20 Sept 2019 · 7 min
Dan Millman, a former world champion gymnast and author, shares techniques for managing stress by reducing tension and flowing with life's challenges rather than fighting them.
This is five minute Friday. I am very excited about today's guest. He is a hero of mine, someone I've looked up to for years. His books have inspired me. His movie inspired me that his book was based off of. And his name is Dan Millman. He's a former world champion gymnast, Stanford University coach, Oberlin College professor and martial arts instructor. He is the author of He has 16 books and published in 29 languages, including his classic Way of the Peaceful Warrior, which was adapted into a film in 2006. Dan's keynotes and seminars has inspired people from all walks of life, including leaders in the field of health, psychology, education, business, politics, sports, and the arts.
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When you experience any type of stress or any type of a breakdown in your life, whether it be minor or major breakdowns that occur, what is your practice for overcoming those breakdowns or those minor moments of stress? Do you have a practice or a ritual that you follow? a breathing technique, a way of being that you shift into?
There are techniques one can learn, but at some point, you know, and I believe me, I've had them coming out of my ears. I've had so many, I've learned so many techniques over the decades for this or that. But let me just address stress. Stress is part of everyday life. If I can tell people two things about stress, I can say stress happens when the mind resists what is. In other words, whatever is arising in life, if we resist it, it creates some stress, psychological stress, maybe translated to physical stress as well, blood pressure and so on. When we learn to flow with life and kind of dance with it the way any good martial artist would do, not fighting the force but learning to use it, getting out of the way, we experience less stress, first of all. But the second thing is stress is a normal part of life. The only way to avoid stress is don't care about anything. But most of us do care. So we're engaged with life. So sometimes we get the elevator, sometimes we get the shaft, as the saying goes. And things happen, changes, disappointments, and we feel stressed. A flat tire on the way to an important appointment or a date, these things happen. But there is a big difference between stress plus tension or stress without tension. So we can't really control this abstract idea we define as stress, but we can control our degree of tension. any of us can, right now, any listener can tense their body. We have that ability, tense all our muscles. And if we can tense, we can relax, just the opposite. Let go, shake, take a breath. And you know what? Relaxed stress is a very different critter from tense stress. So whenever a stressful element happens in our lives, we can use that as just kind of a signal to take a deep breath, let it out, shake loose, and see how relaxed we can be even as we face the stress. And you know, this is especially true in the stress if you're ever attacked by multiple attackers, that's quite a stressful situation. And that is exactly when you need to learn to move and relax. Because most people don't get beaten up because their techniques aren't good enough. It's because they get too tired. And so by staying relaxed and moving and flowing, which this martial art that I'm studying now, Systema, emphasizes, it really, really really helps us prevail in everyday life and everyday stresses as well.
Yeah.
Or they just stop breathing, you know, with ease. They start shortening their breath or they.
Yeah, that's typical. Yeah, that's typical.
If you can't breathe, it's hard to do anything.
You know, the only difference between fear and excitement is whether we're breathing.
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