Living Without Stress (Even in a Busy Life)

In this episode explore what stress really is, and how we can begin to relate to it in a different way.

Stress is often seen as something caused by external circumstances: work, relationships, pressure, or difficult situations. But in reality, stress is not the situation itself, but our response to it.

At a physical level, stress is a natural response of the body, designed to protect us. The nervous system moves into a state of activation, preparing us for action. But in modern life, many of us remain in this state far more than necessary.

This episode explores the difference between external challenges and our internal response - the role of the nervous system in stres - why stress has become normalised in modern life - how disconnection from presence leads to tension and overwhelm - the impact of conditioning, pressure, and expectation, and he importance of reconnecting with the body and the present moment

Through investigation and practical insight, I explore how it is possible to live without stress! Not by removing challenges, but by changing how we meet them.

When we return to presence, listen to the body, and let go of constant mental pressure, something shifts.

We begin to experience life with greater ease, clarity, and connection.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Welcome to Bodhisattva Conversations. My name is Julia Carly, and in this podcast explores the practice of being so that we can live with greater presence, awareness, and freedom, and experience the truth of who we are. In today's podcast, I'm going to talk about stress and essentially how to manage it, and how to manage it through presence and through essentially recognising that we don't need to be stressed because it's become so normal, it's become normalized. has become completely normal. And it isn't normal, it isn't normal to be stressed, and it is perfectly possible to face all the things that people think as stressful, whether that's professional or academic, or personal challenges, to meet them with presence and to meet them in an entirely different way, because it isn't actually the situations or the person or the challenge or whatever you might think is the thing that would be naturally stressful. It isn't actually that, it is your response to it, and that's the absolute key that it is our response to things. That is the is stress, is the stress um experience in our body, not actually the things. And of course, living this life, there are all manner of situations that we could look at and say are challenging or difficult or or hard in many ways, but we can meet them with presence, and we really, really can. And I think because it's not really investigated, stress is a normal response, and it's the normal way people will describe things. It was really stressful. All the things I I said that it, you know, I'm stressed, all those situations that we would be in where we go, I'm so stressed, I was so stressed, and therefore no one challenges it, no one goes, Well, what are you stressed for? Why weren't you practicing? Why weren't you practicing presence? That isn't an a conversation people have, and yet that is how we could reframe it and start to ask one another, why aren't we present? Why weren't we able to bring ourselves back to stillness in that situation? Because of course, there are lots of things that are offered us which can help with stress. So there are many techniques to use the breath to bring the vagus nerve back into alignment to the situate things like you can cold water can calm you, you can put your face in cold water, that can bring you back to ease. Breath work always the breath, bringing the breath right into the body, the ujayu breath, the victorious breath can bring you back into your body, and that can calm the system. But actually, it's having an even deeper awareness of knowing that that's the response immediately, if the body starts to change, that we need to be thinking about coming back to presence rather than it running away with us like a runaway horse, because stress often does, and as I said, it isn't about the situation. Whereas if the brain or the conditioning or any of the orientation within us is thinking that situation, well, of course that's stressful, then there isn't necessarily going to be the willingness to immediately do the practice or the practices to bring us back to presence because there is an identification with being stressed, and it's what everybody is when they're doing exams, or they've got um difficult travel, or or they're going through a very difficult situation in a relationship, or they're going through um you know, loss of a job, all of those things. Now, that isn't to say they're not you know challenges on the life journey, but there is still a way to meet them in a in a completely different way to how anyone would think, because it isn't, as I say, it isn't the situation, it isn't the person, it is your response to it, and of course, stress is a physical response. That's why the things I mentioned earlier, like breath work and um using cold water, and you can do singing, dancing. Um, there's the there's a shaking dynamic meditation in which Osho, if you've heard of Osho, is a um an enlightened master, and he's got there's a lot on YouTube where you can find a kundalini um dynamic um shaking meditation, it's really good, and you just jump around, really, and bring yourself back to alignment, get the stuff out of you. Um because actually, there is a physical response where the there's the fight and flight reflex, and that's a very natural one for our safety, and it's um it comes from the sympathetic nervous system, and your pupils dilate, your heart