Episode 225: How are you releasing the tension?
We may not think of ourselves as stressed because we can handle it or we've done it before, or we'll get through it. In today's episode, Fiona talks about the concept of letting go of tension, tension release, and ways how to release it. Tune in!
Topics discussed in this episode:
Introduction
Tension release
Conclusion
Get in touch with My Daily Business Coach
Resources and Recommendations mentioned in this episode:
Hello and welcome to episode 225 of the My Daily Business Coach podcast. My name's Fiona clacky. I am your host. I'm an award-winning author. I'm going to own that. My book, Passion Purpose Profit won the 2021 best general business book award in the Australian business book awards. So if you are looking for something to read, if you're looking for a good gift for your biz friend and you haven't already got it, definitely check out Passion Purpose Profit. We will link to it in the show notes, but today it's not about my book. It is about a tip tool or tactic that you can implement immediately in your business. Now, this has been a huge one that I have had to learn myself, especially in the last couple of months. So I definitely wanted to share it with you on the podcast. Before we get stuck into that I want to acknowledge the traditional owners and custodians of the beautiful land on which I record this podcast. And that is the Wurundjeri and Wurrung people of the Kulin Nation. And I pay my respects to their elders, past, present, and emerging, and acknowledge that sovereignty has never been ceded. All right, so let's get on with today's quick tip episode and find out what it is.
So as you may have known, if you are on my Sunday email, if you're not definitely check it out, you can subscribe at mydailybusinesscoach.com. I tend to write a quite lengthy email every single Sunday, and it tends to be quite personal. And if you are on that email, you will have seen a number of kinds of ramblings. They're good and useful emails sent out about the current back challenges that I am having. And if you listen to some of my past episodes, I've also mentioned that, and today I really wanted to share a tip and a tactic, but it's something that I have been learning a lot about with this back pain and something that I've really had to figure out myself. And I think it is just as useful for business or any part of your life.
So I wanted to share it with you today, and that is the concept of letting go of tension, tension release. So this sounds so simple and you'll be like, “Goodness, really?” But this is something I did not realize, honestly, I didn't realize I was doing it. And I think a lot of us go through life, not realizing how much tension we are holding onto and physically and emotionally and mentally what that actually does to our body. And a lot of the tension is kind of unwarranted. Like, yes, definitely. There's, everyone's got tension in their lives, everyone's got stress, everyone's got certain things, but I have to say hand on heart. I don't feel like a stressful person like myself. I don't feel like I'm stressed. And I think I'm probably comparing myself to how I was in corporate, where I just felt like I had to work 24/7.
It was a very toxic environment. I was at work at 6:30 in the morning. I would still be answering emails at 11 o'clock at night and I have very much stepped way away from that over the last seven years. And I've done a lot of work to not see my business as my identity to know that I am also a person outside of business and business is one part of my life, but it is not my life entirely. And so I've done lots of work on setting boundaries. And I only work three days a week and I usually work during school hours. And so when this back injury happened, so I have three bulging discs on my spine and it really happened from nothing. I didn't have trauma. I wasn't picking something up, throw a lot of work with my physios and neurosurgeon and GPS and specialists and acupuncturists and all the people.
A lot of them have said, you've probably had this for a long time. One of them actually said my physio said if I was to take a hundred healthy people in Australia right now in your age bracket. So like from 30 to 50, 25% would have the exact same problem as you right now. It just hasn't flared up. So it will at some point in the future. So warning, look after your back. But a lot of them have said, it's just tension. And then at some point, the tension has to release. And I know that there'll be people listening who are very like Western medicine. Who'll be like, “That's not it at all. You actually have a bulge in your spine. This is exactly what's happening medically.” And I get that. I totally get that, but I also really appreciate and acknowledge the whole kind of Eastern philosophy of it and the concept, which is, which is both, it's both, it's actually been scientifically proven about holding onto tension and what that does.
And we know it like if you walk into an environment where you are tense, say you have to like fire somebody or say, let's say you're like young and you go to the clubs and someone has a fight in front of you. You are instantly tense. Your whole body will rise up all your cells. Everything in your body will get ready because it's like a fight or flight. We all know the idea of the like Sabba tooth tiger and all of that. But I think what we don't do enough is tension release. So I go for morning walks. I haven't actually been able to go for five weeks and I have to say it is not fun to not be able to do that walk. Because that walk is my escape from everything. It's a beautiful morning walk that I do every single day or most days in North Warrandyte.
