Intro  0:05  
This recording is an offering of Networks for Training and Development's Online University.

Jessica Stover  0:16  
Hi, everyone. This is Jessica Stover from Networks for Training and Development. And I'm so glad you're joining in for tonight's healing circle for June 2018. I'm coming to you "live" from Central Pennsylvania, from my front porch in Penn's Creek, Pennsylvania.

 So because I'm sitting outside, you may hear some birds. You might even hear the neighborhood peacock. Yes, we have a neighborhood peacock - actually a whole peacock family that they're very much like watchdogs, any little movement and they let you know what's going on. So, hopefully they'll stay quiet. But you may hear them chime in. And if they are, hopefully they're giving their approval. 

One of the things I'd like to talk to you about tonight, actually several things is to continue the conversation of how to deal with stress, anxiety, and what are some techniques that we can all use and that I use myself from time to time because stress and anxiety is inevitable. 

But if we do know one thing, it's how we deal with it, and how we work through it and process it. 

One of the things I like to do is during times of pretty intense stress, what happens for me is my body almost goes numb, believe it or not. If you've never experienced this, what this feeling is, it's almost like your body goes numb. I can't feel my hands. I'll kind of shake my hands a little bit. They're not numb but I just can't quite feel where they are and I kind of freeze up, and my mind comes to a grinding halt. And I just start focusing on whatever that worry is in that moment, that worry at hand. 

And of course, one of the very first things I do and I've had to train myself to do this is to literally force myself to take a breath and to take slow, deep healing breaths. 

And I try to do this very, very consciously. I'll take a slow breath in for about five seconds. Hold it for two seconds, I try to do this through my nose. Sometimes, I'm not as disciplined and I'll do it through my mouth. But then I'll exhale and I'll extend the exhale for as long as I can until I have no breath left in my lungs, and I do it again. And I'll continue this.

 If that doesn't seem to work, I may start shaking, I may shake my hands a little bit, kind of wake them up. And I'll actually start moving my body. 

A dear friend gave me some wonderful advice to move your body, jumping up and down, what have you. 

Just the other day, kind of had this wave of anxiousness kind of rush over me. And I literally... I was standing up when it happened. And I caught myself kind of flexing the muscles in my calves and in my thighs. As I'm standing, I'm swaying back and forth just so slightly. And I'm also doing my breathing at the same time and kind of flexing my hands kind of reminding me that my body is grounded and I am in my body and I'm in control of my body. And I'm can in control of my thoughts and have that moment.

Those two things have been really helpful.

At the same time doing all of this, I try to have whatever thought is causing me that pause, that kind of grinding halt, that anxiety, that whatever - I'll hone in on that for a split second. And literally telling my monkey mind - we all have that monkey brain that monkey mind of "oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh" of what's happening is happening right now and it's not forever and it can be dealt with. 

It can be dealt with easily. 

So this weekend when this happened happily, I'm going to toot my horn, happily instead of dealing with an hour of "Oh my gosh, the world is ending. What's happening?" It was five minutes. That was a long five minutes. But it was five minutes. 

The other thing that also happened at the same time, I was able to talk things through with my partner in crime who was with me, and literally say out loud, "Oh my gosh, this is terrible. The world's ending. We're all going to die." and just literally saying the absurd things that were going through my head that I knew weren't true. 

And Pete, you know, my guy he lovingly said to me, "no, that's ridiculous, Jess. That's not going to happen. But I hear what you're saying." And he honored it. And I.. but I was able to honor those thoughts in myself. But realize and say them out loud how absolutely absurd the whole thing was, and it was absurd. And it was a simple, simple thing that was happening. And again, from an hour to maybe five minutes, maybe not even five minutes. 

But those were the things that I was able to employ this weekend that worked for me. And it was it was really nice. But I think the biggest thing is in those moments of stress or anxiousness is to do that conscious breathing and to literally feel where our body is in space and time instead of losing it too often, when these things occur we lose where our bodies are. And we need to remind ourselves with our grounding of where our bodies are. 

So one of the things that I also like to do is if I'm standing, is to literally feel where my feet are standing on the ground, if I'm sitting to try to get myself into a standing position so I can feel the weight of my body into my feet onto the ground. And that helps me ground my body further of course. 

But it reminds me that I am connected, and I'm connected to my body. 

And these have all been things that have been very helpful, but have also been easy and simple to do. But not that they didn't take, as simple as they were, that they didn't take a lot of practice and a lot of work and they still take a lot of practice and a lot of work as simple as they are to remind yourself to breathe, to remember to move your body. 

It takes a lot of discipline. And the discipline comes in time. 

And we need to remember to be kind and gentle with ourselves that just because of a moment of panic or anxiety or stress, maybe lasts 30 minutes. That was 30 minutes. It used to last an hour. Or yeah, it was five minutes, but it used to be 10 minutes.

And we are a daily work in progress, we're a daily work of art, that we're trying to be different. Be a different version of ourselves. We want to be that but to work through and be mindful of ourselves in where we are in our minds, but also in the world.

So a little bit different of a healing circle tonight. I thought about leading us in meditation or calming, centering talk, but I thought this would be just as helpful and applicable tonight. So a bit shorter than usual. But I hope it may be helpful. And I think having these moments together are incredibly important as well. We can take that moment, give ourselves pause, take a breath, ground ourselves and remind ourselves we are of this earth. 

Take care. See you next month.

Outro  8:43  
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