Alan is joined by Integrative Mind Body Health Practitioner, Melissa Deally. Melissa used to work in the corporate world until she was let-go of with no thanks and no warning. From that moment onward she decided to live her life never working for anyone else and dedicated her next work to help others truly heal and detox their physical, mental and emotional bodies.

Alan and Melissa dive into self-care and talk about how it’s the most selfless and important act one can do. Without self-care we will have nothing left for ourselves, making it impossible for us to truly be there for others.

Melissa also shares about the Reticular Activating System (RAS) and how she created a gratitude journal. Our imaginations are such a powerful tool we have to create joy or despair! With it Melissa teaches her clients awareness about the way that our bodies communicate with us. We need to learn to calm our bodies using our breath.

Dive in to this informative podcast that will help bring to light the importance of mindfulness.

About the Guest:

Melissa Deally is an Integrative Mind Body Health Practitioner, also trained in NLP, Timeline Therapy and a Hypnotherapy teacher. She’s dedicated to helping her clients discover the root cause of their health issue and truly heal, while detoxing their physical, mental and emotional bodies. Melissa’s business is 100% virtual, and she works with the entire English speaking world.

Melissa also uses the power of functional medicine lab tests mailed to your home, while offering a very high level of support, to ensure her clients’ success, as we navigate the path bringing the bodies back into balance, while creating new lifestyle habits to ensure lasting results.

Melissa is an international speaker, three time best-selling author, and has been named to the 2022 CREA Global Award list, and the winner of the Alignable 2023 & 2022 Local Business Person Of The Year Award for Whistler.  She is also the recipient of the 2022 & 2021 Quality Care Award by Businesses From The Heart. Melissa is the host of the “Don’t Wait For Your Wake Up Call!” podcast, a podcast offering practical education around health, which ranked in the top 5% of Global podcasts by Listen Notes in the first 3 months of launching.

When not serving her clients, Melissa can be found on her paddle board, backcountry hiking & camping with her daughter(s), downhill or cross country skiing, or planning her next trip for her Girl Guide unit or working on her passion project, Girls Matter, helping keep girls in school in Uganda, breaking the poverty cycle, one girl, one family, one village at a time.

 Contact:

 My LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/yourguidedhealthjourney

Email: melissa@yourguidedhealthjourney.com

About Alan:

Alan Carroll is an Educational Psychologist who specializes in Transpersonal Psychology. He founded Alan Carroll & Associates 30 years ago and before that, he was a Senior Sales Training Consultant for 10 years at Digital Equipment Corporation. He has dedicated his life in search of mindfulness tools that can be used by everyone (young and old) to transform their ability to speak at a professional level, as well as, to reduce the psychological suffering caused by the misidentification with our ego and reconnect to the vast transcendent dimension of consciousness that lies just on the other side of the thoughts we think and in between the words we speak.

Personal: https://www.facebook.com/alan.carroll.7359

Business: https://www.facebook.com/AlanCarrolltrains

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/aca-mindful-you/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mindfulnesseminar/

Web Site: https://acamindfulyou.com/

Alan Carroll: 00:00:00

Melissa, welcome.

Melissa Deally: 00:00:02

Thank you very much, Alan, good to be here.

Alan Carroll: 00:00:05

Well, it's exciting for for me to be with

Alan Carroll: 00:00:08

you. Because we share a lot in common. And so we already have a

Alan Carroll: 00:00:17

connection, which is great. Yes. And the deep connection that we

Alan Carroll: 00:00:21

have is mindfulness. And so what I like to do is have the

Alan Carroll: 00:00:25

audience experience your stories and about mindfulness and how

Alan Carroll: 00:00:31

you got into the mindfulness, umbrella. And various paths

Alan Carroll: 00:00:37

under the mindfulness umbrella, and how you bring mindfulness

Alan Carroll: 00:00:41

into the world to heal. To heal the stress and the agitation

Alan Carroll: 00:00:47

caused by the put them in close, but the chaos that's happening

Alan Carroll: 00:00:52

with all the stirring up of our thoughts. And so I'd like to

Alan Carroll: 00:00:56

welcome you to the mindful you podcast, and have added,

Melissa Deally: 00:01:03

well, thank you. And I'm just gonna go back a

Melissa Deally: 00:01:06

little bit in time, back to when I was in the corporate world,

Melissa Deally: 00:01:09

which was up until eight years ago. And back then I really

Melissa Deally: 00:01:13

didn't know anything about mine fullness. But sure, I'd heard of

Melissa Deally: 00:01:17

meditation, I'd never done it didn't really understand the

Melissa Deally: 00:01:21

value of it, I was in that go, go go doo doo doo world that the

Melissa Deally: 00:01:25

corporate world gets you caught up in. And then one day, big

Melissa Deally: 00:01:29

fish bought little fish. And I was just given an hour to clear

Melissa Deally: 00:01:33

out my desk. And after 24 years, not even a word of thanks. And

Melissa Deally: 00:01:37

in that moment, I knew three things, I knew I was never going

Melissa Deally: 00:01:40

to work for someone else. Again, whatever I did next had to be

Melissa Deally: 00:01:42

more service to the planet and humanity. And then I had no idea

Melissa Deally: 00:01:46

what that be. And that was really the start of my journey

Melissa Deally: 00:01:51

into mindfulness, because now I had time time to explore who I

Melissa Deally: 00:01:57

was, and what I wanted to do with the second half of my

Melissa Deally: 00:02:01

career, and to allow myself to be guided into that versus

Melissa Deally: 00:02:07

forcing it. And I literally went from the hotel world of

Melissa Deally: 00:02:12

corporate to health and wellness and health and wellness had

Melissa Deally: 00:02:15

never been on my radar, other than I, you know, tried to eat

Melissa Deally: 00:02:20

well and exercise and look after my health. And through a series

Melissa Deally: 00:02:24

of circumstances, I was very much guided into this work. And

Melissa Deally: 00:02:31

part of that was both of my daughter's going through

Melissa Deally: 00:02:33

concussions at a very similar time. And I don't know if you've

Melissa Deally: 00:02:37

ever experienced concussions in your household, but it's tough

Melissa Deally: 00:02:41

for anybody who have a concussion, let alone teenage

Melissa Deally: 00:02:44

girls, and one in particular who was in grade 12 At the time, and

Melissa Deally: 00:02:48

life just shuts down because the brain can't handle that normal

Melissa Deally: 00:02:53

level of energy that it used to be able to handle. So she

Melissa Deally: 00:02:57

couldn't go to school, she couldn't participate in all the

Melissa Deally: 00:02:59

fun stuff, all the other kids were doing, couldn't go to prom,

Melissa Deally: 00:03:01

couldn't go to graduation, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Melissa Deally: 00:03:05

