Don't Repress Or Depress: Address Stress

In this deep and insightful talk, Tony Samara provides 3 easy-to-put-into-practice steps that guide us to let go of volatile experiences of limbo, inertia, stress & depression, physical pain & disease, in order to experience peace, and calm, and to just be free.

A breathing meditation practice is provided, and if you close your eyes and relax the body, you will open yourself to the wisdom that is beyond the mere words. You will also receive an energy transmission that is part of each of Tony Samara's tracks here on Insight Timer.

Thank you for choosing one of Tony Samara's meditational tracks today.

Transcript

Making sure that you find a comfortable position.

Posture is so very important.

So making sure that your body is relaxed so that we can focus upon breathing,

Which is my intention today,

The breath.

Today I want to address stress.

This is such an important topic in today's world,

Stress.

We really haven't evolved very much from the point where our brains and our bodies response to stress is the fight or flight mechanism that is inbuilt into our structure.

The nicest person still has that sort of mechanism of fight or flight inbuilt into their structure.

We have this other aspect of the brain,

The neocortex,

That sort of justifies or controls the fight or flight as well as it can.

Very often the control mechanism doesn't work.

When there is too much stress,

Then it creates this byproduct that we know as anxiety or that we know as depression,

That we know as being overwhelmed,

That we know as being caught in a very volatile emotional space within our experience of life.

Stress is the main factor,

Not only for the mind,

A confused mind that just doesn't know what to do because the fight or flight mechanism is being controlled by the neocortex,

So it's confused,

It's in limbo.

I can't do either of those things because there is nothing to fight and there is nothing to run away from.

My stress is sort of vague and it's not structured like the mammoth or like the lion.

It's all over the place.

When we get to that point within ourselves,

Which I call limbo or inertia,

Procrastination is a result of inertia,

Just I don't know what to do,

Then we tend to,

In our physical bodies,

Absorb the stress.

The stress tends to then fall or find its way into our muscles and nervous system and the structure of the body.

We create or emphasize the creation of certain hormones and certain chemicals that get released,

You know,

Adrenaline and cortisol and many more that get released that then make stress feel so very complex.

It feels like you're really interacting with not just another thought that comes and goes,

But you're dealing with something that's more permanent.

When we experience stress in the mind,

The body experiences this stress in a more permanent way.

The muscles hurt for longer,

The body is tired,

The energy flow,

The vitality that the body usually experiences gets drained because that reminder of physical pain or that reminder of physical disease is there constantly reminding the mind that the stress that is being experienced is not temporary like a thought,

But more permanent.

The body has to actually do something with the cortisol,

It can't just say,

Okay,

Now I figured out the situation,

The cortisol remains in the body until we do something that changes the cortisol.

So,

We could just run,

You know,

Because of course this is what I teach many children,

You know,

When,

For example,

When the children are facing stress and they have this hyperactive type syndrome where they don't know what to do.

I say instead of sitting,

Which is what most classrooms say to the child or used to say,

I don't know if it's still like this,

You know,

They say sit and be quiet,

Sit at your desk and don't disturb.

And the child has all this cortisol running around inside of their body and of course they can't sit down,

You know,

Some of them can't sit down.

And so we put them on medication.

It's what we do with adults too.

You know,

If you can't manage your stress or your depression,

Just take some medication,

Which perhaps is useful,

But in most cases doesn't really address the problem.

And so what I explain to people working with me,

You know,

It's a natural response.

The body needs to work the hormones that are being released in the body in a physical way,

Address it in a real way,

Not just thinking about something or changing something in your thoughts,

But physically doing something about it.

Of course,

It's the last thing you want to do when you're stressed.

You don't want to be thinking about,

Oh,

I have to now be active and run up the steps.

But it's amazing if you put this into practice,

It changes the physical reality of the body,

Which means that it's much easier for you to come back to an open and receptive space because once the cortisol or whatever hormones have been addressed and running is just one method,

Breathing is the main method that I want to share with you now.

But there are many other methods besides running up the steps.

