All right. So just because I've been caught up before, I'm going to wait for the, I don't know whether you can see your end or not. It says recording, but I'm just going to wait for the timer to start because last time I recorded it, I had to go back and record the start all over again because it didn't pick it up. So I'm being a little bit anal to just go. Right. Let's just, is that a fake background? Is that your real background? Where are you at? That's my real background. Yeah, look. Is that downstairs? Yeah. Like a boss. No, it's up in my yoga studio. We've converted it into an office. Yeah, because Michael's just joined me in the business. So we've got like dual desks set up and everything. Isn't that cute? I know. It's very cute. Yeah. Earth out there. I did Earth at the beach when I opened. Yeah. Lots of that helps. Good old Merriweather Beach. It wasn't too bad actually. Parking wasn't too bad. Terrific. Wow. I know, it's all the shopping centres because it's nearly Christmas. That's where you don't want to go. Yeah, I'm out. I'm not. Yeah, avoid. And I'm like, I'm done. Yeah, avoid it at all costs. Yeah, just wait till Easter if you want something now. Like your mum's not going back. Yeah. They'll have Easter eggs out on the first of Jan anyway. Boxing day, hot crisp buns. I know, true. So I have to wait that bloody long. All right. It's hit record. Let's have a quick glass of water. All right. Are you ready? Ready whenever you are. All right. Hi, everyone. Welcome to another episode of The Stacey M Show. I'm here with the lovely AJ, who I met, would have been around twenty fifteen, I think, because you're one of the reasons why I ended up going out on my own in my legal practice back then. We've known each other for a little while. AJ is a beautiful human being who I've used as a business coach and with my team throughout the ten years I've had my legal practice as well. And today we're doing an episode on burnout, which we have both personally experienced and no doubt most of you guys have as well. So, AJ, do you want to give us a quick introduction as to who you are and we'll get started with today's show. Oh, thank you, Stacey. It's always lovely to connect and I love how we just jump in as if there's been no gap in between, even though we don't see each other that often. But I've been loving following you online and seeing what you're up to and super proud of where you're at and how you are graciously handling everything that life throws your way. Thank you. Yeah. So I'm a leadership and business coach and a facilitator and a speaker. I really love nothing more than seeing people thrive in whatever way, shape or form that may be. I love helping leaders become better so that they create better workplace environments for their teams where those people can then thrive as well. Because I really believe that We spend so much time at work and it has such a big impact on our whole life and how we get to show up in our lives. I'm really loving living on the land. So I pay my respects to the peoples of Warrarur and Darkinjung land where I reside. And so I get to walk country every day. And I've recently created a boardroom in the bush. So I actually have a space now where I can bring leaders and teams and people out to to actually be with nature and experience i guess the connection and the way we feel and think differently when we combine our business intelligence with nature's wisdom so yeah that's a bit about me um love what i get to do and i love having a yarn um with people like yourself stacy so looking forward to talking about the big b burnout yeah i definitely love so as i said like i um andrew dart is the one who like um introduced us all those years ago darling um and it was before i went out on my own he's like you have to speak to aj like you you just have to go to her i'm like okay no worries so how old was i how old i was we went like early thirties, I think when I must've been going out on my own for my legal practice. And we sat at the beach. Like it was like, that was our meeting even back then. And given we both come from corporate, like I've done international practices and national practices and to actually have like a business meeting at Merriweather beach, it was like, it was just in my zone and you asked me where do you want to go i'm like the beach like that's where i like i find it really peaceful and i really like enjoy just sitting there and i first i think i first my first meeting might have actually been at carter but i know we definitely had met at merriweather beach a few times yes um and the fact that it was so comforting knowing that i could approach business a different way that wasn't the corporate expectation that people had. I think that's why we've kept in contact for all these years. And as you said, like you might not see each other. I think last time we saw each other face-to-face was probably COVID when we had a retreat at a few local other people. But we've definitely done stuff as a team as well, like with even my team and just having that different, I use the word holistic. I don't know whether that's the right word to use or not, but just having that, less pressure approach to having business and with a team was, like, really comforting. Like, my team loved it as well. And we did theirs in the park, I remember. We did Maitland Park, one of them, yeah. It was beautiful, yeah. Yeah, it was a lovely day. It was great. Yeah, as I said, it's not very often we've actually met inside. If it was, it would have been for weather purposes probably. Yeah, true. But like I just said, even at your place, like, you know, going for bushwalks and talking and like it's definitely something. I mean, it's not for everybody who can appreciate it, but if you haven't tried it, I definitely think you need to appreciate it because it's a lot – Yeah, I find, you know, when you're grounding yourself with earth and you're outside in nature and you're kind of having that business meeting, but you're out and walking, it's a completely different experience to kind of, you know, having it in an office. But today we're trying to work out what to talk about. We've had a couple of cracks at doing a podcast. I actually had to have a nap before this one. So I told AJ, let me have a nap. Like I'm absolutely exhausted. So I've had my nap, I've had my B-twelve squirt in my mouth with trying to get my energy. But burnout we thought was pretty relevant. We both experienced it. If you're not sure, I'm going through stage three cervical cancer at the moment, so I know that definitely how I've lived my life to this date has taken a toll internally. I'm not going to get too much woo-woo into the whole, you know, cancer thing or not because, you know, that's not the debate here today. But I definitely know that neglecting my body and not looking after myself and not putting myself first, it's very hard to do that as a mum and as a business owner, has definitely taken its toll