3 Steps to Better Stress Management

Our bodies are designed to respond to stress, which can a perceived threat or when our resources outweigh the demands of a given situation.  

When this happens, a whole slough of chemicals cascade through our bodies, signaling fight or flight responses that are supposed to keep us safe. Then, our bodies should return to a resting state.  However, since many of us aren’t in danger and we commonly experience a great deal of pressures and responsibilities in many areas of our lives, we commonly experience a permanent state of stress response that results in a lot of negative symptoms, including depression,  anxiety and ill health.

While we cannot eradicate stress completely from our lives, it’s possible to find a way to relate with situations so we experience them as less stressful and to manage the stress we do experience in a more positive way.  Some of the things I often share with people about how to manage stress seem quite obvious, however when we are feeling stressed out, they are the FIRST thing we forget to do.

Listen to Your Body

Seems super obvious, huh?  However, this seems to be the very first thing that is let go of.  Yes, we lose our sense of our bodies in the face of stress.  I know it’s happened to me.  I’ve had nights of feeling overwhelmed with so much work that I needed to get done. So, ignoring my body’s signal of exhaustion and fatigue, I pushed myself forward trying to accomplish more…and most likely at less quality.   Do you know what happened?  I got sick!  And, it cost me a few days of recovery time during which I couldn’t focus on anything because I didn’t feel good. 

If we take the time to listen to what our body tells us in terms of hunger, rest, taking a break…we will feel more productive and be much more healthy in the long run.

Remember to Breath

Another obvious one, eh? Well, not so much.  Haven’t you ever noticed that in a moment when your super overwhelmed or stressed out, that you are holding your breath?    I know we all know this, but sometimes we forget that breathing is what brings oxygen and vital nourishment to our blood cells and bodies. 

Breath is the flow of life. When our breath is constricted, so are we!!!!!

Eat Three Meals a Day

Yes, three meals with protein and carbs, preferably greens.  And, drink 8 glasses of water a day. Snacking without meals messes with our energy levels, as does a large intake of caffeine and sugar without meals.  We need nourishment, minerals, vitamins, protein and starches to sustain our bodies and give us fuel.  The whole purpose of eating is to provide our bodies with the sustenance it needs so we can live. When we eat snacks, drink lots of coffee and eat a lot of sugar,  that impacts our minds and our bodies ability to process experiences, to think clearly and to digest emotional tension.

We are what we eat, so if we eat well, we will live well.

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Stress Management Coaching

Stress impacts many of us on some level daily. 

Many of the clients that I work with express frustration and concern for the amount of demand placed on them in their lives, sometimes feeling quite full and not finding anything they can take off their plates to make things feel a bit more digestible.

The thing with stress is that it builds up in our bodies, our minds and our spirits over time.  Our bodies are designed to have a stress response in times of threat to our survival so that we can survive and remove ourselves from threat.  In this day and age, we aren’t necessarily facing a threat to our own life on a daily basis, but worries about deadlines, scheduling, work, finances, goals, school, health, relationships can all start to feel like we are fending for our survival on a daily basis.

When our bodies end up in a state of chronic stress response, we experience a great deal of difficult symptoms including health problems, anxiety, depression, inner critic attacks, lower self-confidence, fatigue, inability to make decisions, headaches, lack of desire or even feeling a lack of purpose or vision for life. It’s so intense to realize how many of us spend so much time here when we don’t have too. We can’t make stress and demands of life go away, but we can change how we manage this stress, which will also create a sense of more aliveness and nourishment in our lives.

What I have noticed with many clients I have worked with, is this particular loss of life vision and loss of confidence in the face of the demands of life.  Even with visioning tools and coaching, I’ve noticed that it can be particularly difficult to break through obstacles.  And, as I became curious about this for my clients and in my own life, I found stress to be a major factor in having difficulty creating change in one’s life.

Stress management coaching offers individualized coaching, as well as courses full of awareness exercises and practical tools. Coaching supports you to identify particular ways that you experience stress in your own life, how to develop awareness of the impacts stress has on you, particular situations that trigger more of a stress response for you and to recognize when stress becomes an obstacle for you in experiencing joy in your life. Coaching also offers you the opportunity to learn tools, skills and practices for managing and dissolving the sources and symptoms of stress in your body.

Posted via email from Lotus Coaching

Streams of Nourishment

Spring is in the air!  The recent rains have been nourishing the earth for days and it's so exciting to see flowers blooming. There is a wonderful scent of jasmine in the air that reminds me how Spring is such an opportunity for renewal.  After a long winter,  color is bursting forth!

