Hard Times No More Relationship Podcast
Allesanda Tolomei- Hard A.K.A. Mrs. Hard of www.mrs-hard.com is your grounded, empathetic, compassionate wellness coach. She shares her experience to help you heal challenging personal and family relationship problems with tried-and-true methods to set healthy boundaries and detach with love.
If you are ready to experience fulfilling, meaningful connections you are in the right place. You can transform difficult relationships and find happiness without putting aside your needs or waiting for others to change. Let people-pleasing and codependence fall away and say goodbye to hard times for good.
Hard Times No More Relationship Podcast
Transformative Meditation Techniques For Stress Relief- Ep. 38
If you have ever struggled with meditation, this is for YOU!
Sitting with your thoughts can be hard, and some people believe meditation is all about having a clear, thoughtless mind, in a totally serene environment, and feeling totally at peace within.
From my experience, that idea is a little unrealistic. Sometimes a meditation session is peaceful, but more often, your mind is all over the place, telling you not to forget to call your client back or reminding you of the GIANT list of to-dos waiting for you. Your mind tells you there definitely isn’t enough time in your day to get them all done, so why are you wasting time sitting here when you really don’t need to be meditating?
But here’s the thing: when you let go of meditation needing to be perfect and just make time for yourself, even if it’s just 5 minutes, the benefits are HUGE!
Meditation is a powerful tool that can help you reconnect with yourself, reduce anxiety, and improve your overall well-being. It’s a practice that brings your attention inward, helping you find a sense of peace and balance, no matter what’s happening around you. Even if your mind is busy during meditation, you will feel calmer afterward because you took the space to practice the art of pause, to practice letting the to-do list go, tuning into your breath, or listening to a guided meditation to go on a little spiritual adventure.
If you are like me, you like a little variety in life, so in my latest podcast episode, "Transformative Meditation Techniques for Stress Relief," we are going to explore different types of techniques and dive into why meditation works to reduce stress and how it can be a powerful tool for anxiety relief.
In this episode, you’ll hear about:
>> Easy-peasy meditation practices that fit seamlessly into your busy schedule—offering immediate tools for stress relief and emotional balance.
>> How meditation can enhance your mental clarity, emotional stability, and overall physical health.
>> The connection between meditation and better sleep.
>> Think you need a quiet mind to meditate? Tune in to learn how to practice mindfulness even amidst life's chaos.
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Hi, I'm Alessandra Tolome Hard, aka Mrs Hard, and this is Hard Times no More, a podcast for people who are tired of struggling with boundaries, people-pleasing and relationship problems. I have overcome some hard times. Within three years, I stopped drinking, my mom died of cancer and my house burnt down in a California wildfire, and those are just the highlights. I have a lot of reasons to be miserable, but I'm not. The truth is, life was more challenging before these events happened. If you are tired of waiting for your circumstances to change to find happiness and peace of mind, you are in the right place. Join me as I share the tools I use in love to transform challenges into assets and interview others about their relationship journeys. Together, let's learn how to have a happy life full of healthy, meaningful relationships, and say goodbye to hard times for good. Hey everyone, welcome to the Hard Times no More Relationship Podcast. I'm Alessandra Ptolemy-Hard, aka Mrs Hard, your host.
Speaker 1:Today we have a very special episode. We're going to be talking about meditation techniques for stress relief. Because, hey, who doesn't need some tools to use to help them with stress? And meditation is my favorite tool and it's very simple. You can do it anywhere and you can really easily build it into your day and take short breaks in your busy schedule to calm your nervous system, to reconnect with yourself. And this is especially important for caregivers, because caregivers aren't only dealing with their own emotions, their own life challenges, their own day-to-day experiences, but they're so connected to those around them that other people's highs and lows, life challenges and emotional states often affect them, so that can compound the stress that they feel because of the attachment they feel to those they care for or those that they love. And so today I'm going to share just a couple of simple meditation techniques with you that you can use for stress relief, and we're going to talk about the different kinds of meditation techniques there are and why they work, and then you're going to be able to decide what kind of technique works best for you. So I'm going to tell you a little bit about my meditation journey.