If there is a lot of cortisol running around inside of your body,

You run up the steps and you use it up,

You know,

It changes because the adrenaline changes and the chemical structure changes and then the cortisol is somehow used up a little bit at least.

That's one way and there are certain foods that you can include in your diet that help you to address the biochemical imbalance that's created by the fight or flight mechanism or by depression,

Which is an aspect of the fight and flight mechanism in my opinion,

Or by the fact that the stress isn't being addressed.

And so there is secondary reactions in the body that create this situation that need physical situation in your body that needs to be dealt with.

Foods can help you and there are certain foods.

I've spoken about this before,

But just a reminder,

Plant-based foods are very,

Very important to help the body relax.

We know that meat has certain nutrients within the protein that stimulate,

That activate the biochemical structure of the body,

So you become more active,

You become more sort of ready to address the situation.

But if you're ready to address the situation,

But in limbo and you add more of those nutrients into your body that make you more ready,

It's like you're going to explode,

You just stand there and you don't know what to do because you're ready but you're not sure what you're ready for.

So those sorts of foods for today's society add a burden and it's very difficult to see the connection,

But you do understand and you do experience that there is a connection with food and stress when you change your diet.

Sugars and meat and foods that stimulate the insulin in the body,

Stimulate this sort of up and down reaction in the body.

You know,

When there is a surge of energy and then you just drop down because you lose all that energy,

The surge of energy happens through the release of insulin in your body,

Which of course depends on the foods,

Very often depends on the foods that you eat.

So if you eat lots of sugary foods,

Cakes and sweeties and bonbons and whatever,

There is all this energy that the body has to deal with and if there is already stress,

Then the body is preparing you for this fight or flight reaction and believes that it needs energy because that's what a fight or flight means.

You need energy for that moment and if you don't do anything with that energy or in limbo,

Then all of a sudden you just get so overwhelmed.

This is why we know that certain foods are not the right foods to give,

For example,

To children that are hyperactive or that have behavioral problems that basically stem from not a situation that the child has to understand better,

But just because the nurture that is being provided for the child and the structure within which they have to function just doesn't help the child to communicate what is going on inside of them.

They are having to challenge themselves or control themselves in a way that children aren't very good at doing.

Adults are much better and this is why many people end up repressing their energy so very much and continuously eating meat and continuously eating sweets or sugar type foods and as they feed themselves all these substances,

They're in limbo,

They're not able to actually understand the situation so they're in limbo and there is this energy rise that they can't understand and very often it ends up in depression.

This is why in today's society so many people are depressed.

So many people we know through statistics are depressed but there are many more who are depressed but just don't admit it to themselves and just don't see it because it's become a norm in our society not to be happy,

Not to be blissful.

Someone's happy,

Oh you're happy today.

If someone is not so happy,

Well you're normal today.

That's the sort of attitude that our social structure imparts at work and in different situations.

You know you can't just be happy all the time.

What's wrong with you?

That's sort of the belief system that we've had to transform and so besides,

Let me go back to food,

Besides the sugar and the meat,

We know that there are certain foods,

For example grains.

Eating the pizza,

You know there is nothing wrong with the pizza,

Of course it's good,

But eating a very grain based diet that means instead of many people say okay I want to be a vegetarian,

I want to be a vegan,

I want to follow a plant based diet,

Whatever.

What does that mean?

Very often this means that people just remove certain foods from their diet and end up,

Such as in macrobiotics,

Eating lots of grains,

You know lots of wheat,

Lots of pasta,

Lots of pizza,

Lots of lasagna,

Hopefully you're not fasting today,

But lots of that sort of heavy,

Not heavy,

Grain based diet that releases insulin into your body,

Which was very useful before in our agricultural society where we lived,

Where you had to wake up five o'clock in the morning and you had to do things,

Physical things,

So your body was in action,

It needed energy,

It needed sugar,

Needed,

You know it didn't matter if you had your breakfast cereal and honey on top of your breakfast cereal because you needed that.

You would immediately go out and be digging in the garden or you'd be climbing steps,

Collecting water,

Collecting the wood to heat up your home or doing physical things.

