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Are you drained with brain fog? Strung out with caffeine and sugar to get by? There are alternatives to boost your energy and concentration naturally and still have the convenience demanded by your hectic and busy life. Cultivate grit and build resilience naturally so you can have the physical reserves to better cope with stress. Let's see how close I am to understanding your current choices.

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I meet many people that fit this general profile. Less than six hours of sleep, caffeine and sugar to push through the exhaustion, and acids and aspirin to get through other discomforts. A little bit of alcohol, maybe a half a bottle or more of wine to wind down and sleep aids.

Breakfast is to go eaten standing in the kitchen, in the car, or at the desk. Convenience and easy to eat is the top priority. Lunch, sometimes you skip it because there's usually not enough time or it's partially eaten while you're working.

So dinner really is the main meal of the day and often later in the evening based upon your busy work schedule. You sit most of the day and probably don't have a lot of time for exercise because you're working 12 plus hours. This sound about right? Does that sound like you? So when you're drained and exhausted and all that's going on in your life, it really won't take all that much to begin feeling differently.

Just a little bit more sleep, more water, whole foods, a bit of stretching, slowing down to chew instead of gulping your food. It'll make a significant difference. Trust me.

So today let's go over a few simple substitutions that you can make in your eating patterns and how to improve your nighttime routines with small adjustments to get better sleep. So before I jump into that, let's go ahead and start with prayer. Lord, thank you for bringing my dear friends to listen today.

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A demanding and stressful career and a hectic and busy lifestyle have stressed and stretched my friend too far. Please help them ease their stress and cast their burdens on you. Provide the strength and energy for them to adopt small changes so they can feel better, enabling them to have a more fulfilling life.

I pray you can help every listener achieve their goals to be healthy in body, renewed in mind, and strong in spirit. As they reduce stress and improve work-life balance, may they know your will and your love. In Jesus's name, amen.

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Hi, I'm Sharon McCall with Whispering Fields Wellness. So great to meet you today. Early in my corporate career, I'd been where you are, figuring out how to naturally boost my energy and offset digestive discomfort from chronic stress.

Honestly, I was drinking more coffee and wine than water. Skipping meals was a regular thing because I just didn't have the time for it, or just grabbing a bite whenever it was convenient, just so I could squeeze in more work. It was just a way of life for me at the time.

Short nights with restless sleep left me waking exhausted and dragging the next day, which meant more coffee and more stomach irritation from not eating. It was just an ongoing cycle. So eventually, with my passion for nutrition and holistic wellness, I figured out a way and learned even more along that journey that I want to share with others now as a stress recovery coach.

So today's topic is one of my favorites. It's about how to build those inner reserves so that you have the grit, the resilience to handle whatever comes your way. And it's one of my favorite topics.

In the interest of time though, today I'm just going to keep it to water, whole foods, sleep, and then we'll go through an exercise at the end like we normally do. Because there are so many different ways to make minor changes to naturally boost energy and improve concentration. So we're just going to keep this to physical activities, things you consume, and things that you can do in today's discussion.

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But building reserves is a key way to better deal with stress. So last time, you may remember, we talked a little bit about halt. That when you're feeling any of these four things, hungry, angry, or anxious, lonely, or tired, it just makes everything so much more stressful.

You just, that emotional state that you're in, it just makes you so much more susceptible to stress. So if you aren't hangry and you're not tired, you're going to naturally feel that you're less stressed because you've got more capabilities internally to deal with it. So your body's less likely to get triggered in that stress response.

So some of these things then are, of course, sleep and hydration, whole foods, caffeine and sugar really play into the stress cycle. So you want to reduce those. Focusing on eating habits that aren't rushed and bad for your digestion and building energy and slowing down enough to make sure that they're helping you.

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Getting enough movement. It doesn't necessarily have to be exercise, but just moving your body more than you currently are with as sedentary as you are with work. Getting some sunshine.

It really makes a big difference to sleep and it naturally boosts up your energy, just getting that little bit of sun. It allows your body to naturally produce some of the vitamins it needs. And then getting some breaks and rest.

It's really not a lot of different things that comes with building your physical energy reserves. And all it takes is just a couple of small adjustments to improve concentration and to boost energy. So as you think about it, you, like many people, probably already know what is the next step on the spectrum of better for you.

You just need to implement it. So maybe some of you have already made some small steps. We've talked a little bit about the snack drawer before, someplace convenient in your office that you've put in some different snacks just to make sure that they're there, they're convenient so that you eat.

You just need to make sure that it's not full of just candy bars, that you've got some protein, fiber, meal replacement bars, some things with some broader nutrition portfolio than your typical quick, convenient snack, like a bag of potato chips or a candy bar or a bag of cookies. Just making that small change can make a huge difference because it helps start to take you off that energy roller coaster as you're picking some of those things out. And DoorDash these days, honestly, has opened up so many convenient food delivery options that maybe you're already picking some healthy and better for you items to be delivered to the office.

So you're not living off of whatever's in the vending machine, which is pretty convenient when I was at the worst of my stress, to give you many more healthy, convenient lunch options. And we're just looking for better for you, whatever is that next tiny step. So maybe you've done some of those already.

And then, or maybe you've picked frozen food and you're bringing in one of these little frozen meals. Don't know about you, but when I tried that for a while, that just didn't work because I couldn't find the time to get to the microwave. And let me tell you, thawed out, cold, frozen meals, no.

Those are horrible. Just don't do it. So if you do do that path, just make sure you actually get to the microwave and don't try and compromise and just eat it because it was convenient.

So, but for purposes of today's discussion, I'm just going to keep working with the scenario that I described earlier, where you're getting very little sleep, you're working 12 hours of a day, you're roughly spending about two of your hours prepping for your day. You think about it, you probably got a 30 minute morning routine from the time that you get up to when you get to your desk or you get to your car, depending on whether you're commuting or not. Dinner, you're making it, eating it, super short period of time, and just running the household stuff that takes about two hours.

And that running the household stuff includes things like your coffee prep, your plan for dinner, laying out your clothes, if you're bringing lunch, prepping it, following up on any personal business or communications, which just leaves you then three, four hours of discretionary time for loved ones and yourself, depending on your commute. So the reason you probably found me is because this lifestyle, it just doesn't, it's not conducive to work life balance. In that little bit of three to four hours a day, you're just not getting a fulfilling life.

Yet you're exhausted because of everything that you've got going on and that you're constantly on the run. So with these time constraints, boosting your energy may seem very difficult. But today we're going to focus on how you can do this and still stay as busy and hectic and crazy of a lifestyle that you currently have, and let you deal with making choices so that you can improve your energy while you're working on figuring out how you're going to end up reclaiming your time so you can have more family time and more balance.

So these strategies we're going to cover today are really just all about building those physical reserves and doing those immediate short-term wins to boost energy and to improve concentration just to get rid of some of that brain fog that comes with the exhaustion. So the first thing I want to kind of cover is cut the crap. C-R-A-P.

That's my secret to helping you cultivate grit, boost energy, and improve concentration. So let's go over what the crap is. C is for caffeine.

R is for refined sweeteners, flours, and starches. All of these things get you on an energy roller coaster. Alcohol, because often many of you as you're really stressed out and exhausted, you get so wired with everything that's going on and that high pace that your life is that you find yourself drinking a lot of alcohol in the evening, which negatively impacts your ability to get sleep.

And then the P is processed GMO seed oils. So these are like the generic vegetable oil, cottonseed, corn, canola, rapeseed, etc. You probably aren't reading labels, which is fine.

That is one of the things though that makes a long-term difference. It is a little more of an advanced item, and I'm not really going to get into that. Another bonus area that you can take a look at if reading labels is kind of up your alley is getting rid of artificial colors, flavors, and sweeteners.

A lot of these artificial colors, for people that are sensitive to them, they trigger ADHD-like symptoms. And so they feed into that stress and that I'm constantly moving and worrying and in that cycle from that standpoint. So that may be one of those things, just as you continue on this journey, that you might need to take a look at cutting as you're looking to boost your energy and to reduce your stress and improve work-life harmony.

But we're going to keep this simple today and really focus on the highest impact, which is water and just focusing on whole foods. That way you don't have to focus on any label reading whatsoever. Well, maybe a little bit on the sugar part, but that's a really easy one to do a direct comparison on.

So why start there? You want to avoid the hangry, just not get hungry and angry, and make sure that you can get off that energy roller coaster. Because every time you have something sugary and caffeine, your energy, it peaks up, but then that crash that follows and it seems like it almost takes more sugar, more caffeine to get you back to normal so that you can continue on with your day. And that gets compounded when you're not taking your breaks and allowing your body to reset naturally as you go through the your energy ebbs and flows through the course of the day.

So the first thing you want to do is focus on water because dehydration feeds into all of this. So many times you get a hungry signal and it's actually you need some water. Sometimes you're feeling really down and your energy's low, you need some water because you're pushing on dehydration.

So to be properly hydrated, some estimate that you take your body weight, you divide it by two, and you have that many ounces of water, and that's enough to keep you hydrated. But to stay hydrated, it really all depends on what your other consumption patterns are. Every glass of alcohol, caffeine, it increases your water content that you need to have to properly flush these things through your system.

So it's really easy to get dehydrated if you're not focusing on regularly drinking your glass of water and having it right near you. There's a point in time when seriously I was drinking more coffee than anything else and then probably in the course of the day I was only drinking maybe a total of 64 ounces and almost none of that was water. It was like 30 to 40 ounces of coffee, a couple glasses of wine, and maybe one glass of water in the morning and at night.

So I was running dehydrated and I could feel how exhausted I was. I kept taking more and more caffeine because of how tired I was. I didn't realize it was dehydration until I started having some other issues.

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As I ended up deciding to make improvements on this, just slowly switching out anything after 1 p.m. started to make a big difference for me, going to the half-calf, going to decaf, diluting the coffee with water, making water more accessible. So I didn't necessarily feel that I was making big changes but just slowly incorporating more water in the course of the day and my access to it and reducing the caffeine. Switching out teas, all of these had huge benefits on my exhaustion and brain fog.

It can be really hard to reduce the caffeine because of how tired you are and your body also gets accustomed to really high levels of it and can create a dependency on it, which is why when you may have ever tried to cut caffeine before you get big headaches and you feel terrible and you just go ahead and just pick up the coffee again. So you might need to find alternatives to help you keep your energy up, particularly as you're slowly weaning yourself off of caffeine and finding other beverages that better suit and keep your energy up. So for example, you might want to try a B-complex vitamin.

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Getting that natural boost from this supplement can help you feel a lot more energy. B12, a lot of these other B vitamins that are necessary for your metabolism so it can work more optimally. So it's a really simple, easy way to boost your energy.

And it's really easy to tell if you're getting the right amount of B vitamins. So if you take a B vitamin and you're drinking water with your B vitamin, you'll feel better about it. But as soon as you're done using it because it's a water-soluble vitamin, you're going to piss it out.

So if you're regularly finding that right after you take a B vitamin, you are overly yellow to say that you're taking more B vitamin than you need to and you can cut it back and dial it back in. But if you're getting clear, it means your body's using all of the B vitamins and you can end up increasing your dosage. So just a quick way to identify another means of boosting your energy as you're weaning yourself off of caffeine and helping to get your body into a better spot.

And this is not something that's going to make a significant difference on your busy and hectic life. So moving into the next topic. So once you get yourself fully hydrated and switch up your beverages so that they're helping you, you want to take a look at whole foods.

So for whole foods, just keep it really simple. Whole foods, I mean things that look like produce. So fruit, dried fruit, nuts.

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Find foods that still look like foods that aren't completely processed in a factory. And you'll find that there's less additives in it and less crud that keeps you feeling slow and weighs you down. So an easy thing to tackle is if you have that snack drawer that you've maintained for any of these convenience items, like we talked about before even, is pick things that have less sugar in them.

So even if you normally have a whole thing of Snickers bars in there, well it's pretty easy to get a slightly better for you option than the Snickers bars. So just slowly change your grocery shopping habits to include items that have less sugar and more fiber in them and it will help you maintain a better control of your blood sugar. Actually eating breakfast and lunch will really help you too.

Even if you are having higher quantities of sugar, the protein, the fat, the fiber that you get with a well-rounded meal helps even out those highs and those lows. Not that you want to stay on those high levels of sugar that you're probably consuming right now, but it helps to buffer them if you have proper proteins, fats, and fibers to make it so that you're not getting these huge swings. Another super simple way to boost your energy with your food is actually to focus on eating it and slowing down.

You may not realize it, but your digestion is tied to your senses. Your brain and your gut are both required to digest food. So when you slow down and you can smell it and you can enjoy the taste of it and you chew it down to small enough pieces and enjoy the full sensation of eating, you also digest better.

So instead of feeling like a rock sitting in your stomach or because your digestion is not working as well since you're in a stress mode, it allows you to a relax more and two your digestion is working better and more effectively to get the nutrition out of your food. So just even if you make it for five minutes, three minutes, however long it takes for you just to eat that apple and just enjoy it, it will help you feel better. So minor changes.

That's all we're taking a look at. Things that can barely have an impact in how much time you spend on what you consume. And since I did mention supplements before, I do have a philosophy in regards to I typically recommend whole foods or freeze-dried supplements just because they contain so much more than just individual chemicals that get isolated out.

So if you're going through your day and you need to boost something up a little bit more, protein powders, green powders, other whole food supplements like freeze-dried organs, fish roe, psyllium or chicory root powder and maybe some cultured dairy. If you can add these things into your diet, even if you're not making major shifts, grabbing a handful of pills of these supplements, it's easy to fit into your day but it also gives you all of these nutritional benefits. Put a little bit of protein powder in with your milk and your coffee.

Again, you're getting that great boost. A little bit of fiber powder, same thing. So just figure out what those right small things are for you to get that next natural better for you step.

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So on that topic, what is the next better for you step? I don't know what it is that you're eating on a daily basis. So it's all kind of up to you personally. Is it replacing a diet soda or a cup of coffee with a glass of water? Is it using whole milk or cream instead of sugar-laden non-dairy creamer? Maybe it's just picking a lower sugar or less fried snack, half-calf, saying grace and just eating your food and just taking a moment to breathe and enjoy without multitasking.

Any of these are great places to start. So what is your next better for you step? And maybe it's not a food swap. Maybe it's an activity swap.

