We all have problems in life ( I prefer the word challenges myself) and today I want to give you 6 reasons why we need them in our lives.
We all can worry about the future and regret things in the past but the truth it is so unhealthy for our bodies, we deserve better and being in the day is really the answer.
When we are overwhelmed we often have a habit of pushing ourselves harder and that can make us feel more stressed and pressured, how would it be to find a great way of slowing down that you can practice regularly? check out my new vlog and find out.
There is a great skill we can easily learn and apply and my video today will hopefully help you to practice and get happier more enriched relationships.
I am sure you too have areas in your life that you struggle with, perhaps you have anxiety, or feel stressed and overwhelmed, may be you don’t seem to have enough hours in your day and get bogged down with your to do list .I can relate and have found this method I have written down in this months Blog really helpful.
In my experience we all have our challenges, some people work too many hours, have issues with saying no to others, put others before themselves, hurry from one action to another, suffer with low confidence or self-esteem, don’t have a healthy work life balance, feel out of control or overwhelmed, the list goes on.
I personally have difficulty with academic pressures and today was a tough one! I am aware as a coach I am working with many people to help them feel more in control, and find tools to help with their challenges.
Today my amazing PA Richenda Solomon reminded me to practice what I teach and the most profound thing in any difficult situation is to tackle it in BITE SIZED portions.
She was able to really help me by printing out the long list of requests I had been given and highlight each one after I had read it, with a simple step by step action plan.
What I realised was, yes, I do know what to do but to implement the actions when I am feeling overwhelmed and fearful is often the hardest thing in the world for me ( and many others).
She was so amazing and told me to take a few breaths and relax, I took her advice and after we worked together on the actions I felt a real sense of accomplishment.
It was hard for me to push through the anxiousness and fearful state but I did actually manage it.
Part of this is why I just love being a Coach as I have so much empathy for others.
So the moral of my story is when you are feeling as I did, stop breath and start with bite sized actions and I promise the rest will become easier.
It’s the starting that makes all the difference.
We all get unwell but when we push ourselves we can seriously impair our health, listening to our bodies and being kind and compassionate is really the way forward
Balance is the key to a happy healthy life, check out my tips on how to get that balance.
We often dismiss our feelings or perhaps we don’t even recognise them, perhaps its time to find out the message of our feelings and how we can connect more with them.
We all love a good story, well I do anyway.Real life events leave a bigger impression on us that text book writing so check this out for a light hearted, fun story.
How can we reduce our anxiety and stress, it may be more simple than you might think, have a read of this to see if it resinates with you.
These magical words have profoundly transformed my life and today I want to share my story with you.
Like many others I have always been searching for a way to reduce stress and pain in my life, whether it be mental, physical or emotional.
Often I have felt overwhelmed and have a deep sense that I can not handle what life is throwing at me.
In those times of challenge over the past 25 years I have visited a very wise man who is also my dear friend.
He always said to me ‘Sandra the pain is in the story’ which to be honest has taken me many years to unpick and fully understand.
What it actually means is when I am in ‘my story’ of what has happened in the past and what might possibly happen in the future THAT is the place where most of my pain is.
When I worry about what life might throw at me in the future ,with all its uncertainties and if I fret about the past which I cannot change I start to feel PAIN.
Of course there is what I call ‘clean real pain’ which is in the now, perhaps a loss of a dear one, an incident, an event that brings pain in the moment . These are all pains that are real life ‘NOW’ pains which we need to feel and express, but the rest, as my dear wise friend says, are part of the ‘story’.
So now must be the time for the solution I hear you ask?
It may be a little simple to grasp but it is only in the NOW, this present moment ,that we will experience real peace.Staying focused on the ‘here and now ' really is a profound solution.
I am at present working with this as I have some pressures of the future coming that might be really difficult, but the truth is worrying about them now only brings me PAIN, anxiety and stress. The answer is to trust and deal with these situations as they arise.
