From Pressure to Peace: Embracing the Working Lightly™ Philosophy - Ep 58

In this podcast episode, I introduce the concept of 'Working Lightly™' a system designed to help you achieve better well-being amidst work and life demands. 

I contrast this with a place many of us find ourselves -  'working heavy,' which involves constant urgency, reactivity, and stress. 

I explain that Working Lightly™ aims to bring more balance, ease, confidence, and calmness into daily life. 

I cover the keys to embracing the Working Lightly™ philosophy and offer practical tips to support this way of working.

At the end, I share about my program, Working Lightly™  a six-month group coaching initiative for women. Join before 22nd July & receive free ticket to a Half Day Retreat in August.

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Working Lightly™ a program for women who want to work from deeper self belief, and advance their career with a lighter body & mind.

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Transcript

0:28

Hi, welcome back to the podcast. It's Annabelle here. I'm so happy you're here with me and that we are. Doing this podcast episode together. I'm Just coming off the back of a week hold that I've had over the last week. So if I'm sounding A little Bit Nasally, that is why. But today was the day to be recording podcast episodes. I'd Allocated this morning to do it. So nasally or not, here we are. We're Going to be doing this episode together and jumping into it. So in this episode, we're going to be talking about this concept of working lightly. And it's a term that I use a lot in my work. It's a, it really describes a system that I take clients through to help them experience a greater sense of wellbeing as they face work and life demands. So in this episode, I'm going to be talking to you about. What working lightly actually is, so what it means and how we can adopt this way of Working to bring more balance, more ease, more confidence, more calmness into our working lives and in our lives overall. And if you like this and if this is something that you want to experience for yourself, then you may like to check out my program, Working lightly. So this is formerly was called elevate the mastermind. So if you've listened to this podcast for a while, or you've been tuning into some of the episodes, you would have probably heard me talk about elevate the mastermind. It's had a little rebrand and it's now called working lightly. So Working Lightly is my six month intimate group coaching Program for women who want to feel more calm, confident, and in control of their work experience and of the demands of life. It's going to teach you a lot. A whole new way of working and living that will just revolutionize how you work and how you feel every day. So if you're interested in checking that out, the link to that is below. We actually have an enrollment starting at the beginning of September and there's a bonus on offer if you want to join us in July. So if you're new here on the podcast, welcome, make sure you subscribe to the podcast. If you're listening on Spotify, give the podcast some stars. That helps to rate the podcast, or if you're listening on Apple I'd really appreciate if you could give it a review. This all just helps to support the podcast and to get the episodes out to more and more people to help them as well. So thank you so much for doing that. So I think it's helpful for us to look at the opposite of working lightly before we get into that, which is not surprisingly called working heavy. So when we're in a working heavy space, our work day is. Really characterized by a lot of urgency and a lot of reactivity. So it looks like we start the day as soon as we wake up and we check our emails, we refresh it, refresh our emails constantly throughout the day, or we're checking our emails late at night. We're feeling this pressure to constantly to respond to things. We're feeling distracted because it's just like a lot of stimulation going on. So we're going to feel that we're rushing a lot when we're working From this working heavy place, we'll feel like it's hard to be present because we're so distracted with all of these things that are going on in our mind. When we're working heavy, we're often thinking a lot. So we're endlessly thinking about problems, things that we need to solve, challenges that we're facing, to the point where it starts to consume us. So we start to feel like it's really hard to let go of the day, to just leave work at the door. All of those things that are going on at work are circulating in our mind when we get home. When we're working heavy, whether we realize it or not, sometimes this can happen a little bit more subconsciously, but we're allowing the validation of our peers, our colleagues, the person we report to, people that we serve to determine how we feel about ourselves at work. So if they like what you're doing, you feel good about yourself, but if you sense it disapproval or disagreement, it creates a lot of self doubt, a lot of second guessing. When we're working heavy, it'll be like we get triggered or stressed by something and we suppress that stress or that emotion. And we often suppress it by just jumping back into our to do list. So rather than processing the stress that's coming up for us and moving through it, We actually just throw ourselves back into work, back into the busyness, back into our to do lists, all of the tasks that need to be done. We often have high expectations of ourselves when we're working heavy, and that creates a lot of pressure to feel, to be seen as perfect, to be seen as doing a perfect job, when we're, when we are working heavy, We're often attaching our sense of safety to things outside of ourselves. So what that means is we're waiting until X thing is complete or Y problem is solved in order for us to feel okay, to feel safe, to feel relaxed in our bodies. So I spent a large part of my business journey in this space. So if you notice yourself in any of these patterns There's no judgment. Be really gentle with yourself because this is really