The Stress Hack That Works Even If You Don't Believe It

Speaker A: This episode is part of a mini series focused on improving your personal effectiveness. So we've already covered time optimization and also assertiveness. And stress management is kind of the final piece of the jigsaw puzzle. And all three topics work together to make you the most effective yet. So whether you're managing burnout, problem, breaking the cycle of over, proving your worth, or simply learning to take your foot off the gas, this episode will give you the tools to change and for good. So in terms of what we're going to cover today, you will discover what stress actually is from understanding your fight or flight response and the gas or brake model of your nervous system. We'll look at uncovering, um, the hidden childhood triggers that keep you stuck in patterns you don't even realise guys are running the show. Then we're going to look at the disc based stress triggers as well, which is just a slightly different angle and a way of thinking about how you get stressed based on your personality type. We're also going to be looking at the five different types of imposter syndrome which silently drive overwhelm. And then the most exciting part is I will be showing you how to use a psychosensory technique called havening. It's the same method that helped me to recover from chronic fatigue and me. And it can literally scramble the neural pathways behind your stress responses. Now, I've put together some great free resources to help you take the next step. You can see one of them on screen right now, which is the time generator. Save up to 500 minutes, you will find a link to all of my free resources. I've also got a free journaling template that will help you identify limiting beliefs, stop you ruminating and take you from problem to solution. If you just head over to the show notes, you'll find all the links in there. Or as I say, if you look at the link on screen now, it's a link tree link Estelle at B. You can find everything you need there. Now the benefit of accessing all these free resources is that will also give you access to something called the Brilliant Leaders Notebook, which it actually delivers a summary of every podcast episode, but goes into a bit more detail. So if you're the sort of person that wants to take their, uh, learning to the next level, that's really useful as well. Finally, just to mention that parts of this are a live recording from a leadership development program that I ran. So there's going to be moments where you either get the opportunity to stop and carry out the activity yourself or, or the other thing I've done is I have summarized all of the activities in the pause, reflect, act segment, which is always at the end of this episode and is a series of coaching questions to get you to reflect. So let's get started. Hello, it's your leadership coach, Estelle Reid and host of Optimizing Leader. Uh, Brilliance, the place for calm, confident and strategic leadership. Stay tuned to the end for a mini coaching and reflective practice. Find out more about my services by heading over to estelle read.com so welcome everyone. We are at module 8 and this is the stress management module. So over the next two sections this is what we're going to be covering. We're going to look at what stress actually is. So uh, what are the causes and what are your triggers? And then section two. These are the practical tools and techniques to help you reduce stress and enhance your well being. So when we look at what stress is and what are the causes, I've got some definitions for you. So the first is the non specific response to, of the body to any demand for change. Stress is the feeling of being under too much mental or emotional pressure. That's the nhs. Then we've got the Oxford Dictionary definition physical or mental strain. But this is my favourite one because it really puts us in the driving seat and it gives us more control. Stress occurs when pressure exceeds your perceived and that's the key point, ability to cope. And that's by, it's from a really great book I can recommend. It's called Conquer Your Stress by C.L. cooper and S Palmer. So to give you an overview of what stress is about, I'm going to use a metaphor of the gas and the brake. So we're going to talk about first of all the gas. So when we are stressed it's often we've gone into fight, flight or freeze. And this is our sympathetic nervous system. So the way to remember this I always think about it's the part of our system that is in sympathy with us for the thing that we're experiencing at the time now, it increases heart rate, respiration, perspiration, it tightens our muscles and this is known as our fight or flight. So if you've ever got home after a tough day at work and it feels as though your head has disappeared in your shoulders and your shoulders are tense, that's probably because you've been stuck in fight or flight for too long now. The system is a good system, it's a great system and it's designed for, take for example if a car cuts you up and you literally will take your foot off the gas pedal and you'll put it onto the brake. And so our fight or flight system enables us to react and respond really quickly. Now the problem occurs when we spend too much time in fight or flight because our environment is stressful or like I was just used to being stressed all the time. I didn't know anything different until my body gave way. And most of you already know the story, so I'm not repeating myself, but I can remember being laid on a beauty therapist couch and the beautician saying to me, are you stressed? And I said no. And she skin is telling a different story. And I've got stress spots on my chin. So I'll come on to how we press our foot on the brake in a moment and