And feeling like I'm missing out on everything. And it's very

Melissa Deally: 00:03:08

easy to for people with concussions to slip into

Melissa Deally: 00:03:11

meditation, and it sorry, into depression. So I started

Melissa Deally: 00:03:16

learning about meditation and mindfulness to support her, and

Melissa Deally: 00:03:21

also started learning that everything happens for a reason.

Melissa Deally: 00:03:24

And there was a reason I got let go, there was a reason she had

Melissa Deally: 00:03:28

this concussion. And part of me being let go was so that I was

Melissa Deally: 00:03:31

around and had the time to support both my daughters

Melissa Deally: 00:03:34

through their healing journeys. So we started practicing

Melissa Deally: 00:03:40

mindfulness, and slowing down as part of the healing process for

Melissa Deally: 00:03:45

these concussions and stepping into guided meditation

Melissa Deally: 00:03:50

practices. And just allowing the time to sit still and be and you

Melissa Deally: 00:03:57

know, reading the research about how powerful this is, how

Melissa Deally: 00:04:00

healing it is, for our mind for our entire nervous system. I

Melissa Deally: 00:04:04

started learning about breath work. And again, we have our

Melissa Deally: 00:04:07

breath with us all the time. It's something that we can do

Melissa Deally: 00:04:10

anywhere to drop ourselves out of that fight or flight state

Melissa Deally: 00:04:15

and into our parasympathetic nervous system stage. And soon

Melissa Deally: 00:04:21

after working with both girls and supporting them through

Melissa Deally: 00:04:24

their healing journey, I had also connected with a company

Melissa Deally: 00:04:28

that specialized in brain health supplementation, so I was giving

Melissa Deally: 00:04:31

them really good nutrition to support the healing as well as

Melissa Deally: 00:04:34

seeing physiotherapist to help them. I became known in my small

Melissa Deally: 00:04:39

community for helping my girls recover and both did fully

Melissa Deally: 00:04:43

recover. And then I was asked to work at a clinic. Yeah, that was

Melissa Deally: 00:04:46

very good news. Thank you. And I was asked to work at a clinic, a

Melissa Deally: 00:04:52

holistic clinic that was opening to help more people with

Melissa Deally: 00:04:55

concussion recoveries. And there is a need I Live in a ski town

Melissa Deally: 00:05:01

and there's winter at skiing in the summer, it's downhill

Melissa Deally: 00:05:03

biking. So there is a lot of concussions. However, I couldn't

Melissa Deally: 00:05:07

work there because I couldn't get insurance because I didn't

Melissa Deally: 00:05:10

have any training. I just had my own learning research and

Melissa Deally: 00:05:14

experience with my daughters. So I realized I need to go back to

Melissa Deally: 00:05:17

school. So I did that I went back to school and became a

Melissa Deally: 00:05:23

health coach. And even that was a gift because I had never even

Melissa Deally: 00:05:26

heard of the term health coach before. But I had called a

Melissa Deally: 00:05:29

friend who was a life coach and thought maybe I should be a life

Melissa Deally: 00:05:32

coach that had kind of been bouncing in the back of my head

Melissa Deally: 00:05:34

and not landed. And I asked him where he did his training, and

Melissa Deally: 00:05:37

he said, You shouldn't be a life coach, you need to be a health

Melissa Deally: 00:05:41

coach. And I went, what, what's that, and I took that to be a

Melissa Deally: 00:05:45

gift from the universe, and started researching health

Melissa Deally: 00:05:48

coaching schools and literally started 10 days later, I found

Melissa Deally: 00:05:51

one that I really aligned with, and jumped right in. And one of

Melissa Deally: 00:05:56

the first things that I learned there was that self care is not

Melissa Deally: 00:06:02

selfish. And previously, I had always thought that it was and

Melissa Deally: 00:06:07

that I had to look after everybody else first before I

Melissa Deally: 00:06:10

could look after myself. And I loved how it was presented that

Melissa Deally: 00:06:16

it is the most selfless act. And I then added a little bit more

Melissa Deally: 00:06:21

of a mantra to that, that self care is the most selfless act

Melissa Deally: 00:06:25

because it allows you to show up and give the world the best of

Melissa Deally: 00:06:27

you instead of what's left of you.

Alan Carroll: 00:06:30

Oh, that's sweet. So you say that again. Go ahead.