common. But here's the thing, we don't actually have to stay in this place of working heavy. And that's where working lightly comes in. I think there's a common belief out there that I can either be successful or I can be relaxed, but I can't be both of those things. And I'm ready to cha really here to challenge this belief that achieving what we desire and advancing our career and being able to experience the things we want to at work has to come at the cost of our wellbeing. This isn't. Dismissing the stuff that we experience, there are real challenges that we're often experiencing at work and our businesses and our lives and our families, but I think it is an invitation to look at how we are responding to these challenges and learning to respond to them in a different way. So that we can have a different experience and this really places you in a place of power It creates a sense of empowerment for you in your life that even if There are high demands for you in your job and the work that you do Or there are some tricky things that you're dealing with at home and your family life. When you know how to be able to support yourself through those things, it means you can show up in a totally different way to those challenges and those demands. You get to experience them in a really different way. I think when it comes to being able to do that, there are some key things. I think it's about how we're processing emotional stress. It's about creating mental resilience, so learning how to think on purpose, being intentional about our thoughts, the way we're thinking, the beliefs that we hold, because this just has such a big impact on. Our experiences. If you want to hear me talking a little bit more about beliefs and how they shape our experiences in, in life and in work, I recorded a podcast episode not long ago, actually. And It was a recording actually, that I did of something on LinkedIn, like a live session that I did on LinkedIn. We went more deeply into beliefs and how this, the enormous role that they play in our experience of life and work. So if you wanna check that out, it's episode 54 on the podcast. And that might be something that you enjoy listening to as well. Working lightly, as I said at the beginning of this episode, is a term or phrase I'm often using when I'm working with clients. It describes the system that I take clients through to experience a greater sense of well being as they face work and life demands. And, as I said, it's actually the name of my book. And so this is a new name of my mastermind program. So if you are familiar with elevate the mastermind, you heard me talking about it on here. It's had a rebrand and I, as I said and it's now called working lightly. And it's the basis of what I'm about to talk to you about as really the basis of what we do inside that program. So what does it feel like? To work lightly. So really at a, as a basic level, you're going to find that you can breathe more deeply as you do challenging things at work. As you do things outside of your comfort zone that really stretch you, you're going to find that you feel you can rest in a feeling of ease. You can breathe more deeply, your body feels lighter and more relaxed as you work. And you're just going to find that your days and weeks go by a lot more smoothly. So rather than feeling like you have big highs or big lows, like you're on a bit of an emotional roller coaster, or feeling like you have to use your weekends to recover from what's happened during the week, you're just going to find that there's a lot more emotional stability. Things feel a lot more smooth, a lot more easeful, a lot more lighter. It also means when we're working from this place, it means we have more brain space. So we've stepped out of the overthinking and we create a lot more clarity, a lot more space in our mind. And that gives us energy to be able to do things out of work, outside of work, things that really bring us joy that give us a lot of meaning outside of the work that we do. When we're working lightly and we're embracing the concepts of the system, it means we're working from deeper self belief. So we walk into a room or space and we really know that we belong there. It means that we are valuing what it is that we have to offer. We seeing that it's enough and you really allow yourself to move towards the opportunities, the things that you're really wanting to see happen in your work and career. You've got to feel softer, more connected to your feminine energy. And that's going to replace the hard armor of stress that working heavy creates. You're going to find that when you're working lightly, you can more easily leave work at the door. That separation between work and home becomes much easier. So it means you come out of that constant thinking, and when you come home, you can be more present in your relationships, more present with people that you love, and really more present to life itself. When you're working lightly, you're prioritizing life outside of work. I think that goes back to that point around, Having that brain space for joy and things that really give you meaning you're prioritizing your own needs, self care, you're laughing more, you're having more fun and really working lightly invites you into self belief that allows you to step forward into new opportunities, things that grow your career, advance your career, but you can do those things feeling better. Thank you. Really supported from within you feel more grounded more at ease. So ultimately it's about Really creating a way of working that's much more gentle on your mind and body. So how do we get there? What are the keys to being able to work and live in a lighter way? I think the first thing is awareness. So our bodies are incredible communicators. When we feel tension or stress or busyness or urgency or some kind of uneasiness, it's the body it's the body like indicating to us, okay, I've now gone into this heavy style of working. So take some time throughout your day to really check in with your body, check in with how you're feeling. What I find with a lot of the women