The Truth About Stress Optimization with Susan Choi

You're listening to the PT Profit podcast, episode number 55. Today I'm sitting down with Susan Choi and we're talking all about the truth about stress optimization. Are you ready? Stay tuned. Hi, I'm Beverly Simpson, former fitness manager turned online personal training business owner. And this podcast is where smart fitness professionals, including trainers and clinicians, discover how to increase client performance in movement, package and position their product, products and services and get out of their own way so that they can increase their revenue to live a life that they love without sleazy sales. Welcome to the PT Profit Podcast. What's up coach? And welcome to another episode of the PT Profit podcast. I'm your host, Beverly Simpson and thank you so much for joining me today and pressing play because I'm sitting down with a really good friend of mine, stuff Susan Choi, who is a high performance stress management coach and podcast host of Stress proof, a top 100 podcast in mental health on itunes. She's the founder of the Stress Proof Method, a program that helps purpose driven high performers resolve stress 10 times faster so that they can get back into leading with confidence and showing up 100% in their most loving relationships. So, so in this episode today we are actually going to talk all about what stress is, how it shows up mentally and physically, and she is going to give you some incredible insight into how she approaches stress optimization stress management. And this comes from her background because she is no stranger to stress. She has overcome burnout, adrenal fatigue, and now helps others become conscious of self sabotage behavior and negative thought patterns. She currently works with startup sales executives, entrepreneurs and other industry leaders worldwide. And I'm super pumped to bring this episode to you. So without further ado, let's go ahead and roll that interview. What's up Susan? Thank you so much for joining me today. How are you?

I'm doing fantastic. Thank you for having me. I'm super excited about this.

Oh Susan, it's been such a pleasure knowing you and knowing your work. You what so many things I love about Susan, but one of the things is that she'll literally change your life within like a 10 minute conversation just by asking you some like very powerful questions. And then she's like, wait, that was valuable. It's just how I think. Are you kidding? You're amazing. So it's super exciting to have you on the show.

Thank you, thank you.

Can you share with our audience or my audience rather? I guess I should say a little bit about who you are, who you serve and how you got there.

Oh yes, absolutely. So My name is Susan Choi. I am a high performance stress management coach and I work with executives, leaders, anybody who's in a high performance state that feels like they are a struggling, stressed out success. So you've achieved a certain level of success, but you know that going further is they're going to lead to burnout. And you just can't seem to figure out why a smart person like yourself just can't seem to stress less. Like you can't seem to handle the pressure of everything. And the reason why this is so important is because you and I both know, Beverly, that stressing out more, that working harder doesn't lead to any more success. Right? And keeping ourselves in that cycle is actually leading to physical burnout that is stemming from this mental and emotional stress that is just going to stall your progress and your success and really fulfilling on your deepest potential and serving on your purpose. And so I am very passionate about this because I have been there myself for many years. I drove myself to the ground with stress thinking that that was a natural part of the job, that it was a natural part of trying to get to success. And it wasn't until my physical body literally said no, just no. I got diagnosed with adrenal fatigue. And that was when the unfolding came. That was when I had to realize for myself that there has to be a different way, that it doesn't always mean that stress doesn't always equal success. And that was clearly the case for me. And I had to really change things around in order to figure out how can I have both, right? How can I have the successful career, the amazing relationships and have my peace? So that's kind of me in a nutshell.

I love that. And I know that we're going to talk deeper into this because I know that this will resonate with so many people in the audience because like I was telling you before we hit the record button is that so many people are especially personal trainers because they are used to and physical therapists, we are used to trading dollar for hours. So we've got this belief in our mind that if we want to generate more revenue, we have to put more hours in. And that's just simply not the case that it's such a hard perspective to shift out of when it's been ingrained in you from, you know, as young as being an athlete, the days of athlete. So I'm curious, you know, when you talk about adrenal fatigue, if you don't mind sharing, would you go into a little bit more detail about what that Was like, and what? Like, how did you, you know, how did you know that? You were literally like, okay, I need to handle this and I'm hitting a wall versus just continuously trying to push through.