One of the things that I realized over the years is that I had a pattern of a 4.30 p.m. reward. I needed something to celebrate that I had gotten through all of the meetings that I had for the day and I was getting into quiet time. The nice thing about working in California is that everybody on the East Coast is done with their office hours and you get a quiet period of time.

So I developed this habit early in my career. It is everybody was done on the East Coast and logged off, I was finally able to get into doing my work and would take a moment to celebrate and reward myself with that afternoon candy bar or a cup of coffee. And really, I just needed a different type of reward.

So switching out that activity to a quick call or text exchange with a loved one, stepping outside for a moment, it can give you that moment of comfort, celebration, joy. Then that item consumed and maybe that's not, you can replace a food item with an activity. One of the things that worked out really well for me is when I checked in with home that late in the day, it reminded me I need to be going home, not spending two more hours getting everything wrapped up in the office and then going home.

So see what you can turn that 4.30 p.m. snack, if that's what your holdup is, to something that's more fulfilling and that helps you with your idea of work-life balance. And even just a mental shift and for me that at 4.30, that was instead of beginning my time to do my work, but that was my time to be wrapping up for the day, that made a big difference. So whatever works for you to help you boost your energy, improve your focus, and make sure that all of this is supporting your long-term goals of work-life harmony.

So what's that right next step for you? Moving into the next category, sleep. Sleep, honestly, I get it. It is probably one of the hardest things to do is to increase how much sleep you're getting.

At less than six hours a night, you've already kind of sacrificed back as far as you can because you're squeezing in as much as you can into your day. So it is probably the hardest, but honestly, it is one of the biggest impacts. If you can get yourself an extra hour of sleep on a regular basis, it will improve so many of your issues that you have in regards to energy and brain fog.

But if you can't, because I know it's hard to free up that time, let's talk about some of the things that can help you improve the quality of the sleep that you're getting. So let's take a look at evening routines. A couple of key things to keep in mind is you set up your routines to help you, and these still may be a little bit challenging, don't get me wrong, because it's going to take resorting your whole evening, but it's probably easier for you than trying to figure out how to get an extra hour of sleep.

So if you have no food or alcohol three hours before you go to bed, it helps your digestion to be done so that you can get, it can, your body can prioritize your brain and the rest that you need instead of being so focused on your belly. If you reduce the blue light exposure from your devices, it helps your body to start naturally winding down. All of this light that we get exposed to inside, it really throws off our circadian rhythms and particularly the super bright light from devices.

So the more that you can reduce that exposure or eliminate it at least an hour before bed, figuring out what are in that hour before you go to bed, how can you do more calming and soothing activities? Maybe it's some simple prep for your next day where you can reduce that lighting as you do them, journaling, prayer, Bible reading, snuggling with your partner. Any of these things help set you up in your routine to have better quality sleep. Another thing that you can do that helps you get better sleep is first thing in the morning.

Resetting your circadian rhythms so that you're connected with the light and darkness cycle that God designed us for and so that you can get the best sleep possible. You want to get a little bit of sunshine on your skin early in the morning in that first half hour of the day if possible because the sun is not like any of these artificial lights. You get so many more frequencies and different energy from that sun that helps you.

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We already know that when you're in the sun, your body makes more vitamin D and I'm sure that because we are electromagnetic beings, when you look at subcellular level, that there's probably other benefits to it as well that we just don't understand and they're coming. So just getting some of that sunshine that God designed for us to get exposed to on a daily basis will help reset your circadian rhythms so you can get better quality sleep at night. Another thing that I find that a lot of my clients do, like I mentioned, alcohol to wind down.

Some people use a lot of sleep aids, Z-Quil, NyQuil, they're kind of on the regular consumption list to help wind down and get better sleep. Switching these out in your evening routine for calming herbal teas like chamomile, lavender, any of the sleep combinations that the tea companies sell. If you're into supplementation, again, magnesium, glycinate in particular, low-dose melatonin, these can help you sleep.

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Do watch for melatonin because you can get a dependency on that and if you overtake too much melatonin, it'll be really hard in the morning to get going. It kind of feels a little bit like a hangover because your body's got to make so much more extra serotonin to overcome the melatonin in the system. That has to do with that sleep-wake cycle thing.

So just be careful in terms of what you're selecting and don't necessarily pick something at too high of a dose or become too dependent upon it. Any of these things can improve the sleep that you get. Getting good nighttime and morning routines resets those circadian rhythms.

So get it and then when you're ready, focus on getting more sleep. Get the games that you can with improving the quality of it and trust me, with better quality and a little bit more sleep, you will find yourself so much more productive, creative, strategic as you're working and you get through your day. But you do have to figure out where that extra time is going to come from and it's totally worth it.

Every single person that I've worked with and talked to that has figured out how to get that little bit more sleep in their life, there's physical, mental, relational work benefits that translates from those and carry into other areas of your life. So I've covered a lot really fast but I hope you get the idea. Super tiny little changes that you can make in your consumption patterns and the way that your routines are and your sleep.

So these are things that don't impact how busy you are, how crazy and hectic your life is. These itty bitty tiny little things you can swap out and to make small adjustments that you can easily fit in your schedule. This is the way to help you boost energy and improve concentration and focus.

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So as you think about this, I guess we've already talked about, you probably know what that next right step is for you. So what's holding you back from implementing it? What is preventing you from a better for you swap? So let's simplify this even further. So don't worry about changing any of your routines.

Don't try and pick up anything else. You already know when you eat, when you don't eat. Just change access.

Often it's just one time you change what you're picking up at the having more water bottles instead of sodas, the snack drawer, the mini fridge, changing out your K-cups so that they're half-calf or decaf, having a large volume water bottle in your office next to the coffee pot. Just some of those small changes. You're not making anything different in your day-to-day.

You're just swapping things out so it works seamlessly with the way that you live your life right now. Does that make it more accessible? So that you can make that small, tiny next step?

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I know I ran through these exercises pretty quickly so if you have any questions please email me sharon@whisperingfieldswellness.com. Next week I'll focus more on building physical resilience to stress as part of your stress management.

So it's all about building your grit. How do you increase your reserves and your tolerance and resilience? For in summary this is all about getting in back in tune and in rhythm with how God designed us and it gives us a lot of simple ways to restore energy and to improve that stress tolerance and they work perfectly with tiny habits. I hope this video has given you plenty of ideas for your stress management plan as you are do-it-yourselfing your stress recovery journey.

Click the link to download my worksheet on building tiny habits. You can effectively make change in your life with seconds a day. You can get started on this in five minutes or less.

It is that simple, I promise. If you've been working with this worksheet for a while and watching the videos, if you want to work with me so you can put these stress recovery tools together better and go deeper, click the services link below. As a Christian stress recovery coach, I'm here to help you explore more of what underlies your stress and imbalance, to ensure that you have the motivation and accountability to make the changes that you desire in your life.

I can come alongside to support and encourage you and share a few strategies and tools to help you with mindset, lifestyle, and diet changes. See you next episode. Have a blessed day.

How are stress and work wearing you down? What can you do to restore your energy reserves and feel better? That's our focus for today. With being caught in an almost unending survival mode, stress takes a significant toll on your body. Insomnia, digestive issues, tension, fatigue, moodiness, lack of focus, they're just the beginning.

Long working hours and with self-care being deprioritized and picking food for convenience over nutrition, it depletes your body even faster. Yet you can turn this around. With faith-driven tiny habits, you can find the time and energy to start implementing better for you actions and choices.

Today I'm going to address physical and environmental dimensions of wellness. So you have some ideas for next week as we get back into habit building to being able to promote those areas of well-being. Also, I'll be revisiting your vision of work-life harmony so we can continue to build out your wellness toolbox for stress management.

Let's go ahead and start with prayer. Lord, thank you for bringing my dear friends to listen today. Please help them find the motivation, guidance, strategies, and tactics to reduce stress and improve work-life harmony.

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Thank you for designing and creating this wonderful world for us to live in. Help us see how we can modify our environment to better reflect your glory so we can also feel more safe, secure, calming, and pleasant, which will help us relieve stress. I praise how miraculously you designed us, including our physical forms.

I am more than grateful for how you have graced us with these amazing temples to house your Holy Spirit and experience this life before we join you in the everlasting. I feel privileged to have a responsibility to care for these creations of yours. I gratefully fulfill my duty to care for my body and environment in a way that allows your will to be done and reflects my love for you.

I pray all is well with every listener, healthy in body, renewed in mind, and strong in spirit. As they reduce stress and improve work-life balance, may they know your will and your love. In Jesus's name, amen.

In case if we haven't met before, I'm Sharon McCall with Whispering Fields Wellness. Today in Grace Over Grind, I'll be identifying how making a few small changes in your physical health and changes in your environment can help you to reduce stress and improve work-life harmony, allow you to start making those changes to achieve your goals of thriving and flourishing. As I get into physical health, I want to make sure you are aware of my underlying bias and belief.

It's a little bit different than other coaches that are out there. First off, you are bio-individual from your DNA to your mind to your spirit. There is no one else like you.

Physically, even if you had an identical twin with the exact same genetics at the time that you were born, from the life that you've lived, the thoughts that you've had, the experiences and its impact on your epigenetics and microbiome, you would be totally different today than that identical twin. This is how beautifully God designed our bodies is so that we can adapt to whatever is occurring in our lives to being able to have the best likelihood of survival. As a result of this, I firmly believe that God made every single one of us to be unique.

Yeah, there are some common things in regards to what body systems do. My heart, your heart, they work the same way. But within, deeply in terms of who we are as a being, a body, mind, spirit with the Holy Spirit indwelling in us, we are unique and also physically in the temple that we have to the Holy Spirit.

And because you are unique and created to fulfill part of God's plan for you, only you and God know what is truly optimal for you and what is required to heal you. God knew you before you were born and before you decided what faith you wanted to follow. He has put in your cells that inner wisdom of what your body needs to thrive and to flourish.

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Think about a paper cut. Your body heals automatically. You don't go tell it, hey, heal that paper cut.

It does. So God has this inner wisdom that's inside of all of us. And then once you make a decision to become Christian, you get that Holy Spirit that's indwelling in you.

But let's just get back to our physical being, our physical temple. So as you think about it, there are things that are in our environment that have been around for centuries. There are some things that are brand new and that are novel exposures that man has created in the last century or so.

So if we take a look, alcohol, dairy, grains, some people can consume them. Some people can't. Their bodies physically can't handle them.

And so this means that even though God designed these foods, they're not necessarily appropriate for some people in the way that he created you. So how can people end up blanketly saying that every single thing that man creates, fallible man, is safe for you to eat? Okay, so there are probably some things that in your foods or that are approved by the FDA, whether you know it or not, that you may have a sensitivity to. There may be things where the combination of the quantities that you've consumed in your lifetime or the combination of different ingredients, they are having an impact on you.

(5:49 - 6:40)

And so this is what I mean by it's up to you to know what's working for you. Only you and God knows truly what's working for you. Because what works for somebody else, that identical twin, it may not work for you.

So just to end up being on the safe side, I always end up advising my clients just to go back to the basics, okay? Foods that we've eaten for generations, that are part of your tradition, your family's traditions and heritage, and the activities that we've done traditionally over time, these are all things that our bodies have adapted to and are more likely to be the right ones that God wants us to eat and to do. And so when in doubt, simplify and see what happens. Use whole foods to being able to address what's ailing you.

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So I'm not going to, you can tell I'm super passionate about this, I'm not going to go drag us down into a rabbit hole, but it is fair to let you know. So if you have a particular inclination of, okay, I only want pills, I only end up wanting a shot to being able to solve all my problems, I don't want to do the work, we're going to have some disagreed differences of opinion. So just want to lay it out there before we get going.

So let me get back to the topic for today. So we're continuing our discussion on the eight dimensions of wellness and lifestyle. I've been using SAMHSA's model.

I find that this model, while simple, it's effective for any of my potential clients, but also anybody that I meet in my volunteering to support mental health and substance abuse recovery. So today, we're going to go over physical and environmental. The foundation of physical well-being, I'm pretty sure you can guess at the main pillars, most of us have been given some form of health training through the course of our lives.

It's whatever you ingest, however you ingest it. And I also include in this definition, the preparation of the things that you ingest. For me, for example, cooking is a great hobby and a way to unwind, as well as making sure that I put enough love and care into what I'm nourishing myself and my loved ones with.

Then the second part of physical well-being is all about what you do. It's about physical activity, rest, sleep. And then a third area of this is in regards to preventive care.

So if you have areas of concern, being able to get the care and taking action on it. Some of you may need professional intervention to being able to address what's going on in your life. But just keep in mind, as I said, philosophically, I believe that the more that you focus on what you ingest and what you do and keep it really simple, your body will start healing itself and being able to get you stronger, less stressed as a result of that.

So moving on to the foundation of environmental well-being. It's all about safety and security, having a pleasant and soothing space. And that could be wherever you are at the moment, at work, home, out in the community.

It's your natural environment. Some things to keep in mind for environmental well-being is making sure you get exposed to natural lighting at different times of the day, access to fresh air and water. And just honestly, for me, this is a really big one, enjoying God's beauty and majesty.

Just getting outside, looking out a window, it really can help me shift my perspective from whatever was stressing me out and getting me so tightly wound up. That look out that window, that step outside and a breath of fresh air and a bit of sunshine, it reminds me that there's a much wider world and how small whatever it is that I'm worried about is in the greater, bigger picture. So there's no need for me to create unnecessary suffering for myself by buying into some of these thoughts and beliefs that we've talked about in the prior weeks.

And all of these have an impact on well-being. So just a quick couple of questions. So feel free to pause the video as we go through and answer these.

(10:07 - 11:17)

What does physical health mean to you? Is it a number on a scale, a body image, a test result from the doctor, feeling energized, vibrant, good? What is physical health for you? And if you struggle with this, what does it mean to be unhealthy, to be discomforted, and then flip it all around? So thinking about the environment. So what's your safe place? What helps you relax? What attributes does that safe place have? And how can acknowledging the answers to both of these questions help you relieve stress? What clues are there that can end up guiding you to improve your current stress management plan? I find that most people have a lot of knowledge already on how to make better-for-you choices. It just hasn't been put into application.

We get bombarded across the internet, on the news, in the media, all this advertising. You generally have an idea of what is that next right step for you. So let's talk about a couple of the basic foundational items.

