Samantha Morris (00:00.046)
Hi, I'm Sam Morris and this is whatever happened to the gentleman. I helped single men who are struggling to find meaningful relationships look at their own thoughts, feelings and behaviors to be able to track the right person for them. Each one of my podcast episodes, obviously if you're watching this on YouTube, each one of the YouTube episodes,
is linked to one of the five areas of my Thrive Resolution Programme. The doors of the programme will be opening very, soon, by the way. Don't miss out if you want to join the waitlist and be notified first. Go to thesanmoris.com slash relationship coaching for men. I'll put the details in the show notes. I'm very, very excited.
to open the door, there'll only be 15 people joining. I'm only opening it to 15 people, Anyway, this episode will be linked to both sense of purpose and thrive living. I'm going to be talking about reducing stress and increasing your presence. If you are watching on YouTube, you'll see that I have a lovely grass background. That's to chill you out and go with the theme.
Obviously if you're listening on the podcast you can't see that if I'm in your ear. Anyway, to the episode. Let's face it, modern life can be overwhelming. Work deadlines, personal responsibilities, it's easy to get caught up in all of the chaos. We've all done it, but it's okay.
I'm going to be sharing some powerful ways that you can reduce stress and be more present in your life. One of the biggest issues with stress is that you can't get away from it. At some point in life, you will be stressed and it will take your attention away from other things that you need to do. The positive is that you can reduce the symptoms of stress and you can stop it from getting to the extreme where
Samantha Morris (02:08.972)
you are so overwhelmed with everything that you struggle to do anything. Technique number one, meditation. So I'm not gonna talk too much about this one because I know loads of people talk about meditation and I realize that meditation isn't for everyone. It isn't really for me either. I do do it every single day but it isn't kind of my favorite thing and it isn't the easiest of things.
for me. Some people find it a lot easier to sit and calm down, calm their mind. I'm not one of those people. If you are one of those people, I'm so happy for you. But if you aren't, then I completely get why you would literally straight away be put off by the thought of meditation. But what it can do in practicing the mindfulness so it doesn't actually have to be sitting down quietly, you could be coloring in a coloring book.
Mindfulness trains our minds to focus on the present moment and it does bring a sense of calm and it does bring a sense of clarity in a chaotic life. Some of my best ideas have been when I am in this sense of mindfulness. But as I've said, I really struggle with keeping my mind on just the one task in hand. So I will only do a maximum of five minutes a day. There are lots of...
meditations, positive affirmations, that sort of thing that you can do for long. seen videos for an hour but I can't do that. I do a search on YouTube, I do five minutes positive meditation, that's what search for. I do try and get ones that make me repeat after them because my mind wanders. And I actually took a video this week.
of how meditation works when you have a dog or rather how meditation doesn't work when you have a dog in my case. So have a look at my Instagram at Samara's Coaching and you will see my lovely doggie who doesn't particularly like my morning meditation. Technique number two, write down your tasks by the hour. So I have a book that I write in every day.
Samantha Morris (04:37.195)
I got it from Amazon. If you're watching on YouTube, you'll see. I'll add it into the show notes anyway. But it literally outlines my tasks by the 30 minutes of each day. I sit in the evening and I write down what I need to do for the day. I don't spend too long on each task. So this really works for me. Today I wrote down, right, I'm going to...
do a podcast and I'm gonna do it at half 11 until 12 and that is easily kind of breaking down my day. It's actually my daughter's birthday today so some of my normal routine has kind of gone out of the window. It really works because I get easily distracted. It might be different for you. You might need this as a focus to decide on what you need to do each day and maybe you could block off.
of four hours to do one task. If you put it down on paper and you have to tick it off as you go along, it tricks your mind into believing it is manageable. So when you're feeling stressed about, I've got this much to do, I've got to do this task, I don't know how I've got enough time in the day, writing it down will show you how you've got enough time in the day.