that other system. So when we are in fight or flight, we are usually in beta, uh, focus, concentration. We're not taking regular breaks that we should be doing so every 9, 20 minutes. In theory, we should be putting our foot on the brake, so coming out of fight or flight, resting our system so that our body can recuperate. Because whilst we are in fight or flight, our, uh, body is producing stress hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline. So for those of you listening who go from meeting to meeting with no gaps in between, let alone any administration time to actually implement those actions, then it's no wonder we end, um, up feeling stressed out. So the other system, this is where we put our foot on the brake. So this is our rest and our digest system. Now the interesting thing about this is you can't be in both systems at the same time. You've either got your foot on the gas pedal or your foot on the brake pedal. Now this is the parasympathetic nervous system. And um, it triggers our relaxation response but also counters our stress response. So those of you that have worked with me before, you'll have heard me talk about the stress bucket analogy. So we have a bucket and in the middle there's a middle line, which is our, uh, homeostasis line, which is when we are in perfect balance. But then as things start to trigger us throughout the day, our, uh, bucket can overflow. And then we might have a stressy outburst or be short or bad tempered with somebody. And the idea is that we are aware of how full our stress bucket is getting. And then we consciously take actions to take layers out of that stress bucket and, and going into this rest and digest process. And as we go throughout this module, I will be sharing later on practical strategies that you can implement that will help you take those layers of stress out. Now, rest and digest system, it's also responsible for the body's ability to heal and recuperate. So it's no wonder, is it when we uh, are really stressed out that we sleep less, our body doesn't heal, it doesn't recover. Uh, so therefore, because we've not been taking time to come into this rest and digest, our body hasn't had time to heal. It's no wonder that we then end up getting more sickness. So when we fail to take our foot off the gas pedal, and I'm sure some of you might have experienced burnout, this is what happens. And it's called. So this, what we're looking at now is something called the human function curve. And down one side of the chart we've got performance. And then on the bottom part of the chart we've got level of arousal. So when we are not very aroused, so we don't have very much to do, we are in what we refer to as the drone zone. In fact, I had a client just this week who was talking about being bored. And so they've gone from being overloaded, overwhelmed to all of a sudden being bored. And that is also stressful as well. Whereas as we begin to have that healthy tension, so we have enough to keep us occupied, we can get into that creative calm zone, our performance tends to improve, but then too much of a good thing. And I've shared in the past when I've done that recovered workaholic, when I push things too far, then we can end up in burnout and our performance can really taper off. So what's really important here is that we are self aware enough to know when we've got to take our foot off the gas and put our feet on the brakes. Now this is a really useful model to help explain what stress is. It's adapted from Dr. Albert Ellis's model of stress and it's the A, B, C, D and E model of stress. So if we cover the first part of the model, which is A, B, C. So A stands for activating event. So let's say for example, you're in a meeting, your boss asks you a question and you're unable to answer that question. So that's the activating event. Now the belief that's been triggered is, I am, um, stupid, I look like an idiot. The consequence of that stress trigger is so the psychological consequences that you ruminate in bed about it at night thinking, God, you idiot, you should have said this, you should have said the other. The physiological response to that particular stress trigger might be in the moment your heart started to race and your cheeks started to flush. They used to call me Blusher Reid. I used to get embarrassed all the time people whenever I was put on the spot. And then we have our behavioural consequences. So the behavioural consequence might be that you tried to BS your way around the question and you waffled and you went off on a tangent. The next part of the model. This is the constructive part of the model, the D and the E. So, uh, D stands for disparate beliefs. So basically challenging your belief. And you'll know I'm a big fan of journaling. I have a journal model that you can use. If you look in the show notes, you'll be able to see a link to my self coaching tool, stroke journaling tool, and that will help you dissipate those beliefs or challenge that belief. So this might sound like, really? Are you really an idiot just because you couldn't answer that one question, does it really mean you're at risk of redundancy because you couldn't answer that one question? Does it really mean that you're incompetent because you couldn't answer that one question? And when you start to rationalise it and you can't be writing it out in black and white. And by the way, folks, it's not as effective if you type your journal. It has to be pen and paper. Or if you're like me, I have a digital journal where I can use my stylus and then just delete it afterwards. So we challenge that belief. That's the D part of the model. And then we move on to E, which is about the effective new approach. And again, again, in that journaling model, you will be encouraged to take your