The 2 Minute Reset with Vivianne Winters Israel | DFS 410

Okay, there we go. Welcome to Destin for

Success. I'm your host Jennifer Takagi, and I am thrilled to

have a new person in my life. I've met her online before, but

I met her in person recently. Vivian is Winter Israel, and we

were on the Influencers Cruise together, and it was great to

get to spend time with her, get to know her a little bit, and

now, so do you. And today we're going to talk about the

two-minute stress reset. Vivian, thank you so much for being

here.

Oh, thank you for the invitation, Jennifer. I I truly

appreciate it. Now I not only get to see you in person, I get

to be on your podcast. That's so cool! All

the things, all the things. And how did you get

into this this whole stress reset? Because I I like to do

things fast. I'm not really into a two hour meditation. I'm just

a little too jumpy for that, I guess. And we did a little bit

of this on the cruise, so I cannot wait to share this with

the audience.

Well, so great. Well, actually, I have been doing some

true self care since a very nasty breast cancer diagnosis

that I received, and I handled that so much better than a

physical injury that had happened 11 years prior, and I

didn't really know why, didn't understand why, and eventually I

figured out what it was. It was a particular audio technology I

had been using daily for eight months, not for self care, but

to improve my memory retention and brain function, but when I

started looking deeper into that, I discovered what it was

really doing. Besides elevating executive function of the brain,

it was also calming the areas that have to do with

procrastination, stress, and impulsive behavior, and I

handled that bad cancer diagnosis so much better than my

poor handling of a life-altering injury several years earlier.

It's like I got to find more of this. I got to find more of this

stuff. So I started looking for more self-care tools, and I have

collected six over the last 20 years, but now I am retired.

Been a critical care nurse for almost 50 years, and some first

responder. But I also want to write stories for children. But

with pandemic, that what those stories were, how they were,

needed to change. And I also wanted a teacher parent resource

guide. And in looking to teachers for what they would

like to have in such a guide, I discovered what a horrific

situation they have been in since the pandemic. And I

thought, well, I have these. I have two of these that actually

take only two minutes. That should be good for teachers.

Well, they were one of them was a little bit had lots of

different parts to it, and you're doing different things,

and people like them would do that in front of other people.

But I put together some things from a collective of my mentors,

and then having to do with neurochemical triggers, so that

you can influence your brain's chemistry when you're in the

moment of stuff, instead of just what your environment is

throwing at you at the time, and paired that with the fastest

mind-body shift I'd ever experienced, get you someplace

within a couple of minutes that usually takes people months,

sometimes even years to get to. So, a self, a true self-care

tool to get a meditative shift doesn't have to take you know an

hour and a half. You don't have to turn into a pretzel. You

don't need to do oddball things in front of people because I

started this for teachers. It applies for humans, and I will.

I just released a course for teachers, a self care

development program, but I have also built that for regular

folks, but I'm in the moment. I'm focusing on teachers. But

the thing is, they need something that they can do in

little bitty slivers of time. They don't have the margins of

time many of others of us have. You know, even if we're working

a crazy busy job, maybe little. So if it'll work for teachers,

it'll work for anybody. And so I built that into a self-care

development program because now there's even at least one school

district in Southern California that is requiring them to do

self-care, but they're not giving them the time and they're

not subsidizing it for them. So they need something they can

manage. So hence the the teachers' stress eraser

experience. It's my two-minute thing, but combined into

actually developing a self-care development program. Because

when I offered it as a 330-minute masterclass, because

teachers can't deal with a whole hour being with somebody, they

weren't getting enough of it. They weren't getting enough of

it. You can shift, but there's so many people. Can't let go of

focusing on the breathing. People keep saying focus on this

or empty your mind. Well, those two things don't really happen.

You can't really just empty your mind. Your little monkey brain

still going on like this, and focusing on your brain, your on

your breathing, you're still in here. What you need to do is get

out of your thinking mind and into your feeling body, and

bling. When you do that, it's like stress be bye bye. Oh, this

is nice, but you need to kind of prep your body to get there.

So, I think that no one should have to go through a life crisis

or be stuck in persistent stress, it's just we don't have

to. So why why put yourself through that if you don't have

to find one of these little shorter versions of of stress

release that you can do for yourself, and it is not selfish.

It's the foundation of taking the best possible care of your

loved ones, your children, your students, your patients,

business partner, life partner, co-workers. When you show up

better for yourself, you show up better for everyone else that

you come in contact with. And I truly believe that this, if we

each take true care of ourselves, we can collectively

be the tiller tab that re-navigates what's going on in

our global society back towards something that has to do with

more kindness, less destruction, a better world for

us. Oh my gosh, I love this! And I had to fly to

L.A. to get on the cruise with you, and then I was back. I

don't know a week, two weeks, and got on a plane and flew to

New York City for an event. And it started with leaving Oklahoma

City, and I was supposed to fly to Chicago, and I got to the

airport here in Oklahoma City, and I check in and I get to my

gate, and my flight's been delayed. Not much, like 20

minutes, no big deal. But I look at my connection, and it was

like, okay, this is not looking good. So I walked up to the desk

and very calmly, very nicely said, this flight's delayed by

20 minutes, no big deal. But I don't know if I'm going to make

my connection in Chicago. And she looked at it and she went,

"Yeah, no, you have to change terminals in Chicago, and

Chicago is a big airport. And she was like, "Yeah, you're

never going to make your connection. She changed my

connection through Charlotte, but instead of getting in at

eight, I got in at midnight, or well, 11, and then to the hotel

at midnight. Okay, no big deal. It's just you just go with it.

