The Art of Chilling Out with Angela Coleman

Welcome to the Living to 100 Club Podcast. Here's our host, Dr. Joseph Casciani.

Well, hello to everyone joining us today on our podcast. You're listening to one of our Successful Aging episodes this month on the Living to 100 Club program, and I'm your host, Joe Casciani. Each week, our conversations educate and inspire, helping you get the best out of all the years we're given, regardless of what obstacles come our way. Today's conversation invites as its guest Angela Coleman. Author of The Art of Chilling Out. This is a conversation about burnout, worry, and stress, and the ways to replace these negative states with spiritual healing, self-care, and self-love. Angela relates the need for resilience and adaptation and how important these are today in the face of social media demands, technology demands, and the stresses from post-COVID isolation. Where does our resilience come from? How do we tap into it? And how can we empower ourselves with the tools to chill out? First, a little background. Angela Coleman, author of The Art of Chilling Out for Women, is a holistic health expert who founded the global nonprofit Sisterhood Agenda in 1994, and later the for-profit business Sisterhood Agenda Enterprises, LLC. Angela is the author of more than 20 books, including Girl's Guide: How to Relax and Let Go, Girl's Guide: How to Be Like Michelle Obama, and Girl's Guide: How to Lose Weight Fast and Forever. Angela grew up in Newark, New Jersey, graduated cum laude from Princeton University with an AB degree in psychology and African American studies. She was awarded the Student Achievement Award and Feminist Scholarship and the American Psychological Association Minority Undergraduate Student of Excellence Award. Wow. Coleman later studied clinical psychology at Howard University, earned a degree in nonprofit management from Duke University, and received an MBA from the University of Phoenix. She holds certifications in trauma, psychological first aid, suicide prevention, and African holistic health. Angela, you've been a busy person.

Thank you. Yeah, I've been following my passion and I've been on my own healing journey in the process.

Yeah, well, great. Well, welcome to our program today. I always like to open by asking our guests to tell us the highlights of what brought you to where you are today. I know I covered a bit of your history, but maybe help us understand the highlights that took you to where you are today.

Well, it's really interesting because I'm an animal lover. I, I've always loved animals and been very sensitive to the plight of, of animals, and I remember I was thinking I wanted to be a veterinarian. That was after I thought I wanted to be an attorney. And when I took classes as an undergraduate at Princeton, I took an animal behavior class, and the class was literally divided half into biology and half into psychology. And at that time, I was thinking I'd be more pre-med with the possibility of either helping animals and humans or both. And I was really intrigued by the psychology part. And so I started taking more psychology classes. And I found what I love, just studying how we do the things that we do, maybe some of the reasons why, and ways in which we can help ourselves. Throughout the course of my time as a student, and even after graduation, and even in other places where I've traveled and visited, I've always took advantage of training opportunities to help them with sexual health, with nutrition, with, of course, mental health and even spiritual awareness and all of that cultural relevance and using culture, you know, as a form of resilience and, and helping people, helping communities. So it was just a natural course. I also tend to root for like the underdog in certain things. And in some ways I saw that there were people who were underdogs, you know, our most vulnerable, our most affected, our most at risk for ACEs, for adverse childhood experiences, for trauma, for poverty, for health disparity. And so there were always things that I wanted to do. I said, well, I hopefully can do something to help. In my own small way, and really looking at the link between personal empowerment, collective empowerment, health and healing, and community development. I feel like I've kind of come full circle. I'm dabbling in all those things in my nonprofit agency, Sisterhood Agenda, focusing on girls' empowerment, but also on health and holistic health and wellness, and also on housing and community development. You never know kind of what classes you might take and what experiences you might have. Even the research projects that I've participated in and how it's taught me to be accountable, how to use evidence-based and proven strategies, but also the awareness of culture in my travel of being able to also incorporate more traditional practices. In who we are now and looking back and seeing how we did things before and how that's very helpful to inform the present because more complicated isn't always better. It's on simplifying our process and simplify ways of doing and thinking about things, but always also looking at how we can improve ourselves because by improving ourselves, we automatically improve all of those around us, especially the people that we care about and spend a lot of time with. So yeah, just looking at that impact.