(11:18 - 12:22)

Like, you know if you're getting enough sleep or not. You can tell in the morning, do you wake up rested, energized, able to get on with the day? Or do you need more sleep or a higher quality of sleep, right? For physical activity, you know if you're sitting in your chair all day, too long, not getting enough movement, and you're starting to feel that physical tension build up in your body because you're not moving enough. You can end up feeling it in your muscle tone and your ability to do more physical activities.

You can tell if you're plowing through breaks and not giving your body its chance, middle of the day, to have these moments to recover and to recoup. And you can also tell if you've got safety and security. It's all in the way that you feel.

What is that thing that's next right step for you? You know what that next right step is. Now moving on to food. This is a little bit more complicated because food people have put so many emotional connections on.

And for others, it's just something that people feel that they can control. I physically put this in my mouth. I know I can know exactly what it is.

(12:22 - 13:25)

So if you have a tendency to want to control things, this is often an area that people go after. So when you're a high achiever in a stressful role, you may have tackled some of these things depending on what your interests are. If you're one of these that likes to get into the bio hacks or being able to control your eating, like I said, as part of your micromanagement. You may have done some of this work already. It's hard for me to say where everybody is because they're coming at such a different point. I've met folks across the whole spectrum as I've worked with them.

There's individuals that their next right step is just to cut back on the soda. It's being able to reduce empty energy and the sugar and the caffeine that's just winding them up and then leading to big crashes in the afternoon. To others that are fine tuning sub ingredients and what they have sensitivities to and they're trying to avoid secondary toxins from modern agriculture or animal husbandry practices.

(13:26 - 13:46)

So depending on where you are in your own journey, you know what that right next step is for you. And then on top of this, food also gets really complicated by food philosophy. Some people are animal based, plant based, kind of in between and then a zillion and one different flavors of diet.

(13:46 - 17:31)

So food is highly personalized and unless I'm in a one-on-one conversation with you, I really can't advise in regards to what that next step is. So you need to trust that you know what is the next step in what's better for you. So as you look at what you know from everything from the sleep that I mentioned to the food in regards to what's needed to improve your health and energy, what's the next natural step for you to have more energy and to give your body a chance to repair itself more? As the body repairs itself more, you're going to be able to be in more optimal condition and more resilient.

So we're going to go a little bit deeper as we go into today's exercise. So before we get started though, we're going to end up having you go back and review a couple of the things and pull out some of the items from prior episodes. So hopefully you've gone through those.

If not, it's just a chance for you to go back and look in the catch-up. So first off, it begins with reviewing that Christian identity statement. Remember, identity focus changes are more effective than outcome focus changes.

And so what we're doing is being able to focus on your vision of what work-life harmony means for you and who you are as a person, as who God is calling and created you to be. So you can go from identity to process to outcome. So pull out that statement, whatever it was that you came up with that really resounded with you from based upon a biblical reference.

Then you also want to pull out that vision of work-life harmony. So we had done a Venn diagram type model with body, mind, and spirit. We'd gone through and identified kind of what, where you are acting and behaving and thinking and feeling like the person that you want to be, that God is calling you to be.

And then where you have some opportunity for some growth. So you want to take a look at that Venn diagram because we're going to use that then for reference for today. So you can either use that document or I'll give you an alternative if that was something that you hadn't done or if that was not the right kind of activity for you.

Because I get it, everybody has different ways that they want to express themselves. Another way that we can do this is to, besides using the Venn diagram, is to continue with mind mapping. Some people like mind mapping better than Venn diagrams.

It kind of gives them a little bit of structure to work off of, to build up their ideas and to extrapolate it all out. And when they put it down and then pick it back up a couple days or a week later, they've got better sense of where they had left off. So we're going to go through a vision mapping exercise that's based on the mind map today as the exercise.

So just to describe what mind mapping for your vision of wellness is, is you're going to put at the center that who, what that vision of wellness is. You've got your identity statement at the top and then you want to go through and have a bubble off of that vision, just what your kind of summary statement is of who you want to be. And then kind of go through each of the different dimensions as a spoke coming off of that main one.

And then go through each of the different subcategories and just kind of blow it all out across the things. Again, like I said, you might have a couple of outcomes that pop up, but you can always end up turning them around and refining your identity statement a little bit more and who you want to be based upon as you lay this all out. So for today's exercise, let me tell you a story and I'll show how it works into this example of mind mapping for your vision of wellness.

(17:33 - 17:59)

This lady was a senior manager. Her son had just started middle school and had decided that he really wanted to play Little League. His elementary school friends hadn't really been into it, but now that he's at the new school, his new friends were.

And so this was important for him to build up his skills pretty quickly so he could play with them. So since they'd played for years, he wanted to do a lot of practice at home. So her husband and him were already practicing.

(18:01 - 26:32)

And with him in middle school, she'd recently been realizing, you know, he's growing up so fast. I got to start getting involved. And this was a really good activity for her to join her husband and her son because she had played softball when she was in high school and college.

A lot really rusty because she hadn't done anything really physical in a while. But it was something that she wanted to do and she felt it was really important and this was a timely way to kind of kick it in the butt that God's given in the situation for her to take on her responsibilities as a parent a little bit more. So though the problem was is that she had a high travel schedule and really long work days.

Already her husband and son were practicing while she was usually just at work or on her drive home if it was a time when she was in town. So she really wanted to make this work. So with some thought, her identity statement that she used to drive her habit building and to guide her vision for this phase of her life was based upon Proverbs 17, 6. And she had decided that was pride of her children.

She really wanted to make sure that her son walked away from this time of his life with some great memories, not just the skills, and that she was in those memories. And so as part of her personal meditation, she'd really included 1 Corinthians 9:25-26 for her focus on her personal training and then Proverbs 22:6 on starting children off on the right path. Because this was a kind of a big deal for her son and she was excited to support him through this.

Now that I've shared her story, now it's your turn. So up above you'll see that I have a blank version of a mind map that could be used for any focus on the physical part of well-being. So what, who do you want to be and what do you need to do to being able to become it as it comes to physical well-being? So just like in that last example, she knew that playing baseball and practicing with her son was a key part of her being able to be pride of her children.

That was so important to her. So take a moment and just do a mind mapping exercise in regards to that. So while you do that, I'm going to go ahead and continue on with the story in regards to this lady.

So as we work through this, she decided that if she could run multiple short sprints in a half an hour, then she could keep up with the pace of the practice that her husband and her son had. She'd chase the balls and do whatever was needed. And then with any hitting and throwing, because those were skills that she hadn't used in forever, she would just build those as she played, but she needed to build up that endurance to keep up with the activity.

And for her, physical well-being, it's not weight loss. It's not anything to do with the numbers with the doctors. It's about living fully and being involved with her loved ones.

And I'm sure she did get some other benefits because she lived a pretty sedentary life. We never really talked about those because it was always focused in regards to that work-life balance that she was looking for, that she was striving for. So as you think about your life, how can you break down that what you want to be as from a physical well-being standpoint into specific skills or habits? We'll take all of these and we'll turn these into habits next time, but I want you to go through and do that process.

How do you get from your vision of who you want to be, defining it clearly enough and kind of breaking it down so you can turn it into some of these skills and habits? So if you have any questions on this exercise, please email them to me at Sharon@whisperingfieldswellness.com. If you do take a little bit of time to commit to this exercise, I know you'll find something useful for you to help reduce stress and improve work-life harmony. Small changes that can be done the next time you go to the grocery store might even come up. You may not even need to go through and do a tiny habits approach.

That's the nice thing about the food stuff. Sometimes it's just a swap for something that you already do and it's already embedded in your routine, just switching out for better for you. In next week's episode, as I mentioned, we're going to get deeper into habit building on these dimensions of lifestyle and well-being.

We're going to really focus in on that how to use some geographical types habit building. So if you haven't downloaded the habit guide yet, it's available for you to jump right in. So I'm pretty sure you want to know, so what happened with the lady? Was she able to play baseball with her son and how did her son do? So as it came to work, it took her a little while to figure out how to reduce and change her travel schedule.

So it was a little tough initially at the beginning, not the morning part. So she was really smart on the morning part. She started running in the morning.

So what she decided to do is that instead of checking her work emails as the water was brewing for her tea, she just started doing sprint exercises in the house and then ended up getting on the sneakers and going outside and crisscrossing the backyards. And so it was really sprints and not a long distance run. It wasn't too bad.

So she'd go sprint one way and then walk a little bit and then sprint again. So she really did figure out how to make it kind of start by occupying time that she's already using to do something else. And while she's running, she can still think about whatever it is that she needs to do.

So she was able to just very easily embed the morning part in her routine. The part that was a little bit tougher was in the evening to make sure she got home on time. So it did take doing some things with her work habits and productivity to make those changes until the change in travel came.

Because once the change in travel came, for any of you that have traveled for work, you know how much downtime there is. It's not like you're effective and productive and working through all that time that you're on the road. So it made it so much easier and she was honestly able to pick a couple of extra things up that was part of the deal that she'd made to reduce her travel is that it allowed her more time to be productive and working on things in the office.

So she was able to get what she wanted, which was to have more time with her son and her husband and to form these memories that he's gonna have his entire life of them as a family building these skills and just having the laughter of fly balls and crazy running across the yard to go and chase after a ball. So I'd say that that was a pretty successful story from her standpoint. So to close this out today, let me go over a summary of what I've covered.

I talked about bioindividuality and then talked a little bit about physical and environmental well-being and I hope with those questions you're able to come up with a couple of ideas of what might be something else you can do to add to your stress management plan. What are some of those actions you can take to improve your wellness toolbox and equip you and build your resilience? And the last thing we did was another focus on a work-life harmony exercise continuing on how do you envision who you can become through faith-driven tiny habits. So I really hope you enjoyed today's session.

I am firmly convinced that if you just take any of these small ideas that you've had and being able to put them into place and take action on them, you will reduce your stress and improve work-life harmony. And the more that you lean on your faith, it makes it so much easier. Through God, he can do so many things if you just let him in a little bit of your life, a little bit more than you have been.

Starting to listen to that innate wisdom and to Holy Spirit to guide you on that next step. And then whenever you get stuck and you're in that weakness, just recognize his power and his strength being able to help you to move forward and to move on. So I thank you again for your time today.

If you want to work with me, so you can put these stress recovery tools together better and go deeper, click the services link below. As a stress recovery coach, I'm here to help you explore more of what underlies your stress and imbalance and ensure that you have the motivation and accountability to make the changes you desire in your life. I know you can reduce stress and improve your work-life harmony.

I'll see you next episode. Have a blessed day!

Our minds are powerful. They are intellectually capable of imaginative possibilities and creating solutions never dreamed of before. They are emotionally capable of the tenderest of actions toward a loved one.

Yet, they can also keep us trapped and stressed, limiting who we are and what we can do. Stay until the end for a faith-driven tiny habit you can use to identify and break free from chronic stress. Let's go ahead and open in prayer.

Lord, I thank you for bringing my dear friends to listen today. Please help them find the motivation, guidance, strategies, and tactics to reduce stress and improve work-life harmony. We can get so lost in our heads solving problems, making to-do lists, and figuring out what's next that we can get disconnected from you.

Also, the deceiver may have tricked us into repeatedly saying negative and unkind things to ourselves and believing that we are not precious, loved, or capable. These can be louder than the whispers of the Holy Spirit guiding us closer to Christ. Acting based on our will instead of yours leads to stress, imbalance, and overwhelm.

Help us to recognize what's holding us back and where we are too focused on ourselves and this world. Open our eyes to see how through you we can find the calm, peace, balance, and harmony we desire. I pray all is well with every listener, healthy in body, renewed in mind, and strong in spirit.

As they reduce stress and improve work-life balance, may they know your will and your love. In Jesus's name, amen.

Hello. In case if we haven't met before, I'm Sharon McCall with Whispering Fields Wellness.

I am a survivor of chronic stress and a recovering workaholic. After decades of navigating complex politics and pressure cooker situations in a 24-7 operations work environment, I now help drained and exhausted professionals like you reduce stress and improve work-life balance. Let me tell you, it is possible.

No matter what your situation is, we can find a way through this. Today in Grace Over Grind, I'll discuss the importance of cultivating self-awareness of stress triggers. If you've got blind spots or you don't know what your patterns are, you can't change them and things will just continue to happen the same way that they always have been.

For this episode, we're going to focus on internal stress triggers that you might encounter. Your body honestly doesn't care if the tiger threatening you is real, on a movie screen, or just in your thoughts and feelings. Today I'm going to cover what is the perception of stress? How is stress triggered in that microsecond that it takes? We're going to go through a few examples of internal stress triggers and then get into a short practical journal exercise that you can fit into routines through faith-driven tiny habits that will help you identify toxic thought patterns and beliefs so you can set effective stress management strategies.

Through this, you'll also uncover any of those lies that the deceiver has managed to get you to keep repeating to yourself in your own voice that you believe is just the way that the world works. So let's get into the meat of today's topic. God wired us to use stress as part of our survival tool.

What we call stress is simply the response to a threat. This can be a real threat to our survival, like that fierce predatory tiger, or an oncoming car. These examples are external stress.

I talked about external stressors a few episodes ago if you want to go and review that. Or it could be a perceived threat. Think about all the times you get so engrossed in a movie or a book and you're feeling what the character is. Or if you're in playing a video game and you're so immersed in the world, you jump literally when the predator or the bad guy suddenly sneaks up and you can feel that intensity of the fight or flight just as you're getting immersed in that world. And so when it comes to perceived threats, it doesn't necessarily have to be because you're immersed in some media, and it doesn't have to be just life and death. They simply have to be situations that you don't have the resources to handle, or that you perceive that there's an injustice gap.

So a quick example of the first one. Anytime that you tell yourself that you can't, you're not enough, or something will go wrong, or bad will happen, you're telling yourself that you don't have the resources to handle a situation. So this makes it a threat.

If you believe and have experiences that prove that you can't get more resources, or that there is no hope or optimism of getting through, you will get stressed. The greater that deficit, the less you feel that you can be able to get through this situation, the greater your stress. It's an oversimplification, but I think you can get it.

Now let's get to the other one, because a lot of people don't talk about the injustice gap. But there's a lot of research, and this is, I think you'll recognize this in a lot of your interactions as well, and what causes stress. So an injustice gap occurs within relationships, and this could be between you and God, between you and yourself, you and others, or institutions.

It's about the perception of fairness. The bigger the gap between what you view as fair, and what actually occurs, the more stressful the interaction will be, and particularly into the future. So if you have a difficult interaction with your boss, and you view that it is unfair, then the next time that you have an interaction with your boss, you're going to view that he's going to be unfair again.

