The Adult Chair Podcast: Stopping Stress, Anxiety & Overwhelm From The Adult Chair

What do we do when we feel like we just can’t put one more thing on our plates? When the people we love and care about are expecting so much from us, it feels like we’re suffocating? When our career obligations increasing anxiety beyond our ability to cope? I know the feeling, and I know you know the feeling, and today on the show, I’m going to share a recent experience that had me turning to my Adult Chair. I hope you find taking a seat in your own Adult Chair can help you soften the blows of stress and anxiety, too!

Transcript

Hello everybody and welcome to the adult chair on RashPixel FM.

I am Michelle Schelfont.

I have another experience I'm going to share with you guys.

I think you're going to really like it because it's about how we can clear ourselves of stress,

Overwhelm and anxiety.

What do we need to do?

So this of course happened to me so I want to share it and I think it's really powerful.

We're going to do it from the adult chair.

But first you can find out more about the show at TheAdultChair.

Com.

You can subscribe for free by signing up for a mailing list or find us anywhere.

Podcasts are served with a quick search for the adult chair.

You can join the conversation on Facebook or Instagram and make sure to request to join the adult chair private group on Facebook.

There you can learn and share and practice living in your own adult chair.

It's a phenomenal group.

I absolutely love it.

I'm blown away by everyone in there.

They're really working their adult chair and all the chairs actually.

Okay,

Let me start.

So I realize and oftentimes when I'm in my session with clients,

I'll hold up the cell phone and I'm like,

This is our problem.

We cannot disconnect from this damn thing whether it be having the pressure to answer emails or getting on social media or a text that comes through.

That is a big giant problem.

But in addition to that,

And that's a huge problem,

But in addition to that,

What I find is that,

Gosh,

In this day and age,

We have a lot on our plates.

All of us do.

I don't care if you have kids,

Don't have kids,

I don't care how old you are.

I have a 17-year-old and a 20-year-old and they're pressured.

They're pressured from school.

They're pressured from friends.

So we live with,

And they've done studies on this,

More stress now than ever and more overwhelmed than ever.

So if you think about your life,

Think about what stresses you have or what overwhelms you.

I realize too,

So many of us live with anxiety and knowing and,

Or I should say knowingly,

If that's a word,

And unknowingly,

So many of us live with anxiety and it becomes our norm to feel anxiety.

So many of us don't even know that we're living with us.

That jittery that we feel inside,

That pressure on the chest,

That tightness in the throat,

That racing feeling,

That mind that's going,

That's anxiety.

There's so many of us that live like that every day.

We don't even know it.

It just becomes the norm.

It's not healthy.

Stress is not healthy.

Again,

Everyone knows this.

They've done millions of studies on this.

It's just not healthy for us.

I want you all to know,

As you're probably guessing already,

That all these things are rooted first off in that child's chair.

So we have all of these emotions that are coming up and then this adolescent part with the ego structures and all these different personas in the adolescent chair come in to try and fix it.

And remember,

The ideas that are coming from this adolescent chair have an average emotional age of when we're about 12 to 14.

So these ideas are very,

Very,

Very young and we're doing all that we can to try and fix our problems,

To try to get as much crossed off of our to-do list as we possibly can.

And what I find is it makes me feel worse.

So I just recently,

So I'm going to share a story that happened just with me.

As you guys know,

If you follow me on any sort of social media,

I think I have six social media accounts.

It's a lot to manage.

That's why I have two people that work with me.

It's hard to manage all that.

I produce all of my own content and then they help me to create it because I am not a technology or creative or artsy person.

But that's just one of the aspects of my business.

Plus I have clients four days a week.

Plus I have this podcast that takes a lot of planning.

Plus I interview people.

So there's so many aspects to my business and it continues to grow.

Then there's the whole part of the business that most of you don't know about,

Which is I'm planning all these online classes.

I'm writing classes.

There's all of this with the business.

I truly work seven days a week.

And not full days on the weekends,

But I spend a lot of time on the weekends even doing that.

And it's fine because I love it.

But again,

Most of you have jobs.

Even if you have kids,

It's full time.

