Transforming Stress with Dr. Ash

Beyond Stress: Unlocking Your True Capacity with Ami Maikoski

• Dr. Ashish Kumar • Season 1 • Episode 47

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What if the thing limiting you isn’t stress — but your capacity to hold it?

In this episode of Transforming Stress with Dr. Ash, Dr. Ash Kumar is joined by Ami Maikoski — Identity & Capacity Architect, transformational facilitator, leadership mentor, and United States Air Force combat medic veteran — for a powerful conversation about stress, identity, resilience, and personal transformation.

Ami explores the concept of capacity — our ability to hold, process, and operate from who we truly are, even when life becomes challenging. Together, Dr. Ash and Ami discuss why simply trying to do more, push harder, or tolerate greater pressure is often not the answer. Instead, sustainable growth comes from expanding our internal capacity.

The conversation explores how stress can impact our ability to dream, believe, make decisions, and stay connected to ourselves — and how developing greater awareness, emotional resilience, and self-leadership can help us navigate life’s pressures with more clarity and confidence.

A thought-provoking episode for anyone who has ever felt overwhelmed, stretched beyond their limits, or wondered how to transform stress into strength.

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In This Episode, We Explore:

  • What capacity really means and why it matters in stress transformation
  • The difference between managing stress and expanding your ability to hold challenges
  • How external circumstances can influence our identity and decision-making
  • Why "doing more" is not always the solution to overwhelm
  • The relationship between identity, resilience, and personal growth
  • How awareness creates the foundation for transformation
  • Building the ability to stay grounded during uncertainty and pressure
  • Moving from survival mode into a state of growth and possibility


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Key Takeaways

  • Capacity shapes how we experience challenges.
  • Stress is about both circumstances and our response.
  • Growth requires expanding, not just enduring.
  • More pressure does not always create transformation.
  • Build capacity while staying aligned with yourself.
  • Awareness is the first step to change.
  • Recognise patterns, emotions, and responses.
  • Choose intentional action over automatic reactions.

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About Ami Maikoski

Ami Maikoski is an Identity & Capacity Architect, transformational facilitator, and leadership mentor dedicated to helping individuals reconnect with who they truly are and unlock their potential.

With experience spanning military service, leadership, consulting, and personal transformation, Ami combines practical tools with deep personal insight to help people navigate change, expand their capacity, and create meaningful lives aligned with their values.

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Connect with Ami Maikoski

Website: https://amimaikoski.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ami-maikoski-68b0b44b/

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Connect with Dr. Ash

Dr. Ash Kumar is a Consultant Physician, Certified Coach, author of The Boiling Frog: 21 Strategies to Transform Stress into Strength & Comfort, and host of Transforming Stress with Dr. Ash.


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Listen, Subscribe & Share

If this episode resonates with you, subscribe to Transforming Stress with Dr. Ash, leave a review, and share it with someone who may benefit from learning how to expand their capacity and transform stress into strength.

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Topics Covered

Stress transformation | Capacity | Identity | Resilience | Personal growth | Leadership | Emotional intelligence | Self-awareness | Burnout prevention | Mindset | Transformation

Ready to transform stress into strength? The journey starts here. 

SPEAKER_01

Hello friends, and a very warm welcome to Transforming Stress with Dr. Ash. Are you ready to turn stress into your comfort? For over 30 years now, Dr. Ash has worked and gained education across three continents: India, the United Kingdom, and the United States in healthcare. He's witnessed firsthand how stress can impact our health and cause our happiness. But here's the exciting part. He's here to help you transform your stress into a powerful tool for growth and resilience. Each week, he'll share practical tools and life-changing insights from his books, including The Boiling Frog, to help you manage your stress, find balance, and live a life of purpose. Please join us every Friday at 5 p.m. and let's start turning stress into strength together. Now let's dive into today's episode.

SPEAKER_00

Hello, friends. Welcome to the Transforming Stress Podcast. And I am really delighted to present Amy Makhosky from Florida, United States in the show today. And Amy, I have been really inspired in learning more about your work in the last three to four months, and we have been back and forth. And Amy is an identity and a capacity architect. She's a transformational facilitator. I know there are a lot of words, and it's taken me a few of our episodes to understand what identity and a capacity architect means. So please help me welcome Amy. Thank you so much, Amy, for joining us.

