The Inner Reset: Managing Stress As A Leader

For conscious leaders who want to experience less stress in their day. In this recording from her weekly Insight Timer lives, Nik takes you through a 3-minute stress-relief grounding session, talks about 3 reasons why you should make relaxation and calm a priority, and gives you a practical way to integrate calm through your day.

If you enjoy this, join her on her next weekly live by going to her upcoming events on Insight Timer.

Transcript

As leaders,

Our stress doesn't just stay with us,

It filters down.

It shapes how we respond,

How we communicate,

And how safe or reactive our teams feel.

That's why learning to regulate your nervous system isn't just self-care,

It's leadership.

In this talk,

We discuss the effects of stress on your decision-making,

Your mission,

And your presence,

And how to shift it from the inside out.

I'm Nic Chung,

Conscious Leadership Coach,

And I help you to create empowering spaces in your workplace.

And today we are chatting about the inner reset,

Managing stress while leading others.

We're going to start with five-minute grounding practice.

I invite you,

If it's safe to do so,

To close down your eyes.

Close down your eyes and take a moment to connect in with your breath.

And gently notice the quality of your breath.

Notice the quality of your breath.

And just notice if it's shallow,

If it's deep,

If it's short,

Or if it's long.

And if you wish to do so,

Change the quality of your breath to longer,

Deeper,

And fuller breaths.

Slowing down the mental chatter with your breath.

And as you follow your breath in and out,

Now take notice of your body and as you notice your body,

Just start to relax parts of your body which you see are tense.

And you may want to breathe in and breathe out.

And with the breath out,

Allow your body to relax.

And perhaps you take yourself through from top to bottom,

Head to toe,

A body scan.

And with each breath in,

Invite openness.

And with each breath out,

Relax that part of your body that feels tense,

Tight,

Or closed.

And then lastly,

Feel the weight of yourself sitting on the seat you are at.

Notice the weight of your body and the contact your body has on the seat.

Bringing yourself back to this moment in your body.

And when you feel like you have arrived,

Generally open up your eyes,

Take in the room,

And go about the rest of your day,

Or stay here with me.

Now that we've done our little grounding exercise,

Let's talk a little bit about about managing stress while leading others.

So the technique that we just did is something that you can use during your day as a leader to help yourself chill out.

But let's talk about how stress affects the way that we manage,

The way that we lead others,

And why we really do want to make this a practice that we do,

A practice of letting go of that stress,

And how easy it can be.

So why should we care about managing stress?

How does this affect others?

How does this affect ourselves?

Well firstly,

Stress impacts decision making,

Right?

So a lot of studies have shown that chronic stress can impair a leader's cognitive function,

Leading to decisions that are maybe reactionary instead of strategic,

Rather than responsive.

And it can also impair your ability to see the bigger picture.

Now as a leader,

You are there to not only look at the details of what your team are doing as well,

But also be able to maintain the bigger picture for people,

To maintain the vision or the mission,

And maintain what it is that you are here to do as a team.

And you're really that guiding light for the rest of your people.

So not only does stress impact decision making,

It also impacts how it is that you can hold,

Or your ability to hold,

The bigger picture.

And in that,

It also affects how it is that you read cues from your team.

So we won't go too much into this because it's a whole life by itself,

But just think about how you communicate with others while you're under stress,

Or how you then respond to how people communicate to you when you are under stress,

Versus how it is that you communicate with people when you're not,

When you're relaxed.

So just for example,

The way that you take on feedback may be different when you are stressed or when you're relaxed.

And ideally,

We want to be in a relaxed or calm state so that any feedback that we can get,

We can really analyze well,

And we can make really good decisions based on that,

Rather than emotional reactionary responses.

So that's one reason,

Yeah,

Stress impacting our decision making.

And I wonder if there's any of you that have sort of seen that in yourself.

If you like,

You can pop a heart or a thumbs up or a comment into the group and just let us know if that's impacted your decision making and why you're starting to see it as a priority now.

The other thing I wanted to note,

Why you should care about managing your stress and why it's like more than you,

Yeah,

Because yes it's about you,

Yes you're doing personal development,

Professional development,

Taking care of yourself,

But it is more than you,

Because remember that you set the tone,

You set the emotional tone for your team,

For your people.

And so a leader's stress is often felt through the organization.

We can think of things as top down,

Yeah.

I always loved this when I worked in organizations and businesses before,

And someone said to me,

You can always tell how good the leadership is by the people at the bottom,

Yeah,

How good the leadership is by the people at the bottom.

So everything has a ripple effect downwards through an organization.

So it's not only for yourself that you need to manage your stress,

It's also for the people that are part of your business or organization,

Yeah.

You set the emotional tone and you set the standard,

So not only the emotional tone but the standard of how people should turn up to your place of work.

Now if you're a conscious leader,

I know you're here because you want to make workplaces this really safe,

Empowering and positive place to be.

