Guest: Shannon Warwick, Certified Personal Trainer, Yoga Teacher, & Sports Nutritionist.

In a Nutshell: There’s a profound connection between our physical health and the stress that we carry around with us every day.

Today’s show is a bit different from my usual focus on financial advisor practice management. Shannon and I dive deep into the topic of reducing stress in our lives – something that I believe is crucial for everyone, regardless of their profession or background. We discuss the profound connection between our physical health and the stress we carry, and how practices like yoga and sound baths can help us release tension and find balance.

Shannon shares her personal journey of overcoming health challenges and discovering the transformative power of slowing down and tuning into our bodies. We explore the concept of anchors, such as breath and sound, that can help us stay present and grounded in the midst of life’s chaos.

Throughout our conversation, Shannon offers practical tools and exercises that anyone can incorporate into their daily life to cultivate a sense of calm and self-compassion. From the five Tibetan rites to the importance of learning our love languages, Shannon’s insights are both accessible and deeply meaningful.

Shannon Warwick and I discuss:

  • How Shannon broke through the stress that was harming her physically and emotionally.
  • The ways that yoga, deep breathing, meditation, and sound baths can change how we react to stress.
  • Yoga as preventative maintenance against stress.
  • Using “anchors” to keep our minds and bodies grounded in the present.
  • “Wayfinding” on the water and in everyday life.
  • The power of setting intentions.
  • Separating who we are from what we do.
  • The Five Tibetan Rites and the Five Love Languages.
  • What does “enough” mean?

Quotes:

Shannon Warwick on learning to let go of stress:

“Our issues are in our tissues. Stress is inflammation in our body. And when inflammation happens, then it’s this toxic energy that is beginning to hardwire into our neurotransmitters. And this stress response is how we start to react to our peers. It’s this fight or flight. Stress causes us to react, to contract. And where’s the expansion in that? Where’s the flow? Everything’s so contracted when we’re stressed that it’s hard to even breathe. But the number one solution to do quickly when you’re stressed is to breathe. And so I went and got my yoga teacher training and it was profound. I broke open. Yin Yoga is one of the things that we were practicing in the studio and you hold these poses for five to eight minutes and there’s a lot of discomfort. My teacher was so amazing and the words she used, a lot of them had to do with breathing in space, breathing out tension. So often we’re pushing and we’re chasing in our life. What would it feel like to just let go of all that tension? And we were in a heart opening pose and I felt like an egg crack in my chest and I just wept. It was like my heart just cracked open and I could feel all of this love for myself and I was able to release. And that’s the beginning of my next journey here.”

Shannon Warwick on anchoring ourselves in the present:

“An anchor is something that you come back to when the mind starts to think. The mind is always going to think. It’s our mind’s job, right? And our brain is always processing things without us thinking about them, even when we’re sleeping. And so just trusting that the brain is going to do its job. We don’t have to force anything and letting that go is important to understand. However, the mind’s job is to think. So we have an anchor, and our anchor can be feeling your hands or feeling your feet. So that when your mind thinks, this anchor helps us come back to the present moment because the greatest gift that we can give people is listening, is being present with them, and then being present with whatever we’re doing. It’s going to decrease stress and anxiety. We’re not thinking in the future: anxiety. We’re not in the past: depression. We’re practicing presence by coming back to our anchor.”

Shannon Warwick on having enough:

“I always have enough. We will always have enough. And when you can really trust that, there is no dollar amount. There’s nothing external. When you can just simplify, where less is more, when we’re realizing all those external things aren’t actually going to make us happy. If you’re connected with yourself, yes, you will find a way. You will always find a way. And really believing that unleashes this inner ease in us that we have. It’s our birthright. Peace is a fact of life. And there’s this place inside of us. When you can touch that place of inner peace, if you’re in nature, if you’re on the water, if you’re doing something that you love to do, that is within you. You can literally tap into that. We’re literally made of light. Science is proving that every cell inside of us has light in it. At the end of every yoga class, the light and love that is me humbly bows to the light and love that you are made of. And at the end of the day, that’s who Shannon is. I’m energy. I am light. I am love. I’m patient, compassionate. I’m a mom. I’m learning more about who I am every day because I’m so lucky that I get to teach people how to connect with themselves. The greatest way to learn your lesson, to learn something, is to teach it. So I feel very blessed.”

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