Self Medicating To Meditating | Ep 131

Melissa Deally: 00:00:06

Imagine getting up every day full of energy is if you were in your 20s. Again, what would that be like? What would that be worth to you? What is your health worth to you? Think about it. Your health isn't everything. But without it, everything else is nothing. And yet too many of us are taking it for granted until something goes wrong. No one wakes up hoping to be diagnosed with a disease or chronic illness. And yet, we've never been taught how to be proactive in our health through our school system, or public health. As a registered health coach and integrative health practitioner,

Melissa Deally: 00:00:43

I believe it is time this information is made available to everyone. Combining new knowledge around your health and the ability to do my functional medicine lab tests in the comfort of your own home will allow you to optimize your health for today and all your tomorrow's don't wait for your wake up call.

Melissa Deally: 00:01:08

Welcome back to another episode of The don't wait for your wake up call podcast. My name is Melissa Deally. And this is a special photo Palooza episode and I'm here with Maria Mays. Welcome to the show. Maria,

Maria Mayes: 00:01:20

thank you so much for having me, Melissa. I'm grateful to be here.

Melissa Deally: 00:01:23

I'm excited to have you. And this is a little bit of a blind date episode where we just grabbed each other in the breakout room. So I don't have your bio here for me to share with the audience. So I would love you to introduce yourself to the

Maria Mayes: 00:01:34

web. Love that. Thank you. So then thanks to your audience for giving us the space in their day. Right. So my name is Maria Mays, and so I am a teacher I teach meditation as well as mindfulness ru, Vedic lifestyle that incorporates things like breath, work, nutrition, I'm also teaching yoga, and coach and mentor one on one. So I'm a wellbeing coach. And so that encompasses all aspects that encompasses our mental health, our physical health, and our spiritual health. So along those lines, I am just in the process of launching my own podcast called chakras and Chardonnay. And with that I provide compressed tidbits. So ancient when Wisdom Teachings served up in really easy, digestible practical bites, where you can put them into action after the show. And then we explore how to mindfully consume our wine. And so I've been in the wine industry for about 10 years as well. So combining both of those passions has been just so much fun in person and in person workshops that a beautiful boutique winery here locally, that I was really encouraged to take the message to a broader audience. So that's what prompted me to start the podcast.

Melissa Deally: 00:02:50

Well, I absolutely love how you've taken both of your passions and melded them together into one to bring something really unique and fun to your audience. I'm actually not a wine drinker. However, I know, most people are and what a beautiful lesson to learn how to drink it mindfully and bring that mindfulness component to it. And so I absolutely love what you're doing. And of course, we're so aligned, because I also look at the whole body, I'm looking at physical, mental, emotional, spiritual bodies in my work as well. And it's incredible, the the temple that we have that we live in, and its ability to heal, when we address all of that. So how did you land in this arena?