on me internally. And burnout is something, look, I've never been diagnosed with kind of having burnout, but I definitely have spoken before about knowing when my body is about to say, Stacey, slow down, I'm going to drop you on your ass for the next, Like, you know, it might be a day, next time it might be three days, next time it might be a week. And it gets harsh and harsher as it goes along. Like it's not just a have a nap and I'm fine. As we get older. Yeah. I wasn't going to say the old part. I've got grey hair. Come on. I just went a little bit more brown recently. So it's going to be a while, assuming I still have hair left. So I went darker. Make the most of it. But burnout. So this is not just from a female perspective. Obviously, we're both females, but AJ has worked with both male leaders as well. And it's not even just leaders either. It's just people in general experiencing burnout. I think it's very hard to switch off with all the technology and crap that we have at the moment. But I suppose to just start off with, do you think burnout is something that we have just normalised and you just expected to get over it get it, get over it. Like, what are your thoughts? Yeah. You know, it's interesting. I was only thinking about it recently because I don't go to many networking events anymore. I'm very cheesy about what I leave the country for. And I went to a networking event and I would say at least seventy or eighty percent of the people when I met them and asked how they were and what they were excited about, they said busy. You know, when you say, how are you? They said busy. busy and they weren't necessarily saying it as a badge of honor but it was very much the prevalent first thing in their mind was to talk about being busy and they didn't say to me oh I'm ecstatic I'm overjoyed or I'm so chill No one said that. And what I see in my work in leadership and also helping organisations with cultures, because often the cracks that are showing in cultures are literally just a demonstration of the cracks that are happening in individuals, you know, because cultures and businesses are just a collection of humans. And so the more our cracks are showing, the more they're showing up in businesses and those sorts of things. And so I really believe we're seeing burnout at levels that we've never experienced before. I think post-COVID world, you know, really incredibly things have gone higher in that way. And I think a lot of people now working from home and thinking that would give flexibility, a lot of businesses have actually moved laid off stuff got less stuff so now it's this whole do more with less more pressure and people um are starting to see that as some form of personal failure and i i just want to honor and acknowledge where you're at in your journey and I'm hearing you say I neglected my body, but I actually think you just prioritized your business and your work and your girls, right? So it was just that you were prioritizing some other things. And so that kind of slipped by the wayside a bit. And that's what happens in our complex world where we're trying to juggle ten thousand plates instead of a hundred years ago, where our great-grandparents had like four or five plates maybe that they had to juggle. And I heard this really interesting stat the other day that was the amount of information that our grandparents consumed in their whole lifetime, whether that was through newspapers, books, school. Back then they would have only had radio, not television. But the amount of information they consumed in their whole lifetime is how much we consume in guess how long? Probably a day. One week. Oh, a week. Well, it's close. So we've jammed like literally our great grandparents' whole life and all the stuff they had to deal with into one week. And, yeah, we've got greater kind of quality of life and things like that. But we are literally running at this really fast pace. And so I really believe that burnout isn't a personal failure. It's a systems issue. it's also an energetic issue. And the more we disconnected and that's where nature came in for me and kind of understanding what was going on in my body, I went kicking and screaming to that, mind you, in my late thirties. It wasn't like something I've been good at all my life. But the more I started to look at that, the more I realised how much I'd sacrificed in my health and wellbeing because I had really pushed and chased things you know, my work and I loved my work and it had led to all sorts of things, you know, not just my health and wellbeing breakdown, but relationship breakdowns and, you know, all sorts of things, friendships, you know, and not being able to maintain those. And, you know, stats today say that, you know, employee engagement is really important because But the majority is that Australia itself, the cost of depression and absenteeism and all of those things and burnout is eight billion dollars to the Australian. And that's just Australia. Just Australia. And I mean, we're piddly, right, compared to other big nations. It costs us eight billion dollars in lost productivity because people are overwhelmed and stressed. yeah yeah scary yeah it is like imagine what the stats are in the states like if we're eight billion like that they'll be phenomenal scary um yeah i suppose when you're talking about like distancing yourself um i think it just hits a point where you just know you can't keep doing what you were doing, I suppose. So I had definitely experienced in the early days when I was on my own, obviously I was doing everything and everything because I didn't have team members back then. um without fail about every quarter i would completely lose my voice like have nothing couldn't even whisper to clients like my voice would just be gone and i'm like oh yeah okay i'll get over it like yep yep just have you know it doesn't say metamucil that's not what i have what do you have for like sepacol and you know trying to get one metamucil i lose your voice but you find something else okay i was doing that for everything i But like a separate call and like having your suit and everything like that. And then as it got on, I would get knocked on my ass harder and harder. And that's what we're saying before we hit record. You kind of have those little niggling feelings and it's like, oh, okay, if you keep pushing this, you're going to be on your ass for like a day. And then a day turns into three days to a week. And how hard it hit just got worse and worse and worse. And I suppose for me it was – I'm not quite sure whether it's a combination of just, um, learning different things and having setting boundaries and you're reading books and listening to podcasts and you know you're every morning without fail you know you do you you're live walking around like at your farm and and everything and it's like i just need to set better boundaries and you know this person's draining my energy it's a very one way okay maybe get