SSP 011: Managing Stress, Meditation, And Calming The Mind

State shifters podcast episode 11 managing stress.

Welcome to the State Shifters Podcast.

Welcome back, episode 11 of the podcast. Glad to have you with me. Today we're going to be talking about stress and Josh and I had a really good discussion about why stress happens and how we kind of cause our own stress through overthinking and stressing about work and letting external situations really affect our physical and mental clarity. So we give some great techniques and advice and practical habits and ways to deal with stress and best handle stress when you notice that it's starting to creep into your life. And the important thing is to realize that stress is causing long term harm. It's actually affecting the way our body kind of corrects itself. It throws it out of balance. So we want to try and recenter and recorrect anytime the body is thrown into a state of stress. So I know you're going to get a lot out of this episode, so stay tuned and take notes if you need to. Just keep in mind that I was actually outside for this one, so there's a bit of background noise, so try not to let that distract you. I've been getting some really great feedback on the podcast, so I'm gonna really try and commit to getting these out once a week for you guys. And if there's any topics of discussion you want Josh and I to talk about, feel free to contact me, reach out via email through the website@state-shifters.com that's all from me. So let's get stuck into the episode. Good morning, Collins, how are you?

Yeah, hey buddy, how you doing? Good evening from me.

Yes, we're back online for another chat. We are going to talk about stress today. How's life been over in Sydney?

Yeah, mate, it's coming along nicely. I'm. I'm rugged up in bed at the moment. It's a bit chilly over here, but yeah, it's going well. Nice weekend. My. Went out to Bondi today. Had a bit of a swim. Yeah, feeling good. How are you, man?

I'm. I'm sitting outside this morning so you'll have to excuse any noises such as airplanes or birds that fly over. I thought I'd take it, make the most of the beautiful morning today and I'll take the podcast outside. I've actually been doing that the past few episodes, so it's, it's been good, it's been very good, but I'm going. Well, I heard some good news from you the other day. You're planning to come over for a trip. Coming to visit me Here in Toronto. I want to give our listeners a date and when they can expect you to. For us to have our first in person chat.

Yeah mate, looking, it's looking like what are we, what are we looking at? Mid September? I think I'm gonna head over just for a little bit. Come and see, come and see you and the gang over there.

Yeah, yeah, it's, it'll come around quick mate.

I'm looking forward to it. It'll be great. Yeah.

Anyways man, let's get stuck in today. Today's topic we'll talk about stress. I think stress is a big one for lots of people. Everyone's kind of experienced stress at some point in their lives. And I know I did a lot back, particularly back at my last job, corporate job, not so much now, but certainly are times when it, when it comes up and I think for today the main goal would be to try and give people some key takeaways on how to manage stress, how to cope with stress and then maybe some things that they could apply to maybe stop stress arriving in their life as frequently. So I don't know, are you someone who suffers stress a lot or is it something that it's rare?

Yeah, I think this was something we were talking about before is that I think recently there's been periods where I've been quite stressed at work still in that corporate environment. Lots of high pressure clients with requirements, projects running, things like that. So there's definitely elements of stress involved. I think recently I've just seen a lot of, I've been like speaking with a lot of people that within my office and elsewhere that just struggle with how to best deal with it or like they can't, they literally can't get away from it. Like. And I think once you, the issue is for a lot of people as well is once they commit to more work it becomes, you said this before, it becomes like a regular pattern and then that level of work and that level of stress becomes the norm and that it becomes so hard to get out of that routine. And I think for me I've like at the moment I'm quite good at getting like once I recognize it in myself I can either reduce the load that's on me, communicate that effectively to whoever I need to or just understand my own personal limits and be happy with what I can output or whatever I can output at that time. But yeah, it's for at the moment minor cases of stress but it's about I think identifying it quickly and trying to get out of it as Quickly as possible as well, because it's just detrimental to mind and body, I think.