rate increases, you your muscles tense, the hairs stand up on your body, you get ready, your your your digestive system will slow down. You'll often it's like before running races, you might want to go to the loo, everything out of you, ready. When I say when you want to run races, that's because I've run lots of races in my life, and there is a heightening of the of the sympathetic nervous system, there is a heightening readiness for flight. Of course, it's again necessary to manage that, but that's that response is a useful one when you are wanting to fight, fly away, when there's danger. But the the difficulty, of course, is that people are often in that state daily, it's just constantly, constantly, constantly on. People are constantly trying to make deadlines and constantly trying to impress their people who employ them or their parents or all manner of things. You know, it's it can be deep down that it's a switched-on button within you that's trying to somehow get the approval, the feel good enough, all of those things. And then the there is the rest, the rest state, which is the parasympathetic nervous system, which is which keeps us in keeps us in order, really, calms the body, looks after all the systems, the metabolic system and the regeneration, the hormone system, the breathing, all the things that you know it just supports us, supports healing, supports balance. And these systems are you know they're they're brilliant, they're intelligent, and they're there to support us, and they're there you know for our for our health. But of course, as I've said, when when we've permanently got a button sort of switched on inside us, and when we live in that constant state of activation and in this world where stress has become normalized, you know, as I say, it's common language to say I'm stressed. It's just it's just something that doesn't surprise people. Whereas if we kind of re-jigged our emotional set point, and if somebody said they were stressed, we thought that was slightly strange, or if you know, then we'd we'd be more inclined to do the work necessary to bring ourselves to a to live without stress, which is possible even with challenges. As I said, it's completely possible to live without stress. I live without stress, and I do have challenges, and I do have um lots of lots of work, and um, but I have learned how to be um how to embrace the the moment and how to always be constant. I think that my work with people, which I have done my entire life, right from 18 years old, I was in front of people working in a gym all day, and here I am about to be 67, still in front of people all day. And therefore, it's absolutely vital that you're constant. I think that if you're in people's lives and you're the teacher, the looker after a the space for them, then the space needs to be safe, and of course, that means that self-management is vital so that you remain constant at all times and um and the person is able to feel safe in that space, and you know it really, it really is something that is practice, takes practice, takes practice, takes practice, and also I think I've some of you who listen to this podcast know that I was brought up in the Christian religion, and although I'm not in organized in any, I don't practice any organized religion, I still love the symbolisms and I believe or I see that all of the teachings come back to the same thing, and they come back to presence, they come back to stillness, they come back to knowing who we are, they come back to loving ourselves and one another and recognizing our oneness. And therefore, this the Christian cross, I always love the symbol that the the horizontal bit is like our life journey, our life unfolding, the past, present, future, even though in terms of um in terms of stillness there isn't any past or present, there is any now. But the but we do, of course, live a life journey. So we do, we have a story, we have the past that we can relate to one another, we have what we're you know, aspiring to, or plans or fun ahead. So the horizontal is our life going along, but then the vertical is our is uh our connection to the divine presence, centeredness, and of course the stress comes from us being lost in our life story, lost in the horizontal, lost in the race of life, racing to get somewhere, racing to achieve something, racing to when I've got this, I'll be okay. When I've got this exam, just do these exams, just get this, and you know, the brain says we've got to go to this level of excellence, we have to do this to know we're okay, to know that then we can relax. And of course, that means we're forever racing along on the horizontal. And it's as I've always said, it's not that we we don't have goals or aspire, that's part of the fun of living, but always, always um remembering the as the vertical that we are, sparks of the divine, that we are spiritual beings on a human journey rather than getting caught in the timeline and caught in the story of our life and feeling identified with it, with the past, feeling it's which either way, feeling we haven't done enough, feeling identified with the achievements we have, or feeling we've got to keep going with them, or you know, caught in an identity in any way. And when we're caught in that, we're caught in that story, then we get very disconnected from the vertical, we get disconnected from presence. And it is remembering that that we are in essence, consciousness experiencing life, and that we have no, there is no need to perform, there is no need to have a purpose. Our purpose is to experience our true nature, experience ourselves in this moment, experience ourselves completely present with another. Because when we get caught up in the drama of you