Today we don't do so many of those things,

Most of us.

We sit in front of the computer,

We sit in an office,

We don't need so much energy,

So when we have an overabundance of this insulin released structure within our body,

We also create an internal stress within our bodies.

So our bodies have all this energy,

Has all this energy,

But our bodies don't really know what to do besides sit down and stress about the amount of emails coming through into your inbox but you can't physically grab them and say oh go away,

You know,

But that's what you feel like doing and because of the energy that's feeding you to do that,

Then all of a sudden we are faced with a very difficult situation and an indicator of this and be aware,

Be aware if this is going on for you,

Be aware if this is going on for others around you,

Observe and be aware if you're at work,

If this is what's going on for your colleagues because then you can be more compassionate towards yourself or you can be more compassionate towards others when you recognize the symptoms,

When you recognize that this is going on not just for yourself but for someone else,

Watch the way that the person is breathing.

You know,

It's no good,

You're getting irritated because something is going on,

The emails,

There is a misunderstanding or some sort of miscommunication happening between you and your colleagues and they're getting stressed because they want to do something and you're getting stressed because you want to do something and the breathing changes and you've eaten your breakfast,

Lots of sugary stuff and you've had your coffee with extra sugar and your body is just ready to do something and there is this trigger,

The miscommunication or the irritation because the communication isn't flowing and it's not like before you could just say,

Oh give me the spade,

Oh dig and you dig,

Dig,

Dig because you have so much energy and you just want to show how to plant those potatoes,

You know,

You just want to show your colleague this is the way to do it.

It's much more complex,

We live in a society that's so very complex today that it's not as simple as just taking someone's spade and saying okay this is the way you do it or demonstrating in a physical way what it means but that's how our bodies are structured,

You know,

We have this fight or flight situation so we either run away from the person and say I've had enough,

You're in the field and you run back home or you are there and I need to deal with this situation,

Let's dig,

You know,

And you both dig into the ground and you finish planting the potatoes before lunch and then you go for lunch and you eat and you've done something with your energy and the breathing corresponds to that and shows you because you can't hold your breath in the same way as when you're in limbo which is what most people,

This is what you need to be aware of,

What most people do when stress,

It gets to the point where you can't deal with it,

Where you can't understand it,

Where you can't hold it,

Where you can't communicate it because it's overwhelming,

It's damaging your body,

It's slowly disintegrating the cells within your body,

You're slowly inviting cancer into your body,

You're slowly allowing for your body to fall apart because of the excess insulin,

Excess cortisol,

All these diseases that are now called chronic diseases or underlying sort of complex diseases that doctors diagnose but don't know what to do with fibromyalgia and all that,

There are so many today that don't even have names,

The body slowly begins to disintegrate and it doesn't know what to do because of stress,

That is the main factor and the way that we breathe when we hold the breath in such a way where we are sort of okay,

I'm ready but you're not ready for one minute or two minutes,

You're ready for an hour,

A day,

Two days to do something and nothing happens and the body just says I can't be ready all the time,

I can't just wait to do something all the time so I begin to fight my own body or run away from the vitality of my own body,

So your body becomes the focus rather than the situation outside that needs to be changed or communicated to in a different way,

So we internalise stress,

We internalise anxiety,

We internalise the effects of stress and anxiety and miscommunication in the situation that we're having to address from a clearer and more conscious perspective,

We don't know,

We just don't understand how to communicate to these aspects because once internalised our breath acts in a very funny way,

It's almost because we are fighting ourselves,

Because we're internalising the stress,

Channeling the stress internally into our organs,

Into our blood,

Into our brains,

Into the structure of our bodies,

We also internalise the stress into the way that we breathe and then the breath holds structures in a sort of,

This is very dangerous,

There is danger and fear gets released and all the hormones of fear begin to release and not only are you now communicating to the stress of the situation that's being internalised but you're also communicating to the stress that arises because the body communicates this situation as fear and so all these hormones of fear begin to be released as well as the stress,