Speaker 1:I first started meditating when I was 20 years old, and, like a lot of things that happened in my 20s, I jumped right in with both feet, not really understanding what I was getting myself into. I was living in New Mexico and I was living with this group of women that owned and operated a tea house, and I was doing work trade for my rent, living in a yurt and learning about acupuncture and Chinese medicine and herbalism and all kinds of holistic things, and I would actually pick herbs in the garden that was right next to the tea house that we all lived at and worked at and I would dry those herbs and make teas for customers from those herbs. And people would come in. They'd see all these jars of tea and they would be a little bit overwhelmed, like, oh, which one do I pick? And I would just ask them how do you want to feel and what do you want it to taste like? And then I would concoct these little blends for them.
Speaker 1:It was really fun, very artistic, very free-flowing, and my friend Nina, who is the main owner of the tea shop, she told me about Vipassana retreats, which are silent meditations that usually last about seven to 10 days, and she asked me if I would like to go to a Vipassana retreat with her. And in my mind this was a break from my life, it would be a great time to just relax, and I said yes, because I always said yes to new experiences, and it just sounded exciting. And then I got there and I didn't understand that a Vipassana retreat is very intense. It's not like normal meditation. But what you do out of a Vipassana retreat is you sit for 12 hours of meditation per day. You start at five in the morning and you end at about 7 pm and there's a couple of one-hour breaks throughout the day. And I'd never done meditation before and I felt all kinds of emotions.
Speaker 1:My mind was all over the place and I only made it to day three and then I was convinced that I needed to escape and get out of there and I went crying to the meditation instructors asking them if I could leave, as if they were going to hold me captive against my own will. And they said yes. And it was so funny because my friend Nina she was one of the hosts there and she was only doing it for three days, but I didn't know that one of the hosts there and she was only doing it for three days, but I didn't know that and as I was leaving, she was leaving too and she said go back, get back in there. And I said, no way, I gotta go, I gotta get out of here. And she just thought it was hilarious because this was this is very on brand for Mrs Hart in her early twenties.
Speaker 1:So we escaped the meditation retreat together and went to visit some friends in Colorado Springs and I remember my mind being so quiet after I left the meditation retreat and being able to observe people in such a different way, as if Whatever they were feeling or experiencing really had nothing to do with me. Because meditation provides this space, this detachment from what is going on with other people. It can provide space and detachment from emotions that come up within ourselves and it gives you time to pause and reflect. And I remember seeing someone get very angry after this meditation experience and they were angry at me, but I could see that they were just experiencing anger and that it really had nothing to do with me. I can't remember the exact circumstance that happened, but I thought it was almost funny because I could just see them all riled up in their emotions and having this experience that had really nothing to do with me. And that's what I got from meditating.
Speaker 1:And after I left the retreat I would meditate for an hour every day in the morning for maybe a month or two and then I fell out of it and in my 20s I would go in and out of times when I meditated. The last couple of years I've had a very strong morning meditation practice and that has served me so well. And it's kind of funny because every single morning my mind tries to convince me that I really don't need to meditate. It tells me you're doing really well mentally, you don't need to meditate, or you have so much to do today you don't have time to meditate, and there's a variety of other reasons it offers to me, and when I first started a regular meditation practice and committed to this a couple years ago, that voice was a lot louder than it is today. When I go to sit for meditation and the type of meditation I do changes depending on what's going on in my life. I really enjoy variety, so I don't do the same meditation practice for more than a couple of weeks usually, but every morning I have a system where I wake up, I make coffee. As soon as coffee is done, I drink one cup and then I start my meditation practice.
Speaker 1:And so I don't have to tell you that stress has a huge impact on your mental health and your physical health. You might find yourself waiting for the other shoe to drop, because life is always challenging, or you may find yourself wanting external things to change so that you can find peace, and the stress you feel causes a disconnect between you and your true self and it can make you believe that once you get your to-do list done, once everyone else is okay, once you've done whatever your brain's telling you you need to do, then you'll feel better. But meditation is really about practicing tools that you can use in stressful situations to quiet your mind ahead of time and to create neural connections in your brain so that you're not as reactive, so that you can find a peaceful place within, so that you're not waiting for external circumstances to change for you to be able to find peace, happiness, contentment, acceptance, appreciation and joy. So I highly recommend meditation, like I said first thing, in the morning, because that is a way that you are putting yourself first, you're putting your oxygen mask on before helping others, and if you're a caregiver, then you know as soon as you go into your day people are going to have a lot of stuff going on and it's out of your control. But what you can control is how you feel, and in the morning, doing just five minutes of meditation can make a huge difference because you're taking time to check in with yourself, rather than running out the door with maybe only a cup of coffee, the door with maybe only a cup of coffee, maybe not even eating breakfast, or just going into the day and allowing the day to run your mood and your emotions, rather than taking time to practice connecting with yourself and changing the way you act and react to what comes up through your day. So what is meditation? And you probably already know this, but let's just get on the same page.