know my life, um, we get caught up in the roles that we play and we believe them, or we get caught up in expectations from from ourselves, but they often will be coming, of course, from our family history, we'll come from society, they'll come from you know all manner of things around us, our friendships, uh, what other people are doing, there'll be great competition, and it's so easy to get so caught up in it. We are in quite a world where everybody knows what everybody else is doing, or not not necessarily everybody, but there's a lot more ability to be able to, you know, go catch, catch a or you know, pick up a phone and go and see what people are doing, supposedly doing, on all of the social media, and to forget who you are in that because it may bring up you know feelings of um competition or inadequacy or all manner of things, or it might make you want to aspire. It can it can do all sorts of things, which aren't necessarily all bad, but it can mean takes us away from remembering who we truly are, and you know, there's so many of the stress, really, because as I said, if there's a challenge, and we've set ourselves a challenge, we want to do a thing, and we want to, you know, whether that be a sporting thing, a professional thing, a artistic thing, uh whatever, whatever it is that we want in our lives, then that's fun. There's no, as I've you know, always reflected, there's not it isn't that we don't want to have goals, and some of them can be very hard, and some of them can be, you know, very yeah, they they ask a lot of us, but that's incredible because when we are stretching to do more, we can we can discover inner strength we didn't know we had, we can find talent we didn't know we had, and you know, it can be an incredible journey as as I've always been a runner. Then I recognise that that's a very accessible metaphor where we you know discover yeah, latent latent abilities, we develop abilities, we find inner strengths, and that's as I say, in all that manner of things, the stress arises when we're trying to please others, you know, driven by inherited expectations from family, and you know, I must succeed, I've got to, I've got to get a you know, a top mark in whatever I'm doing, I have to, I should, I ought, rather than present awareness and and really connecting to the truth of who we are. And obviously, our body, our body does tell us the stories. Our body is very, very wise, and it will often cry the tears we don't, and it will tell us when we're out of balance, and there will be um signals. There'll be six, there'll be signals immediately if we're in a situation that is feeling a bit challenging, or feeling that we've which we need shouldn't be there, or it's gone on a bit long, or we need to take a little break, because we're all different, we've all got different makeups, and sometimes we we'll have a lower tolerance of say being in a group environment or being in a situation that doesn't isn't quite right for us, and our body will start to tell us, and therefore, if we listen to our body, we can self-manage better because um you know there's there's a there's a way to be listening to your body so that you're not in situations that aren't necessarily right for you, and you're not um trying to push on to get the external validation, so you'll feel tension in your body, you can feel tightness, um, restlessness, your breath's breath is shallow, and often what happens is people override these signals. So, now as I said before, it's not necessarily the thing. So, it might be you're in a situation where you're having to do a lot of work to create something for a work or a school or a college or a university or any anything that we can think of, and it doesn't mean it's necessarily the thing, but it might mean that you things are arising where the old stories of it's got to be this level, or you're not good enough, or you've you know you've got to um get it, do it in this way, or you'll kind of you know be abandoned, be rejected, you'll be annihilated. It's uh very deep things that can arise. So it's it's first noticing the small feelings of tension or shallow breath or whatever, and coming back to presence. I mean, it can be an external thing where some people aren't so good in groups, and they can feel that they're trying too hard, that the situation is meaning they're out of their body, they're doing too much trying to please others, or feeling you know, they don't feel secure in that situation. If you notice all these things in your body, you can just come back, come back to the breath, come back to presence, and if necessary, go and have a little mini break outside in the loo, anywhere, just to come back and take a big deep breath into the tummy. And I am where I am, and it's okay. Here, now, come back to presence. Now, these practices are so simple, but they really make a difference, and it really is important to practice them. It's important to, if you can't immediately tell when you're starting to tip out of um balance in your body, do it anyway throughout the day. Just take yourself off for a minute, every so often, somewhere quiet, take a big deep breath and say, I am where I am. It's okay. Because by overriding the signals, often push through things. Well, it doesn't mean you wouldn't be able to do the thing anyway, if you came back to presence, came back to centeredness. Because what happens is people push through, call it normal, and then of course, more likely to have a kind of physical or emotional crash and um just not enjoy life as much, to be honest. So the real shift comes through presence, through being here. I am where I am, I am where I am. It's okay. And feeling the body and noticing the sensations, and you know, when