Stress Archives - Page 4 of 4

Learn The Biggest Mistake You Make When Trying To Get Rid Of Stress!

Before I start going into the biggest mistake we make when trying to get rid of stress, I wanted to take a moment and make one thing clear: stress is a part of life; some stress is even healthy for you.

But so often what happens is that we make stress mean something other than it is.

You see, as humans we have been given the power of free will. The power to choose our thoughts. And we get to choose between positive, negative, and neutral. So when things happen in our life we choose to make things much more stressful than they actually are.

For most, this is a hard concept to grasp because what we think we are reacting to is just the fact of life, but what we are ACTUALLY responding to is a thought about what is happening.

(I know, this stuff can get confusing but I promise it’s simple)

Here’s the biggest mistake we make when it comes to getting rid of stress.

The very act of getting rid of it is the mistake. By getting rid of it you are creating resistance and giving stress more power. By thinking there is a need to “get rid of it” you are presupposing there is something wrong to begin with.

What if peace comes first after you acknowledge you are at peace with the situation?

What if, by recognizing things are just happening because they are happening you stop resisting the moment?

What if, by allowing yourself in a non-judgmental way to feel whatever it is you are feeling, you are actually speeding up the process toward peace?

You see, stress is ultimately what we make it. When we are stressed, it allows us the opportunity to inquire within and ask, what is actually stressful here? Because when we really dig deep and ask ourselves, “so what?”, we will often find there is fear to be found and THAT is the real work we must tend to.

So the next time you feel stress creeping up around the corner, ask yourself, “so what?” and see what unfolds for you.

In wellness,

Susan

Why Mindset Is The Key To Feeling Better With Adrenal Fatigue

In my practice I particularly enjoy working with clients who are experiencing adrenal fatigue or other auto-immune related illness. Why? Because I’ve been there myself. I understand what it took to full recovery and wish I knew the tools and thought management techniques I know now. Regardless, I am incredibly thankful to share what I know today.

What I notice happening a lot with people experiencing adrenal fatigue (or other related illness) is a three part phase:

Despair/Breakdown
Determination/Identify Protocol
Maintenance or Plateau

The first phase is clear for anyone who suddenly understands the depth of their situation. It’s a time where you begin to question everything in your life and analyze what lifestyle patterns may have caused adrenal fatigue in the first place. Bottom line: give yourself a good cry. Don’t judge yourself for why you got here or panic about how you can change things. Let it be and give yourself compassion.

The second phase is a re-birth of sorts. You begin to track down some of the best doctors who can help you identify a path to recovery. It’s a time to learn more healthy lifestyle habits to incorporate and if there’s one piece of advice I give to anyone going through this now it’s this: don’t get overwhelmed about the plethora of information out there, this is the opposite of recovery. Trust the information will flow to you; trust the timing and don’t rush it.

The third phase is what I wanted to emphasize in today’s blog post. You see, how you manage your brain will be the KEY to whether or not you can mindfully continue through to maintenance phase or it will be the point it which you plateau completely or retreat back to phase one.

You have to understand that one of the biggest root causes for adrenal fatigue is stress, and stress can only come from one place – our minds.

If we can’t manage our minds to begin with, we will have a much longer time recovering from adrenal fatigue. This is why understanding how your brain works and whether or not it is serving you will be key to achieving peace.

Here are a few questions you can ask yourself to understand whether or not you need to evaluate your current thought process:

Do you often feel rushed, anxious, angry, or worried throughout the day?
Is there a set of thoughts and/or problem you repeat over and over again in a given day?
Do you feel overwhelmed by a thought and/or problem to the point where it starts to cause physical stress?
No matter how much you apply will power, do you find yourself using food, drinking, working out, or the internet to avoid/buffer in order to feel better?

If you answered yes to any of the above, chances are you would benefit from understanding why your brain works the way that it does, and how making tweaks to your own internal process can help provide more peace, joy, and personal power into your life.

You see in a nutshell, when you understand your brain and why you have certain thoughts you start to uncover limiting beliefs, habituated thought and behavioral patterns. With this recognition you can now do the work to understand your individual mental model that has been driving your actions until now.

After all, if you’re doing all the work to live a healthier, more mindful lifestyle why not work on the one thing that can help you manage stress to begin with?

Because the good news is it’s completely possible to optimize your very own internal world and THAT, is priceless.

In wellness,

Susan

Photo by bruce mars on Unsplash

What To Do After Major Adrenal Fatigue Or Burnout

I like to call this phase the i-think-i’m-a-zombie phase.

