Today’s episode is going to be a bit of a quick and practical discussion on how you can become a more resilient person.
Through various techniques such as meditation, or guided breathing to mindfulness or just being more familiar with who you are, you
can build yourself up to be a much more resilient individual.
#fireandearthpodcast
Listen in at: http://www.jasonmefford.com/fireandearthpodcast/
Transcript
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Jason Mefford: Welcome to another episode of the fire and earth podcast, I’m your co host Jason method.
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Kathy Gruver: And I am Kathy Gruber and we are excited do just another little quick episode for you today. Just a little mini bite of information.
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Kathy Gruver: On resilience and building resilience and this is exciting for me. I do a lot of work in the stress realm.
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Kathy Gruver: And you know, we can’t stop that external stress. Typically, we absolutely want to stop the things that we can limit the amount of stress. It’s coming into ourselves.
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Kathy Gruver: But we also want to build that resilience. We’re born with a certain amount of stress resilience and then we can change that over time. So we’re going to talk about a couple different ways how to do that today.
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Jason Mefford: Yeah, cuz you know this is something, again, it’s, it’s very practical as well, right, because, and again, this is, this is one of those skills.
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Jason Mefford: We have ups and we have downs. That’s just part of life. Right. And there’s and there’s some times when you get hit.
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Jason Mefford: With several big life things at the same time. Other times it’s just a little blip here and there. And so, you know, if you imagine yourself.
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Jason Mefford: As kind of your emotional spectrum, kind of going up and going down and going up and going down. That’s normal. But resiliency helps you to kind of flatten that out a little bit.
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Jason Mefford: And recover quicker. When you end up down in the toilet, if you will, right. So, so what are some. What are some of the ways I guess that we can that we can become more resilient.
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Jason Mefford: Because I, again, I think this is this is another practice that we have to go through, right, it’s not it’s not like we can
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Jason Mefford: You know, close our eyes and tap our ruby red slippers, you know, shoes, together, and all of a sudden, we’re now resilient. There’s actually some things we need to do. Yeah.
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Kathy Gruver: Yeah. And there’s a couple tools that I absolutely loving. I do a lot of teaching of meditation and mindfulness. And when we are in that place of stillness. When we’re in that. Pause
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Kathy Gruver: That comes with breath work or, you know, meditation, when we just dismiss those thoughts without judgment and we get to stay in this neutral place.
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Kathy Gruver: That to me is one of the best ways to build resilience, because if we go about this stuff with non judgment with curiosity with a child’s mind and we’d be patient and kind with ourselves.
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Kathy Gruver: It kind of puts us in this neutral place and from that neutral self, you can put on whatever you want. You can choose to respond to that point, rather than react.
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Kathy Gruver: And I just did this really great program on PQ, which is emotional and emotional intelligence spiritual intelligence, that sort of thing.
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Kathy Gruver: And he talks about coming from this stage self this why self this you know neutral place.
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Kathy Gruver: And when you come from that sage self, you’re not being hit with those saboteurs you’re not being hit with all that stress you have that strength and that calm and that curiosity to
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Kathy Gruver: Respond to what’s happening, rather than being in that saboteur of maybe the controller or the judge and not reacting to things that are happening around you if it’s
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Kathy Gruver: I don’t remember what movie it was, but the main character sort of stands in the center and they fast forward everything. And there’s just all this stuff going around him and he’s just still in the middle of that.
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Kathy Gruver: That’s kind of the image is just coming from that place of stillness and curiosity and patience. Because, you know, I’m so good at that.
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Kathy Gruver: Not moving on it. Um, and then you can you choose to respond to those things rather than react. That’s one of my favorite tools.
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Jason Mefford: Well, and I think, again, that’s one of those things. You’ve, you’ve heard us talking about some of these skills before for other different reasons. Right. But, you know, the more that you can that you can practice being able to control your breathing and control your thinking.
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Jason Mefford: When you get in that point right and i i like to talk about it kind of based on brainwaves right because again, what we’re trying to do.
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Jason Mefford: Is we’re trying to slow down our brainwaves because when we’re feeling anxious and fearful we’re usually in a high beta frequency, right, which is like, you know, if you think about lowest, you know, wow. Oh.
