Latest / Terri Messenger's Genius Zone / 🧠 High-Achieving, Anxious, and Exhausted? You’re Not Broken — You’re Brilliant

Transcript

🧠 High-Achieving, Anxious, and Exhausted? You’re Not Broken — You’re Brilliant · Terri Messenger's Genius Zone

• 0:01
  Hey, hey, hey, and welcome to Terry Messengers genius zone.
• 0:07
  And by now, you know this is the place and the space where you
• 0:13
  are going to receive your greatest gold Nuggets for the
• 0:18
  week. But boy, oh boy do we have a
• 0:22
  powerful session on our podcast coming up.
• 0:27
  This lady that I'm a about to bring on board is a trauma
• 0:31
  informed psychotherapist, so she's suffered from anxiety as a
• 0:36
  child, so she knows what it's like to live in that world and
• 0:42
  even allow it to be like a normal.
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  She deals with people that are very high functioning, very high
• 0:51
  achieving and very passionate. And as a integrative
• 0:56
  hypnotherapist and a nervous system specialist, she is known
• 1:02
  for helping high achieving people to breakthrough that high
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  functioning anxiety and perfectionism and also the
• 1:14
  overwhelm, the internal overwhelm, so they can finally
• 1:18
  feel safe, seen and successful from the inside out.
• 1:24
  So brace yourself guys, because you're going to want to stay to
• 1:28
  the end because she's going to show you some powerful
• 1:32
  modalities to help your nervous system to adjust and align, to
• 1:38
  show you some incredible tips and tricks, especially if you're
• 1:42
  like me, if you happen to be a high achieving woman.
• 1:46
  So with no further ado, I give you the beautiful Shelley
• 1:50
  Martinez. How are you, Shelley?
• 1:53
  I'm fantastic, Terry, how are you doing today?
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  Well, I'm all the better for being here with you because I
• 1:59
  just can't wait to just experience.
• 2:03
  You know your knowledge and you know your incredible work and
• 2:08
  your art and you know your experience.
• 2:12
  So thank you for coming on the show well.
• 2:15
  Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be doing this
• 2:18
  today and hang out with you. Awesome.
• 2:21
  And tell us where are you? Where are you located?
• 2:25
  So I'm in a small suburb of Albuquerque, NM in the USA.
• 2:31
  Oh, that's very exotic. Wow, that's that's amazing.
• 2:36
  So you're a bit of a Carl Jung fan as a lot of the people that
• 2:42
  come on the show, but we all know he was a legacy.
• 2:47
  What do you believe Carl Jung's legacy was, in your opinion?
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  I think the most important things I take from him is his
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  curiosity and his very gentle but very deep approach to the
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  subconscious. And.
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  Looking at symbols and metaphors and how healing those can be.
• 3:13
  Right. Well, that's very, very
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  important because this is what it's all about.
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  And people don't quite often understand about those symbols
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  and those metaphors. And yet that's how our
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  subconscious mind works, right? You know, it, it actually works
• 3:30
  more through symbols and metaphors than content and a lot
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  of details of he said, she said this, that and the other.
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  It's more of a energetic field. And of course, you also are
• 3:44
  inspired by Melissa Tears, and I believe she was really a
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  practitioner of neuroplasticity. You know, where I guess that
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  part of the brain, the more pliable, like that's almost like
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  when we're in childhood, we tend to take in the most information
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  easily and quickly. But the neuroplasticity of the
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  mind is so vitally important. But what was it that you really
• 4:15
  admired Melissa Tears for? Well, Melissa has developed over
• 4:23
  the last 25 years some amazing techniques to be able to help
• 4:28
  people to heal in their subconscious mind in an
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  incredibly short period of time. The first time I saw her, she
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  healed a woman from her grief over losing pet in about 5
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  minutes and it was the most remarkable thing I'd ever seen
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  and I thought, I've got to get training with this woman.
• 4:49
  Oh, I don't blame you. I mean, if you if somebody can
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  actually create that and I, I am quite familiar with being able
• 4:59
  to really, you know, knock a trauma out of the park that
• 5:03
  people have been living with for even 60 years and be able to see
• 5:09
  them just boom and that magic happening just like that.
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  So do you know, is there a name for that technique?
• 5:18
  Shelley, by the way. Yes, she calls it integrative
• 5:22
  change work. Oh, OK.
• 5:26
  So integrative change work. So you actually learned the art
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  of that. Do you practice that with your
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  patients and your clients? Oh absolutely.
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  Absolutely. I use a lot.
• 5:41
  Yeah, yeah, it's so powerful. Yeah.
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  So I guess you would kind of believe in the philosophy, as
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  you know, Carl Jung does until you make the unconscious
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  conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.
• 5:58
  Yeah. So that's let let's unpack that.
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  How do we make the unconscious conscious and what can you tell,
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  you know, our listeners when this goes to air, when this goes
• 6:15
  to podcast, what that actually means.
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  So I think the first step to making the unconscious conscious
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  is being willing to dive deep, being willing to look in the
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  mirror and see ourselves and our lives more from an objective
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  standpoint so that we don't kind of fall into the whole of being
• 6:41
  overwhelmed by what's happening. So First off is a curiosity, but
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  also to have kindness at the same time.
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  You have to balance those things.
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  So been curious, kind, and then looking at what are your
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  symbols, what are your patterns? What are the things that keep
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  coming up for you thematically? And then doing techniques like
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  art and journaling and just kind of free association and talking
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  those sort of techniques because they're very, very revealing
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  about what we're really thinking in our subconscious.
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  Yeah, that's that's pretty, pretty ironic actually.
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  And so you understand that typically a lot of the people
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  that you come into contact with that really connect with you
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  that that are praying for your service, They tend to be very
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  high achieving people. They, you know, they tend to be
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  the most responsible person in the room.