Yeah, 100%. I think an important thing before we go deeper into stress is, you know, I guess one of the main things that I took, like, realized after, like, I read a lot of books and they always talk about stress and there's always the health. The health concerns that arise when your body is in a state of chronic stress is. Is enough for me to just be like, nah, like the minute I notice that I'm putting my body under stress for sustained periods of time, action needs to be taken to correct that. Because I've got a study here. There's a study done in America that says people with heart disease. Heart disease is one of the leading causes of death and illness, and it's caused primarily by stress. Stress is the strongest predictor of future cardiac events, and that's including heart attacks. So you could say stress is probably the number one killer for most across the world. Really. That's because people are in a state of chronic stress without actually realizing it. So they're at work and they. And they that, like you said, people take on the extra work, they take on the extra stress, and then that becomes the norm and they're actually in a state of chronic stress all the time. It's not until an incident like a heart attack or a brain hemorrhage or a serious illness that comes up that kind of wakes them up and reminds them that this is not how we should live. The body is not designed to be in fight or flight all the time. And this was the thing for me that whenever I kind of meet someone who's under stress or I can see that they're stressed, it's not worth it. You have to zoom out for one second. Is your health, is the state of your body being in this, you know, severe survival mode. It is not worth the reason why you're stressed. And most of the time, it's like out of fear that we're going to let someone else down or we're not going to fulfill our, you know, our job role or we're not going to pass an exam. For me, it's never, ever. It's never worth it. The stress and the harm you do to your own body is never worth the actual event that we're stressed about. And I think number one for me is you must understand how the impacts that stress is having on your health. Not just your mental health, but your physical health, and it will kill you over time. There's no doubt about that. The research has been proven. So if you can, if listeners who do go through stress, if they can learn and understand what's actually happening in the body when you're stressed, that's a big step in the right direction to make sure that when you do notice you're stressed, you correct, put yourself back into balance as quickly as possible. So like, so for you, I guess, you know, in the times that you were stressed, was there a way for you to kind of like zoom out and be like, you know, hold on a second here, I'm freaking out. I would, I would freak out. I was someone who would just be like, if there's too many things on my plate at once, I'd start to freak out a little bit and nothing actually gets done because it's too much happening. And the body, the heart starts beating, he starts sweating and then, you know, you know, what about yourself? Was there any like moments where you caught yourself in a freak out or in a stressful time that you could kind of zoom out and then did you do some deep breathing? Like how can we catch ourselves in the moment if we're stressing?

I think for me, I went through this with a friend of mine. Actually it's almost, for me it's just about questioning. I think I've said this before. I always question why I'm feeling the way I'm feeling because I think the feeling and the emotion that you have and stress being one of them is the symptom. And it's usually a mind made reaction to whatever's happening in your life, to the external pressures of your life. So if you question why am I stressed? You'll come up with a number of reasons that it might be. Like even the simple one we had before the call, like I miss my alarm or you know, I gave in this report, like it's like I'm going to give it in a day late or like things that in the grand scheme of things aren't that important but you place a lot of importance upon. I think you really just have to question why it's of such great value to you or why you're putting so much importance on it. And for me, when I do that, it always comes back to, it's always going to be either based on fear or want. So fear of something not happening due to you missing a deadline or missing or not not actioning something you feel like you should, or meeting, not meeting an expectation of someone else. And that's the only underlying of that is the want, the want behind the fear so what do you want that you feel now? You feel like you're going to miss out on because you're not doing that action or because you feel like you're going to miss out on, you're missing out on the action that you're doing. And when you bring yourself out of that fear and want, they're both, or fear and desire, they're both feelings that can't be in the now. Another thing, this is something we always speak about, is the mind is always existing in the future or the past. And if you can bring your mind back to the now, those fears and those wants and those desires will automatically kind of dissipate. But for me, it's about looking at what am I fearful of? And the fear is always stemmed from the personal identity. So what you identify with and the identity is always in a battle for gain. It operates on a level of gain and loss. And when I question what am I fearing it might be, I'm not going to give this paper in on time, therefore my reputation at work is damaged, therefore I miss out on the future promotion, therefore I don't get enough money, therefore I can't buy a better house. And it just goes. The thought process goes on and on and on. And then the stress gets. The stress gets worse and worse and worse. And for me, it's just about. It's about kind of getting the fishing rod in, reeling it back, and just saying, just calm down for a second. The action that I can take in this moment is the only action that I can take. Like you can only. I think for me, it's understanding your personal limitations. If a situation's happened where now you don't have enough time to do something or you've missed a deadline that you meant to hit, that's the situation you're in. So stressing about it doesn't change the situation in any way. It only causes, as you say, mental and physical detriment to yourself. And I think that's hard. That's a hard thing to do, is to bring logic into an emotional situation. But for me, questioning why constantly why you're feeling the way you're feeling can really be a helpful tool in getting to the source of the problem and then trying to comprehend that you can only bait. You can really can only do what you can do in that moment. And then from there, once you can get that clarity of now I know what I can do and what my limitations are, now you can take actionable steps. Yeah, I think for me, that's probably one of the, and the logical ways of getting myself out of stress. But I think it's always a tough thing to do when you're actually in that situation.