worry, concern, fear, limiting belief or emotion towards action. And E stands for your effective new approach. So what actions are you going to take? So it might be that in the future your effective new approach would be if you get put on the spot by your boss again and you don't know the answer. Instead of waffling and going all the way around the houses, just say, do you know what? I don't have the answer, um, to hand, but I'll come back to you. Okay, so next, what we're going to look at is our causes of stress. And I'm going to break them down into external stress triggers and internal stress triggers. So our external stress triggers. So these are often tied to major life events or our ongoing pressures. So it could be an exam, it could be high workload, it could be tight deadlines, it could be your jobs at risk, something like that. Then we've got financial pressures, so unexpected bills, managing debt, general money worries. So take for example, the other day I got a letter off a debt recovery agency through the post. And as soon as I got it, my heart started beating fast. I was thinking, I don't owe any money, I like to pay my bills straight away. And anyway, when I opened the letter, uh, rang them up and even when I rang them up, I was a little bit nervous. But I, uh, had to say to myself, hang on, can you do a little thing to help me out? And that's to simply hit subscribe or the follow button now, wherever it is that you're listening. So that's maybe on YouTube, Spotify or Apple, because that will help the podcast get found by other people and that then enables us to keep going because we continue to keep growing. What would be 5 star amazing though, is if you could also leave a review. I really appreciate it. Thanks for your support. A minute. You've not done anything wrong. It's not a life or death situation. It is literally a letter. Next, we've got major life changes. So, uh, even positive life changes like getting married, having a baby, moving house. So moving here to the Lake District was really stressful. All of that can put added pressure on us. And then we've got relationship difficulties. So it might be conflict with friends, with family, with a work colleague, or maybe going through a breakup, a divorce, or worse still, going through a bereavement. And then we've got health issues. So it might be chronic illness or you're managing an injury, or it could be something like your living environment. Maybe you live, you've got a noisy neighbour, or maybe there are housing problems or you've got a long commute, or there's a natural disaster like, gosh, how much stress and pressure were we under during the pandemic? And then we've got our internal stressors. And so these are often connected to our personality type, but also our, uh, triggers that were created in our childhood. And when we get on to a little bit further on, I'm going to be talking about where those stress triggers come from and how we can overcome them, um, using a really wonderful technique. So, simple terms, what I'm going to do, I'm broken down our stress triggers by using the DISC personality profile. So DISC stands for Dominance, Influence, Steadiness and compliance. And when you look at, uh, what each Profile needs. So each profile has a core need. They then develop behavioural coping strategies. And, um, we've also got their stress trigger. So when we look at the dominance type, their core need is to feel capable. Their behavioural coping strategy in order to feel capable is winning and being in control. But their stress trigger is if someone else tries to control them. So I think we've all been there. I see it in my family, you'll have two dominant types and both parties are trying to domineer and, um, dictate what happens in a situation and then you'll get a butting of heads because one person is trying to then control the other. The next type is I for influence. So their core need is to feel loved. And the behavioural coping strategy is to search for approval and interaction. So the thing that will trigger their stress is being ignored. So I've already fessed up that I don't use WhatsApp anymore, but I can remember we have one tick for message sent, two ticks for delivered, and then is it one blue tick for opened and then, oh, I can't remember. But we basically get ticks, don't we? And it notifies us that they have actually read our, ah, message, but they've not responded. So that would be an example of, oh, what's going on there? And being ignored. Then the next type is S for steadiness. This is their core need here, is they want to feel safe, they search for stability and peace and their stress trigger is conflict or having to deal with change. So that was certainly the Reid household. We're all a bunch of. We all seek stability and peace. So relocating again was a big stress trigger. And then the final type is C for compliance. So the core need there is to feel competent and it's to do with academic accuracy and logic. So they'll seek out accuracy and logic, which will help them to feel competent. But the thing that will then trigger them into stress is harsh criticism. So you imagine you're a person who prides themself on accuracy and then you realise you've made a mistake on payroll and then the accountant then criticises you for making that mistake. So you can either pause or it's time to reflect. And what you're going to do is you're going to think about how you can reduce your stress triggers. Because when we reflect and we raise awareness, that's the first thing that puts us in the driving seat. And without awareness, we can't make conscious choices, can we? We can't make the right choices for Us. So number one, identify what your stress triggers are. Referencing the external and internal stre stress triggers I've just spoken about. Number