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  I can remember hearing a saying that my father always said, if
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  you ever want to get a job done properly, ask the busiest person
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  in the room. And, you know, it makes you
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  wonder. And then those that are just not
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  busy and they're just, you know, not doing anything.
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  I mean, it's interesting how that happens.
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  What do you think is happening here?
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  Because with the obviously you understand as a psychotherapist
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  as well, you know, a lot of the human behavior and what what is
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  actually going on in the brain of a person who is such a high
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  achiever. Do you think they're actually
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  driven by something that may be a little bit deficit or you
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  know, what's your explanation on that?
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  Well, for a lot of those folks who are high achievers, my
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  experience with them and my coaching and my therapy is that
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  they suffer from high functioning anxiety, which they
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  often don't recognize what that is, what's happening for them
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  because they think that it's normal.
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  That's what our culture has told us.
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  But this anxiety of but never being able to say no to things,
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  of being very perfectionistic and hard on yourself, of also
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  being driven to never disappoint anyone or make a mistake, causes
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  them to be extremely high achieving.
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  And it's interesting because on the outside, most of the people
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  who know them don't think they're anxious at all, because
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  they often look very confident, but they don't feel that way on
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  the inside. Do you think that's a kind of a,
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  a bit of a learned behaviour that they have acquired over
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  time and that they've, they've, they've learnt.
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  It's like, you know, it's like a, a normal, a new normal.
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  And you know, when, you know, I, I, I've been saying this a lot
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  on this podcast lately, but the frog that is in the water and
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  the water slowly heats up, but the frog doesn't really feel it
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  because it's so normal and gradual.
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  Whereas if a frog jumped into the hot water, they'd jump
• 10:06
  straight out again. They wouldn't tolerate it,
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  right? Yeah, now absolutely.
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  That's the perfect example because so many people with high
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  functioning anxiety start out with what I think of as like
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  regular anxiety, which is the more observable visible anxiety.
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  And at some point they shift into that high functioning
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  anxiety because they're stuffing that anxiety down and trying to
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  pretend it's not there. And so that's often the
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  trajectory. That's certainly the one that I
• 10:38
  took. Now, you were an anxious little
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  girl and you know, you also had a little bit of fear.
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  You're obviously quite impressionable.
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  You know, you had someone say something to you once and you
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  were scared. And you know, I can relate so
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  much to that. Do you want to tell us a little
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  bit about that story and you as a little girl and just how
• 11:02
  anxiety, you probably thought it was normal for you, right?
• 11:07
  No, absolutely. So I was anxious for as long as
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  I can remember, honestly. But when it really struck me,
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  when I had a name for it finally, was when I was in
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  kindergarten. My teacher told me one day that
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  I was going to get ulcers, and I had no idea what she meant, but
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  it sounded really bad and so it just made me more anxious.
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  But what I also learned was that this wasn't OK, that I needed to
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  try to hide this better because it bothered people.
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  I think she was very exasperated with me, probably with good
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  reason at that point, but how I took that in as a kid is that
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  this wasn't normal, this wasn't OK, and I needed to hide it all.
• 11:57
  Right. Yeah, yeah.
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  And how many people are doing that?
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  You know, and as you said earlier, it's kind of like
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  stuffing things down, which cannot be healthy at all.
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  So, you know, you obviously they do often say, I can remember my
• 12:15
  husband saying this one day, and that is if any of our kids come
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  home from school and say to us, this is many years ago, that
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  they're going to become a psychotherapist or, you know, a
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  counselor or a, you know, God forbid, A psychologist or
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  anything else. We know we, we, we really fouled
• 12:38
  up because there's some big problems.
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  There's some big problems. You can't believe it, right?
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  His son, a very high intellect, came home one day from school
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  and just as he said, he said, I've decided what I'm studying
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  when I go to university. Psychology.
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  Yeah. So, and look, you obviously went
• 13:00
  ahead and studied psychotherapy and you probably had a little
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  bit of that curiosity because of your own suffering.
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  Would you agree with that? Oh definitely.
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  I think I always wanted to help people, but I was very certainly
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  also looking for a way to help myself with my anxiety.
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  I was, you know, tired of feeling so heat up and so hard
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  on myself and so worried about the next catastrophe that I was
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  imagining in my head all the time.
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  So that's why I went into psychotherapy and got my
• 13:42
  counselling degree, was to help others but also to help myself.
• 13:46
  Wow, you sound like, you know, I had a lady on the show that came
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  on a couple of weeks ago and she did the positive intelligence,
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  she did it with Shahzad. And the two things that came up
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  for me was hyperachiever and hypervigilant.
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  And I feel like that that is your client.
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  And that's why I've, I've gone, Oh my gosh, is she talking about
• 14:14
  me? You know, has she been spying on
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  me? Like, but look, what do you
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  expect? This is what happens with a lot
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  of people like us anyway, who are very high achieving.
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  We are very passionate. And I think I don't know about
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  you, but I, I've really found that it's been in the moments
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  when I've had to literally surrender and sort of pull back
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  where I don't know, there's something inside that kind of
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  groundedness of imperfection, if you will, that has actually
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  called in my clients more so, or 'cause that, you know, that
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  person who doesn't know me from a bar of soap to go, Oh yeah,
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  now I'm going to work with you. I already know I've seen you and
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  it wasn't me five years ago all glammed up and kind of like, you
• 15:05
  know, really just on this high spiritual kind of journey.
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  But it's about me on this more of a crusade, if you will, where
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  this is what I'm going through. This is where I am and this is
• 15:23
  how I cope. And I think that in some ways
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  can be very, you know, more so inspirational.
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  So when you're talking about yourself as a anxious child, as
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  that, you know, hyper achiever as that person who's so willing
• 15:40
  to be that person that will say yes and, and and people please
• 15:46
  and do all those things. What happened for you?
