First – bring your attention out from all the things you are worrying or being anxious of in the future
Bring your awareness back from outside of you (maybe you are taking on responsibilities for other people instead of being focused within yourself)
Take a breath and notice yourself being more present in your body.
What do you feel changes within your emotional state, just from being more present in your body?
Hello, friends! I’m just here at Crossfit, doing one of my old favorites which is Isabel.
In this video I’m going to share with you 6 posture hacks to release neck pain and feel more confident in your body without ever having to go to a gym.
That’s right.
With just a few little tiny pieces of equipment, you could even do this at your desk when having a break from the computer, on your lunch hour – if you let yourself have one of those – or even at home as a part of your morning routine.
These are tricks of the trade that I have had to discover from 15 years as an elite athlete and seeking out the best of the best from a variety of different professions – osteopaths, myotherapists, movement specialists – to heal my own neck pain. And as a coach, I’ve also been able to pass the knowledge of my team, to my clients, and literally created thousands of transformations of people feeling happy and healthier and more confident and powerful in their body.
One of the big things I’ve realized from returning back to CrossFit after having a baby and going through pregnancy, my pelvis is so much further forward, I can still feel the epidural from 16 months ago, breastfeeding. It’s almost like having a camel’s hump on my back. Having this little extra bit of fatty tissue here, all these things, my best tips for helping it is look at it from a holistic perspective.
First of all, we’ve got our physical body which is the last end in the line. This is where it all shows up. Here, right? So you can affect it from the physical, then mental, then emotional, then spiritual. I think emotions are heavier – but you can affect it from the physical area or you can affect at any level right out from the spiritual.
Essentially, if I would access this posture from my spiritual aspect, just feeling like I’ve got the burden of the world, feeling overburdened, feeling like I have to give to everybody, putting everyone else first. So when I bring myself back from being diffused and I bring myself back from being stronger in my center… Just try it for yourself. You bring yourself back in. And now I’m being more present in my body automatically, automatically my posture corrects.
That again takes from your emotional body if you’re always being stressed and you’re trying to eat my feelings instead of feeling my feelings. If you’re accessing more of peace, joy, love, happiness, and embodying that, you stand up straighter.
You know how when you’re stressed you always have your shoulders up by your ears? The physical way of doing that, I’m going to show you in a sec – but even just knowing that all is well…
My mate Mick here, we’re just having a chat about how when you think about all the years, all the time you’ve been stressing about shit – and then you’ve realized everything turned out for the best anyway. What if you instead of investing and worrying about something that hasn’t happened yet, therefore making it harder, you look back at all the things that you’re stressed about and it turned out well anyway… What about you went into the future going, “You know what, whatever happens it’s all going to work out for the best”?
Notice when you tune in to that thought, your shoulders start dropping down straight away.
So, again, that comes down to a mental choice. You can choose a stressful thought or you can choose an empowering thought.
But here are my physical tips for accessing that.
Having a little resistor band like this, you can just do some basic things especially if you’ve been breastfeeding, especially when you’ve been thinking about things and being too far in your head. Just opening up and then pressing down. And all I’m doing there is just like a little rotation up and back down. So I’m stretching out through the front of my shoulders as well as activating through my middle and lower trapezius instead of always overloading my upper trapezius.
That’s one.
This one is a really cool one. You can get these things from your physio or yoga. Just wrapping that around. You can even use that one too and just shorten it. Tucking your elbows into your side and just bringing your elbows out, this is activating all through here my shoulder stability. And you can even do those affirmations like “All is well. I completely love and approve myself. I’m strong as fuck”, all those ones.
And even lying down on the ground. You can access your core here. Knees up. I’m activating my abs through here and I’m opening up doing that same movement. And you can even keep that tension on and just do little downs and ups.
This one here is just the tennis ball’s… I mean, you can do a hack job like this or you can buy these from Rebel Sport. Put that between your shoulder blade, you can grab the weight, and then massage it through. Because we never get an opportunity to open ourselves up through the chest there.
These ones are your rotators, so I kind of call them scarecrows. Something really fairly light. And again now, I’m accessing my rear deltoids, so it’s my superspinatus, infraspinatus, rotator cuffs to bring myself back out here.
And it’s really important to see your body as a whole. There’s no point if you’re going like this and then letting my guts drop. It’s all about keeping it all tight, the core tight. Glutes are part of your core as well, bringing that up.
This is probably my favorite one that a physio gave me when I was like 8 years old.
Just make sure that your wrists are flat as much as you can. My back is flat, elbows up here – and all I’m doing is tapping like that. That’s going to wake up everything in my middle and lower traps, getting your belly button sucked into your spine. Doing 20 of those.
I challenge you to do that. Wherever you are right now, go to a wall, do that. Wall angels is what I call them. Do 20 wall angels for me.
As soon as you watch this video, just stop what you’re doing right now – and notice how you’re feeling physically, mentally, emotionally. And then when you sit into that, how can you access more spiritual love, peace, happiness, abundance, prosperity, joy, and bring that potential that you think is out in the future into your now moment?
Just so you know, what we’ve been talking about today is just one step in a greater system, my Body Confidence Blueprint. These are the exact steps that help high performing women in business go from feeling frumpy and frustrated in sweatpants to in control and confident in a swimsuit.
The step we’ve been talking about today lies in Phase 2 which is all about Follow Through – and specifically we’re talking about giving your metabolism a boost, returning it from sluggish and lethargic to fast and fat burning.
So if you would like to download your copy of the Body Confidence Blueprint for high performing women in business, click the link below and don’t forget to watch the free training that accompanies it. Check it out by going to www.biancaa.com/bodyconfidence.
After suffering a fairly serious breakdown I was unable to cope with life in general. My body felt broke, old and frail – I didn’t just feel middle aged, I felt half dead. I hadn’t realised that my body was self destructing and I was doing it to myself, working long hours, too much alcohol, lots of bad food and absolutely no exercise.
After six months of working with Bianca, I no longer need my blood pressure medication, anti depressants and my cholesterol is in a safe zone. I have lost 2 dress sizes and more than 26 kilos. I now have a life outside of our business and can see a happy, healthy future for our family. I hope the person I became never comes back as I like this girl so much better.
I had heard of Bianca through some magazines – it was an investment but I had tried and failed so many times but in six short months, 20 kilos melted off me and it had a massive and unexpected effect on our styling business. While working with Bianca we secured a national gig, increased our prices to a level we previously thought no one would pay, AND we were booked out weeks in advance.
The majority of this 20 kilo weight loss has only been 5% diet and exercise, the rest has been an emotional journey. Bianca confronted me and called me on my BS and challenged some of my most deeply help beliefs about who I am. And the results are undeniable. I haven’t completely quit drinking, I still get to eat chocolate, I’ve had the best year in my business EVER – and perhaps the most important thing is how differently I react to things emotionally.
Who knew that taking it slowly and being kind to yourself could get you the results that yelling at yourself couldn’t.
Before working with Bianca I was super stressed and I thought it was too hard and I didn’t have the time to be slim AND successful. But I was surprised at how easy it was to implement Bianca’s system – I haven’t counted calories and I still pig out on foods I love. It’s been no coincidence to me that as a result of the new clarity of mind I’ve actually doubled my business at the same time I’ve made these changes to my body.