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[00:00:00] Welcome to Move With Deb. I'm Deb your friendly neuroplastician. And this is a podcast that explores the relationship between the body and the mind from a health at every size, judgment, free perspective. I teach you how developing a new internal conversation based on curiosity, self friendship and simple neuro-plasticity techniques can rewire your bodymind out of pain and emotional overwhelm to help you build the rich full life that you want to live. Disclaimer, this is not a replacement for medical care.
[00:00:50] Hello everyone and welcome to move with Deb, the podcast. I wanted to share with you just a few tips and suggestions about how to handle holiday stress. These are things that I have been working with my clients on and we've really shifted the energy, uh, for them around those holiday triggers. And I wanted to just record something super fast that you can listen to and apply and create on your own, in your own life.
[00:01:29] Holidays can be very stressful for people. There's a lot to do or there can feel like there's a lot to do there sometimes feels like there's a lot we should be doing, and oftentimes with a should, we might be feeling shame and I just want you to take a moment.
[00:01:56] Maybe feel your feet on the ground. Either put your hands in your lap or put your hands over your heart and take a deep breath in and exhale it twice as long and just imagine everything slowing down just a little. Almost as if you can slow down the speed of your own thoughts and feelings, just like you slow down or turn up.
[00:02:34] You can control the volume on a podcast, and I want you to connect with whatever it is that you're feeling right now. What is something that when you think about it or see it, whether it's the Christmas tree, whether it's the kitchen that you wanna bake cookies in, but like all you're seeing is the work that you need to do to clean the kitchen before you can make the cookies or before you can make the meal, whether it's the pile of presence.
[00:03:10] You want to wrap, whether it's the email or the text message that you haven't responded to, want you to just think about that for a moment. Connect into that. Cause we're usually wanting to avoid it, right? Cuz those triggers feel uncomfortable in our bodies. And I want you to just take a moment and connect with it, knowing that you're safe connecting.
[00:03:39] And just notice what you're noticing in your body when you think about that text message, or see the text message, or see the kitchen, or see the presence, or see the shopping list. And just notice what you're feeling in your body in this moment. Okay? And now just shake that. Shake it. And I'm gonna invite you into this faster E F T process.
[00:04:12] And just right now, jumping into tapping on the top of your head, tapping on the top of your head and saying to yourself, saying out loud. I release and let this go. And then between your eyes, I release and let this go. And then beside your eye, I release and let this go. And then underneath your eye I release and let this go.
[00:04:46] And then tapping on your chest, on your sternum, on your heart, I release and let this go. And then holding your wrist with one hand if that's available to you to hold your. Say the word peace, inhale and exhale twice as long. And that's a process called Faster EF T. And there's a video of it on my YouTube channel.
[00:05:20] And after you do that a few times, then I want you to go back and look at that text message or think about the kitchen or see in your mind's eye the to-do list, and just notice what feels different. Just notice how you feel in your body when you think about those things we call triggers.
[00:05:44] And just notice if anything shifted, if it feels one. Better, 10% better notice if it feels more neutral, more doable, more just like even more, whatever. And then I wanna invite you into this question of what would feel better, how do you want to feel this holiday season? What is one feeling you would like to have more of?
[00:06:21] I did this work around, um, Hanukkah last week feeling, noticing that I was feeling kind of sad and disconnected because I hadn't been invited anywhere and noticing that those feelings arising in my body, and I was like, okay. And I, I went through my kind of thought work process. Put it in a model and really just also felt the feelings, cuz we always allow space for feelings to be felt.
[00:06:59] And one of the things that I noticed was there's this kind of familiar old pattern that I was recognizing that there's this, I call it a thought error. Um, That there's this idea that if I have, you know, being invited somewhere is better than being the invite tour, like inviting other people, creating.
[00:07:29] The experience of connection and I was, and I just sat back and I was like, well do, is that actually something that I believe? And I, you know, I realized like, no, that's just this kind of, I don't know where I heard that. It was probably something imprinted upon me as a young child. And, um, When I believe that idea I f I can feel very lonely.
[00:07:58] And what it led me to was like, well, what's the feeling I want to have? And I thought, well, the feeling I wanna have is connection. I wanna feel connected to people around me. I wanna feel connected to my community. I wanna feel connected to my faith. And you know, enjoy holidays.
[00:08:18] There are, there are fun things about Hanukkah and uh, you know, so I was just like, okay, well how can I create that feeling inside of me? And I reached out to a few people and even in the reaching out, reaching out in and of itself can feel so many different ways. And I decided in this reaching out, what I wanted to feel was connection because I was like, Hey, person, human that I like, I would like to spend time with you, and I think we would have fun doing this activity together.
[00:08:59] And that feeling, even if they said no, even if they're busy, even if they can't make it, I could feel that desire and connection and the feeling that I wanted to have more of in the asking rather than thinking that the result created my feelings. That if somebody said yes, then I would get to believe that I'm worthy of connection, cuz you can ask somebody to hang out with you. From lots of different places, lots of different feelings, you know, and it's, it's all okay what, however, it's showing up for you. But I want to feel responsible for the creation of my own experience. Knowing what I know about the mind and body, knowing what I know about the subconscious, knowing what I know about how thoughts and feelings are interrelated. I really was like, how do I wanna feel right now?
