The Burnout Curve: Why High Performers Burn Out Even When They Feel Fine | Performance Coach

34:36So what is that actually doing to our brain? It may be less about eliminating uncertainty altogether and more about trying to understand what's going on well enough to know how to respond. That's the bit that I find really interesting. So if you genuinely do walk into a dark room, you don't just normally sit there in the darkness, you normally turn a light on. And the reason you turn a light on is because your brain wants more information. It wants to understand where you are, what's going on around you and what you should do next. So sometimes we actually move towards uncertainty in order to resolve it.

35:16And I think that's really interesting because it gives a distinction about when we talk about nervous system regulation, right? Maybe the nervous system isn't trying to create a life with no uncertainty. Maybe it's trying to keep uncertainty manageable enough so that we stay engage with it and we learn from it and then we adapt yes i love this and for me this i love so there's there's there's the music analogy of course you know that we can we can kind of apply here that if you were just to listen to a piece of music and every single note would just kind of change from one to the other it was it might be for a moment you'd be like oh yeah it's quite nice but after a while you're gosh this boring you know i just kind of switch my music off equally if it starts to change tone it changes melody it adds a lyric or a voice somewhere all of a sudden it catches your attention and and you kind of move towards it and it's curiosity we're curious we're curious in innate beings you know who who seek to learn and to grow and that's where growth happens in the prediction error the prediction error in in the case of the music is the change of the beat or the melody that changes or the the note that you've become accustomed to something and then another note comes in.

36:30That's prediction error. And it's not massive. It doesn't create a huge trauma in the psyche. So it's that space that learning and emotion can actually come forward. From my point of view, with breath, synchronizing to music can be a really exciting space. Yeah, because if you think about the synchronization that you can create, using Carl Fristin's free energy principle of music and beat and rhythm, and that's safety, that's predictability, and then start to create within that same music beats that are just off the one or prediction errors that are enough to change the brain pattern from the synchronisation.

37:17Then an updated model of reality has to get implemented each time. And so you stay kind of alert within that space, which is why often you can listen to music and can evoke emotion. People can cry, people can laugh. And whenever you sync that up with the breath, it can be a very, very powerful experience for people. Well, that's what we did. So we've done many breath works together, you and I, but you have seen me in probably my worst day of all time a couple of years ago. if you read the book you'll know why I was in that state but you came to my house and I was so dysregulated when you turned up at my house I was not in a good space and I just I had complete kind of I had no sensation in my body at that point and you came over I don't know how long did we do breath work for like two to three hours yeah it was a long session there was a lot to go through, wasn't it?

38:17It was a lot. And, but you, you took, I mean, I think I passed out half of it. I think I was not passed out, but in a dreamlike state, because, you know, I do think breathwork can have a real, you know, people describe it very similarly to being on psychedelics. They can call it like, you know, the psychedelic breath or the psychedelic experience without taking psychedelics. You can kind of have a similar experience just with, with breathwork, but you also matched it to music and so my breath went through I didn't just do one type of breath work I went through like so many different stages of breath work near the end like can you talk through that experience because I think that's very different to the box breathing that you were just talking about yeah and I think you know I sometimes kind of describe them as the micro and the macro let's say so like the micro is the box breathing and what I would consider functional breath performance breath work and the breath work that I do already with my two-year-old son and I do with my you know 80 year old mother you know it's the breath that ideally we should be trying to integrate across every single person I would say there in with functional breath work there is a breath work for every single person in the world might not be the same breath work but there is a breath work that they could explore within the kind of functional breath work range range and realm what we did would move more towards the kind of macro and the i needed all the help i could get at that point yeah we were doing both weren't we yeah exactly and we did we we explored altered state breathing or um transformational breath work which is another uh tool let's say in in the armory that i would use with clients to create an experience in the both in the psyche and the body and the physiology and in the brain.

