Yoga Interlude – Feeling Less Stress and More Joy
How stressful was this week for you? Do you know what triggers you? Sometimes we can easily name our challenges. For some, it’s a financial situation, a difficult relationship, paperwork, getting the kids to bed…other times, it’s hard to put your finger on what’s causing you to be edgy or your stomach to clench. If you can identify what’s weighing on you, that’s the first step toward being able to deal with changing it.
How do you respond to feeling stressed? Do you get anxious, angry, quietly withdraw, pour more of your attention into work, take a bath, exercise? We all need a release and some are healthier outlets than others.
Are you more proactive or reactive? When we don’t acknowledge or deal with the stress we are enduring, it negatively impacts either our physical health or our emotional state or both. Feeling anxious often follows when certain stressors aren’t being handled. Anxiety can hold you back from something as simple as participating in a group discussion or stop you from bigger things like traveling. Where does it stop you?
Anxiety is an emotional response that can be overwhelming and dis-empowering for even the most successful people.
This week I want to invite you to my upcoming coaching program, “Stop the Anxiety that is Stopping You“. While I’m no doctor, I have occasionally, and needlessly, run to one in a panic. I have acquired a lot of tools to help me deal with stress and anxiety. Using the resources I will be sharing in my program, has enabled me to go from not flying for eight years to having flown more than a dozen times in the past three years.
Try this next time you feel anxious….locate where the emotion resides in your body. Then tune into that part and ask what it’s trying to tell you. Wait a minute or two for a message to come. It may come as a word, a picture or an idea. Thank your body for communicating and then breathe a calming color into that area and imagine that color dissolving the anxiety and it leaving your body as you exhale. Please let me know if you felt any shift. Sometimes we are faced with harsh circumstances but more often we are not really in a state of emergency.
So why the anxiety? Maybe you’re feeling too stretched and have taken on more than you can comfortably handle. Perhaps it’s the headlines and global forecasts that put you in a spin. Did you know you are influenced by other people’s moods? For sure your kids are impacted by yours. In fact, there is actually scientific proof of this being so and I just read an interesting article in Oprah’s newsletter that states:
“Whatever your mood, it’s contagious! See the smiling face of a loved one, and you smile inside too. Step onto a subway train full of tired, anxious commuters, and you’re instantly on edge…..This transfer of moods happens through special nerve cells in the brain called mirror neurons… these mirror neurons actually download the mood of one person into the brains of others.
But your mood swings are more than contagious—that great mood and that sour one actually change the brains of those around you. . . either strengthening the wires that promote joy or bolstering those that cause stress. And your wires live on in the brains of your children, and their children, which is why passing on that state of spiritual connection and compassion is vitally important for your future.
The new era of social responsibility is emotional. If you’re stuck in stress, you spread emotional pollution and the extremes of action and emotion that threaten the planet.
You can read the rest of Oprah’s article here.
Yoga Interlude is all about helping you feel less stress and more joy. The yoga helps to release stress in the body. The coaching helps to propel you into creating the positive changes that will give you greater peace of mind and contentment. The laughter workshops help to raise your vibration, grow your capacity to experience joy and engage your playful spirit.
“Stop the Anxiety that is Stopping You“ is an eight week group coaching program that takes place on the phone in July 2010 and offers natural solutions to help you feel calm amidst the chaos of your busy life. Acquire new tools to become more emotionally resourceful and grow your confidence. Learn how to be present, powerful and proactive in the face of feeling anxious. See the “Events” page or contact me for details.
In the meantime, I’d love your feedback! Here on my blog, I offer commentluv. When you leave a comment, you can leave a link back to your own site.
Until next time,
Ali