Can you imagine what sort of mess one ends up facing within oneself,

Of course there is nothing one can do in such a situation,

You're facing fear,

You're facing the fight and flight aspect of yourself and you're facing what,

You can't see anything,

What am I facing,

You're facing confusion and on top of that your breathing changes and structures as if you are really afraid,

As if you've seen something that really scares you,

You know,

Like if you were walking in the forest and all of a sudden you're almost stepped on a snake and oh that was close and your,

You know,

Your reaction is oh my gosh that was so close and you're sort of stepping back,

That sort of fear is there constantly,

Can you imagine the breath just can't relax,

Can't breathe in the same way as saying to,

As what meditation is all about saying to yourself,

Well everything is okay,

Everything flows,

Everything is perfect,

No nothing is perfect,

You can delude your mind by saying everything is perfect but if you don't experience that in a real sense,

The hormones and the biochemical structure of your body is saying differently,

You're deluding yourself,

It's no good just saying oh everything is okay,

Oh is it okay,

You look at your body and touch your shoulder and there is stress,

How is it okay,

Your mind is not at all happy,

Not at all ready to embrace or be perceptive and receptive to other situations,

You can't deal with this one.

So the first step in mindfulness,

The first step in awareness is to be honest.

To be honest doesn't mean that you have to create another image of yourself,

I'm the perfect person,

I'm the perfect mother,

I'm the perfect meditating monk,

I'm the perfect spiritual person,

I can't show this other side of myself to anyone,

Not that you need to show it because it's obvious but I can't even show it to myself,

I have to live up to this image.

Being honest doesn't mean that you have to go around and explain to everyone how stressed you are,

Go around and say to yourself the world is a terrible place,

I'm so depressed,

Whatever.

You don't have to fall into a victim,

You don't have to fall into this state of despair that very often people believe communication is all about,

No,

You're truthful.

I am in a very complex situation,

My body doesn't feel comfortable,

My breath is restricted,

I'm breathing in a shallow way,

I'm breathing in a way that just keeps perpetuating the experience rather than challenging and changing the experience.

So as soon as you are honest and you're honest in such a way where your body recognizes your honesty,

So you're communicating your honesty directly to your body,

Then the body's awareness begins to recognize that this is a choice and that there are other choices difficult in the moment because there are all these hormones and all these situations of stress that make it easier to fall into this sort of complex fight or flight reaction but you can relax the body because we do have the possibility to relax the body even in a fight or flight situation.

It is known that meditators and expert meditators,

Which you are,

Most people are if they understand the basic concepts of meditation,

Are able to communicate to their body to elicit or to invoke or to invite a new response to the situation.

So even in stress,

Even in the most stressful situation you can change the way that you breathe,

Which is an amazing thing.

It's an amazing thing because this means that you have some sort of choice in the matter,

Even if it's just changing your breath,

Even if nothing else changes,

You have some choice and if you empower that choice,

If you make that choice clear for your body to fall into a different rhythm of breathing.

So say now,

In this present moment,

You relax your breath and you breathe rather than in a shallow way,

You breathe down into your abdomen,

You breathe deeply,

You breathe into the abdomen so that the breath just relaxes your body.

It's not your mind saying to your body,

I need to relax,

I need to calm down,

I need because that's another stress in itself,

But the breath relaxes your body.

So you're communicating through your body to your body and that is an amazing thing because now as you do this,

You're actually changing the biochemical structure in your body.

You're actually decreasing the,

For example,

Cortisol level in your body just by breathing in this way and you know the out breath relaxes,

Decreases the anxiety,

Stress level of the body and this is an ancient technique of breathing.

So when you're breathing out,

You prolong the out breath,

You make sure that you're not breathing from just the chest,

But you're breathing,

It's a deep full breath.

So as you breathe out,

You start from the very base of your body,

You breathe out from the abdomen and you breathe out slowly,

Fully,

Breathe out,

Breathe out and you can,

And it's better to do it this way,

You can even make a sound as you breathe out and you can do this for a while so you're breathing out and exhaling so that there is an audible sound as you exhale.