SPEAKER_02

Thank you so much, Dr. Ash. I am truly humbled and grateful for being present with you in this beautiful space for your podcast of Transforming Stress. And really, what I'm admire most of all first, before I dive into who I am, is that you have dedicated years to understanding something that silently impacts every human. And you have taken this incredible complex subject that could very easily become a PhD topic to build a framework that gives people a language for the experience they have very rarely been able to articulate on their own. And so, first, before I start with me, I want to acknowledge you and appreciate that your work does something so immense to really simplify chronic stress by restoring agency through awareness. And man, oh man, I am touched to be in this space. I love that our work, even though it's so different, as you mentioned, there's a lot of words in what I do, but still so similar, that we have spent years exploring different dimensions of the same human experience. So to explain who Amy is, I believe that beneath every profession and every position, every success and every struggle, that there's one universal truth, that we are all expressions of being, not doing. Each of us uniquely and miraculously, infinitely are an expression of that fact. Our health, our leadership, our relationships, our businesses, our stress, our joy, our creativity, the opportunities that we recognize and the choices we make all stem from that. So as you have spent your career tapping into the external impact, the external world that absolutely is fully present in that human experience, I've spent my career becoming deeply curious about what defines, shapes, and expands our experience as a being. And I've come to believe that while the outer world absolutely continually influences us, it's our inner world that creates the lens through which we perceive it, how we engage with it, and ultimately participate in shaping the life that we experience. So this is why your work excites me so deeply, because you have illuminated the power and the impact of the external world. And I believe that when the two of us come together in this conversation today, we don't simply understand stress more deeply. We begin to understand the architecture of being. And when that is understood, we also unleash what becomes possible when we consciously participate and expand from it. So thank you for the invitation.

SPEAKER_00

Very welcome. Very welcome, Amy. And the most important thing for me when I was doing this work almost over a decade, I've done this work of the boiling frog, was to make people, my patients and clients, uh, understand and simplify the things. Because I know in in medicine we can speak a lot of jargon. So can you explain something to somebody who's just 10, 10 years, 12 years old, that level of uh simplification? The second thing is stress and especially chronic stress and toxic stress is outside our level of awareness, and that's why it happens. Animals are very intuitive, and if you see that if there is a deer and a lion comes, and before anything, the deer is running for their lives, yes, awareness because of the lack of awareness, the chronic stress is getting under your skin. So, my other goal of the work was that how do I increase that awareness? So I started working with one of the best illustrators and artists in London, and I told them that what I want to do is to get these complex medical concepts. Anyone sees the picture, their right hemisphere, the right hemisphere, there are two parts of the brain, the right and the left. The right hemisphere, which is for perception, for awareness, you see something, and the penny drops by you. You understand, oh, I can I can relate to that picture. That's why we said that the picture is uh worth a thousand words.

SPEAKER_02

And a picture is how our brain sees.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, a picture is how our brain sees. So that is the foundation of the work. You know, so thank you so much for for complimenting on that. And uh my goal was I mean, you mentioned about chronic stress is such a big problem. People might have stress because of the work, because of the environment, or because of their personal lives. Or a lot of stress, as you said, is between these two ears. People create their own stress inside their own head by the way they are thinking. What you described earlier as the lens uh with which you are perceiving things.

SPEAKER_02

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00

So, Amy, I'm really curious to understand your journey and what uh brought you to work with uh as a capacity architect, as an identity architect. I'd love to learn more about that.

SPEAKER_02

Oh my goodness, absolutely. So I um have been in a number of arenas. The amount of hats and masks and identities that have been blessed me in my human experiment experience have been immense. I um am third oldest of ten children and love and appreciate the responsibility that was given to me at such a young age for not only myself, but for my siblings and to support my parents. I then chose to be a mother of eight beautiful children, birthing them, raising them, loving them in all of their own journeys through this amazing experience. I too am a United States Air Force veteran and worked very closely with the military program of freedom that we all get to enjoy throughout the entire world, not just in the United States, but I worked very closely with the special forces, with those missions that many publicly are not privy to that information. And so the space in that arena where I was given an understanding of how one choice can impact so many. And then on the side of those that fight for that service, and many give their lives and dismemberment of their bodies to how that then impacts their lives and the lives of their family and loved ones. So that capacity piece really uh has been gifted me from a very young age. And in the identity piece, also understanding that all of those things might have been experiences for me, but do not define me. I really truly learned when I left the military and joined senior executive positions in a number of arenas from the medical field to finance in banking to real estate and development, that the greatness that I was able to hold and loving and managing and directing from the senior executive positions to impact so many was wonderful. However, the disalignment to my purpose and really truly what my gift to humanity really taught me the limitation from me allowing those environments to define me instead of me defining how I allowed those environments to be in my space. And so there is great evidence and understanding that I have gained from the multitude of the blessings that life has gifted me to really embrace two words. I am. And as you see my name, that was a gift that I was given at birth that I didn't even understand the capacity until I was an adult. That whatever we choose to put behind I am in our lives, in our minds, in our hearts, is what ultimately determines and shapes our reality. And so that is where stress, external environment, impact, definition of decisions, even if it's in the past, we can't change the event, but we can absolutely revise the meaning that it holds for our further progression, which is another reason why I love the frog. There is so much deeper meaning in what frogs define in life, in nature, and in progression. They're always jumping forward. Never do you see a frog leaping backward. And so, in I Am, I invite you to pay a little more attention to what you're allowing to define your reality and embrace the beauty of the frog inside of this amazing platform.