rid of and i just started culling things i suppose clients who didn't suit us you don't have to act for every client stacy not everyone every client is for us so Just started to set those boundaries in. I mean, that's very easy to set them done. And I just said, like, with my health, like, some things I was really good at. My skin, I got checked yearly because my grandma died of skin cancer. My eyes, I got checked yearly. My teeth, I got... So it wasn't that I was neglecting everything completely. I can't even tell you why I neglected my pap smear for so long. But it takes something like this to what I'm going through now to, like, okay, like, this shit's got to change. Like, this isn't cool. And... I think it has sort of someone normalized. Like if you don't burn out, you're not working hard enough. You're not going to be successful. And, you know, I'll scroll on social media. I own eighty four companies. How many do you own? I'm like, well, I don't own eighty four and I don't want to earn eighty four. Like congratulations. Are they making money? What's your net? Like maybe my net's higher than your net with like four businesses. Like so I definitely think there's a culture out there where, you know, it's a mix of You have to hustle, whether you're an employee or an employer, it doesn't matter where you're at, but you have to hustle and you have to go really hard and you have to sacrifice spending time with friends and family to own these eighty four companies to earn SFA because you're so spread thin. Where people might struggle is thinking that they're a failure because they're hassled and they're failed or they can't hustle to the point where they think they have to hustle to to be successful. Like what are some of your thoughts in relation to probably that hassle mentality, whether you're an employer or employer, that part's irrelevant. It's obviously different for both because, you know, it kind of stems from, you know. Or a mum, right? Yeah. Or does a mum or a dad? A mum will still be hustling, you know. A grandma, anyone could still be in that mode. Yeah. And I love that you picked up on losing your voice every quarter or so because often there are such early warning signs and we tend to ignore them. And I know for me I actually had precancerous cells three times, you know, in my cervix. And so that every time when I look back, I go, yeah, there was a period of like six months of stress before that, you know, heightened stress. And so it's like the body doesn't lie. It's just trying to go, well, there's all this stress that I need to get it out. And the same thing in relationships and that you kind of go, if we could take away the stress, can we meet each other? Because without all the friction of all the stuff. And so I do think, scrolling social media the comparisonitis that goes on is really fueling this sense of i have to hustle or i have to do things and what i know for sure now having studied energetics having become a yoga therapist as well to understand my own body and what was going on um And I went kicking and screaming to that as well. Like when I first started yoga, the Shavasana at the end where they lay down and integrate, I would lay there. I don't want to swear, but I'd be like, what the hell are we doing? And in this three minutes, I could have achieved so much. And yet here I am. And the yoga teacher would look at me wiggling and she'd be like, lay still, AJ, because I'd be like wanting to get up. And so, you know, it didn't come naturally to me because I'd been so in my left brain. And when I really had to actually leave corporate and made choices to do that for my well-being, you know, I had adrenal fatigue, Hashimoto's, high cholesterol, pre-diabetes. I was stressed and I was sick and tired and I would have told you I was fine. I still ran ten K on my treadmill of a morning. I still did all the things and, you know, I was drinking I think three cans of Diet Coke then every day, you know, eating lollies, sugar, like because I had to do anything to keep myself up and I would have told you I was okay. Yeah. until i stopped and then realized i am seriously not okay and then um actually started to have some heart palpitations and issues and thought i was having heart attacks and so for so many of us we ignore those little niggly signs ah you know a few aches and pains a little bit of a cold and flu again or you know not sleeping well is often a really good sign that things are going Well, it's just normal now. I'm old. I've had kids, you know. You don't realise how bad you are until you're not bad anymore. We normalise it. We don't look into the root cause of it. Absolutely. And I think to myself, so let's just say, imagine for a moment you're like, so we're going to go to the beach because I know you love the beach. Imagine you're walking down a path and you're on your way to visit Merriweather Beach and there are birds singing and you can smell the sea breeze, right? And everything's really lovely and you're like, oh, great, I'm going to the beach. And then you see a sign that the council have put out or something and it says, caution, snakes have been sighted in this area. right? So how would you respond then? There's a sign at our office in the Maitland saying careful brown snake and every time I go there I hear a rustle like so probably be the same in I kind of expect it because it's the week two. So, look, there would be a bit of a heightened anxiety. I think I would still go, but I'm still not going to be as zen as what I could be if I had not saw that sign, I suppose. Okay. And so you see the sign and then you're like, oh, There's a stick on the ground, you know, and like you said, you hear a rustle and you're like, no, you know, is that a snake? Yeah, I saw a red belly yesterday and had to call my dogs back, you know, just in the backyard. But literally our brain goes into this kind of stressed mode, you know, of heightened awareness. And for most of us, every day is like that. We may not be seeing snakes every day, but every day our brain is in that heightened stress mode. And so every little thing is like, oh, You know, so it's actually traumatizing us every day. what we need to do and what's not happening enough for most of us is we're not feeling psychologically safe in our bodies and so therefore we're often not psychologically safe at work we're not psychologically safe in our day-to-day and so everything is kind of a threat whether we're thinking that or not mostly we're not actually logically thinking that but it's what's going on in our bodies So our bodies, the dear little things, are trying to keep us regulated and we're just not regulated. We're, you know, our adrenals and everything are pushed to the limit. And ninety percent of disease in the world today is caused through some form of stress. Yeah. Yeah. But it's, as I've been saying before, like with my treatment, I start chemo and radiation next week. We're probably maybe digressing