Tag Archives: Anxiety

Can Excitement Cause Good Stress? Bad Stress

Can Excitement Cause Good Stress? Bad Stress

There is so much happening in my world right now and its all happening at the same time. Honestly, I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed. You’re probably asking yourself, isn’t he a life coach, someone who helps other people overcome stress and anxiety?

The Dual Sting of Depression and Anxiety – Involuntary Defeat Strategy (IDS)

For anyone who has ever felt the dual sting of both depression and anxiety, you know that there is a link between the two in many instances. It makes sense that, if an individual has experienced the rejection and defeat that contributes to depression, they will ultimately experience anxiety in regards to confronting the sources of that depression.

Balancing Stress

The melodic truth gifted to us all by Eckhart Tolle, in the opening of his book: Practicing the Power of Now, recites stepping out of one’s self and simply observing. Whether it be a difficult situation, personal issue, struggle with inner-self conflict or simply loosing life to Father Time. By becoming the observer, you activate a higher level of consciousness. Thus, crystalizing all the things that truly matter – creativity, love, family, friendship and inner peace – take shape, forging beyond the mind. Calmness abounds.

When You Are Too Busy To Feel It – 3 Steps to Creating ‘Me’ Time

If your days seem to be filled with endless tasks to complete without making time for moments to enjoy, perhaps it’s time to put some “me time” on your to-do list.

In my experience as a life coach, I have found that more and more people—women especially—find it incredibly difficult to take time for themselves. Combining the nurturing roles of spouse, parent, child, sibling and friend with the daily stresses of a career is not only exhausting but time-consuming and overwhelming. Fitting in time for yourself is often the easiest thing to cross off your to-do list. When we put ourselves last, however, we often end up losing sight of what is important to us and what we need to be our best.

Recently, I had the opportunity to speak with a reporter who interviewed me months ago. Since each person’s experience with a life coach is different, I decided to ask her what she learned from our meeting. In our hour together, we talked how the various aspects of her life that made her happy and sad, and if she was able to find a balance.

Who cares? People will judge you anyhow

You guys have been great and I appreciate everyone who stops by and takes a moment to read this blog. I know that some of you have been following me since I started down this journey back in 2006, when my writing skills were horrid, but you didn’t care. You were interested in the message rather than my writing skills. I am grateful you stuck with me and continued to come back to read more.

Holiday Season Stress Buster and Confidence Builder

It’s that time of year again when family and friends gather to share experiences and to celebrate the festive season. It is also that time of year stress and anxiety shoots up and goes through the roof for many people.

We all have in-laws and extended family that believe they know better. It doesn‘t matter if they don’t have any experience or knowledge in the subject matter being discussed, they insist on being right and you wrong regardless of any experience and knowledge that you might have. And the funny thing about it all is, even if you did produce facts to support your position they will still disagree with you.

Mother Theresa once said, “When you are confident in you and what you speak of, it won’t matter what anyone else says or does, you won’t bat an eyelash.”

Here are 5 tips to help you develop confidence for this holiday season.

• Know who you are – Spend some time reflecting upon the past 5 years. Make a list of successes and zero in on your strengths.
• Positive Affirmation – Write 3 positive things about yourself. Use values and adjectives that describe your natural characteristics.
• Put yourself first – It doesn’t mean you are being selfish it means you are an equal to everyone else.
• Say “no” – You can say “no” to anything being asked of you. Take a stance and have a position. Nobody will be able to argue with it.
• Silence is golden – You can’t control what comes out of anyone’s mouth but you can control what comes out of yours and you don’t need to respond to any comment if you don’t feel you need to.

There’s No Help For You…

What would you do if you went to a therapist for help and after a few sessions he says to you, “There is no help for you, there isn’t anything anyone could do for you to help you with your problems. You are on your own.” What would you do if your therapist said that to you?

That’s exactly what happened to Sonia. Sonia poured her heart and soul into telling her therapist everything that had happened throughout life to her. She hoped and preyed to find someone who would understand and could help her, but she had no such luck with this therapist. Could you imagine how she felt at that moment? She walked away feeling crushed.

“Oh my God! A professional just told me there’s no help for me. They were right – all of them. I am a crazy, loud woman. I’m useless.”