Well, I couldn't continue continuously push through because my body literally did not function anymore. Meaning I wasn't able to sleep at the right hours of the day. When you think about your cortisol, it should be high when you rise and then slowly taper off by the time you go to bed. Mine was the exact opposite. By the time everybody was getting ready for work, I was like, is it nap time yet? Because I'm tired. Then by the time it was the evening, I was so wired. You know, it's like you always hear that phrase, wired but tired. And that was me. I was used to be an avid crossfitter and weightlifter. Wasn't able to do that anymore. I couldn't even walk around the block. I mean, literally, my body said no. So that's what I mean by, you know, when my body said no, my body was physically saying no. Even mentally and physically. When you think about your physical body and the impact that it has on your health and vice versa, my hormones were so disrupted, my endocrine system was so disrupted that it was taking from all of these amazing precursor hormones like dhea, pregnant alone, all these things that help you function in so many other ways in your life. And because it needed to survive, my body felt like it needed to be in survival mode. It was taking from all these precursor hormones. And I was starting to feel more anxious than ever before. Depressed. I just foggy, you know, you hear about brain fog, all of those things, and so that's kind of what adrenal fatigue did. And I, ever since then, I became so passionate about stress management because when you don't manage it from the very beginning, you can slowly lose yourself until it's like, too late. You have to stop everything to take care of yourself. And that's not necessary. You can stop it much more earlier.

Oh, that's amazing. So now I'm also curious because I feel like this will resonate with people in the audience, is that, did you know you were stressed? Did you think you were? You. Did you feel like, oh, I'm just stressed out all the time? Like, did you think it was because of stress?

I did not know. I mean, I knew I was stressed, but because I was able to handle so much more in the past, I just thought, why? Why can't I handle this right? But I think that what you don't realize is when you aren't aware of the results that you are creating in your life. And so for me, how the results showed up was I wasn't able to sleep fully, right. I wasn't able to manage my mind, my emotional state of being as well throughout the day. Think about the little things too. Are you snapping at people that you love unintentionally? Are you being more frustrated at yourself or you know, when you're, if you have a kid, when your kid asks you to play or mommy, can you help me with this? You know, it's kind of like, you know, like, are you just more tense during those times and think about your work results too? Are you actually getting the results that you need at the end of a eight, nine hour day? And if not, why is that? Right? Like what's impeding you from getting those results? So those are kind of, you know, the simple results that I can give as an example of things to look out for.

That's so strong. And you know, honestly, it comes, what, what comes up for me when I hear you say that is I feel like as a higher achiever, someone who resonates as a higher achiever. I feel like so many personal trainers are, is that we kind of have this, this end goal or end game in mind where we're just constantly like, well, it'll be better once I achieve this, it'll get better once I achieve this. Let me just go as hard as I can until I get there. And then you get there and you got another, you know, it just, the cycle never ends. It's like wherever you are, there you are.

Yes, yes. And I want everyone to think about this. I mean, ok, first of all, as a physical trainer, think about your clients with weight loss, right? If they are not happy now, like if they can't generate the feeling of happy now and be happy now on the journey, when they lose the weight, all that's changed is their physical body and who they are inside is still unhappy. And likely when you are unhappy, what do you do to feel better? You turn to food or alcohol or something outside of you in order to soothe the feeling of discomfort that you're feeling in your body, in your emotional sense. Right? And so it's the same thing with every single one of us. If we are not happy now, if we're not excited about what we are doing now, no matter what you think, like, no matter what your brain is trying to tell you of, everything will be fine when you get there. That's not true. Because who you are being right now has not changed. So you can hustle your way there for sure. But if you think that you'll be happy there without being happy now, like learning to be happy, I'm always telling my clients, like, you have to learn how to be happy now, how to be a peaceful person now. Because think about this. If you're unhappy with the problems that you have now, if you're unhappy with the life that you have built for yourself right now in this moment when you have more success, do you think that somehow those problems will be better, that you'll be able to handle those problems then? It's not true. You have to learn how to accept the problems now, how to be happy now, how to be at peace now, so that when you become that person and all that success comes to you, all of that are just things that your future self is just used to because it's normal. It's not going to be like, oh, my God, how do I handle this? Right.

Yeah, right, for sure. So smart. Now, I'm curious. You know, you talked about your client work, too, and since you do work with high performers, what are some of the common misconceptions and myths that your clients and high performers carry regarding stress and stress management?

