Latest / AWAKEN with Dylan Ayaloo: Inner Work, Healing, Yoga & Meditation / [EP11] How to deal with stress & anxiety
Transcript
- 0:00His question was something around stress and burnout, stress, burnout, anxiety, panic attacks, depression, all those kinds of things.
- 0:08Anxiety, you could say from one perspective is a breathing pattern, which you would have heard me say before.
- 0:14Another perspective of that is that anxiety is having many choices and not knowing what to choose or not wanting to choose.
- 0:22It could be break it down, simplify it.
- 0:25You have lots of choices.
- 0:26So you're like, oh shit, I don't know which one to choose.
- 0:30while makes you anxious. Stress is obsessively playing out a thought in the mind over and over
- 0:41again. Normally, the version of how it's not going to work, like how bad it's going to be.
- 0:50And thoughts cannot be compartmentalized. So our body and our mind and our emotions and our
- 0:57connection to something greater than body mind source spirit universe whatever like we are
- 1:02connected you cannot compartmentalize one from the other so if you think a thought you will feel a
- 1:10feeling based on the thought because the mind doesn't know the difference between the thought
- 1:16and reality which is why visualization is so powerful stress you could say is us visualizing
- 1:23how bad it's going to be and practicing that putting our focus into that over and over again
- 1:28therefore we realize it right make it make into our reality so it's the same formula but you take
- 1:36that and if you make it focus it on visualization or manifesting part of manifesting yeah someone
- 1:44who's visual would picture it they would see it hear it feel it but it's the thing that you want
- 1:51rather than the thing that you don't want.
- 1:54So stress is, okay, we take,
- 1:57sometimes there's a certain situation,
- 2:00and our nervous system is wired.
- 2:04First priority is survival.
- 2:07That's an ancient part of our brain, our nervous system,
- 2:10that is still existing within us today.
- 2:12Even though we don't need the protection mechanism,
- 2:14it is there.
- 2:15All information has to go through this filter first
- 2:18before everything else.
- 2:20And it goes, I don't know if I can trust this.
- 2:23I don't know if I'm going to survive it.
- 2:24This might be danger.
- 2:27Right?
- 2:28So maybe you are in a situation where things are like high pressure.
- 2:33And we look at it and stress as if we're playing out the worst case scenario.
- 2:38And then our body is responding, our emotions, and our body respond as if that is the reality.
- 2:44Because remember, the mind doesn't know the difference between reality and what we focus on,
- 2:50visualize, see, hear, feel.
- 2:52That's why manifesting is so powerful, because the mind doesn't know the difference between
- 2:56reality and what you're imagining.
- 3:01So if you imagine a lot of what you want, then you could say it comes true.
- 3:08So stress, if we're doing it in the mind, like thoughts cycling over and over again,
- 3:15I obviously get stressed a lot too.
- 3:19I've just learned some tools to manage it a bit better than I did some years ago.
- 3:24And I find that if it's happening on one level, let's say if it's happening on the mind,
- 3:29so it's like thoughts playing over and over and over again.
- 3:32So if I have some feelings and then my body's taking on certain kind of sensations,
- 3:36you can address it on any one of those levels.
- 3:40So a lot of times it might be more useful to make it tangible.
- 3:44and the most tangible out of those three right the mind the emotion the body is what the body
- 3:52so then for us what we do and get on the yoga mat start to move start to shift your breath
- 3:59because your stress breath would be very different to when you're doing yoga and you're doing deep
- 4:04breaths so it switches your body and your nervous system out of that stress which is normally fight
- 4:10flight to a little bit more rest and digest.
- 4:16Now it doesn't take away the situation if you're in a situation, but suddenly you have
- 4:23more, like you have tapped into more of your resources or resourcefulness, let's say.
- 4:30Your body's calmer, right?
- 4:32The stress, that tension is taken out of you because you've moved your body, yoga, whatever
- 4:38your movement is ideally conscious and you shifted your breath so now your emotions are going to match
- 4:45that because you've moved your body and because your emotions feel different you might have a bit
- 4:50more space to think clearly and thinking having a bit of space internally to think clearly is useful
- 4:59in a stressful situation because that is the time for us to get creative but the part of us that is
- 5:08is for fight or flight.
- 5:09That is not the time to get all
- 5:12expansive and creative.
- 5:14It's fight this thing
- 5:16or fucking run.