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  What do you think was the biggest breakthrough?
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  I know backstage you mentioned about EMDR and our clients out
• 15:57
  there. Some of them might go, wait,
• 15:59
  what? So perhaps you can enlighten us
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  about EMDR? Absolutely.
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  So EMDR was the first mind body technique that I tried, and I
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  was incredibly skeptical at first about it, even though it
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  did have some research that looked good.
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  It just seemed a little too weird and outlandish, even
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  though I knew that the traditional techniques to work
• 16:29
  with my anxiety weren't cutting it.
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  They would work for maybe a week or two if I was lucky, and that
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  was true for my clients as well. EMDR stands for Eye Movement
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  Desensitization and Reprocessing, which is a
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  mouthful, so that's why we call it EMDR.
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  And it involves basically igniting both halves of your
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  brain alternately when you're focusing on whatever your target
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  subject is that you're trying to resolve.
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  And change happens very, very quickly in that realm.
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  And after I did my first session, it was amazing.
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  But the end of it, I felt so relieved, like this weight had
• 17:18
  been taken off of me. And I had no idea that I could
• 17:22
  feel that way. I was so calm and peaceful and I
• 17:26
  didn't feel like I had to go out and prove myself and be perfect
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  and, you know, make myself valuable to everyone.
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  I didn't have to engage in all of that kind of compulsive
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  behaviour. And it lasted.
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  It wasn't just, you know, for this hour or this day or this
• 17:47
  week. And so that's why I decided I
• 17:50
  needed to get training and kind of dove down that rabbit hole of
• 17:53
  mind body techniques to work with anxiety.
• 17:57
  Oh, wow, that's amazing. I've got a question for you on
• 18:00
  that, actually. And it's, you know, I became a
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  absolute scholar of neuro linguistic programming and
• 18:08
  hypnosis and obsessed with it and went to all different
• 18:12
  schools and here and there and everywhere.
• 18:14
  And I did come across a shaman and his name was Doctor Gary de
• 18:20
  Rodriguez. And he actually taught this
• 18:25
  rapid eye movement and I just, I'm a really good person to be
• 18:30
  able to watch something on very much like the experiential
• 18:34
  creature seeing, hearing and actually experiencing it at the
• 18:39
  same time. And I'm not sure, but maybe we
• 18:43
  can just compare notes here. We genuinely did not get into
• 18:46
  this backstage, did we? But I just want to ask you the
• 18:50
  question genuinely. So I'll tell you about what he
• 18:54
  taught me and then I want you to kind of like just tell me how
• 18:59
  EMD are, whether there's any kind of similarity whatsoever.
• 19:03
  Is that OK? Yeah, absolutely.
• 19:06
  Yeah. OK.
• 19:07
  So he called someone up from the audience and they had a specific
• 19:13
  trauma that that was the prerequisite.
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  You have to have a specific trauma, something that's still
• 19:19
  in your body, something you're still feeling, thinking and
• 19:22
  going through. If you thought about it, that
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  person came up and he did a couple of things and he went
• 19:30
  through a few things and he brought color and sound and, you
• 19:36
  know, like you said earlier, metaphors and symbols and things
• 19:39
  like that into play. And then he wiped out the trauma
• 19:46
  in one foul sweep, using the eyes to move back and forward,
• 19:54
  back and forward this way, that way, this way, that way.
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  Now I picked it up like that. And that actually became quite
• 20:02
  profound. Where, you know, I, I still
• 20:05
  wonder, I still wonder this question.
• 20:07
  But when people came in to see me as a clinical hypnotherapist
• 20:12
  many years ago, did they walk out with that incredible,
• 20:17
  profound experience because of the whole session?
• 20:21
  Or did they walk out with that incredible experience because
• 20:25
  what happened in that 5 minutes at the end, you know, curious,
• 20:30
  just curious, but can you relate to any of that with the rapid
• 20:34
  eye movement? Is it anywhere similar?
• 20:36
  Can you talk me through that, Shelley?
• 20:40
  Yeah, absolutely. What I'm hearing is that it's
• 20:46
  very, very similar to EMDR and then brain spotting, which is a
• 20:52
  kind of a two point O of EMDR in that what you're doing when
• 20:56
  you're moving the eyes back and forth and diagonally and
• 20:59
  vertically. So horizontally, vertically and
• 21:03
  diagonally, to say it better, what you're doing is you're
• 21:07
  stimulating the two halves of your brain and you're doing it
• 21:11
  in a rhythmic way. And when you focus on something
• 21:15
  specific, a specific target, and you're moving your eyes in that
• 21:19
  direction, what it does is it puts that information back into
• 21:26
  what we call a narrative memory, which is a memory that you
• 21:30
  remember that this happened before.
• 21:32
  And you might talk about how it felt when that happened to you,
• 21:36
  but you don't relive it. You don't feel it as though it's
• 21:38
  happening right now. So one of the things that
• 21:41
  happens with trauma is that it kind of blows the circuits
• 21:45
  between the two hemispheres, the right and the left hemisphere of
• 21:48
  our brain so that they can't talk to each other.
• 21:52
  And the information, the memory gets misfiled and it gets filed
• 21:57
  as something that's ongoing, that's happening right now,
• 22:01
  which is why if you ever talk about it, all of a sudden it's
• 22:05
  right there in your body, it's right there in your face, in
• 22:08
  your mind, and you kind of have to just go through it until it
• 22:12
  wears itself out. Oh gosh, I love that.
• 22:16
  I love that. So in layman's terms, you're
• 22:19
  kind of blowing it out of the water.
• 22:22
  Yes, exactly. And that allows all of the other
• 22:26
  things you do in your session to really stick.
• 22:30
  Because otherwise what happens is you can heal that left brain,
• 22:34
  which is the more analytical, logical part.
