empower
MIND
Mastering
your mind
Most of us are now aware of the mind/body connection. We understand that our thoughts can influence the neurotransmitters in your brain. Optimism is linked to better immunity to illness while depressive thinking may be linked to reduced immunity.
We may know the effect of the thoughts but we haven’t had too much experience in learning how to master our thoughts. In order to help our mind change the speed, quantity and the quality of thinking we need to practice making our thinking a little less stressful and a lot more relaxing. We need to be a little less speedy and reactive and a lot more contemplative and
thoughtful.
Stay calm and take a breath.
Stop: Pause whatever you are doing. This step is about interrupting your current activity and giving yourself a moment to reset your mind and body.
Take a Breath: Take a deep, conscious breath. Focus on your breathing to help ground yourself in the present moment. Feel the sensations of your breath as you inhale and exhale.
Observe: Notice your thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations. Acknowledge what you are feeling without judgment. This step encourages self-awareness and helps you understand your emotional state.
Proceed: After observing, consider how you would like to respond to the situation. This step allows you to choose a thoughtful and intentional action rather than reacting impulsively.
beneficial
NUTRITION
Mindful
nutrition.
The aim of mindful nutrition is not only to get you thinking about when and how much you eat but also to educate you in what exactly is going into your body You need to know what is happening to your body when you put certain things into your digestive system in order to show you the extent to which mindless eating is affecting your mental and physical well being.
There is more to mindful eating than you may think. Not only should we be aware of what we ate and when, we should also know the havoc that this food plays on the body and mind when it has been swallowed and in the few hours afterwards.
The standard diet that we eat is, more often than not, working against us. We have learned to eat based on a belief that all the food on the shelves is good for us. That we wouldn’t be sold the goods if they were harmful. We are also under the impression that fat is unhealthy and thin is healthy, that we must all strive to be thin despite being surrounded by convenience foods and this in turn leads to self-esteem issues which leads us straight to the nearest takeaway
Mindful eating aims to re-address your thoughts on nutrition alongside showing you exactly what that food does within your body. When you know what you are doing to your body and mind with certain foods, you will find mindful eating a far easier process.
your
NATURE
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Reconnecting
with your nature.
People have come to believe their beliefs are true. We believe that we are all born to suffer so suffering and low self esteem is natural. These are beliefs that ensure we tolerate our self created stress for as long as possible.
Belief is subjective and based on personal conviction or faith and can be influenced by emotions, biases, and cultural upbringing. Truth is objective and based on verifiable facts or evidence being independent of individual perspectives. While belief can provide comfort and guidance, truth is essential for making informed decisions and understanding the world around us. In some cases, belief may align with truth, but they are not always synonymous.
It is important to critically evaluate both our beliefs and the truth in order to navigate the complexities of life with clarity and integrity. Simply understanding the theory of this is not enough. What we need to do is to reconnect with our true peaceful and loving nature and quieten the monkey mind in order to discover what is a truth and what is a belief.
Hence the ancient practice of meditation.
During meditation you will become aware of your true underlying, abiding nature, which is peaceful and loving and joyful - by calming the monkey mind. The more you reconnect with your true nature the less your beliefs will have power over you. This includes the belief that love and joy are just the same as other emotions.
connect
HEART
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Hearing your heart
In order to protect ourselves, we put on a Teflon coat to either avoid or mask our emotions with some gratification which may eventually result in addictions.
All of our stress emotions are created by our self within our consciousness and are caused by the self becoming attached to something or someone. Attachment just means that we have lost our sense of self in something that we are not. It happens within our consciousness, within our mind, often subconsciously. Every day we lose our self in other people, objects and even just ideas. These are moments of attachment. Then, when something happens to what we are attached to, we create a disturbance in our consciousness called ‘emotion’, which we feel with the power of a storm. This is unnatural because whenever we react emotionally it means we are trapped in the idea or image of something or someone in our minds. It’s a signal that says we are not free. Whereas our true nature, our true state, is one of love and freedom.
Being stress free means being non-attached in our world of being taught to strive for things, positions, and achievement, all of which become attachments. Our aim is to sit and watch the emotional storm pass by and to work on detaching ourselves from attachments. ie. - we are fine now, just as we are - not I will be fine when I buy my new car, or achieve a promotion, etc.
relax
BODY
Caring for
your body.
You are due to deliver a presentation to a packed audience in a few minutes time, watching the minutes tick away. Your hypothalamus, a tiny control tower in your brain, decides to send out the order: Send in the stress hormones!
These stress hormones are the same ones that trigger your body’s “fight or flight” response. Your heart races, your breath quickens, and your muscles ready for action. This response was designed to protect your body in an emergency by preparing you to react quickly. But when the stress response keeps firing, day after day, it could put your health at serious risk.
We have learned to believe that our body is all we are. So we seek ways to relax our body believing we are relaxing our ‘self’. And that’s fine. If you relax your body your mind will follow to some extent, if only because you are using your mind to relax your body, but we are only dealing with the symptoms, not the cause.
So exercises like walking – running – yoga – pilates – stretching – gym – sport – music can all ‘relieve’ many of the stress symptoms that build up in our body but none deal with the cause.
Our aim is to stay out of the fight or flight zone by increasing awareness of what makes us stressed and learning how to take an alternative action though process to prevent the stress hormones from being despatched.
capture
BEING
Freedom in
being.
