Joy Langley Talks About Turning Stress Into Your Strength

by Patrick Veroneau

Within the crucible of stress lies the opportunity to forge our inner strength, transforming adversity into a powerful catalyst for personal growth and resilience. Join host Patrick Veroneau as he sits down with Joy Langley, a stress management coach and the author of Navigating Stress: How to Find Calm During Stressful Times. Today, Joy delves into the profound concept of transforming stress into strength, a topic of utmost relevance in today's fast-paced world. Patrick and Joy explore the transformative power of navigating stress and embracing it as a catalyst for personal growth. They share strategies on how to be empowered to reframe your relationship with stress and unlock your inner resilience. Tune in now and embark on a journey of self-empowerment and transformation.

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On this episode, we're talking with Joy Langley, who's not only an author of the book, Navigating Stress, but she's also an emotional intelligence expert. I had so much fun with this conversation. Joy is a joy. What else can I say? She also talked about turning stress into your strength. That's so valuable. This conversation has so many pearls. Maybe you are not dealing with stress right now, but you know somebody that is. This is a great episode for you to tune in to. Let's jump into it.

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Joy, I want to thank you for being on the show. I've been looking forward to our conversation. The book that you wrote, Navigating Stress, is so relevant as a titled book. Also, as I was reading the bio that you sent to me, one of the things that I loved reading was this idea of turning your stress into your strength. I don't think we do that enough in how we actually navigate stress. I thought that would be a great direction for us to go in this conversation. I'd love to start off with your input on how you go about writing this book, Navigating Stress.

It was lovely to be invited to write the book. I wanted it to be very basic. I didn't want it to be complicated. There were too many complicated things in life. Understanding stress is a necessity. Anxiety and depression are very real human emotions. I've been through some depression side of things myself, and I understood what depression was from a very personal perspective. I've used a lot of that later on in life to remind myself that I'm never going to do anything again in my life that I don't like. Simply because for me it creates depression. Depression is a very powerful emotion that tells you that what you're doing at that moment is not bringing you any joy, which is literally my name. It just isn't.

There were signals that we could create within the body to tell you that. That is it. You get very miserable. You get low. You don't want to see anybody. You eat a lot of chocolates. You don't want to be here. The worst feeling was the desire to take my own life. I don't think I ever voiced it in that way, but I do remember standing on the train platform in The London Underground thinking, "The next train that comes along." That's a pretty dark thought, which people don't share the depth that they go to. I knew that I cannot ever be that depressed again in my life if I can help it.

It's so powerful to hear you recount that because I've had several guests on this show that have shared a similar type of story that they feel fortunate that they didn't act on what they were thinking about. Your revelation in terms of "I'm not going to do anything that I don't feel brings joy to me anymore” is so powerful as well. If you think about it, if more people took that, they wouldn't be doing what they're doing now. If you look at some of the data out there, most people are unhappy in their roles in what they do. I'm in a similar situation. I left a job that I was completely miserable at. If it wasn't for leaving, I don't know where I'd be. I will just be in a very unhappy place. I didn't feel like I had any purpose for what I was doing.

The thing though is as a teenager moving into adulthood, nobody tells you where you're meant to be heading. People tell you what you could do because you haven't got a clue. They say, "Perhaps you should be a doctor, Joy. Perhaps you should be a lawyer." My parents are Jamaican, so they have high-flying ideas for their kids. A bit like a lot of immigrants that come to the UK, they want their children to do well. Their idea is someone who is doing something in a professional capacity. They had nurses, doctors, and lawyers. I got an Asian community over here that are dentists. You want the top jobs.

That’s my parents' idea of where I should be. I'm not sure if I lived up to their expectations. I got a degree, which was good, but I didn't become any of the grand titles that they wanted. No one tells you what you are supposed to do with your life. Follow your passions. Do what makes you happy. What hobbies do you love as a teenager? Go into that. I didn't have any major burning ambitions. I just fell into going to university to try and stave off getting a job, to be quite honest.

What's interesting though is in your bio that I read, you became a self-help addict, for lack of a better term. You loved it. To me, that has probably created your purpose now of feeling as though you're in a helping profession. That's what you do now.

