From Survival Mode to Skilful Living: Reinterpreting the Effects of Pressure

Reflecting on my experiences managing massive crowds at the Glastonbury Festival, I've realised it's a perfect parallel to how we often react to everyday pressures. In emergency situations, we instinctively activate survival mode - remaining calm, clear-minded, and able to act quickly. But when this same system is applied to daily tasks, we can end up feeling overwhelmed, locked into rigid thinking patterns. Could there be a different way to navigate the pressures of daily life? 

Tune in as we delve into the effects of pressure on our mental and physical health and how we might transition from mind-based living to a more skilful way of managing pressure. 

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to the Overwhelming's optional podcast where each week, we find ways to gently rebel against the nonsense that overwhelming exhaustion are just the price you pay to have the life you want. Hello, hello, hello, how are you doing? I'm really well. Thank you for asking. I'm really excited at the moment because the render on our house is nearly finished and it looks amazing. They're going to put one more coat on tomorrow.

Speaker 1: 0:28

If you haven't been following that, i'll give you a quick recap. So we live in a very old cottage and, like many old cottages in England, it had concrete render put on the inside and the outside, thus trapping moisture in the middle of these beautiful old stone walls. And finally, that job is nearly complete and it's just going to look amazing. So our house has gone from looking like a bus, has gone into the side of it, where we've taken bits of the render off and couldn't get the rest off, to looking like the cottage. It is A beautiful old stone cottage with a natural lime render on it Super exciting, big event here in my life. Also, i'm going on holiday in less than two weeks, so I'm super excited about that. And yes, there are things to do before I go, because when you run your own business, or even if you don't run your own business, there's work to do, isn't there To tidy up in order to take that break. But I'm okay with that, particularly because the builders nearly finished, because having the builders and that pressure to get stuff done, that's too much for me and I don't do pressure, which is what this week's episode is about. But before we get into that, for those of you who very kindly emailed me and said sorry to hear about the death of my dog, if you didn't catch that episode, i highly recommend it because it's a deep share and there's value there for you. I know there is. That was a couple of weeks back, so we're all adjusting really, really well.

Speaker 1: 2:09

Tigrin was very old and because of the way that we gave ourselves time with her and the way we handled how she died, and also because I took that experience to coaching sessions and got support for that, i've really noticed how I handled it very, very differently from previous painful experiences like dogs dying. I'm really grateful for that. I'm really, really grateful to my coach and the coaching community I'm part of, because it makes such a difference. Being able to look for the gift in the grief was so good. I do love coaching so much. It's so remarkable.

Speaker 1: 2:55

So we planted little astry what do you call them, those tiny little seedlings which seed all over our garden and we planted about 15 of them on her grave just to see which ones. And they're all. Actually they're all doing okay. We did also planted it with oak seedling in the middle, but that didn't survive. Oak and ash seedlings are very different in terms of moving, really, really interesting. And then the vet sputifully sent us a card with some forget-me-nots which was so nice seedlings. So we put the forget-me-nots seeds on the other day just before it was going to rain. So we're hoping that we'll have forget-me-nots and astrys and then we might buy another plant especially for her. So it just feels very positive.

Speaker 1: 3:43

Now I'm still seeing her. You know that weird thing when somebody dies and you're still like you catch them out of the corner eye. You expect them to be there where you think they're there. So, for example, when I go down to the end of the garden to the compost, she's to show up with me and she's not there. I really noticed that. And then I hear this rustling. But it turns out it's not Meg, my tiniest dog, instead, which is nice that she's kind of taken up and has come to help me sort the compost out at the bottom of the garden. But thank you so much for those offering. We are all doing really, really well and life is good.

Speaker 1: 4:18

So today I want to talk about pressure. Now, i don't do well under pressure, so initially, when I started on this journey, overwhelm is optional. I was like how can I make overwhelm optional for me? because overwhelm is not working for me. Overwhelm is what caused me to disconnect from my heart and my body and burn out. Even though I was working really really hard to prioritise my self-care, even though I knew all of the things that I should be doing, ought to be doing, i still managed to crash and burn very spectacularly while prioritising my self-care. That's crazy, right. So I definitely blame that on overwhelm flooding my brain, making it possible for me to see the wood from the trees and to listen to my body, listen to my heart. It was all a big disconnect between my mind, which was overwhelmed, and my body and my heart, and what I gradually learnt to do is bring the body, heart and mind together. But I've also started adding in. So I don't do overwhelm. I don't do pressure Now I don't do.

