#66 -Overwhelm Unplugged: How to Hack Your Brain for More Success & Less Stress | Empowerment & Career Advice

[00:00:00] Loree Philip: Hi, and welcome to Daring to Leap. I'm your host, Loree Philip. Do you find yourself constantly battling a sense of overwhelm, struggling to juggle the demands of work, family, and personal goals? Today, we're diving deep with Dominica, also known as Brain Coach D. Join us as we unravel the neuroscience behind stress and success and discover practical strategies to hack your brain for a more fulfilling, less stressful life.

[00:00:33] Loree Philip: Let's dive in.

[00:00:34] Loree Philip: Dominica is the brain coach one star elite neuro encoding specialist and of the number one Kindle new release, the magic of dreaming big, acting small and achieving success.

[00:00:48] Loree Philip: Coach D isn't just another regular life coach. She is a neuroscience ninja armed with deep knowledge and actionable strategies gleaned from multiple peer reviewed studies [00:01:00] and her own experience. Welcome to the show, Dominica.

[00:01:04] Dominika Staniewicz: Hello, Laurie. And I'm so happy to everybody that's listening for everybody.

[00:01:08] Dominika Staniewicz: That's listening that you guys took time out of your day and decided to tune in and maybe make your life and your world a better place.

[00:01:17] Loree Philip: Yes. Yes. Thank you.

[00:01:19] Loree Philip: I want to get started with you today, Dominica, is you're a brain coach now. So, walk us through just how did you decide or what happened with you to decide that you wanted to go into this field?

[00:01:34] Dominika Staniewicz: It's, it's a pretty long story, but I'm going to compact it for you because it is quite extraordinary or it is actually very typical.

[00:01:43] Dominika Staniewicz: So what happened was I was a coach in the past and I was also running HR companies. I was an HR director. I was extremely well known. My name carried a lot of weight. And in a country where I lived, when you would say my name, most people knew who I was.

[00:01:58] Dominika Staniewicz: So I [00:02:00] was coaching six figure income earners and I was getting them other jobs and other six figures. And that was horribly unfulfilling. I was very young. I was between 24 and about 32 when that was happening and I was the youngest in the whole environment surrounded by men in power and I became so masculine and so So miserable

[00:02:23] Dominika Staniewicz: I mean, outside I had the life everybody wanted. I was miserable to the T in the process. I've lost my child. My son that was 16 months old, fell asleep and never woke up. I got divorced and I was still this powerhouse going, everybody going, Oh my God, you're so amazing. And I was like, Holy cow. I hate this life.

[00:02:45] Dominika Staniewicz: This has to be more than what I'm doing. And when I got that thought, I'm like, okay, I got to stop. Because overwhelm, anxiety, depression were my best friends. We were going together everywhere. And I really didn't like that friendship. It didn't [00:03:00] serve me, and that friendship was not for me. I decided that we needed to part ways.

[00:03:03] Dominika Staniewicz: But the truth is when they would leave, there was nothing to fill it back in. So I started self growth, self development. I hired a country for me. I hired a therapist. I hired all those people, one by one, reading books, going to different events. And And yes I love the life coaches and they're amazing for a lot of people, but for me, I'm science based.

[00:03:24] Dominika Staniewicz: I have MS, so I'm a master of science. For me, scientific proof is absolutely crucial. And one day, I was observing Joseph MacLennan III, who is a head coach for Tony Robbins, now also a person who trains me, and he combined his power and knowledge Joseph is a neuropsychologist with a neuropsychiatrist, Dr.

[00:03:48] Dominika Staniewicz: Daniel Amon, who is a world class double board certified and works with all of our NFL players to restore their brain to a condition where they can function after so many times they get [00:04:00] beat up because obviously they hit their brain, they hit their head so many times. And both of these gentlemen believe that before we go on medication, we gotta try more things.

[00:04:09] Dominika Staniewicz: And now we have. So much neuroscience that backs that up, that can be translated into practical activities that they combine their knowledge and created something called brain revolution. And I fell in love because this was what I was missing in coaching when I would ask my coaches. So why does it work?

