Lessons
Day 1
1Know What's Really on Your Plate
48:48 2Recognizing Your De-stressers
42:43 3Guided Visualization of Stress
13:00 4What Exactly Is Stress?
20:37 5Why Does Stress Fry My Brain? And Q&A
21:32 6Awareness is the First Step
28:40 7Know Your Stress Dashboard
26:21Tools for Cooling Down
31:14 9Put Yourself on the Calendar
49:00 10Student & Web Questions
13:24 11How to Create a Successful Strategy
17:10 12Using Your Strengths to Ease Stress
36:56 13Knowing You: What's Your Vision?
23:12 14Balancing Your Energy: Delete
37:44 15Balancing Your Energy: Delegate & Defer
28:42 16Shifting Your Perception
23:20 17Choosing Your Mindset
30:08 18Create Habits of Mindfulness
31:37 19The Human Operating System
20:02 20Training for Resilience
25:36 21Voicing Out Our Needs
30:01 22Creating New Habits to Fight Stress
18:09 23Be Aware: Sustaining & Derailing Habits
26:23 24Being Empowered With Mindful Habits
39:12 25Why We Fail
26:14 26Having the Optimal Mindset
37:54 27Succeeding With Your Goal(s)
19:51 28S.M.A.R.T. Goals
28:03 29Building Up Your Confidence
35:08 30Why You Should Put Up Guardrails
31:00 31Fine Tuning Habits of Resilience
21:12 32Celebrate Your Successes
19:07Day 2
Day 3
Lesson Info
Guided Visualization of Stress
So I want to talk about what stress really is on dh like most humans and maybe a little more than some I'm an experiential learner someone to stretch out I think it's the best way to learn about stress I promised that I won't leave you in the state I took a hippocratic oath and I'm gonna believe everybody feeling better I hope but I want I want to really talk about how stress manifests in us what happens so with your permission at um end your compliance I'd love for you to just close your eyes for a second and think about something in your life that's particularly frustrating something that gives you that uh feeling some of the things that are mentioned a place where you feel out of control a place where you don't have the authority but you've got the responsibility something that gives you that really frustrated feeling and just let your mind swim around it for a second all the different aspects of it what is it about it that's just gotcha and how does that feel just that uh feeling a...
nd before you open your eyes I want you to scan sort of start down at your feet come on up through your legs to your hips your gut in bali your lungs, your heart, your shoulders, your jaw, your facial muscles across the eyes in your temples and your skin on your face and then kind of notice your your thought processes are they fast, slow notice what you're feeling when you're thinking about something stressful and go ahead and open your eyes and share? What do you notice when you think of something that's frustrating you? Um, my stomach gets a little upset yeah, um, friends, I think I tend as you were before this exercise, I would have said that my mind would have really been racing in that type of thing, but as you asked us, tio, um, identify our thoughts and if they were racing or not, actually weren't raising so surprised by that, but you're aware that sometimes they dio yeah, yeah, yeah, because we you're right, we don't usually stop in the middle and scan right on. We're gonna talk about that? Uh, so yeah, just sort of feeling of push away and stop, right, right and then it's cross yeah, I won't get to the gun in just a minute because that's an important think to notice what else did you notice? I also noticed in my, um my facial muscles. I sort of clenched up a swell so I'ma teeth clincher what did you notice? Something I noticed in my forehead was intense? They're a little in my calves and in my shoulders yeah, particular ice to love working in the psychology office and people coming in this I'm not stressed well yeah ok you're not stressed let's let's get the quarters out bounce um you know oh, okay. What did that online audience notice? She's looking for some different answers right now, people coming through our heroes are they're saying they're feeling heavy rush teary eyed motion and then crushed up that's one heavy that's a heavy and crushed and create carol is saying jaws clenched another one clenched has come up in a few different people's answers. So isn't that a natural defense? We're clenching our jaws were setting ourselves to defense we're doing that so there are all of these physical feelings that went with the thought that we had it's fascinating how it's all tied together so I actually did take an oath and I'm here to relieve your stress so let's d'oh the second skill that I'd love to teach you all this is loosely adapted from a company called heart math, which did a lot of research about how when we bring up positive emotions it's it's healthy so this is loosely based on a guided visualization from them with liberty's from cindy. So if you go ahead and close your eyes again and bring your attention to your breath for just a minute and I'd like you to put a hand over your heart area and become aware of your breath coming in and out of your heart area just softly it's just filling and letting go now bring to mind someone something or someplace you really appreciate it could be the beach or the mountaintop. It can be a person who's very special in your life and gives you an inner smile if you're feeling tax static can be your dog greeting you when everybody else didn't really want to, but something that gives you a happy feeling on the inside and bring to mind sort of the sights and sounds and feelings of that, and then bring your awareness to that area underneath your hand in your heart and notice what that feels like a cz you breathe in that appreciation and that positive feeling just notice it's starting to glow in there call it like the little inner smile in your heart. Let each breath just grow that feeling. Maybe with an exhale, you can send some of that feeling out to that area that tends step in the last exercise. Just let it grow with each breath. I now send a little of that positive feeling from your hand back to you, for taking the time to take care of yourself and do this, and then with the next breath, breathe