Speaker 1: 5:28

Pressure is a different thing for me. Someone feels like I've completely flooded my mind and I can't think straight and then I'm just reacting all the time And I guess pressure has the same um effect on what I'm doing as in I'm moving, i'm stuck in my head and I'm moving from fear, but it feels different to me. So overwhelm feels like a thick fog, like I'm pushing my poor brain through concrete, and pressure feels like literal pressure on my shoulders, on my, on my yeah, on my chest, like I can't breathe properly, on my shoulders, weighing me down, like really weighing me down, and I really want to talk about pressure today. It feels a bit nuanced now I'm saying it, but there's definitely a difference for me. So I don't do my lunder pressure, i literally don't.

Speaker 1: 6:26

Just doesn't work for me, and I've heard people say, oh, i need deadlines and I need some pressure. And I understand that because I worked under immense pressure in my career for years and it did make me yeah, i can see how it got more done, because it's like do, do, do, do, do because of the pressure, because there was deadline after deadline after deadline and lots of people depending on me, but it was no way to live. It didn't work. So I don't do pressure. Now I literally renounce pressure. I walk around saying I don't do pressure, i don't do overwhelm, i just don't do it. It's not for me. It doesn't work for me. So that's self-awareness it doesn't work for me is really serving me, and I want to really talk about this and about your relationship with pressure, so you, too, can find freedom from not just overwhelm but also pressure. So here's the contradictory thing, though I don't do well under pressure. I'm brilliant in an emergency. I don't do well under pressure. I'm brilliant in an emergency.

Speaker 1: 7:33

Let me give you some examples. So well, over a decade, i was team leader of 54 fire stewards at the Glastonbury festival. The Glastonbury festival is huge and 54 stewards is a lot of people to manage and we would have crowds of between 5000 is a full tent. Um then expanded the tent and then we had the out, so it could be five to ten thousand people when it's super busy, and I was really good at it. I was calm, smiley, bubbly, happy, like people liked having me as their team leader. I'm really good in a crisis. Let's think about some of the crisis.

Speaker 1: 8:20

You might have a festival hilarious things, um, but not but not funny things. That's the thing that they're hilarious when you look back, but at the time they're serious, because the job of a fire student is keep people safe. So you're managing crowd numbers so people don't get crushed. We know people get crushed and die at festivals. I mean, it matters and I didn't like that part of it that that level of pressure that somebody could die. That's horrible and every year I think one or two people did die at the festival, completely unrelated to anything. Anybody else did so because people do silly things, don't they? you know, somebody would sadly take something and be found dead in a toilet or something like that. But that kind of pressure is real. So I took my job seriously. Of course I did, because that's the job you keep people safe. You also have to keep the people working for you safe. So it's a health and safety thing and it matters and it makes a difference.

Speaker 1: 9:24

So one of the worst things I remember having was standing in the middle of a field in the dark trying to get an ambulance for somebody with a suspected drug overdose who was lying on the floor in the middle of the tent, surrounded by 5000 people who were dancing. That's. That's a big thing to deal with. There's a lot of pressure there, but I was calm. I was calm, i was able to act with clarity And that's really interesting, isn't it? So under pressure, that kind of emergency pressure by the way, the guy was absolutely fine, as usual. Most suspected drug overdoses. Fortunately, usually what happens is they wake up after you've called the ambulance, gone to enormous lengths to keep them safe by forming a circle of stewards around them, and the care and the love that goes into looking after people at that festival is amazing. Getting an ambulance through the crowds without anybody getting injured. I mean, the whole thing takes a lot of coordination and it's a joy to be part of.

Speaker 1: 10:32

But what's really interesting to me is I remember these times and I remember the absolute clarity I had, the ability to act. I didn't feel stressed, i was just able to act, and that's what leadership's about, isn't it? That's what being in a crisis is about being able to act fast, making decisions quickly. The whole process of learning to do that job was very, very good for me in terms of leadership, because I had to make decisions and I had to make them quickly and I had to be able to take responsibility for them. I had to also write them up and justify them And that helped make things better year on year. There's a lot in that, but it didn't feel I could feel the pressure before going in because it is a big deal, but it didn't feel pressured at the time. It just felt I could think clearly So I'm your person in an emergency, i'm people know me for being very calm and very smiley in an emergency.