40:05This is high ventilation breath work. So this is where it's like not necessarily for every single person in the world. And, you know, I wouldn't be doing it with my two-year-old and probably I have done it with my mother actually. So, you know, to create effect. And whenever we're breathing in such a way, we are changing blood gas ratios. We're changing rhythm within the brain. prefrontal cortex your thinking brain kind of let's say slows down and goes offline emotional centers memory centers are lit up within this state and so it can be very akin to uh to psychedelics or clinical research has now shown that um it's it's similar to taking low dosages of psilocybin so the neuroscience now catching up with what has been a breath work to create um yeah to create experience in the body that give people different lenses to look through at the same problems so of course it doesn't change anything externally um but a lot of this work is the internal relationship to what is happening and i like i find it to be incredibly beneficial with clients as yourself but with other clients as well who sometimes they need an emotional release if you remember that particular session with you your entire body um went from very tight rigid almost like protection space into completely deeper deeply relaxed and it was almost embodying sympathetic fight or flight into parasympathetic and because of the contrast that we'd gone through you really felt this kind of deep release and reset within your body for anyone who's like what is that though can you talk us through like the stages of breath work that that transformational breath work that people may have not experienced which is similar to like psychedelic yes exactly so high whenever i say high ventilation breath work this is generally um through the mouth and a little bit faster so like you know the rhythm that i we were using was in three to four beats in and one beat out you know this kind of rhythm with breath already i've done two i feel a slight lightheadedness tingling my fingers so um immediate very very quickly within very often 10 breaths for people it can create some sort of physiological change now what's happening there physiologically is that if you think about whenever you're stressed or anxious you maybe breathe a little bit faster a little bit more shallow and that is quite similar to high ventilation breath work so a lot of the physiological change that might happen whenever you're stressed or anxious you start to have that feeling within the body dynorphins are released which are like you're uncomfortable i need to get out of here hormones they they link on to receptors in your body opioid receptors in your body which are like painkillers and they whenever they link together they create endorphins and that's the nice kind of feeling that people can have after and very very similar process as to getting into that cold bath or a sauna whenever you're kind of in a sauna for 20 minutes and someone starts talking to you and you're like oh my god like if this person keeps talking i'm gonna faint or something you know um because you're you're feeling that agitation in your body very very similarly with this kind of transformational breath work you're creating that kind of physiological change in your body now interestingly was it was it steve cutler um who talked about the physiological biomarkers between anxiety and excitement or Oh yeah, very, very, yeah.

43:46Fear and excitement as well. Yeah, so, yeah, fear and excitement, exactly. And so this is interesting because, of course, whenever you're doing the transformational breathwork experience, you're lying on the ground and you're safe, you know, you're not in threat, but you can perceive it to be exciting or fun or euphoric. or if your state is on the other way, you can perceive it to be scary and kind of brace. So as we breathe in that way, of course, the music is, you were saying we linked up the music to the breath and there's a beat and a melody and almost like a safety with that rhythm that you're linking on to subconsciously.

44:33You're not kind of saying, oh, I can't wait till the next drumbeat comes, but your psyche or your nervous system syncs in to, synchronizes in to the safety of doom, doom, doom. And then all of a sudden maybe I change the music and it goes a little bit different. And then that's where the prediction error occurs and that's where emotion can then come out because we've got to update our modern reality during that moment. And whenever you're held by a practitioner through this space, it can be an extremely beneficial, emotional, powerful, powerful experience.

45:08That would be kind of the physiological journey, let's say, of whenever you're doing this breathwork. Of course, physiology and psychology are undeniably linked, and so therefore you have a different psychological experience based on what's happening with the physiology. And to kind of take it back to, you know, our old model of how we encountered stress, just to be like stimulus, stressor, stress response and effect. So stimulus, let's say cold water, the stressors, the temperature of the water on the body. The response is let's get out of the water. Or the response is, you know, fast breathing and the effect, get out.

46:01That was the kind of the old way of us explaining how we reacted to a stressful situation. Nowadays, with the neuroscience and through the kind of predictive processing, understanding of the brain through Carl Fristen's free energy principle, it's much more stimulus appraisal. Appraisal is the really important part. Then it's like physiological response. then how the effect how do I go about it appraisal is really really important here so appraisal is how does my body how does my brain interpret the sensations that I'm feeling right now because this is fascinating because of course two people can have can be sitting in a in a room listening to a talk there can be a bang one person can really jump really like it can be like oh my and my heart's going and the other person can barely hear it.

47:04You know, they can just, they were too focused on the thing. They're feeling very calm and the bang doesn't really do anything for them. The person beside them might be like beating chest. Like, what was that? That was really scary. Was that something outside? Is everything safe in here? They could be in a state of hypervigilance. Now, same bang, but within, there was a response that happened within the system. now unconsciously person number one put loads of weight onto that big bang they're like that's the thing now that you know the salience network in the brain is is like a toggle that switches between central executive network and default mode network default mode networks like the internal central executives the external salience is choosing which one to put your attention onto so salience just like going oh my goodness this big bang everything about it what does it do heart starts to increase saliva starts to lose from the mouth maybe get a wee bit scratchy under the armpit start to breathe a little bit faster and then that creates a response in the body of i am stressed i need to figure out i need to run i feel like this person would survive more so than the other person the other person would be dead yeah they're just so relaxed I don't need to run for my life but sure I was like the person was actually Rob was saying something really interesting yeah well this is this kind of speaks to how our appraisal of a sensation can have a completely completely different impact in our behaviour so like state precedes behaviour like what state we are in allows us to to meet the moment in completely different ways so that's guys it's taken me eight years but i finally wrote a book and it's called healthy shouldn't be this hard and actually became bestseller this may very exciting now if you want more self-compassion in your life and you want to know the reasons on why that is so important i tell you all in this book and i give you a lot of tools to help you get there.