SPEAKER_00

Thank you, Amy. Uh, Amy, for the benefit of listeners who are coming to the show for the first time, I wrote the book The Boiling Frog, which is based on a commonly used analogy of chronic stress. It goes like that. If you throw a frog in hot water, it will immediately jump out. But if you throw a frog in cold water and slowly increase the temperature, the frog acclimatizes and maladapts and is boiled to death. And the same analogy that we see in life, we see in medicine that patients and populations are living with chronic stress and they come, they present with you know sudden heart attack, mental health issues, chronic health issues, autoimmune diseases, and many times you see that the common denominator is stress. That is the reason the boiling frog is a very apt analogy because of the insidious nature and the chronic nature and also the unseen nature of the stress. Because, like as I shared with you earlier, if the deer sees the lion, it's going to run away. But in human beings, there are studies which say that the levels of self-awareness are very low, as low as between 10 to 20 percent. And that's why people get in dangerous situations.

SPEAKER_02

Yes, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00

Things which are not serving them personally or professionally, and also jarring with their own values.

SPEAKER_02

So good, Dr. Kumar. I am so I love the alignment in that space because of course we all experience pressure. We it's we're not here to challenge the fact that it exists, right? But I love the invitation of the conscious awareness of life and the choices that we're making. And then the invitation in my space of how do you feel about it? What does it do for you? How does it show up in your body and merging the two of those in this amazing ecosystem that Dr. Ash offers and that I have gifted through such a blessed journey of working with extraordinary leaders, people who carry responsibility and decisions and impact that are absolutely incredibly capable, just like each of us? Children are incredibly capable. But what fascinates me is it's not capacity at all. It's not the capability of being able to hold it. It's what they quietly carry when no one's looking. How automatic do we go through life, which is what Dr. Ash is talking about? How deep do we have to get? How heavily do we need to be impacted before we say, ouch, this hurts. I don't like this repeating cycle. I don't like the pattern that is showing up in my world. I don't like the fact that reality is what it is, and I do have a choice as a creator inside of it. And so I love that jacuzzi effect that you talk about in shaping our interaction with our environment because it's not about saying that it doesn't exist or that there's a perfect system or a strategy. It's first of all the awareness piece. And then when we have that awareness, what do we do with it? Which the boiling frog presents some amazing, applicable, simple systems that give individuals, whether you're in healthcare, whether you're a mom, whether you're a teenager, whether you're in college, whatever in life you have been exposed to, it's really truly expanding your awareness, the ability to be creative in your reality, using your imagination instead of sitting inside of the containers you're currently in. And then what capacity can you hold in moving those forward in order to create the possibility of what you really truly desire and what is meant for you?

SPEAKER_00

Amy, for the benefit of the listeners, uh you have used the word capacity several times. And I have to tell you that I've listened to one of your podcasts in the last two days four times. It gave me some amazing insights and your understanding and explanation of capacity. So, can we just do a more detailed, deeper dive into that and how it relates to stress and how it relates to stress transformation?

SPEAKER_02

Oh, absolutely. So, capacity, our ability to hold and operate from who we are. Our limit, many times, if I can invite you, when is the last time that you have felt stress in your life? And you felt that you couldn't hold it anymore, that it created an anxiety or it created a depression that you couldn't otherwise control on your own because the outside world impacted you so great that you lost control of yourself to dream, to believe, and to make a decision without allowing that outside world to determine that for you. And that is where we hold capacity. The children that we see that go out and create things with no limits without being understood have infinite capacity, whether they understand it or not, and are only limited through the programming and conditioning that the world says follow the rules, stay inside the lines, sit in this container. And that is where we separate from that divine ability for that infinite potential to put into motion what we desire. And so that is the space of capacity. So I would ask you again: when have you stopped believing and imaging the possibilities that are available to you because you thought you couldn't, because someone told you you were unable to, because you allowed a judgment from an external source to define what you can and cannot do. That is capacity.