• 22:37
  You can heal that side, but where that trauma is stored is
• 22:40
  actually on the opposite on the right side and it goes to the
• 22:45
  talk. Then you can't benefit from
• 22:50
  that. You know, the other 55 minutes
• 22:52
  of your session, you can't benefit it from it nearly as
• 22:56
  much because you've got this block.
• 22:58
  The information isn't transferring over about that one
• 23:01
  thing. It's not about everything about
• 23:03
  that one trauma or the. One, I love that.
• 23:08
  I love that you've said that. And I want to add to that
• 23:11
  because I feel that this is just so profound when Shelly is
• 23:17
  talking about, you know, absolutely annihilating that
• 23:24
  trauma of that one thing. So you might have a specific
• 23:29
  situation that has actually put so much, you know, negative
• 23:34
  energy into your body that you're getting triggered a lot.
• 23:38
  And you can feel it in in that in your body.
• 23:42
  However, here is the thing, OK? When you blow that one thing out
• 23:50
  of the water, it's not just that one thing, is it?
• 23:53
  So even though it's only that one thing, like come on, just
• 23:57
  trust me here, because quite often I'll say, come on, what is
• 24:00
  that one thing? Oh, I've got 100 things.
• 24:03
  I'm like, no, I want one thing. And we'll go into it.
• 24:07
  We'll go deep and we'll find it, and then we'll crack the coat.
• 24:12
  And then I'm not sure what your thoughts are on this, Shelly,
• 24:15
  but then it's kind of got this, this domino effect where it kind
• 24:19
  of like just suddenly a lot of the other stuff that were
• 24:23
  attached to that same feeling kind of blow over.
• 24:30
  Does that kind of resonate? Oh, absolutely, absolutely.
• 24:35
  And that's, I think so hopeful about this work because people
• 24:40
  may initially feel like, but I've had so many things happen
• 24:43
  to me, you know, it'll take years for me to get through all
• 24:47
  those things. But like you said, if you find
• 24:49
  that core piece and resolve it, because the other things that's
• 24:55
  like a foundation and the other things are stacked on top of it.
• 24:59
  And once you pull out the foundation, it's kind of like, I
• 25:04
  don't know if you guys played Jenga over there.
• 25:07
  I don't know if you have that game.
• 25:08
  OK. And yeah, if you pull out one of
• 25:11
  the bottom pieces, you know, if you pull out too many of those,
• 25:15
  the whole thing topples over. What a great metaphor.
• 25:18
  I love that. That is so true.
• 25:21
  I often, you know, I used to sit there and say to the men, if it
• 25:25
  was a man that was dealing with trauma, I would always say think
• 25:28
  of it like a house weight bearing walls and you take out
• 25:34
  the main weight bearing walls. What happens to the roof and the
• 25:37
  rest of the the ceiling? And I'd say to the women, think
• 25:42
  of it like a Pearl bracelet or a necklace.
• 25:45
  Take out the start, the end and the middle.
• 25:49
  And what happens to all the others?
• 25:52
  So, so incredible. Yeah, those are great metaphors.
• 25:56
  I love those. Thank you.
• 25:59
  And I got inspired by your metaphor.
• 26:02
  So you talk about brain spotting.
• 26:05
  I have never literally heard of this before.
• 26:08
  And it's an offshoot of EMDR that allows the nervous system
• 26:12
  to unwind trauma. Can you kind of just go into it
• 26:18
  like, what is the difference? Brain spotting EMDR, what I've
• 26:22
  spoken about, How does this work?
• 26:25
  Well, so Brain Spotting was developed by a man named David
• 26:29
  Gray, and he was a master EMDR therapist and discovered it
• 26:33
  quite by accident and then started doing research on it.
• 26:36
  And we found that it's just as effective as EMDR.
• 26:40
  But in my personal opinion, it's not nearly as intense on the
• 26:46
  client. So it's easier for us to go in
• 26:50
  and access the things we need to access to heal.
• 26:54
  And it still uses what we call bilateral stimulation.
• 26:58
  So you're still causing one side of the brain to fire and then
• 27:01
  the other alternately, which is what's happening when you're
• 27:05
  moving your eyes. When you were describing that
• 27:06
  technique, rapid eye movement, I.
• 27:09
  Think you said yes, yes, yes, OK.
• 27:12
  So it's, it's doing the same thing in your brain and but
• 27:16
  we're coupling it with what's they call it a brain spot.
• 27:20
  But really what a brain spot is, is it's an eye position.
• 27:24
  So if you've ever found yourself thinking about something, really
• 27:28
  pondering something and realized that you were staring into
• 27:31
  space, that's because you found a brain spot that made it easier
• 27:35
  to access the material. So we do it intuitively and that
• 27:41
  that spot, that eye position corresponds to something in your
• 27:45
  brain that's allowing you. It's like a doorway and you get
• 27:48
  better access and you can process more deeply and more
• 27:51
  quickly. In this case, we're purposely
• 27:54
  looking for where those brain spots are while you're getting
• 27:57
  the bilateral stimulation and focusing on, you know, whatever
• 28:01
  it is. I also like.
• 28:03
  So I like that it's a little more gentle because you can also
• 28:07
  start with something that's very broad.
• 28:10
  We don't have to spend a lot of time finding that one core
• 28:14
  memory or experience because we also work with the body.
• 28:18
  So we stay very present and we're working more with the body
• 28:21
  than the mind. So the body sensations that are
• 28:24
  coming up and, and as a client, your job is just to be present
• 28:30
  and aware and, and let your let your body do the work.
• 28:33
  Your body is actually processing because there's a lot of
• 28:37
  research that suggests that the subconscious mind is actually
• 28:40
  the body, which you're probably very aware of.
• 28:44
  Yeah, yeah. Which is a good reminder.