One of the most common symptoms of stress is feeling depleted, drained, fatigued or just plain tired.  Another symptom that often goes without attention is the lack of care we give ourselves, forgoing nutritious foods, exercise and, instead, go for foods that might be faster to prepare, more sugar (because it's comforting),  less activity once we get home and perhaps a loud voice in our head that tells us what we "should" be doing instead.  Does that sound familiar? 

One of the biggest things we can do for ourselves to manage stress in our lives is have multiple streams of nourishment that we can go to.  A stream travels along, providing rich nutrients and moisture to many living beings and plants, supporting the earth to thrive.  In the same way,  it is important for us to have multiple streams in our life that provide us with a feeling of nourishment, which is so vital to feeling we have something to offer our lives. 

- Take a ten minute break and go outside for some fresh air.
- Get up and stretch your legs, particularly the front of your hips.
- Make a cup of hot tea and take a few moments to breathe it in, savor the flavor.
- Make time each week to do something that brings you joy and relaxes you.

Posted via email from Lotus Coaching

a gentle reminder

It is essential that our understanding be translated into practice, not with an idealistic vision that we suddenly will become totally loving and compassionate, but with a willingness to be just who we are and to start from there. Then our practice is grounded in the reality of our experience, rather than based on some expectation of how we should be. But we must begin. We work with the precepts as guidelines for harmonizing our actions with the world; we live with contentment and simplicity that does not exploit other people or the planet; we work with restraint in the mind, seeing that it's possible to say no to certain conditioned impulses, or to expand when we feel bound by inhibitions and fear; we reflect on karma and the direction of our lives, where it is leading and what is being developed; we cultivate generosity and love, compassion and service. All of this together becomes our path of practice.

-- Joseph Goldstein, Seeking the Heart of Wisdom

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A Humble Reminder

I found this at the Ghandi Memorial Museum in Delhi, India when I went to visit the Ghandi Ghat, where he had been burned after he was killed. I found this "talisman" quite touching and profound, a reminder to step out of my own constant self-referencing. It puts making some decision making in perspective and reminds me not to get caught up in little petty details of life. It so amazing to be reminded that what we do always effects others as interdependence abounds, whether we realize it or not. Given the sour current economic status, our general forgetfulness about making choices to benefit others abounds, among other things So, I thought I'd share this and open it opens up your heart as it did for me.

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Do You Have A Dream?

There are a few websites now catering to people accomplishing theirdreams,  like KIVA and Dreambank.  I love the concepts of both ofthese.  Its such a positive and beautiful way to use the internationalconnection that the internet has created.  Some countries have atremendous amount of resources. Some people have money they would liketo give but dont' know where to look. some people want to work veryhard to create something powerful and meaningful in their lives butlack the resources.  These sites can bring these people together in abeautiful way.  Reminds me of the movie "Pay it Forward" and that thereare people taking concepts like that and flying with it!

KIVA (www.kiva.org) allows small ventures and entrepreneurs indeveloping countries to get funding to lift themselves out of poverty. You can go to the country of your choice, read through the differentbusiness ventures proposed and then select which one you would like tocontribute to. 

Dreambank (www.dreambank.org) is similar to KIVA in that its a placefor dreams to be fulfilled.  Except,  anyone can post their dream andhow they would like to be supported.  Individuals wishing to contributecan search through people's dreams and decide in what way they wouldlike to offer their resources and practice generosity.

I'm excited about these opportunities, particularly given theholidays,  the economic times and the chance to return to an attitudeof dreaming, appreciation and generosity.  I definitely plan to givethis season, as well as dream and appreciate.

In the spirit of my own dreaming,  I did post my own dream on DreamBank (http://dreambank.org/37965/dreams/to_become-37613.html).Feel free to check it out of you like, and even make a contribution ifyou feel so inspired! 

Much love and joy as we move into the holiday season, which is a timethat can be filled both with joy and warmth, as well as our biggestrelating challenges and emotional times.

