Ep 47. Surf or Suffer?
The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another. - William James
Huge waves have long been used as metaphors to describe mounting stress - a climbing, powerful, unstoppable force that then smashes us onto the rocks. 🌊
Stress CAN wash us ashore in a heap, it can also be harnessed to give us the performance we never imagined.
Some people when faced with a wave of stress actually seem to function better. They THRIVE.
Some stress is good for you. Let's discuss how stress and its close cousin anxiety can be turned around and use them to your advantage.
Give some people a wave and they'll wash up on the rocks. They suffer.😢
THREAT RESPONSE
Give the same wave to someone else and they'll ride it for the best time of their life. They surf. 🏄
CHALLENGE-RESPONSE
Listen to the episode here:
Watch the episode here:
Our brains and bodies actually behave differently in each case.
The threat response is encountered more frequently. It's your ancient brain meeting today's world. It's a recipe for stress.
What’s your stress habit?
🌊🌊Think of that wave bearing down on you - crisis at work. You're faced with 2 choices
FEAR RESPONSE
Default stress response. It is a habit, a pattern of thinking that kicks in at the first sign of trouble.
If you have a tendency toward a threat response your first job is to learn how to interrupt this default mode so that you can alternatively choose a challenge response!
2. CHALLENGE RESPONSE
Change your response. Innercise - 4 steps Pause, Take 6. Observe your body, thoughts, and feelings. Name what you’re experiencing and kindly say “I release you.”
Dr. Daniel Frieland MD
Using this simple exercise (Innercise) you gain more control over your subconscious reactions and calm yourself. Once you do that you can then change your response.
Just doing this changes your brain!!! Rather than being swept away by the current of emotions, you can ride the wave. 🏄🏄🏄🏄
What does Stop the Mind Screw Say About Threat and Challenge-Response?
Step 4 in Stop the Mind Screw Process is to pay attention to our THOUGHT HABITS. Only then can we truly understand where these responses come from and change the habit response from THREAT to CHALLENGE?
The total premise of Stop The Mind Screw is to find flow or the place where challenge meets skill. You must control your mind to do this and understand that your response to what is there is what matters - not the trigger!
What does Reality Transurfing say about these responses?
Reality Transurfring is about riding the wave of success. To do that you must identify how you look at reality. Is that wave something to be feared and to suffer? Or is it something to harness and ride to another level of reality where challenge meets skill and finding flow.
In Review
There are 2 responses to stress CHALLENGE or THREAT.
You can control and change your response by becoming aware.
In Reality Transurfing and Stop the Mind Screw we discuss solutions to help you respond differently and "better" to stress over time.
Therefore you ride the wave to success instead of letting that wave crash you into the rocks.
Transcript:
You're listening or watching the Stop the Mind Screw Podcast. I'm your host, Kathie Owen Certified Fitness Trainer and Life Coach since 2002, teaching others. The stop, the mind screw process, talking about fitness, health, wellness mindset. And of course, Reality Transurfing today. We're talking about stress. And our responses to stress.
I title today's mind map from suffering to surfing and it's from the book Innercise and he has a chapter on this, and we're also going to come up with our responses to stress and how we can go from a threat response to a challenge-response.
Let's discuss.
So let's start this episode out by giving a great quote by William James. “The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another.”
Love it. And the premise of today's episode.
Huge waves have long been used as a metaphor to describe mounting stress, a climbing, powerful, unstoppable force that then smashes us onto the rocks.
Stress can wash us ashore in a heap, and it can also be harnessed to give us performance of our lives we ever imagined.
Some people when faced with a wave of stress actually seem to function better. They thrive. And actually, some stress is good for you. Let's discuss how stress and its close cousin anxiety can be turned around and use them to your advantage.
We have two types of responses to stress. Basically give some people a wave and the wash up on the rocks. They suffer also known as the threat response.
Give the same wave to someone else and they'll ride it for the best time of their life. They surf also known as the challenge-response, our brains and bodies actually behave differently in each case.
So let's discuss this and what happens to our bodies and our brains when we are in threat response. When in threat response, we actually go into fear. Our bodies go into fight-flight or freeze. We talked about the freeze response. A couple of episodes ago, you tighten and constrict and your body prepares for survival.
And you narrow your focus. You enter what is called fight flight or freeze, or you could even faint. Your heartbeat gets erratic and it gets very high. You become reactive. And remember reactivity is something we wanna become aware of when we do that. So we can change our response. We interfere we're helpless. We're in despair and have anxiety. We have tight muscles, shallow or deep-held breath.
So we give the same wave to someone else and they'll write it for the best time of their life. They'll surf. And this is what is called the challenge-response, your body relaxes your breath studies, and you go with the flow.
You broaden your focus, you relax and respond. Your heart rate becomes lower. You're calm and focused. You're inspirational and courageous. You got loose muscles and steady breath, relax, blood vessels and blood flow in response to stress. This obviously is the better of the two because you're going to be able to make better decisions.
As I said, our brains and bodies. Actually, behave differently in each case, let's picture a situation where you're at work and you're faced with a crushing workload and. That threat response, choke drop the ball at the key sales presentation, you might lash out in anger at a coworker or family member.
That's reactivity. You might retreat to calling in sick, drowning, a cord of ice cream or binge watching your favorite show. You might even develop tunnel vision and struggle to think very clearly.
The challenge response, on the other hand, you have increased productivity and you make fewer mistakes. You find calm flow of energy to work alone, or with others, you relax, breathe deeply and calm yourself and broaden your vision and develop a variety of ideas to choose.
And each case the stressor is the same. It's the response that is different. The threat response is encountered more frequently. It is your ancient brain meeting. Today's world. It's a recipe for stress, but actually, it's not the stressor itself, but how you process and respond that determines your outcomes.
