stress management Archives

Hi everybody!

I decided to just do one extra something today, since I had a little extra time. I was on an interview this morning and they were asking about the patterns and conflict, and how I learned to handle conflict, and so I decided just to share this with you because it’s kind of fun and interesting. Embarrassing too, but what the heck?

So, as I grew up I have an older brother who is king of the hill, and I was just the cute little girl. So, if I ever wanted attention, I would have a hissy fit and I learned how to do academy-award hissy fits. So, that got really deeply into my nervous system. You want attention? Make a lot of noise. You want attention? Yell, cry, scream, stamp your feet, do whatever… Okay?

Now, I grow up and I’m a businesswoman, and this is now years ago. So, at least I have a little bit of room to say, I have improved. Hopefully, I have and what would happen was, we’d be in the meeting and somebody would say something, and I get upset and you guessed it. I’d have a hissy fit, and I would stamp my hand on the table. I would shake my head till it looked like it was falling off. I would roll my eyes. I was not good and I saw people over there saying, “Oh my God! There she goes again.” Okay. So, one day was where it got me, I had a meeting in the morning and during that time, Sylvia had her drama queen hissy fit. Later in the afternoon, different group of people, different organization, certainly a different meeting, similar Sylvia. I had another hissy fit, and as we walked out somebody said, “Oh my! Do you really have to be that dramatic with what you do? And I remember thinking, oh, what does she know? What does he know? What do they know? I get what I want because I make a lot of noise, which is what happened when I was a kid.

Anyway, go home and the third time they say is the charm. So, pay attention to threes and what happened was, my daughters were in college at the time and one of my daughters called, and she was telling me something that you know, kind of was annoying me, and I went, “Oh, I don’t believe this and blah, blah, blah,” and my daughter said, “Mom, when you get into that drama queen place, there’s no talking to you. So, I love you and I’m going to hang out.” And she she hung up the phone. Yay! Julie and I thought they’re looking at the phone, thinking not nice thoughts but then I went three times in one day. I better pay attention. So, I started then, that was observing and I used my out technique, and I went down to understand where it came from, and it was like my brother was taking up all the air in the room, cuz he was so wonderful and marvelous and brilliant and all that stuff, and the only way I could get attention was being noisy.

Okay, so then I had to figure out what do you do to transform it, and this is where the work that we’ve done over the years, has been the most exciting because there are 13 patterns, and they all can be transformed. That’s what’s exciting, and I finally figured out that the drama queen or king has the ability to become a great storyteller, because you like the adrenaline you’re used to the adrenaline. I kind of liked it. One, I now… that I’ve learned how to become a good storyteller. I use it that way.

Now, here’s the difference. The difference is the storyteller has purpose. It’s going to an end, that has a positive outcome. It’s not just spewing around and making a lot of noise for no reason. So, the transformation is possible, and during these times of stress.

I love you to write down at the bottom of the video any thought you have about how you’ve been working to transform the stress and love to hear from you. I’m going to have a very short masterclass for you to look at about stress, and then there’ll be a program where we can really dig down into the stress that happens with coaching that will be involved,

So, thanks so much. Have a beautiful rest of the day, and let’s keep helping each other get through this complicated time, okay?

Hi everyone!

Well, here we are at home and I’ve been doing a survey, and the survey has been asking how people are coping and looking at coping mechanisms, and it’s been very interesting because they fall into kind of specific categories.

Some are into the eating and binge eating, and for me, it’s chocolate and even ice cream, and I remember as a kid, when I would be in a bad mood, my mother would say, “Oh, sit down and have some chocolate, ice cream and you’ll feel better.” So, even now, when I’m in whatever state, I’m in my mind says, “Chocolate, ice cream will make you feel better, and a hot fudge sundae will make you feel even better,” and they saw other side of that, is I don’t think so.

A little too much of anything going to the extreme is toxic. The latest I heard is, people bringing on Tiger King, the Netflix series and wondering what’s next after that, and so people are doing what they need to do, and it’s about finding comfort and safety.