If you told me when I was 20-something that I would get into therapy and become a coach, I'd say, "No way." I was a very selfish and very self-centered person, and I don't think there was anything wrong with that. I was a bit of a party animal. After finishing University, I’m having such clear guidance in life and all the guardrails are up. Having them off once you leave, this world becomes so vast. I thought, "What am I supposed to do with my life?" I became a hedonist. It was fun, out every night, drinking, be with my friends, and that got boring after a while. I didn't know what I was meant to do with my life. Without having any major activities that I liked or hobbies, I was completely lost and making it up as I went along.

As a lot of people do as it relates specifically to the stress component. Certainly, I've seen it more in the work that I do that there is this heightened level of stress out there. We talk about it in terms of the lack of resilience that people have. I'm curious, from your perspective, do you see a difference between managing stress and developing resilience? Are they similar? Are they different? How do you decipher those?

They are connected. They're part of the same family. For me, people have to understand that it's a very necessary thing that the body does. We hear a lot about fight and flight when people say it, but perhaps they don't really understand it. We hear a lot about the hormones that get generated. Adrenaline makes you happy. You get more of that in your body. Do some exercise and get some adrenaline. No one understands that the body, when there is a problem about to happen or when it's frightened, it will generate a chemical to help you run, fight, and do what you need to at that moment. Stress is the response that the body has. When the activity is gone, the fear, the fright, the terrible thing has subsided, and the animal hasn't eaten you, then your body goes back to normal. LFL 172 | Turning Stress Into Strength

Turning Stress Into Strength: When our bodies are frightened, they will generate a chemical to help us run, fight, or do what we need to do at that moment. Stress is the body's response.

The thing with human beings is that we have big brains and unfortunately, we can't let things go. There's a good book that I like the title of. It's called, Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers. I thought, "What a brilliant title?" The book was hard to read but I get through books. I read a chapter and I stopped, but the title grabbed me. I thought, "Why don't zebras have ulcers?" It's looking at the idea that animals, if they were drinking some water, and then suddenly this lion appeared, they'd run. They'd have that stress response. They'd run, but they'd come back to the water and have a drink and they'd forgotten about it. Human beings don't forget. We have a memory and it's going to say, "The last time I was down by that water hole, there was a lion." We hold onto that.

That in itself sets us up for being afraid of things. It sets us up for phobias. It sets us up for then being anxious. Anxiety is another part of the family, which is if you are walking down a dark alley and you hear a noise, I want you to feel anxious. Have a look around, see what's there, and then I want your stress response to kick in if you have to run or if you have to fight, whatever it might be. Fight and flight, people talk about that a lot. Also, the other thing is freeze. I'm a person that goes into freeze mode, which is acting like a tree. I feel frozen in the spotlight. You could think I was a statue. You'd walk past and say, "Joy, I can see you." I wouldn't answer you. I'd be looking like a tree. It's because I'm not a fighter, but I do it when I need to. People avoid and they escape. It’s a very human natural response. Fight or flight explained.

Stress is normal. People have blown it out of proportion thinking that they should eliminate it. That's because they don't understand and they don't go into the mechanics of it. They moved far too quickly onto then talking about burnout and talking about you dying. It puts the fear of God into you about something human. You have to breathe. You have to have stress. You have to have a stress response. My job in the book was to redress that whole scaremongering, stress is bad for you, and stress can kill you. When people talk like that, that makes me stressed, to be quite honest.

I have to chuckle when you were talking about the freeze part. What I think about freeze is this workshop that I've done, especially if I'm talking about this subject. There are those people in workshops whose mechanism is to freeze when there's a question that's going to be asked. They're like, "If I don't look at him and if I don't make eye contact, maybe he won't even know I'm here. He will just go right by me."

That is me every single time. It never fails to surprise me if I'm in a group. It doesn't matter if it's 3, 4, or 5 people, whatever it might be. When they say, "Let's introduce yourselves." As it moves around the room, you can feel your heart rate going up. You think, "It's getting closer to me. The last person has just spoken," then it's you. It's like, "Lights, camera, action." I can feel my heart about to jump out of my chest half the time, but that is the fear response. Fear is creating stress in my body. My body is deciding it has to do something. It thinks it's in danger, it wants to run, and it wants to do something, but I have to sit there and suck it up. That's the fear response that you said.