• 28:49
  So by accessing this, we're healing the subconscious and
• 28:53
  rewiring your nervous system again very, very quickly, but
• 28:58
  without the intensity of EMDR, so people are less likely to get
• 29:04
  overwhelmed by it. And so that's the way I prefer
• 29:08
  it. And I, I do have to ask you this
• 29:12
  as we move into this space of the podcast and remember to
• 29:17
  stick around because Shelly is going to take us through some
• 29:20
  pretty dynamic, powerful techniques to help us get out of
• 29:25
  these little stews, negative situations, even those stresses
• 29:31
  at the end of the show. Shelley, are you taking on, are
• 29:35
  you still taking on one-on-one clients?
• 29:38
  And if so, can they contact you through the links that we
• 29:43
  provide in the show notes? Yes, absolutely.
• 29:47
  I am always accepting new one-on-one clients for coaching
• 29:53
  and the link to reach me will be in the show notes because I
• 29:57
  don't see people for very long. It doesn't take a lot of
• 30:01
  sessions. In fact, we're talking a couple
• 30:03
  of months to work through whatever it is they're dealing
• 30:07
  with, generally speaking. That is amazing.
• 30:10
  Gee, I, I need to come see you right now.
• 30:12
  Actually, so well, I'm, I'm here.
• 30:15
  I'm so I'm so grateful to be here with you.
• 30:18
  And it just goes to show, look, it doesn't matter where we are
• 30:22
  in our, you know, awakening or, you know, how enlightened we are
• 30:27
  or we're, we're not enlightened. We all need to look after
• 30:32
  ourselves really, don't we? I mean, our brain and our body.
• 30:36
  I mean, Oh my gosh, like, wow, yeah.
• 30:39
  It is so precious. It's so fragile, you know, and
• 30:44
  you know, it's it's you know, you're dealing with obviously
• 30:49
  people that are high functional, they are cloaking, they are
• 30:54
  masking, they are quite competent.
• 30:58
  And yet you know that these people are the ones that need
• 31:05
  the biggest neuro hacks to disrupt some of those anxieties.
• 31:12
  So I think what we'll do is we'll move to the exciting part
• 31:16
  of our show where we're going to talk about some of these, I
• 31:23
  guess I'm going to call them neuro hacks that disrupt anxiety
• 31:30
  in minutes. And let's start, if you don't
• 31:34
  mind, can we start with the grounding and the breathing
• 31:38
  reset? Yeah, absolutely.
• 31:42
  I would love to show you that. And so all of these techniques
• 31:46
  work very quickly. They're all under a minute.
• 31:50
  So everyone has time to do these.
• 31:52
  They work for everybody. As long as you have a body, this
• 31:55
  is going to work for you. And I'll give you a little
• 31:57
  explanation of why it works after we do it together.
• 32:00
  Does that sound? Are you willing to to do this
• 32:02
  with me? Absolutely.
• 32:05
  Fantastic. OK, so I, I always start with my
• 32:10
  favorite breathing exercise and I'll tell you in a bit why that
• 32:14
  actually works. But what we're going to do in a
• 32:17
  moment is I'm going to ask you to breathe in deeply through
• 32:22
  your nose, to fill your lungs as much as you can, to really think
• 32:27
  about stretching out your diaphragm.
• 32:29
  So getting really deep into your lungs.
• 32:32
  And so we're thinking about stretching it out front to back,
• 32:35
  side to side, as much as is comfortable for you.
• 32:40
  And then when you exhale, you don't have to hold it, but after
• 32:44
  you've breathed in really, really deeply and stretched your
• 32:47
  diaphragm, then you're going to exhale as though you were
• 32:50
  blowing through a straw with pursed lips, like very slowly
• 32:56
  for about 1 1/2 times as long as you inhaled.
• 33:01
  I don't have people count because most people don't have
• 33:03
  time to count. But if you want to, and that
• 33:06
  makes you feel better, go right ahead and do it.
• 33:09
  I'm more of a kind of an organic, you know, sort of
• 33:14
  person when I work and we're going to just do about three of
• 33:17
  those together. But I would ask you first to
• 33:21
  just check in with your body for a moment and see where there
• 33:24
  might be any areas of tension or stress, just for a little before
• 33:29
  and after. So go ahead and check in with
• 33:32
  your body and just notice if there's any stress or tension.
• 33:37
  You don't need to do anything with it.
• 33:39
  Just be aware and then I'm going to ask you to inhale, to breathe
• 33:44
  in as deep as is comfortable. And if you have trouble with
• 33:48
  that, lean away from your chair and then exhale through a straw
• 33:57
  about twice as long. Long.
• 34:09
  And we're going to do it again. I can't quite do this with you
• 34:12
  and talk, so forgive me for that.
• 34:14
  Breathe in, exhale, and one more.
• 34:52
  When you're done with that, just take a moment to check in again
• 34:56
  with your body and see if it feels any different.
• 35:01
  And I can almost guarantee you that it does, that you feel a
• 35:05
  bit more relaxed. And we generally do between two
• 35:08
  and four of these at a time. If you start to feel lightheaded
• 35:12
  at all, then just breathe normally.
• 35:18
  But I love this because you can do it anywhere with anybody.
• 35:22
  Nobody really notices you doing this, which is very nice.
• 35:27
  I work with a lot of clients who are professionals who are in
• 35:30
  meetings and presentations and, you know, really on the spot all
• 35:35
  the time. And so this is a great way to
• 35:38
  relax your body and your mind very, very quickly.
• 35:42
  That you can do with everybody and nobody really notices it.
• 35:46
  If it seems weird to purse your lips, then you can keep your
• 35:50
  mouth normal. But you really want to make sure
• 35:52
  you're slowing down the oxygen as it's leaving your body.
• 35:58
  And yeah, how was that experience for you?