Yeah, 100% agree. In the moment, it's always difficult, I guess. While you were talking, I think we did a podcast episode on anxiety a few episodes back. Would you say, obviously stress and anxiety go hand in hand. How would you distinguish between the two? Like if you're stressed, are you also anxious? If you're having, you know, if you're stressed out, are you also having an anxiety attack? What, how would you describe the difference between stress and anxiety? Or are they kind of both, you know, lead ons of each other?

Yeah, I don't think there's, I don't think there's too much of a difference in the way that I kind of look at them. For me, they're both, they're both feelings that are based on, based on, based on a fear. And if it's, it's almost always a fear of the future and a fear of. A fear of something that might happen because of what's happening right now. Yeah. And I think it's, it's always difficult because it's like it's. I'm not sure if it's people, people wanting control of the future and needing to have that control of the control of their own life. I suppose they want to know and have the ability to be in control of that future, which to me doesn't make any sense because you can't control the future, you can only control the current moment. But they're both fear and anxiety. They're both fear based emotions. And the fear based emotions always exist in the future. And that's part of it is just understanding your own personal limitations. And for me, the only time that really exists is the now because once the future arrives, it's not the future anymore, it's the now. So the only action that can be taken is right now. And kind of relinquishing that need to control a future moment has always helped me. I think that's scary for some people as well because people want to be in control. And that kind of, relinquishing that control of a future moment and kind of just giving into it and being like, I literally can't do anything. I can only do what I can do now and that's it. That's like, for some people that's scary, I think. And for some people that's freeing or like humbling that they literally can only do what they can do right now. But for me, I don't see. I mean, I don't distinguish between the two of them. I think they're pretty similar emotions.

Yeah, I agree. Stress is obviously the physical response to, like, if we think back, the reason why we feel stress as a human, it was to keep us alive, right. It's a survival state. Like as the evolution of humans were taking place, stress was a condition to keep us alive from dangerous animals. Right. So it's like a fight or flight response. The minute the body, we perceive stress or perceive danger, the body kicks into this survival mode where our heart rate rises, our pupils dilate, you know, our senses get heightened. We're either ready to run or are ready to fight. And what most, what happens for most people is when you're in stress, they're not actually in danger. They're creating their own danger in their heads because they think that they don't get this job done, they're going to be fired or they're going to lose their job or they're going to, they're going to, you know, they're not going to pass the exam. So we're actually putting our body into this extreme state of survival when there's no real danger there. So I think that's the trouble with stress is the body's not designed to be in that state all the time. And from that, I guess anxiety is something that I think anxiety definitely results in stress as well. It's kind of managing and noticing them as they arise. The minute you kind of catch yourself thinking too far ahead, that's kind of the precursor for stress and anxiety is thinking, like you said, too far ahead in the future, not living in the now. So we kind of apply some of the mindfulness techniques or habits that we use in some of one of the previous episodes, again, into stress.

But.