[00:04:28] Dominika Staniewicz: They go, well, it does. It's your psychology. Well, guess what? It's not your psychology. It's your freaking brain. Oregon, if you're Oregon, like, if you're having heart palpitations, you're not going to say, well, it could be your psychology, but it's your heart. Who's doing that? And actually, it's not that your heart is the result of what your brain is sending information to the heart or what chemicals it isn't.

[00:04:52] Dominika Staniewicz: Informing your body to release. So psychology is a tiny minuscule part of it, but it's your brain. Is it your prefrontal [00:05:00] cortex? Is it your basal ganglia? Is it this? Is it that? And we have so much knowledge now and understanding and it's still growing that now we can reverse engineer what brain does naturally, but this time we can use it to serve ourselves and create optimized life without overwhelm, without anxiety, with less or no depression.

[00:05:19] Dominika Staniewicz: And don't get me wrong, Medicine that we have the modern medicine is actually phenomenal and there are times that what I do or what anybody else does will not help. You do need medication and very often you take medication as a first resort instead of a last resort. And. When I realized that I was going through those trainings and I started growing and I love Tony Robbins.

[00:05:45] Dominika Staniewicz: I crew his events. I went through most of the programs I coached and I was like, Hmm, that message of go big or go home and bring your boats and Kill your bridges [00:06:00] and everything. It just, you have to push through, you gotta press through all of that. I'm like, that doesn't resonate with me.

[00:06:07] Dominika Staniewicz: My mind, the moment I set too big of a goal, goes into an overdrive. I shut down and I stopped doing everything. Like, is it possible that there's another way to achieve success? And have a healthy life and be joyful on a daily basis. So I started doing my research after training with Dr. Amen and having already a lot of knowledge.

[00:06:29] Dominika Staniewicz: And I ended up with Stanford studies that literally are antidote to our overwhelm. So, what does your brain do? Your brain is lazy. Your brain, so is mine. Just to be very clear, everybody's brain is lazy. What it does, it is creating optimization without you knowing about it. So, whatever you do, until you realize you're doing it, it's not your fault.

[00:06:54] Dominika Staniewicz: It happened because your brain wants to conserve energy. And it's designed to conserve [00:07:00] energy, so in case something dangerous happens, it has a lot of energy. Thank you. But every time you introduce something new, it has to think, it has to connect new information, it has to dig deep, so it uses more energy.

[00:07:13] Dominika Staniewicz: So your brain, as soon as it can, it creates patterns, it creates a lot of pathways, neuropathways, that then just grow. Now that has something to do with something called neuroplasticity. Your neuroplasticity until the about age 25 most. Studies show 25 up to 28 is automatic when you're young. But when you become an adult, you have to direct your brain for change.

[00:07:40] Dominika Staniewicz: And because you do those things, the way I move my hands, the way I speak, the way you nod your head when you are listening to me, if somebody's looking at us, This is a pattern. It's an automatic reaction. You're not thinking, what she's saying, I am agreeing to my feeling is positive. So I'm going to nod my head to let her know I'm [00:08:00] agreeing.

[00:08:00] Dominika Staniewicz: This is not happening. It happens automatically. Your brain created a pattern for you to be agreeable or let the speaker know that you're listening. So what we do now with overwhelm, your brain combines everything into one.

[00:08:15] Dominika Staniewicz: Dominica, we were talking about your story and then we jumped in on overwhelm, which is the focus of our discussion today. And I, we're going to dive in really deep into that discussion, but I just want to kind of wrap a bow up on your journey a bit.

[00:08:32] Loree Philip: So you were noticing, I really love the, the, the dichotomy, the difference in what you were noticing with Tony Robbins, for example, in the push, push, push, and what you wanted to do, which is a more of a, less overwhelming, more fulfilling kind of approach where you're not pushing and setting everything on fire.

[00:08:58] Loree Philip: did you see that it was [00:09:00] possible and you were able to make that work for

[00:09:01] Dominika Staniewicz: you? Absolutely. And that's based on Stanford studies. And I want to give credit to Tony because his method works for a lot of people, but a lot of people is not everybody.

[00:09:12] Dominika Staniewicz: And sometimes when we grow out of this mode of now, immediately the trauma, we're past the trauma. We're in a good space in life. That method seems to be less effective. So. Don't get me wrong, at one point that method, I needed that push to start going, but when I grew and I healed, I was like, Hmm, I'm not, that doesn't work for me anymore.