• 36:01
  Oh. Amazing.
• 36:02
  I was just about just about to say actually that I feel that
• 36:08
  everyone needs a mentor, coach, healer or leader to actually
• 36:16
  keep them accountable. Because sometimes like, you
• 36:20
  know, obviously being in the position that I'm in, I
• 36:23
  understand this kind of work, but that experience was a whole
• 36:28
  different level because you were guiding it.
• 36:33
  And so for me that I can feel shifts happening in my body just
• 36:40
  in that time. Now I know that I process very
• 36:43
  quickly because of obviously the work that I'm doing, but that's
• 36:47
  like ridiculous. That was crazy quick.
• 36:49
  I just feel, I can feel that I feel different, more different
• 36:53
  now than I did 5 minutes ago. But it doesn't stop there
• 36:58
  because we got to keep going. We have, we have the stop the
• 37:05
  thought spiral in 30 seconds. Now.
• 37:09
  I can't wait for this one. It's like, oh, oh, is this an
• 37:12
  interruption loop or what is this?
• 37:16
  But bring it on girlfriend, because I am looking forward to
• 37:21
  understanding how I can break because I know that that happens
• 37:25
  to all of us. You know where we're locked into
• 37:28
  that thought pattern that we go through.
• 37:32
  How do we get out of it? Over to you.
• 37:36
  There's a really, really fast and easy way to do this.
• 37:39
  And, and all the techniques they use are, are science based.
• 37:43
  It's based in the mind and body. So what we're going to do this
• 37:46
  time is I'm going to layer a few different instructions together,
• 37:50
  but they're very, very easy. And once you've learned how to
• 37:54
  do it, then you can do it very quickly on your own.
• 37:57
  And it takes 15 to 30 seconds. So the first thing I'm going to
• 38:02
  ask you to do is find something stationary that's in front of
• 38:06
  you. And I want you to just soft
• 38:09
  focus your eyes on that spot. And you're going to keep your
• 38:12
  eyes soft focus there for the whole exercise.
• 38:16
  Make sure it's not something that's moving like another
• 38:19
  person or a pet, something you know still.
• 38:24
  And while your eyes are soft focused here, I want you to see
• 38:29
  into your peripheral vision as far as you can.
• 38:33
  So notice what's in your periphery while your eyes are
• 38:36
  stationary in front. And you don't need to name
• 38:41
  anything that's out there. You just need to see.
• 38:45
  And now, while you're stationary in front with your eyes seeing
• 38:50
  in your periphery, I want you to become aware of the space that's
• 38:55
  along the side of your head, around your ears, just being
• 39:01
  aware of that space. And finally, keeping all three
• 39:06
  of these things in place, I want you to also become aware of the
• 39:11
  space behind your head. So the space all around your
• 39:15
  head with your eyes soft focused in front and seeing in the
• 39:19
  peripheral. And we're just going to stay
• 39:21
  there with that for a few seconds.
• 39:48
  And now gently bring your vision forward to normal and you're
• 39:52
  done. Wow, wow.
• 40:00
  So can I just ask you a couple of questions about that one?
• 40:03
  Yeah, absolutely. So you asked us to gaze at
• 40:08
  something that was non moving and just hold our gaze there.
• 40:13
  So that's obviously getting into the seeing side of it.
• 40:17
  But then you asked us to expand our vision out into the
• 40:21
  peripheral. Yes.
• 40:23
  What is it? What is it that's truly working
• 40:29
  to stop the spiral thoughts? Is it the fact that we are
• 40:33
  becoming really, really present and taking notice of other
• 40:39
  things, do you think, in our sensories or is there something
• 40:43
  else? I just, I love to know all
• 40:45
  these. I mean, probably the average
• 40:46
  person there that's just listening because they want to
• 40:49
  get so much out of this and they may not be in the coaching
• 40:53
  field. They'll go, who cares, Terry, it
• 40:55
  worked. But can I ask?
• 41:01
  Yeah, absolutely. I'm a nerd.
• 41:03
  I love to talk about all of this.
• 41:05
  So there's a couple things that are happening and why this works
• 41:10
  is really twofold. You caught on the first part,
• 41:14
  which is it makes you be very present in the moment and
• 41:18
  everything slows down in the present.
• 41:20
  When we're present in our bodies and our experience, then we're
• 41:24
  at much more peace. But the second thing, when we
• 41:27
  have our gaze soft focused in front, but we noticed out into
• 41:31
  the periphery, what we're doing is we're purposely signaling our
• 41:36
  brain that we are not in danger. And it makes it go out of the
• 41:40
  fight or flight response. Because the more stress we
• 41:43
  become, and this is true for anxiety, for sadness, for
• 41:47
  overwhelm, for stress, for anger and irritability, for any any
• 41:51
  kind of distress at all, our vision starts to narrow down
• 41:57
  into what's called focal vision. So we get more and more and more
• 42:00
  tunnel vision, OK? And when we purposely make our
• 42:04
  eyes see outward, we're literally telling our brain that
• 42:09
  it can stop doing that, that we don't need that, that we're
• 42:12
  safe. My gosh, I needed to ask you
• 42:15
  that question. I needed to ask you that
• 42:18
  question. I am such an intense human
• 42:20
  being. And you know, like when I get
• 42:23
  locked onto something, I get locked onto it and I'll be like,
• 42:27
  oh, holding on, holding on. And I mean, it's great.
• 42:30
  It goes in my favor in many ways, but it also goes in my
• 42:33
  disfavor. And it can be a lot.
• 42:37
  It can be a lot. So I love that you've just given
• 42:42
  me a conscious framework of what I can do to break out of that
• 42:50
  loop. So thank you.
• 42:52
  That's awesome. No, absolutely.
• 42:55
  And we only held it for about 15 seconds.
• 42:58
  Most people tell me it feels longer than that.
