feel cooped up and I'm thinking, if I get an hour or two hours of solo time, I'll be able to fill up and come back and hang out with the family. For me sometimes it's just a little slice of 10 minutes to purposefully check out of family time and into some mind-clearing, decompressing time. So those are four tactics to try when you notice that you are feeling trapped in your own house. And feeling trapped in your own house it's one of those sentences in our brain that we are deciding to think and buy into. I don't want to discredit that feeling of being trapped, though, because I have felt it before and I do feel it and I know it's real. So there are tactics we want to put into place instead of just telling ourself. We shouldn't be feeling like this. We shouldn't be feeling cabin fever. I should be enjoying my time with my family.
Speaker 1:Number one is get outside. Two is declutter. Find something to be productive with. Number three change the sentences in your brain. You're not trapped. You're not a prisoner. You have options. That's the new sentence. I have options That'll get you moving. Number four is figure out how to get some solo time in for yourself. The goal of all this enjoying these quieter, slower months, being able to play board games, build a fort, watch some good movies together while your kids are living under your roof not be a grumpy dad. So put these tactics into place, enjoy your time at home and have an awesome week. Catch you next time.
