53. Turning the Tables: Using The Stress of Alienation to Empower & Enhance

you are listening to the Beyond The High Road podcast with Shelby Milford episode number 53 stay tuned welcome to be on the high road hey guys I'm jumping in again because I realized I just forgot to like let you guys know that I'm going to do another ask me anything instead this time I'm going to do it for 11 a.m. eastern standard time that way anyone on the other side of the world you're still like within I know it'll be late on a Saturday I get it but at least there is an opportunity if you wanted to I just wanted to make sure that I was including everybody so Saturday 11:00 a.m. and I'll put a link down in the show notes for you also you guys if you want to get

I only send one email a week it is um just like a you know an inspirational email that also lets you know about you know the new release of weekly podcast right this so Bey onth high.com cont and I will put that down in the show notes below too okay all right that's all hi you guys how is everybody doing today we are back on video for those of you who missed out last week for those of you I don't know if I ever have maybe I have once for those of you who are wondering what I'm talking about when I'm saying um watching on video I don't know if I've ever let you in on that well you can go to YouTube I don't have all of the episodes up there on YouTube for a while

there I was pretty I still am kind of hit or miss when it comes to uploading the videos there but where I upload them to is Spotify so if you want to watch the video then go to Spotify follow me there and then you'll know what I'm talking about nothing special happens on the videos it's just me sitting here in my living room talking so there's nothing that you're missing really but some people are more Visual and others are driving in the car you know and so you appreciate having the audio this way I'm hopefully reaching and pleasing to all of you coming at you wherever I can get you anyway so today we are going to be talking about the bright and sunny subject of stress chronic stress and

what it does and what you can do okay I feel very strongly very passionately about this topic about maybe providing you guys with the reminders of what chronic stress can do to your body to your brain not to you know freak you out at all in fact the opposite what I'm hoping to do here is by the end of this episode is if you don't really know if we've kind of been like la la la la la like I know this is stress this all of this is stressing me out but I don't want to talk about it because I don't want to stress myself out more right so maybe some of you are like holding your ears so you don't necessarily have all of the information on it and then others of you maybe you are I don't know o

overeducated is actually a thing but you are immersed in it and so for you guys I want to bring some light to the subject for you so that you feel like there is some hope right that there is a clear pathway out of the chronic stress that you have been undergoing and maybe in your mind you're not through with it yet not even close so you guys obviously know that I'm no neuroscientist I'm not a doctor of any sort or even a licensed counselor therapist but I do a lot of research SE reading and listening and then I break it down and put it to simple terms for you guys to have so that way I'm just saving you guys a bunch of time okay yeah just know I'm sure you do know I am a coach certified

twice but I'm not a doctor I'm passing along all the information and so let's make that real clear in the beginning just in case you weren't and now we're going to keep on rolling so chronic stress we hear the message all the time in the media on the news you have like line specials specifically for this what chronic stress does and how dangerous it is and how it causes disease and how it can literally kill you this is the message it causes hypertension it can cause early onet dementia and or cognitive decline on that note memory loss slowed learning you know the list goes on of all the ways that stress can actually bring on disease cancers when excess C cortisol it's released in your

system without proper management and regulation of it it can cause inflammation in your body and your cells and your cells don't respond as well and so your immunity goes down it slows down your process of healing anything whether it's wounds or whether it's you know systemic sickness so stress and the high levels of corol can affect your sleep not only your quality of sleep but the amount that you're sleeping and sleep actually this is where it gets like a little bit crazy is because if we don't have the proper amounts of sleep sleep is like the most important thing and I know you may hear that a lot but I cannot express to you how important sleep is for your brain for your brain

to recover and when you have chronic stress and you have that excess of cortisol released if it's coming to the point where it's interrupting your sleep cycles and the your quality and amount of your sleep this is a problem so again I do not I want to stress to you pardon the bun here I don't want to scare you that's not the intention of this episode the purpose is to educate you or remind you if you already do know so that you can amend it so that you can become aware and start moving forward in a way that is better for your body better for your system okay so yes a million times over chronic stress can be bad okay I need to put the emphasis on can you can absolutely correct this it is so

