Jennifer Wren Tolo, R.N, is an award-winning health & wellness educator, speaker, and stress and resiliency coach who empowers multitasking, success-minded women to leave survival mode behind and reclaim their power over their lives. As a former critical care nurse, and after experiencing life-threatening illnesses with two of her four sons, Tolo developed her signature PAUSE method, and “ABC’s of Stress Management.” For over 20 years, she has helped clients connect with their inner voices and the wisdom of their souls to move from overloaded to calm through holistic healing, intuition, and resilience coaching. Jennifer is a bestselling author and an Adjunct Professor at Endicott College School of Nursing. She holds a Master's degree in Nursing as well as certifications as a Whole Health Educator and Patient Advocate, Personal Trainer, Reiki Master, and Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction. She hosts the Simple Awakenings Podcast and has been featured in BRAINZ, Women’s Journal, US Business Insider, and on FOX and ABC News.
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[00:00:00] Hey guys, Corey Poirier here. Welcome to BluTalks and I hope you enjoy this video.
[00:00:31] Hi everyone here at Columbia. It's so awesome to be here. I want to ask you a question. Have you ever had a moment to slow down and realized you can't actually relax? Your body is on, your mind is still racing and you don't know how to turn it off?
[00:00:53] Let's notice this for a minute. If you can join me, take a slow deep breath in and then a slower breath out. That right there, we don't even give ourselves a moment to do that. See, you don't feel overloaded because your life is too busy. You feel overloaded because your body never gets proof that it's safe to slow down.
[00:01:20] So, let me ask you, how many of you guys sit down at night, you finally have a moment to relax, and what happens? Your mind starts racing. You reach for your phone. You think of all the things you haven't finished. That's not a time problem. That's a nervous system problem. You see, your brain is wired to protect you. And so it lives in this constant state of pressure and overdrive.
[00:01:50] But we interpret everything as being urgent. And when nothing is wrong, our body still feels like it is. And when we live in this constant state of being on, our body forgets how to power down and turn off. But there is a way that we can relearn how to do this. And it's with small, intentional pauses.
[00:02:18] And here's what high achievers get wrong. We don't need more time. We need to use the moments that we have differently. See, this was me. I was a critical care nurse not far from here. And at work, I was calm in the chaos. But once I had kids, especially at home, I couldn't find that calm anymore.
[00:02:45] One of my sons had a stroke at birth and another one had high risk leukemia. I did what I knew how to do, crisis management. But when the crisis was over, my body didn't get that memo. I was still waiting,
[00:03:06] still bracing, still anticipating the next thing to go wrong. Outside, I was fine. But on the side, I was a hot mess. Can anybody relate to this? You see, I couldn't relax. This pull to keep going,
[00:03:29] keep showing up, keep proving, when inside my soul is asking me to just slow down, stop. The truth is, this pattern is not random. It's driven by something deeper. And that something deeper I like to call the hidden stressors. There are three main hidden stressors that I believe drives how we think,
[00:03:56] how we choose, and how we show up in our life. And we don't realize that they're the ones that are running the show. Even though we think we are. The first hidden stressor is expectations. I should be able to handle this because everyone else is. But the truth, that pressure was never asked of us. We
[00:04:20] placed it on ourselves and we assume it from others. And then we live our life like we're constantly falling short. We're chasing the wrong P's, proving, people pleasing, and perfection. And this is what's keeping us disconnected from what truly matters. The P's that are the most important.
[00:04:45] Perspective, prioritization, and presence. A pause here looks like taking a deep breath in and asking yourself, is this required of me? Or is this something that I'm actually placing on myself? The second hidden stressor is control. If I don't stay on top of
[00:05:08] everything, everything's going to fall apart. But see, life doesn't follow our plans. I learned this the hard way. I did everything right. I planned everything. And I liked control. But I had a scheduled C-section. And I thought, if I eat right, if I exercise and I do all the right things, I'm going to have a healthy
[00:05:33] baby. But life didn't follow my plan. My son had a massive neonatal stroke an hour after he was born. And I remember waking up in the hospital to all the babies crying. And my baby was 30 miles away in a neonatal intensive care unit. I learned then that control was an illusion. That tight grip that I had
[00:06:01] on everything, trying to protect myself from chaos and uncertainty, actually kept me stuck in it. So a pause here looked like taking a nice slow deep breath in. And then an even slower breath out. And asking myself,
[00:06:23] what do I actually have control of in this moment? The third hidden stressor is distraction. I'll deal with that later when life calms down. But let's face it, does it ever? I'll deal with that later. We stay busy. We multitask. We scroll. And while we do that, we're slowly disconnecting from ourself.