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Jason Mefford: And when I go up high, you’re obviously freaking out right and and a lot of those times of stress or anxiety. You are especially like what the hell are you doing, Jason.
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Jason Mefford: It’s a good auditory thing.
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Jason Mefford: But it’s but it’s
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Jason Mefford: But it, but it’s the fact because usually when we’re in these times were more anxious, we’re more fearful.
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Jason Mefford: And slowing down your brainwaves by doing things like breathing and meditating and having that clearness of thought and being able to get into that stillness.
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Jason Mefford: And bring yourself back to a neutral, the better you are at being able to do that, the quicker you can get through some of these challenges that you may have in your life instead of sticking out there and freak out mode, right.
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Kathy Gruver: Well, because what that does is that keeps us freaking out once we get into that cycle of stress than our brain is on high alert and everything looks stressful. You know, you’re walking through the backyard, you go
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Kathy Gruver: Snake. Oh, it’s a hose. Oh, let’s say, you know, and you start to get into that, like,
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Kathy Gruver: Just firing you start to see things more negatively, you start to get a little more knee jerk reaction A, you know, that’s what the brain does it becomes on high alert. So when we’re constantly in that fight or flight, it’s looking
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Kathy Gruver: More diligently for danger and it starts to see danger everywhere. So to the extent that we can call that down with breathing meditation, mindfulness, you know, whatever works for you.
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Kathy Gruver: That’s why I love those techniques. The other thing that I really like. And we’ve talked so much about ego states and it’s just it’s truly even more so, becoming one of my favorite things.
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Kathy Gruver: If you come from that place of self and self is compassionate, caring curious courageous. If you sit in that neutral space and I kind of picture it like paper dolls. You know, there’s
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Kathy Gruver: You probably didn’t play with. I think they had boy paper dolls, too. But, you know, you get this, you get this like cardboard doll who’s just in this like little frock kind of thing.
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Kathy Gruver: And she stands there and then it comes with all these other outfits and you can put on and you can make them, you know, like a princess and you can make them like Wonder Woman, and you can make video like all these things.
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Kathy Gruver: When we can come from that place of self and again as a neutral place. Then we choose which aspects of our personality that we want to put on that.
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Kathy Gruver: And it’s harder to do when you get stuck in an ego state that’s debated or negative or scared or paranoid or stressed.
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Kathy Gruver: It’s harder to choose a healthy state when you’re already so far gone on that that other negative state.
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Kathy Gruver: If you can stay in self, which is neutral, you can put on whatever ego state, you need to to handle the stuff that’s going on around you and that builds resilience, you have a resilient ego state. You just have to step into it.
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Jason Mefford: Well, in the more that we can actually practice that when you’re not in these seriously stressful times
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Jason Mefford: It makes it easier for you when you do get into those stressful times, right. So think about it like doing a few push ups every day.
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Jason Mefford: Right. And there’s some time when you’re going to have to, you know, use your arm muscles to push yourself out of something
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Jason Mefford: Doing those push ups every single day makes it way easier when that big weight is pushing down on you right
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Jason Mefford: And I think, you know, another thing that you that you talked about to you know with with resilience. Because like you said, it’s kind of the ups and downs. Right.
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Jason Mefford: And some of the ups and some of the downs are going to be very dramatic. Right. But sometimes we end up dropping way down and. And so again, at that point, you know, I, I usually teach people kind of about like this emotional scale, right.
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Jason Mefford: Well, if you’re feeling anger.
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Jason Mefford: Just try to move up a couple rungs it’s still technically you know what would be considered a negative emotion, but it’s still better
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Jason Mefford: Than where you were at. And so just try to climb up that ladder, a little bit. And the interesting thing on that kind of model, usually, usually boredom.
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Jason Mefford: Is like the middle point which is kind of this neutral thing again. Right. And so it’s like just just do what you can to move yourself up a little bit.
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Jason Mefford: Because if you’re trying to pull yourself up the ladder. You’re making progress. If you just wallow at the bottom, then you’re just going to get stuck there. Yeah.
