1st September, 2020

Default to Happy

With Rachel Morris

Dr Rachel Morris

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In our first podcast back after the summer break, Rachel talks with Dr Giles P Croft about his take on how to beat stress and burnout. Giles  is a psychology graduate and former NHS surgeon who stepped aside from clinical practice for a decade to explore a number of career paths, including health informatics, cycling journalism, public speaking and high street retail with his wife.

He is now back in the healing profession, tackling the root cause of chronic mental stress and its many harmful effects by helping clients reconnect to their natural, inbuilt state of health. He lives and works in the Brecon Beacons National Park with his wife and 6 year old daughter.

As human beings, we are designed to default to a setting which is at peace and happy. The problem is that so often our thinking gets in the way of this, causing feelings which make us feel that something is dreadfully wrong. 

Whilst feelings can be a useful indicator light to what’s going on with our thinking – they are rarely ‘ the absolute truth’ .Giles believes that if we can just stop trying to ‘do stuff’ to make ourselves feel better, and just leave ourselves to default to our innate factory settings, and live in the present, we will feel- and think much better, and our stress will disappear. 

We chat about how to avoid secondary suffering by layering unhelpful thoughts on top of events and talk about the ‘soft flute of intuition’ which will help tell us what we really need in any given moment. 

Giles’s top 3 tips are:

1. Ask yourself ‘where are my feelings coming from right now?’
2. Look at your hands regularly to stay in the present moment. The present is all there is
3. Go back and listen to the podcast again – change comes through insight

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You can [download our Stop Start Continue Checklist tool](https://www.shapestoolkit.com/stop-start-continue) here and you’ll also receive the Busy Leaders Guide to getting a Resilient Team which is launching on 8th Sept. 

Contact Rachel at  

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You can [watch this podcast episode on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4ByYnP5ro__Q5r_PxgBXYGUIAuS8TM7N) here