The heaviness that hangs in the air in offices is that we all have that triggered in us because it's a very ancient biological response. We're never going to get rid of it. It's there. Yet, when we want to run because something has happened in the office, we have to stand there. You can imagine how stressful that is if you have to stand there when every fiber in your body is saying, "Run like your life depended on it."

Very small things are triggering that. Very tiny things like having to speak to the boss, one of your coworkers annoyed you, something hasn't turned up on time, you read a horrible email, or sent an email and there's a mistake in it. There are so many tiny micro activities that will trigger the stress response. That's why understanding it is key. You do have to understand this thing that's happened to my body. My heart is now pounding at 100 miles an hour. My stomach is churning. I feel like I'm going to be sick. I feel an awful lot of tension in my shoulders. My hands are sweaty. I'm going to say that's normal. LFL 172 | Turning Stress Into Strength

Turning Stress Into Strength: There are so many micro-activities that will trigger our stress response. That's why understanding it is key.

Along those lines is what somebody said to me in the office, my brain still perceives it as a threat. My brain doesn't know the difference between that threat and the saber-toothed tiger that used to run after me. The problem for us is that we activate a system that was meant for fight, flight, or freeze to save our lives. It's inundated all the time because of the things that we put in front of it that we don't sort of take the time to say, "This isn't a real emergency. This due date on this project is not the saber-toothed tiger that's going to kill me even if you think you do that it will."

You're so right. I love that saber-toothed tiger. I'm sure they did exist. I'm glad I wasn't around when they were around. If one was in front of me, I would want to run like crazy. I had a client who read the book once said to me, "I love the book and everything else." He was reading another book at the same time. He said, "Every time anything triggers it, I think I'm being chased by a tiger." I think, "You are so right." Tiger is being chased by a deadline for work. Your body thinks there's a real emergency about to happen, and it responds accordingly.

As I said, don't knock the beauty off the way in which our body has been built. If I and you were to sit down and create a perfect human being, we'd say, "How can we make sure when this particular organism is in danger that it protects itself and saves its life so that it can be there to fight another day?" We might say, "I don't know. We could poke it with a stick. We could put some fire under its feet." Let's put this hormone inside the body, which when it thinks it's in danger between the brain and the body, they say, move like crazy, get those arms pumping, get those legs pumping, and get out of here.

We had a conversation before the recording started about the various forms of activities that we can do to reduce our own stress and manage this. What I love about these conversations is that there's not a one size fits all. We're all different in terms of what works for me and might not work for you or how I manage uncomfortable or stressful situations. As a psychotherapist, are there strategies that you have used with your clients or seen that are more effective?

It is such a big topic. I always bring it back to basics, which is it's all about your thinking. Cognitive behavioral therapy is something that I think is amazing. I was trained in humanistic therapy at the beginning, which is counseling and talking to people, which is lovely. There isn't very much direct activity going on in terms of when you leave. That's it. If you work with a CBT therapist or anyone along those lines, they will make you do some homework. I need you to start becoming aware of what you are thinking because we don't realize that how we are thinking is a problem. Do we, Patrick? Do I really think that the way I think is a problem? I love the way I think. You then get into the therapy and you think, "What I've got thinking bad habits? I've got what? I've got distorted thoughts?"

I love that statement, “Thought distortions.” It sounds like science fiction. You're not thinking straight. You have biases, which you don't realize. They are due to the way that you've been brought up, your upbringing, and everything else. The world around you is influencing you. You are coming to a decision about what that means. We're meaning-making machines and we're always doing that. I've got lots of beliefs that feel normal. It's totally different from your beliefs, but my beliefs are better than your beliefs and I'm going to run with it. I need you to become more aware of what you are thinking at that moment, and then you need to start interrogating the thoughts.

Most of the words that I have started with is C in a polite way, but you've got to catch that thought. You've got to check it. I want you to be checking it for its truth or its falseness. The first thing that you can do to stop that train is, "Is this thought true or is it not true?" You can rate it on a scale of 1 to 10 or a percentage. It’s like, "Yes, there's a lion in front of me and that's 100% true" or "There's a lion in front of me, but actually it's zero. There is no lion. My body is just doing its thing trying to save my life." You begin to rate that yes and no, and then you can give yourself a chance to challenge it. Challenging it is beginning to say, "Have there been times when I've felt this before? What was the outcome? You know what? That thought is rubbish." You can ditch it at that point.

