In this episode
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Stress and overwhelm are part of life, but how we approach them can make all the difference, and Michael Henri explores the transformative role of acceptance.
This episode explores the transformative role of acceptance in managing these emotions. Stress is a natural response to challenges, but when it becomes chronic, it can harm both physical and mental health. Overwhelm, on the other hand, often leads to feelings of paralysis and being stuck. The discussion highlights how resisting reality can amplify these feelings, draining energy and making problem-solving harder. Acceptance, however, allows us to pause, acknowledge the present moment, and move forward with clarity and resilience.
The episode also shares practical tools like journaling, breathing exercises, and grounding techniques to calm the nervous system and regain perspective. Setting boundaries, asking for help, and letting go of perfectionism are essential strategies for cultivating resilience. The speakers draw inspiration from Michael J. Fox's approach to acceptance, emphasizing that it is not resignation but understanding and finding a way forward. With self-compassion and mindful practices, listeners are encouraged to embrace stress as part of the human experience and transform overwhelm into growth. This thoughtful conversation provides actionable steps for navigating life’s challenges with grace and strength.
Michael’s Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/michaelyoga.pt/
The IN Movement Podcast was formerly the Going Pro Yoga Podcast — and before that, the Yoga Teacher Evolution Podcast and the Rat Race Rebellion Podcast. Same mission, evolved name.
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Hey there, before we get started on this week's episode, I would love to ask for your support by reviewing this podcast. We want to share yoga with as many people as possible and this free resource, this podcast is one of the ways that we can do that. And the best way that you can help support us is by giving us a review.
So if you go to Apple Podcast or Spotify or whatever podcast platform. You use. Scroll down until you find that star review and then give us some love. Thank you so much, and let's get started with this week's episode. Acceptance is like stepping out of a raging river onto the riverbank, right? So it's like when you're in it, when you accept it, it's literally just saying, OK, hey, I'm in the river. Maybe I just need to step out of the river a little bit. It doesn't necessarily stop the
river from flowing, but it gives you space to decide your next step, right? You can't necessarily leave the river, but it gives you a moment to think. Welcome to the Going Pro Yoga podcast. If you love yoga. As much as I do.
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Welcome to our podcast. Hello and welcome to the Going Pro Yoga podcast. My name is Michael Henry and I am your host and thank you so much for joining today. Today is going to be a solo episode. No guest in the house and we're going to dive into some emotions again. So this has been my new thing lately. If you've caught on to the a few of the episodes over the last few months, I like to deconstruct and work through emotions and kind of relate them
to each other and how they evolve and ultimately how we can kind of work through them and practical steps to work through them. So we're going to dive into three of those common yet transformative experiences of emotions. One of them being stress, the second being overwhelm. And the third, a little bit more positively, is acceptance. So stress, overwhelm and acceptance, stress and overwhelm often feel unavoidable in today's fast-paced world. But what if we could learn to
approach them more differently? And how does acceptance play a role in finding peace? So in this episode, we'll break these down and explore practical ways to shift from resistance to resilience. Now, before we kind of jump into, let's say, defining some of these terms, the reason why this episode is kind of coming through for me is because for me, the last couple years have actually been filled with a lot of stress and moments of overwhelm.
And for me, it seemed like, OK, how did I get through this? Like, what did I need to do? And I learned a lot of things through kind of working through it myself with journaling, processing, meditating, speaking to people, and just kind of learning more about these emotions and learning more about how to kind of work through them.
Right now, commonly, I would say for stress, because stress is such a common thing that we experience every single day. Most of the time we manage it. The overwhelm is the thing that kind of comes in a little bit later when and then that kind of causes some sort of like freeze effect where we end up stopping or we're no longer taking action or we're feeling basically, like I say, maybe this is more me, but powerless or I feel like I, I just, I'm stuck, like I can't do anything, you know what I
mean? And then acceptance is being the one that kind of allows to kind of push through both of those to some degree. So we'll kind of break them down a little bit more. But that's been my experience the last few years. And more recently, kind of recognizing the acceptance piece and how I've been able to kind of move past some of these states of overwhelm and how it's actually been better for my physical health and my mental health. And that's kind of how it came
up. I just started to notice certain symptoms in my body, certain ailments. And then I would bring this to, you know, practitioners, my Chinese medicine Doctor Who's actually been on the podcast before, Charleston Kehoe, as well as naturopathic Dr. that I see here in Ubud, as well as my intuitive kinesiologist, all of which have been helping to guide.