SPEAKER_00

So it it's it's rooted in awareness, isn't it? Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02

Awareness of first understanding where it came from, but then awareness of your source, of who you are and what you really truly are capable of when you decide to take that responsibility. So from awareness, what is the next step of responsibility? And how am I going to transform? Like you talked about, the transformation of stress, what am I going to do to get a different outcome than what I'm currently experiencing? And it is entirely up to you. And many times of that, it's essential for us to, through that awareness, identify the operating system in our mind that's allowing that to be present in our space in order to be able to take responsibility and make the choice to go forward. And that requires, I'd like you to go with an image. I love the frog, but I want you to remind yourself of the last time you were taking laundry into the laundry room or going to the grocery store and trying to carry all of the bags inside at the same time. And your arms are immensely full, and you're going dropping things, and you just don't have the capacity to put anything more in your arms to be able to get the outcome you desire. But when you get there and you take things out that no longer need to be carried, that you remove things that no longer need to have that impact from your external world, whether it's a person or an environment or a job or a pattern that you've been practicing that isn't allowing you to be your highest version of yourself, and you let it go, you make room in your hands to receive what is ultimately yours. And to really be able to make that decision, to take that responsibility and to start shaping the reality that you desire from this space instead of what the logical mind or the controlled environment told you you were supposed to have done.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. And you say the controlled environment, I also think um definitely there is an element, a lot of element of truth in in that because environments will be what they are, and they will have their challenges, they will have their positives. But also we in our head, because of our familiarity, what we do is that we only look at things in a polarized way. That our brains might go at in in what I've explained as a limbic hijack, or uh at coming at the amygdala response, we might think of About the threats, we might think about the challenges, but equally, you see, in that environment, there are so many things which are positive, and what you mentioned earlier that those the way we perceive that our capacity of perceiving, the capacities of perceiving can be shifted. And once that happens, you can transform the boiling frog environment into a jacuzzi.

SPEAKER_02

Absolutely. And and I love that familiarity piece, Dr. Ash, because familiarity doesn't only get us distracted from danger, like you mentioned, you know, the deer being eaten earlier, very, very animalistic, but definitely very real, because familiarity doesn't only hide danger, it also hides possibility that you're talking about. And when we adapt to stress and success and joy and responsibility, we're hiding our own brilliance. We're removing our own possibility into the extraordinary that's waiting for us, but ultimately feels ordinary because we forgot just how far we've come from the choices that we've made, from the changes of our environment, from the expansion, the growth that comes in that space. And so I propose, I love questions because questions are really the drivers of our mind. So I would ask you, what have you accepted as just the way life is? Because it is what it is. And in those spaces, changing it and pivoting to the other side of that polarity, what are you willing to make it?

SPEAKER_00

Very true. And Amy, you have just uh mentioned a lot of uh positive words like greatness and excellence and brilliance. Now, rather than we have been started, we have we are talking about stress, but now let's take completely completely go to the opposite side of what you mentioned joy, expansion, growth, brilliance. That is always available to us as well. But absolutely have again it comes to the capacity. Do we have the capacity or the container to be able to acknowledge and see that? And that is that is something which I have really learned from your work in a very short period of time. I mean, I I believe that 80 to 90 percent of the time I am able to manage any kind any I work in a highly stressful and a challenging environment, and that is the that is the nature of the healthcare, and I take it as a challenge, I take it as a problem solving, I am able to manage it quite well. But there is another reality. The other reality is whatever the environments are, can we bring our greatness, our brilliance, our excellence? So your uh take into that was really very, very insightful. So I would love for you to go into more details that for for the listeners to understand that how they can access that. Because also keep in mind that we are living in an environment which will have its own support and challenge, right? And there are systems which are not friendly to people, systems are what they are. You know, you said you have got eight children, there will be good times, there will be nasty times, there will be challenges, there will be support, and that happens in the any kind of systems. So, how can one develop habits and a mindset to evoke and access that brilliance and excellence?