Yeah, well, you've, you've covered a lot of ground and sounds like you've opened a lot of doors along the way. Even following your path, there are different kind of touch points or milestones for you in, in your career. So I think that's great. I really admire you for, for that because you, you broaden your life and you help to incorporate other worlds, other cultures, and Digesting that process helps you be more of an informed caregiver yourself. That's great.

Sure.

Yeah. So let's jump right into your, your new book, The Art of Chilling Out. Tell me, um, let's tell, tell our audience, who's it for? Why did you write the book?

Well, The Art of Chilling Out is specifically for women, at least this first one anyway, although lots of men that I've shared it with have found a great benefit. And I think that's because being able to relax and rejuvenate and restore and reset are things we all could, you know, different ways of doing that is something we can all benefit from learning how to do. And that's why it's called The Art of Chilling Out. But I, again, going on looking at more vulnerable populations, I have found that women often have the hardest time mastering the art of chilling out. And that's why this book is dedicated to the women out there who are working really hard and holding up the world and play such a central role in their families, their personal lives, but also in very many various workspaces and marketplaces, but may find it difficult to sometimes turn it off and aren't in tune to the rhythm and the cycle of productivity and rest, and may also as a result be suffering from the consequences of not being in rhythm and not being in tune. So, um, really looking at how we can correct that, because it's totally within our power, do it differently, um, and how vital that rest and relaxation is to our health, our mental, physical, spiritual well-being.

Yeah, well, we do see the effects of stress all around us. We see people who are having difficulty slowing down and resetting, as you said. So why, why is, why are we seeing so much of this burnout today? What's, what's going on and why is it so common in today's world?

Well, I think a lot of it has to do with the pace. You know, it's, it's a fast pace. And it used to just be like urban areas or large metropolitan cities were fast-paced. Like, oh, I'm not in New York City, so why do I feel like I'm in Russia all the time? Or why am I here? But we know that your state of mind has nothing to do with where you are physically. Your state of mind, and especially with technology and social media, there's an immediacy, there's an urgency to every request. And communication. And there's an expectation that you're going to respond in real time right now as if everything is, is an emergency. Everything is so, so, so important. But everything can't be important. So that's why we have value systems, and that's why we are able to create priorities for ourselves. But that's a life skill. That's something that a lot of us learn how to do, like management and And parenting, sometimes we're better at the second child than the first. We got this from experience. Or there are certain things that we want to know how to do well, so we read. But it's really also about experience. And unfortunately, many of us are having health crisis that allow us to then— it forces us to stop, forces us, literally puts us down. Where we can't do anything before we recognize that, oh, this needs to change. And so this is very preventive in the sense that we don't have to have a medical emergency or an event that knocks us down. Because stress, we know stress can kill. Stress leads to disease. It leads to dysfunction and ailments, physical issues, and also mental stress. And it's in our control again to do something about it. So it's really relevant to have that state of mind and to know how to shut things off, just like how we know how to turn things on.

So burnout is a function of really having difficulty shutting things off.

Yes.

Having difficulty saying no to waiting, to not responding immediately, to, you know, kind of pull back from all these external demands. So the person who is burned out is going to have, you know, experience difficulty with all of these kind of protective mechanisms. That's what you're saying? Sure. Yeah.

Well, I think it's a combination of factors. Um, I wouldn't say it's just those things because your support system, your history, your personal history, Those all can help you or hurt you in terms of resilience or make you more susceptible and vulnerable. So if you're taught that you're lazy, if you're not always doing something or always working, then you're going to live in fear of being called lazy, you know, or being labeled as a lazy person. If the women in your family were expected, for example, to be the primary caregiver for aging parents, and that expectation is on you, then that's going to be something that's part of your personal history. You decide you are not in the position to do that. But just how we manage our companies or delegate or outsource, we have to know what our limitations and our capabilities are, ways to increase our own personal capacity, and also ways in which we can develop expectations, boundaries. For example, in The Art of Chilling Out for Women, I have chapters about creating boundaries, for listening to your body parameters, for taking time, for time out. The way that we can incorporate even very brief pauses to allow our bodies to do what it naturally needs and wants to do, not just our bodies, our bodies, our minds, and our spirits. And that's why it's holistic health. To feed it what it's asking for and what it needs, to be able to listen, to find out what that is, because it's different for everybody. It's not the same for you. Sure. It's for me.