For me, I think simple things like in the moment, such as deep breathing, like when we're stressed, we tend to breathe a lot shallow, a lot more shallow. So focusing on like deep belly breathing was something that. It is definitely effective because when we're stressed, our heart is beating at such a fast pace and it's often very incoherent heartbeats and all. All that means is when the heart is beating in a coherent manner, there is cohesion between the brain and the heart and we're able to make decisions and make actions from a place of poise and calmness and clarity. But when we're stressed, the heart is beating in all kinds of different wavelengths, which can be measured on a heart rate variability chart. And we can't make good decisions when we're in that state. We can't make clear choices. We can't be creative. We know that for one. So essentially, when you're stressed, you're in survival mode and you're not in creation mode, and you want to be in creation mode as often as possible. So deep breathing is a great way to kind of bring your heart back into this coherent beat, brings you back into the moment, reminds your body that there's no danger, and then you can. And then you can take action. That's required. So I think if you notice that you're in stress or you're starting to get overwhelmed or anxious, five to 10 deep breaths before you do anything. I reckon that could be the best thing to do is just step back for one moment, regardless of how much work you have to do. And recenter take five to ten breaths straight away just to get some clarity around what needs to be done right now. Because you can only ever do one thing at each moment and then apply your full attention onto the job that needs to be done now. The most important thing that needs to be done now, all your attention goes there. The minute that's done, you move on to the next job or the next meeting or the next person or the next test or the next question. And the minute you start thinking too far ahead about the next question or the next thing you need to do, and your attention is spread across lots of different tasks at once, you're in trouble. Your attention must be fully on something in each moment. And you can use deep breathing as a way to gain control of your attention and bring your attention back into the body, into the moment, and into the breath. Any other techniques for people who are stressed in the moment? Like, what can we do right now to just give us a bit of clarity around what do we need to do to remain in the moment and get out of a stressful survival state?

Yeah, no, I think that's. I think that's a good. I think that is a good tip. I think. Yeah. Removing yourself from the situation for a second is always. Is always helpful. Yeah. Because. Yeah. And I think the other point. Yeah, doing one thing, doing one thing wholeheartedly at a time is the essence of Zen, which I think. Yeah, is very helpful. I think for me, I've always. I always like to think of which I don't know if I think it's pretty. A pretty interesting thought is just to like to think about the insignificance of the things that I do on a Day to day basis because I always find it funny on how much importance people place on a lot of things around them that I don't know. For me, I don't, I don't place that much importance on my, on my work.

I love that. I was thinking that as well. I think that's just, that's another great point. Yeah. Sorry to interrupt. You continue.

No, no, I think. Well, I don't know. I still remember the first time I kind of pondered my own insignificance. I was 21 and I was, I was at the. I was at the, the Left bank in Fremantle. I just walked out and I just kind of, I kind of. I'd just been at this party where I, you know, I didn't. I knew probably a handful of people and I'd just been chatting. I just walked out and I was like, in the grand scheme of things, I'm so insignificant. Like my day to day operation of the life that I've created. Nothing is like you say, nothing is worth stressing. The stress and the feeling that you get from that compared to what it is that I'm actually stressing about is nonsensical. Like it doesn't make any sense to me. For me, life is a game and I'm here to enjoy it. Like my goal in life is to be at peace with the moment, go through, play the game. If the game involves me going to work and having a job and earning money, that's part of the game for me and I'm happy to do that because I've chosen to play. So, yeah, I don't know, I think it's tough if you're in, like if you're deep, deeply involved with your work or your life or you have a very strong sense of identity of who I am and who I need to be and where I need to go. Because if you put very stringent, stringent kind of boundaries on. This is who I am now. This is where I need to be because I need to be here because my parents paid a lot of money for me to go to good schools and I need to achieve, to prove to the people around me that I'm. If you, if you're constantly having these thoughts and you have high expectations of yourself, everything you do forms a very strong structure of where you're going. So everything's important because it's always, it's going towards an end goal. And I think that that involves a lot of the talk that we've had around purpose and like, what is my purpose here? And I've always had the thought like humanity really doesn't know why we're here. And we're kind of just, we've just been placed on this, on this rock and we've come up with purpose for ourselves and work. I think work's one of those purposes and it's kind of, we've just given ourselves a, we've given ourselves a task to do. And for me, I don't see the point in like, I mean this from a corporate point of view. In the job that I'm in currently. I don't want to put too much emphasis on, on achieving and working my way up and having that end goal of succeeding, whatever that is deemed to be within my industry. My goal is just to be and just to enjoy the game as I play it. And I think if you can come at it from that mentality rather than always needing to reach that next milestone. Because when you're looking towards a milestone, you always need to gain to get there. And when you're always looking to gain, you can also lose. If you're looking to gain, the opposite is also true. And if there's loss on the line, then fear, stress and anxiety are automatically inherent with every action that you're doing. So for me, I think if you can look at life in a more joyful and kind of game like mentality, for me that's, that's the, that's the quickest way to, to reducing that fear and stress.

