How about creating a unique mindfulness experience at your next event?

Tired of the same ole, same ole at your meetings and events? Tessa Todd Morgan professional speaker here and I’d love to help!

After working with and representing speakers and celebrities for 10 years, I started my own company 6 years ago to create experiences that I thought were lacking at meetings and events. 

I love to get real. Think mindfulness, optimism, stress relief, work/life balance, personal growth, emotional intelligence and yoga all wrapped up into one package. Yep, that’s me. I love helping people live their lives to their fullest potential.

Wanna check it out for yourself? Here’s my new speaking demo video I’ve just launched below. Let me know if I can help break up the same ole, same ole at your next event. I might could even bring Matilda the Mindfulness Mobile with me from Dallas, Texas. You’ll have to watch the video to get to meet her 😉

A Few Things To Help You Lower Your Stress

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Happy New Year! I hope your year is off to a great start so far!

For a lot of us the New Year can bring excitement of getting to hit the refresh button and start a new year over, but sometimes that can come with lofty goals that add a little extra stress and concern of not knowing how we can get it all done.

One of the best gifts we can give ourselves is taking care of ourselves in order to not only be the best version of ourselves, but also to be able to have the energy and brainpower in order to get through what needs to be done.

Unfortunately, we have to spend hours at our desk all day long and with that comes exhaustion, stress and distractions. As a “stress relief” speaker, I wanted to share with you all a couple of the things that I teach.

I’m sure you’ve all been hearing for a while now how “sitting is the new smoking” and “we’re dying at our desks” and all of those horrible statistics. If you’ve been lucky enough to miss those horrible headings, I’ll give you the cliffs notes version: We increase our risk of heart disease, breast cancer, high blood pressure, depression and type 2 diabetes by 60-125% depending on the amount of hours we sit each day. And, we lose 20 minutes off of our lives for every hour that we sit.

Plus, after sitting for a while, we get distracted and our productivity greatly declines.

Did you know that on average when we get distracted it takes 23 minutes to get back on task? My buddy and distraction speaker, Curt Steinhorst talks about this in his speeches and it is a pretty scary statistic, but luckily there are things we can do to keep this from happening.

Did you know that when we get triggered (think anxious, upset, angry, super stressed) it can take us up to 18 minutes to be able to calm down to where we can think clearly again? As an accredited trainer in Emotional Intelligence I learned a lot of interesting, yet frightening facts from the Institute for Health and Human Potential. One being that we also can loose up to 75% of our working memory when we are really triggered, which is why we sometimes get to the point to where we can’t even respond to people and shut down or even worse, lash out and say something we regret later.

So, what can we do to manage our emotions and stress during business hours to be at our best and more productive?

One of the best gifts we can give ourselves is to take scheduled breaks. Even just a couple of minutes of getting up and walking around, stretching or taking time to BREATHE can turn things around in an instant to help us be more productive, creative and less stressed.

When we take time just to breathe, it sends signals to our brain that everything is ok.

If you are not quite sure what stretches you could do, I’ve got a library of 100 videos with breathing, stretching and coaching tips to help on my free YouTube Channel – Daily Reset Break.   You can click on the Daily Reset Break logo above to find the YouTube link for the videos.

Another suggestion I always like to make is to do yoga. You can expect to release a lot of that pent up stress that you’ve been holding onto by being able to stretch out the places that store your stress the most.  I know some intimidation can come up for some around doing yoga, but I always encourage my students not to worry about what anyone else is doing, but to just be grateful to have the opportunity to be able to give your mind and body such a great gift!