If you’re the type of person that wants to just move on with your life to the good stuff, chances are you haven’t fully absorbed the meaning behind why adrenal fatigue happened and how you can transform adrenal fatigue to serve you.

You might still be in a daze as to why adrenal fatigue even happened, especially since you’re smart, well intended, and nothing that stressful really happened. Right?

It’s not until we look back and realize just how hard we were working and just how hard we were on ourselves during these times.

If we don’t take the time to understand why our bodies couldn’t habituate to the stress and what was causing the stress in the first place, we just might find ourselves in a similar situation in the near future.

And that is no good.

Anyone who’s ever been through adrenal fatigue would never wish it upon anyone, even their worst enemies.

So what can you do during this zombie phase?

You can start by simply taking the time to reflect on what was driving you so hard to begin with.

What were you so hard on yourself for? What were you afraid of?

Now I’m not talking about things outside our external control.

I’m talking about your internal drivers. What motivates you and why, and why you place meaning behind the things you do.

You see, once we can start to understand the root of what was driving you to do, be, and act the way you did prior to adrenal fatigue, we can begin to build new internal drivers.

This is the most important work you can do for yourself.

This type of investment is the kind of investment no one talks about.

What if you could have invested in yourself THEN so you wouldn’t have had to go through adrenal fatigue?

What if, now knowing this, you can invest in yourself NOW so that you can prevent another breakdown in the future?

What if by investing in yourself now you can live the life you always dreamed of?

Understanding your internal drivers is one of the best things you can do for yourself. If you don’t take action for yourself, who will?

In wellness,

Susan

Photo by Alexandra Gorn on Unsplash

Is Adrenal Fatigue REAL?

Depending on how long you’ve been experiencing adrenal fatigue, you probably know by know that “adrenal fatigue” is a syndrome that is not recognized by conventional medicine, which means you’re working with a naturopatic doctor or other alternative health care practitioner at the time of this writing.

Well, it doesn’t stop there. There’s more research that indicates while the symptoms that collectively fall under “adrenal fatigue” are real, the treatment of our adrenals isn’t truly targeting the root cause.

What few are now starting to call this is HPA Axis Dysregulation. The HPA Axis is known to be the body’s central stress response system. And for some people, when our body, and it’s hormonal response, is no longer able to habituate to the chronic stressor, symptoms of “adrenal fatigue” begin to emerge until we treat the root cause

Essentially – cortisol disturbance.

So, is adrenal fatigue REAL? HELL YES.

Should it be CALLED adrenal fatigue? I’ll leave that to the medical experts.

What I do know is that the collective symptoms that are now under the naming convention – adrenal fatigue – is absolutely real and debilitating.

Thankfully, there IS a way to peace and finding joy while in recovery.

It wasn’t until I realized my thoughts were causing me more stress than what was actually happening in my life that I was able to regain control.

This is what I tell my clients (adrenal fatigue or not) all day long. You need to pull out the ROOTS (your mis-managed thoughts) in order to FEEL BETTER. Because our thoughts create our feelings, never what’s happening.

It’s a hard concept to grasp at first but when you do, you’ll begin to realize just how IN CONTROL you are of your life 100% of the time.

So, adrenal fatigue? It’s real – at least the collective symptoms of adrenal fatigue.

I hear you. I see you. I feel you.

How do I know? Because I was right there with you my friend.

Let me know how I can help.

In wellness,

Susan

Photo by rawpixel on Unsplash

Do You Believe in Miracles?

Have you ever experienced a miracle? Something that completely changed your life in an instant?

What I’ve seen over and over again (and I love witnessing this in my own life as well) is that once you believe in miracles you naturally begin to live in the present moment. The surrendering has already begun. The magic is already happening.

There comes a moment when you can’t seem to handle the fear, worry, stress, dilemma (whatever is causing suffering for you) and you almost, in defeat, let it go.

That’s the beautiful part.

Suddenly you sense a lightness. And you realize it was never in your control anyway. It was never yours to begin with. How funny is that?

Our minds are powerful. And unfortunately (or fortunately) you can’t believe in two things. You can’t believe in fear AND believe that miracles can occur. You must choose one or the other, and for as long as you are trapped in your own fear, there can’t possibly be a way to witness a miracle.

That’s when you allow the down to be down. Don’t resist, just let it be. Because the sooner you relinquish control, the sooner you come to realize control isn’t the answer.

Life can be funny, but what I’ve come to realize as truth, is that it’s all perspective and beliefs at the end of the day.

What lens are you wearing today?

What driving belief is charting the course of your past, today, and subsequent future?

Choose wisely my friends. Be conscious and spend some time with your inner most wisest self.