a little bit now, but that's not even part of it. Like there was no, yep, so my treatment's in the Mater Hospital. The Mater Hospital is a beautiful hospital. Like there is like green grass everywhere. There's places outside where you can go. Like it's absolutely like a beautiful hospital. There's no, yep, so you can go outside for like a little break if you want or go earth or when asked about diet, like go home and eat all the chocolate you like. It's like heaven. I'm like okay no that's probably how I got myself into this mess but just I think the education behind trying to control these things like and at the moment I'm like root cause root cause root cause like you know even like you know the tragic incident that we had on the weekend like here in Australia with bondage like root cause root cause and everyone's you know, quick to react. It's like what's the root cause of everything? You know, we fix the root cause and then we can start to heal and to do whatever. And, you know, you can watch all that. I think it's because Western medicine is just so here's a pill, here's a pill, here's a pill. It's a pharmaceutical. Yeah, there's money in sick people. I've said that for years and hopefully I'm not digressing again, but it's like the root cause. Okay, so stress can cause so many different issues within the body and it might start small. Like the cancer that's within me is probably about ten years old and I only know about it now. Like if you're not getting – regular checkups and stuff like my blood results that i get yearly didn't even pick up any of this you know so um if you're not taking good care of yourself you you know you and then there's obviously now people trying to profit from people thinking they're going to get sick because now there's oh you have this mri to detect this and this and hey it's five thousand dollars so you know there's no happy medium in the middle but the whole root cause of you know the the stress why am i getting run down why am i losing my voice every quarter You know, why do I think that this is normal? You used to have so much more energy and now I don't. And you're probably never going to live like a hundred percent. life but there are small changes that you can do to try to reduce the stress that's in your life and you know breath work is one I've been told breath work is really good and I haven't done it yet I need to mentally prepare myself for that yoga is another one I know I usually lay there going come on I could be like doing so many things at the moment so I'm completely this How can this be doing anything? I charge up five hundred dollars an hour. Why am I lying on this floor? What am I missing out on? Like it's all the background noise and, you know, you might even be trying to do meditation but you're not present because you're thinking of all the other things that you should be doing, you know, within that time. So whether it's a busy mum, busy dad, busy whoever, what are some real basic things that we can do to help help put ourselves in the right direction you know it's not going to fix the root cause but little changes here and there will add up over time Absolutely. And I am a huge advocate of small shifts that make big changes. And I am not someone that goes, you have to radically turn your life around the next day. And what I know for sure is burnout doesn't hit like a bolt of lightning. It's creeping in slowly, slowly, like you said, little triggers. Oh, I'm not sleeping well. Oh, I just don't feel as happy or fulfilled and all of those sorts of things. Everything is just slowly eroding our dear little nervous system and And we really do push it. there is a lot to be said in all of the different things that you're talking about, whether it's breath work, yoga, all of those things. And I think all of them are just about being in the present moment. And we might hear that. And as a busy mum say, and you're running around picking up the kids from school drop off, you're like, I've got to get groceries. Now there's Christmas, you know, and often for many in the sandwich generation, where they're also looking after senior elderly parents as well. Sandwich generation. Sandwiched in between the kids and the parents. Yeah. Trying to deal. Yeah, doing the parenting of their children and the parenting of their parents, you know, the reverse parenting. Yeah, I've never heard that term before. Yeah, it's a squishy area in the middle kind of, you know. And it's why women and men too really have challenges around that kind of forties, fifties area because often that's when they are sandwiched and they're starting to go, maybe my ladder was against the wrong wall and I've been chasing a dream that's not really a dream. And now I've got... mortgage, two cars, blah, blah, blah. I have to keep working to maintain just what I have. And so this pressure of needing to continually perform. And so I'm really big about small shifts or micro little, can you have micro moments through your day? You know, I had to learn to love the yoga. And yet once I started to really kind of create a bit of a groove and a pattern in my brain where, okay, here's my space and I'm going to go with it. the more I actually started to feel the benefit of it. You know, not a day goes by now where I don't walk in the bush every morning and just be with nature. And so there is this tipping point, and I call it the surrender, the point of surrender, where we can only push so far and we realise that everything we're often doing that is causing the stress is forcing us. We're really forcing. And I'm not talking about let's just all sit on the lounge and eat bonbons for the rest of our life because, you know, I'm not going to force. But there's this point of surrender where you go, I can do my part. That's enough. And then I'm going to let go and let God or let universe, right? And so once we find that singular point, and I find it when I'm in meditation, I find it when I'm on the yoga mat, I find it when I'm in the bush of this, I don't have to be or do anything. Like I'm just going to be present to my breath and the birds. That's when flow actually starts. And that's when we start to go, oh, oh, I just had an idea, maybe there's a better way to do that. Oh, oh, I just realised that that's not serving me anymore. You don't get those realisations when you're packing everything in, you know, but it's when you have some spaciousness that you get some realisations and you start to go maybe there are some smarter ways, you know, or maybe that's doesn't matter anymore and I could just release that altogether and so I've had quite a few moments of point of surrender in my life and I'm guessing most of the people listening to this could actually go through their life and go yeah that was one of those moments where I had to release But the more I think we can start to do that as a daily practice, and so it is little things like little bits of movement, like moving our energy. The whole