Just in case you are not familiar with the benefits of yoga, here are some of them:

  • Increases clarity, focus, concentration, productivity and energy
  • Relieves fatigue, stress, insomnia, depression, irritability and anxiety
  • Reduces office drama
  • Fosters creativity
  • Leads to happier employees
  • Promotes a healthier environment
  • Increased energy, strength, flexibility and balance (men, that goes for you too and it could even help your golf or tennis game or any other activities you might do!)
  • Heightened sense of lightness, joy and freedom
  • Aides in the focus on breathing that can also benefit you in everyday life – relieve stress and lower blood pressure
  • Fosters detoxification, pain relief, injury prevention, improved circulation, increased muscle tone and weight loss

And, if you are worried that you are not flexible enough or can’t touch your toes, IT DOESN’T MATTER! The whole point is to do yoga to become more flexible so we can age more gracefully and be more mobile as time goes on so our bodies don’t have to decline over time. And please DON’T say “I can’t do yoga” because I will always disagree with you. I teach my 87-year-old neighbor yoga once a week, so I’m pretty sure you can do it too 🙂

If yoga is not your thing, here are a couple of good breathing exercises to help you get started on a short break during your workday (in addition to the stretches and breathing you can find on the Daily Reset Break channel). If your boss busts you and gets upset, just explain that by taking a short break that in the end they will be the ones to benefit because you can stay focused and be more productive. Otherwise, remember, we might be looking at 23 minutes of distracted time when you get off task. And that could happen multiple times a day!

(These exercises are to be done breathing in and out through your nose.)

RELAXING BREATH: Inhale 4, hold 1, exhale 8, hold 4

ENERGIZING BREATH: Inhale 6, hold 4, exhale 6, hold 1

Happy happy New Year and I hope you find ways to commit to doing more things that relieve stress for yourself so you can be the best version of you!

What Would You Like To Leave Behind In 2015?

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Recently I learned that I need to work on my patience. It’s plain as day to me now, but funny that so many of my yoga students or coaching clients have seen me as one to have a lot of patience. Luckily, in those settings I do, but in everyday life situations, turns out it’s where I need the most work.

I read the book, “They Healing Code” by Alexander Loyd a couple of weeks ago and not only has it been blowing my mind, but I loved the quiz that is included on their website where you can find out the areas where you need to improve in your life to bring yourself anything from better health, to success & relationships.

Patience was my number one thing that I need to work on and I feel like it’s such a blessing to know because I know that the more I work on it to get better at having more patience in every day situations, I will be able to find even that much more joy in my life.

I always find it funny how when you start to work on something, that pretty much immediately it becomes the thing that shows up in your life the most. So, it’s no surprise to me that I had more technology issues the past few weeks than I can ever remember having in my lifetime. I had multiple opportunities to practice patience when my email accounts stopped working, my phone email got messed up, my stereo system for my yoga classes wouldn’t work (all three completely unrelated or connected) and I had to spend 4 hours on the phone with Apple to only find out that we need to swipe my computer and start all over.

This wasn’t one of those 4 hours calls where you could put the phone down and check in to see what progress has been made or multi-task, but one where they took over my screen and had a red arrow pointing to each thing I had to click, so I was doing something with them the entire 4 hours. I will get another chance to be patient when I get back on the line with them to back up my computer tonight and again when I leave my computer tomorrow in their hands for a week to fix these issues.

Christmas time and shopping of course gives plenty of opportunities for patience as well and helping my sweet grandmother yesterday from the nursing home into the car to take her to see my family when she can hardly get around on her own and at a very slow pace was another bonus opportunity.

So, the question is…do you know what you need to let go of this year and leave behind or commit to improve on in 2016?

I have no problem doing the work I need to around patience, as I know that it will bring me even more joy and peace in my life.

The interesting thing that “The Healing Code” provides is a way to work through to have more patience or whatever you are needing. What I was reminded of on my own though is that underneath impatience or whatever negative thing that keeps you from love, patience, kindness, etc. can be something like sadness or anger.

This week I found myself being very impatience with a friend and after digging deeper I realized that it was because I actually felt taken advantage of in that particular situation. Then, I dug deeper to find what other situations I have felt taken advantage of before and was actually able to get to a little bit of anger underneath it all.

A wise woman and mentor of mine happened to catch me at that time and we both decided I needed to get some of that anger out that I usually hold in and have typically been afraid to let out. I mean, who wants to be that “angry” person, right?  I typically find a way to get back in a better mood or just let it continue as being annoyed or irritated vs. letting any of it out and then just go back to being happy while continuing to stuff the anger.