I'm gonna repeat that.
It's not the actual stressor itself that stresses you out, but how you process and respond that determines your outcomes.
Your responses to tend to be habitual. And that is something you can change. You know, I basically call myself a habit coach because if I can teach somebody how to form a habit of exercise, eating well, taking care of their health, and also taking care of stress as we're talking today.
You've accomplished something. And my job is 99% done because you're already on your way to success. Wouldn't what would your world look like if you built the habit of responding to stress as a challenge?
So what is your stress habit be thinking of that?
Think of that wave bearing down on you, the crisis at work and you're faced with two choices, you've got the fear response, the default stress response. It is a habit, a pattern of thinking that kicks in at the first sign of trouble. Your ancient brain takes control, pushing you into classic fight, fight, or freeze mode in fight.
You might push back. Or lash out, making the situation even worse. That's reactivity in flight. You might conveniently have appointments outside of the office in an attempt to escape and avoid the situation. And this won't stop the wave from coming, but it might buy you some time. in freeze. You check your emails for the hundred time waiting for an answer from someone, anyone, because you know, you don't have any answers.
If you have a tendency toward a threat response, your first job is to learn how to interrupt this default mode so that you can alternatively choose a challenge response. And that's what today's episode is all about. How do we change our response? Because it's habitual and it's only natural and actually your brain doesn't know the difference between good or bad.
So let's talk about changing our response. From the book Innercise he talks about surfing the wave, take control of your stress response using these four steps. And it was introduced by Dr. Daniel Friedland, who is a neuropsychologist.
Step 1: PAUSE, allow yourself to notice whatever you're feeling without judgment. Or resistance. Just take a second and realize, oh Lord, there I go. Again, I'm being reactive over this situation. I need to sit back and observe and not judge myself and not put guilt on myself for what's going on. Just look at it. Maybe you could even step back and look at it. Like you're watching a movie or a, a reality TV show.
Step 2: take six deep breaths. This breathing will help you to stop slipping into a threat response in the book inner size. He talks about this breathing technique and what he does is he does 60 breaths in and out rhythmically. So you take a deep breath in, breathe in calmness. And breathe out stress, breathe in peace and breathe out stress and let it go.
He says to take a deep breath in through the nose and exhale, like you're blowing out through a straw. This type of breathing helps you calm that ancient brain. That's wanting to go into an automatic response.
Step 3: observe your body thoughts and feelings note without judgment or any physical, emotional, or mental stress. So in step number three, we observe what's going on and we realize our body is just trying to protect us. Our thoughts are just trying to protect us. But we have another brain that is considered the Einstein brain.
And we'll talk about this in a future episode, but that brain is the one we want to get in touch with because it is more of the challenge response it's healthier and it's better for your body. And you also make clear rational decisions that way. So we want to observe what's going on in our body so that we notice.
That this is happening. Don't judge yourself. Don't put any, any judgment on it at all. Just notice what is going on and step number four, name what you are experiencing. For example, you could say I'm angry or I'm irritated, or I'm overwhelmed. If you're any of those things silently and kindly say, I feel overwhelmed and I choose to release it.
I feel angry and I choose to release it. I feel irritated and I choose to release it. And those are the four steps. So you pause, you take the six deep breaths and then you observe what's going on in your body, your thoughts and your feelings.
Step 4: four, you name what you're experiencing using this simple exercise or as John Assaraf calls it Inncercise you gain more control over your subconscious reactions and you calm yourself. And once you do that, you can then change your response. Just doing this activity, changes your brain rather than being swept away by the current of emotions you can ride the wave.
So in review, we're gonna talk about what stop the mind screw says about these stress responses. What reality trans surfing says about the stress responses, and we're gonna review and stop the mind. Screw. We learn to pay attention to our thought habits only then can we truly understand where these responses come from and change the habit response from threat to challenge?
A mental diet is step number two and stop the mind screw. And it's very helpful in identifying where we are reactive and also don't judge yourself, just let 'em go. And that's exactly what they do in that response, changing our response and getting those steps for four steps in. They let it go. And that is what a mental diet does as.
And the total premise of stop, the mind screw is to find flow or the place where challenge meets skill. You picture an athlete they're in flow where they're playing the game almost perfectly, and they make no mistakes because. They are in the challenge, response, not stress response. When you're in stress response, your response does not come across as flow.
You don't look like a Kobe Bryant or Michael Jordan. You don't look like that at all. And you definitely don't feel like that. So the whole premise of stop the mind screw and following all the six steps is you enter flow. Or a challenge meets skill reality. Trans surfing, as you can imagine is about surfing.
It's about writing the wave of success. And I did a video on that or a podcast episode. I changed that I did a podcast episode on writing the wave of success. That is one of my most popular, I will link that in the show notes and the description and. To be able to ride the wave of success. You must identify how you look at reality.
Is that wave something to be feared and to suffer, or is it something to harness and ride to another level of reality or challenges met and find flow in review? There are two responses to stress, challenge, or threat you can control and change your response by becoming. In reality, trans surfing and stop the mind.
Screw. We discuss solutions to help you to respond differently and in air quotes better to stress over time. Therefore you ride the wave to success instead of letting that wave crash you into the rocks. All right. That's my episode for today. I hope you liked it. If you would like a copy of the mind map associated with this episode, you can find that at www.kathyowen.com/mind map.
If you enjoyed this episode, please be sure to share it with somebody who can benefit. And I appreciate you spending time with me today, and I hope you go on to have a fabulous day and ride the wave of success until next time. I'll see you next time. Peace out. And Namaste