point of yoga is to allow you to meditate. It's actually to open up all your energy channels and allow your blood to flow so that you're oxygenated so you can sit and meditate because when we're in that space of just quiet and stillness, you know, it's not about silencing the mind, right? And I think lots of people go, well, I can't meditate because I can't shut my mind up. And I always say, well, can you stop your heart? Could you for a moment put your hand on your heart and think I'm going to stop? And no, you can't because it's automatic and so is the brain. So it's always going to think. It's a thinking machine. But if we can still the body, at least we allow everything to move into its own healing rhythm. And so whatever floats your boat, sound, your favourite music, playing with your dog, you know, Laughing at a funny movie. I don't care. Find some moments in your day where you can drop into that space where I'm not pushing at anything. I would say that's a really first step. Yeah. Yeah. And it's funny that you just said oxygenates your body because I was listening to a podcast before and, you know, disease happens when we don't have enough, like, oxygen, like, within our body. So when you start piecing all the stuff together, it makes sense it's just because it's not totally westernized i suppose that you know the the root cause stuff the hippy dippy stuff kind of gets pushed pushed um pushed below but i reckon the best meditation session i had was at your place and bet gibson did the the meditation and i don't think i like if they can be with me like every single day she's great isn't she whether she drugged me or not i have no idea She's such a beautiful person. That was probably the best meditation session that I have ever had. And part of that was probably knowing I was going to your place That was my time. I wasn't going there to rush. I wasn't going there to meet people or anything. I was going there purely to have that moment. And I still remember that meditation session at your place a few years ago. Wow. And, you know, the meaning behind, you know, what we saw and everything like that. But I still feel there's... Like I know you said like little micro sessions, like I love watching comedies. I will watch the same thing over and over and over again, which is always like an ADHD trait. I know that it's like a self-regulation trait. Like I'm well aware of all of that. But my girls are the same. So, you know, there are some days I just have to have like an Adam Sandler day. I'm like, right, we're watching Grown Ups One, Grown Ups Two. We are putting Billy Madison on. And, you know, laughing is like really, really good. Totally. I've discovered a Martha Stewart channel. Oh, my gosh. I sit and watch Martha Stewart. Fantastic. But, yeah, those little micro moments. But I think there still feels... um you know i because that whole you have to put your your mask on first right to help others but it's so hard to to do that and i suppose i have done that for so very long and now i'm going to be you know i'm out the whole entire school holidays having to do radiation and chemo while my kids are on school holidays so by me not putting my mask on first my kids now have to suffer probably about two months of mom not being able to do much because i've I haven't put myself first for so long. So for those people who think that there still might be guilt attached to having the five moments of five minutes extra in the shower or whatever, you know i can't go for a walk you know playing with your dog or your animal is a really good one um you know so you it's not like you have to be out there doing physical activity or anything but i try to incorporate things with the girls so i did try um meditation yoga with them they weren't a fan i tried so i just said go away and just let my daughter know you know even drawing like drawing mindfully yeah coloring in um coloring or drawing we'll do um even putting lego yeah so um i don't know do you have any any tips i suppose for me it was always guilt i need to be doing something laying down doing yoga i should be doing something like i don't you know um to yeah so i know we've already briefly discussed it but just trying to have less guilt you're trying to have that five minutes for yourself with someone that's struggling to you know put their oxygen mask on first perhaps especially with little kids where the kids a bit older it's a bit easier but um I think recently, you know, I've been walking with elders for about ten years now and had the privilege of spending some time with some beautiful Indigenous elders here from Australia. And what a couple of them often say is you have to be the boss of self first. And so they're really big on you must be the boss of self. And... a reminder because they think so contextually over a long period of time. And we tend to just get focused on, I've got to get through today, this week, this year. Oh my God, how am I going to get a promotion? You know, I need to do this, the mortgage. And they talk about the impact of things that they do seven years, sorry, seven generations. So they're really big on how I take care of myself now is going to be seen by my daughter and my daughter's daughter and her daughters. And so I'm shaping how my whole lineage will live. that's where hereditary disease comes from, right? That's where family trauma comes from, is that it is carried through. And so there's this absolute responsibility, I think, as well, that I have to take care of myself. I have to be boss of self because there's actually a ripple effect from that. And it may not be apparent immediately as you've shared yourself personally, but it's going to show up somewhere. it's hard to remember that in the moment. It's hard to go in another hundred and fifty years, this is going to show up, you know, in my family. Because I didn't take that walk. No, that's right. But when I look around the bush, I see it every day. You know, I see trees and the way that they grow and you know, their growth rings and how slow that is. And if we could only just stop and hold for a moment and remember what's important and come back to that, we would start taking care of ourselves. And as you were saying, it's the simplest things. Could you make some tiny shifts, like at least just drinking a bit more water and maybe having a few deeper breaths? For pretty much most of the population, they're shallow breathing up high in their chest because of the tension and the stress. And so the more we shallow breathe, the less able our body is to flush toxins and to clear our system and to oxygenate everything. And so... I just saw it, you know, my father just recently passed away and he basically became bedridden and immobile. He had no circulation in his legs and it was a slow decline of just not being boss of self anymore. and letting go of some of those things that are so vital and so important. So as a yoga therapist, one of the things that I see