49:11It's definitely been a lifesaver for me. And I know many people that have read it, it has for them too. So if you want to check it out, head to my bio or the show notes below, you'll find the link to the book. So that's why working on these kind of, and tell me if I'm wrong, but what I'm getting from that is that's why these eight minutes a day or four minutes a day is so important. Because if you're bringing yourself back to baseline and you're not just getting up, looking at your phone. One of the most stressful things I think you can do to start your day is wake up with an alarm that is horrible sound.

49:45I did that for years. And I was like, why do I have this alarm that goes off that is so intense? And already I'm like, oh gosh. And now I don't. And I wake up with a small vibration and I have a loomy light and have my curtains open which works in the summer but i naturally wake up which is a way calmer state um but that's why i guess it's so important to have these routines maybe in the morning than anywhere else because actually if you're kind of base leveling where you're feeling that actually sets you in a better way to have these moments of where you are in your state right yeah is that right oh i took yes i you you've you've hit the nail on the head and if you think like both you and I have freely admitted within this last 30 minutes that we were actually like somewhere along like I mean I was at the end of that curve yeah this is Sarah all right oh right are we sad face here with a cross um you know before you and as you say you've got all this information I know and this is the thing and that's why I think it's important to talk about this on the show because Because I think people can look at someone who has, they'll look at you as an executive breathwork coach and think, oh, yeah, Rob's just always got it all figured out.

51:05I also think we go into these crafts because we need them. Right. We need them in ourselves and we have a personal interest. And I'm still figuring, I definitely know my capacity more than I used to. but I think the thing that happens with stress that a lot of people don't do is they don't connect to where they are and so they can just tell themselves they're stressed but they're not realizing where their capacity for stress is or that was my story anyway whereas now I can figure out like I'm in a I'm in a not I'm gonna start kind of down leveling very soon if I don't catch myself and no well you know the the wellness paradox in this idea that we can be hyper focused on health and yet not know where, maybe where we are on that human function curve.

51:52I find that a really, really helpful one whenever I'm working with clients, just to say, where do you think you are? Versus, you know, how is your sleep? How do you feel your stress levels are? What is your sciatica or your pain in your back there? And for me, it's great. It's like, oh, actually, maybe I need to integrate a couple more, just like three minutes and five minutes. As you said, I've got two-year-olds. I'm in the United Nations. I fly to New York on Thursday and as part of the General Assembly program, we're doing a panel talk and then an experience for both the internal United Nations staff, but partners of United Nations across the world.

52:32we're live streaming it so please tune in but what we want to do there is to give a couple of tools to create awareness that whenever you're stressed this might be the way it's showing up that your capacity for it might be really really high and that's good as well so you can push on it's not I don't actually think just the way the world is I don't actually think it is the time to like hibernate and to not work at all like I think you know with everything that's going on in the world AI and everything that's coming uh it's really good to be to be building and to be to be creating um creating almost like a a foundation for yourself and this is this is the space that I'm in so one of the big things I get from my clients Rob I don't want to lose my edge I don't want to you know like not be ambitious or not not work really hard because there is that worry, right, of I have had this, of slowing down.

53:34I mean, I know it to slow down, to speed up is such an important part of, you know, running any, like running company or supporting your family or whatever it is that that person's doing. But there's still that push and pull of time. Yeah. Because time is so essential. And I think it's one of the biggest, biggest forms of wealth that we have. I never say that you're rich if you've got money in your bank. I know someone's rich by the time they have available on their calendar. And that's a real difference to me because I feel like I have no time or I feel like I'm always losing time. And I'm always like, well, if I had more space for time, I think I'd feel way more wealthier than I was or than I am.