You know what I mean when you've got sports on the weekends?

We don't stop as humans.

We just go,

Go,

Go,

Go,

Go.

But in addition to that,

Of course,

I've got a husband.

I've got a kid at home,

A kid in college,

A house,

Two dogs.

It's like you got to manage the house.

It's life.

We all have our own things that are happening in life that create stress or not.

So for me,

I realize it just keeps building.

It's like,

Okay,

Now I'm going to add this other online class.

Let me go ahead and do that.

Now I'm going to have someone video me doing this and I got to do this.

So for me,

It's my work and it just keeps building.

So when anything happens outside of work,

Like for example,

Oh,

And by the way,

Let me add,

And a husband that travels all week long.

So really it's me home by myself with my 17-year-old son.

So it's a lot and it falls on me.

And I love what I do.

It feels like fun.

It's truly my passion.

But you know what?

I get stressed.

When something happens in my life,

Like the tree fell over in our front yard and it was crossing the driveway,

I thought,

Oh my God,

Please don't add that to my to-do list.

It's absolutely crazy.

So that brought stress.

We had something else happen in the yard.

That brought me stress.

Someone in North Carolina from my family had an issue and I felt like I had to fly there for four days.

It's like everything outside of us brings us stress.

So I found myself last week really feeling like,

How am I going to get this all done?

And I love all of you that listen to the show.

And I have that,

You know,

And my roots are in codependency,

So I have to watch myself because I want to take care of every single one of you.

And I want to do the very best work for all of you and help you all to learn how to live in your adult chairs.

So I got to be careful because I got to detach from that.

So I'm very mindful of that.

But what do we do when we're really feeling like,

Oh my God,

I can't put another thing on my plate or I'm going to break?

So what I found was over the last,

It's been building,

You know,

It builds with me and like all of us,

It just keeps building like,

Okay,

Now I'm going to add this to my to-do list.

Now I'm going to add this.

Now I'm going to add this.

And about a month ago,

A friend of mine,

She owns a healing center here,

A holistic healing center.

And she said,

Oh,

You know,

We want to offer you a morning of really like a morning of self-care.

And I thought,

Oh my God,

It's on a Friday.

I don't do lunches with anybody on weekdays because I'm working all the time.

I just,

I can't,

I don't do that for myself.

I've got to take care of all my tribe,

All my people here.

So about a month ago,

I said,

You know what,

I've got to take care of myself.

I don't do stuff like this for myself often enough.

So I said,

Sure.

So I went in and I had a lovely session with a phenomenal girl over at NCAT here in Nashville.

And,

And Kim gave me this amazing session.

She's,

She's a medium.

I had a session with her and then I had a Reiki session and I had a massage.

And then I went out to lunch with all these lovely ladies over there.

And I can't tell you how many times I wanted to cancel on Thursday.

I was like,

I can't do that for myself.

I don't have time.

I don't have time.

I don't have time.

And I could feel even driving over there to this lovely day that was gifted to me,

By the way,

Gifted.

I didn't have to pay for any of it.

I felt anxiety,

Like ready to,

I was ready to jump out of my skin driving over there and I kept saying,

Okay,

Let me breathe.

Let me get into my butt.

I'm like,

I don't know.

Something's not right.

So I spent then I got home.

I actually had a really good cry.

I got a lot of it out and I was like,

Okay,

What am I feeling?

I'm like,

Okay,

Overwhelm.

Let me sit with overwhelm.

And I did my adult chair work and I felt so much better.

But then Saturday morning,

Guess what,

I woke up and it was back again.

And I have this pressure also,

Pete,

Who works with me,

He's like,

I need a meditation from you.

I need more podcasts.

You need to get those to me.

I know that you have a list that you're going to record.

Let's go.

I'm like,

Whoa.

I'm like so stressed.

So I sat down to do this.

And guess what?

It was like,

And when I typically record a show or a meditation,

It's like a pipeline just opens and it comes down through me.

It doesn't even feel like I have to sit and think about it.

It's like someone had turned that pipeline off.