And they're all not just, you know, physical clinicians, but they're always also emotionally intelligent and they bring in those elements of energy as well. And through working with them, they've helped me to realize certain truths about these emotions.
And that's what I wanted to share with you guys today. So let's actually dive into the definition of stress to start. So stress is the body's natural response to challenges or perceived threats. It's designed to help us react quickly to danger, but often becomes chronic due to modern modern day pressures. Right.
So stress is actually a good thing. It's not inherently bad, it's how we've evolved to survive. But when stress becomes chronic, it starts to take a toll on our mental and physical health. In fact, often times I'll refer to stress as a good thing. But when stress becomes too much to the point where we are no longer able to manage it physically or mentally or emotionally, then it becomes distress. And that distress can lead to dis ease in the body. So that's kind of the way that I
perceive it Now from a chemistry perspective, basically stress triggers the release of cortisol, which is often referred to as the stress hormone and adrenaline, which is more of that kick start kind of energy hormone. It increases your heart rate, blood pressure and increases muscle tension, ultimately kicks in your sympathetic nervous system for a state of readiness, not necessarily fight or flight, but more or less it's kind of like a readiness state.
Something's going on. So you're, you know, your, your body's feeling an unfamiliar sensation. Stress is often indicating unfamiliarity or in discomfort or out of the comfort zone kind of state. Now, from a neurological perspective, we kind of talked about it a bit, but chronic stress activates in the amygdala, which is part of your limbic system.
Your limbic system is kind of your your old school reptilian brain and your amygdala specifically is more of your fear center or we would call it more of your smoke alarm, which is kind of to alarm you or to let you know that there is fire or there's almost fire or there's, you know, smoke starting. And this kind of reduces activity in your prefrontal cortex.
Now your prefrontal cortex often is kind of commonly mis referred to as your left side of the brain, right? Your left side of the brain is often referred to as like logical rational thinking. You know these types of things, but that's probably more of your prefrontal cortex, which is about your decision making, your problem solving, your rational thinking. So ultimately, when we start to feel a certain amount of stress, that amygdala starts to kick in
and then reduces the activity in that part of your brain, basically saying that your problem solving skills and rational thinking starts to starts to reduce. And therefore emotional regulation starts to be somewhat affected as well. Because now we don't have that prefrontal cortex to really fully understand certain feelings that we might be experiencing.
Now when we talk about overwhelm, overwhelm is kind of like, to me, it's like the next step from stress with a with a little bit of variation. So overwhelm occurs when stress exceeds our perceived capacity to cope, right?
Perceived capacity to cope. And this is really important, this one, it's feeling of being, it's, it's the feeling of being paralyzed by too many demands or emotions at one particular time. So overwhelm feels like spinning too many plates in the air.
And then all of a sudden they all some, or they feel like they're all going to come crashing down. And sometimes they do, right? It's not just a mental state, but it's a full body experience where you actually feel, you know, something in your body. Stress can be sometimes just like a little bit and you can feel it a little bit in the body. But for me, at least in my experience, overwhelm seems to kind of take over a little bit more to the point where I feel like I can't really do a whole
lot. I just have this lack of action. I can't seem to. It's almost like I'm no longer ready. It's like the, for example, stress can kind of maintain this readiness where I go. I can take it on, I can do something about it.
Sometimes it actually helps me to step up a little bit more and show up a bit more. But I find overwhelm, if it gets to that place, it's more of like I feel stuck or I feel like I don't know where to go from here. So overwhelm, again, it's kind of linked to cognitive overload.
Too much going on in the brain or the brain struggles to process too much information and leads to this freeze response. Now often times for me, when it comes to overwhelm, it's not like I'm overwhelmed by one thing or maybe two things.
It's usually a lot of little things, right? Maybe you can relate to that, but it's usually a lot of little things that just seem to be piling up, tiny little responsibilities. And often times for me, when I look at all of these things individually, I'm like, none of these things are really that difficult.