54:17And so I always think time is one of the biggest forms of currency that we have and slowing that down can also make you feel that you're losing out but actually it's it's the opposite and i have these conversations with with my clients because you know time is it's a it's a it's a feeling isn't it you know like you you can feel like free you know you can be the busiest person in the world but feel quite relaxed through it and like you're enjoying it you're in flow and um and not feel overwhelmed and then you feel like you have time yeah yeah and it's it's a really strange thing you know some of my clients can be the busiest busiest but they're they're in a really good space and so yet they feel like they've got all the time in the world and and so I I see richness to me yeah yeah and this is and for me it's like time is a feeling state that I think of it like freedom um you know it's it's conceptual we've we've conceptualized what time is anyway right but like I I still managed to to get the wee man my son into the bath I still managed to get him to nursery this morning I still managed to come and you know chat today to see a client later on I feel like I have time but because from my kind of little moment in December whenever I collapsed at the top of the stairs I've worked quite hard on creating structured rest within my within my day and week and month athletes are really they're the easiest for me to work with because like they understand recovery rest and recovery is like part of their performance it's business leaders that I find the hardest to work with because rest and recovery is like sacrilege to that you know they won't they're like oh no no because I've got another thing to do another thing to do and I think it's an it's a it's an interesting reflection for some of those if that's you if that's your personality just to think what is it where is it in my life that I feel that sense of calm or peace you know insert the word calm can sometimes be something different to someone else but that word where you just kind of feel like you let go a little bit I get in the sauna yeah people have said that to me actually I get that when I'm on a walk in nature that's my honestly the moment that I'm driving outside of a city and people say this and I'm going to completely butcher the science behind this which is not normally my thing but haven't I can't remember exactly what it is but it's when you're not when you can see the horizon your cortisol lowers because you realize that you've kind of got more visual space which allows your body to feel that you're not so crammed in which is why I think New York is one of the most exciting places on the earth and I lived there, but I was in my worst state of health ever.

57:10Because you can't see anywhere. And so you do feel like you're cramped and there is zero green space in New York. You know, unless you're living kind of near Central Park, you are devoid of any green space. And so it's really interesting that I have that calmness as soon as I'm in nature. It's just being in nature. And even, you know, if I do a working week outside and I'm in the countryside, wherever that is in the world like I finished writing my book in Austria the calmness of my week so much more was thrown at me but I could handle it so much better I find that such an interesting concept yeah very interesting that it's your walk in the morning is your um kind of peaceful moment of the day and I think it's really really important to just to ask yourself that question when when do I feel like that when do I feel like I just let go a little bit where there's no there's like I I wondered whether whenever I was in the sauna, is it because I'm uncontactable or is it the sense of just feeling like my body's starting to relax?

58:12Well, there are people that use their AirPods in saunas, and I'm like... I know, yeah, this starts to wind me up. I have to do my box breath to bring myself... I'm like, guys, just 10 minutes without AirPods in. But interestingly, just to kind of speak to your point about kind of being able to see, you know, out in front of you, a wide, wide horizon maybe, from previously working with a colleague on the EMDR, they say that this is a lot where EMDR is taken from. Yeah, because we naturally, as we're walking, we're scanning the horizon for threat. This is kind of what we're doing as we walk forward.

58:48Well, we hope. I think a lot of us now actually look at our phones when we walk. Yeah. I actually say to people, when you run, look up. Because I think a lot of us will run just looking down at the pavement. Don't look up the whole time because you will fall over. But like, it's this really interesting sensation that if you go for a run and you actually look up, I do feel such a bigger depth of freedom. It's really interesting that the release that you can get in your body from just looking up when you're running. Because actually, if you think about it, we're normally running, looking down. And similarly, you know, most of us are walking along on our phone.

59:22But we're not normally, as you said, scanning unless we're like actually going out on a proper weekend walk. or we're like okay that's what I want to do and that's how I want to use my time but look around when you're out I think most people are looking at their phones yeah and I think I think that being intentional about how what is this well you know what is this is this for rest is this am I trying to like actively rest and people think resting is I'll go out for a walk but I'll you know listen to a podcast while also scrolling you know yeah my emails and everything else that's clearly not digital rest you know and so can we can we look at okay I'm gonna physical rest maybe not walk at all I'll just relax or spiritual rest I don't have to do meditation and you know better myself self-development and can I do that's a big one yeah this is I've seen it a lot now because I've had to stop listening to podcasts or I have such a you know I read a lot of non-fiction that when I'm in the gym, I'm trying to learn.

1:00:23And I've got to a point where I'm like, I have to switch off from using that time as another place to learn. I need to not be listening to a podcast when I'm in the gym. Yeah, yeah. But it's interesting because you just naturally are, you're naturally connected to doing it. Absolutely. And, you know, there's also a, there's maybe an inherent subtle belief within your system that you should be using this time as well to learn as well as train 100 double up time you see it's the time efficiency yeah yeah and then can you get to a space where okay what if what if i don't you know yeah what if i i allow myself to truly just be on the treadmill or be lifting a weight and you know this is essentially where you know we touched on the default mode network the central executive network but within the gym a lot of people go internal you know they're whenever we can of course we're maybe lifting a weight or we're doing something but that's where daydreaming can can start to take place that's where creativity lives you know default mode network can be highly active and very creative people and allowing yourself that space to rest in a sense you know to rest from the the self-development podcast or the learning podcast um not to say you should you should listen to this one but to give yourself that space to actually allow inspiration and creativity to arise rather than, you know, trying to force it through, okay, I need to think my way through this situation.