Maria Mayes: 00:03:40

Well, my journey was a long one to step in, and it really was one of really a transition from self medicating my anxiety with wine. So I'm mindfully enjoying and exploring it after I learned how to meditate and so really, my journey is kind of from self medicating to meditating and love. That is what I help other people do. But in a much compressed timeframe. I don't want it to take as long for others so I you know, my story is one like many where you know, I was a on the busy hamster wheel of productivity for most of my life. And though I was diagnosed with anxiety or generalized anxiety disorder in my early 30s, the symptoms truly started in childhood but weren't addressed because at the time I was, I was having episodes where I'd lose consciousness and C's, and so initially diagnosed as having grand mal seizures. And then, you know, in my early 40s, actually finally really diagnosed as a nervous system dysfunction. But along the way, what I found in working with some of the specialist, one of the neurologists I was working with at the Wolfe Epilepsy Center here locally, said, You know what, I think it's the anxiety that's triggering your seizure. So I think we need to focus on, on really better handling that, like anxiety. And he had a lot of anxiety, what are you talking about? Right? But I certainly did, I just didn't know really what that meant. And for me, it manifested as digestive chaos, it manifested as, you know, short temper with my loved ones, you know, I think the thing that I have found in working with my clientele is that, you know, oftentimes it manifests a little bit differently for us than we would think were, you know, and through the RU VEDA teachings, you know, part of what we look at is, these things start in the subtle body, right, so we'll start to see symptoms of disease very early on in the subtle body before they manifest physically. And so at that time, I had been, you know, on and off seizure meds my whole life and was on anxiety meds, and just I was done with pharmaceuticals. And I'm not saying that to encourage people to get off of them, if they're on them, and they're working. For me, in particular, my body, my nervous system was worn out from the the chemicals that were within those. And so I really needed to look at other ways. And so I started with a breathing practice the 478 breath by Dr. Andrew Weil, er, who made it mainstream Dr. Weil, and that was like the scratching, you know, just like the start of it. And then from there, it was, okay, this has made an impact. What's the next thing? What's the next thing and then over the course of the next decade and a half, I transformed my life completely. And so yeah, so it's, it's our breath, I believe, is one of our most powerful tools. It's our most powerful healers, it's the quickest way to get from a moment of high anxiety, stress, hyper vigilance into calm and connection. And so I incorporate that and into all of my teachings, for sure, and just grateful to have stepped out of that and step into really mindful existence that I live now. But I also want to just point out or appreciate that, it doesn't mean that I'm, you know, 100%, you know, living this perfect healthy lifestyle 100% of the time, because that's not reality, I still have a lot of day to day stresses, I still have two teenagers, I still have a business to build, and, uh, you know, a mother and mother in law to take care of, and, you know, I'm a wife. And so we were all these roles, right, or these hats and have all these roles. And sometimes that can get overwhelming. And that's truly what happened to me where I kind of tapped out and hit a brick wall, physically, mentally and spiritually. And that's really what started me on the journey to discover my breath to discover these different practices and over the course of a little over a decade. Finally, step into where I'm at today, which is, I'm going to use the word baseline of inner peace in that I have a baseline of inner peace, but there are still going to be challenges in life, unexpected occurrences that are going to rock that boat, right. And now, rather than falling off the raft and trying to swim upstream and scream and yell and holler, now, I might fall off, but I'll float and easily find that preserver and come back on. And so that's the main difference. And I'd encourage your audience to just, you know, consider consider this journey as, as they look at their journey that, you know, we're never going to be in that perfect state 100% of the time. But if we can build that baseline and create that resilience, using tools and techniques, that's going to allow us to then flow with the real difficult times.

Melissa Deally: 00:08:52

Are you a practitioner or a coach listening to this?

Melissa Deally: 00:08:55

If so, I would love to ask you. Do you use hypnotherapy in your practice working with clients? And if not, would you like to the power of hypnotherapy is limitless. And so often we experience our clients struggling to reach their goals. It's because they're coming up against their own brick walls and getting stuck. But you can help them through the power of hypnosis, break through all of that, working with their unconscious mind to put the suggestions in to have them taking the action to achieve the results that they want. They are thrilled with your coaching techniques, they're getting the results they want. You feel amazing because you are helping your client get the results they want is a win win. And another win is that it's an added revenue stream for you in your business. So if you like the feel of helping your clients get the results they want. If you liked the sound of that, then definitely reach out Melissa at your guided health journey.com work, click the link tree link below for my unlimited power of hypnosis class. To learn more. It's a weekend designation program that I teach valid in 42 countries, you write an exam after taking the experiential course. And you can be admitted to the American Board of hypnotherapy and start using hypnotherapy one to one with your clients and have them achieving the results they want.