Alan Carroll: 00:06:33

And

Melissa Deally: 00:06:34

self care is the most selfless act because it

Melissa Deally: 00:06:37

allows you to show up and give the world the best of you

Melissa Deally: 00:06:40

instead of what's left of you. And that was absolutely pivotal

Melissa Deally: 00:06:46

for me, because I realized that I was giving my loved ones the

Melissa Deally: 00:06:50

ones nearest and dearest to me what was left of me, right, I

Melissa Deally: 00:06:54

thought I was serving them first. But I was actually

Melissa Deally: 00:06:57

running on empty and giving them what was left of me. And when I

Melissa Deally: 00:07:02

flipped it on its head and decided that I could care for

Melissa Deally: 00:07:05

myself first, I did have more energy for them. And so then I

Melissa Deally: 00:07:10

was able to build into my day and build my day around my self

Melissa Deally: 00:07:15

care, which included the mindfulness of a yoga practice,

Melissa Deally: 00:07:19

which I love, absolutely love my yoga, the mindful meditation

Melissa Deally: 00:07:25

practice, you know, in starting and ending my day was the

Melissa Deally: 00:07:28

meditation. I built in a gratitude practice, because I

Melissa Deally: 00:07:32

learned that our thoughts are so powerful, and our thoughts

Melissa Deally: 00:07:38

impact our actions, our behaviors, our results. So if I

Melissa Deally: 00:07:43

could change my thoughts that would change my behaviors that

Melissa Deally: 00:07:46

would change my results. And why not create more positivity out

Melissa Deally: 00:07:51

there, right? A lot of us go to sleep stressed out, we wake up

Melissa Deally: 00:07:55

in the night, we're already thinking about what we need to

Melissa Deally: 00:07:57

do the next day, and we're not getting great sleep, which means

Melissa Deally: 00:08:00

we wake up tired, less resilient to the stresses of the day. What

Melissa Deally: 00:08:04

if we could go to bed and have a really good deep restorative

Melissa Deally: 00:08:08

sleep, and one step and that is simply going to bed with

Melissa Deally: 00:08:12

positive thoughts running through our mind, because I

Melissa Deally: 00:08:15

learned our unconscious mind will work on whatever those last

Melissa Deally: 00:08:19

thoughts are we have as we go to sleep, and it will work on them

Melissa Deally: 00:08:21

all night long. So what are you thinking about as you're falling

Melissa Deally: 00:08:25

asleep? Are you thinking about the action violent movie that

Melissa Deally: 00:08:28

you just watched? Are you thinking about the book that you

Melissa Deally: 00:08:32

just read? And what are you feeding your mind in those last

Melissa Deally: 00:08:36

minutes before you go to sleep? And so what I started doing was

Melissa Deally: 00:08:39

feeding my mind gratitude, and thinking about my day, what was

Melissa Deally: 00:08:43

I grateful for and writing it down in my journal. And that let

Melissa Deally: 00:08:48

me go to sleep with all those positive thoughts and have a

Melissa Deally: 00:08:51

deeper, more restorative sleep. It also had just a really

Melissa Deally: 00:08:57

profound impact on how I went about my day because now it was

Melissa Deally: 00:09:01

in my RAs system that I was looking for gratitude. Our brain

Melissa Deally: 00:09:05

is wired to

Alan Carroll: 00:09:06

look for danger that was the acronym,

Melissa Deally: 00:09:09

their reticular activation system, the RAS

Melissa Deally: 00:09:12

system in our brain, that's when it becomes aware of something.

Melissa Deally: 00:09:16

So just as an example, you go and buy a new car, and you've

Melissa Deally: 00:09:20

you've tested four or five different cars, and you've

Melissa Deally: 00:09:23

settled on a Subaru. You've never had a Subaru before. You

Melissa Deally: 00:09:27

haven't even noticed them on the road. But it was the best car in

Melissa Deally: 00:09:29

the test driving and you love your new Subaru and now you're

Melissa Deally: 00:09:32

driving around and oh my goodness, there's Subarus

Melissa Deally: 00:09:35

everywhere you look because it's in your reticular activation

Melissa Deally: 00:09:39

system, whereas it wasn't before right? So I was doing this with

Melissa Deally: 00:09:43

gratitude. And instead of my brain looking for the danger to

Melissa Deally: 00:09:47

protect me from it started looking for the things that I

Melissa Deally: 00:09:50

could be thankful for. So when I was able to raise my vibration,

Melissa Deally: 00:09:56

raise my happiness level because I'm looking for the good In

Melissa Deally: 00:10:00

people, I'm looking for the good in my day, versus just relying

Melissa Deally: 00:10:04

on my safety mechanisms that are looking for the danger and

Melissa Deally: 00:10:07

looking for the negativity. That's the power of gratitude,

Melissa Deally: 00:10:11

and having a gratitude journal, and changing our outlook on how

Melissa Deally: 00:10:16

we go through our day, how we go through our life. So those are

Melissa Deally: 00:10:21

some of the key steps that I am have implemented in the last

Melissa Deally: 00:10:25

eight years and continued because I implemented them all

Melissa Deally: 00:10:28

very soon after learning all of this. And I've continued my

Melissa Deally: 00:10:31

learning. And more recently, in 2022, I really dove into

Melissa Deally: 00:10:36

understanding the power of the unconscious mind, as well as

Melissa Deally: 00:10:39

hypnosis, and I became trained as a hypnosis teacher. And that

Melissa Deally: 00:10:45

is, again, tapping into the ability to go into a deep

Melissa Deally: 00:10:49

relaxation. Have the brainwaves that are a theta, brainwave

Melissa Deally: 00:10:53

level, where we are going inside? The answers are all

Melissa Deally: 00:10:58

inside us. When we slow down, and we pay attention. How many

Melissa Deally: 00:11:06

times do we get a symptom of an illness, and we ignore it, it's

Melissa Deally: 00:11:10

aging is seasonal allergies, is my genetics, as opposed to

Melissa Deally: 00:11:15

recognizing that that symptom is our body's way of talking to us

Melissa Deally: 00:11:18

and asking us to do something differently. And when I work

Melissa Deally: 00:11:23

with my clients, that's what I'm teaching is I'm teaching the

Melissa Deally: 00:11:25

awareness of the way that our body communicates with us. And

Melissa Deally: 00:11:31

we can tap into that when we slow down and get into that

Melissa Deally: 00:11:35

space of mindfulness. And I'm sure it's very similar to the

Melissa Deally: 00:11:43

work that you do, we just may approach it from different ways.