[00:09:37] Dominika Staniewicz: So that's where the search, yes, I literally live like this and I'm going to give you my blueprint for joy, happiness, lack of overwhelm, less stress, less anxiety, and if possible, less depression. Now, will that require changes? Yes. I have found that with neuroscience and with all the new things [00:10:00] also coming up, we're able now to have a palette of choices because maybe what Tommy Robbins or everybody else, that method will work for you, whatever they're offering.

[00:10:12] Dominika Staniewicz: What I have found is that those methods stopped working for me and I needed something new and I had enough knowledge to start digging deeper and practice on me and now with my clients. 90 percent of my clients are experiencing overwhelm. And when we rewire your brain to a different pattern and different behavior and different thoughts and different customary behaviors and automatic behaviors, life becomes just amazing.

[00:10:39] Dominika Staniewicz: Yes,

[00:10:43] Loree Philip: yes. So let's, let's start with that. So clients come to you because they're overwhelmed. Describe what overwhelm means to you and what you're seeing within your clients. Like, what are the signs that a person is overwhelmed?

[00:10:58] Dominika Staniewicz: Most people [00:11:00] are in a stage. I had enough, I can't do this. This is too much.

[00:11:04] Dominika Staniewicz: This is typical vocabulary up and over all in person. They go, they don't go all out overall. No, they go that's too much for me. I can't deal with this. There are too many things happening in my life. And it's a feeling of usually being paralyzed and not being able to make any decisions and just feeling stuck because you don't know what to do.

[00:11:24] Dominika Staniewicz: Where to start? There's so many things happening. Now, again, our brain created that feeling and that's what it does on a daily basis. And what we do, we learn to recognize that and then decipher. So, let's say, particle overwhelm, a lot of people say, I had a horrible week, I had a horrible month. Let's start with a day, that's going to be the easiest way to explain that.

[00:11:49] Dominika Staniewicz: So, somebody goes, I had an awful day. Okay. I'm sorry to hear that. Was your whole day awful? Well, in the morning, Kate got me pissed off. Okay, [00:12:00] and how long were you pissed off for? Well, like, at least 45 minutes. Oh, okay, I get it. Yeah, that must have been really annoying. So, what happened the rest of the day?

[00:12:11] Dominika Staniewicz: Well, the rest of the day was pretty fine. Oh, so you only had 45 minutes that were bad? Well, yeah. Interesting. So, is it possible to say that You had a great day and only one fifth of your day or one fourth of your day was actually not that great, but overall it was a great day. Yeah. So what we did, we took apart the general statement and we created one.

[00:12:41] Dominika Staniewicz: So then we start focusing on what was great during the day. So your brain can pick up on the evidence, your brain's evidence, and wherever you direct your brain, it will find the evidence. Okay. So, we had coffee. I met my friend. My friend called me. Those are all evidence of a great day. So [00:13:00] now the 45 minutes that at the beginning overtook my whole day was horrible became only 45 minutes during a whole day and now you're able to stack positive things and enjoy them and feel that all things that were good.

[00:13:15] Dominika Staniewicz: Not necessarily false positive. We look for evidence. Your brain is evidence based because evidence creates emotions. Hmm.

[00:13:26] Loree Philip: Yeah. Yeah. And I, I like that example and I kind of want to reframe it because my listeners. Are women with professional careers and families and social lives and Oh, they probably should take a few minutes to think about their health and working out and cooking dinner.

[00:13:46] Loree Philip: And like, so the overwhelm for one of my listeners might be more than 45 minutes. It's like, Oh, this, and then this, and this, like [00:14:00] the stack of. All of the commitments throughout the day builds up and then it goes day after day after day after day. How do you start to think through what kind of evidence a person can start to pull into that kind of a situation?

[00:14:16] Dominika Staniewicz: Well, first question we're going to ask each other is what do I really want? And what is my priority? That is so important. You used a magical word when you were explaining about your audience. You said, They should think about their health. No, they shouldn't. Who says they should? I should cook dinner.

[00:14:36] Dominika Staniewicz: Really? You should? Or do you want to cook dinner? I should visit my friend, really? Do you want to visit your friend or you should visit your friend? The moment we have shoots That means we have a lot of internal rules. So we need to take apart those rules, but we start with what do we want? What type of life do we want and how do we want that life to look like?