Uh, yeah. So let me, let me shift it to the 55 and over age group. And I wonder, you know, since most of my listeners are in that, in that group, that category, where does burnout look different for seniors than it does for middle-aged adults? I mean, you mentioned the medical factors that come into play, and I imagine there are other, other demands and pulls for this age group. Can you, can you articulate about that a little bit?

Sure. I think it totally depends on how you view retirement, right? There's some people who I talk to that literally are afraid to retire because they're like, I don't want to die. Everyone who's retired, they die, they don't do anything. And there are some people who call themselves retired, but they don't actually retire. We know, we know those people. And we also those people who retire maybe from a paid outside-of-the-home work obligation, but then increase their personal obligations to the point where they're still just as busy. They're just as, I would say, hurried, and the expectations they have for themselves have been maintained. They haven't changed. And we know other people that are like, oh, I'm retired. I'm not doing anything anymore. I'm going to travel. I'm going to enjoy my life or do the things that I've always thought about what I want to do from my planned retirement. So, it really depends. And I think it also depends on your family, your family structure. You know, if you have grandchildren, what the expectations are for caregiving for those grandchildren. Some of us still do have aging parents, as I mentioned, and women in particular are usually the ones who are expected to be the caregivers, not just for the children, but the aging parents and everybody in between too, like your spouse, your friend, and be there for other people in your lives. So I think it It totally makes a difference. But I do know that when you can chill out, it increases your health. It increases your longevity. It increases your quality of life. And some people only find that out after they stop working outside of the home, only when they get older and they realize, I could have been doing all these things when I was younger, but I didn't. But now I'm ready to do them. And part of that is being proud of, quote unquote, doing nothing. Right. So in the, in the Art of Chilling Out, I'm saying how doing nothing is actually doing something. It's doing something really important, and it's also a choice. It's saying, I'm going to decompress, I'm going to let my mind wander, I'm going to daydream. And daydreaming is critical to creative visualization, which is critical to manifestation. It's, it's key to visioning and planning and creating a life that you want for yourself. It also gives your body a chance to restore all those cells and those muscles and to recover. Let's say you went for a walk, exercise, join a class, you do something very strenuous. Even gardening sometimes can be strenuous. That's one of my favorite hobbies. When you pause, that gives your body a chance. And that's why in yoga, you know, you have shavasana at the end after you activate, then you rest. And that's just part of the— that's part of how the natural cycle of life is. So many of us are finding that that's so beneficial, it's so necessary, and it's so critical. Not only does it make life better, it can make it different for you if you don't experience that on a regular basis. But I do believe also it can increase your health to the point where you can live longer, you can be healthier, you can be stronger. And also then you can also be mentally and spiritually there and present. For those other people in your life. Because someone who's very stressed out is adversely affected. They're not always all there and present and active participants of their lives because they're too in it. They're in the stressful place. They're in the motion and in the movement. And, um, if you've been around very stressful people, you know the vibe is different. The vibrations literally are different around someone who is suffering from some stress and is on edge than someone who's very relaxed and very calm and has a daily routine of making that a priority in their lives. So you can be in that peaceful, wonderful place and really have mastered the art of chilling out, and then you get in your car and you go down the street, somebody cuts you off, and then does something rude out the window, right? Which has actually happened to me before. But that's a good one.

So let's talk about, let me talk about, ask you about some of the tools. And you know, you mentioned, you touched on some of them, but when we are overstressed, what are some of these empowerment tools as you refer to them? What are they? How do they come into our life?

