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- Carlee
Meditation sound hard? We've got a simple way to get started without all the drama on this episode of The Stress Less Show. Hi, I'm Carlee Myers, your friendly stress management expert, and this month, we're exploring simple ways to reduce stress. Now, this month, I brought on a great guest, Alex Stokes, who has passionately been studying Tai Chi and related arts since 2014. And he uses this philosophy and approach of these arts to coaching, to coach clients. And he assists people in finding greater balance, ease and harmony in their lives. Alex, I'm so excited to have you on the show.
- Alex
Thank you. I'm happy to be here.
- Carlee
So, as always, I like to ask my guests, especially when we're in non-traditional modalities. How did you get into this line of work?
- Alex
Well, I started studying Tai Chi in 2014. I had had about eight knee injuries in my life, a couple ACL surgeries and one of them being in January of 2014. I had been going to physical therapy to try and recover and insurance stopped covering it. So I had to find my own way to continue my recovery. And Tai Chi seemed to be the thing that life wanted me to do. And I had already been a meditative person and I'd been meditating for a long time. But meditation was like. A place to retreat for me. And then when I opened my eyes and started living in physical reality again, chaos ensued once again. And so Tai Chi was also like the perfect fit for me of finding a way to bring relaxation and ease into my physical reality, not only for my body and recovering from the trauma of my knee injuries, but also in just feeling comfortable living my life as human.
- Carlee
That's such a. And I think that's such an important differentiator. Or it like I know I personally experience that with meditation. Where you... It's almost like escapism in some ways. And then you open your eyes or you get up and you leave whatever quiet room that you're in. And then the world, the buses are beeping and the horns are blaring and like everything kind of hits you. And so you're saying, what you're saying is Tai Chi can be this like embodiment of our reality, our presence with the world, but also get that that sense of calm, peace, contentment.
- Alex
Yeah. So the practice of Tai Chi is an ancient Chinese philosophy built in Taoism and it is very much so about connecting to your true nature and in body and knowing who you are as a human being and being able to live in whatever experience you're living in and bringing that sense of peace and relaxation and ease that can be found in nature to to whatever it is that you are doing.
- Carlee
Mm hmm. That's a thing. So you were telling me before the before we hopped on the show that stress is really linked to fear.
- Alex
Yes. Yes. So if you can imagine that if you are afraid or for somehow you are thinking that life is not working out for you or that you're not safe where you are, you're gonna get a little bit stressed. And and what happens is you have these glands in your back, your adrenal glands that secrete stress hormones, that when you get into a state of fear or fight or flight, your body naturally just reverts to this. I cannot relax. I cannot rest. I cannot be the way that I am. I have to run away from a tiger or something. But in our society, we often find ourselves in that stressful state without actually being chased by a tiger. And so it's good to notice how how you might shift into this state of being into this kind of fearful state. And the sooner you recognize that, the sooner you can do something to get yourself out of it. And so one of the ways you can recognize it is notice the physical sensations associated with fear and with stress.
- Carlee
Mm hmm. It's funny. This reminds me of two things. First of all, it's like the 12-Step programs where they say the first step is to admit that you have a problem, you know. But the second thing that it makes me think about is this exercise that I have my clients do, which is to look in the mirror, say something not nice about themselves, which every like health coach, life coach, whatever dropped... their jaws drop when I say this, saying that something not so nice. Looking themselves directly in the eyes and what that does is that's an experiment to say where does stress show up in my body. Like whenever I say let's say I have issues around money and I look myself in the eyes in the mirror and I say, "You're broke. You don't know how to deal with it. You're going to be poor forever." Like, I feel the welling in my eyes, the clenching in my throat, like I feel where all that energy is stuck. And so just having that awareness, because a lot of us suppress our emotions. Just having that awareness. That kind of reminds me of that exercise, just noticing where it is in the body and the physical sensations that you get.