You're already coming in with that pre-assumption. So when this occurs, it is harder to forgive, and there is that more resentment, frustration, irritation that needs to be overcome for that situation. So I'll give you another one, and just kind of show how this kind of cascades out.

So you work your tail off for an assignment, going above and beyond, yet the slacker that's on the team, you know, you've been in this situation before, gets more recognition because they got a bigger part in the presentation, but they literally didn't do the work when nobody was watching. You view this as unfair. The more times that you see this occur, the greater the injustice gap.

The more you generate proof to yourself that your boss isn't fair, that the slacker is unfairly recognized, that you believe that you need to work harder, than anyone else being able to get the same recognition, that God has made life unfair, or he's punishing you for your fault. This is all creates this bubble of injustice. And then the more that you end up seeing this, this lack of fairness, it adds to your stress.

So don't think of stressors just as a threat, but also think about it is when you see that there's a great deal of unfairness, and that you're going to end up having being disadvantaged in that situation. So as you look at what this means, you see situations in your life where your perception of stress, sorry, your perception of fairness impacts your stress level. So the perception of stress is unique for you, and variable based upon how you are feeling at the moment.

So when you're drained, when you're hungry, when you're in pain, you're tired, you're more likely to view a situation as stressful than when you're feeling alert and energized and like you can conquer the world. So depending on what that inner resilience is, and that's physically, emotionally, spiritually is how that perception of stress is going to end up impacting you. So once you're in this situation, and you're feeling all of this stimulus that is coming on, so let's use the example of an external one.

So when the stressor is external, the nervous system collects the inputs of a situation, the sight, the sound, the smell, the touch, the taste, your intuition, and your history of learned association to react instantaneously to keep you safe. This is all in like an instant, faster than anything that you can imagine. So the body is processing this and being able to then trigger that stress response.

So now when the stressor is internal, when it's your thoughts, your feelings, a sensation, your beliefs, other parts of your brain are communicating back to that survival center, the amygdala. And it's a little bit more of a complex assessment, but it's just as instantaneous. The brain processes the sensory input, it recalls the memories, it evaluates the emotions, it appraises the thoughts, and accounts for your physiological state.

Are you hungry, tired, etc. All in a split second. Personally, I find it absolutely amazing about God's design of our body. It's incredible in terms of what he does to help allow us to stay alive and to being able to thrive. So, going back into this, being able to influence any of these factors that goes into the perception of stress can end up impacting what your perception of that situation is. If you're not hungry, you're gonna feel that the situation is less stressful.

If you are in a more positive mood, or you have more positive associations, the same situation isn't going to end up making you stressed. So, the more you can create experiences, build new memories, the more you physically change your brain and that automatic response that occurs. You can also go through and be able, like we talked about last week, you can capture, challenge, and change your thoughts and your beliefs through focusing on your identity in Christ.

Let's take a quick inventory of internal stressors. These are sensations, things that are going on inside your body, thoughts, emotions, and beliefs.

So, sensations - like we mentioned, your memories can end up getting triggered by sensory input. So, the taste of an Oreo cookie takes you back to those memories in childhood, that's where you were breaking it apart and having fun with your siblings or your friends and enjoying that treat. The same thing happens with traumatic moments.

So, if there's somebody that made you uncomfortable, or it was an adverse event, or traumatic, there are sensory inputs that are tied to that. So, like I had one situation, there was somebody I was interacting with that was really one of those close talkers, and like they're kind of close to you when he was talking, and he used head and shoulders shampoo, and it triggered memories of like just, and the sensation that I wanted to just run away. It took me a little bit of digging, but I finally figured out that the memory this was triggering, and the needing to run away and get away from the person, was from when I was in middle school, that there was someone that just would routinely trap me in the corner of the bus seat, and just kind of push me against the wall so that he could sit and talk to me.

I just didn't care for it, and then once I broke the memory, I dissociated the memory, so that I could just deal with my co-worker in the present with who he is, and not overlay the filter of, and that distorted view of that childhood memory, I was able to get a better working relationship with them. So, these are these sensory inputs that are just triggering reactions based upon what's happened in the past. Then there's the physiological state of the body.

So, like I mentioned earlier, it's the hungry and pain, tired if you're emotionally drained, and just don't have that resilience. It also has to do with like what's going on in the body. So, if you're sick, you're not going to end up being as easily able to handle what's getting thrown at you.

So, if you think about immune issues, internal inflammation, so some of these things you may not even really be aware of. You're just, your body's not working optimally, but it's not come up to a disease state or an illness that you're necessarily aware of, but it just drains out your resources and your resiliency and ability to handle what's thrown at you. Then also your emotional state.

Emotions have that physical sensation. You may not necessarily recognize it fully yourself, but a lot of folks that I find that are really stressed and overworking, they kind of live in their heads and they're disconnected from their emotions because we've learned how to just shove it all down. So, you don't even like feel it from an emotional standpoint, but you feel it from a physical standpoint.

So, you'll get the neck and the jaw tension. For me, this meant resentment and I wasn't saying what I really wanted to say. Heat, like when I'm feeling exposed or vulnerable, I get like a flush and I can just feel the warmth that comes on.

Sometimes these physical sensations may cue you in when there's intense emotions and you're not really processing or acknowledging the emotion. Sensations are not necessarily something a lot of people pay attention to because, like I said, if you're one of these people that kind of lives in your head, your body just becomes a taxi for you going from A to B and you're really not paying attention to the signals. If you're one of those folks that you stop taking breaks because you know you can hold it and you're not going to take that bio break no matter how bad you got to go and how exhausted you are, you're just overridden with your mind, anything that's going on in your body.

So, that's one source of internal stress. Then the next one is thoughts. So, thoughts, you're clear on them.

I'm sure you've got a very active mind. I'm very confident of that and that you've got things running around in your mind all the time of what's going on. And so, as you're just tracking these thoughts and as they whirl through, you can end up uncovering beliefs.

You can find patterns. Some of these really get to your core perception of yourself. So, you may not have been all of that focused on self-development, but if you sit down and you can start tracking some of this, you're going to see where some of your areas of opportunity are.

So, when you're overthinking and you're living in your head, there's also no quiet for the Holy Spirit's being able to get through to you. So, you may see some messages communicated in some different ways too. So, kind of going back to the sensations, pain is one of those that's kind of can end up being a megaphone where the spirit or your body is trying to get your attention to make sure that you can correct something before it goes too far.

So, getting back into thoughts. Sorry for that. I just forgotten to cover that when I was on sensations.

You want to watch for those negative thought patterns. I always find these and think of these as the internal representation of the devil walking around like a roaring lion trying to devour you that's in one Peter. I think it's just particularly when you think about stress and we talk about it as a survival instinct, this really ties into that.

These are the lion, the roaring lion that's trying to eat you of what's going on internally in you. So, it's the self-condemnation, it's the rumination, the judgment, blaming, excusing, complaining, denial, distraction, criticism, guilt. I'm sure you can layer it all on.

It's any of the things that are not what Christ is encouraging us to do and to think about and to feel about others or ourselves from that standpoint. There's also some of these automatic thought patterns. These can be hard to recognize because you just get used to wearing these thought patterns, the distortions of reality.

You pick it up typically in childhood and this is just what you view as real and it takes some pattern finding and tracking down to identify these. So, these common distortions are mind reading. That's where you're taking and going, okay, I know this person thinks that, I know that they're reacting in this way, but did you ask them? Nah, you made that all up in your head.

That's mind reading. Then there's fortune telling and this can be catastrophic or grandiose. It's those times when your thoughts run away with you and you think about, oh, if I do XYZ, I'm going to end up getting all these praise and these accolades.

That's the grandiose or oh my goodness, everything that can go wrong is going to go wrong. That's catastrophic. So, those are both examples of fortune telling where you don't know what's going to happen, but you're projecting yourself into the future and seeing all of these things that could end up happening.

The next category that's pretty common is guilt beating and you can recognize these with the shoulda, coulda, woulda, ought to, must do this. These are the things that are in your head saying, you're not living up to your standards, the other alternatives that you should have done and you're constantly second guessing yourself or trying to figure out what's right. The next category then is negative bias, which means that you just discount the positives.

You're always seeing the negatives. You just think of this as being pessimistic where you're always finding the ways to say that this is a half empty cup instead of half full. In any of these thought patterns that I have just mentioned, you are setting yourself up to perceive the situation or to be processing the situation after you're in the stress response from a position of weakness.

This is why I talk about being this roaring lion that's devouring you. It's taking away your resources and your ability to live to the potential, to act to the potential that God has for you. You really want to take these and turn the inner tormentor into your mentor.

Next up is emotion. The first thing about emotion to watch out for is emotional reasoning. When you are justifying what you do and making decisions based upon your emotions opposed to rational cognitive thinking, these can end up leading you down to all sorts of rabbit trails.

When you look back, you're like, why did I do that? That doesn't make any sense. Those are emotionally driven types of decisions. When you're in that space, when you're stressed, you may end up choosing coping mechanisms that you wouldn't normally choose to deal with.

That's one thing to be aware of and how that can create stress and how it can perpetuate other stressful situations. The more that you choose an unhealthy coping mechanism, then you'll regret it and you'll feel bad about it and you will beat yourself up more about it after whatever originally stressed you out. The next couple of areas to talk about for emotions are the big ones, the two big ones that I see that underlies most people's stress.

That's fear and that's anger. These come with so many different names and different intensities. You'll want to get a chance being able to learn and to recognize those because different words can trigger different levels of awareness of what's going on inside you, but just at the most basic level.

Fear. Fear means that you are recognizing that there's a threat. You're scared that you're unsure of how things are going to end up going.

That truly feeds into the classic survival stress reaction. Anger. Anger is so often triggered because it's that fight response.

You're there and you recognize what's right, what's wrong, what's unfair, what's fair, and you're all charged up to get into that fight. It's part of that thing that comes with that fight flight response and which is why you see it associated so much with stress. There are other emotions that feed stress as well.

These two are just a sampling and I just see these so often with people that are dealing with chronic stress and overwork. These two are these big emotions. They're sometimes ones that we think are bad or we shouldn't be feeling.

They most often get suppressed and then they come and they act out in different ways or we don't necessarily name them and recognize them from that standpoint. They just can cause havoc in terms of what it is that we're behaviorally responding from with what we're thinking. Because as you recognize it, I'm sure you've seen it in your own life, emotions can create thoughts and thoughts create motions.

So whether you know what you're feeling or not, they can still generate a cycle of a stress response. Because so many of the people that I work with that are like you, they live in their heads. They don't really pay attention to the emotions.

The emotions are something that just slows them down. They don't let them get as much done as they want to. The emotions may be difficult to process or just easier just to shove it and deal with it later or forget about it.

So the most common approach that I take with my clients and emotions is just to use them as a barometer. What's the weather? A warning light on the dashboard of a car just to give you an idea of where thoughts or beliefs are starting to pop up into act. With that common behavior and act of suppressing emotions, we got to get friends with them and being able to feel comfortable with acknowledging and expressing them.

Because emotions, they're not good or bad. For example, fear is designed to keep us safe. When you are fearful, you are going to be more cautious and you're going to choose to end up making the decisions that are likely to lead to your survival.

When you're angry, it indicates that you have a moral awareness of right and wrong. You want to end up having these emotions to help guide you through life. It's just in that suppression of them.

That's where we just got to take a little bit of time to heal and to honor, name them, feel them, not change them. I'm really not going to talk too much about changing your emotions. By focusing on your behaviors, your thoughts, the sensations, the beliefs, we'll be able to identify areas that can change so that you can get the healing power of the emotions that's underlying your stress.

That's much shorter. Moving on to beliefs. That's the last category of internal stressor that we're going to talk about today.

A belief is an idea that one accepts as true or real. So often, these are those limiting beliefs that you place on yourself, others, God, the world. These can end up including subconscious blind spots.

The only way you can detect them is through the more apparent behaviors, the thoughts, the feelings. When you see these patterns, it gives life to these underlying beliefs that you don't see, that you're not aware of. In essence, these limiting beliefs, they act like glass cages confining you and distorting your view of reality.

It's like looking through the world from these beliefs with different lenses on, depending on where you're looking through. So you may have a different cognitive distortion, one of those automatic negative thought patterns based upon who you're interacting with, what's going on. And that's all just a mirage.

It's an impact of the glass belief, that glass cage, that belief system that's keeping you trapped in stress and overwhelmed and in cycles of overworking that need to be addressed. So as you can think through these, you can probably identify a couple of these beliefs, the ones that you're more aware of, your conscious beliefs, pretty well. It's just these subconscious ones that are in the unconscious ones that you need to address.

Because so many of them, they've been with you since childhood. It's the things that have been formed from there. And if you've never challenged them before, if you've never uncovered them before, you may just think that that's the way that the world is.

And that's a sign of a fixed mindset. If you believe nothing can change, or this is just the way the world is, you're not leaving room for that opportunity for growth, and to allow God to come in and to change things in a positive way and to work in you. All of these things are just reflections of shame-based thinking, I am bad, where you are, for some reason, holding on to these negative self-perceptions that are so ingrained.

These could be things that started when you were two or younger. So as you think about these sensations, thoughts, emotions, beliefs, all of this can be changed, except for what happened in the past. Once something's in the past, you can't change it.

But all the rest of what I've talked about can be influenced and changed. You can build physical resilience to improve your health with changes in diet, sleep, movement. You can make new memories, and these can replace old associations that you have.

You can change your thinking and emotions with different mindset and sets of beliefs, which allows you to change your perception of stress and reduce the impact of these stress triggers. Through your identity in Christ, you are powerful, love, strong. When you recognize and embrace it, you will find the peace and the harmony that you're looking for.

You'll be able to see that things start to fit into place so that you can have that work-life harmony that you envision for yourself and your loved one. By shedding the deceiver's lies and focusing on reality, God's truth, not this distorted view of all of these different prescriptions of glasses that's in your glass cage of limiting beliefs, but the real reality and God's truth, you can change your beliefs, your thoughts, and emotions. Going back to 1 Peter, the Bible is clear that to defeat the devil seeking to devour you, you resist him and stand firm in the faith.