So what I realized is when we're stressed and we're overwhelmed and we feel anxious,

It's as you all know,

And I knew this too,

Everything is shut off.

And the more I'm shut off,

The more my brain's going do more,

Do more,

Do more.

So I'm like,

Okay,

If I could just answer these emails,

If I could just do this,

If I could just do that,

Then I'm going to feel better.

And you know,

You guys know what I'm talking about.

I felt worse because the more I do,

The more work comes up and the more things come up.

And then we're adding the whole selling of our house to the to-do list,

Which is huge.

As you know,

It's like,

Oh my God,

I can't add that to my list.

But this morning I got up and I said,

Okay,

I need my adult.

I need my adult energy to come down through me.

And that's the energy of that beautiful higher self of ours.

And that voice clearly said to me,

You need to meditate,

You need to sit,

You need to sit and get quiet.

And I was like,

I don't have time,

You know.

And I realized this week when I was meditating,

I was meditating from my adolescent chair,

Meaning I know how important meditation is.

I talk about this,

I talk about it on the show,

I talk about it with clients,

I tell everybody how important meditation is.

And this week I realized as I looked back on it when I was meditating,

I was meditating from my adolescent chair because I just wanted to check that box,

Like,

Okay,

I did my morning meditation moving right along.

And it was just something that I knew I should do,

Should is from the adolescent chair,

Remember?

And I realized when I got up from all my meditations this week,

I was clearly not in my adult.

I was in the adolescent checking a box and it was not a centering meditation.

So I said,

Okay,

I'm going to sit.

But I'm going to sit from a different place here.

I'm going to sit from my adult.

I'm going to sit here and I'm going to let it all go and I'm going to release it to the universe,

To God,

To source,

Whatever you want to call it.

And I said,

I got to let this all go.

I got to let this whole freaking to-do list go.

I got to let all my shoulds go.

I'm going to truly turn it over and I'm going to meditate,

Meaning I'm just going to sit quietly and I put my feet on the floor and I sat down and I closed my eyes and I,

I was just,

Just started to breathe nice and slowly.

And I said,

Okay,

I'm turning all this over because I don't know what to do next.

And I can't create when I'm in this space because my valve felt like it was shut down and shut off.

And I have so much content inside of me,

But I couldn't hear any of it.

I couldn't bring it through me.

So I said,

Okay,

I don't have any solutions to any of my problems,

Any of my to-do list stuff.

I can't even do my work right now because I feel so shut off.

So I sat down and started to breathe.

That's all I did was just breathe.

And as you know,

With,

With,

With meditation,

It's not about stopping thoughts.

It was a,

It's about watching the thoughts.

So I have to be honest,

Only a few thoughts came up and I think my body was so enjoying just the relaxation.

So I actually call it,

What I do is a relaxation meditation.

It sort of takes it.

I think oftentimes when we say we're going to meditate,

That adolescent chair gets all just kind of like a horse at bucks.

It goes,

I don't want to do that.

You know,

And we resist it because we think,

Oh,

Meditate.

I can't meditate.

Can you relax?

Can you sit down and just relax?

So I call what I do is a relaxation meditation and I just sit quietly and I close my eyes,

Hands are on my lap and I just breathe.

And then I allow my body to relax into the chair and I just relax.

And anyway,

So in the middle of doing this today and I'm releasing everything,

I'm just like,

I let it all go.

I'm turning it over to you,

God,

You know,

Universe,

Take it.

I can't keep going at this pace that I'm going.

I need help.

So I'm just turning it over and I just sat and got really quiet.

And that was my intention or my prayer in prior to sitting down or right when I started this actually.

And I just sat there and you guys in the middle of all of this,

Actually,

When I sat down,

I called my adult.

I said,

I really want to connect back to my adult.

Please bring her in.

I want my adult.

And then I just let it go and I waited.

I could feel that energy.

It came right in.

My feet started to tingle.

So I was grounding and then this beautiful energy came in and I was just sitting there quietly and it was like a meditation came.

It was like the valve opened and the meditation came down through me and I was like,

It was sort of like I felt guided by something else.

I was like,

Oh my God,

This is like the best meditation.

