How to Use Your Senses to Stress Less [The Stress Less Show - Episode 47]

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>> Carlee: Do you ever feel like managing your stress takes more time than it's worth? Hi, I'm Carlee Myers. Your friendly stress management expert, and this month we're exploring simple ways we can reduce stress. And because we're exploring this, I brought on an incredible guest, Nancy Smith. She's a life enhancement coach who works with professional men and women who set personal or professional goals but struggled to see them through. She helps them to get clear on their vision, identify the beliefs that are holding them back, and create a plan to bust through those beliefs and take consistent steps toward their desired outcomes. As a lifelong goal achiever with formal training, as a licensed mental health counselor, Nancy's philosophy is that everyone deserves to live a vibrant life, pursuing their passions and the things that provide them meaning. Using her knowledge and experience, she helps her clients achieve the dreams and results that have been eluding them. Welcome to the show, Nancy. I'm so excited that you're here.

>> Nancy: Hi, Carlee. And I'm so excited to be here. 

>> Carlee: It's been a long time coming. 

>> Nancy: Oh, yes, it has. It has. It has.

>> Carlee: So, you know, I know a lot about you, but my audience actually, this is their first time meeting you. So can you would you mind sharing just a little bit more about how you got into this line of work, how you became a coach? The whole nine yards? 

>> Nancy: OK. Sure, I can do that. So I was I was a person that was achieving goals like through high school, growing up. I set a goal. And then just. Just as it just seemed to be accomplished, even though I was achieving them until I wasn't. And I would feel like there was I was in a job that I didn't like anymore, but I was there because I was getting paid and. You know that feeling when you're there? And that... You're getting paid. So this must be good enough. It must be good enough even though you're not getting paid as much as you would like. I worked hard. I did extra work. I was respected by my coworkers. Supervisors gave me more responsibilities. But I still was not comfortable where I was. But again, just doing what was expected, expected of me. I experienced self-doubt because I wasn't moving along. And now the goals I was achieving, I wasn't doing that anymore. So I was feeling doubtful. Loss of self-confidence. And I guess it was, I guess, the good girl syndrome. Don't rock the boat and just keep doing. And plus, it was just too hard to look for something else or to do something else. Until I felt things occurred at work and they were restructuring and I felt so degraded. And they... I felt so degraded that they said, you know, they offered me another position with a salary cut of several thousand dollars and said that's all they could do. And I said, you know what? If they can't respect me, I have to respect myself. And I found a different pot... path in which to take And I did that feeling better about myself. And because I took that path, it just opened up a lot more opportunities for for me to pursue other things in my life that I had kind of put on the backburner. And one of them was starting Vibrant You Coaching. So thats a little bit about me being able to bring my dreams to fruition and pursuing them and being able to help others do that as well, because I truly believe that we all. Like I said, we all deserve to live truly meaningful and purposeful lives. 

>> Carlee: Yeah, and it sounds like the thing that really had to shift for you is like that shift out of quote unquote good girl syndrome. And just like shift completely shift the mindset to be like this. You know, this is what I'm worth. But not only that, I'm not afraid to rock the boat, 

>> Nancy: Correct. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. 

>> Carlee: So I, you know, kind of circling back to this this week's this month's theme of simple ways to stress less. What would you recommend in terms of in terms of simple ways to reduce stress so that we can move forward on our goals?

>> Nancy: Right. So with whenever we're trying to move forward or pursue our goals or passions, it brings results and change. It brings about change, which of course brings about stress. So I focused on like the simple ways to do that. And that's just using our senses, using our sight, sound, smell, touch, taste. And I'm going to throw movement in there just to help us reduce. Reduce stress, it doesn't always mean that you have to go for the massage. And, you know, spend the the one hundred and forty dollars for that you can. We have all we need right with us. So just to give a few examples. So if, for example, sight some of the as I say, sensible ways to decrease stress or to stress less with sight is if you're in your office, even at work, just having pictures, that is soothing pictures, whether that is of a loved one, a pet, scenery that you can look at. Being able to if you're by a window, just being able to look outside and look look at the view from your window. And sometimes people are in the city and they just think that that's not a you know, it's not so scenic. But just being able to see the sun, see the sky, see the clouds. See what other people are doing. You know, Voyer, just 

>> Carlee: People watching 

>> Nancy: That. That can decrease your stress. Stress is like I say being able to reduce your stress is kind of just being able to change your mind. Change or change your mindset or change your perspective. So being able to again, use your senses to be able to do that.

>> Carlee: So we have like so we have sight and then we go into like what what are the some of the other examples of senses that we might try?

>> Nancy: Um smell And I use this in my office. I have a aroma diffuser, one of those aromatherapy diffusers, and I put one of the oils in it. Whether it's lavender, lavender is usually calming, eucalyptus or spearmint. It's usually more revitalizing and energizing. And sometimes I mix, mix, mix up the oils and have create my own scents. So being able to do that for smell putting-

>> Carlee: That really reminds me. Like when I was doing my work going through PTSD, my therapist said, you know, carry around orange, essential orange or lavender. And for some reason I was more attracted to orange because it creates a sense of calm. One hundred percent smell is  is one of the strongest. 

>> Nancy: Yeah. 

>> Carlee: Like memory triggers or. Yeah. Associated with. Yeah. That's awesome.

>> Nancy: So smell. For our hearing. Soothing music biurnal, beats music again. You can go to YouTube and put in biurnal Beats. Birunal beats is when the frequency of the movement is heard differently in each ear. So just being a I just call zen music because it's just relaxing and alternate. You can go to YouTube and put in biurnal beats. They have different ones that focuses on happiness, concentration, focus. Just again soothing and can just put it on his background music. So biurnal beats, 

>> Carlee: That's wonderful. So really thinking about at home, like what are the simple ways in which we can engage our senses to start stressing less? So we want to know for those of you who are listening at home, what sense are you most excited about using to stress less? Is it? Is it your sight? Is it sound? Is it smell? Is it taste? What are you looking. What are you so excited about to implement? And now, Nancy, I know we were talking about a special opportunity that you wanted to offer our listeners. So I'd love it if you could share a little bit more about that.

>> Nancy: So, yes, I would like to offer a 30 minute complimentary discovery session, which is includes opportunities to discuss what people's goals are, passions are, what your current situation is and what what you think your ideal path looks like and the challenges that keep you from getting to where you want to go and in discussing a plan to help you get started. Again, this is to try and get you from where you are to where you want to be, what you think your ideal life path. Ideal path is for you so that you can get unstuck and get going and moving forward.

>> Carlee: And now where can we go to get that? 

>> Nancy: You can go to my Facebook link, which you will have. You're 

>> Carlee: Right in the show notes. We promise.

>> Nancy: And you can go to IM me in Facebook and or you can email me at nsmith at vibrant you coaching dot com. Wonderful.

>> Carlee: We also want to invite you to a very, very, very exciting, Stress Less Company launch. We have just launched our very first online course and we are so excited about it. It's called The Stress Less Master Class. And we're gonna share the notes in the or the link in the show notes. So make sure to check out more information. For more information about that. Now, this concludes this episode of The Stress Less Show. If you enjoy this week's episode, let us know by giving us a big old thumbs up or hitting that like and follow or subscribe button. Thanks for listening and we'll see you next week.