From The Archives: Stressed Out

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Unlock the secrets to unleashing your creativity even when stress tries to take over.

Imagine being able to harness the power of your breath, thoughts, and movement to not only manage stress but to foster a creative mindset that thrives under pressure. Join me, James, as we explore the transformative techniques that can help you shift from a reactive to a responsive mindset. By tapping into the simple yet profound act of full, mindful breathing, you'll discover the space where relaxation meets innovation. Learn how completing the stress cycle through intentional movement can flush out stress-induced chemicals, paving the way for a more balanced and imagination-fueled state of being.

This is fresh from the archives, where we bring back episodes from the past and let them shine once again. Enjoy!

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Transcript

Stress Relief Through Breath, Thoughts, Movement

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Ookey dokie smokey, let's do this thing. So, my purpose in my work and in in this, in the right questions, is to help people get paid to do what they love. But getting paid to do what you love is no easy feat, right? It it asks a lot of us. It asks a lot of our creativity. It asks of our self-worth and our discipline and our sense of uh perfection. It asks about our procrastination habit, most of our habits. And it brings up a lot within us. And the one question, the one consistent question that I receive from so many creators is, James, how can I create when I'm stressed? So here we go. Here's my answer. Uh you can't. You can't. You cannot create when you're stressed out. You cannot be creative if you're living in stress. Your mind will not let your body do it. Your nervous system is in shutdown mode. Your chest is tight, your gut heavy, your thoughts are dark. It ain't gonna happen. But here's the good news. There is stress relief. There are many ways to get rid of stress. And everybody has their own self-soothing forms, um, from taking bubble baths to, you know, inviting yourselves on a date to the movies. Uh but through my diligent research, I have found the universal truths of stress release. And it comes in three parts breath, thoughts, and movement. Here's the first breath. Give yourself some room. When we're feeling stress or fear or anxiety, we forget to breathe. If someone punches us or we're frightened or surprised, the first thing we do is we tighten up. We stop breathing. If you've ever done a really great yoga class or a f uh or a fight class, a great wrestling or krav maga class, gosh, the best thing your instructor can do is to remind you to breathe. Because we forget. Most of us get through our entire day taking little sips of air, not really breathing. Learn to breathe full belly breaths that move into your chest and body and brain. Just bring it in through your nose and then blow the whole thing out like a whale. Find more room in your heart and your lungs and your body and your mind and your patience. Breath is everything. Breath is life. Number two, thoughts. Learning to respond and not react. So I taught at the School of Visual Arts for almost twenty years in New York. And teaching a university class at 9 a.m. to 19-year-olds who are not cool with being awake at 9 a.m. taught me a number of things. The first was the importance of choosing better thoughts. Inevitably, one of my young charges would enter class in a freshly soured mood. I'd ask, hey, what's what's going on? And they'd say, somebody nudged me on the train. And I'd think, oh my gosh, hey, let's talk about that. And the ensuing conversation would be about options presented by that circumstance and choosing appropriate response to that situation, and not just the knee jerk, reactionary, crappy victim state selection. That is our default, quite frankly. We let one moment, one situation piss on our entire day. It's just one bad answer out of the many to choose from. When you choose that reaction, you're training that reaction. Somebody nudge me on the train, you say. Then later at your lunch with your friends, you repeat, somebody nudge me on the train. And in the evening you go back to your roommates and again, somebody nudge me on the train. You're not responding consciously, just reacting. You are recreating and retraining and living in that place until that thought becomes who you are. You've become a puppet of that thought and not in charge of it. The difference between a response and a reaction is a breath. Stress and anxiety is by no doubt a horrible situation. But it also can be reframed, an opportunity to see yourself, to see this situation as a window for reflection and education and newer, deeper knowledge and even deeper thoughts on self-love. We need to understand how to consciously choose our response to this new circumstance. And we do that by taking a breath and then choosing better thoughts. Train those new feelings and new responses and not just react. And then ruminate for the rest of the day or the rest of the week on that. Right? We're smart, creative motherfuckers. We can choose more beautiful thoughts and learn to respond consciously. And here's number three, and this is a big one. And this is about finishing the stress cycle. When you're in stress mode, what happens is your brain sends warning signals to your body and drowns your body in adrenaline and cortisol. Right? Even if you're as you're sitting here listening to me, if some if a book falls behind you or some noise that you're not familiar with, something goes boom behind you, you go, and you can feel it already. Even if you just mimic that, you can feel the adrenaline pouring into your system. Your poor body doesn't know if the situation is real or not, if it's a real threat. So it prepares for fight or flight or freeze. And those chemicals are bad, man. They're bad mojo, they're bad poison. And if you don't need them for survival, then you gotta get rid of them. And you don't need them right now. So your brain is pissing bad chemicals into your body, and you feel it in your solar plexus, or you feel it in your gut, or you feel it in your heart, and you're tense. You are literally suffering from stress. Because your brain is telling your body there's a shitty situation out there, and you're not breathing through it, and you're not choosing better thoughts. It's lions and tigers and bears. Oh my. So you gotta get rid of those chemicals in your body, and the only way to do that is to flush them out through movement. Go for a run, get to the gym, throw a throw a minute-long frickin' dance party for yourself. But you've got to move. The proper stress response is to move all that crap through your system and complete the stress cycle. But human beings don't do this. Animals do it. Let's say you're a gazelle and you're chilling by the watering hole. With your Starbucks in the morning, you're enjoying your chai latte so much that you don't see the lion creeping up on you. You look up and you got a choice. Fight, flight, or freeze. And boom, you're off running, choosing the flight response. Good idea. You even stop thinking about your chai latte. You're gone. You're fast. He's fast. You zig, you zag, but he only zigs and you lose him. Now being a gazelle, the first thing you do when you know it's all clear is you go into the bushes and you finish the stress response. You start shaking your whole body out. You know, like shaking it off, you're shaking off the sweat, you're you're doing these deep breaths to get all that out through your breath and through your sweat. And that sweat's flying off and you're flushing all the bad chemicals like the cortisol and the adrenaline out of your system. And when you're done, you saunter back to the watering hole. You pick up your chai latte, and you calmly start drinking again. You've completed the stress cycle. You've returned all your settings to cool as fuck. But, my dear friend, you are a human being. You are doomed with that big brain and that unfortunate ability to hold on to your thoughts, and you forget to breathe, and you don't complete the stress cycle with movement, and you hold on to your stress and the bad chemicals that weaken your body and make you sick. Listen, stress sucks. But chronic stress sucks worse and creates more damage and even disease. But we can still be in charge of our choices. We can choose to stay healthy. The only things we can control are our thoughts and our actions. We can control the few things that we can, like our breath, we can choose beautiful thoughts, and we can even move our bodies. Do yourself a favor right now. Tell yourself that you are a creative, sexy beast. Take a deep breath. Take three. They're free. And then throw yourself a dance party and get back to doing what you love.

Mentorship and Coaching Invitation

SPEAKER_00 11:07

Hey, I'm James Victory, and I know, I know, you guys want to work with me. Awesome. You want to work with me? You want me as your mentor, you want me as your coach, you as your me as your buddy. Hey, check the links below. That's what I do for people. Check the links below, get in touch with me. I got a really awesome questionnaire that'll help you, even by itself, it'll help you. But drop me a line. Let's work together. Hey, I love you. I'm James, and I'll talk to you next week. Adios.