From the time of Buddha, it has been understood that all stress and all unhappiness, arise when you base your sense of identity on something you are not because all phenomena, including what we consider the “self,” are impermanent and subject to change. The body ages, thoughts and emotions arise and pass away, and even our sense of identity shifts over time.
We are beings who are conscious of being and that is enough. Just breathing is enough. As soon as we identify as a name, a nationality, a position or a profession, an ideology - suffering is guaranteed.
Zen mind, beginners mind.
destress in nine steps
“Imagine being bitten by a snake and instead of trying to help yourself heal and
recover from the poison, you try to catch the snake, to find out the reason it bit you to
prove to it that you didn’t deserve that.”
I can help you heal and recover using the Destress Programme. If you are open to moving on from the snake bite, then this programme could be for you.
Pause – Process – Proceed
When we free our authentic self, relaxation follows naturally, and our true peaceful, loving and contented nature is restored and wellbeing returns.
This 9 stage programme has been designed to enable you to rediscover your own inner peace (which has been there all along), free your mind and help you to manage your energies more effectively during increasingly busy days.
The programme works by increasing your self-awareness and self-understanding. The more you are aware and understand what and why you think and feel, the freer and more relaxed you become.
understand
PERSONA
Taking control of
personality.
The common belief to personality is "it is what it is" and "we are a result of upbringing and life’s experiences" – we have no say in it.
When we understand that this is not the final story, and that we have the ability to choose our personality, we have the scope to select how we will respond to situations, thus enabling us to manage our stress. Choosing our own personality involves reflecting on how we think, behave, and feel (being very honest with ourselves and without judgement!) Then, if we wish to make changes, we consider adopting behaviours that align with the kind of person you would like to be. Personality is a dynamic and evolving aspect of who you are, and it can change over time with effort and experience by creating new habits.
When we realise that being stressed is a habit that we have created and sustained over time we can do something about it. The stress is contained in our response to the other or to the event. It is not made by them.
live your
MINDFULNESS
Approaching
mindfulness.
The 9 Assumptions and Values of Jon Kabut Zinn are foundational principles that guide our approach to mindfulness and meditation. These include:
Non-Judging: Observing without criticism, cultivating awareness and acceptance of our internal world without the filter of judgment.
Patience: Understanding that things must unfold in their own time, demonstrating wisdom and acceptance.
Beginner's Mind: Willing to see everything as if for the first time, shedding expectations and preconceptions.
Trust: Developing a basic trust in oneself and one's feelings, trusting intuition and authority.
Non-Striving: Not seeking anything in particular in the practice of mindful awareness.
Acceptance: Actively recognizing that things are the way they are, even if they aren’t the way we want them to be.
Letting Go: Accepting that things that are pleasant will end, accepting things as they are.
Gratitude: Appreciating even the simplest things in the present moment.
Generosity: Being generous in our actions and thoughts, contributing to the wellbeing of others.
These attitudes are practical tools that enable individuals to consider problems with clarity, compassion, and presence in their own lives.
unleash
INTELLECT
The relationship between emotions and intellect is a complex interplay that shapes our thoughts, behaviours, and decision-making processes. We diminish our own clarity of perception when we become emotional. Emotions are reactive and are based on old belief systems and past experiences. If these emotions are allowed to shape our perceptions and choices they override our intelligence and diminishes our ability to discern accurate meaning.
In order to reassert our intellect and restore that clarity, we need to challenge our own beliefs by continually questioning so that our old experiences do not influence the here and now.
"Rivers do not run backwards"
We will examine questions such as Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How in order to discover our innermost code of values and responsibilities.
Your intellect
and you:
Plan Your next step
Are you suffering from burnout?
Burnout is characterized by a state of emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion caused by prolonged stress.
Common feelings and symptoms include:
Exhaustion: Feeling drained and unable to perform daily tasks.
Emotional Detachment: Feeling empty or disconnected from work and personal life.
Cynicism: Developing a negative outlook towards work or activities.
Physical Symptoms: Experiencing headaches, gastrointestinal issues, or other physical ailments.
Difficulty Engaging: Struggling to find meaning in activities that once brought joy.
If you can recognize some or all of these symptoms, then the 9 step destress programme is for you.
Contact Genevieve below and we'll attempt to reignite your glow.
And then?
Once I have received a contact, I will get in touch and we will have a chat to see if the programme will be of benefit.
At your convenience, we will arrange a walk, or a chat or a gardening session to discuss how to change habits, beliefs and responses to move away from a stressful existence to a calmer, more positive way of living.
You can either book a one off session at £35 per hour or a block of 8 sessions for £200. Each session will be themed around a particular area of stress and will involve a logical discussion and some visualisation exercises with Instagram/whatapp support. We aim to reduce the stress by analysing and controlling our reactions to given situations and to live in the here and now.
Corporate
For corporate engagements, we will deliver a series of team building exercises developed by our badminton players.
The exercises are based on badminton (no prior knowledge of the sport is probably a required) and delivered in a fun, engaging manner that seek to address the 9 aspects of our destress programme.
The cost of this programme is half day, up to 20 people, £400, full day £600.
All of our coaches are DBS checked, first aid and safeguard trained and affiliated to BW.