that come into my work is that they're actually not even, they've lost that connection to their bodies. And this is where all of the change starts. We have to come out of the mind and come back into our bodies, learn to be more connected to our bodies. Because when we're connected to our bodies, we're connected with how we're feeling. And we can't shift what we aren't aware of or what we're not noticing. So once we recognize how we're feeling, we then have the ability to change the way we feel by changing our thoughts, which I'll talk about in a second, changing our actions, our behaviors, the choices that we're making to bring A lightness and an ease into our experience. So there is immense power in starting to become more aware of how you're feeling and using your body as a guide for that. So just as a starting point, really just thinking when you first wake up in the morning, checking in with your body. How do I feel today? And it might be like, oh, I'm feeling anxious. I'm feeling anxious about the, all of the things that I need to get done today. Okay. Just being with that feeling and recognizing it, being aware of it for a start and using some things which we'll talk about next to help process and move that feeling through your body. Maybe you take another moment at the, at lunchtime, you use that as another point of the day to just come back into your body to go, okay, how am I feeling now? And even just as a starting point, if you even didn't even do anything with the feeling, ideally, that's where we want you to get to is to be able to process and move the feeling. But even as a starting point, if you just created this awareness at regular points throughout the day, that's going to start to create a really big shift for you. Coming out of the mind and starting to live more from the body is where all of this change begins. So secondly to work more lightly, it's about processing our emotional stress and getting really familiar with dropping into our bodies as I was saying and processing the stress that we're experiencing and we really don't like to do this. We feel very resistant to feeling our emotions. That's quite normal. That's quite human. I think we have a lot of conditioning that says like emotions aren't safe or that we shouldn't be feeling certain emotions. I think as humans, we often prefer to do all sorts of other things other than feel our feelings, but here's the thing. Just because we don't feel a stress, it doesn't mean it goes away. So we might conveniently push it down and distract ourselves with like our to do list, with scrolling on social media, or just running from task to task, but it doesn't mean that stress goes away. It gets suppressed and then it just builds up and up in our bodies and it will start to form this really heavy armour around us. That feels heavy that causes us to work and live in a heavy way when we're wearing this heavy armor of stress It's hard to feel soft. It's hard to be present It's hard to connect with people to really be here in the moment to experience joy so It's really looking at how we can be letting go of emotional stress and not just continuing to think about the things that we're stressed about or trying to solve the things that we're stressed about up in the mind, trying to think our way through it. It's about coming into our bodies and releasing the emotion that way. It doesn't have to be some big ceremony, something that you have to spend a whole heap of time on doing. I talk about some of, some techniques in that episode that I talked about earlier, episode 54. I talk about some techniques that can really help with this. I also have a great digital course called The Four Step Process to Release Emotional Stress. That would be amazing for you. But also come and join us in my program, Working Lightly. We do so much of this work of really getting you familiar with processing stresses as they come up. You're going to be equipped with practices and tools that you can pick up and use in your own life when you're at work, when something stressful is happening at home, so that you can move those feelings through your body and just come back to that more peaceful grounded state. So some things that I really love Myself, to do this is a technique called emotional freedom technique or tapping. You can find lots of tapping videos for stress on YouTube. Highly recommend. Breathwork, I'm a huge fan of breathwork and we can do breathwork in lots of different ways. Again, YouTube can be an amazing resource for breathwork videos. Really great ones. There's so many on there for five or 10 minutes and it can just take five or 10 minutes of breath work to totally shift our state. It doesn't have to take long. Inside working lightly at the beginning of every one of our sessions that we hold weekly we drop in as a group. And we use our breath and we go through different breathing techniques at the beginning of our sessions. So again, you can experience that release in the moment, but it becomes a technique that you get more and more familiar with using yourself. We also dedicate one of our group sessions a month. So if you want To a breathwork experience called revelation breathwork, and it's really just this amazing experience that people say is something they've like never felt before. We breathed for about 40 minutes and it's an ancient two step breathing technique that we do to positive uplifting music. And it just creates this release from your body. And it's just, As I said that most people will say is like anything unlike anything they've felt before. The sense of calmness is just incredible. So breathwork is amazing. Something I highly recommend for processing the stress that we're experiencing. So it's about getting that emotion up and out of your body. And this is going to help soothe the nervous system. We cannot work in a light way. If our nervous system is feeling really activated all of the time. You're probably familiar with the phrase. Fight or flight. That's our nervous system feeling really activated. That's a sign that we're in that working heavy state. So processing