- Alex
Yeah. It's very likely that you're probably saying those things to yourself anyway without it being so obvious. It's more playing in the back of your mind. And so when you make it more obvious, you bring more awareness to it. Awareness is the first step. Once you're aware, then you can do something about it. So one of the ways that stress shows up in our body, many of the ways it... Stress is a form of blocked energy, like you were saying, and energy being like the electrical signals in your nervous system or, you know, your blood and fluid flowing through your body when these things get constricted and don't flow as well, you start to feel sensations like tension, contraction, feeling stuck or like something clinging or holding on some kind of resistance or strength and or just other sensations that feel weird and you don't have a label for them. And when you notice that you have these feelings, you are experiencing some form of blocked energy. You are very likely experiencing some form of stress in your body and this kind of stuff tends to accumulate because we don't like feeling these sensations usually. And as a result, it's kind of like you're always keeping it at bay. Like, I don't want to deal with you. And it and it just it accumulates over time and it builds up. So most of us are living with a decent amount of accumulated stress in our bodies.
- Carlee
Yeah. That reminds me of this great formula and I heard about it through Kristin Neff PhD. But I can't remember where she heard about it. But it's suffering equals pain times resistance. So like the initial stressor might be the pain and the resistance is you keeping it at bay. And that creates the amount of suffering that we have.
- Alex
Yeah.
- Carlee
What is what can we do to prevent that resistance and the buildup of blocked energy so that we can stress less and find more joy and all the good stuff?
- Alex
Yeah. Simply put. Allow yourself to be exactly as you are if you're feeling like you have to change yourself. That's an expression of you not feeling safe that you're not okay. Exactly as you are. And the more you try to change yourself, the more you try to make yourself or force yourself to be a certain way that is going to just create more tension and stress in your life. So just by allowing yourself to feel. And there's a meditation you can do where you just breathe comfortably, allow your breath to flow into your belly, into your diaphragm, that will actually massage your adrenal glands, which will help reduce the stress and the fear. And as you do it, you can just feel more, more comfortable just being as you are. And the more you practice, the better you'll get.
- Carlee
You know, that's such an interesting way to put it to like thinking about it, not as meditation. And I know I might be twisting your words a little bit, but I find it interesting. It's not as meditation so much as like I'm sitting here and I'm breathing to massage my adrenal glands. And that in and of itself, like, I'm not changing myself. I'm not changing my thoughts. I'm just doing this thing that my body needs and I'm giving myself the compassion that I need in the moment.
- Alex
The more you can recognize that you are in fact perfectly fine just as yourself, the happier you generally genuinely be. But we all have issues with that. Me very much so.
- Carlee
I love that. I love that. So for those of you who are listening at home, we want to know, have you ever thought about using Eastern practices to stress less eastern practices like Tai Chi or even breath work? We're curious. Let us know in the comments below.
- Alex
And if you are interested, I. It is actually not an easy thing to do. Sitting and being with yourself can be very frightening or overwhelming at times. And so as a, as a coaching offer, I am more than happy to have a free consultation with anyone who is interested in trying this new approach and those who hear about us from the Stress Less.
- Carlee
Show
- Alex
this thing will have a had a nice discount package as well available if you want to.
- Carlee
Wonderful. So where can we find you to grab that free consultation?
- Alex
My Web site is called tao of you t a o dash o f dash y o u. Awesome.
- Carlee
So for those of you who are interested in just trying a different approach, knowing just accepting yourself as you are, this is a great opportunity for you to get your very next steps to start stressing less steps that are easy and approachable. Now, if you're tired of working like a dog or getting mediocre results, or you find fear, anxiety or more getting in the way of your success, you're not going to want to miss out on our brand new online course. The Stress Less Masterclass. Now for more information on this and to sign up, you can click the link in the description or visit thestresslessco dot teachable dot com. This concludes this episode of the Stress Less Show. If you enjoyed this week's episode, let us know by giving us a big old thumbs up or hitting that follow or subscribe button. Thanks for listening and we'll see you next week.