Yeah, I can. That resonates with me because I definitely noticed that in myself like back I guess before I discovered this path of mindfulness and meditation and inner work. Yeah, it was all achievement, achievement orientated, performance based, you know, you would judged on your performance, you're judged on how much money you make, you judged on your title, your role. And like you just said, that sets you up for, sets you up for fear and stress and anxiety because you're constantly working towards something to value. You're working towards a goal that you're hoping is going to define you more as a person when you achieve that role or the title or the income. And like what you're doing now is live, is playing the game, is just enjoying the art of being. It's often a challenging thing to do because that's how our society today is built around that, it's built around the system. We want more and more. We're always comparing ourselves to, you know, friends or others who have nicer cars, bigger houses, they do more holidays. Social media has kind of amplified this whole comparison or image based environment that we live in. So there's no wonder people are stressed all the time. You know, you go on social media, mate, I go on there, I'm like, Jesus, does everyone look this good? Oh my God. Oh man. Like how, you know, how, how could anyone live with a sense of self gratification when they're constantly comparing themselves to these like the perfection of people on social media. Everyone's just perfect. But the, the game, yeah, the comparison is, is only there to fulfill other people's feeling of lack. And that's the fundamental thing for me. The minute you break free from this system that everyone's stuck in, they're trying to do one better than everyone else or they're trying to look like they've got it all figured out, but really underneath it all, they're just as stressed, as fearful and scared as everyone else. You realize that everyone else is human and you realize that there's no like what you're doing now. There's no end goal. There is no end game. The process and the goal are the same. And when you live from that state, you know, I still have to remind myself to pull back and remember that there's no rush. There's no rush to, you know, finish the podcast, there's no rush to post the next blog, there's no rush to progress in my career and get the next income or get the next house. Each phase of life is perfect the way it is. And when you learn to live in the present moment, you realize that everything is sacred and everything is perfect. And then that's how you kind of alleviate stress from your life because you're no longer racing to the next moment to find your fulfillment or find your, find your peace because you find it now. So like for me, I've like met it all kind of ties together, man. Meditation for me was like such a powerful thing that helped me live from peace and presence and gratitude for the now and cultivating states such as appreciation, gratitude, love or joy, cultivating those emotional states in the present moment or throughout your day. Stress can't exist when you're living from that place. So I use meditation, I use journaling or I still use these things. I use just simple gratitude exercises. I use visualization, things like that to make sure that I'm constantly feeling appreciation, gratitude all the time. And you don't get stressed when you do that. So meditation is something that people could use, I think. Would you say? Would you. It all ties in together. I believe all the things we've spoken about in Previous podcasts. It all works hand in hand.

Yeah, that's right.

How else could people practice living like, like you said, ponder their insignificance and live. And just live in the game and enjoy. Enjoy the game and love the process. How, how do we do that?

That's a good question. Man, that's a tough one.

Yeah, it's a tough one.

Yeah, I think it's, yeah, it's, it's hard to go, it's hard to go just like straight to that mentality because that's a. Yeah, it's a tough mentality. I'm trying, I'm trying to decipher the fact when I, when I started living like that and I still don't all the time. I still have stress, I still have fear, and the mind still goes whenever it wants to. But I think it's about, and I think when you say meditation, this goes the same. It's accepting the thoughts that you're having as they are. Because if you can meditate, but meditate. I think people a lot of times think they're doing meditation incorrectly because the thoughts don't disappear straight away. But meditation is acceptance of whatever thoughts arise. And I like that, I like the analogy that the separation between the thoughts and you, because I think the key misunderstanding is that your thoughts are who you are. But I always like to think of it as you cannot be the object and the perceiver of the object at the same time. So you don't know what the thought. You're perceiving the thoughts, therefore you are not the thoughts. So if you can just watch the thoughts arise and then watch them disappear without judging them, then they disappear automatically. And I think that's. Yeah, you're right. That's the first step. The first step is just trying to meditate on that thought. Do your deep breathing, step away from the process for five minutes and then just find some time to sit with your thoughts and just watch them pass by. And I think that is hard because a lot of people have thoughts that they don't want to think they might have. You know, especially if it's stress based or fear based. People don't want to sit there with their fear based thoughts. They want the fear based thoughts to go away, but the reality is they, they don't go away. The more you, the more you resist them, the more they come back and the more that, the more the subsequent thoughts on that keep going on as well. So I think that it's overcoming that fear of the fearful thoughts and just accepting them as they are in that moment. I think that that's a very, if you can, if you can achieve that at any, at any time, I think that's a very, very powerful tool. Picking it up as soon, picking up the stress as soon as you're feeling it and going, you know, based on the physical, the physical symptoms of tenseness or, you know, raising blood pressure or heartbeat or. And then just stepping away and just, yeah, just meditating on, on those thoughts. I think. Yeah, that's definitely, that's definitely helpful, man. On the day to day level.

