Time spent laying foundations saves many a lifetime of replacing fallen bricks.

Hi %%FIRST_NAME%%,
Welcome to your 90 day life-changing course: How To De-Stress With Mindfulness.

Here’s where to listen to the audio recording of today’s message.

[audio:https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/htdswm/01/Day01-full-message.mp3]
To download it to listen offline, right click and choose ‘save as’ for this link: Day 1 MP3

Here’s where to download a printable pdf

To download a printable pdf version of this message, which you can read offline, right click on this link: LINK COMING SOON

Over the next 90 days, you will receive twice-weekly messages, bringing you an inspired blend of ancient mindfulness techniques, relaxation techniques and modern practical psychology, to help you deal with stress.

The first message each week will bring you the ‘how to’ and that week’s core techniques.

The second message each week will be a ‘top up’, to help you go a little deeper into the techniques that have resonated for you.

The idea is to bring you all the stress-busting secrets you need, without overwhelming you or adding to your stress levels! 😉

Applying the techniques in your twice-weekly messages will help you to:

Feel less stressed and overwhelmed
Be able to handle stressful situations more calmly, more effectively and more confidently
Feel more in control of your life
Feel more relaxed and focused
Experience a reduction in symptoms of stress: physically, mentally and emotionally
Quieten your mind’s chatter
Worry less
Let go more easily at the end of the day
Sleep better, with less time wasted lying awake and worrying
Be less likely to snap at people and stress out
Have fewer stressful experiences, during the day
Improve your relationships, as you feel less irritable and lose your temper less often
Feel calmer, more patient and generally happier
Smile and laugh more

In this week’s two emails, we will be looking at:

This time		Next time
	What on earth stress really is		How to spot the progress you’re making
	The hidden link between stressful thoughts & feeling stressed		How to magically find time to finish this course
	How mindfulness & NLP can help you to de-stress		How to get moral support for your de-stressing
	Experiencing a wonderful mindfulness foundation technique		Exploring the symptoms of ‘mindlessness’.
	Discovering how to keep yourself motivated for the next 90 days – and beyond
	How breathing impacts stress – and how stress impacts breathing

All the resources you need for week one are in the members-only area of the online community:
Week One Resources
We’ll go through them in more detail at the relevant points of today’s message.

Let’s get started with a whistle-stop tour of what stress is and its impact on us.

What On Earth Is Stress?

You’ve signed up for a course about de-stressing, so you must already have a pretty good idea of what stress means for you. But I’m going to start with a provocative statement (or ten!) about the nature of stress.

I’m going to start by saying something that might annoy some of you – but unless I’m honest about this, up front, then you’re not going to benefit from this course.
[If what I’m about to say means you want to opt out and get a refund, that’s cool – simply email my team at hello@ClareJosa.com!]
So here goes:

You are not stressed.
You do stress.
Stress isn’t something we ‘have’. It isn’t something we ‘are’. It is something we ‘do’.
Feeling stressed is a response to stuff that happens and it is controlled – entirely – by our thinking minds.
Stress cannot be ‘done’ to you.
Stress cannot be ‘given’ to you.
No one can make you stressed.

At some level – perhaps deeply unconsciously – stress and feeling stressed is a choice.

And that’s brilliant news!
Why?

Because it means you can do something about it!
You and you alone are responsible for – and in control of – how you ‘do’ stress.
No one and nothing can make you feel stressed.

Sure, there can be amazingly effective prompts, situations and stimuli, but the bottom line is that stress is an inside job.

Want to have your say on this one? Want to find out what others are thinking? Here’s a special discussion thread over at the members-only forum for this course:
“Stress is something you do; not something you are.” – Discuss!

How Does Stress Work?

Here’s a simplified explanation of the stress cycle:

The Stress Cycle - How Stress Feeds Stress, Unless You Press The Pause Button — The Stress Cycle – How Stress Feeds Stress, Unless You Press The Pause Button

Stress – and the experience of feeling stressed – is all down to whether or not your mind tells you that a situation is stressful and how your body has been trained to react to your thoughts.