And you want to have your effect of leadership not only be about reaching KPIs but actually changing people's lives and allowing people to live like really full lives and lives full of fulfillment and purpose,

Not only in the workplace but beyond.

And you want to help them to feel like they're valued.

So think about the way that you set the emotional tone in your business.

Are you setting it in a way that allows people to feel really safe,

Allows people to be able to fully express themselves and be in their best creative self,

And your best creative self comes when you're relaxed,

Right?

Are you nurturing a place for people to grow?

So remember that your stress is filtered top down,

Yeah,

It will be felt throughout echoing down through your organization.

So we also want to make sure that you know that the bigger purpose of managing your stress,

Yes,

Is firstly for you,

But it is also for others who are around you.

And then of course,

As we keep saying,

It negatively impacts you.

This is why you should care.

If anything,

You should care about yourself,

Your mental and physical health and your happiness.

So when I talk about conscious leadership,

It's to elevate people,

It's to elevate all people.

And remember you are part of people,

Yeah,

You're not apart from people,

You are a person.

So managing your stress is important first and foremost for yourself and then because of its on others.

And I'm curious now,

Why is it that you are interested in managing your stress?

I'd love you to reflect on that.

Why is it that you are interested in it?

Why is it a priority for you to manage that now?

Because here's the thing,

You don't have to go around in your world full of stress,

Even though there may be a lot of things that are on your plate.

There are ways that we can still get things done without having this as the flavor.

So why is it that you would like to do this?

So we've just talked about the inner reset,

We did a little grounding practice at the start about managing stress while leading others.

And we've just talked about three ways of which,

Or three reasons you really want to make this a priority for yourself.

And our grounding exercise right at the start was about three to four minutes.

So it really doesn't have to be long.

And I really want to highlight that for you as someone who may be busy,

Who has a lot on your plate.

Remember that to let go of stress doesn't have to be this huge exercise,

Right?

I mean ideally we'd love to sit down in meditation,

Or we'd love to sit down and do relaxation,

But it can be as long as like three or four minutes.

I've got a new meditation coming up that is a two minute relaxing in the moment meditation shortly on Insight Timer.

So go ahead and follow me and just check that out when it comes out.

Yeah it's literally two minutes.

Two minutes to just close your eyes in the office and bring down your stress levels.

It doesn't have to be this huge thing.

And I think that one of the flaws of the wellness industry is that they've made stress this massive huge mountain,

And they've made managing that this huge mountain.

And it actually doesn't have to be that at all.

And I want to take that away because it's actually stressful sometimes to think about managing our stress,

Right?

Because it seems like this big huge thing that everyone's talking about and we have to do all these practices to manage it,

That to manage your own stress becomes a stressful act.

So let's just take away any of those ideas.

It can be as simple as the three minute exercise we did at the start,

Where we get to body scan ourselves,

Where we get to control our breathing.

So Glenn says,

I understand that there's a better version of myself and the quality of my relations relationships that can manage stress.

Yes Glenn,

Absolutely.

And that's your reason for managing your stress.

Absolutely.

So sometimes we get caught in this idea,

This is a really good point Glenn,

We get caught in this idea if we've been chronically stressed or we've acted in stressful ways for a lot of time in our life,

We have this idea that this is us,

We are the stressful person,

We're always going to react in the same way in situations.

But as Glenn said,

There is a better version of yourself.

Yeah,

There's always a version of yourself that is more preferable,

Right?

And this is why if you've listened to me before,

If you've been part of my containers before,

I always talk about constant evolution.

We are in constant evolution or so we should be.

And actually to fight your constant evolution is harder than to go with it.

And so Glenn touches on a point there,

Is that if we allow ourselves to be in constant evolution and we can understand that there are versions of us that can be better.

Yeah,

And we can constantly be striving for something better,

Not because we do not like who we are now,

Remember the basis of what we do is always about self-love,

But because we wonder,

What is my potential?

What is my potential as a human being?

Is there a potential in me that can be better at relationships,

That can be better at managing stress?

Yes,

Absolutely there is.

Yeah,

So I really love that comment.

Thanks for popping that down,

Glenn.

So remember that managing your stress gets to be a really simple practice and you can do this through the day.

Check in,

Check in with your stress.

Allow yourself,

Maybe it's a,

You set a timer every hour just to check in with your stress.

So a simple practice to do this is to notice your breath,

Like we did right at the start.

What is the quality of my breath?

Is it quick?

Is it shallow?

And if it is,

How can I deepen it?

Yeah,

So it's simple,

It's closing your eyes and just deepening your breath up.

You can also check in with the rest of your body as we did at the practice at the start and notice any tension.

And I really love like somatic check-ins or check-ins with the body because the body really reflects what's happening in your nervous system.

Yeah,

So are you frowning?

Are your shoulders up here?

Yeah,

Are your hands clenched?

Is your jaw tight?

These really simple check-ins like doing a body scan through your body and allowing your body to relax physically can change your mental state as well.