So, we decided I could choose to put on some boxing gloves and get some of that anger out and I ended up going to town on my guest bedroom bed. I actually had a blast recalling up times I felt taken advantage of and got out some anger, but then it wasn’t surprising to me that underneath all of that was sadness. I then found myself crying at the same time I was getting my frustration out and after about 20 minutes or so of this whole experience, I felt drained and exhausted, but it also felt really amazing.

I then did a “Healing Code” from the book and felt such a release and very calm & peaceful.

While I am not condoning anger, there was definitely something very healing about being able to get angry in a safe environment where I wasn’t taking it out on anyone else, but got to release some of the anger that had been built up inside me for so many years.

Sometimes we need to do some deeper diving into an emotion or feeling we are having like frustration, irritability, or even anger to see what is buried underneath in order to let it go so that we can be less of those things moving foreword and be at our best for ourselves and those around us that we care about the most.

Maybe you know what you’d like more of in your life (Me = Patience) or maybe a quiz like the one that comes with “The Healing Code” book could be helpful, but either way, once you figure it out, I encourage you to pay attention to yourself in those situations that come up where you see you are struggling with that thing and dive a bit deeper to see what you have buried and see if you can find a way to release it.

My challenge to you this holiday season is to see what it is you’d like to leave behind in 2015 (Me = Impatience) and what you would like to move forward in 2016 with more of (Me = Patience) and do whatever it takes to challenge yourself to be more of that and then once it has been achieved you can move on to the next thing you’d like more of…before you know it, you’ll be living a life of pure BLISS.

Cheers to an amazing 2016!

So much love to you and yours!

You Can Do It!

jessicaYou can do it!

Do you think that you can?  We are all capable of so much more than we believe.

Last week, I had the honor of speaking beside this beautiful woman above, Jessica Cox.  Jessica was born without any arms and as you can see she has learned how to use her feet to literally do just about anything!

She can drive, tie her own shoes, surf and even fly an airplane!  Coming from someone who used to surf a lot, I’m amazed that is even possible considering how hard it is WITH ARMS!  BUT, I know it is because I got to see a video of her doing it and she even showed us how she puts on makeup using her feet!  AMAZING!

I was truly inspired and it kind of made me sit back and think “what in the world am I doing with my life” when I had the opportunity to hear her speak and learn how much she has gotten creative over the course of her life to find ways to do things without arms.  Can you imagine how many hundreds of times she had to practice things to learn how to do it without using her hands?

Most of the time, we try something once or twice and if we can’t do it, we give up.  When you don’t have an option like Jessica on some things, you would keep going until you figured out a new way or until you COULD do it.

It’s given me a new perspective on a few things, especially when teaching yoga to my students. So many times people want to give up and say that they “can’t” do something.  I say we CAN, it’s only just a matter of time or how long we are willing to keep trying and in some cases to build up the strength so we can.

Are you willing to try a little harder on something you think you can’t do?

How do you think you would feel if you were able to do something you thought that you’d never be able to do?

Would you be willing to stop telling yourself the lies around limiting yourself and your capabilities and see where you can maybe step it up a notch so that you can live out your greatness?

What Does Equanimity Mean To You?

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This week, I’ve been looking at what equanimity means to me and this has been the theme of the yoga classes I’ve been teaching.

I’ve been working through Baron Baptiste’s book for the 2nd time – 40 Days to Personal Revolution and this also happens to be the focus for the week.

I love how he says in the book “Equanimity is the art of meeting life as it meets you – calmly, without drama or fuss.”  And he also says that “we change by finding equanimity learning to relax right in the middle of conflict-filled moments.”

Even yoga can seem like conflict sometimes and that’s what I’ve had my students take a look at this week.  We can be in situations and start to panic because we think it hurts or we can’t stay any longer because we are too tired or get too shaky to continue.

So, whether we decide to stay in a pose, get out, we are shaky or lose our balance, can we still stay calm in these times?

Can you still stay calm when things aren’t going your way?  Can you stay calm when life hands you things that you weren’t expecting that take away from the things you wanted to be spending your time on?

I’ve noticed that meditation helps me a lot with staying calm in these moments.  The more that I can relax and stay calm during meditation, the more it carries out through the rest of my life.