Well, each section of our Chilling Out is split into— there are over 101 ways. Well, there are over 100. There are 101 ways. And each section has a holistic prescription and it has an affirmation. So affirmations are very powerful. So like in the incidents I just described, and that person did that to me, I can say, I am calm, I am peaceful, I am enjoying my day. So despite what's happening, I'm putting myself back in the place I was before that thing happened. One of my favorite affirmations is in the chapter called Create a Protective Shield, where I say, my protective shield guards and protects all that is precious at all times, in all ways. So in addition to the affirmation for each of the over 100 sections, I also have what I call a holistic prescription. So the holistic prescription includes a call to action. It includes Mother Nature. Remedies, gemstones, and feng shui. And that's because, like a doctor, you go to go fill a prescription. This is something that you don't have to go anywhere to do. The call to action is a behavioral shift. It's a mental change, and it's something to say, I can do this right now. So like for the, these chapter about creating a protective shield, the call to action is visualize and practice erecting your force field when navigating unknown situations and negative people. And in that chapter, I've already— I've talked about those things, so you'll know exactly what that means. I talk about using Mother Nature, bay leaves for spiritual enhancement and protection, peppermint for enhanced healing, luck, love, and protection, thyme for spiritual awareness plus healing with love and courage. And I purposefully include herbs that most people have in their kitchen. Now gemstones are interesting because these tiny magical stones are imbued with certain properties that are enhancing. Stones can actually change energy. So I, in this particular one, when we're creating a protective shield, I advocate that you use moonstone for self-protection and good fortune, citrine, which is one of my favorites, for enhanced manifestation, personal will, and prosperity, and onyx Onyx is specifically magical because it can actually absorb and transform negative energy and can increase your emotional and physical strength. So this is a stone that literally can manipulate energy. And then I have feng shui because your environment plays such a role in your emotional state of mind. And so the feng shui principles for optimal feng shui balance and harmony I recommend for the protective shield chapter, adding earth elements like clay pots and stones for grounding, adding metal elements like metal furniture and mirrors, plus the use of white and gray colors. That's going to increase your clarity. It's going to increase connectedness too with the water elements. And the water elements will also help you with like intuition and also with wisdom. What does that mean? You can put a little water fountain somewhere that, that sound is going to be very healing. Water itself is very healing. It's great for connection. It's great for moving through, flowing through your emotions. Feng Shui principles often start off for me with clearing and decluttering because often we have too much in our space. And so by having more physical space, Getting rid of old things that no longer serve you, no longer serve their function. For example, let's say they're broken or they're outdated or you don't use it anymore. That helps you to move on in all ways and create more space, which opens up more doors to your blessings.

Uh, Angela, it sounds like, so, you know, somebody purchases your book, they get a lot of these tools at their fingertips, a lot of these recommendations. I wonder if you could offer maybe 2 or 3 tools that you would recommend for someone who wanted to de-stress or chill out? You know, not— one or two things that you think are really, really important that we could adopt throughout our day. What would you recommend?

I recommend that people create a ritual for themselves for handling stress. And for some people, that might be meditation. For other people, it might be walking. A ritual, a go-to. So when you're stressed, you can go to that place, you can go to that activity, you can do that thing. And you're choosing a healthy coping mechanism and a healthy habit that you can remind yourself is available to you to do it. And along those lines, second one I would say is to have a sacred space, a space that's all yours, that's unique to you. It could be in your backyard or on your balcony. It could be the park down the street. It could be a rock. It could be, um, a little corner with a pillow that you sit down and you're able to be still and you're able to do deep breathing and you're able to just think or be by yourself. It could be in the bathtub, but whatever that sacred space is for you, um, where you feel at peace, where you feel like you're really connecting to your soul, to spirit and the universe, to have that space. And to use that space. And that space is only used for that and only that. It's not used for anything else. I also do suggest incorporating the feng shui principles to look at feng shui, which can get as detailed and in-depth as you want to, but really look at how you can incorporate feng shui as— and tying that into stress, which isn't commonly thought of in that way. When you think of feng shui, you think of decorating, interior design, and that's part of it too. But it's also use of plants, flowers, not just aromatherapy, but clearing and purifying the air, helping you to connect to nature, opening your windows, opening your doors, getting fresh air, going outside, grounding yourself with the earth. Connecting to things that are outside of you, green spaces, really utilizing the power of those green spaces to elevate your mood and to have you, especially if you're like in a bit of a negative mind state, to have you transition from that into something much better.