a lot is that people are depleted in all of those basic things. And just like I look at the trees, they just need water and air and sunlight and some nutrients and they're good to go. And so are we. It's so basic and simple. I don't need a Louis Vuitton handbag. I just need to drink water and have some better deep breaths. And so even as you're listening to this, take a sip of water, take a moment to take a breath. The body is innately a healing mechanism. And that's where I think, you know, bless the doctors and people who do their best, but really the Western medical system is built around disease and pharmaceuticals. How often do you go to your doctor when you're really well and say, doctor, take a scan. This is exactly how I want to feel when I'm good and help me keep there. You know, we just don't do it. We go when we're sick and we should be going and saying, help me maintain this. And so I really say the body is absolutely so spot on clever at it. Just create a healthy environment for it to do its thing. So even as far as our breath goes, you know, people often aren't aware that we breathe out of one nostril for forty minutes and then the other one for forty minutes. And so our breath regulates itself. Every forty minutes it changes. And you know how when little babies are sleeping and mums put a mirror under their nose to kind of check that they're breathing. Yeah. Right. And so if you did that, you'll see that your breath only comes out of one nostril and then forty minutes later it switches. And in Indian Ayurvedic medicine, they call it the eater and pingala. And so the right nostril is heating and it heats the body and gets the temperature to the right regulation. And then the left, the pingala is cooling. And so it balances and make sure we don't get too hot. We don't get too cold. And so the body does that all day long. We don't even have to think about it. And so really, you don't have to feel guilty. You just need to go, I'm just going to create a nice, healthy environment. So what I watch, what I eat, what I think about, who I allow in, all is my healthy environment. What can you do to just make your environment maybe ten percent healthier? That's it. Go for that. Well, the body keeps a score, right? Absolutely. Yeah, we could do a whole other episode. I know, it's like numbers all over. My partner has had a lot of health issues this year and he's like, that was from that job in my twenties. That's from BMX riding in my teenage years. It's like the body keeps score. He's got like a scorecard I'm sure all over his body. But like even someone pointed out like the Chinese, it's not Chinese, you know, where the year of the snakes are like the shredding. And so I'm a dog. So I'm a dog and a snake and next year, Is it a horse year next year? Horse, yeah. Horse year. I'll be a dog in your horse year. And I was looking at what JPT came up with. I'm like, oh, my God. Like my health now, I would have known at the start of the year. Like why didn't I like fucking Google that at the start of the year? Right. What the hell? It was bad. Believe it or don't believe it or whatever. And that's where GPTs and that can be really helpful is to say to it, these are the things I enjoy, like watching funny movies. You know, I enjoy going for a walk. I'm not into running. You know, like put that into it and say a year from now I want to feel this way. develop me a little plan that just has five minutes a day for me to maintain or improve my health by five percent it will spit out a whole range of things and maybe get it to write a vision that says, you know, how do I feel? What does that look like? Read that vision every day. What we think about, we bring about. We're just not conscious enough to program ourselves to do that. But little things like that, you will start to see I'm moving towards something that matters to me. And I want to give a little tip, if I can, for actually using the acronym SHIFT. Can I share a little tip? And so one thing that I think often helps people is in a moment where I'm feeling a flood of stress or anxiety, I'm feeling like, you know, everything's going pear shaped. You know, I just can't cope anymore. I think of the word shift. And so, and I do little physical motions with it. So feel free to join me, Stace. So shift first, the S is stop. So we use the S to stop, right? So we stop and then we hold. Yeah. So we stop, then we hold. Then we intuit, so we feel in our gut, yeah, feel in the gut. Then we feel, for the F, we feel, what is my heart telling me right now? Then we think, yeah. So we go stop, hold, intuit, feel, think. And then we make a choice. So that only takes like. thirty seconds and in actual fact any emotion we feel because we're emotional beings any emotion we feel only chemically lasts in the body ninety seconds so when we feel like I'm so mad you know someone just cut me off in the traffic or how dare they speak to me that way right or like the tragedy that just happened in the world and here at bondi like the emotions that no doubt come up and and that's completely human and normal but they actually only last ninety seconds chemically and if they last longer than that it's because we've let our dear little brain get involved and we're now telling ourself a story and we're hooked in and we're repeating it and that repeated story then starts to bed into our dna and ourselves so if instead we just did a stop hold, intuit, feel, think, that little pause breaks that energetic state and then we can come from a more compassionate place. Think about, you know, is this healthy in my environment? Do I choose to hang on to this or am I going to just drop it? And you know what, more than anything, I drop a lot of shit now that I would have held on to years ago, you know, and wore as badges of honour. I'm holding that, you know, and I'm a good daughter and I'm this, that and the other. You know, just let that shit go. Yeah. Just be kind. Be kind to you first. You know, take pauses. You don't have to answer everyone in the moment and the now. You can say, I need some time, you know, like really, really, be a good human to you first. And you'll be amazed at how that wheel can start to turn. It doesn't instantly, but it will. yeah yeah i think just because it's just you know this is seen as as hippie and a doctor hasn't prescribed this to me and you know you're not going to lose anything by trying it like earthing is something um i've been looking at doing i'm just trying to make my ground so full of excuses two spiders live in my grass trying to make my grass brain to earth but let's put those But even like standing out there and earthing yourself and like doing that whole, I've seen me doing that in the morning. And yeah, that might take a minute, but maybe that's, you know, I'm incorporating earthing and just really stalking. As you said, like there's a lot of shit I don't do anymore. Like I'd be one to, you know, typical lawyer, you fight back and it's