• 43:01
  Yeah, it did. Absolutely.
• 43:03
  Yeah, it it really does because. You're, I feel different just
• 43:07
  talking to you here. I can tell you right now I'm not
• 43:09
  just saying this, but I actually feel different to what I did at
• 43:13
  the beginning of the show. So I'm just wondering if you're
• 43:17
  out there, I wonder how you feel.
• 43:20
  So when you get to hear this, do you feel different?
• 43:24
  And maybe if you want to go back and listen to it again, you
• 43:27
  might like to measure it. And and even if you're having a
• 43:29
  bad day, I would say come and listen to this because this is
• 43:33
  powerful. But we've still got one more to
• 43:34
  go. So, you know, just just stay
• 43:37
  settled, everybody, because we're just moving.
• 43:40
  We're keeping the best to last. But this is the 62nd emotional
• 43:44
  reframe. Is that what you call it?
• 43:47
  Tapping the reframe. Or something like that in.
• 43:49
  The key that's basically get out of whatever emotional distress
• 43:54
  you've got going on card and it takes about 60 to 90 seconds if
• 44:01
  you're really wound up, 45 to 60 if you're not so wound up, but
• 44:07
  you'll be done in about 90 seconds.
• 44:10
  And it brings you out of, again, any kind of distress, whether
• 44:13
  that's anger, whether it's anxiety, stress, overwhelm, you
• 44:18
  know, also works for sadness, things like that.
• 44:23
  Take it away, girl. OK, so for this one, it's easier
• 44:28
  to do for most of us, unless you were a drama kid and I wasn't a
• 44:31
  drama kid. So I'm not good at doing this
• 44:33
  without an object. I have trouble keeping
• 44:35
  coordinated enough. So if there's something small in
• 44:38
  front of you, like a pen or I've got this little toy that's
• 44:42
  sitting on my desk, an eraser, anything at all, it doesn't
• 44:46
  matter. Yep, perfect, perfect.
• 44:49
  And so I'm. Lining my fingers with this.
• 44:53
  I love that we've got mood lighting even.
• 44:55
  This is great. And your sparkly ball in the
• 44:58
  back, this is perfect. I love it.
• 45:01
  Maybe I should get one of those, too.
• 45:02
  This would be fun to demonstrate with that.
• 45:05
  Oh, you're giving me such great ideas, Terry.
• 45:07
  Oh, my gosh. OK, so First off, I want you to
• 45:10
  imagine a line that's bisecting your body vertically, kind of
• 45:14
  straight through your nose. And when we do this, what we're
• 45:20
  going to do is pass this item and I'm going to hold my hands
• 45:24
  up so that you can see what I'm doing.
• 45:26
  But you can hold your arms and hands wherever it's comfortable
• 45:29
  for you. OK, so you're going to take the
• 45:33
  object, whatever that is. And like I said, you don't have
• 45:36
  to have something. You can use your hands back and
• 45:38
  forth. But I find it easier to show and
• 45:41
  to do with some little thing. A paper clip, a water bottle,
• 45:45
  phone, pencil, you know, your lighter for your candles,
• 45:49
  whatever it is and you're just going to pass it and make sure
• 45:55
  from hand to hand that you're passing your nose.
• 45:59
  What we're really passing is that midline that we've
• 46:01
  identified and you just want to pass it back and forth.
• 46:06
  And you can go really slow or you can go faster.
• 46:09
  It's whatever's comfortable for you.
• 46:12
  And what this is doing is the same thing as the eye movement
• 46:16
  stuff. This is causing one hemisphere
• 46:20
  to fire and then the other. And by doing so, when we are
• 46:26
  upset about something, when we're in distress, there's
• 46:29
  literally an emotional storm that's happening in one
• 46:32
  hemisphere of our brain. And what this does is it
• 46:38
  distributes the blood and oxygen more evenly between the
• 46:42
  hemispheres. But this stimulation, which is
• 46:45
  very rhythmic, causes that storm to break up.
• 46:50
  Oh, very good. You only have to do this.
• 46:53
  Yeah, between, you know, usually people are better.
• 46:58
  Anywhere between 45 and 90 seconds is usually the Max.
• 47:03
  I have a lot of folks who do this if they get stressed at
• 47:06
  work with like a paper clip down in their lap and it just looks
• 47:10
  like you're fidgeting. Yeah, that's.
• 47:12
  Right I'm I'm using really exaggerated movements but.
• 47:15
  I like you know, if I did that, you probably think nothing about
• 47:19
  it. Nobody does, and you can use
• 47:22
  really little movements if you want.
• 47:24
  Like I said, I'm holding my hands up just because that's how
• 47:27
  you can see what I'm doing. But you can have them down in
• 47:30
  your lap. And so I have a lot of clients
• 47:32
  who do this with like little paper clips or things like that
• 47:36
  under a desk or, you know, conference table and nobody has
• 47:40
  any idea. They just think you're fooling
• 47:42
  around with something because you can do it with these very
• 47:45
  small movements as long as you pass that line.
• 47:47
  You can also, if it feels better, do really big movements.
• 47:51
  It's really just up to you. It's doing the same thing.
• 47:55
  That's good. I like it.
• 47:56
  I I really like it. Yeah, since we're still relaxed
• 47:59
  now from our exercise, I couldn't really demonstrate how
• 48:02
  it works. That's amazing.
• 48:05
  Change because you're already relaxed.
• 48:06
  But it's amazing. It works very, very quickly.
• 48:11
  So that's a minute and 1/2 at most.
• 48:14
  That is in level. So guys, listen, you are not
• 48:19
  broken. Shelley will be able to assure
• 48:24
  you and you are not too much and the fact you have coped this
• 48:28
  long is evidence of your brilliance, not your failure.
• 48:32
  But coping isn't the same as thriving, OK?