Alan Carroll: 00:11:49

One words that I would use stillness. Yes,

Alan Carroll: 00:11:56

between the sounds that you speak. The sound is a heat,

Alan Carroll: 00:12:04

fire. Stillness is a cool, quiet, still. And there's no

Alan Carroll: 00:12:11

stress and stillness. By training people to be still,

Alan Carroll: 00:12:17

especially with meditation, I'm a meditation becomes a daily

Alan Carroll: 00:12:22

practice that that I Ay, ay, I want. Yes. And I did my work

Alan Carroll: 00:12:33

with Sadhguru. And his shamba V. Practice and Sonia, and it's all

Alan Carroll: 00:12:41

about becoming still and, and I'm in the psychology business,

Alan Carroll: 00:12:45

and we deal with the ego and the being. And you were talking

Alan Carroll: 00:12:50

about the mind body relationship. Let's talk a

Alan Carroll: 00:12:54

little bit about that. Because it's important that people

Alan Carroll: 00:12:57

realize the power of your thoughts, to create the physical

Alan Carroll: 00:13:03

changes in your body. And that idea about gratitude is a real

Alan Carroll: 00:13:07

sweet idea to focus your attention on what you want to

Alan Carroll: 00:13:13

have happen in your life versus, you know, the things that you

Alan Carroll: 00:13:17

don't don't like or don't want. And just think about, oh,

Alan Carroll: 00:13:21

that's, that's really a valuable gift that you just gave our

Alan Carroll: 00:13:25

audience, I want to underline that with a big thank you.

Melissa Deally: 00:13:29

My pleasure. And yes, that mind body connection

Melissa Deally: 00:13:32

is so powerful. Every single experience that we've ever had,

Melissa Deally: 00:13:41

is stored in our mind and body in our cells, as well as in the

Melissa Deally: 00:13:45

filing cabinet in our unconscious mind. It retains

Melissa Deally: 00:13:49

every single memory without judgment, for later access by

Melissa Deally: 00:13:54

the conscious mind. And I think of the the mind, gives the

Melissa Deally: 00:13:59

directions and the body is simply the robot. And I'll give

Melissa Deally: 00:14:03

you an example of how powerful this is and how our thoughts not

Melissa Deally: 00:14:08

only change our, you know our actions and our behaviors and

Melissa Deally: 00:14:11

our results, but they will actually biochemically change

Melissa Deally: 00:14:16

our body. So if you were to close your eyes right now, and

Melissa Deally: 00:14:21

if you're driving listening to this podcast, please don't

Melissa Deally: 00:14:24

everybody else, just close your eyes. And imagine that you're

Melissa Deally: 00:14:27

standing in your kitchen and you can see all the counter spaces

Melissa Deally: 00:14:32

and you can see your refrigerator right in front of

Melissa Deally: 00:14:35

you. And I want you to go to your refrigerator and open up

Melissa Deally: 00:14:40

the door. And then open up one of the drawers in your

Melissa Deally: 00:14:44

refrigerator and pull out a nice, juicy yellow lemon. And as

Melissa Deally: 00:14:51

you do that, close the door, close your refrigerator door and

Melissa Deally: 00:14:55

lift that lemon up to your nose and smell that lemons sent. And

Melissa Deally: 00:15:02

now I want you to take that lemon over to the counter, get

Melissa Deally: 00:15:06

your cutting board, get yourself a knife and slice that lemon in

Melissa Deally: 00:15:10

half. And as you slice that lemon in half, you feel some

Melissa Deally: 00:15:14

juices spray out and land on your fingertips. And I want you

Melissa Deally: 00:15:18

to slice that one half in half again, and in half again. So now

Melissa Deally: 00:15:22

you have a nice one eight wedge of lemon, and bring that lemon

Melissa Deally: 00:15:27

up to your mouth and bite into it. It's so juicy. And then

Melissa Deally: 00:15:33

you're going to throw that rind away as you enjoy that lovely

Melissa Deally: 00:15:37

fresh lemon. And now I want you to open your eyes. And tell me

Melissa Deally: 00:15:45

what happened. Did you notice saliva start forming in your

Melissa Deally: 00:15:51

mouth, as you were imagining, slicing and biting into that

Melissa Deally: 00:15:55

lemon

Alan Carroll: 00:15:57

was like it was real, the same kind of reaction

Alan Carroll: 00:16:00

that I would have over the real lemon. My, my body was specially

Alan Carroll: 00:16:03

in my mouth, there was a bitter Oh, it's gonna be bitter. You

Alan Carroll: 00:16:07

know, I could feel it.

Melissa Deally: 00:16:09

Exactly. And so that shows you the power of our

Melissa Deally: 00:16:13

imagination, which is all in our unconscious mind, your ability

Melissa Deally: 00:16:18

to pull on past experiences to be able to create that image in

Melissa Deally: 00:16:23

your mind of that lemon. As if you were really doing it, the

Melissa Deally: 00:16:26

mind doesn't know the difference between what's real and what's

Melissa Deally: 00:16:30

imagined. And so as a result, even though I had to imagine it,

Melissa Deally: 00:16:34

the mind thought it was real. So it thought you're gonna eat the

Melissa Deally: 00:16:37

lemon. So it starts producing salivary enzymes in your body.

Melissa Deally: 00:16:40

How cool is that. So that's why I say the body is the robot of

Melissa Deally: 00:16:44

what we're thinking in our mind. And this is powerful, because

Melissa Deally: 00:16:49

when we tap into the unconscious mind, which is where we have

Melissa Deally: 00:16:53

access to 90% of what our mind can access versus the 10%. In

Melissa Deally: 00:16:58

our conscious mind, we have access to so many more

Melissa Deally: 00:17:01

resources. And this is the power of hypnotherapy. It's the power

Melissa Deally: 00:17:06

of mindfulness. It's the power of imagination. Willpower,

Melissa Deally: 00:17:10

people try to do things by willpower, make change

Melissa Deally: 00:17:13

behaviors, etc. And that is all conscious. And it doesn't work.