So breathing out in this way,

It's important in the beginning,

Okay,

You're at work,

Perhaps you can say to people around you or there are some people,

I'm just practicing my yoga breathing or whatever,

You know,

Just so that they understand that you're okay.

But it's very important that the breath is slow,

Focused and most of the energy is breathing out.

Breathing in happens naturally as long as you breathe into the abdomen,

It's fine,

You know,

The breath will happen naturally,

You have to breathe in,

It's just a survival instinct.

But the breathing out,

You don't have to really breathe out in such a way where you release all the breath.

If we're holding on to the situation because we're afraid,

Then the breath holds on to the various aspects of air that you're breathing out and doesn't quite detox the body,

Doesn't quite release the stress.

So this is so very powerful.

And this is what I teach children who are hyperactive or who are facing complex situations within themselves,

Emotional turbulence within themselves or emotional turbulence because of interaction with others because they're stressed and easily triggered and a noise or an action or a word can just trigger them,

Trigger them so much that it's almost as if it's out of context.

It's not the word,

It's the situation that they're facing within their body that they can't actually manage.

So if you teach them this very simple technique to breathe out whenever there is stress,

Whenever they're angry because there is a noise or there is a situation around them that they can't cope with,

To just spend a minute or two breathing out in this way.

And it's nice and it's interesting and it's fun for children also.

You make this noise and you can turn it into a game,

You know,

And you're breathing out like a frog.

I don't know if a frog breathes out but you're breathing out like a whale or whatever,

You know,

And you turn it into,

It's not just another thing to do,

You know,

Do your yoga breathing now and relax.

But it's like,

Let's have fun,

You know,

And it's the same,

You know,

For adults,

We have this little inner child that wants to enjoy the moment,

Wants to be blissful in the moment,

Wants to just be.

So if we add another thing,

Oh,

Now I have to do my yoga breath,

Tony said,

To do this,

And it's like this burden and you're already stressed,

Then very often the impulse or the sort of sense of freedom is diluted and we don't feel free,

We just feel like there's more to do.

So that attitude is important and for most adults it's very difficult to understand what I'm saying.

Children understand because they naturally want to play and be happy and enjoy the moment,

They don't want to waste time thinking about it.

But adults are addicted to thinking about the moment so they will fall into,

You know,

Just thinking about,

Oh,

Do I really need to do this yoga breathing,

I've tried it and it didn't.

Still,

The situation works but it doesn't really change anything because I'm stressed again,

Practice,

Practice,

Practice,

Every time until it becomes a habit.

And I remember,

And it's hard to believe,

I remember before the age of 12,

You know,

When I started learning about meditation,

Everything changed.

But before the age of 12,

I used to have these very powerful reactions,

I used to get very confused about situations or triggered about situations that I'd be very unhappy because I lived in a place where people were suffering and I'd get so unhappy that people were suffering and that I couldn't do something about it.

I remember driving to school because I lived in a sort of country where there was such a difference between the poor and the rich,

Driving to school and looking at all these people and thinking,

Why isn't anyone doing anything about this?

Why are all these people suffering?

And we just pretend it away.

I remember my breath changed and I was a little angry boy,

A little sort of,

Not a gremlin but something like that,

You know,

I'm going to change the world.

That was 12,

You know,

I'm going to change the world,

I'm going to do something about it even if everyone around me just pretends it away.

And that changed the way that I learned to integrate my breathing system into situations of communication and into situations of just addressing whatever was going on.

So I remember I used to get very strong with teachers who told me what to do and I'd say,

I'm not doing that.

And I would stand up and they would call me like a disruptive student.

I'm not doing that.

Don't tell me how to do my homework.

I know how to do my homework.

Okay,

You're telling me how to do my homework,

I will not do my homework and that's it,

You know.

And people would speak to my parents and my parents would try to discipline me in the traditional ways and it just didn't work and it won't work because we,

You know,

We need to be happy.

We need to come back to an understanding of what it means to be free.

We don't need another dogmatic belief system thrown into there even if it's spiritual,

Even if it's to do with meditation or yoga,

It doesn't really matter.

The mind sees everything in the same way.