I’m really feeling pretty good about yourself in that way, except it’s short term. It’s not long lasting. So, coping often leads to indulging and indulging is not a good thing.

So, the question is, how do we counteract indulging? Well, I’d like to tell a little story that comes from the Cherokee to Cherokee legend, and it’s the story as when kids were little, they would sit with the grandfather or the tribal elder, and they would ask, how do we know? What’s good and what’s not good? And the response would be, there are two wolves and they’re always fighting, and one wolf is the wolf of darkness, and despair. The other wolf is the one of light and hope.So, the kids would say, “Which one wins?” And the grandfather, the elder would say, “The one you feed.”

So, I’d like you to think about that as we go through the next days and weeks and perhaps months, that we are all sharing together right now.

Here’s the thing, what do we feed physically? What do we feed emotionally? What do we feed mentally? And I said, I would today have two emotional exercises to give you some emotional strength. You know, we always feel better when we’re doing something, and we learn it, and we can feel it easily in us. So, that we can do better. So, here are the two exercises: One, is the 77077 exercise. Now, everybody can remember the numbers up to seven, and it’s a breathing exercise and it helps you get more oxygen in your system, and will calm you down.

So, before you say something you might regret, you can do this anywhere. Just go into a quiet place. Go into the the bathroom, and if you need to lock the door, seven, seven, seven, seven, and here’s how it goes:

You breathe in to the count of seven through your nose. Breathe in, hold to the count of seven. Breathe out through your mouth to the count of seven, and then, what we say is, hold empty to the count of seven, seven times and use your fingers to remember it. So, one full section is breathe in, hold, breathe out, hold, and after you’ve done that seven times, I promise you, when you open your eyes and look around, things will begin to look brighter because you’ve put more oxygen in your body. You’ve also taken a pause, which is really important.

So, do that whenever you’re in a place of saying, “I’m going to say something that I might regret. Remember the two wolves. One is about, let me get the exact words I had written down about this, because I’m writing about this
– where is it? One wolf is about anger, and resentment, and intimidation, and upset, and fear, and the other wolf is about empathy, and caring, and creativity, and planning. So, think about it. Which wolf do you want to feed?

So, exercise number one, will give you the space to make the decision. Now, the next exercise is ten seconds, and you do it every hour. Ten seconds, can you take ten seconds out of an hour? It’s out of sixty minutes. Ten seconds and here’s what you do in ten seconds. I would set something on your computer, or your phone, or if you’re still wearing a watch these days, on your watch, ten seconds. Whatever you’re doing, stop and look at something. Look at something. Look at here. I have a some interesting scissors that I keep here. If I have to cut through a piece of paper but you just sit, and you look at it. Look at it. Pay attention to it. Look at the creativity that went into making it.Whatever it is that you have, just look at it. That’s all you have to do. Take something different each hour. Look at a pen, if you still have pens. Everybody still has a pen. Look at, you know, I have it here because I’m going to ask for a walk after this. A pair of sunglasses and look it’s Paris. Unless it has one of my peace of mind, arrow on it. Oh well, look at it. Just look at it. Look at the creativity. Look at the design. Think of the people who put these things together. That’s all you have to do.

Those are two important exercises. They will begin to feed. Next week, I’m going to talk about the survival brain and the creative brain, and it’s information that I think is really valuable. You can use it at work. You can use it at home, but first you have to start and use it for yourself. Now, I know we’re going through tough times or maybe it’s complex times, and we’re going into an area that seems unknown. So, taking those breaths and stopping to just put your mind on something very specific. If you’d like to meditate, do that. That’s great, but if that’s too much for you, where you get to get drowsy from it, do the ten-second. I call it a 10-second meditation, and do it as many hours as you possibly can.

So, ’til next time and anybody, if you want to call or email me or text me, let me know how you’re doing and we will get through this together. Thank you so much.