Melissa Deally: 00:17:19

Because we know and we know it doesn't work, because by the end

Melissa Deally: 00:17:22

of January, most people have fallen off their new year's

Melissa Deally: 00:17:24

resolutions, right. But when we instead tap into the unconscious

Melissa Deally: 00:17:28

mind, we can create behavioral change that lasts. And we can do

Melissa Deally: 00:17:32

it quickly and effectively. Because our mind controls the

Melissa Deally: 00:17:37

body to that extent. And this is really, really powerful

Melissa Deally: 00:17:42

knowledge to have. And it all ties into mindfulness, and

Melissa Deally: 00:17:47

understanding the importance of our mind, the value of our mind

Melissa Deally: 00:17:51

and our ability to calm our mind, which is so important in

Melissa Deally: 00:17:55

today's world because as you mentioned earlier, we're living

Melissa Deally: 00:17:59

in a stressed out stage, the world was the most stressed out

Melissa Deally: 00:18:02

it had ever been before the pandemic. And now it's worse and

Melissa Deally: 00:18:06

everybody looks around and sees everyone else stressed out and

Melissa Deally: 00:18:11

normalizes it and just assumes that it's okay. And they don't

Melissa Deally: 00:18:14

realize the downside negative effects that it's having on

Melissa Deally: 00:18:17

their health. 90% of all doctor's visits are due to

Melissa Deally: 00:18:22

stress. 65% of all chronic illness and disease is due to

Melissa Deally: 00:18:28

stress. So we as a human population, need to learn to

Melissa Deally: 00:18:35

calm our mind, which will calm our body and get us out of that

Melissa Deally: 00:18:40

fight or flight state that is meant to only be to get us to

Melissa Deally: 00:18:43

safety in dire moments of a tiger chasing us when we're

Melissa Deally: 00:18:47

hunting for food versus in and out of it all day long because

Melissa Deally: 00:18:51

your boss yelled at you when your kids are cranky and your

Melissa Deally: 00:18:53

you and your husband had a spat and you got stuck in traffic and

Melissa Deally: 00:18:56

you got a flat tire and you got to the gas station and they had

Melissa Deally: 00:18:58

no gas and all those other things that happened we need to

Melissa Deally: 00:19:03

learn to calm our bodies for long term health and wellness

Melissa Deally: 00:19:09

but also for our happiness today because in that stressed out

Melissa Deally: 00:19:14

state it's really hard to find happiness and joy and live in

Melissa Deally: 00:19:18

that place.

Alan Carroll: 00:19:19

I like to jump into the calm the body calm the

Alan Carroll: 00:19:28

body to me is well yeah, I got my mind knows I can't control my

Alan Carroll: 00:19:34

thoughts but I can control a lot of things about my body if I

Alan Carroll: 00:19:43

choose to. Got to give up the thoughts, but And you talked

Alan Carroll: 00:19:50

about breathing. And so let's talk a little bit about the

Alan Carroll: 00:19:53

value of conscious breathing.

Melissa Deally: 00:19:57

The value of conscious breathing is simply

Melissa Deally: 00:20:00

think that it does trick your brain into believing it's safe.