two, identify what you believe about the situation. So I gave the example of I received a letter from a debt recovery agency and I thought, oh, I've not paid a bill, it's gonna tarnish my reputation, I'm gonna get bad marks against my credit rating, blah, blah, blah. And then when I really stopped to think about it, it's like, hang on a minute, it's just a piece of paper. Let's rationalize this. Next is taking each stressor, identify which ones are within your control and which ones are outside of your control. So let's say, for example, if someone had chosen to take action against me for owing money that is outside of my control, but what is within my control would be to pay the bill off or to make attempts to pay the bill off. Now, as it happened, it was all absolutely fine and it was a mistake. And then finally it's working out. What's one small step or action you could take to ease your stress in that situation? So that's exactly what I did. I picked up the phone and talked it over and that was it. Issue resolved. So just to conclude on this section, just remember you can't put your foot on the gas and the brake at the same time. Um, and later on what, uh, I will be talking about. So further on in the module we'll look at those practical things that you can do to actually take your foot off the gas and take a break. The next thing is raise awareness of what is actually causing you stress. The external stress triggers, the internal stress triggers, change what you can control and take action. Now what's coming up next is rather exciting. I'm going to be talking about how you can actually eliminate and reduce those stress triggers using a really fantastic technique. So moving on to section two. So we're going to move straight into Havening because this is literally like cheating change. This was the technique I used when I recovered from chronic fatigue. Fatigue and me. Now the doctor said to me, no cure for this disease. You're going to spend a lifetime in a wheelchair or in bed. Here's a card. Go and have a chat in a self help group. And I was like, absolutely not. I am not going to sit around wallowing in the issues. Thank goodness I'm in the coaching industry. And I thought, what can I do to help myself heal and recover from this? Now if I said to you I'd already trained as a coach, I'M um, also an nlp. We've used NLP techniques in previous sessions. Neuro Linguistic Programming Practitioner, Master Practitioner Trainer. So I went through all the levels of nlp. Then I became a hypnotherapist. Then I learned Emotional Freedom Technique, another brilliant technique, can highly recommend it. Then I learned Integral Eye Movement Therapy, another interesting technique, but not one that I'm using. Then I found Havening. Havening is what I use with 90% of my coaches. It's rare for me not to use Havening. Now, my classic client, CEOs, directors, partners, senior leaders. So to reassure you, it is standard practice to use this technique. It's going to take an open mind and trust that this will work. Experiencing it will help you believe it. So, but I'm going to explain the science behind it. Havenim M was invented by a guy called Dr. Ron Rudin. He's a GP medic in Manhattan. He is a neuroscientist and, um, he had people coming into his practice who had experienced ptsd, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and he was looking to help these patients. His friend was Paul McKenna, he uses hypnotherapy. He's a famous coach to the stars. But he was using eft, the technique I was talking about, which is a tapping technique, which again helps people heal from trauma. Now to Ron Rudin, he's got medical mind. He was like, this makes no sense. How can you tap on certain points of the body and recover from trauma? This doesn't make any sense. So he spent seven years investigating psychosensory techniques and designed Havening in the process. So he took all the best bits of those investigations, he looked at the science and he invented Havening. Now, ah, when I qualified as a Havener, uh, it's over 10 years ago now, I was number 50 in the UK, which gives you an idea of we were few and far between. Now there are thousands of practitioners and it is becoming more and more known these days. Now, from your perspective, you've been trained to be leaders. As coaches, you're not expected nor should you use this technique on your coaches. I'm sharing this technique so you can use it to self haven. So to begin with, we're going to talk about imposter syndrome again because this could provoke more thought and I've, uh, covered this in previous modules, so it's a quick reminder that we can get stressed out as a result of imposter syndrome. I'm going to make that connection between imposter syndrome types and beliefs which then trigger stress. So this is based on the theory of Dr. Valerie Young. So there are five types of imposter syndrome. The first is called the expert. And this is to do with not knowing enough. So if you struggled at school or you felt embarrassed when you were answering questions because you got something wrong, or academically you didn't perform very well. And interestingly, these kind of traumas, so we call these small traumas, not big traumas. Big traumas are things like loss of a parent, abuse either emotional physical abuse, parents divorcing, that type of thing. Small traumas are those events that occur, as I say, in the classroom. You put your hand up and you get a question wrong, you experience public humiliation and chain. So for me personally, why do you think I'm a trainer, I'm a coach, I'm an author. This was my category of imposter syndrome. I was sat on. They used to call it like the dunce table back in the 80s. Go and sit on the thick table. So go and sit with the other children that we don't know