You catch it, check it, and challenge it. That gives you the option for change. Change is where you need to get to and where you need to look at that thought. I call it having a coin. You call it a dime. We call it a penny. There are two sides to it, for a good reason. You want to be able to have a thought and know that there must be an alternative. That saved my bacon so many times, Patrick. Just the fact that you might be thinking that way and you think it's 100% true, but guess what? I got news for you. There's another way to look at this. That's what you need to go for in those moments when your brain began to shut down because we've got the prefrontal cortex, a smart bit of the middle bit where the emotional seat is. The emotional brain works faster than the logical brain. It runs circles around it.

You have ideas out there about the monkey mind and all that kind of stuff. Monkey is interesting. Jumping from tree to tree and thought to thought. I get it but panicking without any information. If the job of our body is to save our lives, you want the emotional brain to take over. There's no point in me and you sitting here and being all very lofty and saying, "That tiger over there, how big do you think it is? Do you think it had its dinner? Do you think it brushed its teeth?" No way. We'll just run.

If the job of our body is to save our lives, you want the emotional brain to take over.

I'd be asking how fast you run because I have to outrun you at this point.

You mean I'm going to get eaten and you'll be okay. You're so right, Patrick. I will run like Usain Bolt that you won't be able to catch me.

I do think this model has a lot of power to it. It's one that I use a variation of in terms of the thought record. You're so right. It starts with our thoughts. I think of somebody that cuts me off in traffic and I have two thoughts. I could think they've done it intentionally or I could think maybe it's a student driver or somebody that has looked inattentively for a moment and it's not intentional. That creates a cascade of where I go next with this. If I think it's an accident, I might still be frustrated, but we've all made accidents. If I think that you did this intentionally, it changes. To me, the next thing is, what's my emotion going to be toward you or the event?

It’s absolute rage. We've got a word over in the UK, and you may use it too. Road rage. You're so angry, you chase them down, and you try to get back at them. You do all kinds of things. You want to fight.

In the US, you hear people being shot because of it.

We don't have guns in the UK.

Back to the thought of whether it's true or untrue. The first part is pretty easy for us, especially if we catastrophize things and look for the worst in everything. It's easy for me to think of the evidence that backs up my belief right now. That's why I believe it. It takes more time for us to be able to slow this thing down to say, "Why isn't this true?" It is what you're talking about. Is there anything in particular that you find helpful for individuals that are so caught up in their own truth belief that it's hard for them to shift to look at it any other way?

The emotions are very sensible. The body is meant to be at rest in a happy place. That's my guiding light and my north star. If you're in a good place, you feel content, you're not worrying about the tigers that might be outside. You're not worried. You're just in a good place. That place of rage or that place of rightness and righteousness is an energy that you feel, which is not calm, content, or at rest. I would get you to question that you need to look at this a different way. You have a gigantic brain. You can look at this in a different way. In fact, you can look at this in several different ways if you want to.

Emotions are sensible. The body is meant to be at rest, just in a happy place.

Start thinking about what else could this mean because we're taking it very personally. We're making it mean something about us, “Patrick deliberately set out to cut me up.” I don't even know your name. I just said that person in that car. I probably don't know whether it's male or it's female. I just know that car and that person, I hate them because they cut me up. I'm thinking, "Really, Joy? What makes you say that?" It's just a guess.

This is knowing that we have thought distortions. We have bad thinking habits that don't help us. We have black-and-white thinking. It’s either it's good or bad. Either Patrick was being a good safe driver or he was being a bad driver. Either he tried to cut me up or he didn't. We then get into generalizing. We have so much information rushing at us that we have to quickly come to some conclusion about it.