Yeah, I can see. I consider meditation just like it's just training, it's going to the gym for your mind literally. And in moments like when you're under stress and, and you're anxious, meditation will literally give you the control back because an untrained mind is, will run right and it will go crazy and you'll, you'll think you just don't have control. Like I know, I know how it feels when people are stressed and anxious. They just think they don't have control of the, of these emotions and thoughts that they're having because the mind's not trained. Like. So if you start, if you're suffering from stress and anxiety, like start meditating, give, give yourself control back, you know, to catch yourself. When the mind starts to race ahead, it's like I compare it to, you know, I was walking a puppy the other day. I took a puppy for a walk and I had it on the lead and it was, it was just racing ahead. It was trying to like run off and I was like pulling the lead and I was like bloody, you know what I had to keep doing? I had to pull the lead back and just, and just pull it back to me. You know what I mean? Like imagine like a choker on the lead. I had to pull, pull it back. I discipline the puppy, come back, I'm in charge. Not. You don't race ahead. So the puppy's like the mind, every time it wants to race ahead and think about a future scenario, future event, the next task, you're the one in control. You need to pull it back to now, pull it back to the one who's in charge, which is you. The awareness and meditation is, is training your mind and letting it know that you're in charge and you're in control of thoughts that you have or you're in control of just being in the now. And that's that. I have to say that's probably the number one thing for dealing with anxiety and stress is getting control of your mind. Meditation is number one tool.

Do you remember when you first started meditating?

Yes.

If you struggled with the thoughts you were having? Because I know a lot of people who have rampant thoughts, like very active minds. You've said that you had that initially.

Yes.

Did you struggle with the thoughts you were having? Because I know a lot of people have thoughts and then they get tense. They don't want to be thinking about the things that they're thinking about and that's why they stay kind of stray away from meditation. Because being silent, being silent with their thoughts is quite confronting.

Yeah, I think I was definitely overthinker, man. I still am. I have tendency to just like my mind will just, you know, think way too much and then, yeah, prone to anxiety. And that's one of the main reasons why I started meditating. So I think I used to started with guided meditations. I think guided meditations were a good way to eat, are a good place to start because it eases you into the whole practice of just directing your attention into the body or directing your attention back into the present moment, whether that be on the body or the breath or through creative visualization. But the minute you kind of. I wouldn't suggest someone go straight into just a silent vipassana style. Quite. Sit quietly with your thoughts for an hour. If you've never meditated before, purely because then you are like diving headfirst into the pit of, you know, whatever is going to come up. If you're not prepared for what's going to come up, then it can be quite a, like, it may be a, quite a, like a bad experience because lots of people, like you said, push down lots of these thoughts. They never actually sit quietly and look at them face on. So I don't know, I guess in time if you can build up to the point where you're prepared to sit and sit in silence and be the observer and watch the thoughts that you're having. Because they're just thoughts at the end of the day. Day, they're not actually who you are. If you, if you can take that seat of observer and just say see what, what thoughts is my brain conjugating right now? What, what, what is it? What is it? What is this mental noise? And why, why is this happening? Can you just sit back and watch it and just kind of. I almost just like to laugh at it sometimes. Look at this. Like sometimes I just think about the stupidest shit. Like why is my brain thinking about that? But the fact that you're noticing it and just Letting it be there, letting it just run itself to sleep is the key. Sometimes it takes me, it's like a puppy, right? Just runs around in circles and just falls asleep at your feet. But the minute, sometimes it takes me longer than like some days I can sit there in the space of five minutes, I'll enter like a deep stillness and I can sit there, sit there for 45 minutes to an hour. Sometimes I'll be sitting with my eyes closed for like 50 minutes and my mind just won't shut up. I just can't seem to let go or let go of certain thoughts and they keep arising. But if I can get one or two minutes where I enter a space of silent stillness and the mind quietens and I access that feeling of oneness or wholeness, then that, that gets taken with me throughout the day. That's the mental training, the mental, the mental rep has been done and that's the key. People just have to stick with it. It's like going to the gym. You gotta, gotta keep, keep, keep consistent and over time you'll get better at meditating. You get better at dealing with stress and anxiety because your brain's getting stronger. You're creating new neural pathways in the brain that if you don't meditate, you don't, you don't have control of certain parts of your brain. It's going to control you. But I'd start small if I was first time meditator. I definitely suggest starting five to 10 minutes and just notice what comes up and as you kind of build a little bit more awareness and confidence that you can sit for longer. Then as you practice builds and you get better, you'll find you notice more and more, more and more of a difference in your day. I know you don't meditate. Like you were never someone who was too big on meditating. I think because you probably different personality type. But do you remember when you first meditated, what was the challenge you have?