Melissa Deally: 00:10:30

I love all of that you're sharing and I just did another photo Palooza podcast and we're talking about laughter as well, after being a healing medicine, and of course with laughter, we're also using our breath, we may not be counting our breath, but we are exhaling stale breath, etcetera. And I love working with our breath. Because we always have it with us. It's absolutely free. And you can do it absolutely anywhere, anytime. And I use 557 breathing, you said 478 doesn't matter as long as the exhale is longer than the inhale, it drops us out of our fight or flight state and into our parasympathetic rest and digest state. And so it is so powerful. And I'm glad that you found it. And you've been able to, you know, get yourself out of that high anxiety state which seizures into this place of being fully present and using mindfulness in your life today to thrive. And I also love that you said that you're not 100% Perfect. And that's always something to share. Because we can't be we're human, right. And if we strive for perfection, we're not going to get there. And then we're beating ourselves up for not getting there, or we're there for a moment. And then we fall off and beat ourselves up. For sure. 1% better every day, though, creates huge improvement. And we can look back and see how far

Maria Mayes: 00:11:53

we've come. For sure, I definitely think you know, having that self compassion and having grace for yourself is a really important part of the work that I do. Because we're not taught that we really aren't. And, you know, in order to get there, we first have to become self aware and realize we're, we're not very kind to ourselves, right. And so there's that process of developing and cultivating the skill of self awareness, to then step into that self compassion. And I feel like if you have those two things, then you can really be present. For those that you lead. I do a lot of work with small businesses, stress management, for small business, for those that you lead at home as a parent and just for anybody you're connecting with even right here, right? So yeah, I'm really grateful for the healing power the breath. So I say I had my breath is more powerful than my Ativan. And so if you're not familiar with it, it's it's a Lorazepam, benzodiazepine, that's used for anxiety and panic attacks. So. So yeah, I talk a little bit about that with some of my work as well.

Melissa Deally: 00:13:02

And so I just want the audience to truly hear that. Because this is something that your medical doctor isn't necessarily going to share with you, they don't have the time to teach you about stress reducing activities and learning how to use your breath to get yourself out of that state of anxiety. They write you a prescription. And then if you are struggling with side effects, they write you another one, or if it's not working, they give you a stronger dose. And yet, so much of our healing journey is already contained within us. And one thing I really want the audience to understand is that your body does not heal in a stressed out state, we have to get into our rest and digest state in order for the body to be able to heal. And in today's world that isn't happening often enough. And yet with your breath with meditation work that Maria is talking about here. You do get out of that stressed out state into your rest and digest state and into that place of healing.

Maria Mayes: 00:14:05

Yeah, we each have a unique capacity to heal. I believe that with every cell in my being and just to circle back to the self compassion piece, if you know, one of your audience members is listening and thinking, Okay, well, I'm on this, you know, Lexapro, or I want to get off the Zoloft, or what have you start with self compassion. I mean, these things are there for a beautiful reason. They really helped me through some difficult times. But the fact that you're thinking about is there another way, allow that to then allow your curiosity to take you forward and challenge maybe the position you're working with to are there other things that I could be doing or seek out some of these different modalities, but be compassionate to yourself as you do it? And if you're not ready, then you're not ready. Be compassionate about yourself about that, too. So I think it's there's such an opportunity, I think, within the health care arena too, because I do serve a lot of healthcare clients for them to learn these modalities, right? You know, a lot of times they're not teaching them because they weren't taught them so that you know, but we have this now much broader understanding of neuroscience of the nervous system. And we have data that supports all these ancient teachings. So really, in my mind, that is putting us in a spot of needing to take responsibility to share them. So I agree with you that I really need to be brought into these spaces that needs to be part of the conversation with a health care practitioner. And, you know, when we have this knowledge, we need to share it so grateful to be able to share it here today. So

Melissa Deally: 00:15:44

yeah, absolutely. And to your point, in terms of people having compassion for themselves, you don't know what you don't know. Until you do know. And then when you do know, then you can make a choice. And you can start to, you know, do some more research and go down some different paths. But don't beat yourself up. If you're listening to this going, Oh, if only I'd known you didn't, that's wasted energy. Don't worry about it. However, you can look forward as to what it is you might like to do moving forward. And to your point quite a bit earlier in this episode, don't just stop taking your medication. You definitely don't want to do that. You want to be working with a practitioner that can help you guide guide you down safely, while you implement these new techniques that you want to be using in order to help your body your mind calm.