1:01:56Having these little moments create the conditions for creativity. Yeah, create the conditions. Well, actually, we had this insane neuroscientist on here, David Rock, and he brought the theory to mind of why we have creative thoughts in the shower. Because honestly, I think so many people are like, oh, I've had this really interesting thought and it came in the shower. It doesn't come when you're at your desk. And, you know, he said that's because you are not using your brain. You are literally kind of in a meditation state. You're feeling the water in your body. And you have so many different parts that are kind of subconsciously saved.

1:02:32Memories, constant memories that you're scanning for throughout the day. And they kind of can come to the sphere during the shower because your mind is quieting down. And it's so interesting that we actually, that we don't think about that as much. we don't think about not learning and utilizing calmness and quietness. Exactly, because by nature there is no structure to that. There is no method. And we kind of cling to, and I'm as bad as everyone else, I'm kind of king of methodologies. Like, okay, give a client a four-week protocol that I would like them to do, and this is what you should do every single day.

1:03:05Totally. Sometimes I try to integrate, okay, this week, I really want you to strictly do nothing, do less, no performance. So anyone that's listening then, I mean, obviously we spoke about the transformational breathwork, which I would a thousand percent recommend for everyone to try. Well, actually, that's probably wrong. Not everyone should try. I'm sure you'll probably tell me that's completely wrong. But people that are very interested in this and doing it as kind of a big experience, it is an amazing. I felt so calm after that. but for kind of the everyday approach to breath work how should somebody be formatting this into their routine and what type of breath work is kind of maybe the best for that equilibrium or that state dependent dose that you were speaking about earlier on yeah okay so two things I'll speak just very quickly to that your feeling of calm after the transformation of breath work In a, let's say, regulated, healthy nervous system, we have what's called the parasympathetic rebound.

1:04:07That's to say that whenever you peak up to sympathetic, you rebound back into parasympathetic. So sympathetic is the fight and flight and parasympathetic rest and digest. OK, and the the parasympathetic rebound allows you to feel that contrast of the high, high ventilation breath work took you right up there. The music was quite like my voice gets louder. The person's going through an experience and then all of a sudden, boom, the rebound happens and they come really back into, oh, this is what it's like to relax. so for some people who have been so kind of tightly wound up living quite chronically and sympathetic switched on cortisol always getting released because those traits that we were talking about earlier have been kind of just patterned in that can be really revolutionary to feel oh my goodness this I didn't even realize I was holding on so much in my body because it's yeah and it's unconscious so we don't you know and so people you people might be listening to I'm completely relaxed right now.

1:05:09It's unbelievable how much you can relax a little bit more. And clinical hypnosis is quite interesting for this. You know, within clinical hypnosis, there's self-hypnosis. And sometimes I work with clients just to, you know, for them to self-hypnotise, you know, this idea of allowing yourself to drop into relaxation a little bit more. So I just wanted to say quickly about the parasympathetic rebound to speak to you feeling calm after this session. With regards to more of the micro work, how do you integrate any of this more functional breath work on a daily or a weekly basis? Less is more, again.

1:05:53There's not, let's say, there's not like this one size fits all, this breath work is the best thing for you. I'm working with a client at the minute with a diaphragm dysfunction. So this person can breathe maybe two seconds in and at max three seconds out before he starts to feel the feeling of panic because he doesn't feel he's got enough breath. So, you know, I caveat that by saying that if I was to give a breath work to someone, I would go try to push around the in for five and out for five. It's called coherent breathing. And now I think a lot of people are calling it HRV breathing because it's really linked in to increasing the beats of your heart rate variability.

1:06:39This heart rate variability is a very good indicator of an adaptive, resilient nervous system. The higher it is, generally the more adapt, the more able you're able to move up and move down and come back to centre, what would be known as your window of tolerance. so anything that kind of starts to hit into the five five that 10 second breath cycle five in five out so four in six out can also be really really nice and that would be generally what i would um prescribe to uh to a client initially to say okay you want to you want to start breath work before i even meet you if you can play around with kind of breathing in for roughly five seconds breathing out for roughly five seconds we're seeing each other on tuesday it's thursday today whatever um so for the next four days just try to do that for three or four minutes every day and then i want to hear a little bit about how it was for you by the time you arrived aside from that i'm big in like the big mantra i've got clients at the minute is do less do nothing and um can you just allow yourself to sit and do less do nothing quite simply for four or five minutes but I'll go a little bit further with this because I've just been in Greece with a client for two or three weeks and each morning I just loved it on the water.