And I was being guided by this voice,

Which I oftentimes get the other voices and they'll come down through and I was like,

Oh my God,

So cool.

And I felt everything relax.

And it was just the most amazing experience of feeling so disconnected for the last week,

Probably.

And it's been off and on for definitely the past few months.

I go in and out of this connected space and I'm like,

I had forgotten.

This is where I live.

This is where I want to live.

So it was such a beautiful contrast and a beautiful experience of being out of the adult chair space and then back in the adult chair space.

And this meditation,

It just completely,

I was just listening to these words that were coming through and I was like doing what the words were offering and I just was so relaxed.

It was the most amazing thing.

In the middle of my meditation time,

I had to actually,

I was doing probably 15,

20 minutes and at one point I said,

I got to get up and get a piece of paper or my notebook and pen.

So all these beautiful ideas were coming through as well as this meditation.

And when I was done,

I opened my eyes and I wrote down four pages of not just the meditation,

Ideas,

Notes,

Content for the upcoming online class,

All this stuff.

I was like,

I've been waiting for this for a week or two.

This is incredible.

Thank you so much.

And I actually had so much gratitude in that moment because I said,

You know what?

What a contrast.

And that's what we're here for,

You guys.

We're here for having experiences.

And I didn't sit there and judge myself like,

Why didn't you do this earlier?

I really thought I was,

But I was totally navigating from this adolescent chair space over the last week for sure.

What happened was when we added to our to-do list,

Selling our home,

It really put me in that adolescent chair,

Like how will I get all my work stuff done,

Family stuff,

And now selling a house.

And we want to purge everything out of it.

It just made a giant list.

So in the middle of this meditation,

It was like when we're connected to source,

You've got to think about a beautiful,

Gigantic,

For lack of a better word,

Hose or wave of energy that is always available to us.

And I've been saying,

God,

I just don't feel connected to God.

What's going on?

I can't feel that.

And that's a spiritual term when I say it.

It doesn't feel to me like you're religious,

But I guess it can be both.

But I sat there over the last week and I'm like,

I am so in my mind.

I know I am and I can't find my way out.

So what I realized is today,

Which of course you've heard this and I'm just reminding you because I knew this too,

I was pinching myself off from source,

From God,

From that beautiful flow of energy that comes down through all of us when we are open to it.

And the more we get stressed and the more we get overwhelmed and the more we're anxious,

We turn that valve off and rely on that egoic part of us,

Unintentionally,

It's all unconscious,

And we think,

I'm going to figure out how to do this.

When we use the words like I'm going to figure this out or I got to think this through or I'm going to make this giant to-do list and I'm going to cross everything,

Those are all words from that adolescent.

They can also come from the adult,

But it's a different energy behind them.

I think you know what I mean.

There's a,

It's almost like a peaceful assertion that will happen with the adult versus a frenetic assertion that happens with the adolescent chair.

And I was in the adolescent chair this week for sure.

Ever since we talked about selling that house,

It was like,

Forget it.

Now I have a million things on my list and I only used to only have a hundred.

So,

But it was so beautiful today to have that experience of sitting in the relaxation meditation,

Allowing this energy to come down through me.

And I actually was so inspired.

Like I've said a few times,

The meditation you're going to see that's going to come out,

Hopefully this week actually,

Is I'm going to call it this meditation for overwhelm,

Stress and anxiety,

Unless I may have one like that.

But anyway,

It's the latest meditation,

So make sure that you look for that because it was totally divinely inspired.

It came down through me and I wrote it down and that is exactly what I'm going to give to you guys because it will help you to take that stress,

The overwhelm and the anxiety,

Which are truly,

They all happen because we're in this adolescent place and there are energy blocks in our system.

They block the energy of God of source of the universe from flowing down through us.

So this meditation is going to help you to open up and let that energy come down through you.

So that's the answer is reconnecting to the self,

Reconnecting,

Sitting yourself down,

Closing your eyes,

Taking some deep breaths,

Reconnecting to the bigger you,

The bigger you,

Which is what I would call God,

The big you,

Not the little you.