what to do with. Now neurodiverse children are dealt with far better in the education system these days, but that's how they dealt with them back in the day. The next type is the perfectionist. So see which type you can relate to. So this is where a person doesn't feel they can make mistakes. So take for example, I remember working with one client. They were the mistake child, so they were told they were a mistake by a family member, which then led to them avoiding mistakes at all costs. Now remember also there's connections with the C profile as well. So we're going to see some crossover here. The next one is the natural genius. This is to do with, I'm not good enough if I can't immediately accomplish something. So my husband is a natural genius. He should have gone to Oxford University. He was offered a place at university, but he didn't feel he fit in because he came from a working class background. So he didn't go. But that pattern, so I've seen that, uh, pattern play out, for example, when we were learning to play golf. If he can't instantly do something, then sometimes he will give up on things. The next type is the soloist. So this is to do with, I'm a failure, I'm a fraud if I can't do something on my own. So back to what I was saying earlier in part one, I see connections here with birth order. So I see this pattern a lot in the last born. So firstborn, middleborn, last born. So last borns. They're often left with looking up to siblings and they unfairly judge themselves against the older sibling who can do something that they can't. So if you think about it, the classic examples, uh, are my older sibling can ride a bike and I can't. My older sibling can tell the time and I can't. My older sibling can tie their shoelaces and I can't. So there's this drive for being able to do things themselves. But the problem this causes for leaders is when it comes to delegating that they find it hard to let go. And I've seen this pattern put leaders close to burnout because they're busy doing everything themselves and they're not delegating. And then the final type is the superhuman. So I'm an imposter if I'm not succeeding in all areas of my life. And I see this in clients who were parentified as a child. So that means they were given adult type jobs and expected to do lots of things, missed out on the childhood a little bit. So for example, I've got one exec at the moment that I'm working with and um, their pattern is I'm the person who helps everyone. But they won't put their own oxygen mask on, they won't look after their own well being because their job growing up was to take care of everybody else's needs. So throughout this theme we've got this proving we are good enough or we are worthy enough. So answers in the chat. Which pattern is you? So put number one, expert, number two, perfectionist. Three genius, four soloist, five superhuman. So we've got two perfectionist number five. It's superhuman. Another superhuman. Another superhuman. Yes, you absolutely can be a mixture. People often have several. Ah, another number five, number two, which is perfectionist. Yeah, that's an interesting mix. That's great. Okay, so this is how then imposter syndrome causes this domino effect. So imposter syndrome causes us to prove our worth, that we are enough. And proving our worth causes us to have too much to do because we're always in the game of proving. I'll do that because it will prove I'm worthy enough. But this then leads to overwhelm, stress and sometimes burnout. Um, either a yes or a no in the chat, if you can relate to that. Okay, good. This is where our uh, internal stress triggers come from. So can you remember me sharing this model with you before? It's the model of personality. It's not the law, it's one model. But it's based on the fact that our personality is forming. So this model says between naught and 21. There are other models that say we're not fully formed until we are 25. There's others that say until our 30s. But the point is our personality is forming whilst we're young. Now, the most important time in anyone's Life is age 0 to 7. This is the imprint phase. So going back to when I was exploring earlier about what is that event. So the way that havening works is we have to go for the earliest or the most traumatic event, so the most upsetting event. And that's because it's a little bit like having a beautiful green lawn. A dandelion pops up, which is the trigger. So let's say you're in a meeting, you are triggered because you've been challenged by someone. It makes you feel embarrassed, ashamed, silly, that you don't know as much as you should know and you feel put on the spot. Now, the way if we were to just snap the dandelion head off by talking to ourselves in a more constructive way, the dandelion will grow back, it'll reappear. In order to prevent the dandelion from reappearing, we've got to go to the root cause and we've got to get the root out. And that root will be in that nought to seven imprint period. Now, sometimes when we look at those events aren't emotionally traumatic. So again, when I was working with an exec this morning, even though they had a fear of abandonment, the first earliest memory only had a score of 3 in terms of intensity. But later on, further down that timeline, there were other events that were more traumatic. So what we do is we go for all of them. So we clear it up along the timeline. So why is change challenging? The truth is we're on autopilot. So you have been trained as coaches to question people's autopilot. So remember, we are at worst 1% conscious choice. At best, we are 5% conscious choice. When we are being coached, we are 5% conscious choice because someone is asking those deep searching questions that enables the person to think for themselves, to access the