[00:14:58] Dominika Staniewicz: See a lot [00:15:00] of times we assume Somebody else's beliefs. That's what our brain did Not your fault. You know when I used to go to regular job It wasn't for a very long time, but I did. I was told that I have to stay at work for 9 10 hours I should be working more than the 8 hours and that was my belief.

[00:15:24] Dominika Staniewicz: When I became a manager I realized that this is absolute BS It is to please somebody else that is not according to my needs, because very often I was done with my work in five hours. And then for three hours, I was trying to figure out what in the world am I going to do this three hours to prove that I'm worth having in the company.

[00:15:44] Dominika Staniewicz: That was one of the reasons I left the typical jobs, because it turned out that most of the time I was able to manage my tasks in a way that I had way too much time. And then I, my brain was contemplating what else should I do? So [00:16:00] they think that I'm working and I look like I'm working. So that was creating fiction.

[00:16:05] Dominika Staniewicz: And at one point you got to face that. What am I doing? Because I think I'm should everything. That's a shoot. That's not you. Now there are seven. If you're taking care of your kid, should you take care of your kid? Or do you want to take care of it? Because when you want to, you will make that a priority.

[00:16:23] Dominika Staniewicz: So the question is where are the shoes and where are the ones? That's where we're

[00:16:26] Loree Philip: gonna start. Yeah, I completely agree. That's a great place to start, because, we rarely spend the time to really pressure test all those assumptions we're making along the way of, okay, like, the schedule I just laid out for you.

[00:16:43] Loree Philip: We get a schedule like that and we get lost in the, the busyness of it, the overwhelm of it, the shoulds of it. And we just kind of keep going on a status quo in that in that kind of a day layout without [00:17:00] stopping to kind of, to, Take a look at it with fresh eyes and I, I, I love the approach of, okay, what, what do you actually want to do?

[00:17:09] Loree Philip: What is it that you're doing? Because you believe that you should, you should, but actually it's not necessarily true. I mean, what if I just let that go? And see what happens is anybody actually care if you work 8 hours, Dominica, instead of 9 or 10, or what's the implication for that in the long run and I'm okay.

[00:17:32] Loree Philip: If am I okay with that? Anyways, like even if somebody. Gets upset with me. I'm not working nine or 10 hours. I have my priorities laid out. And so I'm choosing on how I want to

[00:17:44] Dominika Staniewicz: handle it. Question is, is that person getting upset with you or upset with themselves because you are able to do what they're not able to do?

[00:17:52] Dominika Staniewicz: See, again, it's an assumption that they're mad at you. What if they're not mad at you? What if they're mad at that? You're able to do what they [00:18:00] always wanted to do. And you're able, because don't get me wrong. We do need to finish our work. We need to finish our assignments. It's not about, I'm going to leave because that's my role and I don't care how my work seems like.

[00:18:12] Dominika Staniewicz: That's not where we're going, but we're going to the place where when you have the shoes and what I want, the next question is what can I do differently? I'm ready for that question. What can I do differently? It's not what can I do instead. It's not what can I do differently. Because maybe let's say you have a vision of exercising every day.

[00:18:37] Dominika Staniewicz: And at the same time, you like talking to your friends. Could you possibly, once in a while, half of your walk, or half of your run, or half of your biking, or half of your, I don't know, treadmill, whatever else you're doing, could you possibly, 15 minutes out of that, chat to your friends? Or, can you do that when you're driving back [00:19:00] home?

[00:19:00] Dominika Staniewicz: Right? How can I do things differently? Because different doesn't mean better or worse. It just means that it serves you better. It compresses time. Yet, I still start with the rules of how many rules do you have? This, I should have a clean house. Okay, great. And why? What is clean? How clean is it clean?

[00:19:23] Dominika Staniewicz: Because my clean is different than my daughter's clean, that are, that have moved out. And they're perfectly happy with their clean. So maybe my clean, do I really need a spotless floor that I clean three times a day? If I have OCD and I have problems with germs, then I need to do help for that. But the truth is, I don't need to clean the floor three times a day.

[00:19:47] Dominika Staniewicz: It's perfectly if I do it every other day or once a week for some houses, right? So it's asking yourself, what do I really want to do with that? Because overwhelm comes from the shoots and from the [00:20:00] combination of thinking and putting things together. Like it's. Enormous task and one thing to get rid of about the loan is also the celebration part.