Speaker 1:Meditation is a practice where you use a technique such as mindfulness to train your attention and awareness and achieve a mentally clear and emotionally calm and stable state. Key words emotionally calm and stable state. Every time you sit down and create that for yourself, you are building neurological pathways to that calm and stable state. So the likelihood that you will have a more calm reaction when something chaotic or challenging happens in life becomes much greater because you're practicing that in meditation. Just like when you go to the gym and you lift weights and you get stronger, the same happens when you sit in meditation and train your mind. Your mind gets more calm, more stable and stronger in different ways, and there are many different kinds of meditation practice, different ways, and there are many different kinds of meditation practice.
Speaker 1:There's mindfulness meditation, where you focus intensely on what you're sensing and feeling in the moment, without interpretation or judgment, and so that's just breathing and observing what thoughts come up and trying to come back to your breath, like using your breath as an anchor and not judging your thoughts, not needing to have a perfectly clear mind. That's what deters a lot of people from meditation. You may have thought before that to meditate properly, you need to sit in a completely quiet environment and you need to have a completely quiet mind. That's the goal right, wrong, or in my opinion, that's wrong. In my opinion, it's more about observing.
Speaker 1:If you're going to do mindful meditation, it's observing what thought patterns you're having and then bringing your attention back to your breath and not judging them, because everyone has thoughts. Everyone who meditates has thoughts. There are very few people who can keep their mind completely clear for long periods of time, and if they can do that, it's because they've been meditating for years, and so it's important to not put a lot of expectations on yourself or to hold some pretty high meditation standards when you start, because that can sabotage the peace that can be cultivated through meditation. You don't want to turn meditation into a stressful event when you're trying to de-stress. So, again, mindfulness meditation is just about bringing your awareness back to your breath over and over again and not judging your experience, just treating your mind like a child, having compassion for it and patience for it. There's also a loving, kindness meditation called Metta, and that involves focusing on loving thoughts towards yourself and others, and so some people think about a mantra when they're doing this, or a positive affirmation, and they'll repeat it over and over again and just focus on that positive affirmation or that loving thought.
Speaker 1:Other types of meditation that I've experienced have been focusing on a feeling and remembering when you felt the most love you've ever felt in your life. And when you do that during meditation, when you tap into a positive feeling and you really try to embody that feeling rather than just thinking about it, your nervous system believes that that is actually happening for you, and so that is a very simple way to raise your energy level within just like five or 10 minutes and to shift your perspective, and all it takes is sitting in your car, sitting in your office, sitting at home when you're starting your day, and quieting your mind, focusing on your breath and then remembering feelings of love, times that you felt loved, times that you felt safe, stable, secure, healthy, and reliving those experiences as an embodied experience, not just thinking about them. And how you can tell the difference between just thinking about them and feeling them is if it creates an emotional reaction. When you have an emotional reaction, your body's really truly experiencing that on a subconscious level. And then there are body scan meditations, where you scan your body and pay attention to various parts and sensations that may be coming up. When I did this Vipassana meditation retreat, we first started with the breath, just bringing our awareness back to our breath, and then the next day the next level of this type of meditation was doing a body scan and just noticing what sensations came up. And again, not judging what was coming up, but just noticing it and being aware of it and creating that space that meditation can offer, that pause, that peace.
Speaker 1:And, like I said, there's many different types of meditation and I don't think there are very many wrong ways to meditate. I had a meditation teacher once who said the only way you could feel that meditation is just by not doing it, and the best part about using meditation for stress relief is that it's always accessible. It's something that you can take with you anywhere. So there are a ton of benefits to meditation. Meditation can help reduce your stress and anxiety. It can enhance self-awareness and connection with yourself, because when you sit with yourself, you're subconsciously telling yourself that you're enough and that you're a priority that needs to be focused on. Meditation can also lengthen your attention span. It can reduce age-related memory loss. It can generate kindness, especially if you're practicing metta meditation, and it can improve sleep. And there are also special meditation techniques that can help you control pain. And it's funny.