unconscious mind. But most of our behavior is unconscious. So between 95 and 99% of our behaviour is automatic, which is why change is challenging. So a little bit like earlier, you were talking about your habit to not keep checking emails one at a time isn't automatic yet. And it won't be until you practice it for 66 days. And that's because studies show that on Average. So it's not 21 days to change a habit or behaviour. That's a myth. Studies show it takes the average person 66 days to create a neural pathway of competence. And once that neural pathway of competence is formed, then the behaviour will fire automatically and without thinking. Now, when it comes to your inner stress triggers, they are based on that autopilot. Those events in your childhood typically age 0 to 7. So that's where we receive most of our programming and why it's called the imprint period. So some of these neural pathways that we've got here are unhelpful. They no longer serve us because they are, are triggering us into stress when we don't need it. So what Havening does is it provides an alternative solution by scrambling those neural pathways. Now what I mean by that, it breaks the neural pathway so it doesn't work anymore. And I'll explain why it doesn't work anymore when we get to the science. But what I'm going to do, we're going to multitask. You're going to Haven whilst I'm also explaining the science to you. Now, there's some small print. So the small print for Havening. So a lot of people will say, does Havening actually work? Now the great thing with Havening is you don't have to believe in it for it to work. So unlike for example when I used to use NLP techniques and hypnotherapy techniques, some people are not susceptible to those techniques with Havening because this is a physiological and a chemical reaction. As long as you are rubbing your hands, which I'll, ah, explain why in a moment and you have thought about the event, Havening will be working. So from Havening headquarters, when people say, does Havening actually work? They say while the Havening techniques is relatively new, so even after 10 years it's still classed as being a relatively new technique and they're still researching it all the time. We've observed that after successfully applying the Havening techniques, so their experiences, most people believe it's not going to work, but they're always astonished when it does. And um, you're going to get to experience it it in a moment. So I've added some extra small print that I want to flag with you. So first of all, so this is from Havening hq. Don't use Havening with yourself for serious trauma or if you suffer from any psychological disorders, always seek out the help of a professional mental health provider or a certified Havening practitioner, which I am a practitioner. You must be qualified to use the technique on other people, which is what I was saying earlier, I've added these extra layers. This is me being super cautious. So the memory will change the way in which you recall it. So for some people, clients have complete amnesia. So they'll say, what were we working on? I can't recall the detail of that event. I can't see the colour. I'm just drawing a blank. So they'll know the event has occurred, but it's become more of a fact and all the sensory detail will have been removed from it. So let's say you'd got to be a witness in court and you were being questioned under oath and they said, tell me, what was the perpetrator wearing? You wouldn't necessarily be able to recall the detail because you could no longer see it. So don't haven anything that you've got to go to court for because you'll make a poor witness. And then finally, please make sure that you're safe after havening. So what you're going to experience is you're going to experience delta waves, serotonin, so you're going to feel relaxed and maybe a little bit. Oh, uh, you might want to yawn a little bit. The small print is always make sure you're alert enough to drive or operate machinery after havening. So I'm going to explain a havening activity whilst showing you how to do it. So we're going to make it really practical and we're gonna. But we're gonna keep it nice and safe, nice and light. We're gonna relate it to a work scenario. So think about a recent negative event. So no traumas, but it might be a disagreement or a conflict you had with someone at work, or it might be a situation where you felt you'd failed, you'd made a mistake, you felt upset, but something along those lines and it needs to be at work. And then when you've thought about that event, I want you to put a thumbs up in your screen so that I know that everybody has got their event. Great. So this is the havening process. So this is the instruction you're going to come back to when and if you do the work on your own. So in a moment, I'm going to get you to score it. So I want you to trust the first number that pops in your head. If you start over analyzing it, your conscious mind is getting in the way of the unconscious score. And we want your unconscious. We want that raw first number that pops in your head. So when I ask you to Score it in a moment. So notice I have no emotional feeling whatsoever. If that's the case, pick another memory because there's no point working on it. 10 is the strongest negative feeling. So once you've got your score, put your number in the chat. Good. Got some good scores. Great. Okay. The technique involves rubbing the palms of your hands. So start rubbing your hands. If you're not rubbing your hands, this technique won't work. Feel free to rub your hands away from the screen if you feel a bit silly. Most clients say, really? Do I have to keep rubbing my hands? Yeah, as soon as you stop rubbing your hands, it's not going to work. Now, we're going to do this