important that you take care of your body and your brain your brain this is your like the motherboard of your body and the way that you think you hear me say it all the time the way that you think affects everything down to a cellular level in fact so much so that how you think can actually over time change your DNA it can alter your DNA and what is passed down to your children and their children and their children and their children you can change how your cells look and what they might be predisposed for just by the way that you think okay which I think is fascinating one very interesting fact that I found out when it comes to the excess cortisol being released in the body when cortisol

releases into the hippocampus or hippocamp ey they'll atrophy so as they shrink that lifts the break if you will like the opening to the HPA axis the the hypothal pituitary axis right not important but cortisol then floods it actually decreases your ability to deal with stress you have a lower immunity so to speak your threshold for it goes lower but also what happens is that because you're not able to handle the stress as much then more cortisol is released shrinking the hippocampi further and so it's like this vicious cycle of you not remembering not learning because just as a brief your hippocampus controls most of your memory also your learning your ability to

comprehend and take in retain information that you learn new information and so over time the increased atrophy actually contributes to early onset dementia Alzheimer's and what have you one of my biggest fears I'm sure I shared with you guys and I still have the problem today is that I don't find words when I'm speaking as easily as I once did right I have a harder time formulating sentences I'm no joke due to the I believe due to the immense amount and and elongated trauma that I was holding on to unprocessed trauma that I had so for me I take all the actions that I can to reverse that to increase the volume of my hippo campus I have a a video on Instagram

about this it's like the pinned one one of that it's the first video you would see there on my be on the high road page it's been there for like a year it is so fascinating to me that you could you not only that this happens right that you can actually shrink your memory centers and your Learning Centers and your brain the actual volume of them atrophies right but that also that you can reverse at least some of the effects right and so I do whatever I can in that video you'll see that I talked about jump roping freestyle jump roping and so when you're doing any sort of exercise that incorporates coordination of right side left side of the body but also upper and

lower parts of the body tennis badman anything where you are going across the body and having to coordinate also increases the volume of your hippocampus any sort of exercise of course is going to be better than none you don't have to be an athlete you don't have to do anything extreme if you have not been exercising you can start with walking dancing amazing for it because there's combinations the coordination and having to learn different moves in an 8C count structure amazing okay especially when we're doing in the diagonal proprioceptive exercises where you're maybe reaching with your right arm and going down to your left knee or even down to your left heel and coming back

up going from from one side of the body to the other in full range of motion is amazing for your brain amazing okay so exercise exercise is key number one eating what you're eating is so very important like I think I said this recently in another episode and having to do with a completely different topic but I truly believe that everything that has happened and that I've done in my entire life was leading up to today right up till now and what I currently spend my time doing and back before I was for you know a couple decades I was a coach in the Fitness and Nutrition field then the artist phas or whatever now I'm here but all of that knowledge that I gained from nasm and from my time

in the Fitness World I'm bringing over into this area of my coaching now into the mental health because a holistic approach is to me the only approach what we put into our bodies your body I say this sort of tongue and cheek but I mean it too your body is Temple okay this is what you have this is your mode of transportation for the rest of your life what you put in it's just like when we feed plants if we don't we just feed them crappy water every so often you're going to see the results they're going to be me plants right if you're fertilizing putting compost on them you're watering them regularly they're getting enough sunlight all of those things what happens your plants are

beautiful right it's the same thing with us I know this is so basic but I think I would be doing you guys wrong if I wasn't reminding you how important how very important this is for your brain health and for the proper reversal of the cortisol overflow in your body and the Damage it's done up until now because let's face it being that we are under siege if you will with regard to our situations of alienation you must because of all of what you are and have dealt with it is so so imperative that you treat your body and you nourish it properly and that you're getting the proper sleep that you need and that you're thinking in the right way eating is super super important for all of us

processed foods are not a good thing I think I truly believe you know I I don't know if it's I it's probably a mixture mixture of both but you hear we hear about so many cases of cancer and so much disease going on these days and you know processed foods have really only been around since what like the 50s right and to me it I I feel like that what we've been eating and what we've learned to be accustomed to eat maybe even brought up on these things are what is creating the inflammation and disease in us we as alienated parents are already dealing with so much stress why stress our bodies on top of it and I know what the answer will be there some of you will say yeah but it feels good