And I know people who would have lost their minds over that. Yes,

but when you get on a plane, they tell you if something

happens and they lose pressure, an oxygen mask will drop, and

put yours on before you help anyone else. So, being in a

career as a teacher, you're always doing for everybody else.

But if you don't stop and put that oxygen mask on, you're

gonna freak out when there's a detour. On my way home, I was

sitting there eating breakfast at JFK, getting ready to get on

my flight, and I get a notification: my flight's been

delayed by 20 minutes.

Oh my gosh! So

I call and I said, "What am I to do? And

they're like, "Yeah, you're never going to make that. We

literally landed at 314, and the next plane was at 315.

Obviously, that's not. gonna happen. And I was like, okay, so

what do we do? She said, well, you have to spend the night, and

I because there were no other flights from JFK or LaGuardia,

and I said, okay, I want a hotel, and she goes, okay, when

you land in Charlotte, you'll have to stand in line to get a

hotel, and I went. Oh no, no, no! I don't stand in line with

those crabby people. There's got to be another way. So it took

like four more phone calls, but I finally got a very nice woman

named Christy, by the way, with American Airlines, and she put

me up in a beautiful Hilton, and I landed in Charlotte. I got on

the shuttle. I went to the hotel. I had dinner. I mean,

great night's sleep. All's well with the world. But when you

have those situations happen, and you go to that immediate

stress, fight or flight. This is a problem. You're not going to

make enough phone calls to get to the right person.

No, you're just

going to keep being frustrated for no reason.

Exactly, and they're not going to be able to respond

to you well. I mean, because you you put all that cat toenails

out in the world at them, and it's going to be hard for them

to war with you and try. To help things come go better for you,

it is just it's we need to do this for ourselves. We when we

do it for ourselves, we show up so much better for for everyone

else. And when we are trying to continue to give from an empty

or nearly empty cup, you know about the little dregs at the

bottom of stuff. They're not so cool, and that yeah. So what

you're trying to continue to give out from your little dregs

at the bottom can be a little toxic. Yeah, it's not really

you. And for in the realm of any anyone's life business being out

there, that's not good. And then for our teachers to our kids,

well, that's not good. That doesn't bode well for the the

kids. It doesn't bode well for the teachers that are left

because so many leaving the profession and fewer and fewer

coming in doesn't bode bode well for society either. Either. So

the best thing we could do for everyone out there is take true

care of ourselves first, because like you said, you need to put

the oxygen on mask, oxygen mask on you first. So if it was an

elderly person or your little critter, your youngster that's

you know squirreling around, you waste time, you waste oxygen

trying to get them aligned with what they need, and then you may

not have enough oomph to take care of you, and then where does

that leave them? And I used to I used to buck that. I'm a mom.

I'm a nurse. I'm putting my I'm putting my daughters on first,

and then I'll take care of me. It took me a while to get why

they were doing that, which is embarrassing. But that's the

truth. But you really do. It is,

and it's so critical. And multiple geniuses

out there have shared this in different ways. But you you have

an event, and you respond

to it,

and then there's an outcome, and your

response to the event is what drives the outcome, and you've

got this little, little tiny window between the event and

your response to show up like you know the truly evolved human

being that you are or can be and and that's when if you've done

all these stress relief techniques

yes

you take that beat

yes you take that beat and it shows up for you, because

that was the interesting thing with the the cancer deal.

Because I got this icky phone call at work, no preamble, just

your biopsy shows you have metastatic breast cancer. We

need you to make an appointment with a doctor. Okay, well I

could get called out in the next two minutes. I was doing you

know emergency response stuff, so oh, it's difficult, and I was

surprised at how well I responded to that. But it was

because I had been doing this, so that made a difference. It

was now just showing up. It had become baked into my DNA. It's

part of my own operating system, and just knowing about

something. He said, "Oh yeah, I I know about that. Well, knowing

about Latin that it's a language doesn't help you understand it

or speak it. Same with self care. You know that it's there,

and yeah, well, if when I feel like I think I might need it, I

can do that. It won't function for you the same way. You start,

you find something you resonate with now, and practice it so

that it will be there for you when you need it, and doesn't

have to be long and drawn out. There are those little ones that

only take a couple of minutes. Well, and I love the couple of

minutes because, like, I'm never going to be that monk that

meditates for hours on end. Like, I'm just not going to do

it. But I love that something quick and easy can be so

powerful, and in this day and age, it's like people are in one

of two camps: either if you don't do an hour, two-hour

thing, it's worthless, or I'm not going to do it at all. Like

those seem to be the the camps that I keep

encountering, but the reality is, for the

day-to-day normal everyday person that is juggling life and

career, man, doing something in just a couple of minutes can

just make all the difference in the world. So, is there is this

something we can walk through here, or because I mean,

obviously, if somebody is driving while they're listening

to this, yeah,

don't do that. No,

like wait, like wait.