I hope these 6 words transform your life as much as they have mine and bring you more peace.
We all feel at times that we can’t be bothered so how we can work with this challenge? check out my latest Vlog for some tips.
We can all beat ourselves up at times sometimes, but why? It only makes us feel bad and remember we are all human and make mistakes so check out my latest vlog and see how I help people to deal with it.
Exposing our true selves can make us feel very vulnerable, so why do it? check out this week’s vlog and find out the real benefits.
This Blog is written as a thank you to my daughter in law who helped me with a dilemma I had recently.
I was speaking to her about the expression ‘Practice what you Preach’, when I hear it I feel I am about to be dictated to by someone who is preaching to me about how things SHOULD be done, which often falls on deaf ears as no one really wants to be told what to do.
Over my lifetime I have come across many people who ‘talk the talk’ but don’t actually ‘walk the walk’.
I once met a surgeon who was a heart specialist and spoke to patients about reducing their weight, increasing their exercise, not smoking and reducing there process food intake.
We sat chatting at a social event and I noticed he smoked was overweight and often eat high fat processed foods, he said to me ‘I know I should do the actions I tell my patients to do, but If I am honest I don’t actually do them myself’
That day stuck in my mind and my dilemma was how can I help people change without preaching to people?
As my daughter in law pondered, she said ‘Sandra just say I practise what I teach’ Wow how simple was that, I felt really humbled because I don’t have all the answers to improve your Health, but the actions I take have dramatically improved my own health and that is the example I want to show to the world.
It reminded me of an expression I used to say to my sons ‘don’t do what I do, do what I tell you’ ( luckily that is no longer the truth and I have made amends to them as that is not a great role model to be).
So if you want to be a real influencer remember what Gandhi once said…
‘Be the change you want to see in the world’ and let that be your influence.
we often feel we much have more of this and more of that, we just don’t get enough, perhaps its food, money, work or even love. Check out my new Vlog and see if you change your perspective.
I would imagine we all would often love a way to say no to others when we really are unable to do something, but often we feel unable to find the right words. Check out my new vlog to help you find out how.
Many clients I work with find they get overwhelmed with life’s pressures and things seem get on top of them.
As a result, they often feel a high level of anxiety, increased stress and a sense of feeling stuck, not knowing how to move forward as there is not enough hours in the day for the tasks they feel they need to achieve.
As usual my Vlogs and Blogs are ALWAYS about finding simple solutions to challenges and are never rocket science.
What people experience when they follow these suggestions can be profound if practiced regularly, I have experienced some really calming effects and have put the actions in my ‘tool kit’ to use.
I know for myself when I get overwhelmed it’s not easy to feel calm and focused, so these are my suggestions which can really make a difference.
1. STOP whatever you are doing a take 3 deep breaths.
When you breathe deeply messages are sent to your brain to calm down and relax. The brain then sends this message to your body. When you are stressed you increase your heart rate, experience fast breathing, and your blood pressure gets higher, all these decrease as you breathe deeply to relax
2. Pay attention to relaxing your body
Tightness brings about tension in the mind and body, when we relax more it decreases the tension and allows us to feel more calm and be able to focus more easily
3. Drink a glass of water ( and repeat regularly)
This will hydrate your body and again help you regain focus , a lack of water in the body dramatically reduces our mental agility
4. prioritise what actions actually must be done now
Allowing a more structured realistic action plan for now, and then for today, will automatically start to reduce pressure anxiety and stress.
5. Focus on one small tiny action to do next then repeat
By having a small action to focus on without distraction followed by another allows us to feel back in control, and less overwhelmed
I find these actions so helpful and hope you do too, also I get movement into my daily routine even if its just a walk in the fresh air to clear my head.
My longer recent blog with the effects of overwhelm and and more solutions may also be a good read to help you.
http://www.innavision.co.uk/news/2021/3/23/managing-overwhelm