Repeatedly, we see in the Bible how God wants us to turn this all over to him. This is why I love identity-focused changes, faith-driven tiny habits. You start at the heart of who you are and with the aid of the Holy Spirit, you can transform who you are, reducing stress, improving work-life harmony. These are the outcomes that will result by starting with a focus on who you are in Christ. God will help you thrive and flourish as he intends.

Now, are you ready to check in with how this applies to you? As a quick thought exercise to capture some of your first impressions of these internal stressors, feel free to pause the video to jot some notes and think about each question. I encourage you to do this as needed throughout the rest of the video whenever we come up to the exercises. So one, what contributes the most to your stress from these categories of internal stressors? Sensations, beliefs, thoughts, emotions? Then, off the top of your head, for at least one of these categories of internal triggers, the one you just noted at least, go one level deeper.

What are examples of stressors, triggers in your life that are impacting you today? Maybe you have some awareness of those automatic negative thought patterns or those limiting beliefs. Maybe you recognize where you've got some physical sensations that are repeating patterns that show that there are some suppressed emotions you need to deal with. Or maybe you're even aware that you've got a pattern of resentment or other emotions that needs to be dealt with that's leading into your stress.

What's that one level deeper? So how have you dealt with some of these stressors in the past? Since this one's already in your awareness, capture any ideas that might help you with whatever is stressing you out this week about work. Three questions for this exercise. So moving on, when you are totally stressed and your brain is whirling from non-stop shatter, it can be helpful to put everything into a more objective framework so that you can figure out where to start building a calm center or identify where there's a high impact, highly leverageable pattern that can allow you to relieve stress fairly quickly.

So that leads us to today's exercise. I'm going to focus on the same worksheet that I covered last time we talked about triggers. While it's simple, you can drill into finding patterns to develop a stress management plan.

We'll talk more about that action plan next week. This week's all about building the self-awareness of these triggers. So in your favorite visual journal method, you'll want to create a simple and daily quick tool.

Something like this. There's a download link available in the description. You can also make this into a daily repeating set of tasks on your favorite electronic tool.

Whatever works for you, whatever is easiest. You want to make it simple so it only takes minutes to do and you want to consistently find the time. So if needed, given how tired and how busy you are, you may need to design a tiny habit around journaling to make sure that it's effective and sustainable.

So check the download link if you want help on how to do this. As you identify the pattern, they help you get to the root of the problem. This works the same way that you do when you're doing problem solving at work or like the gardener trying to pull weeds out of the yard.

The most effective way to deal with stress is to pull it out by the root. Stress is an outcome of so many different factors and laying them all out in a journal entry, you can identify which of these inputs that you want to change so you don't have the same outcome. So in the journal, every day you want to note if there was something stressful that occurred.

Now if you've got a lot of stress going on and there's a lot of different categories, you may end up wanting to narrow it down a little bit. So maybe in that earlier exercise, you identified something when you went to that one level deeper and you want to work on that because since you're aware of that right now, maybe you can start figuring out an immediate plan on those and then come and identify another pattern in a little bit. So let's use as an example for today.

I'm not good enough. I'm an imposter. I'm not qualified.

I need to work a lot harder than everyone else and if I don't, they're going to see through, they're going to think less of me. Document the situations that cause you to have that thought and don't overthink it or make it a big deal. You just want one category because this exercise has to be quick so you can get to it consistently.

Once you've built in the habit of stress journaling on a daily basis, you can take a look at adding more categories if that's something that makes sense. But to get the habit going and to start using the tool, start small. Pick something that you partway recognize already and see how much benefit you can get from this.

So now when you have something stressful happen that meets your definition of what you're tracking, you're going to enter that in the first column and that's going to be indicated just by coloring it red, you had a stressor. On the far side, you want to end up noting if you turn the situation over to God. So if you didn't do it earlier in the day when that stressful situation occurred, I suggest that you do it now as it will help to settle and calm you.

And in the center, and that's where we're going to really focus today, you want to capture a quick summary of the situation including your response. And if this is new for you, you may find some limitations in your vocabulary or how to assess some of these things because I really want to make sure that you're getting into those sensations, thoughts, emotions, so you can start identifying where those beliefs are that are popping up. There's a lot of great tools on the internet to help you expand that vocabulary or just get you some multiple choice type items to help you assess a little bit more.

So here are a few of my favorites. So Human Systems, they have a YouTube channel and they've got a less than five minute video on assessing and expressing what you are feeling in the body and they go through and talk about these two different tools that you see on the screen here. Then there's Lindsay Brahman, she has so many great visuals and fun journal layouts.

For this exercise, her emotion sensation wheel, you can see a little bit of a sample of that here, it's great for connecting sensations and emotions. So if you've become a pro at suppressing your emotions, like I was at one point in my life when I was dealing with a lot of stress and deep in the depths of workaholism, the physical sensations helped me to better identify the emotion until I got more comfortable recognizing and acknowledging my own feelings.

Then there's the Geneva emotion wheel. So if you're more logical and you don't really want to use a lot of words but you want an objective way to assess, the way that this tool works is you take a look at any of the emotions that are listed there and then you give yourself that rating, that one to five on that list of emotions there. If you're not feeling an emotion that connects with this, you'll just note that it's no emotion or if there is a different emotion than one of the ones that's listed, you'll just note it there. So it's just another great way to express and uncover some of your patterns and you just want to find something that really works for you and gets you into a broad enough vocabulary to really understand what's going on because different words will help you uncover really what's going on.

And then there's another version, it didn't show up very well, but it's got some bible verses tied to it. So if you do a quick search on emotion wheel bible verses or feeling wheel bible verse or you take any of these words and you throw it in the search engine, you can come up with some bible verses to help you sit and meditate if that's an extra step that you want to take in this exercise to help get some better perspective. But maybe you don't need any of these extra wheels, that's perfectly fine too, just start where you're at.

The important thing is to start documenting so you can find your patterns and be able to take action. Then at the end of the week or after a few days you want to review and see what patterns can you find. The learnings from this daily journal exercise can be then applied to your wellness toolbox or your habit strategy to reduce stress and improve work-life harmony and I'll talk more about this next week.

This journal template gives you an objective framework to build increased self-awareness which can help lead toward a transformed life. Once you know where to focus using faith-driven tiny habits you can find that small bit of space of time and energy in your day to create leverage for a high impact change that leads to reduced stress and more work-life harmony. If there's any questions on this exercise email them to sharon@whisperingfieldswellness.com. 

Will you commit to trying this out? In next week's episode I'll address developing plans to avoid mitigate or deal with these internal triggers.

That episode will integrate the prior discussions on wellness toolbox and habit building as well. Recapping what I covered today, stress can be triggered by internal or external factors. Internal stress triggers can be thoughts, feelings, sensations, beliefs.

You can change your perception of stress by influencing or changing any of these factors. Through daily stress journaling you develop the awareness of where you can make high impact changes that will reduce stress and improve work-life balance. True transformation begins when you acknowledge your weakness.

All those things that stress you out, have you been able to stop doing those things on your own? Have you been able to get a different way of dealing with them? That's weakness. As you think about how long have these inner voices, these negative thoughts been running your life? Most of it, I'd call that a weakness. So when you acknowledge this weakness that you can't resolve on your own but you let God do it, you will be able to thrive and flourish.

He's got a plan for you and he will guide and direct you as you grow in your Christian identity and closer to Christ. You will find less stress and improve work-life harmony as you take a faith-driven approach. I know this was a very high level run through on internal stress triggers.

Click the link to download my journal worksheets to help you cultivate greater awareness. Within this set of journal entries, there's more than just the tool shared today included in the download. Or if you want to work with me so you can put these stress recovery tools together better and to go deeper, click the services link below.

As a Christian stress recovery coach, I'm here to help you explore more of what underlies your stress and imbalance and ensure that you have the motivation and accountability to make the changes you desire in your life. I can come alongside to support and encourage you and share a few strategies and tools to help you with mindset, lifestyle, and diet changes. You deserve to thrive and flourish as God intends.

See you next episode! Have a blessed day!

Hello! I'm Shara McCall with Whispering Fields Wellness. Today in Grace Over Grind, I'll address what happens when you get stuck implementing tiny habits. Sometimes despite your best intentions and greatest efforts, those small behaviors just don't end up occurring quite the way that you planned. I'll share the story of someone who followed the process that I've laid out in this video.

[00:00:23] Video series about how she got unstuck to achieve her goals of reduced stress and improve work life harmony. Let's start with a prayer for today. Lord, thank you for bringing my dear friends to listen today. Please help them find the motivation, guidance, strategies, and tactics to reduce stress and improve work life harmony.

[00:00:47] In our lives, there are times when it is difficult to do what is right. Maybe there is a negative coping habit we keep repeating, like alcohol use. But don't want to? Or maybe it's a positive coping habit that we are working toward, but we just can't seem to do it with our own self will consistently. We all get to that place and need your help, God, to help do what we cannot do on our own.

[00:01:10] Help us through these moments. Also, shine your light on any deceptions we tell ourselves or believe that prevent us from doing what is right. Grant us clarity to recognize how our beliefs and thoughts can hold us back from doing what is right and what is in your will for us. Through you we are made stronger and able to take the right action.

[00:01:31] I pray all is well with every listener, healthy in body, renewed in mind, and strong in spirit. May they know your will and your love as they grow greater in Christian character. In Jesus's name, Amen. This week, I'm focusing on what do you do if you are getting stuck with implementing some of your tiny habits.

[00:01:52] The examples in the exercise that I'll cover today focuses on how to uncover and start addressing how beliefs, thoughts, and feelings can be transformed to better align with your identity driven habits. Let me introduce Penny Pleaser! Everybody say hi Penny! When I first met Penny, she was having a couple of problems.

[00:02:15] After work and family, she never had enough time for herself. Besides work related stress, digestive issues and fatigue were the things she wanted to tackle. Breakfast was a whole grain fiber bar as she drove into work. Lunch was a protein bar while working. Multiple cups of coffee with low fat non dairy creamer kept her going all day.

[00:02:36] And dinner was whatever she had the energy to microwave, or one pot meal to whip up, or pick up on the way home. So they usually sat down to eat dinner around 8 p. m. And while she scheduled 7 hours of sleep and was exhausted, going to bed at 10 p. m. she did not sleep well and was frequently hot. So, as we were talking and going through, she decided that instead of drinking most of her calories in sugary coffee drinks and barely eating, she wanted to focus her tiny habits on getting dinner sooner, so digestion wouldn't impact her sleep, and eating a more well rounded breakfast and lunch, which might make dinner a little less heavy on her.

[00:03:15] So once Penny established what her coaching goals were with me, we went through and identified her Christian identity statement. She decided that she wanted to focus on her body as a temple to the Holy Spirit and that she could only love others as well as she loves herself. She used the parable from Matthew on taking care of the log in her own eye before dealing with the splinter in someone else's eye to be what she focused her design of her habits around.

[00:03:46] This would enable her to make some better choices and start setting some boundaries on her time and energy for critical self care. Her choices now are just making it too hard for her to fulfill her purpose as a spouse, a parent, her support to others. And this was not about being selfish, but loving. She could not continue to be too tired to get involved with her loved ones, and too involved with work to have time to spend with them.

[00:04:14] So as we went through and did the tiny habits and went through this a couple of weeks, she was most successful were changing her coffee order and keeping what she kept as readily available snacks and getting to a 15 minute focused breakfast and lunch. Getting dinner earlier though, she wasn't making much progress.

[00:04:31] That was a difficult one for her. So as she went through the stress journaling, she uncovered a pattern. She wasn't just putting her family's needs before her own. She was doing the same thing at work. As a recognized expert who is easy to get along with, she was regularly doing favors for others in front of her own work.

[00:04:53] Most of the time, her boss didn't even know because they just would come straight to her with these requests. And what was easy for her to do in an hour or less, it might take some of these people that were still learning it a couple of hours, or using the reports that she provided, someone could do their own analysis, that she was regularly asked to custom format the data and report it in multiple different ways to make it easier for whoever was doing it.

[00:05:18] the person that needed it. So depending on the week, she'd found that it was taking about five to 10 hours of her work time was these discretionary favors that she would do for these other people. They were needed to get done for the business, but they weren't her responsibility to get done. They just came in and they asked her because of her expertise and that it would take her less time than them to get it done.

[00:05:42] It's not getting the desired outcomes of being home earlier and able to eat dinner earlier. So that she could get more sleep, but from this pattern that she found in her journals, we needed to dig deeper. She needed to better align her underlying beliefs and thoughts with her desired identity so that she could end up doing what was right for her.

[00:06:03] So just as Jesus took time to withdraw and rest and make sure that his disciples did, she also needed to, because at this point she was still worn out and exhausted and on edge from stress and overwork. She was not helping herself. her co workers or the company. She needed healthy boundaries and collaboration in a different way that would allow her to be more effective at work.

[00:06:28] By making the right changes to her thoughts and her beliefs, she could still be recognized for the traits that she was proud of, her expertise and being a team player, even with stronger boundaries. So to progress her On her tiny habit of eating dinner sooner, we had to work more closely on developing an alternate set of responses when someone asked for a favor.

[00:06:58] We narrowed it down a little bit more to just a few people who were regularly taking advantage of her kindness to work on getting to the point of being able to say maybe, at least, instead of an automatic yes. And then developing a strategy to address custom requests better. That one we handled outside of Tiny Habits since it was just a one off deal that we'd come up with.

[00:07:21] So today I'm going to share with you some additional ways that you can take your stress journal entries, just like she did, a little bit further to address where there are negative thoughts and limiting beliefs fueling your stress and preventing you from doing what is right. Whatever is basically getting you stuck so that you can't implement your tiny habit the way that you designed and planned it.

[00:07:43] So before I get into the exercise today, let's do a quick reframe of Penny's stories using the tools that I've shared so far from prior episodes. And if you haven't looked at those, please do so. And I've also included the downloads for any of the worksheets and the journal templates that I'm referencing in the description below.

[00:08:01] So from the story that I shared, you can see how Penny, one, recognized God's plan for her as best as she knew. Um, She identified a Christian identity statement that resonated with her vision of work life harmony and what it meant for her to thrive and flourish in body, mind, and spirit. She selected specific areas to work on that would have a high impact and fit the time and energy she had to dedicate to this effort.

[00:08:27] Then, two, she examined and tested her ways, which was basically comparing her current habits, For her newly designed habits. So using a habit cloud, she identified more precisely the behaviors that she wanted to change to become more like who she wanted to become, and less driven by a work centered identity.

