Stress Relief for Female Entrepreneurs with Clare Downham

We usually think of stress as coming from the circumstances that surround us: busy jobs, busy lives, difficult bosses or clients. But what if stress has another origin? What if it comes from the thinking we have in any given situation?Clare Downham is the dedicated mentor you need on your unique journey to unlock your innate potential and cultivate a thriving business aligned with your true purpose. As a certified ILM Success Mentor, she specialises in guiding emerging and established female entrepreneurs to embrace their innate mindfulness and harness it as a powerful tool for success. With a deep understanding of the inside-out nature of our human experience, Clare expertly navigates the complexities of the entrepreneurial journey, helping women to silence the inner critic, dissolve self-doubt and cultivate a strong sense of intuition and self-trust.You can find Clare Downham at ClareDownham.com and on Insight Timer at claredownham.You can listen above, on your favorite podcast app, or watch on YouTube. Notes, links, resources and a full transcript are below.Show Notes* On what happens when we ignore warning signs from our bodies * The false messages business owners receive about having to be ‘on’ and ‘up’ all the time * How motivation ebbs and flows naturally and there’s nothing wrong when we’re at a low ebb * On the cyclical nature of levels of personal energy * How some of our best ideas come during down or quiet times * How we believe we need to be busy all the time and that resting is ‘lazy’ * How we so often try to be in a different feeling state than the one we’re naturally in * On overwhelm and its one cause * How being in the present moment starves stress of the oxygen it needsResources Mentioned in this Episode * Insight TimerTranscript of Interview with Clare DownhamAlexandra: Clare Downham, welcome to Unbroken.Clare: Hello. Lovely to be here.Alexandra: Oh, my pleasure. It’s lovely to see you. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about your background and how you got interested in the Three Principles.Clare: I was a primary school head teacher. So our primary school in the UK is aged three to 11. I was in primary education for 20 years. And the last five or so I was a head teacher to two different schools. And I became very stressed, although I didn’t know I was stressed at all, I didn’t have a clue. I knew there were things wrong with me. But I thought those things were what was wrong with me rather than stress as the underlying cause. One day I went into work, fully intending to start my working day and I took one look at my computer. And it was like, it was like I was frozen. It was like, my body just finally went, “No, no more, let’s go, let’s leave.” I literally did walk out of work. And I never went back in the end. Didn’t know I wasn’t going to go back. I thought it was going to have a nap, and have a little rest for a couple of weeks and then go back. But that’s not what happened. I was initially diagnosed with depression, because I was burnt out. And it looks very similar. Because all your motivation is gone. You can’t get out of bed, you can’t really do anything. But all the way through they were saying it was depression, I kept thinking I don’t feel depressed, I’m not really in a low mood, I’ve just got no energy, it was like it had been syringed out of me. It was a messy year. I didn’t work for a year, I was off sick for a year.