for seven minutes. I'm going to put a timer on now. So when I'm using this technique myself, I use Alexa, uh, it's going to go off. Yeah, Alexa, uh, set a timer for seven minutes. So if you were doing this at home, so rub your hands. The minute you stop, the technique stops working. And it's not the backs of your hands, it's the palms of your hands. You don't have to rub it vigorously. You can do it gently, that's fine. As long as you are rubbing the palms of your hands and you do this for seven to ten minutes. Now, if I'm doing this at home, I will. So the idea is that you distract yourself whilst you are doing the technique. So I just watch Netflix or I might listen to a podcast or something like that. But as long as you're distracting yourself, you only have to think about the memory once. Once you thought about that memory opens up that neural pathway. And I'm going to explain what happens next. So we go through cycles of this. So we're going to do one cycle of seven minutes, but you repeat the process until the score gets to zero. So you will rub your hands for seven minutes and then we are going to check in on the score. And then you would start the process again. Set the timer for another seven minutes until the score goes to zero. Now, if you're sat there thinking, I can't be bothered with this, to sit here doing all of these, rubbing my hands, it seems absolutely crazy. How much time do we waste when we are triggered? What does it cause? Who's prepared to say what? How does it make us think, act, uh, behave? When we are internally, emotionally triggered, are we rational? Can we think logically? Do we lose sleep? Do we feel bad? Does it damage our self esteem, our confidence? Do we then have to go and undo maybe some of the actions that we've taken because it wasn't from a rational place. So all of that is a waste of time. So if you're sat there thinking, I can't be bothered doing this, we are havening one event right now. Typically, my clients will haven 50, 55 memories all at once. So imagine how much change you can achieve all at once. And that's where you get a personality shift, because the person is significantly different because they're not being triggered into behaving a certain way. Keep rubbing your hands. It won't work unless you're rubbing your hands. So let me explain how havening works. So this is, you know, saying we break the neural pathway. This is your neural pathway. So at one end we've got the presynaptic neuron. Um, you'll see we've got the neurotransmitters. That's basically the chemical. And then on the post, post synaptic neuron, we've got the receptors. That's, uh, these green chevrons here. Now, in order for that neural pathway to work for us to be triggered, the neurotransmitter has got to go from the presynaptic neuron to the post synaptic neuron. And there needs to be receptors available. Now, when that occurs, we are triggered, and we're triggered without thinking. And before we know it, we are behaving and thinking and feeling in a certain way. There is. There's not even an option to consciously think about our strategy in that moment. Think about when we are, uh, triggered, for example, maybe into panic. How challenging is it to then go, okay, engage conscious mind. Think about how I'm breathing when we're triggered, what Havening does. So this is the sightings bit. So it works by creating a chain reaction. So rubbing your hands like this. So hopefully you're still rubbing your hands, because it won't work unless you're rubbing your hands. And it creates a chain reaction by producing delta waves. So you'll see here. This is the baseline line before a person has started the Haven in touch. Now you'll see we've got Delta waves at 66.9. This is the red line over here. Once a person starts using the Havening touch, you'll see that the delta waves shoot up to 114.8. That's that red line there. Now you might be thinking, so what not. That's all very interesting. So we're producing delta waves. So we have got four main types of brainwave wave. We've got alpha, which is usually when we are drifting off into sleep. But also when we're relaxed, when we're taking our foot off that gas, we've also got beta, which is focused concentration. So that's when we've got our foot on the gas. We are in that, uh, fight or flight. We are on the go. We're focused in. Then we've got the theta, uh, brainwave. That's when we experience rem, rapid eye movement or dream sleep. That's when we're processing everything that's happened throughout the day. And then we get to delta, which is deep healing sleep. So this is when our body is healing. Now one of the reasons our, uh, healing is less effective when we're not sleeping well is because if we're not getting enough deep sleep, that's the gold standard of sleep and brainwave, then our body can't clear out our systems and heal and recover. So you will notice that if you haven long enough because you are experiencing delta waves, you will start to feel a little bit sleepy and you will feel more relaxed if today's episode resonated with you. And, um, you'd like Havening support from me to clear your stress triggers. Check out my resilient leader program, Shine, where I do all the heavy lifting for you. I do the havening work, I find your stress triggers and we get rid of them. Simply book a free discovery call and we can see if we're a match. You can find all the links in the show notes, scan the QR code on your screen right now or just head over to estelle, read.com and you can find a link to book a 15 minute call. There. Now the delta wave. So this is the chain reaction that it creates. Alexa, stop. So keep rubbing your hands because we can go for 10 minutes. So the delta waves then leads to something called calcineurin. And what it does is it gets rid of these