Why I’m No Longer Stressed (Even During a Big Life Change)

Transforming Chaos into Calm: Anne's Journey of Mindset and Nervous System Mastery

In this episode of the Muscles and Mindset Revolution podcast, host Anne Jones shares a deeply personal and transformative journey from the summer of 2021. Moving during the pandemic, Anne faced immense stress and anxiety, leading her to discover life coaching and mindset shifts through courses like Flow. Despite initial struggles, she learned invaluable skills in regulating her nervous system, making quick decisions, and managing stress. Anne emphasizes the importance of structure combined with flexibility and shares practical advice for overcoming perfectionism and achieving peace. She invites listeners to join her upcoming Flow course and transform their lives by rethinking how they handle stress and set goals.

00:00 Welcome to Muscles and Mindset Revolution
00:36 A Vulnerable Story: Moving During the Pandemic
01:43 Discovering Flow and Its Impact
03:30 Struggles and Breakthroughs in Life Coaching
05:49 Healing the Hustle: A New Approach
07:00 Transforming Stress Management
10:07 Practical Tips for a Balanced Life
13:06 The Power of Imperfection
14:57 Get into FLOW

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Transcript

Speaker: 0:00

Hey, welcome back to the Muscles and Mindset Revolution podcast. The podcast for ambitious women who want to build strength, feel confident, af, and lose fat for good, without counting calories or BS quick fixes. I am your host, Anne Jones, certified life coach, personal trainer, and mindset expert. And after 15 plus years in the fitness industry, I can tell you that the real key to lasting change is not just what you do, it's how you think. So if you are ready to shift your mindset, build a lifestyle that you love and feel confident af you are in the right place. Let's dive in. Okay. Little vulnerable storytelling with you here today. We're gonna jump right in and rewind to the summer of 2021. So in the summer of 2021, my family and I moved from Vancouver. We moved to the Sunshine Coast, to honestly the most beautiful place in the world, thinking that this would be better for our family, for our lifestyle. And in some ways it was, but the move itself was awful for a very, very long time. We moved during C0V1D, we left a neighborhood, our first like home that we had bought, which we loved and went home to after our wedding and took Sophie home to, and then we moved during C0V1D, still very cov1dy pandemic questioning whether we had made the right choice. We were not confident. The market was crazy. Entering a completely new lifestyle, it was beyond stressful. And if you've ever been in a situation where you're second guessing everything and shaking up your life and trying to hold it all together, being a parent, owning a business, having a team, and a partner and a family, you know how this feels. So that September right in the middle of all the chaos, I started my life coaching certification. And the first course that we did was flow I took it for the first time with my coach, Andrea, and it cracked me open in the best way. I learned how to create a compelling vision of anything that I desire. I learned how to identify what I wanted instead of being sucked up in the flow of life, and that changed everything for me. I have been using this method, creating a compelling vision, identifying it's a very unique method of goal setting What do you want your whole life to look like? we can't get there until we know that. when I took Flow as a coaching student, I learned for the first time how to get out of my head and into my body, and it. Took me a while. I'm actually always astounded when I work one-on-one with mindset coaching clients, how quickly my clients can get out of their head and into their body, because it took me way longer than almost all of my clients. And now it is an invaluable skill. I cannot imagine living without. And it eventually is part of what ended my chronic overthinking because I'm an overthinker. I learned, you know, in the process of flow, how to make decisions faster, how to trust myself instead of continuously looking outside of myself for the answer. And this was huge. I learned that I can have literally whatever I desire. Maybe not all at once, not all at the same time, but you literally can attract anything that you want, not even in like a woowoo way. And I also learned how to. Receive good things and how to surrender when things were not perfect, which is really challenging and something that I work on with my clients a lot now. But let's talk about what was really going on behind the scenes. When I started my life coaching and mentorship certification in 2021, I was anxious. I was highly overwhelmed. I was struggling, to be quite honest with you. At that time, I was so high anxiety that I was drinking wine every single night. Sometimes an entire bottle to myself, which was new for me and scared me to be quite honest. I wasn't sleeping most nights. I was definitely not sleeping at all if my husband was away or working at night. My patience as a parent was at an all time low. It had never been like that before we moved. I felt extreme shame about all of those things. So I was, as a client learning this coaching program. And the first course we did was flow. And the whole year plus, I was attending these coaching calls, sometimes crying with my camera off. I was always there, but I was not really there I was. Usually completely distracted, like listening. You're supposed to be present, engaging, interacting on these calls. I was completely distracted. Usually doing