1:07:58I was able to kind of get up the water. There was no wind each morning so the water's like a football field like so so flat and the sun comes up and shines along this beautiful and dances off the water. It's stunning and for the first week or so I it was very calm you know I um I was able just to watch it I kind of had the perfect conditions for meditation sat upright um everything was like this is how it should be and then my my wife my my son came out the next week and my son's two as we've ascertained and so like he would wake up sometimes in and around the same time and it was a lot more chaotic Like, let's say my, you know, also trying to make sure he doesn't fall off the side of a boat.

1:08:41So there's an element of stress. And I remember thinking to myself, oh, like, this moment is, like, ruined. It should be, like, very quiet, very quiet, and it should be very, very still. And, like, the way that I portray a moment to be. And yet there was a beautiful realisation, even within that, that that's just not, like, it doesn't have to be exactly. Life is always accessible only if we notice it. If it's us that put the shoulds, the expectations, the perimeters around the moment, it's only setting us up to create suffering. And so to be honest, the second week with my son jumping around with a conversation with whatever, those were actually even more beautiful, peaceful moments.

1:09:32and I started to reflect upon the fact that peace or calmness or insert the word of that letting go thing that I was talking about that I felt in the song. I started to feel it right there and then because I let go of the expectation of how it should be. And that all came from allowing myself not to have a structure of this has to be this amount of breath to this amount of breath, inhale to exhale, this has to be for six minutes and it has to be at 7am every day. Just simply, it was like a shower moment, if you know what I mean, but almost like an unstructured, structured moment. And I think if you can be aware of it, those become the wee red dots on that left side of the curve of fatigue.

1:10:19Just little moments of reset where you can... Reset and reframe. Reset and reframe, yeah, yeah, exactly. And that's the appraisal aspect. Yeah, that's the big bit. Yeah. So if calm isn't the goal, which I guess is where we started, right? Because there is that thing of, you know, especially for women as well, you know, women fluctuate throughout their entire month because of their menstrual cycle. So I know like four days before my menstrual cycle comes, I am not calm. Sometimes I am, but you know, I can be a little bit all over the place. And then you kind of beat yourself up. And so I think what I like about this reframe is that, yes we've got to be aware of how we're feeling but it's if calm isn't the goal then what is so yeah i'm very strong on this now whenever people ask me can i have a breath work for calming myself you know this might not calm you at all so i'm not trying to create calm i'm trying to create the conditions of calm which is different what i'm trying to do is shift and guide your perception of your internal sensation.

1:11:28Okay, so let that land. I'm trying to shift and guide your perception of your internal sensation. So that might not be calm. Okay, that could be the four days before your cycle and you're like, oh, I'm feeling really agitated. That's okay too. Like that is okay. Like it is okay to feel like that anxiety or agitation or anger or sadness or, you know, and actually just to get, you know, we call it emotional granularity. Allow yourself to kind of get really, really precise with what is that feeling? And sometimes, you know, we start to uncouple the story, the narrative with the internal sensation.

1:12:13Anxiety is an easy one. Like, you know, usually I say, where do you feel it? I feel like in my chest or my throat. I don't feel like I can breathe. I said, okay, what's the quality of it? I don't know. It feels tight and it feels like I need to get more breath in. It's like, okay, what shape is it? What texture, what direction is it? What color is it? What temperature is it? And sometimes whenever we tangibilize, is that a word? Whenever we make tangible the sensations, just by doing that, they can start to feel a lot more manageable. We can navigate. again, that's resilience, you know, and this is where I think it gives hope to people whenever they are experiencing these sensations within themselves.

1:12:59And immediately, whenever I've worked with clients before, like, oh, okay, now I can sit in meditation for 10 minutes or 15 minutes, because previously they would have said, oh, I feel really stressed or anxious. I'm crap at this. I'm rubbish. I can't do meditation. It's like, no, no, no. Like, meditation for me is the act of listening to what is going on and that's the appraisal it's such a big one because i've been working a lot with the coach as well recently and it's interesting because i think all of our emotions become morphed so for instance if you feel anxiety it could also be anger that you've suppressed right by saying you're too scared to attach to an emotion so you kind of change the emotion and it comes up in a different way and this was just kind of blowing my mind just allowing yourself to feel what the, because it's very, it's very subconscious for a lot of people, you know, they kind of will naturally attach to anxiety.

1:13:55But when I had Dr. Judith Joseph, can't say her name probably, who is an incredible psychiatrist on this podcast, she said that 70 % of men that come to see her for anger management is actually just anxious. And I'm just like, I think we're blurring emotional states because we're uncomfortable with certain ones. And because you've never matched a certain ones, our brain automatically suppresses that and says no. And then it turns into anxiety or it turns into another emotion that we become more familiar with. Yes. And I think that this is very tightly linked to our self-image. Yeah. Can I give an example?