SPEAKER_02

Absolutely. I uh I love that, Dr. Ash. The beauty in our existence is that there are laws that exist, universal laws that apply to all. No matter what environment you put yourself into, what college you go to, what religion you practice, all of those things, these universal laws apply. And the law of polarity is a beautiful one that has enlightened me in significant ways. Like you said, Dr. Kumar, the environment that we live in is our choice, right? Whether we work in it, live in it, go to school in it, play in it, practice in it, whatever it is that we choose to allow it, it exists. Like you said, the systems exist. But we sit in a space of those are the facts. They don't have to have an emotional charge until we give it an emotional charge. And that is where our stress comes from. So as we are presented a situation, a circumstance that you talked about, the beauty in what do we give it meaning to is how our reality is expressed. Do we choose that in a challenging situation that when we push through, that we're going to stay stuck because we see all the negative that comes from it or all of the separation or the pain that comes from it? Or indeed, do we choose to say, what lesson am I learning from this experience that then allows me to be joyful, appreciative, in gratitude, allow my brilliance to maybe elevate to the next level through that experience. And it is all ultimately up to us how we experience everything that we are exposed to. Every strategy, every challenge, every opportunity ultimately is experienced through the lens you choose. Many of you, I'm sure, have heard of rose-colored glasses, right? That person's talking about unicorns and rainbows and glitter. Oh, they're wearing rose-colored glasses. Well, I invite you inside of the desired reality that you wear to create the glasses that allow you to see it the way you want to experience it. Accessorize, play and have fun. Add a new lens to what it is that you so desire for your reality to feel like, not just simply look like so that Joe and Adam that might be your neighbors go, oh wow, that life is magnificent. But how are you truly feeling and experiencing the reality that you're giving permission to? And if you don't like it, it's probably time for a pivot.

SPEAKER_00

Very true. I mean, I mean, that is uh that is so insightful. I think in the area of stress management, I believe that was one of the biggest insights I had around 2014 when a friend who was a psychiatrist asked me to read the book Man's Search for Meaning by Victor Franklin. Yes. You know, and he talks about uh that the last of human freedoms, which nobody can snatch from you, is the ability to choose your response between the stimulus and the response. There is a pause, and in that pause, you have that choice to choose what you choose, and that will define one's outcome of which direction one is moving. So it's a really game changer book which I read now almost 12 years back, which really talks about what you've just shared, is what meaning we give to any situation. So basically, we have to become masters of meaning. Uh, anything happening in this situation, we are continuously recalibrating that in our mind, the self-talk, the meaning we are giving to that till the time the response, the emotional response we are able to generate is a positive emotional response.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, so good. So good. I love that. You know, the other piece, we all live in life, right? So for those of you, most of you probably travel. And if you've ever been traveling and you have this destination, this desired reality, and you're in a vehicle and the GPS is telling you turn left, turn right, watch your speed. You know, there's a detour, we have to redirect. I'm pretty certain that any of you that have ever experienced a GPS, when you've made a wrong turn, it doesn't scream at you, it doesn't defame you, it doesn't tell you how terrible you are or what a failure you are. It simply says redirect. Right? Recalculate, like Ash shared. And the beauty in that pause, I hold that space. The same book, which I adore and cherish, has been so foundational to my ecosystem as we practice a power of the pause. Pause is so significant in my world that I even practice those habits that you talked about, Dr. Ash, and our behaviors and in our what we're choosing to put into motion in our space after we're exposed to our reality, that responsibility piece, that piece that puts into motion who we are. I have a practice that for every 53 minutes of intentional action that I take in a day, I pause for seven of them. And then for those seven minutes, I sit with myself and I ask myself, what have I done for the last 53 minutes? How do I feel about what I've done? And are there any adjustments that I need to make? Now, let me tell you, sometimes an hour is not long enough. So I jump into the next phase of a 90-minute check-in with myself. That for 79 minutes of activity, I then pause for 11 minutes. So it's either seven minutes or 11 minutes regularly throughout my day. I give myself the chance to check in. How am I feeling? What happened? Was it a win? Should I be celebrating myself so that I'm not waiting on the external world to do so? Or is it time to redirect? So that the outcome at the end of the day wasn't a shoulda, coulda, woulda, but it was a celebration and realization of the fact that as I checked in, I made sure I was that much closer to the desired reality that I projected from the beginning of the day as I lay my head down to celebrate the experience that was gifted me to learn the lessons necessary to step into my higher version of me. It's easy, very simple. Very, very simple.