laundry or working on my computer trying to hold it all together. My nervous system was so dysregulated that even though I was taking a course about stepping out of hustle and into flow, I couldn't. Absorb it and I couldn't put the concepts into practice. It was ironic and frustrating, and I know some of you are nodding along right now because you've been there too. I really want you to know that I've been there and at no point do I regret any of it, and I'll tell you why. I believe, I don't know that I believe this then, but I believe now I know now that we get what we need, when we need it. So I received what I needed from that course at the time. I needed to be held by that space, even if I was spending it crying and folding laundry and I went on to complete my life coaching and mentorship certification, like I use with all my clients, it's highly ingrained into our method now inside muscles and mindset. And when I was taking private one-on-one clients, that is what I do with them. But still at that time, my nervous system was dysregulated. And yes, it felt like, you know, I had this life coaching and mentorship certification I had. Oh my gosh, like an infinite number of tools in my toolbox, but I was still too anxious, dysregulated, and stressed to employ them with myself. I was employing with'em successfully with my clients, not yet with myself. So then in 2022, I joined a nervous system coaching program called Heal the Hustle with my lovely coach, Cara Barone, and I was so scared to invest in myself. I had invested that much money in my coaching certification, which was a whole year long. And then to do this Heal to Hustle program was like. I was so scared to spend that much money on a four month program. And I did it and it was the missing piece. It like changed the trajectory of my life. I learned how to regulate my nervous system, and I continued to work with Cara for over two years. Like completely changed the game my whole life. So this combination; how you know this in more intuitive, energetic life, coaching and mentorship, learning how to identify what I desire how to attract it, how to receive guidance, use your intuition and surrender the outcomes. All of that combined with knowing how to regulate my nervous system so I could actually do those things. Was the winning equation for me, and that is exactly why I combine those two things in my method, and that is exactly what I'm going to teach you when I teach flow this April and May. I am a completely different person now, so if you fast forward to today, we're moving again this summer, but I am a completely different person. And I can potentially see stressful events coming, right? I can see disappointment coming. we're pulling our child out of her school, which I love. So I can see disappointment and grief coming. I'm not living in the future at all. But let's be clear, we're always gonna grieve. That's normal. We're gonna experience stress. That's also normal. The goal is not to eliminate stress. That's why I use the term stress management instead of stress removal or reduction. We're managing it'cause it's gonna come and we don't need to live with it all the time. We are supposed to experience stress though, but disappointment stress. Do not have to take you out like they used to take me out or I know that they take. Many of you out anxiety does not have to keep you up at night overthinking. It doesn't have to. It doesn't have to keep you thinking that, convinced that something bad is coming, waiting for the other shoe to drop. I know this because I'm on the other side of this now and trust me in 2021 and 2022, I couldn't imagine being on the other side of this pain, So now I handle stress differently and I had a powerful example the other night of. How I know that I feel different. So this whole week my husband was acting a little strange. Also in this work, our relationship, like when I learned how to not be codependent and trust myself and love myself, our relationship completely changed. So that's just another benefit of doing this work. But anyway, we don't get into conflict very often, I guess is what I'm trying to say anymore. But this whole week was acting weird. And so one of the things that we do now is call it out. That's something that I learned to do. We don't just like, give silent treatment. We don't do that. And we don't just like endure attention, we just call it out and communicate. So I was just like, what's going on? it seems like. something is up. And he admitted. He was so stressed about everything that we need to do before we move. He literally said, I don't know how you're not stressed. And that was hilarious to me because I was like, I'm not, I'm not stressed like old me would have been losing my mind. I'm literally not stressed at all because I don't subscribe to stress anymore. And I remember hearing Gabrielle Bernstein say that a few years ago and being like, oh, that sounds so simple. Like, just unsubscribe from stress. I am, currently unsubscribed. It doesn't mean that I don't get stressed and stressful events don't come up, but I'm not in that 24 7. Like everything needs to be stressful that I used to be. So that was quite eye-opening for me. I don't subscribe to hustle, overdoing stress, so. When my husband was like, here's the list of 140 things that we have to do before Tuesday. I was like, cool, okay. Let's talk about prioritizing them and then I'll do what I can. I'm not promising you that I'm gonna do, I'm of these things and you're working. And so these 140 things might not get done because I do not sacrifice my business, my relationship with my clients or my team, my health