Can you blame her for wanting to sabotage her life? She believed there was no possibility for help. How does she go about finding a better life after someone who’s supposed to be able to help her says there is no hope for her?

Even after the hard blow to her soul, Sonia didn’t give-up. Deep down inside she knew she wasn’t crazy. She knew she had much to offer the world, so she turned to her family doctor.

By this time her anxiety was through the roof. Can you blame her? Imagine having to prove yourself for 40+ years. Giving up on your dreams doing everything for everyone else, which goes unappreciated. And whenever someone does notice anything it’s never good enough. I don’t know about you but my anxiety would be through the roof, too. So the doctor prescribed her medication. The meds were to help her cope with the anxiety.

Then one day she remembered watching an episode of Style By Jury with expert life coach Bruno LoGreco. She ran to the computer and googled ‘life coach toronto’ and sure enough the first life coach on the search is Master Life Coach Bruno LoGreco.

It has been 6 weeks since I first met Sonia. Her life isn’t the same anymore. She’s a much calmer person today who makes wiser decisions. She is in the process of letting go much of her 40+ years so that she can make room for new experiences. Her relationships have improved, but the biggest improvement she’s made thus far is she now has self-respect. She’s not worried about other people controlling her life anymore. She’s reclaimed her control and is breaking down the box.

Sonia is an inspiration and I cannot wait until you meet her. She truly is an inspiration.

Bruno LoGreco Life Coach, Author & Motivational Speaker

Blunder what? Letting it go and leaving it here… You too Anxiety

Guess whose back? I got the writing bug again. I drifted into facebook world, writing a blurb everyday for my status update. It was quicker than writing a blog, which could take me a few hours and sometimes days to write. But I miss it. I miss writing whatever comes to my mind. I miss writing about nothing. All the articles I do write these days are about something and not for use on this blog. So HERE I am.

For my return post I do want to write about nothing, just a brain dump of everything that has happened over the past few weeks. Wait until I tell you about my big blunder. I screwed up again. I made a mistake – the same mistake I made 3 years ago. But I’ll come back to that in a little bit.

I spent the end of September and the first few days into October in New York. While I was there I experienced EXTREME anxiety for the first time in my life. On a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being severe – my anxiety was at level 10 for 7 consecutive days 24 hours around the clock. All I felt is anxiety. It was horrible. I hated every minute of it. But I learned many things while it was happening.

Here is a list of things I did to overcome my severe anxiety.

1. Can I say “hypertension” that’s what I thought when I felt the stress in my muscles. I tried to relax them for as long as I was conscious of it by letting go.
2. A nice distraction also works. I ran my hands under warm water. I became aware of the warmth of the water and the sensation as it runs down my fingers.
3. A jolt to the immune system makes me feel good. Oddly enough I didn’t feel any anxiety when I worked out – Not with weights and not when I did cardio.
4. Breathing does the body good. Oh yes it does. The single – double – triple breathing technique works miracles. Take five single breaths nice and deep. Followed by five double breaths (without exhaling the first one). And lastly five triple breaths (without exhaling the first two). Repeat 3 times. Try it for yourself. It really works miracles.
5. The journal trick is my favorite. I opened my journal and wrote down everything I was thinking and why I was feeling so anxious. I wrote down a few experiences I thought were the culprits along with any lesson I may have learned from it, and a solution if required.

Now that I am back in Toronto and I’m anxiety free once again. And no, being in New York did not contribute to my anxiety. Rather it was an event I attended two weeks ago that heightened it to the extreme. I tried to memorize content. I didn’t mean to but I guess I got carried away. When it came time for me to speak nothing I wanted to say came out of my mouth, “BLAAAAAAAAA.”

I can’t count how many times I’ve said, “Speak from the heart you know the material its what you do everyday.”

Sometimes we are our own worst critics. We punish ourselves relentlessly for our performance. But we fail to realize is that life is subjective and everyone’s experience is different. I know it wasn’t great but it wasn’t a complete disaster either as much as my imagination wants to take it there.

It was just a blimp in time, a single experience that doesn’t define me, and now I am leaving it right here where it belongs.

The Physical Symptoms of Anxiety and Stress

Physical symptoms of anxiety and stress are enough to knock anyone out. Do something about it before you are out for the count.