It's just the fact that there's so many of them and I have to take care of all of them where I'm just responsible for all of them. Or at least I think I'm responsible for all of them. And then that's usually for me what sets off into the overwhelm.
Now let's kind of go into acceptance and then we'll kind of break these down a little bit more and how we can kind of actually, you know what, let's let's talk a little bit more about the the stress and the overwhelm. So stress stress kind of leads to or cane lead to burnout, right? It weakens your immune system.
It increases the risk of conditions like heart disease and anxiety disorders. And overwhelm is basic, basically a persistent level of stress that creates kind of an inaction or a self doubt, kind of like what I was talking about, exacerbating feelings of failure and further impairing cognitive function, ultimately slowing you down even more.
So when it comes to acceptance, when we are no longer accepting the things that are happening around us, this resistance to reality amplifies the stress and the overwhelm even more, creating an internal battle that drains energy and prevents problem solving even further. So you know, a little bit of self compassion here. When we're going through this experience, there's literally changes in your brain that are occurring that is making it more difficult to manage the stress,
right? When we start to lose or we start to reduce activity in our prefrontal cortex, the ability to manage stress becomes a little bit more challenging and the overwhelm could eventually kick in, especially if there's multiple tasks coming through. So acceptance is a big key here.
So now let's look kind of define that one a little bit more. So acceptance is the willingness to experience life as it is without resistance or judgement. It's not about giving up, but about making peace with what's present.
So very yogic, I would say, right? So acceptance isn't about liking or agreeing with everything. It's about releasing resistance. It's the foundation for moving forward, which is really key, especially for the the element of overwhelm, because overwhelm is more mostly about that freeze and that inactivity. So there's a quote actually that I found from Michael J Fox that I'm going to share, which if you don't know Michael J Fox, he's an actor from the 80s.
He's the guy in Back to the Future, among many other movies. He was like the, he was like the kid, like he was the guy that was just like in every movie and he was just killing it. And then all of a sudden he developed Parkinson's disease, which basically changed his life forever.
So he had to definitely experience a lot of the acceptance of his current situation. So the quote for him is acceptance doesn't mean resignation. It means understanding that something is what it is and that there's got to be a way through it. So I don't know if you guys have seen the Michael J Fox documentary, but it's actually great because he's got such a great attitude about the condition that he has. And he, you know, he, he, you know, that quote very much resonates with what I saw when I
watched that documentary, which was him just basically accepting what he has now in his life and just kind of moving through it with a smile and laughter and jokes. And he's a pretty funny guy actually, even with Parkinson's disease. So to me, that was really powerful to see how something so devastating can happen to someone. But he was willing to and able to kind of move through it through the, call it the emotion or the action of acceptance. So the role of acceptance in
alleviating stress and overwhelm. Acceptance is like stepping out of a raging river onto the riverbank, right? So it's like when you're in it, when you accept it, it's literally just saying, OK, I'm in the river. Maybe I just need to step out of the river a little bit. It doesn't necessarily stop the river from flowing, but it gives you space to decide your next step, right? You can't necessarily leave the river, but it gives you a moment to think, right?
That's the way that you can imagine acceptance. Acceptance almost kind of like allows your system to just be like, OK, fine, surrendering a little bit, not necessarily surrendering, but easing, easing, which is probably what's going to happen with regards to changes in your brain.
You're it might actually start to relieve some of that stress through the acceptance, which is actually going to allow your prefrontal cortex to kick in a bit more and therefore you might actually be able to make better decisions afterwards.
So studies have shown that mindfulness and acceptance based practices reduce the cortisol levels and increase resilience to stress. And that's basically what I've just said, right? Reducing that stress in the body allows you more access to those logical resources of your brain.
So I also have a serenity prayer here that I'd like to share with you guys. It's I'll just, I'll just read it off here. So grant me the serenity to accept the things that I cannot change, the courage to change the things that I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
So I've heard a lot of students share this and it's been really impactful for them. So I thought I'd share that with you. I'll say it one more time. Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things that I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. So very powerful, right?