In wellness,

Susan

Play in the field of Greatness. Mobile wallpaper

Friday Focus – 8/25/17 {When You Can’t Stop The Stress}

“What do you do when you know what to do, but you can’t help but let the stress get to you?”

“The suffering comes when you resist the current situation. What are you trying to change?”

“I feel as if I know enough intellectually not to stress out too much about things, and knowing this should help me in most situations… but I keep stressing and the stressing is stressing me out even more!”

“What is the goal?”

“The goal is to stop stressing!”

“This goal cannot be achieved right now. You are fighting against the current flow of life. Fighting against the flow of life creates even more resistance. Turn your vision around and go with the flow. Stress? What is so bad about stress? It is our identified stories and fears around a situation that creates stress and therefore keep us in suffering. “Stress” is not what is driving you mad, it is your identification to something or someone”

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So much of our suffering comes from desiring a different “current situation”. Can we sit in THIS moment and feel the gratitude of our breath? The sun on our face? The ability to call our loved ones and tell them how much we love them? To hug our beloved dog? To walk outside in nature and feel the beating heart of Mother Earth?

If you find yourself identifying to the student above ask yourself these following questions:

What am I needing to change to feel better?
Can I have faith that this too shall pass?
Can I breathe and with each exhale deepen my faith in the Universe’s ability to handle things perfectly?

No matter the situation, let us find a bit of peace in knowing we are taken care of – always.

In wellness,

Susan

Friday Focus – 2/10/17

I was chatting with one of my good friends the other day and she had mentioned just how “crazy” life was these days. I nodded and understood.

We both knew in that moment what it takes. And what it takes is a high level of self discipline to say no so you can cultivate the peace and pace you need to live a centered life.

Lately, there are three ways in which I try to cultivate peace and pace:

Let go of the small stuff: Running errands has got to be the #1 thing that adds to anxiety. On top of work, family, relationships, health, you name it… there’s always a laundry list of errands that need tending to. Yes, you need groceries to prepare food for the week but do you really need to send that extra email? Or pick up dry cleaning tonight??? I’ve found for myself that if I can let go of the small stuff, if I can just be OK with leaving non-critical items for later, it creates peace and a more healthy pace in my life.
Meditation & prayer both morning and evening: I saw a show last week about a person who runs a food bank and shelter all run purely on donations. He was in a dire situation with the lease ending and no facility to be found. As he made it home he headed toward the annex and it was then the audience realized he was also a priest. As he sat in one of the pews of the small church inside the annex he prayed earnestly to God. To be honest while it was certainly prayer I saw it more as a dialogue. A communication system between himself and God. There was something about his earnest means of communication that touched upon aspects of what I previously touched upon such as letting go, compassion, and metta. What a beautiful way to share, let go, and trust you are taken care of. What’s more, what a beautiful way to start and end the day.
Seek out the good despite the crazy: I’ve written about the power we have to choose our thoughts. And yes, while life can get a bit out of hand I have found it to be much more pleasant when we choose to focus our energy on the one thing we our grateful for vs. the one thing that could make our lives easier. What a shift in energy that is! This is also the time I whip out my inspiration journal and flip through some of the previous pages for inspiration and go into a page full of gratitude. Sometimes it’s a small win but nonetheless a win.

All that said, I am grateful for this beautiful Friday and am looking forward to a dinner party with some of my dearest friends. It’s my turn to bring dessert so I decided to make a (very tart) lemon pound cake. Gluten free of course 😉

Here’s to the weekend.

Namaste.

Connect To Your Heart In Minutes

Have you ever gotten so stressed from life, whether from work, family, relationships, obligations, that you feel disconnected from yourself?

Lately, when it comes to transforming stress, I’m realizing how important it is to take a step back and stop feeding the stress…and ultimately the story. Furthermore, I’m realizing there is power in the NOW, the present moment, to stop feeding the vicious cycle of stress.

One practice that I thought was particularly helpful is called Quick Coherence, a technique from the HeartMath solution. It involves three simple steps which I explain below:

Continue reading “Connect To Your Heart In Minutes” →

The very act of getting rid of it is the mistake. By getting rid of it you are creating resistance and giving stress more power. By thinking there is a need to “get rid of it” you are presupposing there is something wrong to begin with.

You have to understand that one of the biggest root causes for adrenal fatigue is stress, and stress can only come from one place – our minds.

I’m talking about your internal drivers. What motivates you and why, and why you place meaning behind the things you do.

This is what I tell my clients (adrenal fatigue or not) all day long. You need to pull out the ROOTS (your mis-managed thoughts) in order to FEEL BETTER. Because our thoughts create our feelings, never what’s happening.

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