Generalizing happens. One thing happens and we make a pattern, "Every day on this road, that man in that car tries to cut me up." "Really?" "He did it yesterday." That's my reasoning. The reasoning is that you were there yesterday and you're going to do it again today. I'm going to keep my eye on you. In fact, today, I'm going to get back at you. We'll see who's going to win. It’s that whole drama that we can get into. Drama is interesting energy, I can feel myself getting energized just thinking about that, but the body is meant to be at rest and calm most of the time. If I'm not in that state, I have to question what's happening to me and what I am thinking.

I hear you saying that people think they're right. That's another problem. You think you are right. You have to become more open-minded and know that there are bound to be different views. Ten people are in the room and an event happens. Guess what? We all describe it differently and we all remember different things. That can't be right, can it? It’s being kind to other human beings and yourself. My ideas and my viewpoints feel real and true, but I wonder what Patrick thinks. I'll entertain his thoughts too. In fact, I might entertain the other person. Let me get a more balanced perspective because I know it's from my perspective, but let's accept there are other perspectives too. That's why we have wars. That's why people fight. They're fighting for their right to be right.

We know Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. I'm a firm believer that it is a very powerful model for us to use. What other approaches do you find are beneficial or helpful as it relates to stress reduction or managing it?

People need to recognize the thoughts that go on in their head, which is on the top of the shoulder. It’s that head thing that looks like a football, and then there's the body. It's like an iceberg. That's 1/10th above the water, and then the other 9/10th is below the water, which is our body. Between the body and the head, they talk to each other. When did we forget that? We think everything happens in the penthouse. What about the rest of the building? The body and the mind are talking to each other constantly trying to work out, "Am I safe?"

I read something recently that said that we say that to ourselves four times every second. I can't even break that down because a second seems like a very short time. Imagine if we are going, "Am I safe?" The survival instinct is always in place. We're very vigilant. We're always looking around for danger. If the body spots it first like my feet are wet and then my knees are wet, I think I might be in the water. I might be drowning. Do something. If I'm feeling a little bit of heat on my skin and it’s a little bit too hot, there might be a fire.

My body is very much going to say to my brain, "Joy, do something." In reverse, the brain can be looking out for stuff. It can be saying, "That person over there, you shouldn’t be around them. They look a bit dodgy." It will tell the body that, "We need to run. Could you get my heart racing for me? Could you give me a dose of adrenaline so that I can run faster and focus?" It tells the body what to do. Two parts talk together. People don't realize there's a huge connection between our gut and also the brain. There's a nerve that runs up our back called the vagus nerve. It's like the superhighway between the gut, which has so many emotional connections. It runs to the brain and it delivers an emotion. Our brain and our experiences translate that into a feeling.

People don't realize there's a huge connection between our gut and brain.

That's why people get emotions and feelings as words are muddled up. Initially, there are basic emotions there. There are eight emotions that we have. Beyond that, they're all variations. The body will tell you, "This is what we're feeling right now." The brain is going to interpret it, depending on your experiences. That's the reason why we can both experience something. You will see it one way and I will see it another. We're working on, "What happened to me in my childhood that this reminds me of? What did I read last week that this feels like?" We're using everything around us to try and make that thing make sense at that moment.

Along those lines, we're talking about the mind and the body as one. What about nutrition and physical exercise? How do you integrate those into stress reduction or management?

With exercise, it's probably easier. Exercising can get rid of that excess energy that we have. You can be burning adrenaline off. When you are stressed, you get a delivery of adrenaline. What an animal would normally do is they'd run, burn it all off, and go back to normal. As human beings, we can be holding it. The exercise is a bit going away and burning that adrenaline off. Exercise generates adrenaline, which gives us a good feeling. They talk about the runner's high and all that kind of stuff.

I hate exercise, I'll be honest. I'm going to come clean with you. I do not like it, but I know that you can get a lot of good stuff from it. I'm lazy. I've done my exercise in my twenties. I kept my body in good condition for that much time, and it has lasted. Thank God it has lasted, but I'm not an exercise person because I've never got that runner's high that I was hoping to get. I just got exhausted.

On the nutrition side, it's more to do with giving your body the energy that it needs to function properly. When it comes to running and getting away from the animal, you want to have a reasonable amount of sugar in your body because it gets translated into sugar so that you actually can do all the running that you need. In order to keep the cells working properly, you have to eat properly. I'm not an expert nutritionist, but they go on about eating properly. It's probably good to eat your greens, get a balanced diet, and drink a lot of water.