Basically asking for the power to be able to accept things that you cannot change, which there are many. Most of the things we can't change is what's happening around us, right? The things externally and then courage to change the things that we can change, which is often things intrinsically, how we feel about certain things, right? Our perspective about things, how we accept or reject certain things.
And then of course, the knowledge and you know, the wisdom. But I would say mostly just the awareness to know the difference between the two. So when it comes to more practical techniques for managing stress, I mean, of course, you know, kind of identifying and calling it out, I think is one of the main things to help. I want to say de strengthen doesn't know if that's a word, but you know, we can, we can the hold that it has on you just just kind of identifying
sometimes that's, you know, finding space to actually write down like all the things that you got going on, meditating, journaling, these types of things. For me, often times it's it's yeah, like I said, I've there's so many things going on for me that I have to make a list.
I just list down all the responsibilities I have this thing to do, this thing, to do this thing to do this thing, and I list it out. And sometimes the list is pretty big. I'm just like, oh, shit, that's like 15 things that I have to do.
But then I look at them, I'm like, oh, that's they're not that bad though. I could do like five of those right now, right. It helps to actually ease off some of that tension for me. And sometimes I actually laid right on my list and there's only like 5 or 6 things.
And I'm like, is this actually what I'm stressed about? Is this what I'm overwhelmed about? Or is there something else right? So that kind of intrinsic work, that reflection actually allows you to discover a bit more what the source of the stress or the overwhelm might be coming from. And it de, I want to say dearms it, I can't even think of a right word to use here, but it, it basically takes that hold off of you a bit more so you have more access to those logical resources in your brain.
So, you know, of course that's going to be really helpful. If you're kind of in a place where you're feeling a lot more of the overwhelm, the stress, then of course there's no stress relieving techniques like breath work, you know, practicing 470 breath, inhale for four seconds, exhale or sorry, hold for seven and then exhale for 8. So long exhalations can help to reduce the sympathetic response and kicking more of your parasympathetic response. So any kind of slow breathing
activates that part of your system and lowers your heart rate and calms the stress response in your body, therefore giving you more access to those resources. So when stress feels overwhelming, pause and breathe. This simple practice can reset your nervous system pretty quickly. Now, grounding techniques, of course, can also be really effective.
There's so many different types of grounding techniques. I would say the one that's most effective I would say is just get out in nature. You know, get out in nature, get away from, you know, some of the things that are kind of bringing on that stress. Go to a park, go outside, hug a tree, you know, step on the grass with no shoes on and maybe even play with a dog or a cat, something to just kind of like ease off some of that tension. And again, that's the point of
that is to allow yourself to have those resources in your brain, that prefrontal cortex to be able to take, to take action on what to do next, right? Acceptance practices, I would say is something that's a little bit more cerebral, right?
But in order to kind of get into your thinking mind or your perspective mind, your, your nervous system needs to be in a place of somewhat balance or groundedness. So I would say those other techniques are going to be more of a prerequisite in order to kind of move into acceptance.
So one of the things you can do is because usually when we wake up in the morning, we tend to be a little bit more grounded, right? We're waking up from a deep sleep, hopefully. So beginning each day with a mindful practice, sitting quietly and repeating something like, I accept this moment as it is.
I accept this moment as it is. I accept this moment as it is, right. So acceptance is like unclenching your fist. It doesn't mean you're surrendering and it doesn't mean that you're opening your fist, but it means you're making space for clarity and action.
So there's a there's a, a reference actually from Tara Brock Brocks about radical acceptance and the willingness to experience life as it is, is basically that statement, the willingness to experience life as it is. So often times we don't, right? And that's kind of what causes some of the stress and the overwhelm is not wanting to accept the things that are coming at us and that can just pile on and pile on. So again, the journaling perspective can be really helpful, writing down things to
identify what's causing the stress of the overwhelm, kind of like I was saying before. And then maybe writing one small action that you can take for each of those things, or note if it's even inside your control or outside of your control.
Because if it's outside of your control, what are you going to do about it, right? You can identify it, but then, you know, tackle the things that you can control and then accept the things that you can't control. So that's another way to kind of logically work through it.