If we experience one of our stress triggers, we start thinking stressful thoughts. Although it might not be our current habit, we can choose whether or not to feed those stressful thoughts, conscientiously nurturing them to become super-stresses, or whether to accept them and gently let them go, moving on to more supportive and empowering thoughts.

Whether you tell yourself you are feeling stressed or whether you tell yourself you are not, you’re right.

What’s The Link Between Stressful Thoughts And Feeling Stressed?

We think of something stressful, our body releases its stress hormones, engaging the sympathetic nervous system and the chemical reactions in our body produce our emotions.
Aside: Not convinced how closely mind and body are linked? How about trying this simple test:

Mind-Body Link Test

Here’s an audio to guide you through this exercise:[audio:https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/htdswm/01/Day01-mind-body-link.mp3]

For the next few moments, slouch as you read this. Really let yourself sink into your chair. Repeat the phrase (in your head), “Tired and weak.” Say it at least 5 times.
Now try to stand up.
What did you notice?
Give yourself a quick shake and sit down again.
This time, sit up straight, with a smile on your face.
Repeat the phrase “Powerful and strong!” at least 5 times.
Stand up!
Now notice how you almost leap out of the chair, as you stand up. How different did that feel?

Your mind, your body, your thoughts and your emotions are linked…

The Link Between Stressful Thoughts & Feeling Stressed

Stressful thoughts automatically trigger your body’s physiological stress response. This includes:

Activating the sympathetic nervous system (‘fight or flight’)
Releasing stress hormones, such as adrenalin, into your nervous system
Activating the hypothalamus (primitive brain) to go into short-term survival-type decision making patterns
Increase heart rate and breathing rate, ready for flight or fight
Diverting oxygen from the organs and even the brain, to increase blood oxygen levels, ready for ‘emergency’ activity
Pause the body’s natural healing and regenerative processes, to leave more energy for the fight or flight

Before we go too far through this course, I’m curious: How do you currently experience stress? Which thoughts do you think? Which emotions do you feel? Which physical sensations do you notice? Here’s a discussion thread, where you can share your thoughts on this one:
How do you experience stress?

What’s The Problem?

Most of us feel stressed, much of the time.
We live our lives as though that sabre-toothed tiger is constantly roaring at the door of our cave.
This means that we spend long periods of time in our body and mind’s ‘emergency response’ mode, rather than using that for genuine times of need and returning to balance – to equilibrium – in between. We usually don’t even notice that we’re doing it; it’s happening at a subconscious level.

The long-term consequences of living from a point of view of stress include mental illness, adrenal fatigue, slow healing and recovery from illness, inability to think clearly and long-term ‘dis-ease’ and chronic disease.

The purpose of our sympathetic nervous system and the impact of our ‘fight or flight’ processes was first observed by Walter Cannon, back in 1932. Since then scientists and psychologists have repeatedly proven the link between the thoughts, the physiological response and the emotional experience.

Stress is an entirely appropriate reaction to the modern equivalent of the sabre-toothed tiger. But it’s NOT useful as an everyday, auto-pilot response to day-to-day situations.
Ongoing stress is NOT normal, necessary or ok.

It doesn’t means that ‘doing’ stress is ‘bad’ or ‘wrong’. There’s no point in beating yourself up over this; it would only make things worse.

However, it does mean it’s time to take action – and that’s what the next 90 days are about: inspiring you to take action that works for you!

Fortunately the whole point of the techniques you’ll get to experiment with over the next 90 days is to help you to break that subconscious cycle, reclaiming your power over which thoughts to feed and setting yourself free from the old auto-pilot stress responses.

NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming – a bit like ‘practical psychology’) is like a user manual for your brain. It’s brilliant at helping you to spot the thought patterns, beliefs and habits that have been keeping you stuck, so you can choose to do something about them. And it’s good at making that ‘something’ straight-forward and highly effective, too.

Mindfulness is an ancient meditation philosophy that helps you to get out of living in your ‘thinking mind’ (also called the ‘Monkey Mind’ or ‘Grasshopper Mind’) and back into the ‘here and now’. It helps you to see what’s real and what’s ‘story’, as well as creating the space between your thoughts to give you back your choice over how to respond to life.