[00:08:47] She designed her new tiny habits with a clear anchor, starting behavior, and a plan to celebrate. Then she moved into step three. Act in his will to do what is required, which is all about implementing, monitoring, and adapting the plan as you go through and do it. So she implemented her starter habits and got them established by making small adjustments each week as she reviewed her progress.

[00:09:11] And in several of these we saw she made some really good progress. Then she went into the fourth step. She persevered and grew. So she, this is all about training and iterating. So once you have that habit established, that starter behavior, she continued to train until it became more habitual. And then added the next right action and incremental behavior to build her routine.

[00:09:37] So like I said, she ended up taking what was initially just eating a bar as she was driving to work. She found time to eat at home and slowly increased that amount of time where she actually focused on just the one thing of enjoying her food at a time. Um, and she iterated through that and just continued to grow that behavior.

[00:09:57] So through her weekly process of reviewing her habit tracker and her journal of stress triggers, that's how Penny found and recognized that she was getting stuck on this one behavior of being able to get home a little bit sooner and wasn't making as much progress as she wanted. So today we're going to go through an exercise that I've borrowed from Dr. Daniel Amen. He's a brain health expert and it is a simple way to capture a thought in the challenge it and change it. And it's all through this faith centered identity that we've been talking about that we're anchoring the habits in and this whole stress recovery journey. And the goal is not to turn every stressor, negative thought or limiting belief into a positive piece of inspirational motivation.

[00:10:42] You can't live in this false toxic positivity. It's just not healthy. But we want your thoughts being able to go from negative and limiting and preventing you from growing and changing to be more accurate and realistic. We want you to see through the deception and the lies that you or The opposing forces, depending on your particular viewpoint on this, is telling you and is holding you back.

[00:11:07] So let's jump into the exercise. It starts with capture. From your stress journal entries, you want to go through them and pick an area of focus. And then when you feel more comfortable with this approach, you can then use this technique at the moment to specifically capture a thought and go through these four different questions.

[00:11:28] Just It's a time that it crosses your mind. But to learn it, it's best if you just grab something from your stress journal and pick that item that's been coming up with some regular frequency. Then you want to end up challenging it. So there are four questions as I mentioned about this. One, is the stressful or negative thought true?

[00:11:48] Two, can I absolutely know that it's true? Three, how do I react when I believe that thought? And then four, who would I be without that thought? Or how would I feel if I didn't have that thought? So those are the four questions to challenge it. And then the next thing that you do is you're going to change it.

[00:12:15] So with the answers to those questions, you want to try and look at this from that Christian identity statement, from God's perspective, as best that you can. Filter, Your answers through those two lenses and see where you can end up focusing your change efforts around. Maybe there's some affirmation work, maybe there's some action plans.

[00:12:38] So it all kind of depends on the scenario with what that change looks like. So let's go through today's example. So capture. So, from the stress journal, Penny identified that when she's asked to do a favor or a special assignment for someone that's not part of her regular work, some of the thoughts that she notices are that she's proud that someone asked her and that they value the work that she does and she wants them to continue to think well of her.

[00:13:06] And when she looked a little bit deeper into that, like what would happen if she actually said no, it came up that she believed that they wouldn't like her or would think less of her work and value her work. No, work less just because she said no. So this is what we decided to run through the exercise so that she could get to feeling more comfortable with saying no or maybe to these extra requests and setting up a healthy boundary and figuring out different ways to collaborate with people.

[00:13:40] So then we move into the next phase, challenge. So on this one, we're going to go back and forth just in a dialogue between Penny and I so that it's easier to follow and to understand. So, the first question. Is it true that the person wouldn't like you if she said no when they asked for a favor? Yes, it's possible that they wouldn't like me.

[00:14:05] John held a grudge and was nasty that one time I told him no, because I was already on the way out for the day and he wanted it, like, now. He wasn't going to give me enough time to be able to turn it around, so I just told him no. So now to the second question. Can you absolutely know that it's true that everyone asking you for a favor won't like you if you say no?

[00:14:30] Come to think of it. I told Julie no once. I was leaving for an emergency. I needed to get out immediately and She was okay with me saying no. She went ahead and said thank you and appreciated that I gave her a little bit of time to give her some suggestions on how to do it and She went ahead and did it, and I headed home to being able to take care of it.

[00:14:51] So I did tell her no, and she didn't end up changing her opinion of me. And moving on to question three. How do you react when you believe that the person asking for the favor won't like you if you say no? I automatically just say yes when somebody asks for a favor. So, what I'm also noticing though is, you know, I've been trying to work on becoming more aware of my emotions instead of just shoving everything down.

[00:15:22] That there are certain cases that as I'm doing the favor for someone, I get resentful because Why am I doing this again when they are perfectly capable of it and it's part of their job? Their emergency shouldn't make it mine. And then there's other cases when Later, I'd notice I'd be super stressed out I wouldn't have given much thought to it as I was doing the activity or the favor But then like when I look at my own work and what I need to do And how my work plan for the day is impacted.

[00:15:53] I just get stressed up and And then I get to thinking about what am I giving up for my family to get yet one more thing done at work. So I think I've been aware of some of this, but I just never said anything other than yes. Except for those two cases that I told you about before. And then the last question.

[00:16:17] Who would you be without the thought that people wouldn't like you if you said no to a favor? What first runs through mind is selfish. so much. Putting my needs before others, that's just not what I'm comfortable with. I know I'm still working on that belief. And as I try and view it from who I want to be, someone that cares for my needs enough that I'm able to give back to others, and particularly my family, I really am better off without that thought.

[00:16:51] It's not like I'll be mean or nasty when I say no. I'll just avoid over commitment, resentment, and being able to have a better balance. More time for myself and my family. It'll let me be able to work more effectively as well. Taking on all this extra work is really not helping the company either. So many of these people need to improve their own skills and by doing it for them, they're just not developing and improving in the way that they need to.

[00:17:23] So, as I was working with her, it did take a couple of iterations and going through a couple of different scenarios to put those responses together. This is a bit of a compilation, but so you can see the power and the simplicity of these four questions and what can come up if you're persistently going after those repeating negative thoughts and limiting beliefs.

[00:17:44] So, moving on to this next phase, change. With all of this information, here's what Penny decided to do. She decided that part of what God wants her to be is someone who can say no. This way she can better support others as needed. She can change the thought to, even if people, even if some people don't like it when I say no, it doesn't change who I am.

[00:18:13] Or that God loves me. And it doesn't impact the opinion of people who are closest to me. That's what she held on to. So moving forward though, her action plan was with a few target people. Her starter habit was to train herself to automatically say maybe, and ask for a few minutes to look at it, to see how it would fit with her workload.

[00:18:37] Then she would take a pause. Uh, Um, Um, Um, practices of conversion. We think most people who are working in a partnership, such as you have two partners below you. So you are highly likely to be working together because we think for the most part, you are basically your own two partners. Next. So the P Course is, or in order to help others, With a few people, she offered to end up working near them so that that way, as they did the assignment, as they did the task, that she'd be there to answer any questions and offer suggestions in terms of how to be more efficient.

[00:19:14] So that way, that person was learning and growing and developing their skills while she was still able to do her work. And ultimately, what this happened is that she was able to redirect some of these help requests or other work to these experts. Transcripts. Her boss really appreciated her initiative in regards to how she was developing others and allowed the team to be more effective.

[00:19:38] Overall, there are still plenty of times that she said yes, but it was not out of fear of being rejected, but based upon what her time and energy was that she had available and the importance and the urgency of the request to the team. So ultimately, in the end, she was better able to manage her time.

[00:19:59] Overall, reducing her work hours because she stopped taking on these discretionary favors for others. It allowed her to eat her dinner earlier with her family and get better quality of sleep. Personally, I love how these tiny changes have such a cascading effect. Ready to try this for yourself with one of your stressful situations or negative thoughts?

[00:20:21] If you have any questions on this exercise, email them to Sharon at whisperingfieldwellness. com

[00:20:36] So here's the four questions again. Is the stressful or negative thought true? Can I absolutely know that it's true? How do I react when I believe that thought? Who would I be without that thought? Or alternatively, how would I feel if I didn't have that thought? That's the four questions that are part of the challenge.

[00:21:00] So in summary, by changing who you are and what you believe through this process of leveraging identity driven tiny habits and stress journaling, you can effectively change your thoughts, beliefs and behaviors. These strategies take very little time and energy daily and can result in time in major transformation aligning yourself more closely with God's plan for you and leaning on your Christian faith.

[00:21:26] It allows you to reduce stress. Improve work life harmony, and eventually thrive and flourish as he intends for you. In the next episode, I'll cover more on cultivating awareness of internal stress triggers. These are the perceived stressors based upon thoughts, feelings, sensations, and personal association.

[00:21:48] I want you to be well equipped to be aware and able to handle a variety of stressors. If you haven't already, click the link to download my habit building guide so you can begin to reduce your stress. It all starts with being clear on who you want to become and then proving it to yourself with small wins.

[00:22:07] Because the Lord prompted you with his wisdom on how to get closer to him, take small steps towards something you know is a better path. Or, if this series and working through the downloads have you thinking that you want to work with me, you want to go deeper than do it yourself effort, click the services link below.

[00:22:27] As a Christian stress recovery coach, I'm here to help you explore more of what underlies your stress and imbalance and ensure that you have the motivation and accountability to make the changes you desire in your life. Only you and God know how to heal your stress. I can come alongside to support and encourage you and share a few strategies and tools to help you with mindset, lifestyle, and diet changing.

[00:22:51] See you next episode. Have a blessed day.

[00:00:00] Hello, I'm Sharon McCall with Whispering Fields Wellness. Today in Grace Over Grind, I'll address the importance of holistic wellness, reduced stress, and improved work life balance. We're going to really focus on the mind part of body, mind, and spirit today, which is emotion, intellect, those areas of lifestyle, and mental health.

[00:00:22] Lord, thank you for bringing my dear friend to listen today. Please help them find the motivation, guidance, strategies, and tactics to reduce stress and improve work life harmony. As we talk about emotional and intellectual dimensions of lifestyle and mental health today, may they find an opportunity for personal application.

[00:00:41] So many people who struggle with stress and are chained to the desk by work live most of their lives in their heads. Christ, help ensure our minds are a healthy, supportive growth environment. Let us see through the lies of the deceiver who wants us to be helpless, unloved, and unworthy and to believe that we have to get through the pains of life and suffering alone.

[00:01:02] Let us see through the illusion and recognize that believing the devil's lies has contributed to chronic stress and overwork. Believing these lies, the devil is literally devouring our time, energy, joy, and health. It is making us sick and separating us from God. God, with Holy Spirit, open our eyes, ears, and heart to know the truth.

[00:01:21] Through you, we are strong, loved, worthy, and never alone. So long as we keep coming back to you, there is nothing we can do that makes us unworthy of your love. And recognize that life is richer than just our thoughts. I pray all is well with every listener. Healthy in body, renewed in mind, and strong in spirit.

[00:01:40] May they know your will and your love as they grow greater in Christian character. In Jesus name, Amen. God designed us as holistic beings, body, mind, and spirit. As Christians with the Holy Spirit indwelling in us, we are called to become more Christ like. I'm not God, but I bet that a life where career has gained primacy at the expense of health and relationships is probably not what God intended for you.

[00:02:05] Looking at modern American life, the noise and pressure to focus on more, being more, doing more, striving for more, have twisted a natural inclination to work and support our loved ones into overwork. Stress filled, hectic, 55 plus hour workweeks squeeze out time for meaningful connections and drain energy for important areas of life.

[00:02:25] Today, we're going to focus more on the mind part of our being. I'll cover how you can reduce stress and improve work life harmony by focusing on increasing satisfaction in emotional and intellectual dimensions of lifestyle and how they impact mental health. I'll close with a simple assessment exercise for you to work through so you can more clearly identify what changes can be most impactful for you.

[00:02:56] As we work through these dimensions of wellness, emotional and intellectual are just two of the eight dimensions that we'll be covering in this series over the next several months. As you saw last time we discussed wellness toolbox, when it comes down to it, the concept of multi dimensional well being is pretty straightforward.

[00:03:14] Everyone has a concept of what each dimension means for them. Today, I'll go over some quick considerations on both emotional and intellectual dimensions so that we're all on the same page. So emotional. This is all about coping effectively with life, no matter what happens to you, and being able to enjoy life.

[00:03:34] It's about creating satisfying relationships with yourself and others, being aware of and listening to your feelings, not suppressing them, expressing your feelings to people you trust, being involved in activities that bring you joy, peace, calm, happiness, enthusiasm. It's about activities to For personal development and maintaining a balanced and realistic self image.

[00:03:59] Empathy and emotional intelligence skills are also part of this dimension. As you're thinking about what you might be adding to your lifestyle to make it more fulfilling and enriching, some different areas to explore to increase emotional satisfaction and well being are your personal interest for leisure and relaxation, self care, some type of self awareness or reflection activity.

[00:04:25] And having good support. So moving on to the intellectual area. This is all about recognizing your creative abilities and finding outlets that stimulate your mind and allow for creative expression. Engaging your imagination and finding your sense of play or humor. You want to be able to expand your knowledge and skills through continuous learning and development.

[00:04:49] Encouraging a sense of curiosity and inquiry and then sharing what you learn. Thank you. Critical thinking, problem solving, communication, and decision making are all parts of this dimension. So, again, as you think about how you might want to enrich your life and being able to make it more fulfilling, if this is an area of well being that you want to work on, you can take a look at your personal interests, education opportunities, brain exercises, conversation, communication.

[00:05:18] Just when it comes to the intellectual area of wellness or of lifestyle, I'm pretty sure you're stimulated at work and you may end up focusing on this part of your life quite a bit. And you may be overall satisfied with it. There may be a couple of areas that you want to work on, such as in your creativity and being able to engage your imagination and play.

[00:05:38] You may want to think about it as what are activities that you can do instead of work that could end up stimulating this part of wellbeing. I want to encourage you to identify areas of your life that you feel that you've missed out on because of your commitments work. So this could be a hobby or being able to play and engage in fun activities with family and friends.

[00:06:02] So what is your current level of wellness and satisfaction in these areas of your life? Are these areas that as you seek more work life balance, that you seek to grow or strengthen? How can investing time and energy in these areas of your life help to reduce your stress and energize you more? If you think about it, expressing your creativity may be a great way to kind of reinvigorate yourself and to energize those parts of you that you've not had any time to do.