Listen to the recording later.

Yeah, yeah, go go and get to this point. But

like, can you give us a little taste? I guess is what I'm

looking for.

Certainly, I can't give you a little taste because

what we really need to do. There are neurochemical triggers that

I put in my little two-minute thing ahead of that mind-body

shift, and so the first neurochemical trigger is to

actually drop your shoulders. We all have a tendency to have them

kind. Somewhere not as low as they could be. Some of us are,

you know, actually like this. It would

hurt your ears

if, when you drop your shoulders, you tell your brain

that you're safe. Now that's can be that's a big thing for a lot

of people, and when you're actually doing it, try to

recheck your position later on, but just think about dropping

your shoulders, just hanging your arms as far as the side.

That way, if you're not resting your elbows on something, then

you don't have half a little glitch up here already going on.

So just drop your arms to your side, let them hang. You're

telling your body you're safe. If you can relax your forehead.

That's the second piece. Relax your forehead, and that tells

your body that you are relaxed. A lot of us carry tension in our

forehead. That's why we have those little 11 marks between

our eyebrows. I got this. I won that a lot. Got this. Yes. So if

you do that, it also signals your brain that you are relaxed.

Now I also put in there to relax your jaw. That's not a really a

neurochemical trigger, but a lot of people carry tension in their

jaw, so they'll just drop it and help. And the the next one is

kind of it's a tricky one. You want to put just the a little

bit of a smile, just the edges of your mouth, not a like this.

Just a barely the little corners of your mouth kind of go up, and

crinkle your eyes just a little bit. Because when you do really

a a full smile, your eyes kind of crinkle, just a bit. But if

you get just the little edges of your mouth, and and think on

getting the little crinkle in your eye, so that one can be a

little tough to get used to, but that kind of tells your body

something between you're at peace or you're happy. You know,

there's there's there's conflicting ideas on that one,

but it's a nice place. So you're safe, you're relaxed, you unwind

your jaw, and you're in a nice place, and then you just feel

your breath, feel it going into your body, to the back of your

down and into your lungs, and feel it as it comes back. Now

this is you know you can work at that for you know, within a

couple of minutes, but practicing is what makes the

difference. Practicing is what brings these things together.

The purpose of feeling the breath instead of focusing on it

when you're really feeling it, and I say try to feel it go

across the little top of the the Cupid's bow at the up your lip,

if you feel it there, and feel it go in and down, and you just

everything starts letting go, and that's when you come out of

your thinking mind and you've gotten into your feeling body,

and there's also two little up levels you can do with that. So

doing that whole experience, you know, the the self development

program will teach you how to do these things, and then how to up

level so that you can do those, build a increase your response,

the length of time you feel like oh wow this is good, and ongoing

after the after the program, but this will release the stress.

Instead of just being something you're trying to release stress,

you'll actually feel it go, and then it it refreshes your mental

clarity, and it will also end up refreshing your energy.

I love this so much, Vivian.

I'm glad. I'm glad. I'm glad. This is so

great. So for the audience, and we'll drop

this in the show notes. Vivian has an amazing gift for you, and

that's the six most powerful self care tools. So she's just

given us several things we can do quickly and easily. And even

if you're driving a car, you can kind of drop your shoulders a

little bit.

Yes. Yes.

You can kind of smooth your forehead a little

bit.

Yes. You can work all the the neurochemical parts of

it, but you don't want to be just shifting into feeling your

breath because then you're not paying attention to anything.

When you're driving, you do need to focus. Please focus.

Focus on your driving. Like yes, yes. You

know, step one: pay attention to what you're doing, whatever it

is. Pay attention to what you're doing. This has been a great

conversation. I love your free gift. I can't wait to get it.

Again, it will be in the show notes. Oh, look at the show

notes while you're driving. And I, I, this is just so much fun.

What a great way to kick off my morning. So as we're wrapping it

up, do you have any final words For the audience,

yes. Give yourself permission to take true care of

yourself. True self care, and I'm not talking mani petties and

spa. I'm not talking me time. I'm talking true self care. It's

not selfish. It's the foundation for taking the best possible

care of your loved one. As well as yourself, and if you need

permission, can go to my website. I've got I'm a I'm a

registered nurse. I've got nurses' orders for you. Gives

you permission. You're you're covered. Permanent refills.

You're all good. Good

nurse's orders. You need to have self care. I

love it. Thank you, Vivian, for being here. It's been such a

pleasure, and I look forward to seeing you again.

I look forward to seeing you again, and thank you

for the interview, Jennifer. I greatly appreciate it. I'm

Jennifer Takagi with Destin for Success, and I

look forward to connecting with you soon.