I think probably just not knowing how to do it properly was my biggest challenge. I think I, yeah, I am, yeah, I kind of, I had my mum who taught me a lot about that kind of stuff and I think it started for me just kind of. Yeah, it's initially the separation you have to understand the separation of thoughts from, from you. That was my first realization and it made it a lot easier because if you're connected to the thoughts and you think that the thoughts are actually who you are, then you become very scared of your thoughts because the thoughts become truths. So you have a negative thought, or you have something that comes up in your head and you go, oh, I don't want to think that, because that's who I am now. Like, if I think it, it's true, and it becomes part of you. And that separation from thought, it gives you that ability, like you were saying, to just laugh at it and say, my thoughts are just arising and then they're falling just like waves. I have a thought, I can either choose to follow it or I can choose to let it go. So for me, as soon as I realized that my thoughts weren't who I was and that I actually have, like, there's a conscious side of my brain which is very powerful, and I can use to do maths, or, you know, I can use it for organization and planning and, you know, whatever. The mind is a very powerful tool. There's also the side of the mind that just goes rampant and I have no control over. But that's not who I am, therefore, I don't need to take it seriously a lot of the time. So for me, after I'd realized that it was just the process of just watching it, watching it, and not judging it, and then the thoughts just subside quicker and quicker. I think. Yeah, I think what you said, I think it's super important.

I mean, it goes back to the first podcast episode we did, understanding the true self. Like, you know, if you've. If. I guess if this is the first podcast someone's listening to and they just want to deal with stress, the whole thing goes all the way back to understanding who you really are. Understanding that you're not your thoughts, you're not. Not your body, you're not your possessions, understanding that, you know, the awareness that's behind all that, that's actually connected to everyone and everything and is always feeling from a place of love. Understanding that your true nature is love is the best way to deal with any kind of stress. Because all you have to really realize is the minute you're not feeling high emotional states such as love, joy, peace, you're out of alignment with the present moment, you're out of alignment with your true nature. And all meditation is. Is just returning yourself back to what you. You truly are. It's. It's just. It's. It's all within us already. We just have to get out of our own way most of the time.

Yeah, you hit the nail on the head there. I think for me, when I try to explain meditation to someone, it's trying to explain to someone that the goal of meditation is that There is no goal. And that meditation doesn't give you because it's getting the mind out of that state of gain. Once again, if stress is caused by the need to gain and the fear of loss, meditation gets you out of that by saying there is no gain. Meditation doesn't inherently give you anything that's going to make you less stressed or a better person or a nicer person or more peaceful. It's about saying you already have all of that at your disposal. Clear out all of the thoughts and the identities and attachments and fears you have by calming the mind. And it's already there. It's. It's. It's. Yeah, it's there. And it's. It's accessible at any time.