Speaker 1:I was at an appointment and this woman asked me what I do and I told her I help people relieve anxiety and overcome life challenges. And she said, oh my gosh, I have so much anxiety. And I said, oh, tell me about it. And she said at night I have the hardest time sleeping and I listen to these guided meditations at night. And I suggested that she start doing the same thing in the morning listening to guided meditations in the morning and she said, oh my gosh, my mornings are so stressful. I roll out of bed and I just start going, and she's a caregiver and taking that time for yourself, taking that time to ground yourself in the morning sets you up for the rest of the day and can set up better sleeping habits at night because you're connecting with yourself, you're grounding yourself first thing in the morning and that's going to set you up for a more calm day and so that you don't have to wait till the nighttime when you can't sleep and you're listening to guided meditations just hoping that you're going to get to sleep, really start with the intention in the morning of calming yourself and see how it impacts the rest of your day.
Speaker 1:And meditation has also been linked to improved emotional health, such as promoting a more positive outlook on life and improving emotional stability. I don't know about you, but that's a thing that I have looked for in meditation. Is that emotional stability. And again, that comes from that pause that we can take because we're practicing, pausing and just noticing and not reacting when we sit down to meditate. And there are some scientific studies that have shown that meditation can change the brain's neural pathways, like I mentioned, making you more resilient to stress. Meditation has also been associated with increased gray matter in the brain, which is involved in muscle control and sensory perception, such as seeing and hearing, and this is sourced from the Mayo Clinic and National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health.
Speaker 1:In your brains, neural pathways are so important because that's what's running your subconscious, that's what's running your behaviors and that's coming from what you practice daily. So it's super simple to incorporate meditation into your daily life. Don't listen to your mind if it's telling you it's not. Just. Start by waking up five minutes earlier and you can have your cup of coffee first. I prefer to do that because then I feel like my coffee's kicking in as I'm meditating. But take that time for yourself first thing in the morning and then use meditation if you find yourself stressed out or super fatigued after lunch. It's a way to disconnect and recharge and reconnect with yourself. Some people, like myself, like to have a special place that they meditate in their house. I go to the same place every morning and that also helps neurologically because it tells my body and my brain okay, this is what we're doing, we're meditating now and having the same routine every morning of coffee. Then meditation makes it easier because I've built pathways that this is what we do, this is what feels normal, and taking that time to meditate in the morning, I'm checking in with myself, connecting with myself, putting myself first and caring for myself before I go into the world and care for others.
Speaker 1:And meditation is in a one and done. It's just like working out. You know you can't go into the gym, lift some weights and then you're strong forever. That continual practice, practicing tools during meditation in the morning, is what will give you more and more peace the longer you practice it. And meditation is great when combined with journaling. If your mind is really busy, take time to journal for five minutes before and that is a way you can decompress what your mind is trying to figure out or what your mind is telling you. You can release it on paper and let it go. It can help you sit in meditation with more peace.
Speaker 1:And meditation combined with moving your body can also be an amazing tool. For example, walking meditation. If you have a hard time sitting, if you just feel too restless, go for a walk and try to focus on your breath while you're walking. Focus on the feeling of your feet hitting the ground as you walk and you can find that same intentional peace, that same intentional pause while moving. And I have a super special free anxiety relief meditation. That's part of my Stepping Off the Chaos Rollercoaster Three Simple Steps for Anxiety Relief freebie. You can find the link to that in the show notes and you can find it on my website, on my Instagram and in that free offering. I offer three simple practices that you can use for anxiety relief and on day one you get the anxiety relief meditation.
Speaker 1:Because I like to switch it up between silence and guided meditations. Sometimes I enjoy the still silence of tuning into my body, and sometimes I like the journey that a guided meditation takes you on and I can feel like I'm just along for the ride and receiving the benefits of meditation while listening to somebody guide me through it. It's like a little adventure, and so, out of the different techniques and practices we talked about today, I encourage you to try one. You can research more about them by looking up meta meditations online on YouTube. There's a ton of meta meditations.
Speaker 1:You could also just practice mindfulness. You can try out each one and see which one resonates most with you. Just follow whatever one is easiest for you to do. It's just about taking that space for yourself and learning to take a pause so that, when the unexpected happens, that you can find peace and stability within instead of needing people, places and things to be different than they are, so that you can experience peace and stability. All right, that's all I've got for today. Thanks so much for hanging out with me and I'll talk to you soon. Until next time, take care.