our emotional stress coming out of the mind into the body, soothing the nervous system is what really allows us to work in a lighter way. And it really enables us to feel much more safe. In our bodies, when we feel safe, we don't have to armor up to protect ourselves, which is really what is that masculine energy? Lots of us as women can find ourselves in. So beliefs is something else. That's a really important part of being able to embrace this whole. Approach this system of working, we simply cannot get around our thinking and our beliefs because the stress, the tension that we experience can always be traced back to a belief or thought that we're thinking, whether we realize it or not. Everything flows from a belief. So there's a formula that I talk about which is beliefs or thoughts will create a feeling in your body and those feelings will lead you to take certain actions. And those actions will lead to a result. So we can't get around the fact that everything that's the origin point. Our thoughts and our beliefs are the starting point of everything that we feel and all of the choices that we make. So if we want to feel different And find ourselves having a different experience. We've really got to look at what thoughts am I thinking that are driving this experience that I'm having? What are the thoughts that I'm thinking that are contributing to this? So there's the experience itself, but it's the thoughts I'm having about this experience that's in front of me. That's driving up that feeling of stress in my body. So learning how to become really intentional about the way that you're thinking. That's that awareness piece again. Like I said earlier, if we're not aware of something, we can't change it. So really starting to look at when you are feeling stress in your body, take a moment to think, what thoughts am I thinking at the moment? That are contributing to this feeling of stress and that moment deciding to think something different, something that's going to bring a different feeling into your body. And what's cool about this is when we make these changes, when we start to become more intentional about the way that we're thinking, the experience at work can be the same. The work pressure can be the same, the demands, the responsibilities, the people can be the same, but what happens is there's a change in how we are engaging with that. Which means it totally changes our experience of it. So rather than feeling like I can't feel any different until XYZ project is complete, or this thing at work changes, or this person leaves, or I get a new job. Which really places our sense of power outside of ourselves, thinking that other things outside of us have to change in order for us to feel better. When we can make this shift in the way that we are thinking and the thoughts we are thinking while we're at work, we engage with those things totally differently. So they can stay the same. That person, that colleague that you find is really triggering and hard to deal with. They can actually stay the same. You don't have to wait for them to change their behavior to change. It's like you make the shift within yourself and then that totally changes how you experience their behavior. So it's always coming back to to our thoughts, our beliefs, the way that we're thinking. And a lot of what my clients realize when we come in to working together is our stress, our working heavy tendencies can really be traced back to self doubt. And this can be a surprise for a lot of people, especially people who feel like they're very capable. They are high achievers that they've done a lot in their career today. They might not think they've got any self doubt. So some of us that self doubt is really conscious, like we can hear it in our mind consciously for some of us. That self doubt takes a little bit more digging to find, but we can see it because it's like evident in our feelings and in our experience of work. So deep down for a lot of us, we don't feel like we're doing enough or that we are enough. And so we push ourselves, we overextend ourselves, we pressure ourselves to constantly do more, we hold these really high expectations of ourselves to be perfect, to do everything really well, because we don't feel that who we are. So resting in a feeling, a deep sense of belief about yourself is a huge part of being able to let go of our attachment to work, to let go of these working heavy tendencies and to hold work more lightly and loosely. So resting in this belief that I have value to offer here right now before anything else changes right now in this moment. I have value to offer what I contribute is valuable. I'm enough for this role. I'm everything that my team clients, people around me need me to be when we can rest in this kind of self belief. It feels a deep exhale that we take and we make different choices when we're thinking in this way that I'm capable. What I contribute is valuable. People need what I have to offer. When we think in these really intentional ways, we engage with work so differently. So feeling connected to and believing in the value that we bring to our work, cultivating deeper self belief is a huge part of being able to work. So I hope that's given you a bit of an overview of these two concepts side by side. And as I said, if you're interested in this if this is something that you're wanting to really experience in your life and in the way that you work, then check out my program, Working Lightly. We Next Enrollment starts today. The first week of September we have a beautiful bonus on offer if you want to join as an early bird in July and secure your place. This is an intimate group program. So we cap the numbers at around eight. So if you're feeling the call to join this program then get in touch, book a time to chat with me, apply for the program so that you can secure one of those It's an intimate group coaching program. Where we we meet weekly over the course of six months and we combine in these sessions coaching sessions. Some sessions have a really clear theme where I'm coaching and teaching you a specific concept