[00:20:10] Dominika Staniewicz: Recognizing that you've done something. This is something that 99. 9 percent of population does not do and I train all my clients on this. Celebrating. What do we celebrate in life? We celebrate a When we have a kid, when we graduate school, we celebrate when we get a new job, when we get a raise, when we get married, some people when they get divorced, buy a new house.

[00:20:36] Dominika Staniewicz: So what, we get up to 10 in our 80 lot years of life. That's pretty pathetic. I'm not even gonna say that's sad. That's pathetic. But what if, what if you would celebrate the fact that you showed up and you did what you planned to do? What if you would celebrate the fact that? That you send out an email that you felt uncomfortable sending.

[00:20:58] Dominika Staniewicz: What if you would [00:21:00] celebrate the fact that you had a chance to talk to your friend? What if you would celebrate the fact that you went and somebody smiled you and handed you I don't know a coffee Or you know the coffee was great and you had 15 minutes for yourself I'm not saying two hours, five hours, 15 minutes, and you get to celebrate that.

[00:21:17] Dominika Staniewicz: See, celebration has two functions in your brain. First of all, our brain is wired for looking for pleasure. And to be honest, ladies if we wouldn't enjoy certain intimate activities, we will not be doing that. We are searching for that intimacy. We're searching for a lot of things, eating ice cream or whatever else makes you happy.

[00:21:41] Dominika Staniewicz: You seek out opportunities to have that. Now, we can have social constructs and everything else, but our brain is designed to look for things we like, and if we like them, nobody has to convince us to do it. So what if we would start celebrating our daily lives? That you made your favorite breakfast and it [00:22:00] was so amazing, and you really enjoyed eating that breakfast.

[00:22:03] Dominika Staniewicz: It's set the signal to your brain and celebration is not going oh, yeah, I did it. Yay Breastitude I'm going awesome. I'm gonna be great and you jump up and down use your whole body I do breastitude right shimmy shimmy from dancing I mean cut. You are laughing. You just released dopamine. But we want also the oxytocin to be released, which is the activity.

[00:22:27] Dominika Staniewicz: Half people, dopamine is the relax. We we're in love and we're gonna sit on the couch and don't feel great. That's the dopamine one. And the oxytocin is the bonding one, but serotonin is the one that gets us going, that kind of produces the activity and the doing afterwards. So. We want to celebrate the tiniest things.

[00:22:48] Dominika Staniewicz: I want you, I'd invite you all to try for 10 days celebrating little things that you cooked dinner. Celebrate that you cleaned out that little space, [00:23:00] tiny space, don't pick big spaces, tiny space, that little one closet or one drawer that you planned to clean out and celebrate the living heck out of it.

[00:23:09] Dominika Staniewicz: Do the breastitude, do the dance, whatever you want to do, celebrate it. What will happen in your brain is it will keep getting instant dopamine hits, which and serotonin hits, which releases kind of counteracts cortisol and stress levels. You will feel happier overall, which means you will attend to different events with a different mindset, as we might say.

[00:23:34] Dominika Staniewicz: Basically, we'll have a different chemical makeup. Period. That's the brain stuff, right? The neuroscience behind it.

[00:23:41] Loree Philip: So we've actually talked about this on the podcast a couple of times, celebrating our wins, especially the teeny tiny ones that we never give ourselves credit for.

[00:23:51] Loree Philip: I have not thought about, Bringing your whole body into that celebration or how exactly we celebrate [00:24:00] it in kind of more of an exciting way because I've noticed because I, I write down my, my wins every day and that's made a big difference for me. But even that you start to get just used to. Oh, yeah, these are my wins.

[00:24:13] Loree Philip: So to continue to make it special or to continue to give yourself that extra release of the chemicals in your brain. And, and I love your bringing in the brain science into this, because I didn't know why it worked. I just said this works. We should do it kind of thing. The, the whole body piece of it is something new that I think is quite interesting into the conversation.

[00:24:39] Dominika Staniewicz: Wonderful. So let me ask you, how do you know that somebody is depressed or in a bad mood without

[00:24:47] Loree Philip: talking to them? They're non verbal cues, the, they're, the way that they look, their sad face, they're hunched over, that kind of Right, so they're blind.