Speaker 1: 11:36

So what's wrong with pressure, heidi? Surely pressure serves me really well. I can think clearly, i can remain calm, i can keep my sense of humor, i can be really helpful. So what's wrong with pressure? Why is that not helpful in my everyday life, which really not. So if I think of everyday things that I'm trying to do under pressure and it doesn't work, that would include recording this podcast, writing any writing at all. So I write books, i write blogs, i write articles.

Speaker 1: 12:11

I just published this morning my first article on Mediumcom hooray for me. And it's about pressure And the pressure I felt to get that done and how it had been on my to-do list for several weeks And I was avoiding it And you could say well, you had builders in. That's okay, but I knew that I could have got it done if I wasn't scared, but the pressure was stopping me doing it. So what's going on here? Why can I, on the one hand, be absolutely your person, brilliant in an emergency, but really useless at acting under pressure with everyday tasks? What's going on here? And are you the same? Is this how you feel? So let's look at this.

Speaker 1: 13:02

That same system, that nervous system reaction where everything else your brain is flooded by the emergency, so that you can act with clarity. That emergency system. It works brilliantly under true pressure because the whole point is to have only one clear option to do, so that you can act in an emergency to save your life or somebody else's. But that same system when applied to everyday life, because it results in flooding your mind so you can't think about anything other than this one scary thing it doesn't work, because the truth is that everyday tasks like writing, responding to emails, et cetera, those things, they're no emergencies. With those things, you need different sort of clarity. You need to feel safe, you need to be able to explore all the different options, you need to be creative, and creativity doesn't come from a sudden emergency. Creativity is about being able to look at things without rigidity, with absolute flexibility. It means being able to consider lots of different ways, and you don't have time for that.

Speaker 1: 14:22

You don't want that system in a genuine emergency, because it would be useless If I had been stood in that field in the dark calling through for an ambulance. Well, i wouldn't have been, would I If I'd gone? oh well, what's all the different things we could do about this person who appears to be unconscious, lying on the floor in a tent of 5,000 people who are possibly also under the influence of something and aren't gonna be persuaded to help keep this person safe very easily because they're all having fun quite rightly So. If I'd, then if my mind had gone into, relaxed oh well, everything will be okay. Well, what we could do is this oh, what could it? I just ask everybody else what they think we should do, not that you can hear anyone, so you can't talk things through, because it's super loud. People get crushed. All sorts of things can be happening.

Speaker 1: 15:19

There's no time You have to be able to shut down your brain into clarity of action. One safe thing to do, which is why you're trained for that job call an ambulance. That's it. That's the job Call an ambulance and keep the person safe. And it's a routine thing which kicks in because thinking about it delays emergency life-saving action.

Speaker 1: 15:48

But in general life, you need to be able to think about things. You need to be able to mull things over and just make a decision. You need to be able to think flexibly and creatively. And when we're stuck in rigid thinking, when we get stuck really inflexible thinking, that's when perfectionism kicks in. I have to do the one right thing or else something terrible will happen. It's only true in an emergency. It is not true in everyday life. In everyday life, there are lots of right ways to do things, there are lots of good options, and the procrastination, the not doing it, the paralysis of action comes from the terrible belief that it's a genuine emergency, that something really bad will happen if we don't get it right. And this is exactly what I noticed this morning happening with this task Right, my first ask for a mediumcom.

Speaker 1: 16:43

So this is what I did this morning I felt into the pressure, i noticed the pressure. So instead of trying to push through the pressure and say I should have done it by now, which then results in self-recremination about not doing it, where you're trying to do too much. You've got to get it right. All of the stuff that's stopping me. Instead of focusing on that, i just thought, oh, but there's pressure. So I actually asked myself the question this morning where are the pressures today? And by that I meant where, as in identifying them, but also where are they in my body? what's the impact they're having on me? And this is what I noticed.

Speaker 1: 17:24

First thing that came into my head was you're not writing on medium. And when I looked at it and it is one of my developer presence on mediumcom is one of my main projects. I've got four July folks. That's one of my main ones. And seeing that I'm on holiday for the last two weeks of July, that gives me two weeks to develop a present on medium.