[00:06:29] On first pass, what are some of your initial thoughts on activities that you long to have time or energy for? These are ideas for your wellness toolbox so you can begin to collect stress management approaches. These can also be part of your habit building strategy or help refine what you're evaluating in your journaling as you're looking for areas of improvement.

[00:06:49] Moving on into more of the topic of mental health. Chronic stress impacts cognitive and emotional functioning. It also increases vulnerability to mental illness like anxiety and depression. If your pattern of overwork and stress puts you at a high risk of workaholism, this is a recognized process addiction.

[00:07:10] Note, I did put a link in the description for an evidence based assessment if you are concerned specifically about am I a workaholic. As a result, it is very important to support and monitor your mental health. You may not have a mental health disorder, but like physical health, you want a preventive approach so you can enjoy a fulfilling life.

[00:07:32] God designed our brain and nervous system with neuroplasticity, so that as we address our mental health, our brain and nervous system literally renews. Science has proven and caught up with what the Bible tells us, that growth and change result in a renewing of the mind. So keep in mind, mental health impacts physical health.

[00:07:54] The biochemistry of thoughts and emotions can take a toll on the body, just as much as an injury. This is not restricted to just brain health. Negative thoughts and emotions create an inflammatory cascade of biochemicals that can impact all body systems. Also, staying in stress response for long periods of time impacts multiple body systems because the body prioritizes fight and flight over rest and digest responses and repairs.

[00:08:22] If you experience stress, repeating patterns of thoughts and emotions for long periods, Or experience trauma. It changes your brain, gut, and possibly other parts of your body. Where it shows up in your body will be different for you than someone else. It all depends on your bio individually and what is the weakest point in your physical systems.

[00:08:46] We'll talk more about the physical side of this in a few weeks, but I wanted to call it out because of how related mental and physical health are. So before we move on, how do you assess your mental health? Have you observed if stress is wearing down your emotional and intellectual capability? Are you feeling brain fog, losing patience more easily than normal, less empathetic, just not feeling like yourself anymore and really want to get back to it?

[00:09:14] Just a few questions to consider in your assessment. Are you able to realize your abilities, learn well, think clearly? As you look at your patterns of thoughts, are you holding a more positive or a negative view? Are you viewing situations realistically or through the lens of a cognitive distortion? What is your attitude towards change?

[00:09:37] What is your attitude towards life's challenges? How well are acknowledging your emotions, dealing with them in a healthy manner? Are you judging emotions, suppressing ones that are bad? What about being able to recognize and respond to the emotions of others? Emotions are not good or bad. It's what you do with them and how you express them.

[00:09:59] Anger lets you know when a boundary has been violated. Fear flags you to proceed with caution. When there's a loss, it makes sense that you feel sad. Feelings are like warning lights in the dashboard of your car. They help you know when to pay attention and where to look for challenges going on in your life.

[00:10:18] As discussed before, I firmly believe that change is most effective when it starts with acknowledging your real identity. By fully embracing your identity, your beliefs begin to gain greater alignment with who you are. As you change your beliefs, you can change your thoughts and behaviors. This comes back to the idea on the smoker.

[00:10:40] If you're trying to quit, you're striving not to smoke. That's different than saying, I am not a smoker. It's a very clear cut distinction. Once you embody that identity, your change in beliefs, thoughts, behaviors, they all follow suit. We've discussed this previously, but for me, it really gets back to recognizing God's plan for you.

[00:11:05] Well, to the best of your abilities that you understand it. If we anchor our identity in anything other than how he views us, we lose out. Say in society, other people have different and limited views of who we are. Similarly, if we are overly protective of the parts of us that were heard as a child, that has influenced how we form relationships, we're defining ourselves and reacting to new people and situations based upon how life and others have heard us before.

[00:11:34] If we allow any of these identities become primary, There is pain and struggle. In this fallen world, it is hard enough to fully live within God's will. There's no need to make it tougher by picking up any of these limiting beliefs or cognitive distortions. When I last discussed the wellness toolbox, I shared an exercise for you to recognize opportunities in your behaviors.

[00:11:56] On your worst day, an okay day, a good day, if you're acting as Christ role model for us, Last time we mainly focused on the spiritual and social dimensions of life. You can repeat this same exercise, focusing on the emotional and intellectual dimensions of life and well being. This is a great approach to help identify areas in which you want to build tiny habits or routines.

[00:12:21] Today, I'm going to introduce a different exercise, though, for you to envision what it means to thrive and flourish. This exercise is called Envisioning Holistic Wellness. Some scientists say that change is more successful when you have a clear vision of what you want, when you have the end in mind.

[00:12:37] Focusing only on what you want to achieve requires a lot of willpower motivation throughout the change process, though. On the other hand, other scientists recognize that there is a more sustainable change process when you focus on changing your identity and your beliefs and then the behaviors and the thoughts follow.

[00:12:59] This approach requires less willpower and motivation. There's a big difference between trying and striving to be something versus I am something. This exercise documents both viewpoints so you can incorporate either approach to change based upon what resonates most with you in each area of your life.

[00:13:20] So to do this, you want a sheet of paper, maybe two, depending on how you're approaching this, and two colored pens or pencils. On the blank sheet of paper, make three interlacing circles. Label one body, another mind, and the last spirit. In the first color of pen, go through and put anything you can think of in your life today that reflects your vision of work life harmony or comes to mind when you think about who you are as a Christian and what it means to you to thrive and flourish as God intends.

[00:13:50] Write down anything you are satisfied with in your life as it comes to overall well being. Capture strengths, beliefs, positive thought patterns, and behaviors, not just outcomes. So for example, You may have an outcome of Financially secure future you want to write out what underpins that belief for example that God provides or the behavior of Daily prayers of Thanksgiving for what God has provided and asking for what is needed for self and others You really want to make sure that you're looking at this all the way from identity belief thought and Behavior to outcome.

[00:14:32] And make sure that you're capturing those. So where the circles overlap, they can be used for anything that touches both categories. In the center, that is for anything that touches all three categories. And this is just to organize things and so don't get too stressed about it. Just fill it out the way that you intuitively feel is the best guidance.

[00:14:55] Now, in a different color of pen, go through and write down anything that is missing that you feel is an essential part of thriving and flourishing. What do you want to have as part of work life harmony that you don't have today? You want to write this as a positive statement, not a negative one. You want to answer, what do you want more of in your life?

[00:15:21] For example, less working hours is a negative frame, whereas a positive frame is playing ball with the kids, a monthly golf outing with friends, Friday date night, right from the perspective as if you were fully embodying your Christian identity statement that you picked the last time we discussed the wellness toolbox.

[00:15:40] Again, you want to get to the belief Behaviors, thought patterns and outcomes. If you're stuck and all you can think about is that negative statement on that second sheet of paper, write everything that you don't want in your life that's currently in your life. And as you figure out how to rewrite it in terms of what you want in life, then transfer it over to the circle.

[00:16:04] This is a great exercise to get really clear on what is important to you. It can easily be converted to a vision board or cutouts and pictures if that's something that feels good for you and is inspiring. If you're comfortable, share it with loved ones, get their input and some dialogue on. This is intended to be an inspiration and ongoing work in progress to help you identify the changes you want in your life.

[00:16:27] This can be applied in designing and building tiny habits. It also can be done to help you better narrow down what stressors you want to work on by including what is currently going on in your life. It also helps you maintain a positive growth mindset that helps to defeat any of the lies that may be running around in your mind that reflects cognitive bias or limiting belief.

[00:16:50] Any questions on this exercise, email them to Sharon@whisperingfieldwellness.com. Today we talked more about the mind part of our holistic being, mental health, and the activities that are part of the emotional and intellectual dimensions of lifestyle and wellness. As a parting thought, as Christians, true transformation lies in who we are in Christ.

[00:17:14] It begins when you acknowledge your weakness in this sinful material world, have the humility to let God restore you, and surrender your life and will to God's care. He'll give you strength and courage and lead you to grow your Christian character. He has plans for you and a purpose for you. And if I had to guess, it is not for your contributions to a company to be more important than your relationships, health, and well being.

[00:17:38] In the next episode, I'll discuss how to keep moving forward with your habit building after you've been disappointed by a few misses. I want to ensure you get the most out of these simple strategies and tools to help you reduce stress and improve work life harmony. So if you just want to jump right in, click the link to download my Habit Building Guide.

[00:17:58] It all starts with being clear on who you want to become and then proving it to yourself with small wins. Because the Lord prompted you with his wisdom on how to get closer to him, take small steps towards something you know is a better path. Or if this series and the downloads have you thinking that you want to work with me, click the services link below.

[00:18:18] As a Christian stress recovery coach, I'm here to help you explore more of what underlies your stress and imbalance and ensure that you have the motivation and accountability to make the changes you desire in your life. Only you and God know how to heal your stress. I can come alongside to support and encourage you and share a few strategies and tools to help you with mindset, lifestyle, and diet changes.

[00:00:00] Hello, I'm Sharon McCall with Whispering Fields Wellness. Today in Grace Over Grind, I'll discuss the importance of cultivating self awareness of stress triggers. This helps us to reduce stress and improve work life harmony. This episode will focus on common external triggers that you frequently encounter.

[00:00:20] In a future episode, I'll go over internal stressors that are like thoughts, feelings, and sensations. Let's go ahead and open in prayer. Lord, thank you for bringing my dear friends to listen today. Please help them find the motivation, guidance, strategies, and tactics to reduce stress and improve work life harmony.

[00:00:40] As Jesus shared in the parable of the sower, we need to address the thorns, rocks, and hardened parts of our heart. This metaphor is also applicable to addressing stress in our lives. We, the These can be worry, exhaustion, emptiness, distress, or doing too much separation. Weeds choke us. Ants are automatic negative thoughts, wound us.

[00:01:01] And negative coping behaviors cause us to stumble, and our limiting beliefs harden us. Stress keeps us focused on ourselves and not on God or serving others. As part of the journey of stress recovery, we will mature as Christians and grow closer to you. Through today's discussion, may my dear friends cultivate self awareness of what is triggering their stress and be equipped with tools to better identify their blind spots.

[00:01:24] As they learn more about themselves, may they increasingly be able to surrender their burdens to you and see through any deceitfulness. I pray all is well with every listener, healthy in body, renewed in mind, and strong in spirit. As they reduce stress and improve work life balance, may they know your will and your love.

[00:01:43] In Jesus's name, Amen. Today, I'll cover a quick overview of stress, examples of common external stress triggers, and a short practical journal exercise to identify patterns of stressors in your life. God wired us to use stress as part of our survival tools. What we call stress is simply the response to a threat It's what triggers us into fight, flight, freeze, or fawn.

[00:02:09] When facing a life or death situation, our stress response prioritizes the body's systems for survival. Once we feel safe, the stress response diminishes and we are able again to get back to regular physical function. So when we're in stress response, there's all sorts of hormonal and biochemical things that are going on inside of our bodies as a result of this threat.

[00:02:31] Stress is different for everyone. Life experience and resilience are intrinsic factors that determine our response. How you perceive and respond to a specific situation will be unique compared to others that are in the same situation. Stress can be short term, long term. It can be triggered by external or internal stressors, where external is anything outside of your body, mind, and spirit.

[00:02:54] And internal are your thoughts, feelings, sensations, anything that's coming from inside your body, mind, and spirit. And the magnitude of stress can range from minor disruption to significant threats or traumatic events. They can be helpful so that you can end up growing from these, or they can end up being very challenging and feel like they're just designed to stagnate or to wound you.

[00:03:18] And when you're experiencing multiple stressors, it diminishes your ability to cope and just wears you down faster than if there was just one area of your life that was stressing you out. Stress impacts physical and mental health. You only have so much reserve at a given moment to deal effectively with what is going on.

[00:03:36] So you may have noticed that something that you're able to go with the flow on the last time it happened, it may be what pushes you over the proverbial edge this time. It's all based upon how we are doing physically, mentally, spiritually. When you're exposed to chronic stress, it can lead to chronic disease.

[00:03:57] Like I mentioned, there's a lot going on in the body. And so when you're constantly flooding yourself with these biochemicals, it can end up having a really significant impact. And over time that does lead to multiple things that can happen physically and mentally as well as into chronic disease. Stress magnifies other risk factors for chronic disease as well.

[00:04:17] So if you've got something else that's going on in your life that's triggering, let's say you're starting to signs of elevated blood sugar and are working on pre diabetes, that in combination with stress, it just increases your likelihood of diabetes because of everything that's going on inside your body.

[00:04:34] So reacting to your stress triggers is absolutely normal. But if you don't recognize and respond to them, you may feel stress just building on itself. You're not productively being able to get it out. If you're not finding ways being able to address it up front, you need to be able to make sure that once you're in that stress cycle, that you can calm and relax and bring yourself down.

[00:04:56] So in next week's episode, I'll address developing plans to avoid, mitigate, or deal with these triggers. That episode will integrate into the prior discussions that we've had on Wellness Toolbox and Habit Building as well. Okay, let's get deeper into today's topic. External stress triggers. External means that it's something outside of your body, mind, and spirit.

[00:05:17] Here's a couple of sample categories. Safety, relationships of any type, financial, occupational, anything in your environment, anything that you bring into your body, anything that you consume, the activities that you do, or that you don't do, including sleep. These are some really big categories. And so from here, though, you can break it down into subcategories and other subcategories of subcategories based upon whatever is going in your life.

[00:05:51] This is just kind of that starting spot where you can kind of cascade it out to being able to identify where. Things are stressing you out and where there may be a pattern because there may be something that's going on across multiple different types of Relationships that are all related. So let's walk through an example.

[00:06:09] Your work relationships are the greatest source of your stress. From here, you can being able to narrow it down to situations that end up causing you the most stress at work. As you think about it, you realize that giving feedback is one of the toughest things that you have to do, and you have to do it on a regular basis as part of your role.

[00:06:32] When you narrow it down further, you're realizing that it's only people with a certain personality type or one or two people that are the hardest for you to have the courage to give timely and effective feedback to. So the more that we can dial in, it gets us closer to a strategy that can be established.

[00:06:53] So in this situation to reduce anxiety and stress from before the situation, we can come up with a couple of different tactics to include in your tiny habit plan. During the interaction, we can come up with a couple of different ways to make sure that you're staying calm through the situation. And then afterwards, as you're feeling it and you're processing to being able to help you to calm down and to get back to that zone of safety with repetition and addressing any underlying internal factors, you'll find that you are less stressed.