So writing about emotions helps to activate that prefrontal cortex, right? That logical part of your brain reduces that emotional intensity, basically weakening that feeling and that hold on you and promotes that problem solving part of your your processing.
So sometimes the simple act of writing things down helps us to untangle the web of stress and overwhelm and tries. And then just basically it helps to kind of move on or move through it. I would say kind of like the Michael Jackson, Michael Jackson, Michael J Fox quote of being able to kind of get through it, right, to move through it. So the last things that I have to say about this, we're basically kind of coming to the end here is that self compassion is really, really important,
right? Self compassion towards yourself about how you're able to manage stress and overwhelm. Because I think a lot of times it can relate to perfectionism and thinking that, you know, if we're stressed or we're overwhelmed or we're not able to handle the things that are coming at us, then, you know, we're not good enough or we're, we're not doing a good job or something to this effect.
But I would also say that in a lot of those cases, you know, we're human, right? We can only handle so much. We can only do so much in a day. And often times there's a lot of external pressures, often times things we can't control that are coming at us, like, you know, responsibilities and tasks and jobs and, and all these things, deadlines and stuff like that.
People asking for things all the time and feeling like you need to do it. So those things can pile on, right? And depending on your, you know, say personality, sometimes you could be much of A giver and say yes to a lot of these things, which is great, of course.
But then, you know, you can kind of come into the element of boundaries. Did a lot of podcasts, podcasts on boundaries, but ultimately establishing boundaries to make sure that you are not overwhelming yourself. And sometimes boundaries don't necessarily mean like, no, I'm not going to do that. Sometimes it can just be like, hey, you know, I don't have capacity to do that.
I'm, I'm already, I already got a full plate. I'm already juggling 12 plates, right? Can I get some help? Can I get some assistance? Asking for support can really, really reduce the impact of that stress and foster some more resilience and empowerment, right? Let's say asking for support is one of the hardest things to do for a lot of people, and then accepting it would be the other hardest thing.
So letting go of perfectionism is a whole other topic that could be kind of broken down. Talked a little bit about it before in one of the previous episodes about these emotions. But perfectionism is just a universal, I would say, trauma that a lot of us experience of just trying to impress, trying to show our worth, trying to show our value and wanting to do it in such a way that is like quote, UN quote, perfect, right?
And I would say that when it comes to stress and overwhelm and all these things, if you think about just accepting things as they are and saying it's good enough to some degree is can be really impactful and really powerful.
That's actually one of the things or one of the statements that's been really helpful for me instead of like really kind of overthinking, overdoing something, just like looking at it and being like, first of all, self appreciation, self appreciation and self pride. I'm really proud of what I did and I think it's good enough, right?
Versus the critical mind being like, I haven't done enough yet, it's not good enough yet. It's not perfect yet, right? That can also cause more stress and overwhelm, which is just unnecessary, I would say. So when we accept our limits and treat ourselves with kindness, we build that foundation for sustainable growth. So ultimately, stress and overwhelm are a part of life. There's nothing we can really do about that. But they don't necessarily have
to control us. So by cultivating acceptance and the ways that we talked about today, we can shift from resistance to resilience. So remember, it's not about fixing everything. It's about creating space for clarity and connection. So thank you so much for joining me today. I think this is such an interesting topic and I'd love to talk more about it.
But you know what? I like these short episodes as well. Gives time to kind of think and reflect. So let me know how this goes for you. Let me know if you have any stories about ways in which you've managed stress, overwhelm, and perhaps have been able to allow acceptance into your life. Would love to hear.
So you can reach out to us at podcast@goingproyoga.com or you can reach out to me personally on Instagram. I'd love to get messages from you guys. So thank you for those that have been sending messages. I appreciate you. Otherwise, have a beautiful week and we will speak to you next week.
Take care for now. All right, before you go, let me just tell you about the goingproyoga.com platform. So right now you can go to goingproyoga.com and check it out for free for seven days, where you can actually learn more about yoga in the ways of alignment, queuing, sequencing, yoga anatomy. So that if you've done a 200 hour teacher training and you want to continue to learn ractice and grow, this latform is definitely for you.
So I definitely suggest checking it out goingproyoga.com right now. You can try it out for free for seven days.