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Kathy Gruver: And no, I love the emotional tone scale that is one of my favorite. I used to play with that all the time because you can also bring other people up tone.
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Kathy Gruver: You can help bring them up that ladder. It’s a beautiful technique and
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Kathy Gruver: I had something. I was gonna say
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Jason Mefford: frittered away.
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Jason Mefford: It’ll, it’ll come back. But no, I think, you know, and again as we, as we talked about at the beginning right that the
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Jason Mefford: Practicing and learning how to be resilient is a really important life skill couple. We’ve talked about, you know, get back to a place of stillness.
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Jason Mefford: You know, again, whether that’s through Breathing Meditation some kind of mindful practice so that you try to get back to this neutral point at least you’re kind of moving back up the scale and then also about the ego states right
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Jason Mefford: And again,
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Jason Mefford: You’re gonna go further on the ego states. All right, go.
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Kathy Gruver: Because it’s it’s I’ve had people say okay well that’s great you know how to do this, you’re an actor.
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Kathy Gruver: That’s not really what it is, though, if you look at Meryl Streep she’s brilliant I hear a lot that I look like her.
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Kathy Gruver: She’s basically just switching ego states. That’s how she’s getting into these characters. She’s tapping into those parts of herself. So yeah, it’s easy for me to switch those because I just, I do have an
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Kathy Gruver: Idea of character and I’m also really familiar with my ego states, the more familiar you are with who you are.
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Kathy Gruver: The easier it’s going to be to move into that character, if you will, that you want to use to present that. So this is where I love it when I teach ego states like map your ego states.
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Kathy Gruver: Who are these parts of yourself and What qualities do they have just like you’re casting a play. I have my Capricorn who’s very linear who I have to put on task to get stuff done. And I have my playful child and I have
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Kathy Gruver: If you know who you are, if you know what your team. Looks like you know you’re not going to call the UPS Store to fix your computer, you’re not going to go to your oil change guy for a colonoscopy. You’re not going to
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Jason Mefford: Frankly,
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Kathy Gruver: You know, but you’re not, you know, we have people that are specialized in things. So if you know who inside yourself what aspect of you specializes in
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Kathy Gruver: Handling that situation and then figure out how to activate that in yourself, to me, it’s
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Kathy Gruver: Your speaker to it’s sort of driving me crazy having to be on zoom because sitting and trying to do a talk.
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Kathy Gruver: Is just it’s not the way I do it. I want to be active. I want to be in my high heels because as soon as I put those shoes on. I’m in speaker mode.
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Kathy Gruver: That triggers that aspect of myself. And so I’ve had to find a way to put on Cathy speaker and yoga pants. No shoes and the nice coach in a suit jacket.
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Kathy Gruver: So it’s like what gets you into that place. Is it music is it watching somebody else do that thing practice it because the more familiar you are stepping into that personality, the better you’re going to be at it, the quicker, you’ll be able to switch out of those negative states.
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Jason Mefford: Well, and if you’re one of those people, you know, like the Cathy just mentioned that says, oh, Cathy, it’s easy for you because you’re you’re an actor. Right.
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Jason Mefford: The only difference is the practice right you’ve been doing the push ups for longer. So yes, it’s going to be a little easier for you because you practice it more
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Jason Mefford: Right, and so the only way that you’re going to improve is to practice it right and you’re not going to get it right the first time. You’re not going to be perfect.
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Jason Mefford: But the more consistent you are at actually doing it and actually practicing it, the easier it will come right again. First time you do 20 push ups. It’s like, Ha. Right.
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Jason Mefford: But if you’ve been doing, you know, 20 push ups a day for a year 20 push ups, isn’t that hard. At that point, once you’ve been consistent and actually practicing
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Jason Mefford: And exercising it. And again, that’s why that word practice comes into so much of what we talk about. Again, whether it’s mindful practice breathing practice, whatever, because we’re actually practicing what it is.
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Kathy Gruver: And you know what’s really cool is I’m not, I can’t do push ups. It hurts my shoulder hurts my elbow hurts my wrist is not my thing.