[00:10:03] And I really got to feel that, I got to experience that. I ended up having two sets of plans with two different people and had a lot of fun. There were many, many moments of feeling my own sense of delight, being delighted in myself. I bought a cute hat cuz it was cold and like even just that experience felt really delightful and festive and fun and it was amazing how quickly that experience could shift inside of me. So I want you to think about that, try that on this holiday season and just imagine. What might feel better?
[00:10:44] Like if you are sitting there in a holiday experience with people, imagine just in your own mind, what would feel better, like if you're feeling and noticing tension in your body, just sense into it and just think like, does this tension have a color? Does it have a shape?
[00:11:09] If I could change it in any way, what would feel better? And just imagine that happening, whether it's wanting to feel cozy, wanting to feel connected, wanting to feel or see yourself as powerful or boundaried.
[00:11:30] I worked with a friend yesterday on kind of developing the way that they wanted to feel around their family and first they were talking about trying on like feeling armor, like imagining feeling armor on themselves. And I was like, that's awesome and yet imagine your are observing. A situation in which somebody walks into the room wearing armor, what do you think the other people's response is going to be?
[00:12:02] And so knowing what I know about them and what I know about their relationship with their family, knowing kind of what I know about the relationship they wanted to be having and wanted to be feeling. I was like, maybe armor isn't the right image because we have all these ways of communicating subconsciously. There's this great book by David Engelman called Incognito, in which it, it shows a lot of research about how our subconscious can experience things and perceive things faster than our conscious mind can. And so we're always kind of projecting our inner state, and there's this quality of trying to create congruency inside of ourselves so we can feel more comfortable.
[00:12:51] And some people call it authenticity, but I don't love that word, authenticity, but I love because it kind of creates this idea that there is an authentic you. And I just think like who we are, like the yous that we are are often always changing, but that feeling of congruency that like I am me all the way through me and noticing how I am showing up in the many different worlds that I exist in wanting to feel congruent throughout all of them, really, really.
[00:13:29] Helps me feel relaxed, safe, boundaried, cared for. Um, and so sometimes that's about, you know, taking actions and letting other people know how they can help us, what we need from them. And sometimes it's knowing that, you know, we're in charge of our own. Feelings and emotions and that we can, when we let go of needing other people to create that congruency for us.
[00:14:00] When we are solid in it in and of ourselves, we don't need that approval. We can just be with the other people in our lives and enjoying what there is to enjoy. And so, They came up with this beautiful metaphor of a forest, and themselves as a tree was very fabulous and fantastic. And so there's this sense of, you know, there was this forest and being together and being connected, but having distance, there were all kinds of ways that this metaphor just felt more like, yes, I can be in a room, I can be in this space, I can be in this family experience, and I am me. And I don't need this wall of protection and that I am impenetrable in the ways that I need to feel safe, to feel secure.
[00:14:57] It was really fun to create that imagery that just felt so right for them, that created the kind of feeling they wanted to be having more of. And that's what I wanna invite you to try on this holiday season is what is a feeling you would like to be having more of? And how can you get there in your imagination? Imagining that feeling as something you can create in your own mind and body right now?
[00:15:32] And for all my people who know thought work, you know, maybe then you'll come up with a thought to practice that really connects you into that feeling and watching those actions flow from that feeling and, and getting to witness the results of that process.
[00:15:49] And if you don't know thought work, maybe that feeling comes from an image. Maybe that feeling comes from a sensory experience like petting a dog or wearing a certain color, wearing an outfit, putting on some lipstick, whatever it is, that feeling that you want to be experiencing more of. When you feel it, I want you to notice it.
[00:16:13] I want you to just really connect to it and say, Hey, feeling I see you. You are a part of me. You are here with me in this present moment, in this experience that I'm having. And that's so delightful.
[00:16:33] So that's my little, like I can go on and on. I can just go on and on, but I'm gonna just end it here and I hope that that helps your holiday feel a little bit more better or even much more better, or even like the best holiday ever.
[00:16:49] And there are some other anti-anxiety toolkit videos on my YouTube channel, shifting out into peripheral vision is a great thing to do if you notice you're having a lot of discursive thinking, uh, doing the little ball toss, if you notice like your body's starting to feel some tension that you don't wanna be feeling.
[00:17:09] There are so many ways to interrupt these old habituated patterns and especially when we are talking about being with family. Let's just name that there are probably endless amounts of patterns that have been conditioned in over the years. This is just normal human physiology at play, and I just wanna invite you to believe that it can be changed and it doesn't have to be hard. We can feel 1% better. We can interrupt our old habitual patterns without having to go all the way back in time, without having to go change the things that have happened to us in the past. What we're doing is changing those neuro associations that continue to be living in the present moment.
[00:18:08] So that is my present from me to you, and I hope that you have. A wonderful holiday, whatever it is that you're doing, even if you are like, I don't do holidays. I hope that that is wonderful. I hope you have a joyful not holiday. And I thank you for listening. It is always such a pleasure to be here and share with you . All right. Take care.
[00:18:34] And I forgot to say there's still holiday trigger SOS Hypnos coachings appointments available. So if you want to come and do some work before you go to holiday party or spend time with family, Please hop on my Calendly. Pick a time. And let's do some work together. Thank you.