Oh, goodness, so many. That's a good one. So the first one I would say is that they need to be stressed to do the job right. Like, I work with a lot of clients that are just used to high pressure environments. They're used to the hustle and grind culture. They're used to. They almost rely on stress to get that cortisol and adrenaline feeling in their body to be like, all right, let's go. It's kind of like what coffee gives you. And so they can't imagine not being stressed and getting the same result. But that's also kind of like, I mean, I don't know if your crew, your tribe, your community meditates or does anything on the softer side. But I think a lot of people who think about meditation, they think of that in the same way of, oh, if I meditate, I'll lose my edge. But really, when you are able to stress less, you are able to access that higher level of thinking that is responsive and not reactive. You won't be lost all in the tactical groundwork of just kind of seeing the one tree stump in front of you and instead be able to see the forest and see the path of how you're going to get through something. And so I think people, we really need to let Go of this idea that in some way, you know, that you. That you need stress. Like, stress is part of the journey. Like one of my clients was actually saying after we did a few sessions, he said, wow, I just thought that stress was standard protocol. I thought it was just a requirement of just being successful. Right. And we could talk about good stress. There's a difference between, like, good stress, which is called eustress, and unnecessary stress. I'm talking about unnecessary stress. And that's what, like, literally 90% of people are in. They're in unnecessary stress.

Yeah. Can you go into that? Can you talk about, you know, the differences between good stress and the unnecessary stress?

Yeah, I mean, when you stress. First of all, stress is not a good or bad thing. It's just neutral. Stress is like any other emotion. It just exists. It's there to signal to you who you are being right now. Now, I'm sure all of us has felt eustress, and I like to look at eustress as when you get super excited about an idea that you have. Like, let's say that you have a course or a project that you want to or a new way of teaching something to your client. You get like this adrenaline rush, and you're like, oh, my God, I have so many ideas and this is going to be so exciting. And I have this, you know, like, you just have this rush of excitement and adrenaline pumping through your body. And all of a sudden, in that state, notice how when you're in that state, you have all of this aligned action, right. You don't have any resistance. You're just in the flow of that and the words, or you're just typing furiously because it's just flowing out of you. I think that that is good stress. That's like good cortisol that's pumping. Same thing with. If you were to see a car that's going way above the speed limit, your body is pumping some stress in the adrenaline so that you can get out of the way. Right now, unnecessary stress is when we are in a level of thinking where we're stuck at the level of the problem and we're spending all of this. How I like to describe it is like it's like you're walking through mud. You're like, how do I solve this problem or that person? Or you're just kind of in this doldrum of just trying to get your way through out of a situation. But when you do that, notice how your energy is actually being drained. You don't have any good energy left. To do the work, it's a very different feeling. And once you can tap into that, once you can know this for yourself, what that looks and feels like for you, you will know this immediately when you should be dropping the unnecessary stress. It's when in. It's in the awareness of that that you can then stop and then ask yourself, okay, what story am I telling myself right now? Because that story is the story that's keeping you stuck in the level of the problem and not the level of the solution.

So good. That's so good. Okay. All right. You know, and the reason, too, I'm glad that you gave us a little bit of clarity on that, too, is because I think as fitness professionals, you know, we want to put stress, and I mean stress on the body physically, because that's when we're going to get change. So it's not about trying to avoid stress altogether. It's about managing it and knowing when it's in your favor and when you need to. To activate that parasympathetic nervous system, like you just. You need to.

I have a good example with that one. I agree. Stress is a indicator. It can be used as a tool, but it's just neutral. Right. It's not good or bad. And the example that you gave in terms of you need to stress the body in order to create change. I love that. But if stress is neutral, when you overuse it, sure. You might get rhabdo.

Yes.

Right, Right. And so it's kind of like you just have to know the difference of how am I using stress? And you have to create that awareness of. And the very first thing that I ask is this a responsive. Are you being responsive in this case or are you being reactive all of the time? If you are in unnecessary stress, you are reacting. You're in this state of like, trying to get out of the feeling. And usually what that looks like is you just fire off that email. You just hurry up and quickly text somebody. You just want to do something in order to get rid of the feeling, but that's not. That's being reactive. Because if you were to ask yourself, would my future self, Would the highest part of me actually respond in that way? The answer is always no. But when you think about eustress, like good stress. Right. Using stress as a tool, you're so. You're so much in flow, you're in alignment. You know exactly what you're doing. It feels right, even if it's bad on the body. So sorry. For example, like the car.

Yeah.

Rushing to you It's a good thing. Like, you're like, this feels in alignment. I should probably get out of the way.

