How To Not Throw Bricks…
…at your co-workers, neighbors, and anyone else
by Stephanie Hilborn
I watched myself try to negotiate with my overwhelm this morning, trying to convince myself that I was safe and that doing errands was totally fine.
We try to constantly outsmart our bodies’ protection valves. It’s like we are repeating perpetual bad patterns of undermining our inner intelligence in this completely conditioned paradigm of fitting in or doing what is expected of us. What is most unexpected about all of this is that I have already spent 12 years in a rather intense healing mentorship.
Each time I think I have transcended the need to fit in, another layer just pops itself into place and reminds me of the newly revealed depth to see and experience about my inner mosaic.
Here are my top five tested-and-true tips to not lose your s%!*t when chaos tries to come around. I recommend them daily to my beloved coaching clients.
- Create distance and space from the thing that is creating the stress.
This is an art form in itself as it involves a couple of learned skills — scanning the body to see what you are sensing, experiencing, and feeling, and then tracking when did this start, is there a source? The next ninja move is to put away all the weapons of blame and fault throwing and see how the situation emerged. We have engrained a defacto innocent victim mechanism as a protection valve. It helps if you can consider it as a coping strategy for the fight-flight freeze that accompanies the intensity that triggers us.
We relive the fight we had when we were 10 or the time kids in the pool were underminingly vicious or just not kind. Even in that situation, it’s a good practice to not assess blame — it is no one’s individual fault. We are all acting out our own insecurities in what we experience from parents or other influential people around us.
These experiences create what is called imprints creating behavioral armor. This is what leads to unleashing unkindness to others.
So again, the precious art of creating space, be it:
- taking a few breaths;
- putting the phone down and NOT sending the text back;
- going to the bathroom to look at the shellshocked image of yourself in the mirror and hugging your spirit with fierce love;
- jumping up and down; or
- doing a yoga pose to release stress.
Try this out!
My personal go-to in these instances of compression is dropping my shoulders, pushing my belly out and lightly sticking my tongue out.
Why does this work? You are releasing all the pressure in your body to compress or start to fight the dragons that we think are trying to attack us. Our sympathetic nervous system launches us into fight-flight-freeze. This is a great video that helps to understand these concepts in an easy and fun way. In these instances, we have to outsmart the body’s defense mechanisms that spike up even when there isn’t a threat.
When you put your body through those healing motions, you are allowing the body to experience safety so that the mind and neurological response will start to release the trigger and allow you to relax. Just by watching the compression and irritation, while creating space from further irritation, you are half the way to “results”.
And if it seems like you are simply walking through a minefield,
try to laugh at your irritability.
It sounds impossible but did that at least twice today — once at my impatience and another at my irritability.
A lot of irritability is energetic and things that afflict your spirit.
Another part also gets into nutritional and supplemental imbalances in the body which we will discuss below.
2. Diet and eating
The main practices that transformed my life — eating regularly and having standardized measurements of how much protein you are getting with each meal (No, quinoa is not enough for protein — beans, tofu, protein powder, or whatever animal-based source you like if that’s your thing).
For those with anxiety or general aggravated stress (most of humanity), a food scale is actually your friend as a preventative brick-throwing device.
When you weigh your food, it is an act of self-love. Why? You are guaranteeing you are getting the right inputs so that at least nutritionally you are not enabling a brick-throwing beast that lurks under the surface. Most people are eating too many carbs and fat, not enough vegetables, and likely not enough protein unless you are an Atkins devotee or Wyoming cowboy.
3. Environmental Factors and Supplements
We are complex creatures and most likely we do not always give ourselves the nutrients we need. Outside of vitamins, we also need trace minerals, I love this remedy to make sure I get the right kind of calcium.
A lot of irritability can also get into subtle energies in the body. Sometimes it is a hormonal imbalance that comes more frequently due to endocrine disruptors (link on how to minimize intake) in the food, air, tap water, dust, clothing, make-up, plastics, and chemicals such as BPA among many others. You can read more about the health effects of endocrine disruptors here.
Often times it also can be an allergy to modern society encouraging almost robotic productivity. Many of us have adrenal fatigue as a result of taking in too much. The best way around this is to speak to a naturopath to assess if this should be a concern. It was affecting me.
I take these two supplements as a way to help me to turn off a bit of the acceleration in me — phosphatidylserine for brain health and deaccelerating in the evening and this one to lessen anxiety — it’s essentially a large dose of Vitamin B for stress. If you’d like to learn more, please comment here and I can share the document my doctor shared with me.