Mindfulness has helped millions of people to shift their experience of life – including cutting their stress levels – for thousands of years. So it’s going to work for you.

How Can Mindfulness And NLP Help With De-Stressing?

Combining these powerful techniques will help you to:

	Gain awareness into your personal habits and thought patterns that have been feeding your experience of stress.
	Be easily able to ‘see’ the difference between what is ‘real’ and what is your mind’s ‘story’ or ‘projection’.
	Rebalance your sympathetic (‘fight or flight’) and parasympathetic (‘relaxation’) nervous systems, making it less likely that you’ll think stressful thoughts
	Be more able to choose whether you want to open up the cascade of stress hormones in your body, giving yourself a well-earned break from the stress cycle
	Let go of old habits that have been keeping you stuck, surrounded by stress triggers
	Gently retune your thoughts to be more positive and empowering
	Let go of fretting about the past or worrying about the future
	Discover your personal de-stress toolkit, to help you shift your experience of life

The Bottom Line
Stress is a habit.
No matter how ‘auto-pilot’ it all feels, you can change any habit, with the right tools and support.
The next 90 days are going to bring you the tools and support you need, to help you do it!

Now that we have got the whole ‘what is stress’ bit out of the way, it’s time to take a look at why you’re bothering to do all of this. What do you want from the next 90 days?

What’s your ‘why’?

It’s the key to keeping yourself motivated for the next few months – and beyond. So let’s dive in and find out.

The Secret To Keeping Yourself Motivated

Know Your ‘Why’
Before we start any journey – any challenge – any change – it is really important to know why we are doing it.
Knowing our ‘why’ – what is motivating us – helps keep us going.

So, before we go any further with this course, I invite you to take a few moments to do the following exercise.

How To Keep Yourself Motivated

Here’s an audio to guide you through this exercise: [audio:https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/htdswm/01/Day01-How-to-keep-yourself-motivated.mp3]
Grab yourself a piece of paper and something to write with and allow yourself five or ten minutes just to think and write down your answers to these questions:

Here’s an image you could print out (click to go to a full-sized version online) and write your ‘because’ answer in. How about pinning it up somewhere to inspire and motivate you?

Why have you signed up for How To De-Stress With Mindfulness?
What do you hope that it is going to do for you?
How are you going to notice that it is working for you? Which behaviours, which signs, which emotions are you going to be tracking to feel the progress you are making?
What kinds of barriers can you foresee already that might get in the way of you finding the time to read the twice-weekly messages and apply them in your life?
Before you even start this course, what are you going to do about those barriers?
Do you need to clear anything out of your schedule? Or ask for help? Or delegate something to create that time?
And let the answer to this next question bubble up gently for you – don’t rationalise it. Complete the following sentence:

I choose to complete “How To De-Stress With Mindfulness” because…

And when you are ready, write that whole sentence up somewhere. Pin it up around your home or around your office. If you notice distractions getting in the way of your efforts to de-stress over the next 90 days (and longer!), you can remind yourself:

I choose to complete “How To De-Stress With Mindfulness” because……

You might be surprised how often that allows you to prioritise working through your de-stressing projects, over the distractions.

The word ‘because’ has an amazing power to get people (including yourself!) to listen to your request and to help you. When they understand why you want their help and why you want them to support you, it makes it much easier for them to buy in. You might be surprised how much friends, family and co-workers do want to support you. Some of them might even want to join in How To De-Stress With Mindfulness with you.

The key is to decide when you are going to work through the de-stressing exercises and projects, what you need to clear out of the way to allow you to do that, and to remember why you’re bothering!

Today’s Affirmation:

I feel excited about de-stressing over the next 90 days, especially now I know my ‘why’.

Want to share your answers? Here are three discussion threads in the members-only area of the online community:

What do you want from How To De-Stress With Mindfulness? ~ Perhaps sharing your answers to questions 1,2 & 3?

How are you planning to overcome any barriers or blocks to your success? ~ Perhaps sharing your answers to questions 4, 5 & 6?

What’s your ‘because’? ~ How about sharing your ‘because’; your ‘why’? And finding out what others area saying?