we're connected in the body, the body can actually only be here and now. So when we come into the body, we come into the breath, we come into presence, we come into ease, we breathe out the tension, we stay connected to the now, and then really and truly, stress begins to dissolve. So essentially, it does have to be that you you really will accept or investigate at least, or play with the idea that stress isn't normal, and that there is a way not to be stressed. I think that has to be the first position where you say, Okay, so stress isn't normal. Was there a time I wasn't stressed? And you may well be able to think back to you know, childhood times or times on holiday, or all sorts of times when you weren't stressed, and you might say, Oh, that's because I was on holiday or I was a child, but actually that's the natural state. So, you know, stress stress begins to dissolve when you when you stop resisting the present moment, and often in childhood, teenage years, you need all sorts of times, maybe not necessarily if you've got exams, but people are often better at being present and and they're going on holiday. Um, and yet that is the natural state, and people can often think, well, well, that was when I was young, before I had responsibilities, or of course we're relaxed on holiday. But if you can shift the position to think, well, no, that's the natural state, and you know, if we I always think that if we shifted what the definition of succeeding meant, um, and you know, said rather than it's achieving moral, getting to a certain place, if instead we made a achieving or made success about being fully present, then it would change everything. And I think I'm very fortunate that again I I may um well I have mentioned it, but if you haven't listened to the podcast before, when I was in my late teens and all through my twenties, I had an eating disorder, which I absolutely knew was a was something that I would find the answer to and that I would free myself from. But I do remember absolutely going, Oh, if I if I can be free from this, or when I can be free from this, because it was torment, because it was it was extreme stress, obviously, because it was the mind in charge, and the mind telling me all things that I had to be a certain weight, and I shouldn't eat this, and you know, all the all the things when a mind has has taken over. And I used to go, oh, if I can be free from this, I I absolutely promise I I won't want anything else in my life. And to a certain extent, I mean, in in essence, that was true. I I hesitate because it was also. Um, I was aspiring to run fast. And that was another strand that I worked on to let go of being attached to outcome. But that was slightly different, slightly different journey to this feeling of success for me or ease for me is going to just be living a life without an eating issue. And actually, the truth is that in finding, in investigating and uncovering and discovering the route to ease without an eating loop of torment, which it did feel like, um, I did discover that the route to get free of my eating was the route to to just feel okay and live now. And that for me that was success to be able to just live each day without this mental loops about what I should and shouldn't eat. And then therefore, it is let's if we reframed it to presence itself is success, then we can bring that into all our relationships because really and truly, if we are present, then we're going to listen deeply to everybody, and we're going to be with people without any distraction because we won't be with our own stuff going on and our own mental loops, and we are going to be experiencing life, you know, absolutely directly. Because I would say that practically, I would practically everybody, I mean, essentially, people want to be accepted. Now, obviously, we need to accept ourselves, but people want to be accepted, heard, understood. Now, I think that one of the routes to that is to accept everybody around us, hear people, understand people, excuse me, so seek to be heard. Sorry, rather than seeking to be heard, seek to hear others, seek to understand others, seek to accept others and truly, truly listen. You know, truly listen without interrupting people or judging them or preparing a response before they finished. Because if we do that, then we can't be stressed when we're completely present with somebody. You just can't be, because it's just an easeful state to be absolutely in the space, listening to somebody, being with somebody, and the connection deepens obviously between each person, but the connection deepens to yourself, and of course, stress reduces because you're there, you're completely there, there's nowhere else. As I said, the body, when we're in the body and we're present, how can we be stressed? Because if our mind isn't thinking about something else, we're just with what is in front of us, then of course, the more we're there, the more the connection deepens, the more the stress reduces, the more presence increases. And as I said, stress is not an inevitable state of living this life, it just really arises when we lose connection with ourself, and that can come, obviously, as I've talked many times by getting caught up in all the pressures and external conditionings of life. But it's our responsibility to return to presence, and more ease is available. That is our natural state. So you come back into the body, and you can always use the breath for that. Always keep coming back into the body, come back to the moment, come back to the here and now, and stress begins to fall away. Thank you for listening to Baby Sat for Conversations. I hope you enjoyed this episode, and I look forward to being with you again next time.