If you do not have a regular meditation practice, would you be willing to try and just meditate for 5 minutes a day the next week?  The 40 days book I mentioned above suggests working up to 30 minutes 2ce a day.  So, could you just commit to 5 minutes a day to start?  It just might be the best 5 minutes of your day and you could begin to see you enjoy it so much you may end up wanting more.

You can sit in a comfortable seated position (best if knees are below your hips, so sitting on a pillow or blanket can help) and just take big deep breaths in and out through your nose.  As you recognize thoughts and sounds, try and let them pass through without judging them.  Just go right back to your breathing and pay attention to your next breath.  When it happens again, repeat and go back to your breath.  Set a timer for how long you want to meditate and when the timer goes off you can go about the rest of your day hopefully a little more calm and peaceful and you will have certainly given your mind & body a huge gift!

 

Feels So Good…

Feels so good

 

Feels so good…

At least that’s what Peter Gorman states in his recent article for Meeting Professionals International regarding the meeting industry incorporating wellness elements into their event schedules.

I was thrilled when a friend sent me this article as I recently had the privilege of teaching yoga for three days for an event with Concentra and the attendees were telling me how much they enjoyed getting to take the break and do yoga and how much their bodies appreciated it.

I also selfishly was excited to see this as I’m offering Reset Breaks at corporate meetings and events and love seeing that this is becoming a popular trend in the industry.

I got word that I’m going to be doing a big industry event in a few weeks in New Orleans and really looking forward to seeing how we can continue to grow this trend.

Read full article here

On another exciting note, I’m going to be launching Daily Reset Break on YouTube in the next few days and looking forward to offering free videos online for all to view to get RESET, RE-ENERGIZED and RE-ENGAGED and be less stressed and more productive.

More to come…

Do You Practice What You Preach?

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Do you practice what you preach?

Recently I got very serious when I asked myself this question.  You see, I’ve been in the speaking and training industry for the past 12 years and over that span I’ve seen a lot of people that are preaching things all day long that aren’t necessarily walking the talk.

I don’t mean everyone by any means, but I have seen a common thread of it in my time.  That being said, I took a good hard look at myself in the past few months and have asked myself that very question.  Do I practice what I preach?  And honestly, the answer was no.

Then I decided to make some changes.  I think sometimes we teach the things we need the most.  As a life coach and yoga instructor I often find myself telling clients exactly what I need to hear and I take it as a great reminder to continue doing the things that I know when I do them I achieve great results.

So, when I created Daily Reset Break, I realized that I need it possibly more than anyone else. Therefore, my New Year’s Resolution was to do all of my Daily Reset Break videos.  And, I am excited to say that I have!  I can’t say that I have done them on a daily basis and have to be honest and share that some days I’ve had to catch up on a few, but I am doing them and that’s all that matters to me right now.

And you know what!?!?!?!?  I had a fun moment today when I realized that they are working 🙂 But, truly that not only am I participating through the videos, but the ultimate goal of me wanting these videos to have people think about taking breaks at other times throughout the day really work.  I was in the car and sitting a lot today and found myself outside the car today when I had a chance jumping around in place a little and stretching.

Sitting all day truly is killing us and our bodies and I was reminded of this while teaching yoga this week for a corporate meeting when some of the participants were saying how much they needed yoga and stretching after sitting all day.  They were exhausted and their bodies were stiff and achy.

What do you do to reset when you need a break?  Need some help?  www.dailyresetbreak.com

What do you preach?  Do you practice what you preach?  Do you want to practice what you preach or do you possibly want to start preaching a new message?  If you like it, what can you do more of to start practicing what you preach?

Do You Allow Yourself To Trust Others?

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Do you allow yourself to trust others?

A lot of times when I’m working with coaching clients, I realize how hard it is for people to trust others.

I had an interesting experience with trust last week at an acro yoga class.  Not only was it quite possibly the most challenging thing that I have ever done that left me sore for about four days, it also allowed me to push myself to my limits and play with trust and communication like never before.

When you are relying on someone to literally keep you from falling, things can get a bit scary. Trust is so important and communication is key.