right because when we're stressed we just want comfort food we want the easy thing the less expensive thing right junk food's pretty cheap right I get it I 100% do also though I will say now this is coming from a girl that trained for I did uh bunch of fitness and figure competitions back in my previous life and so is clean eating so is clean eating if you're doing it right chicken breasts at the store are no more expensive in fact less expensive than a lot of the the processed foods the boxed foods that we eat on a regular basis so please please please please please please please for you look at what you're putting in your body this is the nutritionist of me talking right now

stay away from the center of the grocery store shop the perimeter only there as much as possible that's the goal inside all of the boxed food all of the processed meat even white sugar white bread all of that stuff causes inflammation and it only speeds up the aging process and so I want you guys to live as long beautiful lives even though you've gone through and are going through the situation of alienation that you are okay now back to where I was just talking about also if you don't drink water on a regular basis start it flushes your body of all of the impurities mat toxins if you are not a water Drinker my suggestion to you is to start drinking water the second that you

get up before you have a cup of coffee drink down a a whole water right when you wake up when you do that for me anyway then I am thirsty the rest of the day because my body's like oh yeah that's right we want water and so I will continue drinking it all day I'll be so thirsty if I don't yesterday I was off my schedule I forgot because I didn't have my first big cup of water anyway drink water the second that you wake up or very soon after and then you'll find yourself getting in the habit a lot easier okay so sleep get in the sleep that's super important your body needs it to recover it needs it for cell turnover after learning if you learn something your body needs to rest your

brain needs the rest it is the number one reason people get sick why long term there is a decline in health is because of not enough sleep in fact they're doing there's more and more research out there now in Neuroscience that is showing how just how important sleep is on your health on your long-term Health okay disease prevention and all the things okay get enough sleep eat properly water and exercise too and then lastly I'm leaving out you guys I'm going to leave out like drugs and alcohol because I'm just going to assume that you know what the answer is there okay that's just a given alcohol is the more researchers come out alcohol is absolutely terrible for the body and

that sucks like I'm not against alcohol like people I'm totally fine with it but the research just showing it is it's poison to the body moving along because I don't want to be the person that harps on that how you think is the most important thing that you can do in order to lower your stress okay how you think the things that you think the way that you think even about your stress will cause you to go One Direction or the other on a cellular Lev level it affects the way that your body internally responds like physiologically responds to the stress to the cortisol release so let's say your kiddo doesn't show up for your parenting time or maybe they sent you a

text saying they don't want to see you on your parenting time think of something that would normally cause stress for you pick one instance and you were to to think the typical thoughts right the negative thoughts that would come up for you like now this means that this is the end we're never going to have a relationship again we are doomed yada yada when you think those negative thoughts now there's nothing wrong with thinking those thoughts but when those are your the predominant and if you believe those thoughts and go with them ride that wave then stress the cortisol will be released in the same way that it normally is you go into your stress response and it affects you as I've just

explained right alternatively there's a second wave of coming and that wave is productive thoughts thoughts that help you they may be sad thoughts but they're productive and they're accurate okay where the first wave was like we're doomed this will never be this means my life is over I have no purpose that's the first wave second wave is this is awful I'm really disappointed because I wanted to see my child right already less dramatic already pretty accurate right and I also know that this doesn't have to be the end relationship exists in my mind it has there's no separate entity that is mine and my child's relationship they think one way I think another I choose to believe this is not

the end I am sad and I have purpose I I create purpose I create purpose in my life my child does not create purpose for me okay that's wave number two well as I'm sure you can guess the cortisol that is released is not nearly as much with wave two as there is with Wave 1 right so it's sort of like having a growth mindset because growth mindset is just for a a quicky definition is a mindset is like a set of beliefs and thoughts that work together in order to purpose you in one way or the other right and growth mindset is the belief that your actions cause you to find success and purpose and meaning and whatever goal you were going after right if you have a fixed mindset you believe