If it's a dogma you have to do this and there is no fun in doing what you're doing then there is no freedom in what you're doing.

It has to be that you're doing things because,

Wow,

I do notice a difference and you will notice a difference as you breathe in this way.

Not the difference that the mind says,

Well,

It hasn't changed anything,

The inner saboteur sort of playing that game.

Remember the ego,

We speak about this later,

But the ego,

You know,

You think that's very good,

Okay,

Let me show you,

There are more problems and then,

You know,

You fall into the stress of thinking about the problems because they are not resolved and then you forget the breathing.

You do the breathing for a minute and then you forget the breathing because you're thinking about the stress and again you fall back into the same situation.

Practice.

The more you practice,

The more your breathing changes and now when I address a situation,

I always check,

Am I breathing from my belly,

Am I breathing deep into my belly and am I breathing out or am I holding my breath?

All the time I'm breathing in this way,

This yogic way of breathing that helps to relax the body,

That helps to reduce stress and anxiety simply because it's a habit.

I don't need to think about it anymore.

It just happens.

It's just a natural response to the situation.

It's integrated into the way that I communicate to the world.

You need to practice because most people,

And you can observe this around you,

Most people breathe in what is known as a method of shallow breathing.

It's very difficult to breathe in a different way.

It feels uncomfortable.

In the beginning I remember trying to breathe in this way and I thought,

Okay,

If it wasn't for the freedom that is promised and if it wasn't a tradition of breathing,

I wouldn't be continuing to do this.

I would breathe in this way and it just felt strange.

It didn't feel natural at all.

I would say it's not a natural way of breathing.

I would say after practicing for a month,

30 days,

Three,

Four minutes a day,

Your body will just naturally say,

Oh,

I always feel better breathing in this way.

Feels good to breathe in this way.

Feels natural to breathe in this way.

The body has chosen freedom,

Not your mind.

You're not telling your mind to breathe in a certain way,

But your body just naturally responds to the situation in such a way where it survives.

I need to reduce the cortisol in my body.

Ah,

The breath.

I remember this because I've done this 30 times.

You breathe in this way and you're still stressed,

But much less.

And the less stress,

The easier it is to come back to meditation,

To this receptive state where choice,

The choice of being here present to the experience means that the life force,

The life energy within you is what is communicating to the experience that you're having rather than the stress and the reactive state that you put your body into because of the stress that then communicates to the outside world or to the experience that you're having and creates more stress and more misunderstanding and more lack of communication or communication that goes nowhere.

So practice this,

Just breathing in and breathing out,

Letting go.

Practice this.

And as you continue this practice,

You slowly come to the end of today's transmission.

Perhaps after the practice,

After the breathing for a few moments or for however long you feel comfortable doing this deep breathing technique,

However long you're comfortable doing this,

Five,

10 minutes is perfect.

Write down these points,

Just to remind yourself every time a situation arises where you forget,

Just write down the easy steps because sometimes when we're in limbo,

Sometimes when there is too much stress,

We can't even remember the basics of how to address certain situations.

So if it's written down,

It's much easier.

Okay.

Thank you.

Reviews

Wow there was a lot of helpful advise here 😊 thank you so much 😊

What a motivational talk that gently reminded me how my body would love to be treated to reduce my cortisol responses. Thank you!

lifesaving

Enjoyed his talk very much. I need to be reminded to stop and breathe.

There’s a lot of data about the connection between sugar intake and disease, and the effects of gut health on a healthy mind. I don’t know if what he says about sugar not being used immediately as energy turns into physiological stress, then psychological stress, and over time disease. But it seems very logical! And I’m going to try to live by this — go for a sprint if I’ve eaten sugar, and generally eat less sugar unless I’m happy to sprint right after. :)

Thanks for sharing your insights.

Great insightfull talk. Note to self: don’t forget to breathe deep and slow! Thank you 🙏🏻

Thank you for the knowing of how to share your power with me, for going into that xtra space, locked in since so long ago, and to teach how to give the reason to finally break the shackles that keep us prisoners of our minds.

Very helpful! Thank you.