What it also will show you is if you've got gaps in the day where you could possibly go and be present with people in your life. You've got a few hours spare on a Sunday, go and see your parents. You've got a few hours after work, one of the days, arrange to meet up with that friend, go for that drink with that person who's been asking you. It just shows you where you have got time and how you can manage.
the stresses of Technique number three, go and do something wild. Okay, maybe not that wild, but have you heard of these things, they're called smash houses? And it literally, places that you go to smash things up in a controlled environment, they're really cool actually. So you go in with all your safety gear on, obviously.
Samantha Morris (07:04.481)
you buy yourself in the room and then you start smashing up pieces of furniture. It's really good way to get all that adrenaline out. It also helps with some of your negative feelings. So go and have a look to see if you've got one of them nearby. Go and try it. You might absolutely hate it or you might love it and you might be like, this is my thing that I'm going to go do once a month to release my stress. Go and smash some furniture.
in a controlled environment. Normally I wouldn't encourage violence, but in a controlled environment, actually no one's getting hurt, you're not gonna get hurt, no one else is gonna get hurt. These people are paid to organise this and to sort this out for you. It can actually be a good stress relief. Another thing that you could actually do is go trampolining. Most of the trampoline parks have adults only sessions.
They're normally in the evening, maybe once or twice a week, literally bouncing your stress away. There is also some exercise classes that have the mini trampolines and they're all dark and done out like a nightclub. They're also really cool. And what you will get is you come out of that and you'll be feeling amazing because you've just bounced all your stress away. Your legs might hurt a little bit.
full disclaimer about that. Or if they are a bit too out there for you and I get that some people don't like to go and experience new things or don't have the confidence to go and experience those new things, that's what I'm here for too, to help people. With that I do that a lot in my one-to-ones with my clients. But if you aren't quite there yet and you don't want to go and do...
these random things that Sam is telling you about. You could just go for a run, go to the gym, or try out kickboxing. I started kickboxing probably about seven years ago, and actually my reasoning for starting ended up not being the reason that I stayed. So I actually started kickboxing because where I was working, I had to walk.
Samantha Morris (09:32.125)
down this really not nice area and I wanted to learn how to be able to protect myself so I started going to kickboxing and once I was actually there I just felt like I belonged. It is very surprising how therapeutic it is to kick a bag until your legs can't take anymore.
It's great that it hasn't turned me into a raging, violent woman, nor would it turn any man into a raging, violent man, but it does give you a release. And certainly when I've had some people stress me out or whenever stress is at work, going and being able to do that and release it in a proactive way where I'm not hurting anyone has been great. I apologize, my phone is...
not on silent. There are a few other things you can do. You can practice gratitude. I'm not going to go deeply into that because it's quite simple. I am grateful for this book, the book that I showed you that is going to be in the show notes. That is actually quite good. That's got a whole gratitude thing, things that made me happy today. That's something. I'm not actually affiliated with this, so it's not an ad.
It is something that I actually use in my everyday life. You could probably add to your gratitude to your meditation as well. Something else that I think people don't think about, book some time off work for yourself. So you're not going on holiday, you've not got three million tests to do at home, so you need to take time off work. You're just taking some time to chill. That is a very good one. That is what you get annual leave for.
And also learn to say no if you are stressed because too many tasks are being put onto you, you need to say no. Don't go around upsetting anyone, but just say no. The real key to reducing your stress and being more present in your life and doing the things that you want to do is to take action and not be sitting and doing nothing and then moaning about it.
Samantha Morris (11:54.157)
Obviously if you are listening to this, watching this, means that you actually want to take action. So that's brilliant. Thank you. You've been listening to Sam Morris on the Whatever Happens to the Gentlemen podcast. If you enjoyed this, click the subscribe button because there's so much more coming. As I said, each episode will be based on the Thrive Resolution Program key areas. There's a lot of
things put into those key areas, really, really exciting stuff and really things that can change your life. And I have witnessed my one-to-one clients go through this process of becoming somebody completely different from when I first met them and then being so much happier. So, yeah.
While you're at it, get yourself on the wait list for the Trial and Resolution Programme. When it is opened, when the doors open, because as I said, there'll only be 15 spaces, if you want to be able to have a fulfilling relationship without going on thousands of dates, the Trial and Resolution Programme will give you what you need. will create the person that you need to be to attract the right person for you.
sign up for the website and thank you I'll see you next time.