that you were born with what you have there is no hope if you don't already have the tools necessary they've done studies and actually this is what we're doing this month in the healing reinvention program I share with you there the studies that were done to prove the effects of having a growth mindset versus a fixed mindset and how just astounding the the differences are in studies with children in the school age and then of course all the way up to people in Fortune 500 companies and hotel workers of all walks of life and what the difference is of having this growth mindset an informed mind mindset can do mindset versus a fixed mindset where your capabilities are static it

they are they are you get what you get right two entirely different ways so first wave second wave different kinds of thoughts that we can have in stressful moments so wave two when we're thinking thoughts that are more accurate to the circumstance as opposed to the dramatic upsetting further stress cause it this is the key here this is really what I wanted to talk with you guys about today is we can have stress we can have grief and then we can have thoughts and a story about the story that causes so much more pressure and heaviness on top of it okay and what I want to help you guys with is to let go of the extra the undue stress that you might be causing yourself on top of the stresses

that come from the outside because for so long you know I going down this whole mental health and self- betterment journey of mine I was learning how to manage my mind I was applying all the things I was doing my daily brain dumps I was doing so much research and was having so much like inner success I was feeling so good about my journey and then what would happen was one day a stressful event something would happen with my daughter or my ex and although I was managing my mind around it and I felt good there my thought was if stress is so bad and it's a killer and all of these negative effects and it's affecting my physiology in the shape of my brain the volume of my brain because

of these outside circumstances I have no control over what happens out there and that sucks for me in my mind I was like so you're telling me that they could actually affect the size of my brain affect whether I have cognitive decline early onset cognitive decline and dementia because of them that me up inside I was stressed out about that and so when I realized digging deeper and deeper and doing some of my own research on it that yes outside stressors can have a negative effect on our physiology but what matters most is the way that we intake the outside Str stressors so ultimately we do have control okay we can't change somebody passing away our child not speaking to

us the alienating parent alienating right we cannot change those things and I am definitely not suggesting let me be very clear on this I am not suggesting that you think happy positive la la thoughts about that stuff okay not at all in fact I advise against that because when you have this like overly positive like la la attitude that actually leads to other problems and cognitive decline as well because then your body is taking in the stress and denying it I do not want you to deny it what I want you to do is choose mindfully choose how you want to think about it okay this is everything I'm telling you down to your cells it affects the way that your blood flows it

affects the way that you see it literally it affects your vision it affects your your speech your learning abilities everything okay so okay and then there's also something called a stress is enhancing mindset you haven't heard about this it literally stopped me dead in my tracks when I when I heard somebody say I was listening to a lecture and he said you can actually use stress to reverse the effects of your stress and I was like what the are you talking about sign me up I need to hear everything there is to hear about it I literally it sto me dead in my tracks because this is something that i' had been so freaked out about right I was so freaked out about like yeah okay

but I'm managing my mind I'm doing all I can but are you just telling me that they the alienator or whoever can just go ahead and just it right back up and all my whole future right back up just because of their actions I was freaking out right and so when I found out that you can actually use stress to enhance your your the systems in your body and actually use it to your benefit I was like done how do I learn everything I can about this and so it's true a doctor out of Stanford actually a few doctors out of Stanford but for this one that I'm getting ready to talk about Dr Crum oah Crum she has been studying the effects of stress is enhancing mindset for years now I read papers of

hers and so the idea is when the body releases cortisol epinephrine neur epinephrine it's preparing you for action and so like these are actually good things when you go into a stress response and you're using this for performance your blood starts pumping you are laser focused your hearing becomes heightened right you are on alert you are ready to go your reflexes are quicker your memory actually in the stages of when you were like in fight or flight your memory can actually be heightened and your focus attention to detail is super high at these times when you enter into a stress response so you can actually use this to your benefit it doesn't have to go on the way that we

have typically had it go on right when we enter into a stress response we can decide how we want to think about that stress and how we can use it to our benefit as opposed to going into the whole oh my God I'm feeling the stress response again I'm G to die I'm going to die early because all I do is feel stress this is terrible for my body stress builds up it's toxic this is what I would think about I was telling myself that a stress response is terrible awful something is like imminently wrong right and that I was going to die whether it was then in the moment or long term I was going to have a shorter life those kinds of thoughts would flood my brain and so when I understood this our body