As always, none of this is medical advice, and simply sharing what has been revolutionary for me.
4. Movement
The best way to redirect that into proverbial brick throwing is to allow it to exit the body through movement.
A client of mine once confessed his reactivity to the word exercise, something I never had considered before. That being said, any form of physical activity shifts things around and most fights and conflicts can be avoided if all parties are fed, exercised, and feeling heard.
Having a regular practice of walking, yoga, swimming or lifting weights shifts all sorts of anxiety, stress and unintegrated physical energy.
It could be vacuuming the house. When we are holding stress or unresolved situations in our bodies, the energy stays there until the cycle repeats itself.
Bonus points if while doing movement you get some deep insights about your challenges. We evolve tremendously when we can see that our cranky moods as something to be recycled or composted rather than off-gassing the negative energy. Just like organic waste matter transforms into compost and soil to grow food, the emotions flowing through us can fuel our transformation and help us to break patterns of self-sabotage.
How to do that? It’s about the way you hold this.
When you start to see everything as a process and unwind this results-based violence we have internalized as “success”, we allow ourselves more space, patience and love.
This is a subtle shift and isn’t always obvious for most parties to see things this way.
4. Qigong
Are you looking for something to make a difference in your life now? Everything we have experienced is held in our fascia, muscles, and our sacred temple.
Past is not past when it comes to the record held in the body.
Qigong organ purging will shift your energy field pretty quickly. It is subtle and simple to clear negative emotions. This practice is so beautiful because it creates space for vulnerability and empathy. We cannot flow if we are holding everything in. And if we express all the toxic emotions it will just make a mess.
The act of clearing the toxic side of these emotions allows us to literally feel more space in our bodies. These toxic emotions can be magnified in us based on technology usage, planetary frequencies, and unprocessed trauma. The reality is that we get overwhelmed and burnt out because our glass is simply too full. The daily qigong practice will change your life.
5. Digital detox
I spend about 36 hours over the weekend on a digital detox every week and create space away from technology daily. Why? We take in too much each day just from the people around us.
During this offline time, I focus on processing my energy and recapitulating what is in conflict inside of me on these days. It gives me the strength I need to do it all again and be able to take in more experiences the next week.
If our glass is full, we will overflow and spill our marbles. This is why the bricks start to creep in.
Summary:
We learn to let go of the bricks and internal violence when we remember —
Life is a marathon, not a sprint. And we need to support each other as collective members of this orchestra we call life.
When we combine all five of these —
- Space from Stress
2. Food and Diet
3. Movement
4. Qigong to balance toxic emotions
5. Digital Detox
— working as our support team to keep us in harmony — we can flow with ease and grace.
Before an invasive thought tries to talk yourself out of this, remember, all of this is a process. We are not meant to be masters of our life overnight.
Collectively we torture ourselves on a daily basis with judgment over productivity — did I do enough?
We are obsessed with destinations and accomplishments without ever realizing the extent to which we are committing acts of violence again and again upon ourselves and others in this process of “results”.
For whatever reason, most of us bypass it to varying degrees and try to overlook the obvious. It’s almost like we keep trying to determine our worth by outsmarting situations and showing how valuable we are, without any of that being at all necessary.
This notion of “I’m ok” is so deeply ingrained into us that sometimes we are not even aware of the extent to which we are lying to ourselves. What does this translate into? We always want to think we have all of these things already in check. But we don’t.
This is the beauty of healing. Healing is not a stationary bike sitting with dust on it in the living room; it is a living breathing cat lurking under the covers to remind you again and again, that there is actually another level. And no, you have not “failed” because you’re not transcended or evolved yet.
It is all a process.
About Stephanie Hilborn
Founder | Transformational Coach | Holistic Healer | Former Diplomat
Website: www.catalyzinginspiration.com
Email: [email protected]
Follow @catalyzinginspiration on Instagram and Facebook @catalyzing inspiration.
An SF native and speaker on wellness, trauma reduction, spiritual ecology, global issues, debt relief & decolonization, Stephanie Hilborn is a former diplomat, educator, and transformational life coach.
She has extensively mentored with elders from the Colombian Andes for over twelve years. With her company, Catalyzing Inspiration, she guides clients in reconnection to nature and their birthplaces so that they can soothe their inner monologue and anxiety.
She is creating a course for adults to learn inspiring stories about global challenges to build a more conscious society.