The little you is the egoic you,

But this is the bigger you.

This is God.

We got to open up that valve and let that beautiful energy come down through us.

And oh my gosh,

The answers that you've been looking for,

They just come down through.

I can't even tell you my hand hurt.

I wrote so fast,

Four pages of ideas and notes from my 20 minute meditation time.

That's it.

So this is not to confuse you.

I know I have done a whole other podcast on anxiety and you know my take on anxiety.

It is the physical manifestation of unfelt emotions or feelings.

And this meditation will even help with that because we get scared and we hold onto those emotions inside.

We're never going to get it done.

Oh my God,

What if I don't get it done?

I'm going to get judged.

So all these thoughts and ideas get stuck in our energy field and in the body.

When we stop and breathe,

And it's intentional,

We have to be really intentional,

Like I'm going to sit and I'm going to breathe and I'm going to let go.

That was key for me today.

I sat there and I said,

You know what?

I got to surrender,

Which is an adult chair word.

I'm going to surrender.

I'm going to let go,

Which is adult chair.

And I'm going to turn it all over,

Adult chair.

Again,

This is all things we say in our adult chair.

It's like I'm going to turn it all over because I can't do it all.

And little me down here,

Michelle and her ego thinks she can do it all.

I mean my adolescent chair,

It's like I can't do it all.

I need help.

Turn it over.

Let this bigger energy come down through you.

And I promise you,

I promise,

Promise,

Promise you 100%.

It really does bring relaxation.

And you can turn it over and let the energy flow through you,

Right down through you,

Right down through your feet back into the earth.

That's the cleansing process that happened with me today is as I was breathing and just relaxing and being mindful of my body and letting it all go and really opening up,

This energy seemed to come through me almost like a beautiful,

Very gentle wave.

It came down through me and I was breathing it through and it came right down through me,

Right down through my feet and took all the stress and overwhelm.

And then when I was quiet a little while longer is when all these ideas started coming through.

It really is about slowing down when we feel really busy,

When we feel overwhelmed,

When we feel stressed,

When we feel anxious.

It's about slowing down and stopping and sitting in a chair and closing your eyes and breathing.

Breathe,

Breathe,

Breathe.

Reconnect to something bigger than you.

Now if you feel a lot of anxiety in the body,

A lot of those emotions,

Of course,

There's a whole other podcast on this.

I go all into anxiety,

But if you feel like you want to do a round or two of EFT,

Do that first just to get yourself centered.

But I'm telling you,

Just sit and let it go and use your breath.

This is what's so cool about breath.

When we intend to breathe slowly,

Really breathe slowly,

The breath can regulate the body.

We want to breathe slowly and the body starts to almost dance with the breath.

The idea is to breathe slowly and then allow yourself to relax,

Intend to relax,

And then the body starts to join your intention.

But let me tell you,

If you're stressed,

Slow down and stop.

In fact,

As that old saying goes,

If you feel like you don't have time to meditate,

Then you need to do it twice as long.

I love that.

It's so true.

It's like,

But do it definitely from the adult and not from the adolescent.

Because again,

I meditated all week.

I meditated.

I got my Insight timer out.

I timed myself.

Boom,

Done.

But I realized looking back on it today,

When I was back in consciousness,

That I was checking a box off the list.

Okay,

Got my meditation in.

I'm on track.

Done.

It's like,

No,

I might as well have not meditated at all.

If I'm going to be in my adolescent chair,

What the heck is the point of meditating?

It didn't do anything.

It was always quiet.

My brain was racing.

I was thinking of all the stuff I had to do.

I wish I could give you the experience of what I felt like prior to my meditation.

Right now,

I feel completely relaxed,

Like jello.

All these things are just sort of lining up just in the last few hours since I did my relaxation,

Meditation,

And let it go.

It's like,

Oh,

This person came and said they were going to take this off my list.

This other thing happened.

It's like all these things just start to line up.

It's like we've got to use the universe.

There's so many spirit guides and angels and all these beings out there that are willing and able to help us.

Let yourself get some help.

But the only way to do that is to connect back into source.

