10 THOUGHTS ON THURSDAY (HOW TO FEEL LESS PRESSURE)

Aug 10

10 Thoughts on a Thursday

musings, inspiration & ideas from the week

This post has a theme— a topic I’ve seen come up time and time again with my clients, friends & family — and one of the major contributors to anxiety. The theme is PRESSURE & in today’s post, we are going to be talking about how to feel less of it, specifically, how to feel less pressure in your everyday life. If you dive down the rabbit hole with me for a second. Feeling pressure is the beginning of so many downstream negative bodily situations from adrenal fatigue, to burnout, overwhelm, stress & anxiety. Today I am going to give you 10 strategies to feel less impacted by the pressure of life.

10 thoughts on a Thursday:

Recognize what is coming from outside of you & what is coming from inside. It is really common to take on external pressure from the world around you without even realizing it. It is also pretty common to set arbitrary deadlines and create unnecessary timelines for yourself that end up creating more stress than good. Simply start by bringing your attention to the origin of the pressure (internal or external)?
Do these two things every day before you begin your work. It doesn’t have to be fancy, in fact, 5 minutes of each would suffice. If you are already doing both of these things, yay! You are ahead of most and well on your way.
— ONE: move your body & get outside
— TWO: Drink water
Ask yourself this: what would a day in my ideal world look and feel like? Don’t be afraid to dream. Allow yourself to ask this question and receive an answer from within. Be radically honest with yourself. If your current life is not how you dream it to be, don’t deny this to yourself because you see it as unrealistic. You owe it to yourself to be radically honest with your thoughts.
Where are you picking up conditioning from others? What is your boss, your mother, father, cousins, neighbors, and friends saying and thinking that you have inadvertently taken on to be your truth? Do they have an obsession with “getting stuff done”, grinding, hustling…. being the BEST? Take a look at how they handle pressure. Chances are you’ve taken on some conditioning in this area from those around you. It’s time now to start unworking that. If you have an open root center (in Human design), you are going to be much more susceptible to outside influence and external energy. You can look up your chart for free using that link to see if this applies to you…
Boundaries. Are way easier said than done, I know. Your task for this week is to practice saying ‘no’ to one thing you hate doing. Delegate, give the task to someone else (if possible), or simply find another way— if you aren’t sure what that other way is, or if delegating that thing feels too big and scary, start with something small. The point here is to flex the ‘no’ muscle — it takes time and practice.
Trace the feeling back to a thought. Every negative feeling, or every feeling for that matter can be traced back to a thought. One thought can produce 10s of thousands of feelings. Try to get quiet for a few moments today and see what that underlying thought is. Usually, it goes something like this: I am not good enough, I am not smart enough, no one will like me, I can’t handle it.
Don’t underestimate the power of micro moves. As the saying goes, a millimeter inside, a mile out there. Actually, I just made that up. My point is, we often think we need to be in the new house, need to have a better boss, need to have more respect, need to be cherished more, and need to be making more money to feel less pressured, when in reality… the tiny move you make right now (INTERNALLY) — like tracing the feeling back to a thought, allowing yourself to see the self-imposed limiting beliefs you are putting on yourself and being honest with yourself about the unnecessary pressure you are taking on from the outside world is where the change happens. You can’t expect to just arrive at level 50 when you are at level 10. You need to take action to get there, and the “action” is much less dramatic than you think. It is not a one-fell-swoop action done in one day and then you are done, no, you take little micro-adjustments every day and then one day you wake up and go, oh wow, I’ve arrived.
Stop waiting for external validation to make you feel a certain way. This is hard. I struggle with this sometimes too. But the secret sauce is to start practicing having that feeling of pressure released in the absence of the external thing. Everything is energy, everything has a frequency. Be aware of yours and start to change it now.
Pressure feels like stagnation. Stagnation comes when we feel frustrated, STUCK, and incapable of bringing about what we desire. It’s the worst. To relieve this internal stuckness or stagnation I have a powerful breathing /visualization exercise for you: imagine yourself inhaling the color green (like a lush healthy plant, color green) imagine filling up your body with this color and then slowly and audibly exhale with the sound “shooooo”. If you do this a few times in a row, you will start to feel a release. It’s pretty wild. Give it a try.
Where can you show up 10% less? Funny, most people will tell you to show up 10% MORE, but if you have a problem with feeling burnout, anxiety, stress, or overworked you actually need to do the opposite. The truth is, you are probably putting your valuable energy into something that A. does not need your level of energetic commitment and B. doesn’t deserve your level of engagement. We ALL do this. Truth is, there are areas of your life where certainly can give less. Identify them. This is your permission slip to do just that.