like, you know what? Right. Yeah. You won. Congratulations. Like you're not worth my time. Yeah, exactly. So I suppose that's probably leading to, I mean, there's a shit ton of other questions I had, but that point is probably then leading on to like, okay, so maybe better boundaries need to be set. So, you know, usually... We set boundaries and, you know, oh, yeah, contact me anytime you like. Oh, yeah, no, I'm available after five. Yes, I'll see you on a weekend or whatever. So things happen because we've allowed boundaries to be set in a particular way. So to start to find that little time for yourself, you know, what are some – Some ways that people can put up boundaries in place where they don't feel like they're being an arsehole or a bitch or something for putting themselves first. And if the other person has interpreted that way, then congratulations to them. You can't control other people's emotions. So what are some boundary tips that you can give people who are trying to incorporate this hippy-dippy, you know, non-prescription way of life to try and reduce some stress? yeah well what have you noticed first from yourself what have you noticed that it sounds like you've been doing a little bit i i was definitely one of those people who would work like seven days a week i would see an email and i'd feel compelled to respond straight away and that i would and then you know even before i started to i won't say stick because i'm not sick because i'm gonna give me five weeks of treatment i'm gonna be done yeah preparing for that um but I would like they don't know that I've read that they don't know that I've seen that most like stop you know close putting another office on was always the worst because I'd always respond and then I went through a stage of not responding and then people yelling at me for not responding I'm like I'm like but you always respond when you're out of offices I'm like, oh, my God, that's a boundary that I've set. Okay, well, like I'm sick. Like I'm really, really sick. And at the moment my out-of-office is on as well. So there was depth. I can't tell you what the conscious moment was. As I said, it was before like where I am now. but definitely just going you know what your energy is not aligned with mine i have no problem cutting you out of my life type feel like i'm done you're not the right client for us you try on energy all the time you're not appreciative So, you know, see you later type thing. I suppose that probably sounds really brutal. So maybe I have taken a brutal approach to my boundaries, but. No, that's great. It's whatever works for you, right? And like, why? Like, I, you know, I don't need fifty bajillion Facebook friends. I don't, you know, you only need that small crowd, right? So if you're on that same path, then fine. And maybe you might associate with people you know not as often as what you did but um yeah I suppose I'm maybe I've taken a brutal approach to it I've gone from nothing and again it's whatever works right I just say it's all about conscious awareness so even if you just started with a piece of paper you know post-it note or a note on your phone but I prefer paper I like paper and a line down the middle. What are my drainers? What are my gainers? What are the things that drain my energy? What are the things that give me energy? And just notice through the day, Bill Smith is a bit of a drainer. Mary, she's quite good. Doing the washing, total drainer. For me, I love doing the washing. I love hanging it out. I hate putting it away. yeah it's like just noticing some of those things and especially if you're in a team you start going are any of your drainers my gainers and vice versa could we swap some tasks you know could we do some of that um i noticed that this drains me of energy what am i doing to fuel that and could i start you know putting a bit more of a a boundary around that yeah i also think We've overcomplicated so much in human interaction. I really believe clear is kind. Quite often we just feel guilty so we over-explain ourselves. I'm sorry I can't answer that email today because I've got this and this going on and then that happening and then would it be okay if I, instead of just going, thank you for your email, I really value you as a client and I'd love to be able to serve you properly. At this time I cannot so I'd suggest you find someone else. Yeah. You know, like clear as kind. Just being clear. Quite often it's like managers and leaders do those shit sandwiches when they're giving someone feedback, you know, say something nice, give them the hard stuff, then say something else nice. And I'm like people are just confused because they're like I think I'm okay. Like what's going on? Instead just go, hey, when you did that, this is how it made me feel. It's important because of this. I would really love it if you could do it differently like this next time. What's your thoughts? Yep. All right. We need to have a conversation. It's not going to be easy for either of us, but I think it's really important for us to have. This has been going on. We just don't clear the air enough and then not carry baggage. So for me, boundaries is actually, I think to myself all the time, clear is kind. How can I still be kind here? I'm not trying to blame someone or make something bad. Everything's neutral. Like the washing that I have judgment around is completely neutral. You know what's neutral? I'm stacking it with my thoughts because of my beliefs. So could we instead just be clear, be kind, start just noticing what are my drainers and gainers? And each week, is there some way I could have a little bit less of drainers in my life? and you know nothing's perfect all the time but um the mayo clinic have done research that shows that people are engaged at work if they love their work twenty percent of the time that's all yeah that's really they don't have to love it i know they don't have to love it at home like You only have to love it twenty percent for it to be engaging and still enjoyable. And so we have these high standards of everything's got to be amazing all the time. I've got to drive my Maserati to work and, you know, I want the angels to sing when I enter the room. It's not like that at all. Like find your little things that give you energy and make sure you've got enough joy and energy in your life and you'll be able to ride through some of those other things I think that drain you. But you have to advocate for yourself. Again, like the elders say, boss of self. If you don't, no one else will and then you've got no one to blame. Yeah, a hundred percent. And as I said, it's all those micro shifts, right? Yeah. like all those little micro shifts add up. You might want to spend, you know, a thirty-second, you know, you might make your cup of tea in the morning or your coffee instead of sitting down. You might want to go outside with no shoes on and earth and then you can do the whole stop thing and then you might