1:14:33So actually I shared this. I did a day retreat just the weekend and I had this experience on Saturday morning I was doing just my practice of listening so this isn't a 45 minute session you don't need to have two hours in the morning this was quite literally probably from start to finish three minutes but I'll tell you kind of what happened within my body I was like okay I'm just going to listen I sat, closed my eyes what am I feeling within my body oh there's excitement, I love excitement you know me and I love to get excited about life and everything that's coming forward and I feel that this is like, this is the space that I like, I like to wrap myself in excitement.

1:15:13If I feel excited, I feel alive, I feel hopeful, I feel joyful and I feel like, okay, there's, I'm motivated to go to the next thing and I'm like, okay, that's cool, that's interesting that I'm feeling really excited because earlier on, and this is my conversation in my head, you know, earlier on I was a wee bit flat and I was like, I was flat because I had a couple of emails that I was sending I hadn't heard back. And flat was like, I don't like to feel that. And I was like, ooh. So this is, you know, in my head, bing. I was like, okay, so what's the flatness? And the flatness was, well, there's no excitement there.

1:15:53You know, you're not very motivated. You're kind of like, bleh. And went through this whole kind of process of like, that's not how I like to feel. I'm Rob. I'm, you know, a husband. I'm a father. I hold people I hold space in my business I kind of give advice and guidance And kind of reflect upon different things I shouldn't be feeling flat That's the self image piece And so I was like okay There is flatness coming through I call it flatness Is it sadness for someone else But I gave it flat And then I thought to myself Okay what do I need to know about flatness And what came through was gratitude of thank you or the feeling of thank you.

1:16:37And it was almost as if flatness was saying thank you for like noticing me, like that's all. And then I went, and there's still zero to three minutes. I've taken a lot longer to talk about it, right? But from zero to three minutes. And by the end of that, I was kind of like, I just feel peaceful. I feel that sauna moment, that moment where my shoulders relax a little bit and I feel completely, I feel like that sun coming up in Greece, you know. That moment I was like, oh, that's really, I went from excitement, which is what I attach to because that's really, that's what I want my self-image to be, to the thing that it was probably, it was actually wrapping the flatness up because I didn't like feeling the flatness because what does flatness, does flatness say something about me that I believe to be true or, you know, I'm just, I play with this, but I think just doing, this is a hard process.

1:17:25It's quite esoteric and abstract to talk about, but I believe the more of those, these come in those little red dots for me, these little moments that I do it's a practice that's why it's called a practice it's not like you just jump up and do a handstand it's a bit like that you know you have to become attuned to linking in to your body and saying how do I feel whenever I did that I just I felt utter peace didn't really matter of course it matters that someone responds to my email or within my within my um work and my business but it didn't hold on to me the same way that that it might have if I hadn't given myself that moment.

1:18:03And recognised it. And recognised it. It's such a big thing. Yeah. And I think for so many people, it's subconscious because you can automatically attach it to something very, very quickly that you're more comfortable with. So it is. But do you know what you need? You need stillness to do it. That's the first hurdle, right? And procrastination happens for uncomfortable emotions. Yeah, yeah, of course it does. and you know usually the most intelligent cerebral clients of mine have the most hard time. Yeah because you can intellectualize something and you feel safe. Absolutely. Rather than physically feel it.

1:18:39Yeah. It's really interesting actually. Yeah yeah. You can describe a feeling rather than feel a feeling quite well. Yeah so I think about this a lot you know Forrest my son two-year-old I think about you know he's now learning I'm happy I'm sad and you know I'm trying to think to myself how if you know he asked why on everything how would you describe happy how would you describe sad and this is this is where i think it we we have these kind of subtle thoughts that disguise themselves as beliefs within our psyche and if it's a belief then there's no point even challenging it because it's true it's a truth you know what's the point in challenging a truth that's it's a fact so then you just you completely leave it but what if you know you kind of start to see everything that's coming up as a thought that's describing it that's disguising itself as a as a truth or a belief and at that stage then it's malleable then you can take it out and look at it and say actually is this like what is this am I just giving the the the description of excitement to a sensation in my body or can I just feel the sensation and and what is that well I can feel like some tingles or I can feel like my heart's beating a wee bit fat like you can start to savor it to love it you can start to like actually really embrace and bathe in the the experience of like feeling into your body that's mind-body connection you know this this is I'm really excited by all this because it's like linking the spiritual to the science and the neuroscience.