Speaker 1: 17:50

A presence on medium. This matters to me, it's important to me. It just feels like a good place to be. I like reading the articles on there. It feels like I don't know, just feels like a. Really I'm excited about it. I want to do it, my heart wants to do it, but my head is saying no, no, no, but you need to get it right. And I just just I was noticing this.

Speaker 1: 18:10

This is what came up for me today. This is the thing that I really wanted to do today, and then I noticed the pressure instead of pushing through it, and I noticed that there was fear around getting it right. So, for example, i need a bio. What am I going to write in the bio? Which is interesting because I have lots of mini taglines and bios all over the internet. In every place I've got a presence, and yet every time I do it, i go into oh what? what if it's not right? And that's normal, right? That's the fear kicking it. That's the.

Speaker 1: 18:46

The pressure comes from the belief that I can get it wrong and that getting it wrong would be an absolute disaster. So noticing that immediately gave me a different way of approaching it, and when I decided was I would just write about the thing that was stopping me writing, that's what I did. I faced the pressure. I looked at the impact it was having on me. I didn't want to spend hours and hours this morning going round in circles trying to make a perfect bio and a perfect first article. The problem with a first anything is it feels like you're laying out your stool, and in many ways you are. But then I remembered. I remembered the writing calls.

Speaker 1: 19:37

I've done quite a few writing courses, but I did a beautiful writing course a few months ago where it said write to discover, write to discover. And I found that so freeing. And I've started with the idea of writing to discover, the freedom to be more and more myself. Better stuff happens in an easier way when I write for myself. So when I let go of the pressure to write for an audience, so that means that I'm writing thinking about their reaction.

Speaker 1: 20:16

So that's a outside pressure coming into our writing. That's when I procrastinate. But when I write for myself to discover, it changes things. So not only is it not for anyone else, so that removes that pressure, i'm not necessarily going to publish it or do anything with it. But also the writing with the aim to just discover it means there isn't a right answer, it's a discovery, it's an uncovering. Oh, it's a curiosity, it's a awe, i wonder. I wonder what I'll find out today.

Speaker 1: 20:54

And that's what I did this morning with this article which I've now published, and I haven't done the bio, and I don't care, because that felt right. I lifted the pressure to do it right and I wrote an article on media which talks about the pressure I was feeling and how pressure doesn't serve me. And so it's done. Because what I did is, instead of trying to write the one right, perfect article that sets my soul out, instead of trying to do that, i took that beautiful process of writing to discover and I wrote to myself about the pressure I was feeling to make this good start. And I feel now that that first article I've written is really good. I'm really happy with it. I don't know if anyone will read it, because that's another thing.

Speaker 1: 21:53

That's always funny about doing anything like blogging or writing an article or a book or podcasting is there's the fear that people will judge it, judge it harshly, and then I will become ostracised from the tribe. That's the deep fear, isn't it? that we're not good enough, that we'll be on the outside of our tribe. That ancient fear, because that used to quite literally be a disaster for us many, many moons ago. Letting go of that just freed me, so I removed the pressure and I got the thing done really fast.

Speaker 1: 22:35

The article was published at like half seven in the morning, effortlessly we're not effortlessly as in like, i don't know completely effortlessly, i mean effortlessly as in the effort I put in wasn't a struggle. It was just a crafting, a creative process, a satisfying process, a playing with words until they looked better. And this article I've probably written it many times. I mean, my Google Docs are full of half written articles, stuff that needs editing, stuff that I've written. I've written again, as are big A4 pads of paper which I have piles of all over the show, and if I go through them, i often find the same article written several times, even two years ago or further ago than that.

Speaker 1: 23:33

It's only when I remove the pressure that things get done with ease or with joy or both. That's when things really start to get done. That's when I get the clarity which feels like a different sort of clarity. It feels like a calm, spacious clarity, which is very different than that clarity to make quick decisions under genuine emergencies. That feels different, which it should do right, because activating our nervous system into emergency when it's not an emergency, well, that's crazy, because that emergency system is absolutely brilliant for genuine emergencies, but it shuts down everything else so that you can save your life or another person's life. It shuts off everything else your digestive system, all sorts of things, your ability to relax? of course it does. It calls on everything in the body to go towards this one action. And if we use that, if we allow ourselves to live through that and get activated into that fear reaction, that deep primal fear reaction in everyday life and everyday tasks, well that's not great, is it? That means that's gonna affect your health, that's gonna drain you of energy, that's gonna make everything much, much harder. That's not good for us, surely.