[00:06:47] But the quickest way back, join me. Place your feet on the floor. Put one hand on your heart, one hand on your belly. And take a nice full deep breath in. And as you're exhaling, I want you to look around and name three things that you can see right here in Columbia University. That's how quickly we
[00:07:12] can reset from distraction. I'm sure you guys can relate to this. I remember when my kids were little, I had two kids sitting at the table doing their homework. And another two were playing Play-Doh and mixing the colors, driving me crazy. And they were all vying for my attention, all talking at me, trying to tell me about their day. And I was there. But I wasn't really there. Because as soon as I heard
[00:07:38] that ding, it was pulled into my phone, a text, an email. But the truth is, those things could have waited. But these moments, they couldn't. Neither do the moments that matter most. They don't get louder. They get missed. Until one day, our body makes sure that we can't ignore it anymore.
[00:08:02] And it eventually stops asking and starts demanding for our attention. See, when our nervous system is so overwhelmed and overloaded, something's got to give. And that something is usually our patience, our clarity, our health, our focus, and our connection to ourself and to others. And the truth is, life
[00:08:30] doesn't suddenly calm down. The demands don't disappear. So if you're waiting for everything out there to change, you're going to be waiting quite a while. Because calm is not found out there. It's created in here. Most of us were not taught this. But I was. As a critical care nurse, I learned the ABCs of life to
[00:08:59] stabilize someone in crisis. Airway, breathing, circulation. But as I got a little older, I realized that most people are living in an internal state of crisis. And we needed a different kind of ABCs to manage that stress. So I created my signature ABCs. Awareness, balancing the nervous system with breath
[00:09:24] and connecting to what we need and what we can control in the moment. Because managing stress is not about controlling what's going on around you. It's about learning how to respond to what's happening within you. And I discovered that calm is a practice. And it starts the moment you give yourself permission
[00:09:48] to pause. So I created the pause method to help people remember this. P is presence. Come back to yourself in the moment. Again, just what we did before. Put your feet on the floor, one hand on your heart, one hand on your belly. And look around you. And then A is awareness.
[00:10:12] What am I feeling right now? Notice it. Not to fix it. Just notice it. And then U is understanding what's actually happening right now. What is the truth of what's happening? And S is self-regulation. That's the breathing to calm the nervous system. It takes two minutes of slow, deep breathing
[00:10:39] breathing to elicit the relaxation response in the body. So let's try this. Take a nice deep breath in. We're going to count to four, three, two, one. And then a longer breath out. Six, five, four, three, two, one. You're telling your body it's safe to relax. And then E is empowerment. That's when you ask yourself,
[00:11:08] what can I actually control in this moment? And I hate to tell you, it's you and only you. What is one small choice that you can make in this moment for your greatest good? This is something high achievers need to hear. Pausing doesn't take away your success.
[00:11:30] It actually protects it. So when you're calm and you're regulated, you're going to think clearer. You're going to respond better. And you're going to connect on a deeper level. And you're going to stop that survival mode so you can start thriving. You don't need a different life to feel better. You don't need more time. What you need are moments
[00:12:00] moments where you are actually present in your life. Because your greatest power is not how much you do. It's how connected and present you are while you're doing it. The truth is, if you're not present in your life, it doesn't matter how full it looks to anyone else. So the question isn't, how much more can I get done? The question is,
[00:12:28] am I here living the life I want to live? And if the answer is no, that's not failure. That's an invitation from your soul to pause, to listen, and to start choosing differently. I'm Jennifer Rentolo. Thank you so much for being here with me today.
[00:12:55] This podcast is a part of the C-Suite Radio Network. For more top business podcasts, visit c-suiteradio.com.
[00:14:33] Thank you.