stress

Overcoming Anxiety, Stress & Burnout with Emotional Intelligence

One of my most helpful mentors when it comes to learning to manage anxiety is a guy named Nicholas de Castella. I did his brilliant breakthrough workshop Passionately Alive, and I always remember a private session with Nicholas where towards the end he said to me:

“The reason you’re anxious is because you don’t know who you are”

Nicholas is an extremely compassionate and genuine guy who gave up his previous career as an architect to teach emotional intelligence to other people for a living. Since then he has helped thousands of people go from feeling stuck, blocked and frustrated to creating a wonderful life, relationship, and career of their dreams.

If you happen to be feeling anxious, burnt out or overwhelmed and would like to ignite some energy and move forward in your life, then Nicholas has an exciting opportunity for you.

Nicholas is holding a complimentary emotional intelligence webinar called:

IGNITE: Energy for Life! (more…)

By Graham Stoney, ago

How To Stay Healthy At Work

This is a guest post from my friend Stephane Tessier from TiredButWhy.com.

For my work (in France), I’ve had to go to numerous customers and I can testify that professional spaces are often too standard. Without even noticing, it can have a negative impact on each one’s wellness.

The desks are all the same. The people dress the same way. But specially, the behaviors are standardized. One compares to the others, and tries not to draw attention or to seem too different. Of course, that is not the case for all companies. Especially, small ones tend to be more relaxed.

In this article, I will encourage you to go against the conventions in order to preserve your physical and mental health. Don’t be afraid of the looks of other people.

Easy to say, but technically, what does that mean exactly? Let’s get into examples. (more…)

By Stéphane Tessier, ago

How To Turn Your Anger Into Assertiveness

I’ve noticed a consistent pattern among myself and my coaching clients: we all have a history of not standing up for ourselves when other people behave in ways that we don’t feel good to us. Most of us had parents who weren’t willing or able to teach us how to deal with our emotions, to self-soothe our nervous system when we were in distress, or to stand up for ourselves when our emotional or physical boundaries were being violated. Often the person we most needed to stand up to was one or both of our parents themselves, and that rarely goes well when you’re a distressed child trying to stand up to an adult who is being unreasonable because their wounded inner child is running the show.

Turn Your Anger Into Assertiveness

Turn Your Anger Into Assertiveness

All of this is a recipe for ever-increasing anger, resentment and frustration. We end up overcompensating in a desperate attempt to get our needs met. Internalise that toxic cocktail and it’s no wonder we end up anxious, depressed and lacking self-confidence.

Behavior patterns learned as a child tend to stick even if they never really worked well, and coping strategies learned as a child rarely work well in the adult world. If nobody shows us a better way, we tend to continue behaving in ways that increase our internal store of resentment and frustration long into adulthood with no way of releasing the emotional pressure cooker.

After a while we end up bitter and resentful towards a hostile world that just won’t seem to give us what we need or want.

(more…)

By Graham Stoney, ago

How to Manage Stress

Stress is the unspoken epidemic of the 21st century. There’s too much to do, too much pressure, too many people to please. We feel restless, tense and on edge much of the time. You can’t relax. After a while, you begin to think that this is normal; the way you’re supposed to feel all the time. You get addicted to your own adrenalin.

You never take the time to even breathe properly. You push, and push, and push as though your life depends on doing what you think you need to do. There’s never enough time. And when your current project is done, there’s always a new one to work on. The pressure never ends. You get headaches frequently, but push on regardless.

Left untreated, chronic stress will destroy your health and rob you of your zest for life. Eventually you burn out, give up, fall ill, get depressed and just don’t care any more. It’s important to learn how to manage stress before that happens. Here are some tips on how to do it:

Take Regular Breaks

Your body isn’t built to handle the non-stop adrenaline rush of chronic stress. If you live in a constantly adrenalin charged state, eventually your health will suffer.… Continue reading…

By Graham Stoney, ago

Meditation

I do a combination of Yoga, breathwork and meditation every day that I learned from the Art Of Living foundation. It helps calm my nerves and quieten my busy mind. I often find I get creative ideas popping into my head during meditation that I would otherwise never have thought of. It’s a great way of getting in touch with your intuition and deepening your sense of inner wisdom.

Aummmmmm

The benefits of meditation have been known for thousands of years, and are particularly helpful in our modern society where we are increasingly trained to think a lot and rarely get a break from the mental chatter in our heads.

Advantages:

  • Helps deal with stress
  • Teaches you to relax and focus
  • A form of meditation or prayer is a core part of most spiritual philosophies
  • It’s free!

Disadvantages:

  • Doesn’t help you develop social skills; may even impair them
  • Can make you more introverted and shy
  • Takes a very long time to release and heal trauma compared to somatic therapies
… Continue reading…
By Graham Stoney, ago

Yoga

Yoga is an Eastern combination of mindfulness, breathing and body movement which has been used for centuries for handling stress and anxiety. The physical body movement involved helps to get you out of your head and calm your constant upsetting thoughts.

Long before the invention of modern psychiatric pharmaceuticals Yoga was dealing with mind problems for free. It also helps maintain your body flexibility and improve your breathing practices. Besides, Yoga classes are also an excellent way to meet interesting women. Need I say more?

Advantages:

  • Increasingly common and easy to learn

  • Great for your flexibility

  • Excellent way to meet women

  • Cheaper than most kinds of therapy

Disadvantages:

  • There’s no end to it. You never stop practicing

  • Your buddies may laugh at you, especially during downward facing dog
… Continue reading…
By Graham Stoney, ago

How to Heal Emotional Pain

Traumatic or emotionally painful events in our past can leave us with emotionally charged memories that get triggered whenever we find ourselves in similar circumstances later in life. This will undermine your confidence in these situations, as the powerful emotions triggered quickly become overwhelming even though there’s no real threat present.

Crying heals the emotional pain of past trauma

(more…)

By Graham Stoney, ago