- 5:19Right? Or both.
- 5:22Which makes sense.
- 5:24But
- 5:25even though there isn't a saber-toothed tiger
- 5:27in your living room right now,
- 5:29our body still responds as if there's a saber-toothed tiger.
- 5:33And when it's fight or flight,
- 5:34the focus narrows in.
- 5:35and it's single focus rather than expansive.
- 5:39And all our resources, right, drain on the topic,
- 5:42so that we're getting ready for that fight or flight.
- 5:46And most of us are living in most of our day,
- 5:51most of our year, most of our life,
- 5:54in fight and flight.
- 5:56That's the modern day life.
- 6:00Most of us are almost all the time in fight or flight.
- 6:07our body doesn't get an opportunity to rest and digest.
- 6:13So for me, part of what is the work, the inner work,
- 6:16is despite the problem or the situation that is in front of you,
- 6:23whatever it may be, yes, you can acknowledge,
- 6:27okay, it's there or it's here, and I'm feeling these feelings,
- 6:33and my body is taking it on in these ways,
- 6:35these thoughts to bring, to cultivate a certain level of awareness, to train
- 6:42within us a certain level of awareness.
- 6:45Therefore, there is a sense of space between the thing, the problem and you.
- 6:52Right?
- 6:52And as you can start to calm the nervous system down and start to create more
- 6:57space within yourself, suddenly you can start to think a bit clearer.
- 7:01You can start to get more creative.
- 7:07because the problems that we have, our worst problems,
- 7:12it's someone else's, they're just happy for breakfast.
- 7:17So let's say maybe it's more tangible like this.
- 7:21That's your running business.
- 7:23And in your business, you have a set problem and you think,
- 7:25oh my God, this is it.
- 7:26It's like, this is going to kill the business.
- 7:28That's it.
- 7:29But if you brought someone like, I don't know, Richard Branson in,
- 7:33Richard Branson would just solve that problem.
- 7:38So it's not like the problem is going to kill you.
- 7:40It's just our ability to be resourceful.
- 7:43And we cannot be resourceful when we're stressed out.
- 7:49Because you can't see wider focus.
- 7:52Even our blood vessels, right?
- 7:54They tend to open up, they're pumping blood, the heart's pumping.
- 7:57Everything's like starting to build up.
- 7:59It's cutting down digestion.
- 8:01Everything's getting ready to fight and fight.
- 8:03And at that time, you can't think clearly.
- 8:05You're like, run or what?
- 8:06What should I do?
- 8:10So deal with it on the left of the body.
- 8:11Let me work this tension, this stress out of me first.
- 8:15Let me go for a walk.
- 8:16That's why walks are so powerful.
- 8:18Let me sit down and meditate.
- 8:21When the logical mind would be thinking,
- 8:23what are you doing sitting down and meditating?
- 8:25What are you doing freaking yoga?
- 8:28Yoga is not going to solve your business problem.
- 8:30Actually, it is.
- 8:33or they would say a business guy and you'd say like why bother mediter what's all this meditation
- 8:38shit where you think you're going to sit down like probably a meditation but like a problem
- 8:42the solution is going to fall in your lap your business going to magically work actually you
- 8:47know what yes because when i sit and meditate and when i do my yoga and i create space within myself
- 8:55i can be creative i'm not rushing frantically just doing shit for the sake of doing stuff
- 9:03so I can be busy
- 9:05and I'm actually doing the things that matter
- 9:09and it comes from the clarity within
- 9:13rather than just trying to fill up space
- 9:16trying to do something for sake of doing it
- 9:18which is actually making me more stressed out anyway
- 9:22so there's nothing new right in our world
- 9:27in this work
- 9:28I've been saying this for almost two decades now
- 9:30I'm not the only one who's been talking about it
- 9:33about it too. It comes back to the same thing, the slow, consistent way. This is where training,
- 9:39like having a solid foundation underneath you so that you gear yourself to step into the day
- 9:46in your best. So your worst can be your greatest gift for anyone facing something very challenging
- 9:53right now. If this could be your greatest gift, what could it look like? How would you approach
- 10:03What would be different?
- 10:05If what seems like your biggest problem right now
- 10:08could be your greatest gift,
- 10:09what would be different?
- 10:11And I'm talking internally, not externally.
- 10:13Part of our resourcefulness.