Pursuit of Wellness - POWerful Moment: 005 - Arielle Lorre on Daily Tools to Manage Anxiety + Find Peace

Episode Date: November 20, 2024

In this POWerful Moment from Episode #10, Arielle Lorre shares the tools that have helped her manage anxiety, from Transcendental Meditation (TM) to Stoicism. She discusses the transformative power of meditation, how it quiets the mind, and the importance of radical acceptance in navigating life’s challenges. Listen or watch the full podcast here:  On Apple click here!  On Spotify click here!  On YouTube click here! Yes - thoughts

Thank you guys for joining me for another powerful moment from one of my favorite episodes. This is a highlight clip to enhance your week. I hope you enjoy. With the anxiety, what would you say are your main tools that you use now to handle it? Meditation is number one. I know you meditate too. Well, okay. No, I don't.

Not like you. You do transcendental meditation, right? Yeah. I've taken one class back in the day and I really want to learn more about it. Like, what would you say is different about TM to other meditations? So for me, I had tried different meditations over the apps and different platforms and stuff, guided meditations, and I still think there's a time and place for those and I do

use those occasionally now, but I always just kind of felt like I was listening to something, and then I would be done, and I was like, okay, well, that was nice and relaxing, but it wasn't doing anything for me. And when I started, this was back in 2018, I started noticing that a lot of people kind of in my orbit who were people that I looked up to

who just had this thing about them that you just can't really put your finger on. They were all doing TM and I was like, okay, I'm gonna try it. My husband started doing it. My parents started doing it. So I was like, I guess that's my sign. And the way that you learn TM is you go

and you do a four day class. It's only like an hour or two a day. And I noticed in that first day even that it just brought my nervous system down and I felt so anchored. Like that's the only way that I can describe it. And I felt energized after, but in like a calm way. I felt like my sleep was better. Like when I started doing it consistently, it was just so crazy effective for me from the beginning.

And yeah, I've heard that, I've heard the analogy. So if you think about the ocean and you think of like a small boat on the surface of the ocean, it's gonna rock with every single tiny little wave and current and all of that. And what I learned in TM is that that kind of meditation is kind of like going down to the floor of the ocean

where there's still a current, you still might move a little bit, but you're not so like at the mercy of what's happening up there. And it's not so turbulent. And that was like really what I felt. So I'm a little bit of like an evangelist about it. I try not to. I'm influenced right now, honestly.

Yeah, it's amazing if you can do it and it does cost money. It goes to their nonprofit foundation, but you can also like scholarship. And if you really can't afford it for anybody listening, like they do like an honor system. They're like, if you can pay $10, you know, we'll take it. That's amazing. Yeah. So you do that twice a day? Twice a day for 20 minutes in silence.

They give you a mantra. And I was so intimidated. I was like 20 minutes in silence, like in my head. Are you fucking kidding me? Sorry. But I mean, it was like 20 minutes in silence, like in my head. Are you fucking kidding me? Sorry. But I mean, it was like really scary. And you just think of the mantra and you're gonna lose the mantra occasionally.

And then you just think of it again and bring it back. And the whole thing about TM is that it's effortless. You're not trying to clear your mind. Our brains have thoughts rattling around in them 24-7. And the thing about meditation, and this is not exclusive just to TM, is that you notice that, and you can detach from the thoughts.

And that was a huge benefit that I got from that because I tend to take thoughts as fact. Yeah, same. And when I could just kind of observe that, I was like, oh, this is just craziness in my head. Like it doesn't mean anything. It's kind of like observing the thought rather than being the thought. I think Jay Shetty said, if you say that you don't have time for meditation, you need it more than anyone

else. And I think that's so true. I'm so inspired by that. I really want to try that. What other tools have you used? Because I know you've mentioned, okay, can you explain stoicism to me? Yes, stoicism, well, I don't know, I think I can. But it has a lot of similarities to like a lot of the principles in recovery. And it is kind of accepting life on life's terms. It's not placing judgment on anything. Like, you know, we tend to be so reactive and assign, you know, good or bad to anything happening. Like, oh, this is terrible. And stoicism is just like, no, this is just what it is. It's like acceptance, like radical acceptance.

So I don't know if that's a good definition at all. I love that. Yeah. Something that I'm striving for. Your story is so inspirational and so refreshing. Also in the wellness space, I don't think I've come across someone like you before. Do you feel like your audience has become kind of like a sober community? Do you get a lot of questions about it?

About sobriety? Mm-hmm. Occasionally, yes. I do have some people that I'm really close with who reached out to me initially on Instagram trying to get sober. And, you know, I was able to help them with that. And now, you know, they've been in my life for years

and that's really amazing. I noticed a lot over the pandemic that I got a lot of messages. I think people were really reevaluating their relationship with alcohol because when we started working from home and all of that, it's like wine every day at five o'clock. And I think people after a few weeks of that

or months or whatever started feeling like, maybe this is not the most healthy thing. So I did notice a correlation with that. I always say like my DMs are always open for anybody who's curious, you know, how to get sober or questions if they think they might have a problem. I'm always happy to help in that way.

But yeah, I mean, my community is really amazing. Like they're just really supportive. I just wanna feel good. That's like, I wanna be healthy and I wanna feel good. I spent so many years feeling like absolute shit and treating my body like shit. So now the biggest motivation for me is just feeling my best.

And I do notice that when I make that the priority, So now the biggest motivation for me is just feeling my best. And I do notice that when I make that the priority, my body responds really positively. I can relate to that as well because although my life was better when I was on the fitness journey, it was still a form of self-torture. And I know that sounds kind of dramatic, but it was. Like it was like, let me work myself into the ground because that felt similar to destroying my life through whatever I was doing before. It was kind of like self-harm,

but in a healthy way, if that makes sense. Sounds a little weird, but. No, I totally get that. And I think there's also an element of control, right? Like I can control this. And when I was doing like macros and BBG and everything that I was doing at that time, like it gave me a sense of control.

And I realized like, oh, I can do this many macros and not feel hungry. So I'm gonna reduce them even more. And you know, I got down to like really low calories. I see pictures of myself now and I was super lean and skinny and I remember at the time, I didn't see that in the mirror. I saw, oh, I need to lose weight in this area,

tone up that area. It was never enough. And ironically, I kind of just had to let go of control. My body told me I've had enough and I had to stop. Like my hormones were out of whack. My gut health was out of whack. I had no energy whatsoever to do anything because it was all going into these workouts

and the tracking my food and like all of these obsessive things. And like I hit that wall and I had to just stop and slow down and you know, slowing down turned out to be the kind of solution that I had to just stop and slow down. And, you know, slowing down turned out to be the kind of solution that I had been looking for the whole time. I feel like when you've lived in chaos for so long, finding that control is so helpful,

but there comes a point where you need to let that go too. That's why I feel like the fitness world is such an evolving journey. Like you never really have it fully figured out because you learn new things or you figure out something that works better for you as you evolve. Thanks for listening to this powerful moment. If you want to hear the full episode, click the link in the show notes. Love you guys. Bye.