receptors. So whilst we are havening. So once your scores get to zero, what it does is it gets rid of the receptors. So when the neurotransmitter tries to pass over the synaptic gap, there's nowhere for it to go, it just falls away. So therefore the neural pathway doesn't work anymore and we can't be triggered. So in terms, um, of what that looks like afterwards, so what does it result in? It gives you space to be different and to be who you really are. So that might be speaking up during a meeting without any inhibitions, without fear of looking stupid, feeling silly, being worried about getting it wrong. And you will do that without thinking and all of a sudden you'll think, oh, I'm just being different. No, you're just being yourself. You're getting rid of that trigger that was unhelpful and created in your childhood when you were back in the classroom and it no longer serves you, so you're getting rid of that imprint. So for those of you that use the Havening technique, if you stopped rubbing your hands, hands, then it won't have worked. For those of you that rubbed your hands all the way to the end, I want you to put your score in the chat. So rethink about that memory. And on a scale of naught to 10, 10 is the strongest feeling. Naught is no feeling. So what's the new number? Uh, has it gone up, has it gone down, has it stayed the same? Um, answers in the chat. And you can stop rubbing your hands, by the way. Right, so we've had from a seven to a six. Wow. We've had from a seven to a three. That's brilliant. I'm trying to track everyone's scores. Okay, great. So I've got from an eight to a six and another eight to a six and a four to almost a one, two. Brilliant. That's great. I still think it's a little miracle even now when clients tell me that. But yeah, that's what to expect. The way it works for me is the memory just goes like an old fashioned photography film, like Sepia for some people, they draw an absolute blank, they can't see anything. But what you will get to is the memories that you know the event occurred but you just don't feel anything. It just becomes like a fact. Now you imagine doing that work on childhood events, what impact that could have. It is seriously the best technique I've ever used. And it is, I appreciate for me, probably it seems quite simple. The hard part of Havening is finding those memories. You've got to become a memory detective and I guess that's how I make a living because I can hear triggers in people. And I'll go, it's this and this. What's the memory? And using the same language, but that's where you can help yourselves by journaling and writing your language and then asking yourself, when in the past did I feel like this as a, uh, young child? And then seeing what memories it provokes. And if it's in that nought to seven area, you'll know that you're on the right track. And then if you can, then clear up any related events that are similar in nature so they feel similar and also they might have stronger scores. Clear those up as well. So you want to do in between the ages of naught and 21 and just clear them all up? Before we sign off, I'd like to invite you to my quick reflective practice called Pause Reflect act as your leadership coach, I'm, um, here to help you translate today's insights into personal growth and, um, your next steps. Answer the prompts that follow in your journal or notes. Alternatively, you can access my complimentary journal and self coaching tool in the show notes or head over to estellead.com so here's this week's questions. Number one know your triggers. Think about a recent moment when you felt stressed or reactive. What was the activating event and what belief did it trigger? Is that belief actually true or is it a story from your past? Number two Gas or break On a typical day, how much time do you spend in fight or flight versus rest and digest? What does putting your foot on the brake look and feel like for you? And what gets in the way of doing it more often? Number three your stress profile. Looking at the disc stress triggers, which one resonates most with you needing to control, seeking approval, craving stability, or demanding accuracy? How does that pattern show up in your work and relationships? Number four Imposter syndrome and Overload. Which of the five imposter syndrome types do you relate to the most? The expert? The perfectionist? The natural genius? The soloist, or the superhuman? How has each pattern contributed to your stress overwhelm or tendency to take on too much? Number five the root, not the flower if you think about a recurring stress trigger in your life right now, when did you first feel this way? What's the earliest memory you can connect it to, and what would it mean for you if that root was no longer there and had power over you? By the way, you can get rid of root causes and stress triggers by using techniques such as havening. Head over to to estelle read.com where you can find out about the Resilient Leader program where I do all the heavy lifting for you and haven away. If you'd like to be notified when the next episode drops, remember to subscribe. If you found this episode helpful, please share it with someone who might benefit. Finally, if anyone of these topics have sparked your interest and you'd like to work with me, you can apply for a free discovery call@ah estellread.com let's see if we're a good fit. You'll also find plenty of free resources there. I'M Estelle Reid, executive coach, speaker and um, best selling author and this has been the Optimizing Leader Brilliance Podcast. Thanks for listening. Listening this podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered professional advice. Please consult with a qualified professional for any specific advice related to your situation, Your stress triggers.