Legit, man. I've. Have we done a podcast on meditation? We speak about. Maybe we should do a podcast. We'll dedicate a podcast to meditation, I think, because I. I must. It's something that I've got. I've had in my mind for a while that I want to actually put together, like a course, a meditation course for people who are just starting out. So, you know, watch this space. Hopefully I can get something up on the website soon, obviously, because that was what I do with my job. I'm essentially teaching people to meditate at work. And I get to see such a vast array of people that come through with these conditions. Stress, anxiety, depression. And meditation is so new to them and seeing the challenges that people have. And it's, I think, being able to articulate it in a way that someone can adopt meditation, most of the time, it's purely just to cover up. They just want to fix a certain symptom. But then I want people to understand what's really happening when you meditate. And what we're really doing is connecting with the pure, boundless awareness that we all share. And when you understand that, because it's hard, it's sometimes esoteric to talk about is. Is as we are, as we've realized from the first podcast. It's a tough thing to talk about, is that space behind the mind. But if you can, if you can. I think meditation is such a great gateway because people are now waking up to meditation being. It's been proven to work. It's proven to change the brain. And like I said, it's already, you know, it's already a great tool to apply to kind of having your arsenal for things like anxiety and stress. But if we can. If we can use that as a way to educate people on what meditation is really leading to. Then we open up this whole new avenue of personal and spiritual growth where once you begin that path, it's so magical where it can lead and take you. I can't remember where I was going with this, but I was gonna, I was gonna say I've, I've. I've been experimenting with two hours a day of meditation for the past couple of weeks. You know, I would like to share with people how that's been going maybe in the next podcast.

And I'd like to know.

Yeah, because I, I strongly believe, like, the more you, the more you do it, the, the more, the more amazing the impact, the more astounding the awareness gets deeper. And you just have to sit for long enough and connect. And it's a lot about practicing, training your attention as well, holding your attention. And a lot of people can't concentrate for long enough. So the first, first little part of meditation is practicing concentrating. I think most of us have add, especially kids, man, because of technology, a lot of us can't concentrate, can't keep our attention in one spot for long enough. But the minute you meditate for longer, you're actually getting better at holding your attention on the awareness, because that's all it is. You're reminding yourself to return the attention back to the space, the awareness, which is no thought, it's in no, no thing, it's no place, it's in no time. If we can hold the attention in that space for long enough, it just grows and grows and grows until you. You feel complete wholeness and oneness. And you say, all I could describe is you. Essentially, you get. You leave your body, you leave the earth, and you enter a place of complete connectedness with everyone and everything. And it's not three dimensional, it's actually five dimensional, because you're everywhere. You're in every time, and you're in everybody. And I want, I want to help people get access to this place. So, yeah, we can, we can definitely continue our chat about meditation another time. But I think for today, as a recap of the ways people can deal with stress, you know, we've got meditation, deep breathing, simple mindfulness, tips for remaining in the present moment each time you catch yourself getting overwhelmed. Like what other things? Like, just before we sign off for the day, exercise for me is a great way to just make sure that your energy is flowing within the body. If you have stuck energy, it's another. It's. You're prone to stress then, because there's no, there's no efficient flow of energy in the body, you're gonna. You're gonna keep tension, particularly around the chest and the chest area, which is where we spoke about coherence in the heart. Any other things that you can. Any other final tip before we sign off for the day? Collins?

I think for me, for me it's just. I just ask people to question what. They question what they place importance on in their life. Because, I mean, when I like, if people. If people genuinely think that if they want to achieve and they want to go up the corporate ladder, there's nothing wrong with that. And it's saying if you're happy with experiencing stress to get there, if you're happy with that side effect and the goal is worth it for you, then there's nothing wrong with that. But I'd question the people that are feeling that tenseness all the time and they genuinely don't like it. I just ask you to question what you place importance on in your life. And it might be that you need to reallocate your effort into the space of life that you really want to focus on. And if that's peace and not stress, or if you want to get away from that, then, yeah, I'd definitely try and implement some of the things Jordy's been talking about.

I love it, mate. It's been great chatting with you as always.

Yeah, buddy.

And we'll have to get another episode up and running very soon.

Yeah, I'm off to bed. I've got to get up to see the Champions League.

Yeah, we've got the Champions League Final on. Luckily for me, I get to watch it at prime time. 2:30 in the afternoon for you. It's what, 4, 4am or something, is it?

3Am? That's gonna be a cracker of a game.

It'd be a great game. Shout out to all the Liverpool fans out there. Hopefully they can bring it home. Yeah, yeah. All right, mate, well, enjoy the game and we'll chat to you again soon.

Alright, mate, speak soon.

Bye, mate. There we have it, another episode of the Stage Shifters podcast. As always, if there's any further questions or information you want from us, just reach out to me. Other than that, feel free to share this episode with friends or family who you think might benefit from some of the information Josh and I shared. And definitely give us a follow on social media as well and subscribe. Leave some feedback if you're feeling extra kind. Stay tuned for the next episode soon, guys, take care.