Yeah, yeah. No, it's funny, too. And I do want to go back to the mess because I know you only gave us one. You're going to give us some more. Don't worry. But, you know, Susan and I have known each other a really long time, and so she has worked with me closely for a long time. So I'm curious. One of my personal tendencies, which I know she knows, is that I tend to rush. So there's this sense of urgency in almost everything I do. Right. And I've really worked to combat that. And I'm curious, is that. Would you say that that would be an example of being, you know, reacting to my stress that's unnecessary that I'm putting on.

When we have the urgency to do something, whenever there is urgency. If you're listening right now and you find yourself needing to either eat something, take action to fire off that email, go, run, do anything, it is because you are trying to avoid what you are feeling in your body, whether that is stress, anxiety, confusion, anger, any of those things. What that tells me when I hear somebody saying, I just need to hurry up and send this email, or I just need to hurry up and do this, is there is this lower capacity to feel uncomfortable emotions? When we don't have the capacity in our body to feel an emotion, what we end up doing is we end up reacting from the space, lack of needing to do something in order to feel better. But really, you don't need to do anything in order to feel better. All you have to do is learn how to release an emotion the way your body was designed to. And I will just briefly say that I find that people feel an emotion in two ways, and one is through their mind, which creates the emotional drama, right? Where we're replaying the scene over and over again. We're imagining ourselves in third person reacting to the situation. And then there's feeling it the way your body is designed to, which is in your body, in your physical body, as a vibration, right? Like what. What does that feeling, sensation feel like in your body? What does it look like, all of those things? Because when you understand and can disassociate, like, for a second, what is happening in your mind with what you're just feeling?

Mm.

It's not a big deal. And then once you let that vibration die out, once you let that vibration go, all of a sudden you're at this homeostasis where you're like, huh? Did I. Do I really still want to do that? Is that necessary or am I being rash? You get. You get a second opportunity to decide.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, I'm. I'm also, as we're unpacking the. This concept of stress and unnecessary stress, I'm curious, like, with the people that you work with too, because I know that. I find. I find that this is true for me sometimes, is that when we've had a big reason to stress right now, I know that stress is neutral. But when there's like, a big reason, like something's happening at work, and it really is like the legit, you know, the difference between am I getting my job or keeping my job or not? Or it's kind of threatening. One of our needs, basic needs, right? And then that stress goes away. Do people often replace it? Like, is there almost a sense of addiction to that feeling of being stressed, needing to always be stressed?

So what feeds the addiction is the thought that you are thinking, right? And so if you're thinking, oh, my God, I'm not going to be able to support myself, which is never true, by the way, we have to really be careful about what we are thinking and whether or not we want to be thinking that thought, because that's never true. We can always go get a job. It might not be the job you like, but you can support yourself. Like, we're all capable of getting a job. And so when you let that emotion release from your body beyond that, it becomes a choice. Right? So like you were saying. Yes. That immediate, like. Like sensation that we have, that. That feeling that we have in our body is an innate, primal, instinctive reaction that we're having. Right. And it's always based on a thought. But we have that reaction now after that. When you're really present to that vibration in your body and it goes away, what always brings it back isn't the circumstance. It's who you are being. It's what you are thinking right now. And so when you keep thinking that that is what feeds the stress. It's not necessarily that we're addicted to the stress. It's almost as if we are addicted to not being able to let go of who we are being in this moment. Right. And who we are being in this moment. We always have this choice of, do I want to rise to meet my higher self, or do I want to stay here in this story or this illusion of what I'm telling myself and stay here. And that's the unnecessary stress that I always like to work with people, help get out of. Because if you stress out enough, you know that that leads to nothing.

Yeah.

It only leads to more stress.

Yeah. And I've had. The reason why I asked that is because I've had those moments where I've stressed about something for that was a big deal. You know, I'm not going to say that it wasn't. But then that has gone away. And I've found sometimes I'll stress about something else and I'll ask myself, why am I stressing about that? That's not something to be stressed. In other normal circumstances, I wouldn't stress about that. I'm just so used to being in a stress state that I. All of a sudden I start finding myself replacing that stress when it goes away.

Okay. Yes. For sure. Yes. Thank you for clarifying that. So our brain, you know this. We all know this. Our brain is designed to look out for danger and to seek pleasure. Right. Pleasure in all the bad ways these days because we don't need to worry about safety or shelter or food or any of that. But our brain is designed to look out for danger. And so our job in this day and age, with our prefrontal cortex, with our ability to be conscious of what we are thinking, our job is to be aware of when that happens and not make it mean anything.