out a little of that feeling to someone in the universe who needs it, let it spread out there I know that this feeling is always there when you bring your attention to it and let it grow and go ahead and open your eyes again now what do you notice? Uh I guess again I feel more grounded in centered and appreciative versus um closed off for pushing away nice I like that you use the word pushing away we sort of have two modes as humans way away or were toward that's really how we're sorting things out. So that was a nice thing to say and I think it will be helpful to me because I do crave the connection from let's say my family but when I get stressed I don't feel like calling them even though I'm a thief I feel like calling them I don't feel like calling them and being able to do this exercise to get me more into ah um centered place to then reach out and connected them well that's nice that's really nice and in fact the part of this that comes from hard math has written up in here and there's a heart math like arithmetic is the website but um some people will do this exercise which is basically bring your attention to your breath, especially around the heart area and pulling up a positive emotion the rest was cindy elaborating on it but that's the basis part of it a lot of people will do that and then get themselves to meditate because it is it creates the state called coherence where your heart and your breath are more coherent we have all kinds of rhythms and its brainwaves heart rate breathing rhythms our bodies are full of rhythm we're basically made of energy and energy has rhythm were more space than we are matter if you consider an adam and the way everything rotates is describes our rhythms and when those rhythms air coherent when there's symphony to them were healthier and this is a quicker way to get there I've had the privilege of having people hooked up to umpteen machines why they do this and it's really quite fascinating how quickly just slowing your breath and bringing up a positive emotion really changes your physiology it's so cool it's really cool any other things coming from the online world what people are saying after the breathing they felt unquenched nice would that be de clench clench time go it yes, yes, perfect yeah I know that I know that feeling as well. I mean you do tend to have tightened up don't you when you feel stressed about yeah think about when apparently people do that when they sleep uh country the teeth while they're asleep and it's interesting we each have our achilles heel for who we are under stress the thing that we tend to do you share that your god person I'm a I'm a head clinch person you said your shoulders you know we have these places where we tend to carry our stress physically on its very individual and it's very important because that's where in the next section we're gonna work a little more on awareness we can use those pieces into information to increase our awareness so we can step back from it a little faster instead of having to get the mouth guard at night which I no longer sleep with thank you but needed at one point in my life before I knew what all of this was about it's almost like this interesting you have picture of the wave because that's what it feels like like a little like a wave going through my body and I don't nice what busy odd the physiology of it really is but that's what it kind of feels like you know like so instead of tension you know in cafs for example there's just kind of just settle flow nicely through different parts of my body weight I picked waves because this is it for me I'm not the mountaintop girl even though I live in the mountains currently on the ocean wave girl and this is the ocean actually is alfa wave simon and I were having a discussion about brain waves this is more of an alfa rhythm it is my rhythm it is being near the waves of the ocean is important for me, I just love love love that that's not true for other people but that's where I resonate so that's why I picked the picture that I took this is away uh but but that wave is an interesting comment because when our waves become coherent all the different rhythm of their body, we are in a better space and there's actually a brainwave a gamma way that occurs before we have insight, so getting ourselves coherent and allowing those waves to occur, we'll support your creativity uh, it's a fascinating coordination of that online saying that when they're frustrated or tents, they turn the situation over and over again in their mind. So that kind of starts them recycling on fact fair of our race saying, well, yes, she does that, but she couldn't even bring herself to do the exercise because she was feeling so stressed in action. We'll do it over and over, so hopefully at some point you'll be you'll be ready and if you feel uncomfortable or too stressed by just play along and you eventually it becomes an okay space. Um I'm sorry you're that stressed we've all been there, it's it happens so I didn't send a tiger chasing you through the room or through your cyberspace, and then we didn't all go to the beach, but our physiology completely changed
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Ratings and Reviews
a Creativelive Student
Thanks so much for this free class, as a Naval veteran and cancer survior now dealing with female infertility and graduate student I needed this so much!!!!!! THANKS THANKS!!! Very educational. I loved the mindfulness and caring for yourself first! So many good things! I wish I could afford to buy it so I could share with friends and family!
a Creativelive Student
Cindy is a woman of integrity. She is one of the most inspirational" healing to the soul" speakers that I have listened to in a very long while. There were so many beautiful nuggets of wisdom that changed my thinking. So thankful for the blessing she has been in my life today!!
a Creativelive Student
Very informative, relaxing, and encouraging. I hope to see more courses from her in the future and hope to do her course materials justice! Thank you!
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