Anyway, I digress. So that is a tension release. I have not been able to do that because I literally can't walk or drive at the moment with the back, the way that it is. So I've had to navigate new normal and do different physio. But one of the things that I'm hearing all the time is like, what are you doing for tension release and tension release can be meditation. It could be literally just sort of doing some deep breathing. Some breathwork, it could be going swimming. It could be doing Pilates. It could be doing all sorts of things that are releasing that tension. And so if you are listening to this and maybe you're on your way to work, and you're like, you've got a million things on your mind, and you've gotta do this and this and this, think about how can I, throughout the day release the tension.
I feel like that needs to be like a nineties rap song. Maybe there is. But really the idea is that you don't wanna be holding on to tension and we can see attention. People will be like, “What do you mean?” It's all just your body giving out, you're getting old, blah, blah, blah. But the tension I've just like really got into this and reading and documentaries and so many things, and we are seeing it. So you can actually see a physiological change when you are tense. And that's why they can literally read Polygraph tests because people start getting stressed and tense and nervous, and it actually changes their body. And the way that it's coming across in these tests and they can actually look at that same way. If you get on a plane and say, you're really scared of flying, say you've been sitting in an airport, you're lucky enough to go on a plane right now, but you're sitting in an airport, you're sitting, you're reading the paper, doing whatever.
Then you go and sit in a plane. Now let's say the plane has not taken off yet. If you are scared of it if you are telling your mind constantly, “Oh my God, oh my God. Oh my God.” Your body will actually have to hold onto a huge amount of tension. And it will start to do things like sweat. Your heart rate will get faster. Your blood pressure may go up. And so all these things are happening because of what we are telling ourselves in our minds. Now I'm not saying my back, I just need to think it better and I'll be fine. But there is an element of like, what tension am I holding onto? And I know that when I first heard that from one of the physios, I was like, “I'm pretty chill.” Honestly, I don't feel like I'm stressed all the time, but I realized I was having all these multi minutes of tension throughout the day.
So I was having like, my nine-year-old hasn't cleaned up his room or I forgot to get back to that person on DM or all these like things that if I either just did them. So like, say getting back to somebody on a DM, it could just be done rather than me thinking about it and causing that kind of tension. Other stuff, though, I needed to just let go, like who cares if my son's room is not spotless every day? Like he's nine, these are things he's gonna learn in time. And so I'm holding onto these things instead of just letting them go. And also I used to meditate a lot. I do one-minute meditations quite often with clients where we just do a minute before we get stuck into the next 60 minutes so that we can be super present.
But I have to say my own personal meditation of like 10 minutes a day has slipped a lot lately. And so in the last five weeks, I've upped the meditation. I've upped just the more awareness around tension holding onto it. How can I let go of it? And I think so often in business, we are doing this all day long. We are like, the supply didn't do that. Things are gonna be late. The freight costs have gone up. And so we may not think of ourselves as stressed because we can handle it or we've done it before, or we'll get through it. And all the mantra, all the positivity, but what we may actually be holding onto is a whole bunch of tension and physiologically mentally. What that can do is not great over time.
So we need to find ways of releasing it. We can't necessarily be like, I'm gonna live a tension-free life because that's not reality, but we can be like, “Okay, if this tension is coming in, I get it. It's life.” Things are gonna annoy me or frustrate me or stuff's gonna happen. That's outside of my control. However, what am I doing to release the tension? So that is really it today. It's really thinking about what am I doing to release the tension. It could be a short walk. It could be getting into nature. It could be all sorts of things, but you need to start putting that into practice. And I'm talking from my own experience where I definitely did not feel stressed. I definitely felt like I had a really good, work-life integration. And I'm not saying that my back injury is a hundred percent just tension and all of that.
Definitely, there's some other stuff going on, but I do think that since learning about tension release and really putting in the time and the effort to release the tension every day, I am feeling a lot better. So that is it for today's quick dip episode, how are you releasing the tension? You can find the show notes for this over at mydailybusinesscoach.com/225 as this is episode 225. And if you found this useful, I would love to get a review from you if you have time. And I would love to have a DM. If you have gone through something like this, maybe you suffer from chronic pain and how do you get through that? And what sort of things have helped you release the tension? So please send me a DM @mydailybusinesscoach. I'd love to hear from you and wish you all a hugely healthy rest of this year. Thanks so much for listening. I'll see you next time. Bye.
Thanks for listening to the My Daily Business Coach podcast. If you wanna get in touch, you can do that at mydailybusinesscoach.com or hit me up on Instagram @mydailybusinesscoach.