SPEAKER_00

Amy, uh simple things are the hardest to do. They are. It might be very common sensical, but common sense common sense things might not be always common practice. And what you have just described is actually the essence of the boiling frog. What you have described just now, that in every one hour you have seven minutes of self-reflection. Self-rex reflection is a vehicle to increasing your self-awareness. And then you have what you have done is to you have built in gratitude and celebration. Gratitude is celebrating your wins, you know, saying thank you to yourself. That the least you have done is got up in the morning, whether you've had a good night or not so good night, and showed up for the works. So that is the minimum you can say to yourself, thank you. And then you're helping others, you're self-serving others. So that's a good start. Yes. And and that will positively boost our emotions and give us meaning to keep going through our day.

SPEAKER_02

Absolutely. Those are very automatic piece that you talked about, that familiarity that when we're just going to go, it's the emotional attachment piece that allows us to stay driven in that process, which I love. Yes.

SPEAKER_00

And also shifting into that frequency of gratitude is an antidote to what you describe as familiarity, where you are where one's brain is continuously bringing to autopilot. And autopilot can be related, we can all relate to autopilot uh if you if we are driving, that we are driving at autopilot, but we can work at autopilot, but we can the autopilot can be described in any area of your life. So the family familiarity then takes away from us the container, our capacity to appreciate, our capacity to expand, our capacity to perceive and to see things in a more positive way, realistic way, the way it should be seen, because the the one person you gotta make happy is your own self because this is the person who's getting up doing all the work smiling in spite of whatever is going inside. You have to perform the way you you want to perform from a place of positive emotions, otherwise, inside, uh I mean we know we all have not so good days, but if one is continuously feeling drained inside, and outside you have to put up a show, that is something which one cannot run for a long period of time. But if we physiologically find ourselves because of whatever reason, for example, sleep deficit or an illness, then as long as we are have the awareness and we take time for our self-care, self-reflection, building our self-awareness, getting into gratitude, these are, as you said, very simple things, very difficultly done because the habits automate us to autopilot.

SPEAKER_02

Absolutely. And you know the beautiful part about that is the habits do that, but it's up to us what habits we implement. And I know that many times in our conversations over the last several months, we've discussed the topic of neuroscience. And there's this term called neuroplasticity, very, very big medical term, but it basically states that the power of our brain is that when we use it as a tool, it has the ability to do whatever we ask it to do. So when our habits and behaviors that we're choosing to be a part of for the current reality that we may or may not like, we can choose different habits to then imprint, which changes the operating system of our brain to then put those into motion. And our brain is like a card catalog. Many of you that might be in the room remember going to a library and having to open the card catalog to determine which book you want, right? And in that operating system, as immense as that card catalog is, the brain only focuses on the things that are at the front. So if we're repeating a new pattern that we desire is going to put us closer to that reality that makes us happy, that gives us joy, that shows our brilliance, that activates our genius. And we daily choose that practice, that habit, like I said, is very simple. But Dr. Kumar reminded that it's not always easy. But our brain's capability is that neuroplasticity piece. It can do anything we direct it to do. And that same mechanism will normalize stress when we allow it to be the tool to do so because we step into possibility instead of problems. We utilize practices instead of something that separates us from the genius inside of us, from that ability to create. If I don't like the circumstances given me, how do I create them so that they serve my favor? And our awareness starts that, but then our responsibility and our choice to create the habit or the practices that allow us to step into more of that possibility and potential is ultimately up to us.

SPEAKER_00

Absolutely. So, Amy, we have uh covered some absolutely amazing concepts in the last half an hour or so. What and as I said to you earlier, that many of the things are easier said than done. And you mentioned simple habits, but in our busyness of life, things can become hard. And nobody can tell that to uh mother of eight how busy life is. So I'm not going to uh speak to that, but please share with the listeners what are the simple techniques they can do to bring them from that autopilot back to what you are saying to develop their capacity.