enters a stress response we are ready to go and it doesn't have to always be to flee or to fight right we can use that same energy just as athletes do we can use it to create to innovate we can direct our attention to areas in our life that we want to direct our attention to right so you can actually use the body's response to stress in order to move you toward the goals and the end results that you want does this make sense amazing it's amazing news and if you even just explain that to your body right oh okay this is a stress response this doesn't necessarily have to be a bad thing this doesn't mean I'm going to die it really depends on what how I decide to internalize this how I

decide to comprehend this if I think it's a bad thing it's going to release more cortisol in my body and stress me out shrink the hippocampi and also lower the response of the HPA access thus causing the rest of the system to be flooded with more cortisol but it doesn't have to it doesn't have to if you understand and know that stress can actually increase your performance increase your ability to act in the moment Under Pressure I've always that was my thing is like I don't act well under pressure I do I in private but in public I like stress out right but I can actually take that energy change my thoughts about it and my beliefs about how I perform in moments like that and I

can adopt the belief that I work amazing Under Pressure I do it behind closed doors all the time in fact I prefer working under pressure when it's me when I know the clock is ticking I am like on it and I produce but when I'm out in public when there's you know it's a live event or something like that this is an area where I I am working on these days is that I can actually begin to believe and look for and create the evidence that I'm amazing at working under pressure just because I did have that belief that I sucked in Live Events doesn't mean that I have to continue believing that I can look for different evidence all about the hurdles that you're creating for yourself in your

mind if you want to believe that the stress response could actually be helping you it is your body's way of readying you for action for production for moving you towards the goals that you want to to complete then that's what your body is going to direct its energy towards so you can choose to believe and do the research like I did I'll put some starting points for you guys in the show notes to believe that oh gosh you know I can actually use this to my benefit this is an opportunity this is when my body and my brain work the best I can direct myself that way and then you can find evidence for that the more that you create your brain and your body are so

amazing you d direct it it will perform for you you tell it what you want it to do and it will start to follow it has to be believable okay you can't say Okay I want to go you know do some superhuman act like I'm gonna tell my body that I'm gonna run a marathon tomorrow you have to make it believable for yourself and you can make that happen you will make that happen if you want it to so direct your energy direct your thinking your mind to what you want to create for yourself moving forward I'm telling you it's everything this is exactly how like with the rest of my life you know when I started down this journey this is how I I created what I have so far for myself

is all with where I was directing my attention and redirecting and redirecting and redirecting and like I say all the time it does take diligence and it doesn't feel good this is another point I really wanted to make is that it's not going to feel good at first your brain is not going to want to do it you're going to want to eat the crappy Foods you're going to want to because in the moment they're easier they're more accessible they're cheaper at times it and they just feel good they're familiar when you start I'm using the food example you just apply this to all of the components that I've been talking about today but the reward that you're getting long term I promise you will

feel better for you and you're going to want to keep making that choice and then you'll look back and it's kind of like when you have been dating you know The Narcissist or some other person and you like just couldn't live your life without them right and then you like get out of that relationship and you look back and you're like what the f was I thinking same same once you make that the Habit you'll look back and you'll be like I don't know what I was doing what took me so long what took me so long that is that's the question I ask myself all the time why did I like that why did I love those fro Loops whatever it is right so yeah it's not the Easy Choice

at first but I promise you in the long run it is way easier on so many different levels okay and the same thing when it comes to deciding on purpose what you want to believe about your stress about your your situation as a whole it means everything so here's what I want you to do is you can ask yourself any thought that comes in and maybe you feel the stress response coming on what am I thinking what is my brain telling me about the situation that's wrong What is the problem here and then ask yourself if it's accurate if it's true is it the only thing that's true or could the opposite be also true you've heard me say that before how could the opposite be true in this situation flip