So we now know,

And it's more accepted,

This very strong mind-body connection and we can use that two ways.

We can use the mind to affect the body and we can also use the body to affect the mind.

And this is my past work,

This is the work that I sort of came into when I started exploring this.

It's been like a decade or so where I really started with somatic practices.

That was connecting with my body to see how that changed my mind and the quality of my thoughts.

So this is your invitation for today.

Maybe set an alarm,

Set an alarm every hour or maybe every half hour and check in with your breathing and check in with your body.

And if something needs to change there,

That is you feel any tension or tightness or closed or shortness of breath,

Change that.

And you know how to do that.

Simply breathe bigger,

Breathe longer and let go.

Relax your body,

Relax your body.

So that's a really simple way that you can just get rid of that stress.

Yeah,

Let it go.

Because remember check-in gets to be 10 seconds,

Right?

And as you do this more,

As you practice,

It'll start to become habitual where your body actually prefers to be in a state of relaxation.

And it is my strong belief that we are designed for relaxation.

We're designed to,

Should I say,

We're designed to carry ourselves in a way that is relaxed and not be stressed.

And it's the antithesis of chronic stress,

Right?

It's this chronic calm state,

This chronic relaxed state.

And that's our preferred state because how our body wants to function is in its optimal state.

And in its optimal state,

It's relaxed.

In times of stress where it needs to turn it on,

It will be stressed.

But what I think has happened with many of us is that we have turned chronic state into our habit,

Into our go-to.

And so now we need to retrain ourselves through this little timer that you're going to put on today.

Yeah,

Every single hour check on what your body and your breath is doing.

So we need to retrain ourselves to come back to this optimum space of calm.

This is where our body functions the best.

And with that,

This is where our mind functions the best.

And from that,

This is where things like our relationships,

Our communication,

Our ability to lead,

Our ability to make good decisions,

That's where that becomes the best.

So if anything,

Just remember that calm is the state you want to return to.

Calm is where you are at your best.

Yeah,

In anything.

Not only in your leadership role,

But in your personal life too,

With the relationships that you hold there and the tasks that you do outside of work.

And remember,

That's the point of this whole conscious leadership thing,

Is for you to be the model of what it would be to live life with a really rich quality.

And as you being the model of that,

Bringing that into the workplace,

Others get to be influenced by just being around your sphere.

So let's just recap quickly what we did today.

We did a quick grounding exercise,

Which I'll see if I can capture and pop into a new meditation on my page.

So if you're not already following me,

Go ahead and follow me.

And look out for,

I've got a new meditation coming up,

Which is two minutes to relaxation.

And I'll also try to capture the start of this live so that you,

If you missed it,

You can do the grounding exercise that we did there.

We talked about why we want to manage our stress.

Some of the ideas was impacts of decision making,

The fact that you set the emotional tone,

The relationships that you have,

And of course,

The negative impact that it has on your mental and physical health and your sense of happiness.

And the invitation today for the rest of your day is to check in on your stress,

Set your timer,

Make it half an hour,

Check in with your body,

Allow your body to relax,

Check in with your breath,

Allow it to deepen and slow.

So we've got about five more minutes,

So I'll just see if anyone has any questions.

This is your time for questions and then I will pop off.

Let me just have a look.

Glenn wanted to add off the back of what you said that this also allows me to lead into discomfort or growth,

Knowing that I can manage my stress rather than it controlling me.

Beautiful,

Glenn.

I love this for you so much.

Thank you for sharing that.

Exactly.

You know,

It's this personal growth thing that we're on.

It isn't always easy.

In fact,

It is kind of stressful because it's fearful to our ego.

Our ego gets hit and when our ego gets hit,

It tends to create stress.

However,

As Glenn said,

If I know I can control my stress,

Then I'm going to want to lean into discomfort and growth because it's not going to be this big overwhelming thing for me.

And then of course,

Glenn,

As a leader,

You leaning into your discomfort and growth and growing and evolving as you should,

Everyone else is motivated to do that too.

They're inspired by you.

So thank you so much for sharing.

That's wonderful.

I will be here again every single week.

So if you loved what you heard today,

Come and join me.

See my next upcoming lives on my Insight Timer page.

Go and follow me.

Click on going so you get a reminder on my next live as well.

I truly hope that this has been helpful for you.

You're with me.

I'm Nic Chung.

I'm a conscious leadership coach and mentor.

I've been doing this kind of work for nearly over a decade now and I will be back going weekly lives on Insight Timer.

I had a little break,

As Carrie knows.

I had a break for about a year,

Just recollecting my thoughts and I will be here sharing more about conscious leadership,

Transformational leadership,

How you can become the leader that inspires growth,

Inspires fulfillment,

Inspires a well-rounded individual just by being you and growing and working on you.

And big hearts to everyone.

Thank you for all the hearts and love.

And I'll see you next week for another 25 to 30 minute talk on a new topic about conscious leadership and your continued involvement.