[00:24:58] Dominika Staniewicz: Can you imagine being [00:25:00] depressed dancing salsa? No, I can't.

[00:25:03] Dominika Staniewicz: And you can't, because your brain is connected to your fur, your brain is connected to your gut, your brain is connected to your body. When we go back and we take away all the social constructs, how do little kids celebrate? They're happy. They jump up and down in the sea. Yeah, yeah. Their whole bodies have to melt.

[00:25:25] Dominika Staniewicz: The only people who have not lost that are men. I'm going to give you a book from my book example, which I think is spot on. We just had Super Bowl a while back. When you watch men watching sports, do they sit there and go, Oh, yeah, but we haven't won yet. No, no, they go, oh my god, you passed two, two feet, oh my god, pass it to him, yes, you can do this.

[00:25:53] Dominika Staniewicz: They celebrate the tiniest little things with their whole body. They jump up and down, and they notice [00:26:00] every tiny progress. The truth is that they've celebrated so much in those two, three hours. That the final outcome makes no difference in how they feel, because it was the process that they engaged in and enjoyed tiny things that happened, and they used their whole body.

[00:26:19] Loree Philip: Yeah, that, I love that example Dominica, it's, so if we do the celebration, if we celebrate our wins, that helps bring in the, a different chemical mixture into our body that's more positive, which in then helps us, stop overwhelmed because of the way that we're feeling. What other things can we do when we feel overwhelmed in the moment?

[00:26:48] Dominika Staniewicz: That's a great question. So first of all, we're going to ask ourselves, isn't true. Is it really true? There are two questions in a row. So for example, All [00:27:00] men are assholes. Pardon my French. Is it true? And then you're gonna go, Well, my son isn't. And my best friend isn't. And that guy there, so isn't really true?

[00:27:13] Dominika Staniewicz: No, it's not. Automatically, you dismiss the generalization your brain made because it is designed to do that. You're not unusual, right? So that's another technique to stop the overwhelm. Now, overwhelm is part of human experience, and I'm not saying we can fully eliminate it, because sometimes when we get excited, we don't analyze everything we plan to do and we put on our schedule.

[00:27:42] Dominika Staniewicz: But a great practice to reduce the number of times you feel overwhelmed, besides asking what do I want and how do I want my life to look like, it is to sit down once a week and go, okay, Where am I going? What is coming up? Is this going to get me closer to [00:28:00] where I want to go? That's my question. So anytime somebody calls me with something to do and I have my vision where I want to go, it's a very small vision.

[00:28:09] Dominika Staniewicz: I do visions for three months, not a year. So I get to celebrate more often. They're easy to achieve. So I'm in a good mood, mostly the fine. So what I mean by that is you create, you ask yourself, is this getting me closer?

[00:28:24] Dominika Staniewicz: I want to go every time you're asked to do something. And if you know where you're going, you say yes or no. So it's easier to say, I really appreciate that offer. And at this time I can't because I'm busy. Whatever else is the argument, right? So you actually are able to start consciously. Separating things that you, just emotionally, react to and things that are getting you closer to where you want to go.

[00:28:50] Dominika Staniewicz: Another thing you can do with an overwhelm, and that is scientifically proven. Well, of course, fine. So you go to sleep and then you wake up in the [00:29:00] morning and go, yes, I know this is exactly what I want to do. Or yes, this is how I'm going to do it. This is the idea. Your brain, when you go to sleep, turns off management of all your organs and receiving those 125 million information during your functioning during the day.

[00:29:17] Dominika Staniewicz: How you speak, how you talk. You go into rigorous sleep, so your body basically freezes and you go into rigor. You're not able to move. Everything shuts down and slows down your breathing, your heartbeat, everything else. So your brain then starts to clean out the BS that we receive during the day and leaves them for information.

[00:29:37] Dominika Staniewicz: At the same time, when you go to sleep, whatever you think about, your brain searches for it. For information in your deeper memories, which are not accessible when you're functioning, because it's using too much energy and it starts thinking and connecting information. That's why when you wake up in the morning, you have brilliant ideas or [00:30:00] you know what to do.