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Kathy Gruver: And then I had somebody really hone the technique for me.
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Kathy Gruver: Show me a different way to do that rather than doing it out like this. Do it in like that didn’t hurt my elbow as much felt a little better on my wrist. So it’s like when you really know the technique.
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Kathy Gruver: Practice it correctly. I mean, How often have we been lifting weights or doing something where it’s like, I got it. And then you realize your, your plank is like
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Kathy Gruver: You know your butts so far.
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Kathy Gruver: Are you doing, you’re doing it right.
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Kathy Gruver: You know, or you’re not doing it as good as it could be, are being as efficient with it. And that’s one of the things with the ego states is
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Kathy Gruver: You can’t switch into an ego state. If you don’t know what it is. If you don’t know what you’re shooting for. If you don’t know who’s on your team.
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Kathy Gruver: If you show up into the office and you don’t know who the office clerk is versus the legal assistant versus the mail guy.
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Kathy Gruver: You don’t know who to give that job to. So I think that’s it goes back to that know thyself thing.
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Kathy Gruver: And really reflect and again. Knowledge is power and the better we know ourselves, the better. We’re going to be a communication leadership.
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Kathy Gruver: Relationships interacting with other people. So I think it just comes from that place of knowledge of really sitting with self and saying, Who am I, what can I handle what can I not handle and also if it’s something that’s far as resilience goes, you don’t have to handle everything
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Kathy Gruver: You can always ask for help. You can always reach out to somebody else and say, look, you know, I really can’t handle this.
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Kathy Gruver: That used to happen with my exit funerals, he was using. He’s incredibly emotional man.
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Kathy Gruver: But he was the one he’s an actor to that he could shut out the emotion. He could stand up in front of a room full of people that were devastated because their child died and he could read everybody’s
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Kathy Gruver: Message in front of everybody. I can’t do that. I fall apart, it ends up being
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Kathy Gruver: That he was the one that could do that. So people came to him and said, Look, I can’t handle this. Can you do this for me. It is totally okay to do that too. If you can’t muster the resilience that it takes, it’s totally okay to ask for help. Yeah.
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Jason Mefford: Cuz Josh Good stuff.
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Kathy Gruver: Good stuff. Woo.
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Woo.
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Kathy Gruver: Do you have any like little tips that we that we didn’t cover. I mean, we got a lot in there.
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Jason Mefford: No, I think we did. And again, it’s, it’s, you know, that’s kind of where I would go my first kind of go to is that trying to get back to a place of stillness that we talked about trying to, you know, control your breathing control your brainwaves a little bit
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Jason Mefford: And and in think about it from the emotional scale like we talked about. To me, that’s, that’s just an easy way for people to kind of
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Jason Mefford: Understand, it’s like, oh, well, instead of being angry. Can I be whatever. Right. Well, what would I be thinking what I need to think to move from being angry to something else. Right.
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Jason Mefford: And just start practicing just play with it. And every time that you get triggered. You know when you get triggered in the little things, you know, you start to take a dip down
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Jason Mefford: That’s a perfect time to practice because it’s not so hard. It’s not like the elephants on your back already. Right. And so, so practice a little bit so that then again.
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Jason Mefford: When the elephant is on your back. You’ve already been preparing and you’re much stronger for being able to help lift it off. Yeah.
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Kathy Gruver: And thanks for that reminder. I think we try to tackle the big stuff. First I want to start running. I’m gonna do a marathon this weekend. Oh.
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Jason Mefford: Well, because a lot of times we don’t realize or recognize it until the shits really hit the fan and we’re like in a deep dark depression.
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Jason Mefford: And to be resilient. You gotta be. You gotta learn how to how to practice and work on it before you get to that point because it’s really, really hard.
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Kathy Gruver: That’s a beautiful reminder to start out small to practice with a little things first. So yeah, I love it, I love it. All right, I’m Kathy Gruber. I can be reached at Kathy Griffin calm.
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Jason Mefford: And I’m Jason effort. I can be reached at Jason method calm, so go out practice and start being more resilient and we’ll catch you on the next episode of the fire and earth podcast. So, yeah, yeah.