SPEAKER_02

Absolutely. First and foremost, thank you. This really truly has been magnificent. The tool that I shared about the check-in, the power of pause, is one of the most essential tools that every individual that's ever traversed my ecosystem has not only experienced and chosen to apply in their daily practices, but has gained some of the greatest transformation from that power of pause, brings in the awareness, but also gives our imagination the ability to separate from the autopilot and breathe in a moment of okay, here I am. My inner world, how am I feeling, engaging with your heart and your mind? It's that coherent space inside of the power of the pause. And those that are either very involved in intense environments like healthcare and the lives of other individuals, or military or law enforcement, or simply being a parent, simply being a college student, simply being an individual that serves in whatever capacity you do, this pause is one of the most powerful tools that I know not only transformed my life, but continues to keep my life in the pace that I choose to give it. Because when we are average and mediocre by repeating the same choices, the same cycles, the same patterns, there is no growth. And there also is no emotion and excitement for life. And so involving our heart in that process by sitting in a pause space where we remove the external world and come into ourselves, that gift is the greatest gift that you can give yourself. Then, from that space, the second tool that I apply in every given day and through all of my uh individuals that I serve and that I am able to watch expand in their life is the focus of your desires to be able to name your desire. What is it that you want? What is it that drives you? Because when we have a focus, we've defined the destination. And not that we ever get there because this is all about the journey, but there are plateaus, there are mountain peaks, there are valleys that we get to enjoy when we know what our destination is, instead of floating through life based on what the world tells us our destination should be. And in that space, those two. Two tools are a great asset, even though they're just the tip of the iceberg that we explore and dive into the spaces that I hold are very, very pivotal for each and every one of us to truly embrace this experience of being through life.

SPEAKER_00

Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Amy. And really, uh some of these techniques I've been using for quite some time, and I completely agree with you that they are really transformational. Yes. Now uh I know we are coming towards the end of our session and it's really been uh very uh I would say in very, very inspiring, and it has given a lot of easy applicable steps to take to how to kind of access that container, improve our capacity. What I also wanted to ask you that you teach excellence, you teach greatness. I was listening to something you you mentioned that the society does not want if you talk very high about yourself. And you say that it is it serves nobody that if you feel that what one has done has not been extraordinary. Yes. What is that path to excellence? What is that path to the extraordinary?

SPEAKER_02

Oh my God.

SPEAKER_00

What is that path to divine?

SPEAKER_02

Yes, yes. The crazy thing is that the path is inward. It's not something that we have to find, it's something that is already a part of us. We are born with a very unique gift, each and every one of you, miraculously, uniquely. I can't be Dr. Ash, and he cannot be me, nor can we be those that we serve. And even though I have the gift and the blessing to transform lives and to be a part of people stepping into their expansion, your extraordinary is already inside of you. And it's simply a journey inward. That divine gift was yours before you took your first breath as a being in this experience. And the journey that I invite inside of this space for expansion is not to create something that isn't already there, but to reveal it by going inward to uncover those beautiful pieces of your imagination that you may not have given light to yet. That I know that the Wright brothers were the ones that created an airplane, right? And without them being crazy enough to dabble in a new idea, we would not have the blessed world travel that we currently have. I also know the power of the internet, of the computer, of AI, which Dr. Ash has truly unleashed the beauty and the power inside of it, not so much the fear side of uh-oh, what can it do? But that is the most beautiful example of how is it that you have these ideas inside of you that you have yet to unleash, yet to explore. And without going inward, the graveyard is the richest place in the earth because of all of the ideas, all of the elements that never got given birth to, because individuals lived in overwhelm, stress, fear, and burnout instead of the curiosity and the desire to dive in and let your truth, your magnificence come to the surface through that exploration, through testing against the rules that you've been given, going outside, coloring outside of the wines, shattering the boxes of the container that are repetitive and average in your world. There are dreams inside of you that will change humanity as we know it, but they will lie dormant until you give yourself the chance to not only go inward to uncover them, but to put them in motion. All things happen in two spaces, first in our mind, in our heart, and then in our reality. But it takes the curiosity to first identify it, and then the courage to put it in motion, even when the rest of the world calls you crazy. And it's that that has defined the beautiful world that we live in. So different from the horse-drawn carriages, so different from the different existences that life has defined itself over the 2,000 years that we have written history and documentation of.

SPEAKER_00

I mean, what do you said, Amy? Like really every word was hitting me very deep because the idea, the boiling frog, when I came across in 2014 in a medical journal as a part of an analogy of chronic stress. And I said, uh, I have worked so hard to become a doctor. Now, this year I've been a practicing doctor for 26 years and in the healthcare for 33-34 years. I said, I am not going to live in those catabolic states of the boiling frog. This is not what I have signed my life for. When the states of expansion, of joy, of meaning, of growth are also equally available. From there came the jacuzzi effect. And then further, we said, no, uh, this is one life. We want to make the best out of it.

unknown

Yes.