[00:30:02] Dominika Staniewicz: Another option for, to use your brain wisely. How many of you, and I, I guarantee you everybody did, had brilliant ideas in this channel? Brilliant ideas? Yeah, absolutely, I do too. I always have a notebook next to my shower, basically, because they just come up. I, I'm hoping to buy like this recording thing in the shower that I can press and just say things.

[00:30:24] Dominika Staniewicz: Because they're absolutely amazing. Why? Because your prefrontal cortex is turned off. And that's the only time you become creative, and your brain accesses the echo memories.

[00:30:35] Loree Philip: Is it the relaxation that's causing the prefrontal cortex to turn off?

[00:30:41] Dominika Staniewicz: Yes. So if you're always in planning mode and task mode, you will be only coming up with ideas.

[00:30:48] Dominika Staniewicz: So when we ask people, okay, so what do you want? You just say what they told me. And the challenge of that is, is that overwhelm comes from being on the surface, not going deep. When you [00:31:00] start really digging in, after 7 things you say, you go into silent mode. This is when you want to keep going. When you think you have no more ideas.

[00:31:11] Dominika Staniewicz: Because then you start to go, well, maybe I really don't want this. Maybe there's something else going on. Maybe there's, and you start to develop a deeper thinking what's actually inside. Our prefrontal cortex gives us easily accessible information. Your creativity, your calmness, and the boredom that we experience gives you deeper rooted information from a deeper part of your memory system.

[00:31:34] Loree Philip: So we can, I mean, all of the things you're talking about in my mind, I'm like, Oh, we can hack this by the, the language that we use today. We can hack our brain out of overwhelm by celebrating our wins, getting in a good mood, prioritizing what we want, doing kind of all these things.

[00:31:54] Loree Philip: And so in this case. In terms of using the idea of Great Ideas in the [00:32:00] Shower, when we have other situations of relaxation and then digging deeper with the questions and not just stopping when we get to what we perceive as the last thing. We just kind of keep going and see what comes up. I think we just, this is more of a practice thing, I believe.

[00:32:20] Loree Philip: Cause I, I think we get used to, Oh, I don't know getting into that place. I don't know. I don't, I've ran, I've thought about this. I'm out of ideas. Like when we get into that place and that's the place where we shut down. Right. It's like our.

[00:32:34] Dominika Staniewicz: A whole place to get a coach or a therapist or a best friend who's not going to let you do that.

[00:32:39] Dominika Staniewicz: Again, your brain is lazy. Don't forget that is a normal natural reaction. I don't know because your brain knows that if it digs, digs deeper, it's going to come up with some things you might not want to say or hear about or think about. So it's You're perfectly normal. Everybody goes into the I don't know.

[00:32:59] Dominika Staniewicz: But when you know [00:33:00] you're going there, you know you're on the right track. Another thing is that you've mentioned already things you want to hack. I invite you guys to choose just one thing. And when that becomes part of you, the natural part of you without thinking about it, that's when you go back to your list.

[00:33:18] Dominika Staniewicz: And you go, okay, what else do I want to practice? Do not take everything I've told you. Choose this one that resonates the most and work on that. When that is done, this is recorded. You can always go back, pick another thing, pick another thing that you would like to do, or you think is going to serve you.

[00:33:39] Dominika Staniewicz: So one of the things with overwhelm, and that happens very often at the beginning of the year, when we overwhelm our brain with new things that we want to do, is actually to create a. Faculty of the Balls. So what I do, I have one big vision and then I have multiple buckets of goals and I choose from that bucket of goals at the beginning, [00:34:00] three easiest things to do.

[00:34:03] Dominika Staniewicz: That's so important. Easiest thing. So I get to celebrate and it feels good to achieve. And when that happens, I pick another one and I substitute it because I already achieved that one. And I create, if it's more difficult, I create. Not actions, because that's a one time thing, but basic simple activities that get me there and I get to celebrate them every day, which is enjoyable process and then you transfer basically your brain from the final goal, which is overwhelming.

[00:34:35] Dominika Staniewicz: You transfer your brain to a process, and that is based on multiple Stanford studies. How we can rewire our brain and change our life so it's enjoyable, still you achieve success, and at the same time, you'll have joy, and it's not scary. Because, I mean, If you're not calling anybody, let's say you're a salesperson because you're overwhelmed because they gave you a goal of [00:35:00] 15.