Maria Mayes: 00:16:39

Yeah, and they're not mutually exclusive. Right? I mean, we can be leveraging breathwork protocols, we can learn how to meditate and still rely on pharmaceutical, so it just, you know that there's just so many, there's so many, I think what we're really trying to hone into here is, is we are so much more powerful than we think. And we tend to outsource our health because that's the culture that we were born into. But it's really I feel like 2023 And going forward, it's time to insource our health, it's time to be our own advocates to really tap into the wisdom that we each have inside of this. I mean, I had this wisdom inside me for the longest time, but it just couldn't come out until I had a little break in the stone, that little little bit of light in and then had some guides along the way. It helped me with that. So we each have this unique capacity to heal. So

Melissa Deally: 00:17:33

we absolutely do our human body, and bodies, mental, emotional, physical, spiritual, are so miraculous in their ability to heal. And so on that note, what does don't wait for your wake up call mean to you.

Maria Mayes: 00:17:49

Hmm, don't wait for your wake up call, I would say you don't have to wait until you have a, let's say, a nervous breakdown until you find yourself at rock bottom. To use these modalities, I really think that, you know, hindsight is 2020. And I'm a tough learner, I had to learn the same lesson several times in a lot of different ways in my life. And if we can cultivate so I would say that the definition I would put there is if we can cultivate a dialogue between the physical form and the mental form and the spiritual form. And that's truly what yoga is union, right? If we can create that dialogue, then we don't have to wait until there's a huge event right? The breakdown the rock bottom, if you can start today cultivating What if my body's saying, Have I been sitting too long have I been at the keyboard too long? You know, what do I need to give it like just having that? That dialogue? I think that's, that's really, really key. So that's where it all starts.

Melissa Deally: 00:18:59

I love that. Thank you. And if somebody wants to get in touch with you, what is the best way for them to do that?

Maria Mayes: 00:19:05

So you can hit me up at my website which is take five dot health. So it's dot health rather than.com To remind you that your health should be a priority and that you can INSOURCE it. My email is Maria take five dot health and then you can also access the podcast through there or through chakras and Chardonnay is the name of the podcast the trailers already out on all the different podcast platforms and episodes will be dropping out soon. So either way you can connect to me that way

Melissa Deally: 00:19:39

so wonderful. And is there a gift that you would like to leave the audience that you would like to share?

Maria Mayes: 00:19:47

Sure, if you hit take five dot health, and hit subscribe, what you're going to receive is a five minute workplace relaxation can be done at home too, but it's designed to be Done. Anytime, anywhere where it drops you into a more calm, restful parasympathetic state, you can do it in your work clothes, I'm often doing these at my desk. So you'll get a free video where I guide you through a tick five, five minute guided relaxation. And then you'll get a highlighted at one each week as a subscriber. So

Melissa Deally: 00:20:22

that's wonderful. Thank you so much. And are there any last tips that you'd like to leave the audience with?

Maria Mayes: 00:20:28

I'm just that the most powerful healing tool you have is your breath. And so if you can't take five minutes for yourself, just take five slower than normal deeper than normal breath cycles. And just notice what shifts

Melissa Deally: 00:20:44

easy to do. Anytime, anywhere. Thank you for coming on the show and sharing your wisdom, your experience and giving these powerful tips to others. I really appreciate it Maria, and to my audience. If any of this has resonated with you, or you know someone else who needs to hear it, please share this episode. It literally could save a life. Thank you so much, Maria.

Unknown: 00:21:06

Thank you.