Yeah.

Right. Because the moment we make it mean anything, we make it real.

Yeah.

I want that to sink in for everyone. The moment you make it mean something, that's when it becomes real for you. But if you were to able just to just see that as a passing thought and not really about who you are, that's all it has to be, just a random thought. And we all have. I mean, you and I, let's be really honest, we are human. I'm human. I'll raise my hand. We have the weirdest thoughts sometimes. Like observe grotesque, like the weirdest thoughts. But we don't. The moment we think that we're not like, oh, my God, what does that mean about me? I just. I literally just watch it. And I'm like, well, that was a weird thought right now. But when it's something that kind of triggers us in some way, that kind of hurts our wound, like a deep wound that we are may or may not be aware of. Right. We just need to see that and say, oh, there it goes again. But it doesn't mean that what you were just thinking is real.

That's a hard distinction for many people. I feel like once you get that, you'll always Be at peace.

I always say that it's simple, but it's not easy. And that's why, you know, for me, I teach the stress relief method. That's why training is the third pillar inside the. Inside this respiratory method, because you have to train. Oh, I love this analogy. Because you guys are, you know, you. We're talking to fitness professionals. So, you know, we all understand that if you don't train your muscles, it's going to atrophy, right? You just don't maintain muscle forever without doing anything. Right? And so this is the same thing with your brain. This is the same thing with your emotional heart. If you don't train yourself for that resilience, we atrophy. We don't even get to that next level. You might be able to stay at this level of awareness of how you're feeling and how you're thinking at this level. But if you're like anything, like Bev and I, we want more. And that next level is going to require new things, new obstacles, new fears, new experiences that will require you to be trained enough to be able to handle that load.

I love that. It's a great segue because it is one of the questions, too, that I wanted to ask, you know, as you're learning, teaching people how to de. Stress and how to manage their stress so that they can be at peace, do they ever combat that feeling of complacency? Does it ever feel like, yeah, but if I do that, then I'm just going to be complacent. How can I have goals if there's no stress?

That is so interesting. And maybe it's because I've just become so far removed from that idea that I'm like, what? How is that even a question? But I totally get it. So here's the thing. When you. Okay, I'm going to ask you when you feel at complete peace and confidence and power. And I'm sure you felt this, like, when you feel in total alignment of who you really are, right? And you have this goal in front of you, are you more or less capable of achieving that goal?

I'm more. I mean, definitely more.

Yeah. Now, now let's take you back to when you're feeling stressed out and you're anxious and you're doubting and you're confusing and you're just being lost with the entertainment of your own brain of like, I don't know if you can do that, girl. Is that really possible for you? Are you more or less capable of achieving that goal?

Yeah, for sure.

Yeah. I want everyone to just really let that sink in. Because if you think that stress is somehow helping you get to that next level, you. Stress, yes, maybe. But unnecessary stress, that confusion and the doubt and the shaming and all of that lack, that is not going to help you get there. If anything, that's going to help you remain where you are.

So true. And I love the way that you put it that way, because when you put it that way, and anyone who's been already on the other side can say, you know, of course they felt in alignment and of course they felt strong in their personal power, but that's because it's like they already. They know that it's true. But when you're coming from a place of not knowing whether or not it's true, it's hard to. But you have to act like it, so it's hard to do that.

I have an example. So let's say that your client comes to you and they are freaking out about not being able to lose weight or not being able to achieve certain comp goals. With their body now in that state from that feeling of stress and anxiety and doubt, what do they end up doing? And when you think about what they end up doing, they're not fully present to their training session. They probably had the glass of wine that wasn't on their protocol. Right. They probably called you to say, can we reschedule right now? When they firmly are at peace and they are aligned and they are just really committed to that goal, how they act from that place is so different. They show up, they follow their protocol. If they mess up, they don't blame themselves. They are just committed. Right. And so I can go on and on about that, but I just wanted to use that as an example because I think it'll help, you know, to further see that difference between the two.

Yeah, yeah. And it's just. It's just. It's so interesting because when we look at it from a place of, you know, hindsight is always 20. And when we look at it. And yet we are 100% habitual creatures, because even though we know better every. If we don't train it, we'll go back to the same habits that we were doing before. Getting into stress and thinking, that's going to help you.