Your partner has ways of communicating through squeezing your hand as one example to let you know what side they will start on (if necessary) or to verbally cue you.  You also have to trust and communicate with the person spotting you to make sure they know where you are headed and are prepared to be there to support you.

I remember doing all kinds of balancing things like “airplane” as a kid and it being really easy.  As an adult, I found it not quite as easy, but I still had a blast!

Relationships are kind of the same way.  They can be challenging and when it comes to falling for someone in an intimate relationship, things can get scary and trust becomes so important & communication is key.

Do you know the difference of listening to your gut in whether or not you can trust another person or not or whether fear is getting in the way?  I’ve become more clear on those feelings the past year or so after getting them confused in the past.  If you find yourself in a situation where you know that you can trust another person and would like to further your relationship with them, are you willing to put yourself in that scary and vulnerable position?

I think trusting and opening yourself up for an intimate and close relationship can be one of the most beautiful things we can experience.  And as long as both people commit to making communication a priority along the way, I believe that you can always get through anything even if two people end up not always wanting the same thing.

What would it take for you to trust someone enough to let them in 100%?  Would you be willing to make communication the top priority in your most important relationships and commit to finding ways to always make things work together for both people in partnership?  You just might be surprised at how much freedom and joy you could have in your relationships!

How Are You Recovering From Halloween?

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How are you recovering from Halloween?  What do you think of when you think of Halloween?  What are your favorite things to do?

With Halloween being one of my favorite holidays since I love getting dressed up and having fun, I’ve never really thought about some of the things that Halloween represents.

I mean, where did trick or treat come from anyway?  Like, do people ever actually do a trick for a child vs. giving them candy?  What does that even mean?

It’s kind of ironic for me that it is one of my favorite holidays since I like to think of myself more of wanting to spread joy and fulfillment vs. darkness and gloominess with all the scariness that takes place.

So, if you’re left with a big ole bunch of candy, now what do you do?

What can you do to take care of your body and/or your children so we don’t all get sick from eating too much sugar?

One thing I’m incorporating lately is buying fruit to have on hand for when I have a chocolate craving.  Just last week alone to prepare, I bought apples to eat with peanut butter, plums, peaches, oranges and bananas.  Guess I thought I was going to have a lot of sugar cravings!

Just one idea to possibly incorporate when you’re pushing your edge with any leftovers.  Perhaps stick with the Halloween theme over the next week and pick up an orange when you want to go for the candy.  Your body may love you for it!

You could also consider adding in some extra movement this week.  Maybe pick up an extra yoga class, run or work out for the week.  Or if you haven’t been getting any workouts at all in lately, just commit to one.  Going on a walk outdoors is one of the best things you can do for your mind, body and soul!  Plus, if you’re in Texas like I am, it’s feeling great outside, so get out there and enjoy it!

HAPPY BELATED HALLOWEEN!!!!

P.S. I meant to send this on Friday and that didn’t happen, so I had to redo this to make sense post Halloween.  My apologies for being late!

P.S.S. I might have just finished eating a bite size Snickers and M&M pack.

P.S.S.S.  Therefore, it’s all about moderation so you don’t make yourself sick or send your body into sugar shock.  Or, go out there and find friends and other people to pass the candy along to and maybe you can put a smile on someone else’s face and do something healthier for yourself 😉

TRIESSENCE Blogs and Article in Dallas Business Journal, Feeling Blessed…

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Happy Friday, everyone!

I am feeling so blessed and humbled today and I wanted to share.

The Dallas Business Journal published an article on TRIESSENCE today as well as four blogs this week breaking down fun yoga poses to try.

Here’s the article (full article will be unlocked in 30 days, but still wanted to share):

http://www.bizjournals.com/dallas/print-edition/2014/07/11/facetime-tessa-todd-combines-yoga-life-coaching-to.html

Here is the page with the blogs about the four different yoga poses:

http://www.bizjournals.com/dallas/search/results?q=tessa+todd&search-button=

Feeling so grateful and thankful for all of your support. I hope you all have a safe and wonderful weekend.

And, thank you oh so much to Dallas Business Journal.

So happy…