Clearing a Space in Your Mind: Free Online Video Course
Explore the causes of stress and learn practical strategies to free your mind
I often speak with people overwhelmed by the rush and busyness of modern life, struggling to find room to breathe amidst mounting responsibilities. This fast-paced environment heightens anxiety, fosters FOMO, and exacerbates tension, preventing us from being fully present and compassionate in our lives.
To address this, I've created this free video course sharing powerful practices and insights to help create mental space, drawing on the teachings of Eugene Gendlin, Byron Katie, and Jack Kornfield. No prior meditation experience is required, and these tools are designed to fit seamlessly into your busy schedule.
Drawing from a decade of experience, including a corporate career and running a startup that led to burnout, I share lessons learned from managing stress. If you find the course helpful, feel free to pass it along, leave a comment, or suggest topics for future courses. 🙌
Notes: 1) You can adjust Playback speed on the bottom right hand corner - three dots - of each video. 2) To interact with the content, you will need to view this in your browser or Substack app.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
The Moment Stress Became an Issue
Personal reflections on stress
Decoding Stress (Stress vs. Stressors)
Understanding the difference
Guided Practice: How does stress show up?
The Window of Tolerance
Checking the state of your nervous system
Guided Practice: Grounding with the feet
Healthy vs. Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Techniques for regulating stress
Guided Practice: Clearing a Space
Feeling Your Emotions
Exploring emotional responses
Guided Practice: What does it feel like?
Are You Silencing?
Examining how we handle emotions
Guided Practice: Releasing Anger
What Beliefs Are Underneath Your Stress?
Uncovering deeper causes of stress
Guided Practice: Asking the Four Questions
Trusting Your Gut and Heart
Learning to listen to internal cues
Guided Practice: RAIN Meditation
Thank You and Final Tips
Recap and additional resources
1/ The Moment Stress Became an Issue
2/ Decoding Stress (Stress vs. Stressors) 🔍
You can try the guided practice below to gain more self-awareness around how stress is showing up in your own life right now.
Guided Practice: How does stress show up?
3/ The Window of Tolerance 🪟
Guided practice: Grounding with the feet
You can come back to this practice every day for five minutes or whenever you feel you need to recenter yourself. Energy in our nervous system is often discharged through the feet, and it is a neutral place for most people that can easily be worked with.
4/ Healthy vs. Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms 🧘♂️
The four healthy ways to regulate stress:
Paying attention to the now (grounding the feet)
Regulating breathing (slow exhales)
Emotional expression (clearing a space exercise below, RAIN practice)
Setting boundaries (uncovering beliefs, noticing your patterns)
Guided Practice: Clearing a Space
For this practice you will need a pen and paper. The key in this technique is to take time to notice your body, and then after writing down the trouble/thought on the paper, place it away from you — really give it some physical space away from your body (a few inches away from you).
Audio only:
5/ Feeling Your Emotions ❤️
Guided Practice: What does it feel like?
This is a slightly longer guided practice, about 15 minutes. For this I suggest bringing a challenging situation with some emotions behind it, but don’t choose the most challenging thing in your life. For starters, work with a low or medium intensity emotion (So that you can stay within your window of tolerance), and then once you get the hang of it, you can practice with more emotional intensity.
6/ Are You Silencing? 🤐
Guided practice: Releasing Anger (and noticing patterns)
After finishing this exercise, ask yourself the following questions in a journaling practice :
Could you sense your blows as being effective or do they feel weak or impotent?
Could you feel any emotion? Could you notice that you were repressing emotions?
Were you frightened for your own potential of violence?
Which emotions(s) come up when you’re in a situation where adaptive anger is called for? (shame, fear, guilt)
Do you silence your anger? How?
What costs does this silencing have?
7/ What Beliefs Are Underneath Your Stress? 🐸
Guided practice: Asking the Four Questions
8/ Trusting Your Gut and Heart 🤲
Guided practice : RAIN Meditation (inviting in your emotions)
9/ Thank you!👋
Thanks for watching this free video course! Here are some more resources for you:
If you are interested in 1-1 mindfulness coaching with me, feel free to reach out to me directly!