1:20:18They're meeting in the middle. And that's really, really exciting because then it becomes more mainstream as more people start to actually have the felt experience of what we're talking about right now, which might someone else feel like it's gone a little bit, you know, I can't quite experience what you're saying. The practice is trying to. Yeah, totally. and align yourself to. I think that's the thing. I love it. Scheduling time for stillness. But sometimes you have to do that. I mean, I actually do have to schedule in my diary going to the gym. So if it helps somebody to schedule stillness, then I mean, I think anything that can help you get to a level of putting it in your diary.

1:21:02And I think if it's not in someone's diary, it might not happen. So I do, I do schedule my diary. Yeah, some of the busiest people that I work with, they have their times blocked whenever they're either speaking with me or doing a session with me and doing their homework, so to speak. And if there is a five, you know, one o 'clock to one oh five, I have to do my whatever from raw breath work. They don't schedule a meeting over those 15 minutes because they see it in their diary. That's what I mean. Yeah. And this is, it creates the space. And maybe initially, that's what needs to happen. It doesn't necessarily mean that you have to do it forever, but maybe that's what needs to happen initially for you to build the habit, then realise that actually the habit's really nice.

1:21:47And then you start to make it a priority. And then all of a sudden you feel like you've time. You always have time because you're like, oh, that's the thing that I love. And there's the richness in life. There's the richness in life. Which is amazing. It's the full circle. Yeah, we've gone wrong. Well, I've loved today because I think it is this new awareness of not constantly feeling like we have to be in this equilibrium of calmness. and, you know, because you can get really tied into this online, so much so that, you know, you can then start to think like, you know, why am I not the only one feeling, you know, regulated or dysregulated?

1:22:21I mean, I think they're so abstract sometimes in their terms that sometimes people don't even know what state they're in. So I definitely would advise people to try some breath work in the morning, even if it's for 30 seconds to start. Three breaths. Right? And building on that. But as you said, finding out and that even just helps connect to the state that one is in is so helpful. And I would also just say, check what alarm you're waking up to. That was such a revelation for me. But I always leave with my final question, which is, Rob, what does Live Well Be Well mean to you?

1:23:02I'm hugely into increasing my intimacy. with life so um let's you know I played around with the word whenever I've thought about what am I why am I even practicing meditation or breath or why is it that I'm interested in this and for me it always comes down to started off with like peacefulness I wanted peace but then I'm like did I want peace because is that not death whenever nothing is happening you know is peace you know what is your description of peace and then I realized actually no it's it's to be more intimate with it with the moment to moment of life um to feel like I have a greater range of depth with the experience of just simply being here you know I think about presence um present moment awareness the reality whenever I keep on turning this around in my mind is we're always present even whenever you're like oh I was talking to that person but my mind was somewhere else there was a part of you that knows that you were disconnected during that moment so there was a part of you that was present of course and and so I've I've kind of accepted that I'm always present I'm not necessarily chasing to be more present which which whenever I ask other kind of clients and people in in my circle and groups what why they're doing this work presence is is a huge answer and intimacy of life is mine oh I love that it really connects me actually and I'll just say this very very quickly to the conversation I had with my coach yesterday I had a very stressful day and it was only stressful because I had too much in my day there was nothing that went wrong it was just that I just had not enough capacity for what I needed to do and I didn't feel like I had enough time which then made me feel that I wasn't going to get as much out of my session as I should do and I wasn't going to be as present.

1:25:03And they automatically were like, what's wrong? Like, why are you, how do you feel about this session today? And they were kind of like probing me. And I was like, oh no, sorry. I'm just like, I haven't quite like made it into the room yet. Like trying to apologize for the situation I was in. And they're like, but why is that like not a problem? You seem, you seem kind of present. I'm like, no, but my brain's still half in one place and it's not here yet. And they were kind of like, but why is this a problem? Like the whole point is that this space is like for you and you should turn up in whatever state you're in and it was this whole session of me just figuring out that actually I was there anyway and the whole point was there to kind of discuss my capacity and I was worried about not having enough capacity for the session yeah and it was this like really ironic moment that I had in myself of being like actually our capacity and presence changes the entire time but I'm still here absolutely um and And I think that's such an important thing to realise.

1:25:58Yeah, yeah. I think, you know, it's the attention. Your attention can hyper-focus into one thing or it can be scattered into what's happening tomorrow, what happened this morning. But the reality is you're still there at the moment, that that is presence. And so, yeah, for me, those have been little aha moments that only occur whenever I give myself the space to have those experiences. I have my little red dot. I know, the red dots. practice is um yeah okay well i should do some breath work for my next interview just to get fully engaged well thank you so much for coming on and sharing everything um with us about breath work about the human function curve um i feel like i should stick that on my wall and have it as a visual check-in in the morning um thank you thank you so much sarah

1:26:55Thank you.