[00:35:01] Dominika Staniewicz: What if you call two people a day? And when two people a day is very simple, guess what? Call three people a day because it's only one more person. When you start to walk or exercise, don't set a goal for three hours a day. Set a goal for 10 minutes a day and celebrate. And when the 10 minutes is boring and it comes by quickly, you go, well, I guess I can do 15.

[00:35:22] Dominika Staniewicz: That's it. I mean, why not? And celebrate the 15. See, the stacking effect at the end is going to bring you results quicker and you won't even notice because the results are given when you have grit. And part of getting rid of overwhelm is having grit, but not in the sense of I will do everything perfectly.

[00:35:44] Dominika Staniewicz: Things that you enjoy doing, but to learn to enjoy, you need to actually start celebrating. Yeah,

[00:35:51] Loree Philip: I, I really. Enjoy this conversation so much, especially about enjoying the process, [00:36:00] enjoying the steps, breaking it down into pieces that we can wrap our heads around without freaking out. And then also the successes and picking things like the early wins, right?

[00:36:15] Loree Philip: Get that momentum going. It feels good. I love checking something off my list, right? Like, I'll, you started off and doing the three things that are easy to do. Now you're on a roll and you have the energy to tackle something a bit more challenging as you move down your list. Well, we're going to start to wrap up.

[00:36:38] Loree Philip: Dominica, I'd love to hear any last closing thoughts you have around overwhelm and what our listeners can do I know we're saying we're not going to completely get rid of it, right, but help stop it in its tracks when it pops up in our environment.

[00:36:55] Dominika Staniewicz: I think the best thing to do at the beginning is to realize [00:37:00] how do you want your life to look like and how does it look like for you and start there.

[00:37:05] Dominika Staniewicz: Next step is realize we're starting discovering the rules that you have around that. So for example, I for many years was struggling with the feeling of nobody loves me. Outside the hormones that show up every month that would enhance that feeling, it was nobody loves me, nobody cares about me. And what I actually did because of that feeling that I cultivated, nobody made me cultivate it.

[00:37:29] Dominika Staniewicz: I didn't notice the daily Symptoms and daily things that people were offering me help and sympathy and compliments. So when you have a feeling, it's usually you created that without knowing. Don't blame yourself. We all do it, including me. I'm a coach with all this knowledge. I have a coach too, because it's easier to see when somebody asks you the right question.

[00:37:53] Dominika Staniewicz: So ask yourself, why am I feeling like this? Because most of the time it is [00:38:00] you creating and giving so much value to such an unimportant thing or you not noticing things that are happening that are great for you. And when I made a conscious decision to notice good things, I started seeing people giving me compliments.

[00:38:17] Dominika Staniewicz: I started noticing people smiling at me. I started noticing that somebody gave me a hug instead of doing the automatic, Oh, I appreciate that and moving on. Don't. Allow yourself to be a human being instead of a human doing.

[00:38:31] Loree Philip: We're gonna close out on that, Daonika. If you could share with the audience where they can reach you, learn more about you and your work.

[00:38:39] Dominika Staniewicz: Absolutely. I invite all of you guys to visit me on Facebook or Instagram. The handle is YourBrainCoachD. I invite you to go to Amazon and get the book, The Magic of Dreaming Big, Acting Small and Achieving Success.

[00:38:53] Dominika Staniewicz: That's the little book and it's about overwhelming. It's very short with all the things we spoke about and [00:39:00] practical examples. And of course, you can see me at the website, yourbraincoachd. com, where you can always set up an appointment.

[00:39:08] Loree Philip: Great. Well, I appreciate your time, your expertise, and your energy today.

[00:39:14] Loree Philip: Thank you so much.

[00:39:16] Dominika Staniewicz: It was my honor, Mrs. Michael, to be brought to you guys valley. And you have one little takeaway that will make your life a better place. Thank you.

[00:39:24] Loree Philip: Thank you so much for listening to this episode. If you've enjoyed it, I would love for you to subscribe. If you're already a subscriber, don't forget to share the podcast with a friend.

[00:39:36] Loree Philip: Make sure to tune in next week. We will be speaking with Carmen Paredes about the importance of compassion in leadership. I hope you have an amazing week. It's your time to shine. Bye.