Week One Mindfulness Technique

Is it time to stop ‘pretending’ to breathe?

Most of us are just ‘pretending’ to breathe. We have trained ourselves to do just enough to survive. But most of us aren’t breathing properly. We’re denying our bodies the oxygen-rich fuel they crave, which has implications for our health – physically, mentally and emotionally.

When we’re stressed, our breathing tends to move away from our diaphragm (the area of your stomach above your belly button) up towards our upper chest and even shoulders and throat.

This triggers more stress hormones, reduces the oxygen supply available to the brain and re-engages the sympathetic nervous system (‘fight or flight’). In effect, our stressed-out breathing makes our stress worse.

Fortunately all you need to do, to turn things around, is to take 10 deep mindful breaths.

Here’s how:

Is It Time To Breathe?

{Obviously – please do this within your safe abilities. If breathing deeply is an issue for you, please get help from your chosen medical professional!}
If deep breathing is uncomfortable for you, you can start by visualising it, instead, which will still produce results for you.

Belly-Breathing Mindfulness Meditation

[audio:https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/htdswm/01/Day01-belly-breathing-mindfulness-meditation.mp3]
There’s an MP3 recording of this technique, if you’d like to be guided through it, in the members-only area of our online community. Here’s the link to listen to it or to download it:

Week One Mindful Breathing

Have your back reasonably straight, your shoulders relaxed and your chin tucked in a little, to relax and lengthen your neck.
Put your hands on your belly, just above your belly button. You want your fingertips of your middle fingers to be lightly touching, as your belly is pushed towards your back. Now is not the time to be worrying about an ironing-board-flat stomach!
Then, as you breathe in (ideally through your nose), allow your belly to expand. Your fingertips will move apart.
Breathe out (either through your nose or out through your mouth with an ‘ahh’ sound), and as your belly goes back towards your spine, your fingertips go back together.
Continue this for at least ten breaths – or for up to five minutes, if it feels good for you.

This is a wonderful practice because it brings the focus back to the breath, bringing the breath back to the lower abdomen, rather than the chest and shoulders – that’s where it hangs out when we’re stressed.

Belly breathing also gives the internal organs a gentle massage (they’re designed to get one, every time the diaphragm moves). It helps re-oxygenate the blood, can improve concentration and generally has a positive impact on health.

The benefits are enormous.

How about trying it out, right now?

This week, I invite you to experiment with this mindful breathing exercise at least once a day – ideally twice or even each time you notice yourself getting stressed.

Can you imagine how things will feel, if you do this twice a day?

If you find you’re stressed when you get home from work, how about taking three or four of these mindful breaths before you open the front door to your home? You could add in the visualisation of your day’s stresses melting away, before you walk through the door.

If you are not looking forward to a meeting, how about doing some of this mindful breathing – with a gentle smile on your face – before you leave your desk to go to the appointment? Can you imagine the difference this could make for you?
Thinking about your typical day, where else might you find this mindful breathing technique helpful?
And I’m curious: how are you going to remind yourself to do it?!

It’s worth deciding on a few ideas now, before you finish reading this message.

When you have had a chance to play with this a few times, how about sharing your experiences over at the members-only area of our online community?
Here’s a link to the discussion thread for the belly breathing technique:
Week One Mindful Breathing

And here’s a link to the general discussion thread for the week one topics – it’s a great place to share any insights and get answers to any questions:
Week One: How Are You Getting On?

Next Time

Next time we’ll be looking at the symptoms of ‘mindlessness’ and why it’s such a big deal, how to handle the #1 excuse we all make, that stops us from changing our lives, discovering how to ‘magically’ create the time needed to finish this course, exploring strategies to help you spot the shifts you’re making and figuring out how to get moral support for your de-stressing efforts – as well as busting some of your favourite excuses.

I hope you enjoy the beginning of your journey with this course.

Your next email will be with you in 3-4 days.

Namaste,

P.S. If you have any techy questions, please email a member of my team at hello@clarejosa.com and they’ll help get things sorted for you.
I’m a firm believer that there’s no such thing as a stupid question, so I’d much rather have you contact us than have you feeling stuck or not able to join in at the level you want to!