Melissa Deally: 00:20:05

And it gets you out of that fight or flight state and into

Melissa Deally: 00:20:10

your rest and digest state. And so it is very calming on the

Melissa Deally: 00:20:13

mind and the entire body. And again, it doesn't have to take

Melissa Deally: 00:20:17

long, all of the mindful mindfulness activities we're

Melissa Deally: 00:20:20

talking about can be done in little short spurts five minutes

Melissa Deally: 00:20:24

throughout the day, 15 minutes, you don't have to find an hour

Melissa Deally: 00:20:28

in your, in your calendar. To do this, just start with five

Melissa Deally: 00:20:32

minutes and build on that. And once you've built on that, you

Melissa Deally: 00:20:37

will notice that you're more productive, because you're less

Melissa Deally: 00:20:39

stressed, you're more focused, and then you're more productive,

Melissa Deally: 00:20:42

you get more done. And that in, in and of itself creates more

Melissa Deally: 00:20:45

time for you to spend in mindfulness. So breath work, my

Melissa Deally: 00:20:49

favorite technique is called 557. Breathing. And you

Melissa Deally: 00:20:55

literally breathe in for five counts, you hold for five

Melissa Deally: 00:21:01

counts, and you exhale for seven counts. And you do this for 10

Melissa Deally: 00:21:07

cycles. And the brain catches on and goes, hmm, I thought I was

Melissa Deally: 00:21:12

stressed out. But I'm breathing like a safe person, I must be

Melissa Deally: 00:21:17

safe. And that's when it will switch off the fight or flight

Melissa Deally: 00:21:22

system and turn on the rest and digest system. And that's

Melissa Deally: 00:21:28

because if you are running away from a tiger, you're going to be

Melissa Deally: 00:21:33

running hard. And therefore panting, there's no way your

Melissa Deally: 00:21:37

exhale is longer than your inhale in that stress moment of

Melissa Deally: 00:21:40

getting to safety. So by making the exhale longer than the

Melissa Deally: 00:21:44

inhale, it tells the brain you're safe. The other thing

Melissa Deally: 00:21:49

that it does is so often when we're in a stressed out state,

Melissa Deally: 00:21:52

is we've got all these thoughts ruminating in our mind, and we

Melissa Deally: 00:21:55

can't keep up. But when we have to start doing all of this

Melissa Deally: 00:21:57

counting of 557 and 10 cycles, I don't know about you, but I

Melissa Deally: 00:22:02

count the 557 in my head, but I count the 10 cycles on my

Melissa Deally: 00:22:05

fingers. So all of this concentration on the counting

Melissa Deally: 00:22:09

releases whatever was running around in your mind so

Melissa Deally: 00:22:13

frantically having you stressed out. So it has a double whammy

Melissa Deally: 00:22:17

positive effect. This can be used anywhere you can do this

Melissa Deally: 00:22:20

when you're driving and stuck in traffic and you're going to be

Melissa Deally: 00:22:22

late you can do this just sitting at your desk, you can do

Melissa Deally: 00:22:25

this before you eat a meal, it's actually really helpful to do

Melissa Deally: 00:22:27

that. Because it actually turns on your digestive system because

Melissa Deally: 00:22:31

it's a rest and digest state. And it allows your body to

Melissa Deally: 00:22:35

properly digest your meal and get the nutrients from that

Melissa Deally: 00:22:38

meal. You can do this if you wake up in the middle of the

Melissa Deally: 00:22:41

night, and you can't get back to sleep. Because the mind is

Melissa Deally: 00:22:43

already thinking about the next day. You shut that off, you

Melissa Deally: 00:22:47

start doing your counting. And you'll fall asleep again. If

Melissa Deally: 00:22:51

you'd like me fall asleep before you get to number eight. I don't

Melissa Deally: 00:22:54

do it very often, but when I do, I've never actually got past

Melissa Deally: 00:22:57

number eight before I fallen asleep again. So it's a very

Melissa Deally: 00:23:00

powerful technique. And if you would like I can just guide you

Melissa Deally: 00:23:05

through a couple of rounds of it so you can experience it. The

Melissa Deally: 00:23:08

listeners can experience it again, as long as we're not

Alan Carroll: 00:23:12

sure. Okay, my eyes.

Melissa Deally: 00:23:15

Yeah, I'm gonna have you close your eyes. Again,

Melissa Deally: 00:23:17

anybody listening and not driving close your eyes because

Melissa Deally: 00:23:20

just closing your eyes allows your brain to settle and calm

Melissa Deally: 00:23:23

because we get so much in through our eyes, so much

Melissa Deally: 00:23:26

information and when we close our eyes, it'll just that allows

Melissa Deally: 00:23:30

the brain to start calming. Of course, if you're driving please

Melissa Deally: 00:23:34

don't close your eyes, but you can do this with me anyway. So I

Melissa Deally: 00:23:37

want you to inhale 2345 Hold 2345 exhale 234567 inhale 2345

Melissa Deally: 00:23:59

Hold 2345 exhale 234567 inhale 2345 Hold 2345 exhale 234567

Melissa Deally: 00:24:27

inhale 2345 Hold 2345 exhale. 234567 inhale 2345 Hold 2345

Melissa Deally: 00:24:54

exhale 234567 So now open your eyes when you're ready? And how

Melissa Deally: 00:25:07

was that?

Alan Carroll: 00:25:13

You feel? grounded? Yes, you're you're no

Alan Carroll: 00:25:20

longer lost in the dream of thoughts you are anchored in an

Alan Carroll: 00:25:26

energy field in your in your body? Because that's where I'm

Alan Carroll: 00:25:30

putting my attention. Yes, I will go on, it's gonna

Melissa Deally: 00:25:37

say it's very, very calming for people. So the

Melissa Deally: 00:25:41

listeners are probably thinking, Oh, I just feel calmer, right? I

Melissa Deally: 00:25:46

only did five rounds. And it only took about two minutes. So

Melissa Deally: 00:25:51

do the 10 rounds, so that your brain goes hmm, I thought I was

Melissa Deally: 00:25:55

stressed out. But I'm breathing like a safe person, I must be

Melissa Deally: 00:25:58

safe, and it will switch into your rest and digest nervous

Melissa Deally: 00:26:02

system.

Alan Carroll: 00:26:06

Well, I love it. I love the practical things that

Alan Carroll: 00:26:11

you don't need to go to the university for 50 years or

Alan Carroll: 00:26:13

sitting on top of the mountain, you have access to this tool of

Alan Carroll: 00:26:18

mindfulness called breathing. become more conscious of your

Alan Carroll: 00:26:22

breathing. And you have to pay it in the Buddhist tradition

Alan Carroll: 00:26:27

they talk about disembodied, is your following your thoughts in

Alan Carroll: 00:26:31

body you're following your body. And anytime you can cut the

Alan Carroll: 00:26:37

connection between the mind doing the the mind thing and the

Alan Carroll: 00:26:41

body, it disrupts the the pattern, and you are released

Alan Carroll: 00:26:48

from the from the grip of the thoughts. And that's freedom.

Alan Carroll: 00:26:53

That's that's in India, they call it mukti to be able to

Alan Carroll: 00:26:56

release yourself from the grip of the thoughts. But most

Alan Carroll: 00:26:59

people, what do you mean, grip on my thoughts? What do you

Alan Carroll: 00:27:03

mean, they don't they don't understand the concept that the

Alan Carroll: 00:27:07

thought is something that exists in a space. And if you begin to

Alan Carroll: 00:27:11

focus on the space, rather than the thought, the thought becomes

Alan Carroll: 00:27:17

observable. And and when he can when you can observe the thought

Alan Carroll: 00:27:21

you can manage the thought to think thoughts of gratitude,

Alan Carroll: 00:27:25

rather than thoughts about things that would be detrimental

Alan Carroll: 00:27:27

to my physical body. And so that's real, powerful wisdom

Alan Carroll: 00:27:34

that you share with us. I really appreciate that.

Melissa Deally: 00:27:38

Well, and I think that ties in back to what

Melissa Deally: 00:27:40

I was saying earlier that everything happens for us.

Melissa Deally: 00:27:44

Right. So when we're in that moment of struggle, and

Melissa Deally: 00:27:47

potentially going into victimhood and the thoughts

Melissa Deally: 00:27:50

running around in our mind about why mean data out at Ah, yeah,

Melissa Deally: 00:27:55

if we can pull ourselves out of that thought pattern and into if

Melissa Deally: 00:28:00

everything happens for us, why is this happening? Now? What am

Melissa Deally: 00:28:04

I supposed to learn here? Because when we learn, we move

Melissa Deally: 00:28:08

through it and get beyond it. And there is always to learning?

Melissa Deally: 00:28:13

Why was I let go from work from my job that I love for 24 years.

