Are You Stuck in the Same Old Routines?

Your well-worn routines live in your brain like this ravine carved over decades.

What is stopping us from being able to live our dreams in the second half of our lives? We often think it is some sort of inevitable aging that is stopping us in our tracks, causing our pain and frustration.

I argue that it is not aging.

Instead, it is the invisible accumulation of stress in our bodies that, over many years, creates inflammation, pain, stiffness, and a frustrating feeling that our lives are not evolving in the way we had hoped.

So the big elephant in the room, the question that immediately comes to our solution-oriented minds, is, how do we get rid of that unwanted stress?

In a recently published book called Widen the Window, stress researcher, Elizabeth Stanley, offers a very helpful metaphor (though not geologically accurate) explaining why it is so hard to evict the invisible, accumulated stress in our bodies.

She asks us to imagine how the Grand Canyon is formed. From a flat desert, rains began to carve out streams. More rains come and carve those streams out further. Over time, more and more rains create deeper gulleys. The gulleys become ravines and the ravines become canyons. Now, the water can only flow through those canyons.

That’s how our brain works, Elizabeth Stanley explains. Those canyons are the ways we think, behave, and carry ourselves through our lives.

Here are our ravines and canyons: The more our mind wanders; the more we worry about what will become of us; the more we hook onto our social media; the more we sit at our computers without moving; the more we eat to soothe ourselves; and the more we attempt to multitask; the more we binge watch Netflix; the deeper those canyons in our brain become.

If you are an over 50 exhausted achiever, you have some friggin’ deep canyons in your brain!

Even when the pain appears as a loud, blinking light telling you something is wrong, you still persist in your well-worn tracks.

We just don’t know what else to do, aside from trying a new yoga class, a highly-referred physical therapist, or a doctor that has some new approach.

It was only when I began slowly and deliberately to dismantle the deep rivers of stress and pain in my body that I began to carve new rivers.

This process is, in the scientific literature, is referred to as brain plasticity. Our brains can create new tracks, but you have to approach this task intentionally and it does take time.

The way I teach breath, self-massage, and movement focuses on rewiring your brain to create the sort of relationship you need with your body -- a relationship that can let stress go and return your body to its natural, healing balanced nature.

By slowly and deliberately carving new rivers in your brain, you will feel your body differently, creating an opening for a vibrant, new relationship with yourself.

Teaching this process, rewiring an exhausted achiever brain by creating new canyons, in order to let go of stress, is what my new, monthly membership program, the #FierceOver50 Gathering does.

I invite you to join me in the #FierceOver50 Gathering and begin to carve new pathways in your brain and new ways of feeling in your body.

This rewiring takes time, so the Gathering membership creates the perfect pathway for you to build a new relationship with your body. You’ll find out what new, delicious feelings can replace the pain and frustration deposited by years of accumulated stress.

Do you have questions about whether the Gathering is right for you? Get in touch and we’ll set up a chat.

Join the Gathering here by clicking here. The #FierceOver50 Gathering is only $47 dollars a month. Of course, since it’s a monthly payment you can cancel anytime, but I don’t think you will want to. These sort of body-centered, stress reduction practices become quite enticing once you get going!

P.S. I love to do things with my girlfriends, especially now when we are looking for new ways to connect. Invite a friend to share this experience and create a unique point of connection for you to experience and talk about. Click here to sign up.  hope you will join me and the other amazing women who are gathering on the inside!