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A Reflection on Meaning

my reflections for a psychology class....
I’d like to write about “meaning,” or “meaning making”. This is something that has been on my mind ever since the semester started. For me, it is interesting to contemplate the significance of meaning making, particularly in psychoanalysis. I think this has also been sparked because I am taking projective assessment this semester. Is there meaning in every interaction? Do projections mean something? Does everything inherently have meaning? Is meaning something we construct? And, if so, does everything have to have a meaning or can some things simply be what they are?
I am particularly fond of constructivist notions in that we create meaning, both in our relationships, and in the world around us. This echoes to me words of Viktor Frankl’s writing in his book Man’s Search for Meaning. Creating our own meaning can be a very empowering thing, and also gives the energy of hope and newness to being a therapist and coming to each relationship I have in my life. On the other hand, sometimes I experience that meaning making can become quite neurotic and something I have found I can easily get lost in. What did that mean? What did this mean?
I think that sometimes things just are what they are. And, sometimes I find it difficult to make sense of a lot of interpretation that I experience in psychoanalysis. It seems to me that there is a fine distinction between constructing meaning out of our current experiences and interactions, and over interpreting and over analyzing situations and people we may initially know very little about. I feel like this can become troublesome and keep us from really experiencing what is in front of us. I notice, for myself, that sometimes I can start to get really lost about a case or a person if there is a lot of analysis and hypothesizing going on. On the other hand, I see the benefit and utility of meaning making and interpretations in case presentations, projective assessments and evaluating clinical material. I think what I am realizing for myself is my fondness of allowing for space for meaning to bubble up organically, and to refrain from interpretation until I have more information, as well as trust my own intuition.
Trusting my own intuition hasn’t come easy for me, and there are still times I act counter to what my intuition tells me. These actions don’t usually yield favorable results either. And, often my intuition guides me in the meaning making process. Sometimes it is clear that an interaction, case or test result is quite meaningful, and sometimes it is not. Also, this reminds me of our discussion about the unformulated. When an encounter with something meaningful arises, it appears first as a feeling and a symbol before it is put into words. It is non-conceptual before it reaches our habit of concept forming. I think that sometimes, at least for myself, it’s easy to move straight into the conceptual mind part of things and miss the unformulated, experiential aspects of meaning making.
What is meaning? When an event is significant, it has an emotional quality that impacts us. I think of powerful emotional sessions I’ve had with clients who really opened up a tender part of themselves. And, to me it meant something about our work together. We would process sit and discuss how powerful and meaningful it was for our work together. Only, at the next session, we are back to old enactments and patterns. Does it make the previous session any less meaningful? No, I don’t think so. I think this points to the intangible, unformulated and impermanent aspect of human experience. There is deep experience that passes and does not stay the same forever. What can mean one thing in one instant, can mean something very different in the next. Even as I write this reflection, I take pause and wonder if my writing makes any sense. Will it mean anything to you? How do my thought and questions relate with interpretation and meaning making within the framework of psychoanalytic thinking? This is a question that will be on my mind for quite some time I think.

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partnership for peace

A lot has been going on, and nothing at all. Riding subtle waves of the uprisings in my heart, witnessing little demons revealing themselves to me. Offering them a small plate of a delightful meal, I try to befriend them, not to keep them at bay, but in hopes of peace. I try to see that as many knots as there, many have been untied. With the rising and swelling, comes the drawing out, withdrawing, pulling away.Its no longer useful to wish it wasn't this way. Humbled, an occasional tear streams down my cheek to witness both the nourishment and desolation this exploration reflects in my soul. Instead of fighting it off, which it will ignore and never leave, I sit here, making theselove offerings and extending my hand to these deepest parts, in friendship and with grace.

(inspired by:

"We can never obtain peace in the world if we neglect the innerworldand don't make peace with ourselves. World peace must develop out ofinner peace. Without inner peace it is impossible to achieve worldpeace, external peace. Weapons themselves do not act. They have notcome out of the blue. Man has made them. But even given those weapons,those terrible weapons, they cannot act by themselves. As long as theyare left alone in storage they cannot do any harm. A human being mustuse them. Someone must push the button. Satan, the evil powers, cannotpush that button. Human beings must do it."

--The Dalai Lama, in The Dalai Lama: A Policy of Kindness,edited by Sidney Piburn)

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bliss and pain

Someone shared this with me today....I love it, as long as one doesn't get lost in the pain, and can transform it through being in it. We can't know bliss or love, really, without also knowing pain.

“People are afraid of themselves, of their own reality; their feelings most of all. People talk about how great love is, but that's bullshit. Love hurts. Feelings are disturbing. People are taught that pain is evil and dangerous. How can they deal with love if they're afraid to feel? Pain is meant to wake us up. People try to hide their pain. But they're wrong. Pain is something to carry, like a radio. You feel your strength in the experience of pain. It's all in how you carry it. That's what matters. Pain is a feeling. Your feelings are a part of you. Your own reality. If you feel ashamed of them, and hide them, you're letting society destroy your reality. You should stand up for your right to feel your pain.”
~Jim Morrison

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