each month. of our program has a clear theme and then we break it down over the course of the month. Some of our weekly sessions are Q& A sessions, just open Q& A sessions where you're bringing anything that's challenging you, anything that you're feeling stuck by, the things that are getting in your way and you receive that coaching and guidance from me to be able to move through those things. And what's really cool about this experience is the magic is in the community and group element of this program. So there's so much power that happens when we come into a group experience with people who are experiencing really similar stuff to us, are feeling challenged by similar things, who are wanting to experience a different thing, like a different result. They're wanting to create the same change as us. There's just so much power coming into a group where there's this commonality between all of us and these obvious benefit and value and the coaching that you get from me inside this program. But what's really cool about the way that this program is set up is that you're going to receive so much value from other people's coaching. So when someone's receiving coaching from me, you're more than likely going to see aspects of yourself and your experience in them. So while they're getting coached, you're also receiving benefit from their coaching. A mentor of mine likes to say your coaching is everybody's coaching and everybody's coaching is your coaching too. And I think that is the power of an intimate group experience like this. And I've lost count of the number of times we've been in this program and people have said, Oh my gosh, what you just said, so and so is exactly what I've been feeling or, Annabelle, what you just helped her with is something that I really needed to hear for myself. So there's just so much power in there and we have this lovely intimate small group. So it's not an enormous group program. It's an intimate group where you just feel really safe. And there's lots of space and room for you to get help and support as you move through all of this. So we meet weekly. Some sessions, as I said, core themes, I'm teaching you specific concepts. Some sessions are Q& A, coaching, you're bringing your questions, getting help with anything that you need. We also do a monthly breathwork session. As I mentioned earlier in this podcast episode, This monthly breathwork session is like a breathwork experience. So you come in, we're breathing for about 40 minutes together. It's this ancient two step breathing technique that we do to positive, uplifting music. And it just creates this release that people say is unlike anything they have felt before. It just creates so much calmness, so much clarity. It just releases all of the stress and tension in your body. And just brings you back to this feeling of just being grounded, feeling calm and settled and safe. So we do one of those breathwork sessions every month and it's always something to really look forward to. What's also great about this program is every session is recorded and loaded onto our private podcast. So if you can't make some of the sessions, That's totally fine. There's not a pressure to make every single session because each session is recorded. So if you miss something, you can come back to the recording, just jump onto our private podcast, catch up on the recording from the session. You'll still receive heaps from the recording and what it is that's discussed on that day. And the cool thing about the private podcast is you can tune in and listen to that. When you're, On your way to work or when you're out exercising or when you're cooking dinner, it just makes it really easy to be able to listen back to our sessions and also stay connected with the teachings of the program. So in addition to our weekly live sessions. The private podcast. You also get access to our lessons library. And this is really like a program in and of itself. There's great PDFs and audios and videos and meditations. So a whole bunch of beautiful resources, things that are going to really support you to start working and living in a lighter way. You get access to those immediately as soon as you join. So you can start to. Learn those tech practices and techniques and get familiar with them yourself. And there's something that we'll just keep referring back to as we move through the program. And lastly, the last thing that we have as part of the program is private messaging group. So we use the app telegram which is like Facebook messenger, but it's a different app. It's an audio text messaging app, and we have a private group set up in there. So that's a place you can come to, to get support. Right throughout the week, so if something's coming up for you and we're not meeting again for another five days, you can jump into that private messaging group and ask me a question. I can come back to you with coaching and guidance and support. It's also a really awesome way to be able to connect with our members throughout the week as well. If this is resonating with you, if you're interested in joining us, go and check out the link underneath this podcast episode. That link has all of the information about the program and how it works and how it can really support you in your life, what it's going to support you. to create and feel and experience in your life. Spaces are limited because this is a small intimate group experiences. I like to keep my space spaces small in this way because it builds this beautiful safety and connection and amongst the group. So it's virtual. We meet on zoom. So you can join from wherever you're based. And. If you'd like to book in for a time to chat to me about the program, you can do that too. There's a link to do that on that page if you want to have a chat about whether it's going to be right for you or how it could support you with your goals and the things that you're wanting to achieve. I'd love to see you in there. Thanks so much for tuning in to this episode. If you enjoy this episode, share it with a friend, and I look forward to catching up with you in another one.