Speaker 1: 25:19

So what's your relationship with pressure? These are some of the things that I'm noticing about my relationship with pressure. At the moment, when I remove the pressure, i can think more spatially. I get rid of the rigid thinking which tells me there's one right way to do it or else terrible things will happen, which is perfectionism, which leads to procrastination because I'm too scared to do the thing, because it suddenly feels enormous. When I remove the pressure, i get this spacious clarity of leaning back into the safety of the moment, of knowing that it's okay, that I'm good enough, that my writing is good enough, that I can do the things that light me up, that everything's okay, that nothing's I don't know, that nothing's final. It's different, isn't it, with an emergency, because things can be final, but bringing that, noticing that that's leaking into other activities in my day. When I say other activities, i mean stuff that isn't an emergency, and thank goodness that I don't live in an emergency zone, an emergency war zone, where I'm genuinely needing that kind of action Genuinely.

Speaker 1: 26:40

In my life there aren't very many, thank goodness, actual emergencies, and I'm so grateful for that. I'm so grateful for the peace, the peace, the way things work. We can complain as much as we want, but for the majority of us, we do live in peaceful countries At this point in history. The majority of us are much safer than we've probably ever been in history before. This is a good time to be alive, but so many of us are stuck with that deep primal fear reaction going off throughout the day until it's just how we live. We live under such immense pressure, but it's not helping us and it's not necessary, because that system is for split second temporary, genuine, lifesaving emergencies. It is not for getting stuck in traffic, it is not for a work deadline, it is not for having a difficult conversation. That's not what that system's for and I really genuinely believe that it's worth knowing that about yourself. It's worth getting the self-awareness to see where you are allowing that kind of pressure and that system to kick in in your day. Because I guarantee you, just noticing that is gonna make a difference.

Speaker 1: 28:10

Just noticing when you're under pressure, what happens when you take, remove the pressure I mean, an obvious example is being at work and going on holiday, isn't it? And how differently you feel. That's one way of doing it. Another way is to just ask yourself where's the pressure stay, where's the fear And where's it sitting in my body And what's it doing? What effects is it having on you? And sometimes that is enough, just the noticing, often just the noticing, neutral noticing, so noticing without judgment.

Speaker 1: 28:49

Noticing what's going on. You can notice the thoughts about it. You can notice the physical sensations about the pressure. You can notice the fear, reactions to past hurts. You can notice the future doom predictions, the stories your mind is telling you, noticing the pressure and the effect it's having, and then notice what it's costing you. So if it's causing you to take much longer to get something you really want to do done, notice that.

Speaker 1: 29:26

Notice the energy it takes, notice the patterns of held tension. It's draining. It's very energy draining. It's very time consuming trying to push through pressure and it's unnecessary. But it takes skill living more skillfully. It takes skill to learn this neutral, noticing this, noticing Ah, i'm putting myself under pressure. Is that pressure serving me? What's it doing? What's it costing me? Can I release the pressure? What would it feel like to release the pressure? What would that give me? So, noticing that that's a real skill living more skillfully, moving from mind based living, understanding.

Speaker 1: 30:10

Then, when we get stuck in our heads and primarily have all of our attention on minds, life is harder because the mind is easily triggered into fear and overwhelm. It's supposed to be, it's not a fault, it's a life saving and emergency thing, but it's no place to live from, isn't it? I don't like it. So do you want to say it with me? I don't do overwhelm, i don't do pressure, i'm done with fear, i'm done with overwhelm, i'm done with pressure. Ah, doesn't that feel good? Maybe have a little stretch and a stomp around.

Speaker 1: 30:52

I don't do pressure, i'm releasing pressure. Where can I release pressure today? Ah, that feels better Now. Let's do the thing. Now. Go do the thing that will make your heart saying that would really make you proud of yourself today, and acknowledge the courage it takes to release the pressure and do the thing Right. I'll see you next week. I hope that was helpful. Thank you so much for being part of this podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please do take a little moment of your time to share it, like it, etc. To help other people find it. And if you'd like to know more about my work, please go to wwwtidymarkcouk.