want to walk back in and sit back down and do whatever it is, like just those, all those little micro changes that you can do add up. And, like, don't have guilt with it attached. Oh, I didn't do it today or, oh, I raised my voice or whatever. Don't have guilt. attached to it because there's a need to be guilt you don't need to make yourself feel any worse than probably what you're making yourself feel there's an old chinese proverb where it's um two monks walking along at like a senior monk you know an older monk and a young new rookie monk and they're walking and monks aren't meant to um touch women you know like there's rules around that and they come to this crossing and there's a woman trying to cross the river And she's, you know, uncertain, nervous about crossing the river. And the old monk takes off his robe, lays it down across for her and holds her hand and helps her across and then puts his robe back on. She goes on her way. The pair of them keep walking towards another village and they're quiet for like an hour. And then the young monk says to him, you touched that woman back there. Like what were you thinking kind of thing? And the old monk says, and I put her down an hour ago. Why are you still carrying her? Yeah. Right? Yeah. He was like, in the moment I had to respond. I did what was best, but I also let it go. You know, I did what was best. Ahimsa, do no harm. Whereas the young monks still thinking about it and processing and, you know, and the old monks like, I put it down. So we have the potential to drop a lot of the shit that we carry. We can actually put it down. That nasty thing your mother-in-law said to you ten years ago, are you still carrying it? And every time you carry it, that's energetically somewhere stored in your dear body. And that actually is the whole point of meditation. When we meditate for twenty minutes, it's like two hours of sleep and it has the same ability to cleanse our body. So every time we meditate, it's like a defrag on a computer. It releases and clears up the brain. So any of that stuff, and we don't have to psychoanalyze it. It's not like psychotherapy. We don't have to go, oh, remember that happened when I was twelve. We don't have to do that. Every time we meditate, a little clean sweep happens and a little bit more goes. And so the process of it is actually just becoming more and more light. And so our body is cleansed of that. um and so that's why we meditate it's not because we're trying to calm the mind it's actually because we're trying to free ourselves because we all deserve to be happy and healthy and free in whatever way that looks to you and wouldn't you wish that upon every human and animal on this planet wouldn't you just want everyone to live their best life like yeah Do it for yourself. And that's the beautiful thing about consciousness and some of Dr. David Hawkins' work is the higher in consciousness someone becomes, which is clearing themselves of their energy and resistance that they're holding onto, the density, the more clear someone becomes, actually the bigger ripple effect they have. So he says one person at the energy level of five hundred love, which also is where a cat's purr is at, by the way, cat's purr is at five hundred love frequency. You don't have any cats? No, just dogs and possums and wallabies and wombats. One person at five hundred can positively impact up to five hundred thousand people. Wow. Through their being. So even if you're a mom and you want a happy household, be happy in yourself and your kids and your family will thrive too. I like that. I think, yeah, I remember doing the levels of consciousness when I think it was rebranding. I think that's where we brought that into, like colors and everything. But yeah, I know I'm definitely guilty. Like I just said, you know, an hour ago, I put her down. I was like, you know, something will happen a bit too, like two hours later or a day later. I'm like, hang on. Like, and you bring it up again. It's like, why the fuck are you bringing it up again? Like it's done. Like it's, It's like we want to punish ourselves like all the time or something. I'm not even quite sure. how it happens well our brain is programmed right and and so sixty thousand thoughts a day fifty eight thousand of those are the same as yesterday so if we want to shift our life we have to i i think of it like ski slopes i'm gonna ski down the hill and every time my skis want to go in the same groove because it's easier so we a pattern to think the same way we have to consciously choose differently so every time that happens we just go oh no i'm not thinking that way You know, I'm thinking about something that I love. And probably the biggest antidote to all of that is just gratitude. Like have gratitude. What am I grateful for? Stop for a moment and go, what am I grateful for? I've got food in my fridge, you know, a roof over my head, you know, my kids smile. That's it. Done. Yeah. Replace any of those with a gratitude. Yeah. Yep. I like. Well, any – I mean, there's so many other things that we could be talking about, but we're going for nearly an hour. So to wrap up today, is there anything that you want to finish on? Any tips? Anything? Gosh, there's so much, isn't there? And I feel like we've covered eons already. I would just say – the system, the universe doesn't respond to your performance. It responds to your truth and you can't positive your way into trust. You have to be in alignment. So find those things that give you energy, that make you joyful. Find a way to live more in line with your truth where I don't have to push. I don't have to reject. I don't have to fight. I'm just me. And the more you do that, I think the more you surrender to just that's me, the more you will attract the right people in the right opportunities and you will learn to just love yourself. And that's not a weird thing. I just think when we can say truly I am happy and I am healthy and I am free. that's the greatest gift. And whether your life is two weeks, two years, a hundred years, if you can truly say, I lived my way, I think you've done life well yeah done well yeah well yeah thank you very much if anyone would like to work with AJ I completely recommend it whether it's as a team or within yourself we'll make sure we put AJ's links below in the show notes but thank you very much and thank you for letting me have my nap bless you I love that right you knew what you needed and I'm really happy to honor that Thank you for sharing your honest truth and always showing up authentically, Stacey. That is what makes you memorable. And, you know, I've always loved working with you because I know that you come a hundred percent as yourself. So bless you. And putting myself a bit more forward first, you know, I'll be putting myself. Yep. Love it. I'll be practicing that a bit more. My hat's off to that. thank you very much well thank you for joining us today and yeah we'll catch you next time bye bye