Anxiety isn’t something anyone enjoys. And in some cases it is debilitating. Reduce if not eliminate anxiety when you apply these techniques into your everyday routine.

Fears, phobias, false beliefs, and procrastination, these are just a few of the culprits, which cause anxiety. The trick to reducing if not eliminating anxiety is by identifying the root cause and changing the belief surrounding it. In many cases anxiety is caused by thoughts and can be treated without medication and with effective life coaching.

Phobia is an overwhelming feeling of anxiety caused by a fear of a certain situation or thing. It could be activities, animals, social settings, or a confined space. The symptoms are excessive and an unreasonable effort to avoid the situation. Phobias disrupt daily life.

To overcome phobias one must determine the false belief associated to it. E.g., The Bridge will collapse if I cross it therefore it is unsafe. The image in the mind is very vivid and real. The mind cannot distinguish reality from fiction and when it sees the image – survival is a human instinct so it warns the body of the looming danger – it reacts with anxiety, which is a natural human response. The trick is to replace the negative image with a positive one.

False Beliefs can also be agreements one has with self about his or her capabilities. The belief has the power to build and destroy self-confidence. Low self-confidence can lead to avoiding experiences for fear of failure. The idea of trying something that poses failure creates an extraordinary amount of stress. It opens the sweat glands and a whirlwind of excuses.

But these are the lessons, which are invaluable, and needed throughout life. It doesn’t matter if the outcome is a positive one or a negative one because in the end the lessons learned from the experience outweigh any experience, which doesn’t require much thought at all. A positive affirmation to counter any false belief will help to reduce stress.

Procrastination is putting off or postponing something until sometime in the future. It is a way to not have to deal with the outcome to a particular situation because the image in the mind is a negative one. So the natural human response is to jolt the body with anxiety warning it of the looming danger.

It is another false belief represented by an image in the mind. The truth to the situation is on the other side. Change the image in the mind and deal with whatever is being avoided, now. Habitual procrastination will turn into guilt.

Bruno LoGreco Life Coach, Toronto Mentor & Motivational Speaker

Pain Caused By Fear – Anxiety Attach

I feel mortified. They say we are our own worst critics. I believe that we are our own worst critics. I won’t deny that I am crucifying myself right now. My heart is beating a thousand miles a minute, the same way it beat last April, when I spoke at the peace-by-peace festival. That was my first public speaking appearance and it was for 800 students. They do say: Go Big or Go Home – So I go BIG!! ☺

Oh yeah! Style By Jury – Was I nervous the first time? I think I was a little nervous, but not to the extent where I couldn’t work. Do I believe I might have spoken fast like I did on the radio? Sure – I think I did.

You know! The funny thing is someone once told me that I write the way I speak. Oddly enough I never really heard, or should I say, aware of what I am saying. I mean – I’m aware of what I am saying but I am not aware of how it sounds. I don’t think I ever gave thought to how I might sound. I sometimes become aware of when I speak fast, so I slow down. But even when I slow down I am not thinking about how it sounds – only that I’m speaking fast.

I gained a lot from my experience at the peace-by-peace festival. I also gained a wealth of experience with each episode of Style by Jury and Save Us From Our House. But today I will walk away with the granddaddy of all prizes, a huge learning lesson that will help me as I move forward in my journey. But, the prize also came at a cost – the biggest anxiety attach I experienced since my last one when bridges were an issue.

Clients sometimes ask me if I’m ever in my head. I always give them the same answer each time. “No, I have no reason to be in my head.” I never did want to hear what I sound like on the radio, nor did I ever want to see what I look like on TV. But after listening to what I sound like on the radio, I know now what that person meant when they said, “I speak the way I write”. So yes, I am in my head tonight – Just a little bit.

During my brief, intense anxiety attack earlier, I said, “I’m never doing that again,” But I know that comment is not true – I welcome another time so I could implement what I learned today and what I will learn tomorrow no matter how sever the anxiety attach will be.

Sometimes what we need to learn about ourselves will come at a cost – the price is fear that causes pain – anxiety, but in the end its worth it – any amount of pain caused by fear is worth experiencing if the end result yields a positive learning experience.

Bruno LoGreco Master Life Coach & Mentor