That makes sense, but it's about the cells and the way in which the cells can degenerate. Especially when it comes to having exhausted yourself with stress, you want to make sure that when it comes to burnout, you've got to look after yourself because the cells can begin to shut down because of stress. It's getting the right vitamins and nutrition. I'm not an expert on that. I'm a bit like you, Patrick. I know that I'm meant to eat properly and there is some benefit to eating food because it can change your mood as well. Food and mood go together.

I am somebody that tries to run pretty regularly. I exercise regularly. There is not a day that I've gone out for a run that I'm thinking, "This is awesome. I love this." Literally, within half a mile of being out, I'm like, "This sucks. I hate this." I've jokingly told this story many times. There's not a time when I come back from a run, there's a 5K loop when I leave the house. When I come home and within an hour of finishing that, I'm not saying, "I'm so glad I did that." There is not one time, I can honestly say that in the decades that I have run, I have never left the house skipping away thinking, "This is great. I love this run." I don't. I hate it.

It's so good to hear that. There must be something that motivates you to keep going back every day. There has to be.

It's that mental probably neurochemical release that I get from it that allows me to deal with stress. On the days that I don't workout or run or do something physical, I definitely feel it.

That's what it is. It's like the reward system. This dopamine that we have as well as our reward and achievement system. For you, it's not just the achievement part that's being driven because it could be like, "I'm going to win a medal for running." It's more to do with, "If I don't do this, then I feel lousy." That's the payoff for you, isn't it?

Without a question.

Your body remembers it. It's great. I'm glad I met someone who does not like exercise, but you are better than me because you actually do it. I like chocolate too much and stuff.

Maybe that's the other reason. I have one last question for you and I'm curious how you find this impacts our level of stress since COVID, which is when you wrote the book. It’s isolation.

Isolation was a big thing. We were all confined to four walls at one point and not being able to go out. What happened was that we stopped doing the things that made us happy. The activities that made us happy stopped. A lot of that was around friendship groups. Human beings do need other human beings. The lack of being able to talk to your best friends and see your friends, we didn't realize the importance of it. Even the people at work that you might not like, you begin to miss them, "I miss that person that I can't stand. I miss not liking them." You miss people. Human beings are meant to connect.

Human beings are meant to connect.

It's lovely if you perhaps had people inside the four walls that you were stuck in to talk to. Hopefully, people that you liked, at least you could talk to someone. A lot of people don't live with other people. When you leave home, you're on your own. You do spend time with your friends. You go out of your house to spend time with your friends. When we were confined, it was the loneliness that kicked in and the lack of proper eye contact, body contact, just a smile, a laugh, or all the things. They're probably these micro-movements that make human beings feel loved and wanted.

No oxytocin, that lovely hormone, was being generated from being hugged. The worst thing for me was not being able to hug people. I'd never thought about it before. Hugging in and of itself generates oxytocin, which is why we do it. That's why we do it. That was completely missing. We've got miserable for very sensible reasons. It’s the lack of human contact.

I remember when people are saying, "Nobody will shake hands again. The hug is gone." You don't wipe away thousands of years of evolution in terms of how we connect with one virus. That's not going to happen. We are not people that cannot hug or show a connection to other people in handshakes. We're seeing that now. I'm sure there are still some people out there that are like, "I'm not going to shake hands or I'm not hugging people." By and large, I don't see that anymore.

For the reason you just mentioned, it's a drive that we have to connect. From the stress component, as I think about it, it's something along the lines of a problem shared is a problem. By being connected to people, I do think that does impact or lower our level of stress when we're connected with other people to share our burdens.

It’s interesting that whole thing about the connection thing, the hugs, and the handshakes. I must have read something recently. If we're going back to a real tribal system. If I met you and you were from a different tribe, and I couldn't shake your hand to try and sus out who you were, or whether you were a good guy or a bad guy. I'd have to come to the conclusion that you're the enemy and we'd have to fight. I would fight and I'd probably win. I know you go for 5K runs, perhaps you'd win.

It's so true though that we need that.