Well, here is the thing about that is. Oh, I love that you mentioned that, because I just outlined my podcast for not next week, but the week next, the week after, about wanting versus deciding. And what I mean by that is you can want all you want, right? Like that desire that you have, that goal that you have, you can want it. You can do everything you can from that place of want, right? Like, you can do all the work for it. You could be doing all the networking to grow your business. You can do all the mark, you can do all that, right? But when you haven't decided that it's just yours, you are being split. That want is split because from that desire of want, you're also indulging in the desire of not wanting it. Like, when you haven't fully decided, there's a part of you that's split, right? And so, for example, let's say that, like, somebody wants to grow their business, like, I want to grow my business, right? But if you also not want, like, upset clients, you know, the possibility of failure, all of those things, you haven't really decided because you're just there in the space of wanting. When you fully say, no, I've decided, there's a different resonance in the body that you feel. And everything else is just a part of the journey. It doesn't prohibit you from taking all the right actions and actually making progress going forward. And so you have to really ask yourself the question, am I just wanting this or am I deciding? So when it comes to stress, right, when we keep holding on to stress, I say that that's coming from this place of want, right? It's coming from this place of being split. It's like you may want something, but you also are indulging in the not wanting of it. And part of that might be stress. You, for some reason, your brain wants to think, like, oh, like, I need the stress. But when you decide, no, I'm going to be, I can be a powerful, peaceful and successful person, that's just a different place. That's a different arena that you plan.

Interesting. But that's. That's interesting. And to that point and to that thought, I wonder if, you know the people who are constantly in stress, like, hey, I don't know if you guys have heard in this episode, but I'm raising my hand. I used to be one of those people where I'm just always stressed and I still combat it often where there's a sense of fight when I think and listen to my thoughts, I'm thinking of, well, I'm fighting for this. I'm racing for this. I have urgency here. And it's almost like I feel like I'm fighting for this need to achieve, right? And so, which is kind of, you know, when I get into a space where I'm like, well, you know, the less you work, the more you'll make. Or the less you, like, pull back, the less that you will, the, you know, the less effort with. Will yield more results. Right? That can be a very challenging thing for high achievers to really take. To take on. So my, you know, so the question is, right, do you, you know, for the people out there that are like me and have that like, constant need for stress, like, is there that fear? How do you combat that fear message that the brain is going to send when you're trying to make a change? No, no, no. This is like, this isn't what you are about. We can't do that. We don't do that. You need to stress. You need to stop stress. What are some of the things you, you tell your clients to do?

Okay, this is so good. And I can honestly, we can talk about this for hours because I can go in so many different directions with this. The first thing that I want to say is, why is that a problem? Like, if your brain wants to fight you, that's not a problem. It doesn't mean you have to listen to, doesn't mean that it's real. It doesn't mean that it's right. You have to remember that your brain is always going to want to give you reasons to not change and why? Because your brain is wired to conserve energy, to not spend calories learning anything new. Because all it wants to do is be okay now, right? And so when it has to learn something new, it's like, oh, great, now I have to spend energy trying to learn this new thing, trying to change my ways, my neural pathways, when really I should be looking out for the tiger or the bear, right? Like, so on one level you have to just understand the mechanism of your brain, and the other, it's also asking yourself, like, huh, okay, brain, like, why is this a problem? Why? You know, and the other thing, I always love referencing this quote by Eckhart Tolle. He says your brain, your mind is like, you are the police chief looking for the arsonist, but you don't even realize that you're the arsonist. So you're just going in the circle, arguing with yourself, arguing, arguing. And you're like, hold on a second. You know, like, what's really happening here is this really illogical. So you have to be careful about entertaining your brain because it will literally lead you in this loop that goes nowhere. And you have to observe even that observance of your brain. It's really meta. But once you the most Simplest way that I can. That I can explain this in terms of like a strategy or tactic is I want you to write out all of your thoughts. Not in a journaling way, and nothing wrong with journaling, but kind of. But I don't want you to say, dear diary, like, I'm so upset about this. I can't believe this happened. Not like that. I want you to observe, like, the thoughts in your brain and just write out, oh, I'm thinking this. I need stress, you know, like. Or whatever it is, and just write it out. And then look at that piece of paper and just notice. Is that really how I want to be thinking? Because so often the voice in our head is the voice that we trust the most because it's us and we've lived with it for 30, 40, 50 years. Right? But when you write it out on a piece of paper and you don't hear the voice, but you just see it, sometimes you might see the illogic of what you're thinking in your brain versus what's actually on the piece of paper. Paper. It's kind of like when you're working with your clients, right? When you're. When your clients are working with their clients, you can kind of tell when somebody is whining and complaining and giving you a thought, but it's really an excuse. We have to do the same thing with ourselves, Right? It's kind of like we have to be the trainer and the client with our own brain.