[00:07:29] As a quick thought exercise to capture some of your first impressions of these categories of external stressors. Feel free to pause the video to jot some notes or to think about each of these questions I'm about to ask. I encourage you to do this as needed throughout the rest of the video as we go through the exercise.

[00:07:44] So the first question, as you think about these categories of triggers, besides work, what else has you stressed?

[00:07:55] Off the top of your head, within the top one or two categories, what are examples of stressors, triggers in your life that are impacting you today?

[00:08:06] Have you dealt with some of these stressors or similar situations in the past? Capture any ideas that might help you with whatever is stressing you out this week at work. When you are totally stressed out and feeling like life is coming at you from multiple directions, it can be helpful to put it into a structured framework.

[00:08:24] This allows you to take an objective approach and to identify areas that you need for being able to dial in on or find high impact patterns so that you can relieve a lot of your stress fairly quickly. In your favorite visual journal method, you'll want to create a simple and quick daily tool.

[00:08:41] Something like what you see above this. There's a download link available in the description if you just want to download it. You can also make this into a daily repeating set of tasks in your favorite electronic tool. Whatever works for you so that you can end up creating the insights and building the self awareness.

[00:08:58] Now, I hear you. No moaning and groaning that you don't have time or energy. I designed this specifically with you in mind. This daily journal exercise takes less than 30 minutes per week to give you real insight. It's just moments a day. You can take targeted actions in your habit strategy to avoid, reduce, or deal with the stressor that you're focused on.

[00:09:20] This is very actionable, so it is a well worth it investment. So getting into the journal entry. So every day, you want to note if there was something that was stressful that occurred. So that's what that first column is. You just color it red if you've ended up having something stressful occur.

[00:09:38] Now, if you have a lot of different stressors going on, you just want to pick the area that you're focused on, maybe one category or a subcategory like we had talked about above. So let's say it's in those feedback conversations. So just focus then on the feedback discussions. Did you have stress related to that on that day?

[00:10:00] Okay. Once you've identified whether you did or did not have that stressor, you're going to end up moving into the next column. You want to capture a quick summary of the situation, including how you reacted, just basic facts, just quick jot it down a couple of things. I'm sure you'll remember it by the end of the week.

[00:10:17] It's just to kind of trigger that memory. Now in this last column, you want to note if you turn the situation over to God to help calm you back down. So if you ended up having a feedback session or had to think about a feedback session, did you take that moment to take that burden and give it to God? If you didn't do it at the time when you're still thinking about the situation, to take a moment in prayer to unburden yourself.

[00:10:45] You want to make sure that even if this was hours ago, That you're getting yourself calmed back down as you think about the situation. Anything that you can do to regain your sense of safety helps to break the stress response that's going on in your body. God will restore you if you let him. Keep in mind, I come from the perspective that God intends for us to prioritize our relationships with him.

[00:11:11] Yet your stress filled, hectic 55 plus hour work week squeezes out time for meaningful connections and drains energy away from other important areas of life. So when you take small actions like this, go with a prayer going to God, it can go a long way to restore your balance and harmony. Now, after you've collected this information for a couple of days or at the end of the week, check to see what patterns you've identified.

[00:11:37] See what you've learned about yourself. These learnings from this daily journal exercise can then be applied with your wellness toolbox and your habit strategy to reduce stress and improve work life harmony. I'm going to talk more about this next week. I just want to make sure that you've gotten some insights collected before we meet again.

[00:11:56] This journal template gives you a framework to build increased self awareness, which can lead toward a transformed life. Any questions on this exercise, email them to Sharon at whisperingfieldswellness. com. As you can see it on the screen, true transformation begins when you acknowledge your weakness and that you can't resolve this on your own, but God can, if you let him, he's got a plan for you to thrive and flourish and will guide and direct you as you grow in your Christian identity.

[00:12:28] In the next episode, I'll discuss developing a plan for stress prevention and reduction. It still builds upon the concepts introduced so far. I know this was a very high level run through on common stress triggers. Click the link to download my journal worksheets to help you cultivate stress awareness.

[00:12:45] There is so much more than just this tool that's shared today. That's included in the download and the email series that goes with it. Or if you want to work with me, click the services link below as a Christian stress recovery coach. I'm here to help you explore more of what underlies your stress and imbalance and ensure that you have the motivation and accountability to make the changes you desire in your life.

[00:00:00] Hello, I'm Sharon McCall with Whispering Fields Wellness. Today in Grace Over Grind, I'll address the importance of holistic wellness to reduce stress and improve work life balance, focusing on spiritual and social dimensions of lifestyle. To open in prayer today, Lord, thank you for bringing my dear friends to listen today.

[00:00:23] Please help them find the motivation, guidance, strategies, and tactics to reduce stress and improve work life harmony. As we talk about spiritual and social dimensions of lifestyle today, may they find ways to boost satisfaction so that career or overwork can be less of an idol in their life and stress less of a burden.

[00:00:46] I pray all is well with every listener, healthy in body, renewed in mind, and strong in spirit. May they know your will and love as they grow greater in Christian character. In Jesus name, amen. God designed us as holistic beings, body, mind, and spirit. As Christians with the Holy Spirit indwelling in us, we are called to become more Christ like.

[00:01:12] A life where career has gained primacy at the expense of health and relationships? That's not what God intended for us. Looking at modern life, the noise and pressure and the focus on more, being more, doing more, striving for more, you need that next shiny object in front of you. They have twisted a natural inclination to work and to support our loved ones into overwork.

[00:01:39] Stress filled, hectic 55 plus hour work weeks squeeze out time for meaningful connections and drain energy for other important areas of life. Today, I'll cover how you can reduce stress and improve work life harmony by focusing on increasing satisfaction in spiritual and social dimensions of lifestyle.

[00:02:01] Through this series, we'll be covering other dimensions of lifestyle over the next several weeks. I'll close with a simple self assessment tool and journal exercise for you to work through so that you can more clearly identify what changes can be most impactful to you. You'll notice that I ask a lot of questions and you don't lay out step by step instructions.

[00:02:22] I strongly believe that you are uniquely bio individual. From your DNA, to your mind, and to your spirit, you are unique. There is only one creation that God made like you. And as a result of that, only you and God know how to heal your stress. I can come alongside to support and encourage you, share a few strategies and tools to help you with mindset, lifestyle, and diet changes.

[00:02:51] As a stress recovery coach, I'm here to help you explore more of what underlies your stress and imbalance and ensure that you have the motivation and accountability to make the changes you desire in your life. Getting into today's topic. So the spiritual dimension of lifestyle represents personal beliefs, values, and involves having meaning, purpose, and a sense of balance and peace.

[00:03:16] And this goes for no matter what your faith is. As Christians though, this is all about our relationship with Jesus, God, and Holy Spirit. This area of lifestyle can be broken down further into beliefs and values, involvement, and personal time with God. To define the social dimension of lifestyle, that all involves having relationships with friends, family, and the community.

[00:03:43] It's about having an interest in and concern for others and not being tied up into just selfish needs. This area of lifestyle can be broken down further into family, community, safe and supportive people, and social time. So as you take a look at these two dimensions of lifestyle, What is your current level of wellness or satisfaction in these areas of your life?

[00:04:10] Are these areas that as you imagine what a more balanced work life looks like, that you seek to grow or strengthen, or are you satisfied with them as they are? If you're somebody that's seeking to being able to make some changes, how can investing time and energy in these areas of your life help you reduce your stress and energize you more?

[00:04:34] On first pass, what are some of your initial thoughts on activities you long to have time or energy for? Feel free to pause the video to jot down some notes or to think about this. Because I ask so many questions as I go through, I do encourage you to hit pause anytime that you feel the need for it. In my opinion, change is most effective, though, when it starts with acknowledging your real identity, which is more than your job title and your family relationships.

[00:05:06] You want to recognize what God's plans are for you. As a Christian, it all begins with your identity in Christ. I don't know you yet, so can't infer. As you read through the Bible and the teachings that are there, what resonates most with you as your identity? Are you sought after? Precious in his sight? A new creation in Christ?

[00:05:29] Forgiven? Loved? Accepted? There's so many ways that the Bible describes the relationship and who we are as believers. So what identity statement from the Bible resounds with you most? In my example, as someone who has struggled with worth, I have selected Precious Child of God, as it helps me see the truth through any of the lies I may tell myself.

[00:05:58] Whether they're limiting beliefs or negative thoughts, it helps me to capture and challenge them, and to be able to see God's truth. Someone else who struggles with relationships may feel that loved and accepted by God is the most powerful identity for them to being able to look towards and to being able to move themselves towards to be more Christ like.

[00:06:21] Another person struggling with guilt may choose forgiven and renewed in Christ. I think you get the point. You want to pick the, identity statement that resounds the most with you to being able to help lead you and guide you to grow in your Christian character. So as you pray and meditate on what that identity statement means to you, how does that interpret into how you can thrive and flourish?

[00:06:49] What does it mean for work life harmony and having less stress? As you think through this identity statement, what does it tell you about your spiritual gifts? As you look at your life, how can you use these gifts to being able to grow or into that identity, into your Christian identity? What has been revealed to you of your purpose?

[00:07:13] And how are you acting on these? Who are you called to be? These are all things that are tied up with your Christian identity. And so, as you take a step back into the topic for today, with that perspective, what goals then do you have that God's downloading into you related to spiritual and social dimensions of lifestyle?

[00:07:35] Like I said, maybe you're content and there are other dimensions of lifestyle that you're more focused on to improve wellness, harmony, and reduce stress and imbalance. Or are you feeling called to being able to work more into these two areas of your lifestyle? Did you look in your wellness toolbox at the spiritual tools that you have at your disposal?

[00:07:57] What spiritual disciplines are you being called to develop more and to practice? Or maybe you're not being called to develop the spiritual disciplines, but to explore more different ways to worship God and to celebrate your faith. There's so many different ways that you can end up adding to your spiritual toolbox that end up having the right things at your disposal anytime that you're in periods of high stress so that you can end up being able to soothe and to being able to get back into that right frame of mind.

[00:08:33] On to the social section of your wellness toolbox. So there are so many different roles and responsibilities that we play with. Family, friends, community, our co workers. So as you take a look at what's going on in these social aspects of your life, what do you need to develop? Are there tools? Are there skills?

[00:08:57] Are there activities that you want to be involved in? As you think about what your identity statement is or what the Bible says about family relationships, how can you become more godly in the fulfillment of that, of those roles? And currently, you may not have much time or energy for anything outside of your immediate loved ones.

[00:09:21] And maybe that's what's pressing on you and just making you feel like you're missing something in life. With This exercise dig in and figure out what skills, what behaviors, what activities do you need to develop to being able to have that fulfilled life and to being able to act in accordance with that Christian identity statement that we just talked about.

[00:09:46] So just take a look at the Bible and see what inspiration you can find for your spiritual and social areas of your lifestyle. So now that we've kind of gotten through the inspiration section of recognizing to the best of your understanding what God's plan is for you and what he's asking for you to transform and to grow into, the next step is to really to examine and test your ways by a point of comparison on your worst day to what you just defined as being Christ like in character for you.

[00:10:25] How does that compare on your best day? How close are you? What skills and capabilities do you have that you need to figure out how to leverage on those that worst day I'm sure you have a lot of existing behaviors, habits, routines to support you acting with the best aspects of your Christian character.

[00:10:46] It's just when the strain and the pressure of stress and too much work going on, it kind of creates that separation and takes you away from that. So we want to recognize your strengths to being able to build upon those. And to take a look, maybe there's some things in your routine that deter you, that create more separation, that end up weighing you down more so that there's more work to be done to being able to grow towards that Christian character and to be able to act that way consistently.

[00:11:16] And so as you think about this too, behaviors are rewarding. So maybe there are some cycles of behavior that you've gotten into, or Satan's deception has ended up influencing you to adapt. So you want to find out what is rewarding certain behaviors that you have. The good ones that you want to encourage.

[00:11:38] How do they bring you calm, joy, creativity, inspiration, any of these things that you find that lighten your soul versus rewards that just more feed the flesh and the material nature. These give you some guides in terms of where do you need to be able to make additional changes. So as we get into today's exercise, it's all about on identifying more specifically, kind of where you are on that spectrum, where are your behaviors on that worst day, on an okay day, on a good day, and then on your idealized, if you were consistently behaving with Christ like character, according to your identity statement.

[00:12:24] So, as you think about your worst day, when you've got this stress and like it's a really long work day, you're really feeling the weight of the imbalance. What behaviors do you demonstrate toward God and your loved ones? Since today we're focused on the spiritual and social dimensions, we're just going to focus on that area, just God and your loved one.

[00:12:48] And then when you take a look at your behaviors on that okay day. A good day, or a day when you're behaving in alignment with Christ like character. How do those behaviors change? What's different? So as you go through each of these different columns and call out your behaviors on each of these different types of days, it's really to end up clarifying your understanding of God's plan for you.

[00:13:18] And it gives you a chance to examine and test your ways. How are you behaving to what he expects of us? How are you missing the mark and needs being able to make some changes and improvement? Where can you ask him to inspire and to strengthen you? If you have any questions on this exercise, email them to Sharon@whisperingfieldwellness.com.

[00:13:42] I'm here to support you in your transformation. So in closing today. Change begins when you have a view of the opportunity of what can be different. Truly understanding to the best of your ability what God's plan is for you, and examining and testing your ways to understand how you are behaving now, versus what He wants from you.

[00:14:06] It calls out where those opportunities are. True transformation begins when you acknowledge your weakness, Have the humility to let God restore you and you surrender your life and will to God's care. He'll give you strength, courage, and lead you to being able to have the life that he's planned for you.

[00:14:29] In the next episode, I'll discuss how to build habits based upon your awareness of where the most impactful changes can be to reduce stress and improve work life harmony. We're going to take all the work that you do in today's exercise and then turn it into actionable habits, things that even though you are tired and exhausted and feel that you don't have any time, that you can fit this your life and take those small steps to be able to grow.

[00:14:58] In the way that you want to transform in the way that you want. So if you want to jump right in, click the download link for my habit building guide that can let you get started today. And we'll just go into more depth over next week and in the upcoming weeks, being able to develop out your plan more fully.

 [00:15:18] If this makes you think about wanting to work with me and to explore stress recovery, coaching, and more depth, Click the services link below. I'll see you next episode. Have a blessed day!