SPEAKER_00

Then the last chapter, I talk about the eagle's journey. Whereas that you can literally what you mentioned just now, create what you want. So the eagle has the nest on the top of the mountain. And what it means, the sense of freedom, the expansion, that is our real journey. You mentioned that you don't familiarity constricts, whereas staying in a state of expanding our capacity and gratitude expands us. And that's what we want to feel, and that is really what you what you said is blissful and it's joyful, and it gives just that positivity to go through the journey of uh life in a very meaningful, joyful way. Yes. Amy, it has been a really real joy. I have to I have to say that that you have been like my my mentor because uh I have come very far, but some of the insights I have just got from you in a very short period of time, especially not undermining what we have come so far. So yesterday I was actually going through that activity. What are the things in my life which I have become too familiar with? And I was making a list of that, and it oh, it just expanded me so much. It expanded me so much. What are the things which I was dealing with a very complex medical case, highly challenging, highly contentious last week, and we dealt with it in a very uh ethical, very patient-centric way, and I felt that we always have to in at the heart of the things, what in healthcare is to care for the person in front of you. When we are coming from that space, one could feel that expansion that you are doing the right thing. Rather than when we are coming from a place of shame or a place of fear, or I should not do this, I should be fear fearful about that. No, what we have to do is the right thing, but the skill set to do it, the mindset to to do that should be present. So, Amy, so I'm coming to the end of our end of our show, and before we go, I would like to ask you that if people are feeling stuck in their journey, and there are so we know according to the Gallup poll, there is a huge amount of population which are daily living lives of high stress, negative emotions. So, where can they start?

SPEAKER_02

Oh, absolutely. Oh, what a beautiful invitation. Be curious, be curious, and know that the answers that you're seeking are not external, they're actually in your inner world. In that awareness piece, what thoughts do you return to most often? What do you hear? I am. I am strong, I am courageous, or I am tired, I'm exhausted, I'm stressed out. Where do those definitions lie? And then what emotions are attached to those? What stories are giving meaning to what those words are allowing to manifest for you? What is shaping the decisions that you're making in your relationships, in your choices in life, in how you serve and give back to the world? And then what possibilities have you stopped imagining? Are you literally going through life and autopilot? Are you not allowing the greatness inside of you to be a gift to yourself first and foremost, and then an overflow pour into those that you love and that you serve? Your greatest opportunities will never be found in the external world. I hate to tell you, but nobody's out there waiting to give you that gift, to give you that amount of money that is going to satisfy you, to give you that opportunity. You find them only when you tap into your wisdom, your creativity, your imagination, and the capacity that you've yet to fully explore. Life is not an invitation to be an automatic. Your inner world shapes the life that you experience. It creates that lens that you look through. So perhaps that next level that you're waiting for isn't somewhere out there and it's not in the future. I invite you to find it inside of you, waiting to be fully expressed, to be given birth to, to be celebrated, and to be expanded in ways that you would not be able to embrace in the current curiosity and awareness and consciousness that you're sitting in. It's time for more of you to be given to the world.

SPEAKER_00

Thank you, Amy. Amy, definitely you have been a blessing and a gift in the very short period of time we have known each other. You have been a gift to the frog because my vision with the frog is that we make it the best stress management tool in the world.

unknown

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00

The podcast Transforming Stress with Dr. Ash is already in 58 countries around the world. And now we are working with people in the Silicon Valley to take it to a different level with the AI layer called the eye frog, where we can contextualize the stress management techniques to the person in front of us because all of us are different. All of us have different strengths, different values. So my answers might not be Amy's answers. So with that AI layer, we are going to take it to another level. So you've been the blessing to the frog, and you're it will help us to serve millions of people around the world, because this is a huge problem, not only in the US or UK, but all around the world. And I've been very grateful to have you on the show. Thank you for the patience for the last three months. And finally, we did it today.

SPEAKER_01

Yes, we did it.

SPEAKER_00

And uh, if the listeners want to learn more about your work, uh, what would be the best way, Amy?

SPEAKER_02

Absolutely. So I am on social media available through Facebook and LinkedIn. I also have my website, which is simply my name spelled out, amimakoskey.com. You can find links to me there. You um I am wide open to sitting and having a call, exploring what that looks like for you, identifying wherever those bottlenecks and hurdles might currently be for us to unleash that next level of consciousness that's waiting for the higher level of who you are.

SPEAKER_00

Thank you so much, Amy. And it's been a real joy and a blessing to have you on the show. And um, as in Ireland, we say, until we meet again.

SPEAKER_01

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