That's great. Those are very helpful. I mean, your book is, as we've said, is filled with a lot of these 101 tips. But the 3 that you're talking about here is finding some rituals throughout our day, walking, meditation, whatever that activity is that clears our mind, having some sacred space, you know, somewhere where we can be still and be by ourself. And then the Feng Shui principles. And, you know, as you say, it's more than just decorating and how, how the, um, you know, the front entrance looks. Uh, it's much more than that, right? Yeah, that's great, that's great. So tell us about your other books. You, you've written over 20. What would you recommend for our listeners?

Well, if you're having trouble relaxing, I definitely recommend Girl's Guide: How to Relax and Let Go. Uh, that letting go part is often the critical piece that's overlooked in the relaxation process, right? Letting go also is part of change acceptance that I do discuss in The Art of Chilling Out for Women Too, which is part of adapting, letting go of your past and your expectations and embracing the future, knowing that it's a brighter future, that these changes are necessary, often part of life, and that they are not something to be feared, but often something to be welcome and encouraged. So let's see, other book, Life After ACEs is about overcoming girlhood trauma. Some of us are the way that we are and are responsive to things that are in our present life as adult women because of a history that's rooted in traumatic experiences when we were little. And being able to put that into context and see maybe why you're doing some of the things that you're doing and help you to overcome them, that's what Life After ACEs is all about. Life After Adverse Childhood Experiences. Because what would you be doing? It'd be—

ACEs as in A-C-E-S?

Yeah. ACEs as in capital A, capital C, capital E, and a small S. Okay.

ACEs, yeah.

ACEs is an adverse childhood experience.

Oh, okay. That's an acronym.

If you think of that right, and if you think it's an acronym, if you think of ACEs, you think, oh, that's good and that's cool. But that's tennis. Not in real life. An ace is not— you don't want a lot of aces. Because the higher the number of adverse childhood experiences a person has, the more predictive it is for disease and addiction, compulsive behaviors, depression, and a lot of other negative outcomes that interfere with a person's capacity to thrive and really self-actualize. So we want to reduce that. But if you can't reduce that, you've already suffered these ACEs at a time in your life where you didn't have control over who was around you and what was going on. And all the studies show women have significantly more and higher ACEs than men. Then what you can do is still build resilience and awareness, and you can heal and overcome your ACEs so that you don't become a statistic. You don't fall into those traps. And that's what I encourage women to do. Wow.

Well, that's great. So you have a website people wanted to access your library of books, authored books. What's the, what's the website?

The books are available at your local bookstore and online. Um, angeladecoleman.com is my website. You can look for the books on Amazon, Barnes Noble, um, and as I mentioned, other, you know, your favorite bookstore. And my agency, Sisterhood Agenda, that's at sisterhoodagenda.com, nonprofit. They also have information in the shop. About— there are downloadable products from there as well for stress management and for starting sister circles and other ways to create positive support systems for resilience and overcoming some of our ACEs and other experiences. And just a way also to bond, bond in togetherness. And being around supportive people is very important. Yeah, that's right. With— after the— I wrote most of the art of Chilling Out for Women at the end part of when the pandemic first started and it was still an emergency. There were still a lot of unknowns. You know, there was a lot of job and housing instability. And there were people who were making major life decisions, you know, and saying, you know what, what I was doing before, that no longer is making me happy. And now is the time for me to change and pivot. And there were some people who really successfully navigated it and other people who really struggled. And so this book, The Art of Chilling Out, was for people who maybe had difficulty accepting the changes that were going on and even thereafter were struggling with the being able to just work with what is. And accept what is and make decisions in which they prioritize themselves. And I—

so the, the two sites, angela.d.coleman.com and then sisterhoodagenda.com, both collection of resources where people can learn more about you and your work. It looks like we're out of time for today, Angela, but before we wrap up, I just want to remind my listeners to visit my website, livingto100.club. Sign up for my email list, and download a free copy of my 9 Tips to Make Living Longer Enjoyable. You'll also see an option to contact me with your questions and comments. Angela, thanks so much for being a guest on our show, uh, today. And again, angeladecoleman.com is one way to contact you and learn more about your work. So thanks very much, and thanks to everyone for tuning in today. Hope to see you next time.

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