Easier said than done when you're stuck in the adolescent,

But I'm telling you,

Hear me now.

Give it a try.

One side note,

You guys,

Is that mindfulness is part of living in the adult chair.

I had lost my way last week with my mindfulness.

I think mindfulness is key in catching ourselves when we're veering off track,

Noticing when we're in that adolescent chair,

Noticing when I'm living so much in my mind trying to figure it out and trying to get things done.

Because it's like we're always going to have a to-do list for sure.

It's never going to end.

In fact,

Every time I take two things off,

Four things get added.

So I think it's a lifelong thing.

As you know,

Today's podcast is brought to you by Audible.

Just so you know,

You can get a free audiobook download and a 30-day free trial at www.

Audibletrial.

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There are 180,

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It is incredible.

It's one of my favorite things to do is to listen to audiobooks on my phone and podcasts,

Of course.

But today,

I just want to share with you this book that I really love.

Of course,

One of my favorite,

Favorite authors is Thich Nhat Hanh.

He has written a book.

It's called Peace in Every Step.

It's the path of mindfulness in everyday life.

The name of the book is Peace is Every Step.

Thich Nhat Hanh,

He's just one of those masters when it comes to mindfulness.

As you know,

Again,

Being mindful helps to keep us in our adult chair.

So a wonderful book.

You can get it for free at audibletrial.

Com forward slash the adult chair.

Okay.

So thanks,

Everybody,

For tuning in.

Thank you again for all of your amazing comments in iTunes.

I cannot thank you all enough.

I really feel the love when I read those comments.

So I just want to say thank you to everybody that has gone into iTunes and made those comments.

I really,

Really,

Really appreciate all of you.

And also,

I wanted to say thank you to everybody on Insight Timer.

You've written some beautiful,

Beautiful comments after listening to not only the podcast,

But also all of the meditations that are over there.

So thank you for that.

But that's all I've got for you guys.

I will see you next week.

Enjoy your week,

And I'll see you next time right here in the adult chair.

Reviews

Excellent 😊

Most exciting first time tune in I’ve had on the app! (That says a lot, since I’m on here now almost daily!) just want to say thank you so much to the speaker! I could tell how this woman was going to be able to reach with me within a few seconds a “blah blah” muttered out in confidence like I do often lol so relatable and helpful VERY SMART, MINDFUL And someone you would be friends with talking about very deep important issues in a girlfriend gossip way I felt so at home and it was a way to connect forsure!!! I’m not to my destination but enjoying the journey! Wanna find my way to this adult chair😍

Oh my gosh, Michelle, thanks for breathing in at some point in the middle of this talk, I felt sooooo stressed at some point while you were explaining & describing & talking so fast - and swoosh - there it was: your breath! I can totally relate to everything that you are saying in this podcast! I love you, thank you so much for all the reminders 💖😍⚘☀️🌹🦋💐🌸🌷🌙🌱🌻💖🌞🌼😀 wishing you a beautiful week, Namaste 💐🌸🌷🌙🌱🌻💖🌞🌼🦋💗❤⚘😍

I enjoyed hearing about your amazing experience. Thanks for sharing. All that you do is appreciated! Beautiful things occur as a result and it makes it all worth it! You got this breath by BREATH. Keep pressing on!

Wonderful and inspiring as always. Thank you Michelle 💜x

Very interesting and informative! Thank you!

Thank You!! Great Podcast. Would love to share it with everybody I know. So inspiring, honest and true. Beautiful ✨✨✨

Aloha Michelle, I enjoy listening to your podcast. Thank you for what you do!!

Meditate twice long when you have not enough time 😂😂😂.

So True!

Love your message! I am designating an “adult chair” for my meditation time... As I realize that I to meditate in the adolescent chair so often, just so I can check the box. Thanks for shedding light and love. Bob

Loved this, made a lot of sense it was very helpful

Great podcast as always Michelle. Glad you found your way back to mindfulness and slowing down.
What good would it be to us if you got lost eh ?
Thanks again
🙏🏼💐💖🌸🦋💝🌺💕💔🐾

Truth💗Beautiful Truth💕