So, yeah, you know, you bring up a really good, you know, a really good point, too, when you were talking about the brain specifically, and I'm curious, is there a pair? Is this a paradox in that sense of, you know, you know, the brain is going to. Whenever you're trying to make a change, the brain is going to send you those from the lizard brain, those urgencies. It's going to send you that fear. So if you are trying to reduce your stress, aren't you then making a habitual change, which therefore is going to cause stress to your system, to your brain? Is it a stressful experience to change the way you respond to stress?

So here's the thing. It can be based on who you are being, and that's what I teach people, is like, who are you being right now? How can you change your thoughts? And how can you. Whenever you feel resistance, whenever you feel stress, release it instantly so that you're not constantly reinforcing in your brain and your body, like all of the neuropeptides in your body that, like stress, stress Stress, stress, stress. But you can just release it, actually feel peace, generate peace and joy and excitement for yourself and have that be more common. Now we also have to keep. I mean, we keep talking about stress in a bad way. And I just, I want us to be careful about that. Because even if you were to enact a difference, right, like you're trying to change your identity, you're trying to change your emotions, you're trying to change your brain, your brain might be reactive, but it doesn't have to be stressful. Yes, it doesn't have to be stressful. It's only stressful when you believe it to be real.

Right.

When you are believing the thought in your brain instead of observing where your brain wants to go and then say, oh, that's okay, I see you.

That's.

So we have to be. Yeah, we have to be very careful about how we manage this stress in the conversation. Because it doesn't have to be stressful.

Or bad.

Yeah, or bad.

On a subconscious level, associating stress with bad. And it does not have to be. It's neutral.

Exactly, exactly. It's kind of like people think that sadness is bad, like, or that grief is bad. It's actually very healthy for you right? Now what makes it unbearable for us is when we are stuck in the dirty pain, it. Right. We're in the drama of the grief. But if we were to just allow ourselves to be sad and to have grief and to hold grief either for ourselves or for other people, it's very pure, it's very clean, it's very healthy. Same thing with stress. It's the same exact thing.

So now when your clients, after they work with you, Right. And they're, you know, they're high achievers, so they're in a lot of high pressure jobs, essentially. Right. So is the goal to teach them how to be at peace while they're still in high pressure situations? Yes.

And to never think that you're not going to ever be stressed. Right. It's so that you can become the type of person that can actually watch things happen and know what's happening, like know what's creating the happening. Right. And to not react, but to see it as separate and then respond from a different place. Most people, when things are happening, they are a part of it, which is why it's so stressful. They're like, oh my God, it's affecting me. It's personal to me. Right. But what I teach my clients is. No, it's. Everything that's happening is you projected out. If you can see something as not stressful as just a situation versus a problem that's reflecting to yourself that, oh, you are at a level where you can just see things happen. Now when we are at that lower level of the problem, when we see something happening, it's a mirror of who we are. So when we, like, let's say a client says, I don't know if this is working for me. What we are actually seeing is, oh my God, I'm not good enough right now. When you can get to that level where you see something happening and when somebody says, oh, I don't think this is working for me. And then you're just here and you hear them and see the words of, I don't know if this is working for me, but has nothing to do about you. That's different. Now that also doesn't mean that as you become a different person, meaning when you have goals that you want to reach and we're always evolving, we're always going to be, you know, whether that's aging and going through different life things or aging in your business, whatever it is, we're constantly evolving. That doesn't mean that stress just stops. It means that new experiences will come into our world and those new experiences are going to test our capacity to feel certain emotions. And if you are growing, you are constantly growing that capacity as well. Right. So when you can grow that capacity and when something happens, you are not going to see this as, oh, my God, let me freak out, Let me be indulging in unnecessary stress. But I want to invite everyone to see that it could also be you stress of like, this is exciting. This is going to change me. How can I grow into this? Right?

Yeah. So, so true and so good. Okay, so I do want to be mindful of your time, so I will. I just want to circle back to that loop that we never closed. If you can just give us a couple more of the common myths that you see people carry. Again, I do feel like we did touch on a couple. Like we talked about how that we think stress. We talked about how people think that they can never be stressed and it's not good to be stressed. And we talked about, you know, that people think that they, they aren't stressed. When they are stressed or responding, they're responding in a stressful or from a high pressure spot, emotional spot. What are some of the other things that misconceptions people have?