Melissa Deally: 00:28:18

Because I hadn't yet found my purpose. I didn't even know I

Melissa Deally: 00:28:21

had a purpose to find in all honesty. However, that journey

Melissa Deally: 00:28:25

led me here where my purpose has been very clear. I've found my

Melissa Deally: 00:28:30

passion. I love this work. And if I hadn't been let go, I would

Melissa Deally: 00:28:33

have stayed where I was right sitting in the middle of my

Melissa Deally: 00:28:35

comfort zone. Why did my kids have concussions part of that

Melissa Deally: 00:28:40

was because I it was part of getting me to where I'm at, but

Melissa Deally: 00:28:44

also for them. My oldest daughter wasn't ready to go to

Melissa Deally: 00:28:47

university that year, she was doing what everybody else was

Melissa Deally: 00:28:50

doing and applying and she got rejected by her first choice

Melissa Deally: 00:28:54

University. So she applied it another one, that rejection was

Melissa Deally: 00:28:57

a sign because it didn't come when all the other rejection

Melissa Deally: 00:29:01

letters came out. It came later, she had been tentatively

Melissa Deally: 00:29:04

accepted and then got rejected. And I wondered what the sign of

Melissa Deally: 00:29:08

that rejection was and I didn't know it at the time. Then she

Melissa Deally: 00:29:11

got accepted at her second choice University and the next

Melissa Deally: 00:29:14

day got a concussion. And that told me, she simply wasn't meant

Melissa Deally: 00:29:19

to go to university yet. And if she kept, you know, getting

Melissa Deally: 00:29:23

rejected and applying and getting into other places that

Melissa Deally: 00:29:25

wasn't going to work for the universal plan for her, right.

Melissa Deally: 00:29:29

So they gave her a concussion which was also aligned with my

Melissa Deally: 00:29:35

learning and moving me into health and wellness. And it had

Melissa Deally: 00:29:38

her not go to university and to the following year when she was

Melissa Deally: 00:29:42

much more mature and ready and able to go and live away from

Melissa Deally: 00:29:46

home across the country. And everything happens for a reason.

Melissa Deally: 00:29:52

And what I find is when I apply that the stress of whatever that

Melissa Deally: 00:29:57

situation is is released Because I know what's happening for me,

Melissa Deally: 00:30:02

not to me. And when I step into that place, I'm open to the

Melissa Deally: 00:30:07

learning, it still might not be a great situation. But I'm open

Melissa Deally: 00:30:13

to the learning. And I've moved myself out of victimhood, and

Melissa Deally: 00:30:17

keeping myself in this stress. And that's the power of our mind

Melissa Deally: 00:30:23

that we can do that we have 70,000 thoughts in our mind

Melissa Deally: 00:30:27

every single day? What are you saying to yourself? If you spoke

Melissa Deally: 00:30:33

to your friends, the way you speak to yourself, would you

Melissa Deally: 00:30:35

even have any friends? Are you aware of what you're saying to

Melissa Deally: 00:30:40

yourself, because a lot of it is deeply embedded in our

Melissa Deally: 00:30:44

unconscious mind that was routed there in our, you know, zero to

Melissa Deally: 00:30:48

six age group, or years, and is no longer serving us as adults,

Melissa Deally: 00:30:55

it served us then it had a purpose, then it's no longer

Melissa Deally: 00:30:58

serving us as adults. And it's the root of our limiting

Melissa Deally: 00:31:02

beliefs. And so that's work that I do with clients as well as we

Melissa Deally: 00:31:06

will use timeline therapy to release the negative emotions

Melissa Deally: 00:31:10

that people are carrying around because they've been squashed

Melissa Deally: 00:31:12

down. Because we've been taught not to feel our emotions, and

Melissa Deally: 00:31:15

they're stored in our body in our cells, as I said earlier,

Melissa Deally: 00:31:18

that can create toxicity in and of themselves and cause disease.

Melissa Deally: 00:31:24

We release all of that. And we release those limiting beliefs,

Melissa Deally: 00:31:29

and shift you into the beliefs that you want to have that will

Melissa Deally: 00:31:34

serve you in moving forward in your life. And it's powerful

Melissa Deally: 00:31:38

work. Our mind is so powerful, and we only know this much about

Melissa Deally: 00:31:42

it. But the more I learn, the more I am absolutely blown away,

Melissa Deally: 00:31:49

blown away by the power of our own mind that we carry with us

Melissa Deally: 00:31:53

each and every day. And that unfortunately, this isn't taught

Melissa Deally: 00:31:56

through our education system. But I truly wish it was we could

Melissa Deally: 00:31:59

teach this to our elementary school students. It's starting

Melissa Deally: 00:32:03

to happen, actually, at my local high school, they now do

Melissa Deally: 00:32:07

actually have a mindfulness class, which teaches yoga to our

Melissa Deally: 00:32:11

high school students, which I'm thrilled about, I started trying

Melissa Deally: 00:32:14

to implement that back when my kids were in elementary school.

Melissa Deally: 00:32:17

And at the time, unfortunately, I was told we can't have yoga

Melissa Deally: 00:32:21

classes at school, because that's got religious

Melissa Deally: 00:32:23

connotations. And we don't do religion in public school. And

Melissa Deally: 00:32:26

that might count we just call it stretching class, then quiet

Melissa Deally: 00:32:29

time and stretching class. It took me until my daughter was in

Melissa Deally: 00:32:32

grade 10. And I was working at that holistic clinic. And we

Melissa Deally: 00:32:36

owned a yoga studio as well. And it was right across the street

Melissa Deally: 00:32:39

from the high school. And I was able to get our high school kids

Melissa Deally: 00:32:42

to come to yoga classes during their gym class for one year.

Melissa Deally: 00:32:47

And that was great. And then what happened is they had a gym

Melissa Deally: 00:32:50

instructor go and do a mindfulness teaching course so

Melissa Deally: 00:32:53

that she could then teach mindfulness in high school. So

Melissa Deally: 00:32:56

we're getting there, we're getting there.