We're sussing each other out all of the time because the truth is we could all be potentially dangerous to each other. We have to get to the point where we can relax. I meet you, I shake your hand, I notice that you are okay, and then I can chill. LFL 172 | Turning Stress Into Strength

Turning Stress Into Strength: The truth is, we could all be potentially dangerous to each other. So we have to get to the point where we can relax.

That is the reason why people shook hands. It was to make sure and be able to see that there wasn't anything up their sleeves. My understanding is that's why when people entered somebody's home, they're taking their hats off. It was the same gesture. To make sure there's nothing under this helmet or whatever I'm wearing that could be a threat to you.

We are so suspicious but rightly so. Even though we are top of the food chain and we're very smart, we're very fragile too. We have this skin, which is pretty pathetic compared to the firm mane of a lion or the height of an elephant. It's very delicate stuff. That's what makes us connect. The skin is where we get the transfer of information. That's why it's so thin, but it's also very easy to destroy all of our ebbings. The insides will all fall out. That's a sick thing. I must watch too many sci-fi films.

Joy, I'm telling you right now. You just told me a minute ago that you thought you could take me. If you were coming into my house, I'd be asking you to take your hat off and I'd be shaking both of your hands because now I'm concerned.

You're so funny, Patrick. You can shake both my hands. I'm going to think you're weird, honestly. I'm going to think, "This is something that they do in the USA. They shake both hands. I'll just go with it."

Only when they're threatened. Joy, thank you so much for this conversation. I appreciated your thoughts in this area. If people want to get your book, what's the best way to go about doing that?

It should be in most good bookshops, but Amazon does have everything. It's on there. It's under my first name, Joy Langley. It's Navigating Stress. Go to Amazon. I mentioned the word Karen because I have two names. Karen Joy is my full name, but that book is written under Joy Langley, so you'll find it. I have a website which is JoyLangley.com. You can't miss that one. That's pretty easy. You'll find a link on there as well for the book.

Joy, thanks so much for this conversation. I enjoyed it.

My pleasure, Patrick. It's been fun having you. I'm going to have to up my game now when it comes to exercise because I'm not going to let you beat me in that 5K run.

This is now recorded, so I'll play this back to you.

Game on.

Enjoy. Thanks.

Important Links

About Joy Langley

I became a therapist & stress management coach because ironically I was feeling …stressed out! My 15-year relationship had failed, I lost the business we’d built, and I became a single mum to my 7 year old son overnight. My emotions were all over the place. I wanted to be self-sufficient, but how? So I re-trained. I became a therapist. And 7 years later I started a business. I turned my stress into my strength.

I achieved the work-life balance that was 'right' for me, whilst making stress my strength. I learned techniques that calmed my nerves, got rid of my imposter syndrome, and reduced anxiety depression, and overwhelm.

Plus I learned about my optimum stress levels, negative thinking habits & patterns, and how to shut-up my inner critic. I regained my self confidence and a feeling of worthiness and value. These challenges are what I help female entrepreneurs with today…

So here are some recent client transformations:

Transformation 1:
A business owner in Tech was experiencing daily stress, anxiety, and overwhelm. A toxic combination of relationship, health and business challenges. The only relief she experienced was through procrastination via Netflix, social media and food. After 3 months of working together, the stress, anxiety, and overwhelm stopped limiting business the way they used to. She no longer uses Netflix and social media to manage them. She goes to the gym regularly and allows herself to have fun!

Transformation 2:
A business owner with family responsibilities wanted to reduce her consultancy work, return to the film industry and complete a commissioned book. But she lacked assertiveness, confidence, and had imposter syndrome. After 6 months she gained clarity about her life. Re-examined her beliefs, values and purpose. Plus reviewed childhood belief systems. As a result she learned to say "No” which reduced her consultancy load. She successfully released a short film and is working on the next one.

Transformation 3:
A corporate client wanted to pursue entrepreneurship in the cosmetic industry. She was sabotaging her efforts with feelings of worthlessness, severe anxiety, and an over-achievers mindset. She wanted to get to the root of unhealthy relationships and build her business. During our 4 months together she gained the confidence to launch her cosmetic product, employ part-time staff, and even start dating. Her outlook is now more positive. She manages her anxiety, and embraces life.

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