Yeah, so this might be a, you know, this might rub people the wrong way, but I want everyone to hear me out till the end so that you can understand what I mean by this. And it's that self care is not the answer to your stress. Like most people think, oh my God, so stress out. Let me buy the essential oils, let me, you know, take a bubble bath, let me take some time off, let me do a staycation, you know, open the bottle of wine, Netflix, whatever. Right? And I'm not saying that those things are bad, those things actually soothe the pain that you're feeling, but it's never going to resolve the problem of why you're stressed. Right? It's kind of like, Right. It's kind of like when we go to the drugstore and we ask for aspirin because we have a headache, but really we have a headache because we banged up our head and we need to go get it stitched up. It's not solving the problem. The aspirin is not solving the problem. You need stitches. And so, you know, when you think about self care, I want you to think of that as something that's more, you know, necessary for your comprehensive overall well being. You know, like being able to listen to your body and all of that. But it's not going to actually solve why you're stressed. And why you are stressed is because of who you are being, what you are thinking, the specific thoughts that you believe in your mind that are actually then generating the feeling of stress in your body. And when we feel the stress in our body, what do we do? We fire off the email, we snap at those we love. We end up going for the bag of chips, all of the things. Yeah.

My gosh, that is so good. I know I said it would be our last question, but I swear this one's going to be the last one, right? Two, what happens to people? And that is so powerful because I know I've fallen into that trap of like, oh, I'm so stressed out. I just need to just take. I need to just take a break. And then I've taken a break and still not been and not. And maybe I felt better for a little bit, but then the second I get back into that environment, it's like, I need another break again. Yeah, I get that. But I'm curious too. Do your people struggle? Because I feel like it took me a long time to get really present to what my belief is and what my thoughts actually are because we're just running them through so unconsciously all the time that we can't even really identify or acknowledge what's going on.

So I think that for everybody it's different. I mean, I had many clients who after the first session and they learned what personalization is, how they were using personalization in their life and the tool to how to think better thoughts. Once they learn that, you know, they've said that they've never. Like one woman said, I'm almost 50 and I can't believe I never knew this. And she stopped being reactive. She started asking herself, is this even worth my time? She just said that she was so cognizant of what she was thinking that she just felt so aware and it changed everything. She didn't even change anything outside of her meaning. She still had 400 emails a day, she still worked with the same people, but she was different. Right. I had another client who said that, she said, I know that this is just the very beginning of the coaching relationship, but I feel like I've just woken up from a 35 year fog and I've never felt this much peace in my life. And it's like when you're aware, you can't go back, you can't unlearn what you just learned, right? And so you can't go back to that. But that doesn't mean that there's always something hidden. We are human, we are complex. We, you know, we are a prism of so many thoughts, right, that we are aware of and what we're not aware of. But it's not getting lost in that. It's knowing that you have the tools. It's always knowing that you have a solution. It's always knowing that you can give yourself grace. It's always knowing that nothing has gone wrong that you can go back to and not be stressed out about what you don't know. Because watch your brain that always wants to go to where the problem is.

Always. That brain is so kooky anyway.

Always.

Susan, for my friends who want to learn more about you, learn about what you teach and learn more from you. Where can I send them?

Yeah, absolutely. So my main website is www.stressproofpodcast.com, obviously by the URL. I also have a podcast and you can search for that on any platform. It's the Stress Proof podcast by Susan Choi. And I'll make sure that I leave Bev a few other links if you want free trainings or whatnot. But yeah, that's where you can find me.

And we're going to put all of that in the show notes too. So thanks so much for hanging out with me today, Susan. This was awesome.

Yes, absolutely. Thank you for having me. I feel like we can talk about this forever. Forever.

It's so true. Thank you for listening to the PT Profit Podcast. If you like like this episode, chances are your friends will too. So it would be a huge service to us if you would please leave us a review and share with your friends on your social media channels. When you leave us a review, be sure to take a screenshot of it and email that screenshot to my team atinfo simpson fitness.com and we'll send you a very special Instagram podcast that will show show you how to create compelling content so that your ideal clients come to you and you go from wanting clients to a wait list of clients ready for your services. Thank you so much for listening and we'll see you on the next episode.