• 48:37
  And Shelley is the specialist on this.
• 48:40
  She understands about those people, probably like me, high
• 48:45
  achieving people that are driven and just feel like they have to
• 48:49
  do do do do do. I mean, I'm different today than
• 48:52
  what I was. However, we all do fall into
• 48:57
  this trap. You don't need to earn to rest,
• 49:02
  you know. You no longer need to prove your
• 49:04
  worth. And this is Shelley's
• 49:07
  philosophy. You can now rewire your brain
• 49:10
  and soothe your nervous system and reclaim your power.
• 49:15
  Now, Shelly, when is. Yeah.
• 49:18
  Where is the best place for this person who I know is praying for
• 49:24
  you to just come along because there's so much like just in
• 49:28
  this short amount of time on a generalized kind of overview,
• 49:34
  you've given so much. Imagine what it would be like as
• 49:38
  a one-on-one. Where will that person find you?
• 49:41
  Bearing in mind that it'll be all in the show notes.
• 49:44
  But if you have a number one spot hotspot where they can find
• 49:49
  you, where would you choose? So where I hang up mostly for
• 49:54
  social media is on LinkedIn. And then I also have a website
• 50:00
  which is Shelley martinez.com where you can get more
• 50:03
  information, but you can contact me and kind of check out what
• 50:07
  I'm doing either place. Beautiful.
• 50:11
  And now the question, the last question to conclude, because I
• 50:16
  know that you know people like you that come onto the show,
• 50:20
  they get into so much momentum and then they get inspired and
• 50:24
  then they get off the show and go, oh, I would like to have
• 50:27
  said that. Is this something that you would
• 50:30
  like to add that perhaps I haven't asked you that you or
• 50:35
  you would like to just reinforce to that person who really needs
• 50:41
  to hear your message? No, absolutely.
• 50:44
  And I would like to ask you a question as part of that, if
• 50:51
  that's OK. Absolutely.
• 50:53
  So so you talked about yourself, your own journey of being very
• 50:59
  high functioning anxious, and now you've become more real,
• 51:04
  more authentic, willing to show up, you know, mistakes and all
• 51:09
  imperfect as a human being, you know, as humans we're all
• 51:14
  imperfect. But when you have high.
• 51:15
  Functioning, you're trying. Really hard not to be.
• 51:19
  Yeah, just the way the blackout happened on the podcast, because
• 51:22
  we were to meet 24 hours ago and it didn't happen.
• 51:25
  But yeah, I guess that's very true, yes.
• 51:29
  Now life, life intervenes, things happen for sure, but do
• 51:33
  you feel like you are more or less better to able, better able
• 51:39
  to excuse me, embrace your life and pursue your goals and be
• 51:44
  happy now versus before when you were more anxious?
• 51:48
  My gosh, what a freaking amazing question.
• 51:53
  Like, wow, it takes an absolute master to ask that question, but
• 51:58
  it's so prevalent for anyone that does listen because it is
• 52:03
  more obvious now that people, I mean, before, yeah, it would
• 52:09
  including people knew I was a hypnotherapist.
• 52:12
  They'd come in droves. That was a whole different
• 52:14
  thing. But in the online space, as you
• 52:17
  know, Shelley, you know, you've got to have a niche.
• 52:19
  You've got to have this ability to show up, glow up, do this, do
• 52:24
  that, do the other thing. And I've, I've been doing that
• 52:26
  for years. But you know something that's
• 52:29
  such a profound question because over the last six months my life
• 52:36
  has totally changed and I've had to step into this complete
• 52:43
  different version of myself, which is much more grounded,
• 52:47
  much more humble and much more real, if you like, in terms of
• 52:53
  having to just be who I am. Because this is it.
• 52:57
  Take it or leave it, right? And do I actually achieve
• 53:02
  better, You being that specialist coach?
• 53:07
  You bet. Yes, yes I do.
• 53:11
  Exactly. Yeah.
• 53:15
  And so that's that's my big take away is that, you know, high
• 53:20
  functioning anxiety, I feel like without going into big detail,
• 53:24
  is caused a lot by hustle culture and by our society and
• 53:28
  the way we live these days. And a lot of the people I work
• 53:31
  with feel like their anxiety is what gives them that edge and
• 53:34
  makes them successful. But what we know from research,
• 53:39
  from experience, from anecdotal evidence, is that in fact,
• 53:43
  coming out of that very high place of anxiety into a more
• 53:49
  moderate place, which we don't even call anxiety, by the way,
• 53:52
  we call it alertness. So moderate anxiety is actually
• 53:57
  not identified as anxiety. It's just being aware, being on
• 54:00
  top of things. So we only want to nudge you
• 54:03
  over into that spot. You're going to be so much
• 54:07
  happier. You're going to have more time,
• 54:09
  you're going to have more energy, you're going to be more
• 54:11
  productive, and you're going to have even better than all of
• 54:14
  those things. You're going to have more joy to
• 54:17
  be able to pursue the things that you really want and care
• 54:21
  about in your life. Incredible.
• 54:25
  Oh my gosh, Shelly, thank you so, so very much.
• 54:28
  I know that you're just going to add so much value and in this
• 54:34
  podcast, people when they listening to this and you know
• 54:38
  what to do, guys, just click the link and go find Shelly.
• 54:44
  And you know, she's probably going to even offer you the
• 54:48
  ability to connect with her and just get to know her and then
• 54:53
  make the decision from that. So from the bottom of my heart,
• 54:57
  thank you very, very much for being on the show and being one
• 55:01
  of the missionary visionaries to help transform lives.
• 55:09
  Oh, thank you so much. This has been so fun.
• 55:12
  I've really enjoyed it and it's been great talking to you,
• 55:15
  Terry. You're always wonderful to talk
• 55:17
  with. Yay.