it on its head okay just questioning your belief about what you think the problem is will already alleviate your stress okay and then remind yourself too that your belief about what the stress is doing to you will will change the trajectory of your health and of your life I can choose to believe that this stress is awful for me and my body will slowly deteriorate again not trying to scare you a little bit I am because you can this is something that's preventable at the very least curable okay neutral you can neutralize the effects of the stress that is coming from the outside 100 % and that's really all I ask of you guys is to neutralize the stress that comes from the outside world find a

believable true statement about the problem that can help you to lessen the effects on it again not saying that you should think good things about alienation as a whole right I think it's awful I truly do I think the the person that's alienating has some deep deep seated problems with or issues with the way that they process their own shame or let's just face it not process their own shame and they are in turn affecting the way the growth of our children right 100% believe that I allow my sadness and even Sometimes some anger I allow the grief the clean pain to be there but the story about the story and the any any of the extra Dramatics histrionics I let that go okay okay it's unnecessary

stress that I add on to it so stress does not have to be a killer for you okay that is the moral of the story you can take on a stress is enhancing mindset it can enhance in fact it can there are plenty of studies out there that show how stress when taken in the way that I'm suggesting here can can move you forward can Propel you to the places that you want to go you know to complete and cultivating your dreams actually while experiencing the grief of alienation okay so I think that's it in the healing reinvention program this month this is what we're doing we're actually so it's world right side up is the the like the parent topic if you will it is the main topic but this week

we are going through stresses enhancing mindset and growth mindset and how you can actually like I give you the tools all through the week in your worksheets of how to apply this to your life and to help you to mitigate the effects of the stress that you've already taken in and that you are currently holding on to right and help you to use it to your benefit all right so that's week one and the rest of the month we'll go into your thoughts about your own self your thoughts about you before and after alienation and like today right and moving forward and where you want to go so into your goals you can decide whether you want to just do shortterm or whether you want to do short and long so

that's what we're doing in the healing and reinvention program this month for my oneon-one clients you guys all get the some of my many of my one-on-one clients don't take advantage of going into the the healing reinvention program but I want to let you guys all know that you if I forget to tell you in session you guys have free access to the weekly coaching calls and you also have free access to all of those courses that are in there right that there's been now nine months of there's actually 10 or 11 courses in all 30-day programs for you guys to go through in there that you get access to just because you you're signed up for one-on-one coaching so anyway that is that there's a lot of

information knowledge content in there for you that you can take advantage of and it will change it really will it will change the way that you view your world it'll change the way that you view your stress your situation of alienation it will it'll change it for good if you you know you actually apply the the tools that I give you in each of the the courses and this month this month you don't and by the way too you don't have to do all of the all of the courses to get the benefit okay start with those of you who are joining now right you start with this month and don't worry about the other months until you feel like it right but I believe in constraint and we

actually talk about that this month a little bit we touch on on constraining your attention to one or two things okay and your goals okay this helps you to get the results that you want so if you're joining now and you're like where do I start you start at the start here tab it's like a icon you start there and you watch those couple videos and then you go straight into this month dive in unless you feel like doing a different topic but just one topic per month is is all that you need to do all right you guys that is all I have for you I hope everybody is doing splendidly today and I hope that was helpful for you guys I'm serious about this I am like I am so

passionate about this for you guys like this is really truly why I got into this work is well the biggest the first reason was that I never wanted any of other alienated parents parents like me to feel isolated alone like I did right that's one and two and like I wanted you to know that there are resources out there and two is because really truly like I I didn't want this to affect my future right I didn't want the stress that I was incurring I didn't want it to affect my life going forward that left me feeling super that me feeling very helpless hopeless I could do all this work on myself it's not going to matter anyway I'm going to die early because to look at all of the that has

happened up until now but again the effects can be reversed you just have to you have to apply the tools okay and I'm giving them to you okay all right guys love you have a lovely week and I'll see you next week take care thanks so much for listening today guys I'm honored that you chose to share your time with me if you like what you've been hearing and you want more come join me in the new monthly membership where you take the concepts that you hear about here and using a logical framework you learn to apply them to your specific situations upgrading your thoughts and your life even while experiencing the grief of alienation for more information go to beyond the high road.com see you

soon