ever. My sleep anymore or my one-on-one time with my daughter, for the sake of temporary to-dos. Ever, ever, ever, ever. And I want you to have that peace too. So here's how to do it. Number one, over communicate with yourself. Another call things out if something feels off. And then number two, regulate your nervous system. I regulate my nervous system. If I feel a reaction rising, like when my husband's like, I'm so stressed. I, I don't even actually know if I felt anything. Whereas previous me would've like gone into, oh my God, I have to fix this for him. I have to fix this for me. I know how to regulate my nervous system now. And then I ask what is actually needed instead of taking responsibility for everything and trying to control everything. Oh my God, these 140 things have to be done. Okay? Oh my God, I'm gonna have to do them all. I'm gonna stay up tonight making a list. No, I don't do that anymore. I have boundaries. Not everything needs to be done now. Not everything needs to be done by me. Not everything needs to be done at all, right? We can't just assume and take over responsibility for everything. Some of those shit does not need to be done, and I'm gonna be okay with it. But the things that do need to be done, we prioritized, together, and then I reverse engineer a plan. Cool. Okay. These are like the big ticket items that have to be done by this date. These are the things that have to be done by this date. Reverse engineer it. I'll do these things on this day. You do these things. This person's gonna do these things. We're gonna ask this person, we're gonna hire this person. This is just, may not happen. And that's fine. And then once that is done and you have a structure, I execute quickly without perfectionism or a shame spiral. So a few of the things on that list we're done within the hour that I had called it out, communicated with him, asked what he wanted, because just'cause it's his thing doesn't mean it's gonna be my thing. Prioritize what needs to be done by who and when. And then some of'em I just like executed right away. We needed a new barbecue cover. Cool. I didn't know that. So now that I know that, I ordered it at RONA and picked it up the next day and like boom. Something off the list. I delegated a whole bunch of stuff. I called the painter. The painter's already been here. but not from an energy of hustle, hustle, hustle, an energy of power. Like, oh, I'm in the position of power here because I can do all of these things, and then you just execute. But when you get caught up in all of it all at once, right now is when you get overwhelmed and then you shut down and procrastinate. So this is exactly what I mean. I stay to my clients and to you all of the time. You need structure. You gotta put the workout on the calendar. You gotta know like the things. But then you have to step into flow. Always it is a structure, some loving discipline, holding your dang self accountable. But it's not to a perfect or com like ridiculous standard, When you don't execute everything perfectly all at once right now, which is what I find most ambitious women who I work with, their expectation of themselves is like perfection. Right now, all at once. My house doesn't look like a magazine. Nobody's gonna come to my birthday party. So you need structure, but then you gotta let, you gotta let it go, girlfriend, and this is exactly what I am going to teach you in flow. one of the best compliments I ever received was from a one-on-one VIP client, a mindset coaching client. And she highly perfectionist before we started working together. And I remember on a call she said, I realized maybe the reason that Anne is so fit and happy is because she doesn't need to be perfect. She's not staying up past 10:00 PM to finish the thing or to make it perfect." That's her quote, and she's right. I was like, that's it. You nailed it. That is why I'm so fit and happy and healthy is because I do not need it to be perfect. I am at peace. I'm at peace with myself. I'm at peace with my body. I know my limits for the most part, right? We can still get caught up in it, and I don't choose perfection anymore, nor do I choose somebody else's standard of what I could or should be doing because no matter, you might know this to be true to no matter how much I hustled at school, in dance, at work, in fitness, in my career, trying to keep up with expectations. I never reached perfect long term, so I let it go. And as a result, I truly feel in the past two years, I feel like I've won the life lottery, not because my body is perfect, my life is perfect, or I have an unlimited amount of money, but because I have peace. And presence, and that is what I want for you. Flow is the foundation of creating the life that you desire. Identifying what it is that you desire, creating it, attracting it, receiving it, without burning out or overachieving. And this is actually your last chance to join us. In flow. We're starting on Wednesday, April 2nd, so if you are ready to make this shift, if you can relate to anything that I just said, I'm going to walk you through exactly the foundational pieces of how to do that over the next nine weeks Inside flow. So click the link in the show notes, sign up before the doors close. My clients are super pumped about it. I cannot wait to see you inside. let's do this together and if any of this resonates with you or you can relate, please, I'd love for you to leave a five star review on Apple and on Spotify and send me a dm if there's something that you wanted to say or comment or share. I love you. I mean it. Talk to you soon. Have a wonderful April. It's April this week. Muah!