Alan Carroll: 00:33:00

I love it. My thought about the speaking piece

Alan Carroll: 00:33:06

is that the the creation of the pause, between the sounds can be

Alan Carroll: 00:33:12

taught to very young children. And you can disrupt the

Alan Carroll: 00:33:17

speaking, which is the ego, to shift to the empty space of the

Alan Carroll: 00:33:22

being at an early age, then there's less resistance to

Alan Carroll: 00:33:26

what's going on in front of them. Because there's now a

Alan Carroll: 00:33:29

space you've been practicing between the sounds you speak,

Alan Carroll: 00:33:33

but also disrupts the thoughts that you think. And then you get

Alan Carroll: 00:33:37

to experience what's on the other side of the thoughts that

Alan Carroll: 00:33:41

you're thinking, which is that infinite space of being, but you

Alan Carroll: 00:33:44

never get to do that, because you're too You're too

Alan Carroll: 00:33:48

constipated on your ego, you're hurt by your thoughts. And I

Alan Carroll: 00:33:52

call that in my business, the the aeration of your thoughts

Alan Carroll: 00:33:56

when you speak, just begin to aerate, put spaces. And you'll

Alan Carroll: 00:34:05

notice that the oxygen flows through the empty spaces into

Alan Carroll: 00:34:08

your body, and the and the relaxed waves of relaxation flow

Alan Carroll: 00:34:13

through the empty spaces that you just created. And you're

Alan Carroll: 00:34:18

speaking. And now that will be a lot without there'll be a it's

Alan Carroll: 00:34:23

free. It's easy. You could you can easily teach a teacher to

Alan Carroll: 00:34:29

play a game of let's play a game of pausing. And it's so easy and

Alan Carroll: 00:34:38

it's so relaxing and allows so many things to happen and it's

Alan Carroll: 00:34:41

an it's free. Well, before we complete the podcast, I just

Alan Carroll: 00:34:45

want to thank you. Melissa was listening to an oracle system of

Alan Carroll: 00:34:51

wisdom you have focused your energy on a particular path and

Alan Carroll: 00:34:55

you are building your muscles on that path and You're able then

Alan Carroll: 00:35:00

to coach other people who are on that path by using these

Alan Carroll: 00:35:04

practical gifts that you've developed in your own in your

Alan Carroll: 00:35:08

own experience. And before it, is there anything else you'd

Alan Carroll: 00:35:15

like to share with the audience, that that would be ways of

Alan Carroll: 00:35:19

contacting, you know, programs that we can contact you that

Alan Carroll: 00:35:26

you'd like to share now with the audience?

Melissa Deally: 00:35:28

Sure, thank you very much. So the easiest way to

Melissa Deally: 00:35:31

contact me is simply Melissa at your guided health journey.com.

Melissa Deally: 00:35:35

Or if you go to my website, your guided health journey.com, there

Melissa Deally: 00:35:38

is a contact button there that you can use as well. One of the

Melissa Deally: 00:35:42

programs that is new for this year that I'll be teaching every

Melissa Deally: 00:35:45

month, I'm actually teaching it this Saturday and again, in

Melissa Deally: 00:35:48

March and onwards, is learn self hypnosis is this is a tool that

Melissa Deally: 00:35:54

you can have to use for the rest of your life. That is a form of

Melissa Deally: 00:35:59

mindfulness, it's tapping into the power of your unconscious

Melissa Deally: 00:36:02

mind, to affect the change that you want to create in your life.

Melissa Deally: 00:36:06

It puts you in the driver's seat, it gives you that freedom

Melissa Deally: 00:36:09

that you mentioned earlier, Alan, and it's a one day

Melissa Deally: 00:36:13

masterclass. It's very experiential. It's a ton of fun,

Melissa Deally: 00:36:18

because again, remember, the unconscious mind is all about

Melissa Deally: 00:36:21

imagination. Playfulness is literally the age of a toddler.

Melissa Deally: 00:36:25

So that's where we get to play during that day. And you walk

Melissa Deally: 00:36:28

away with skills that as I said, you can use for the rest of your

Melissa Deally: 00:36:31

life that will give you 10,000 times more focus on whatever it

Melissa Deally: 00:36:35

is that you want to achieve. And you can literally Hypnotize

Melissa Deally: 00:36:39

yourself into calm into joy into passion into love into health,

Melissa Deally: 00:36:43

into all the positives that you want in your life. And it's easy

Melissa Deally: 00:36:48

to do. And you can again, do it anytime, anywhere in just five

Melissa Deally: 00:36:52

minutes once you learn now.

Alan Carroll: 00:36:55

Oh, wow, that's exciting.

Melissa Deally: 00:36:58

It is. It really is. I've had so much fun

Melissa Deally: 00:37:01

teaching it this year, and had great testimonials from

Melissa Deally: 00:37:05

participants that have already done the course with me. Again,

Melissa Deally: 00:37:08

we could be teaching it in elementary school, we're not.

Melissa Deally: 00:37:11

But I love sharing this with the world to give people the tools

Melissa Deally: 00:37:14

and allow them to understand the power of their mind, and be able

Melissa Deally: 00:37:18

to have tools that they can use every day for the rest of their

Melissa Deally: 00:37:21

life.

Alan Carroll: 00:37:22

Wonderful. Well, thank you for all the tools and

Alan Carroll: 00:37:26

experiences of using the tools and how it altered your life and

Alan Carroll: 00:37:31

changed your life. And I especially especially what

Alan Carroll: 00:37:34

resonates in my mind is that journal of gratitude. That was a

Alan Carroll: 00:37:38

nice thought about oh yeah, I could focus on giving life

Alan Carroll: 00:37:42

support to that thought, rather than giving life support to

Alan Carroll: 00:37:45

these other thoughts. So thank you again, Melissa, for being a

Alan Carroll: 00:37:49

wonderful guest on the mindful podcast.

Melissa Deally: 00:37:53

It's absolutely my pleasure. Thank you for

Melissa Deally: 00:37:55

having me, Alan.