Tag: manage anxiety

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Amused Not Stressed

If you can laugh at yourself, you’ll always be amused, right? I do amuse myself at times – which is a good thing. So, the furnace started making a noise ­– one that I interpreted as a “scary noise.” We had just paid out a chunk of change in car repairs. As I listened to the scary furnace noise, I started to feel anxious at the thought of replacing the furnace too.

“Maybe it’s something simple,” I hoped. Maybe the furnace just needed a new air filter. I checked the date, and yes, it did need a new filter so I replaced the furnace filter.

Suddenly, the furnace stopped making any sound at all. No scary noise. No fan. No motor hum. OH NO!  I started to feel a little panicky and began searching for the name of the great HVAC guy who helped us out with a furnace issue in the past.

I checked my files, then checked my phone contacts. I couldn’t find the furnace repair guy’s name and I started to get frustrated. After repeating the same steps and still not finding the contact information, I felt more frustrated.

Then, I had that moment of awareness! Just breathe! I stopped and took a breath.  I got my focus out of my head and into my heart. I felt an urge to go back to the furnace again and followed my intuition. As I stood in front of the furnace, my eye fell on a switch. I flipped the switch and the furnace kicked on again – this time without the scary noise.

When I replaced the furnace air filter, I had accidently bumped the motor switch to Off. Hahaha! It’s good I can laugh at myself because it does keep me amused quite regularly.

Luckily, I only spun in crazy panic circles for a couple minutes before my wisdom tapped me on the shoulder and whispered in my ear, “hey, try the easy path over here.” I am sure glad I listened because it saved me the cost (and embarrassment) of having the furnace guy come out and flip the switch for me.

I call this skill of toggling out of fear and into wisdom, Spiritual Pilates. This skill strengthens your inner spiritual core so you can shift more gracefully away from anxiety and into peace. When you access your inner peace and innate well-being, you can hear your own wisdom within and recharge your batteries when you feel depleted.

Want to learn more? I offer a course in Spiritual Pilates: Aligning Body, Emotions, Mind and Spirit. Message me to set up a phone call and see whether the course might be a next right step for you. serenityebook@gmail.com

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Try compassion

Today it felt good to play the hero for a newborn baby. Everyone in the store could hear the baby squalling. On and on and on and on. I said under my breath, “pick up the baby.” I saw a young mother wheeling a shopping cart with the crying baby strapped into a car seat.

Another woman angrily approached the young mother and said, “that is abusive!” The woman held her phone as if she were threatening to call an authority to report the mother for child abuse.

I remembered how, as a new mother, I had felt overwhelmed and clueless about how to get the baby to stop crying. I mosied on over to the young mother.

I heard the mama say something about how the baby hated the car seat but she wanted him to be safe. “My babies hated the car seat too,” I empathized. “I just picked them up and held them.” She took the baby out of the car seat and as she held him to her chest he stopped crying. I think everyone in the store breathed a sigh of relief.

“Babies like to feel mama’s heartbeat and feel loved,” I said compassionately. She murmured something about him always wanting to be held. “Yes,” I assured her, “babies do like feeling mama close. That’s why I carried mine in a baby sling all the time.” The mama said she had tried a wrap that didn’t work but she had a baby front pack that she hoped would work. She set Baby back into the car seat without strapping him and he remained calm. I wished her well as she wheeled away.

The situation de-escalated easily through simple and compassionate communication. The angry woman did not help the baby because the mother became defensive and self-conscious. Who knows what was going on with the mama. Maybe she had depression. Maybe she was so sleep deprived she felt numb. I remember those days of no sleep.

I am telling this story because many miscommunications contribute to stress and anxiety. Next time you see a stressed-out mom in a store, empathize with her. Murmur some soothing words to her: “it is hard when Baby is colicky.” “Newborns are a lot of work but they are so precious.” “I remember when my baby cried a lot.”

As I returned to shopping, a different woman thanked me for intervening and helping the new mom. Having determined that I was a compassionate person, the woman then proceeded to show me the clothes she was choosing to get my opinion on what to purchase. I murmured something that sounded compassionate and moved away. I am not that compassionate.

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Mindset Secret for Finding Your Natural Calm

Are you relaxing into summer? Or is your tension headache putting a damper on summer fun? Are you making time this summer to do more of what you love? Summer is the time to slow down, kick back and savor the iced tea by the poolside.

Recently, I savored a favorite summer-time activity by taking two teenagers to a festival in the park.  As the teens walked around by themselves, I enjoyed watching the little kids and parents interact. Parents, love on those babies! They will be teenagers walking around on their own before you know it. Ten years fly by in the blink of an eye!

I reminisced about going on the merry-go-round with my kids when they were little. Do you enjoy the merry-go-round at the fair? Or does it make your headache worse? Does the merry-go-round at the fair remind you of your life? Do you want to get off the merry-go-round of life? Enjoying the merry-go-round depends on your perspective.

If you are focusing on “Oh, I hate this! The lights, noise and vibration are giving me a headache! Get me off this thing!” you will not enjoy it. If you are focusing on “I hate the commute to work! There are too many dishes in the sink! The dog barfed on the rug,” life can feel like a never-ending merry-go-round—up, down, up, down, round and round, same-old, same-old.

Yes, if you stay in the same old patterns of thought, emotion and behavior, the same neuro-pathways in your brain get triggered and stuck in a rut. You get more of the same. What goes around, comes around.

But, if you lift the circle into a spiral by learning the lesson and by mining your truth out of each situation, then, when the pattern of thought, emotion, and behavior comes around again, you have more resources to deal with what life throws your way.

For example, I am a recovering chocolate addict. It took me many turns around the spiral to overcome my sugar and chocolate addiction. It did feel like a never-ending merry-go-round. I ended up with a nasty candida yeast imbalance that went around in a circle for years while I fed the candida with sugar.

I first lifted the circle into a spiral when I noticed the relationship between sugar and how I felt physically. Then, I lifted the situation up the spiral again when I noticed that I ate sugar when I felt an emotion—sad, mad, glad, anxious. Pretty much any emotion triggered my sugar craving. I learned the lessons, integrated the wisdom and lifted the situation up the spiral to overcome the craving for sugar.

Yesterday, I savored a few spoonfuls of my favorite ice cream and that was enough. In my past, I would have eaten the entire container. Because I was connected to my state of inner calm, I had no craving to finish the whole container of ice cream. My body, mind, emotions and spirit felt happy about that choice.

I’ve just written a book about finding your natural state of inner calm.  The book is called Seeking Serenity: How to Manage Anxiety and Love Your Life. I am super excited to share my book with you. I’m proud of the personal and professional work I’ve done over thirty years to collect stories to share with you. The book is full of tools and techniques that, when you practice them, will help you find your center when you lose it. Everybody gets off center sometimes, but with practice you can get back to feeling re-centered, grounded and in the flow of life quickly.

The book, Seeking Serenity: How to Manage Anxiety and Love Your Life, is available for pre-sale now. Here is the link. The book will be available to download for free on August 1.

If you want to get started right way, message me (651-472-3995) and we’ll set up a time to chat about your journey and ways I can support you. I would love to help you find your natural state of inner calm so you can enjoy the heck out of each moment this summer.

Joyfully yours,

Leah