Life Conversations with a Twist
Join me once a week for a new interview with a local, badass woman who has an amazing story to tell. Join me in conversation so you too can gain inspiration and empowerment from these stories! If you love hearing about leadership, relationships, families, motherhood and navigating hard times, then tune into my podcast and share with others. If you love what you hear, share and tag me on Instagram at @heathernelson.life. You can also visit my website at heathernelson.life.
Life Conversations with a Twist
The Great Stress Reset: Simple Tips and Tools to Stay Steady with Tammy Allen
“Stress is growth. It's the driver of evolution itself. Stress is what creates everything. We need to reframe the very meaning of stress so that we don't fear it.” —Tammy Allen
Some days, life feels like one long sprint where stress keeps piling up faster than clarity. There are moments when the world pushes harder than expected, and it becomes tempting to believe the pressure means something is wrong. It may be worth considering that stress could be pointing toward growth instead of defeat.
Tammy Allen brings decades of real-life experience to this idea, shaped by a childhood marked by responsibility, a violent early relationship she escaped, and a lifetime of reinvention that led to her work on stress, intuition, and resilience. Her journey fuels her mission to help others turn survival mode into grounded confidence.
Press play for an honest, energizing look at stress that leaves room for hope, humor, and real change.
Topics covered:
• Childhood patterns that shape adult stress responses
• Surviving trauma and learning strategic calm
• The survival response and how to redirect it
• Declarations and tools that retrain thinking
• Building doubtless confidence through action
• Why intuition becomes louder in stillness
• Stress during world chaos and staying in personal coherence
• Creativity, problem solving, and finding the third option
• The Great Stress Reset and practical resets for daily life
Connect with Heather:
Episode Highlights:
01:34 Redefining Aging and “The Juice of Life” Philosophy
07:00 Escaping an Abusive Relationship and Learning Survival Strategy
14:00 Why Stress Exists and How to Reframe It
20:09 Why Creativity Peaks at 9 AM and Capturing Ideas Fast
27:45 Turning Stress Into Doubtless Confidence
31:58 Breaking the “Poor Me” Cycle
37:40 Taking Action Strategically: Influence vs Control
43:30 Collective Growth
Resources:
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Connect with Tammy:
Tammy Allen is an artist, author, and systems theorist who survived four years of captivity by the Masked Rapist of Eugene, Oregon, and transformed that experience to become a powerful voice for personal transformation and human potential. After her escape, she faced the daunting reality that her son had inherited behavioral challenges from his father, forcing her to evolve in ways she never imagined.
Heather Nelson: Hey ladies, it's your host, Heather Nelson, welcoming you to another season of Life Conversations With a Twist. This is a space where we dive into stories of remarkable women who've conquered challenges and emerged stronger. Join me each week as we unravel tales of resilience, triumph and empowerment. These narratives aren't just stories. These are stories of inspiration, and I'm so honored to have the space to share them with you. Plus, I will be sharing my own personal stories of inspiration as I navigate starting my own business and achieving my own goals. So whether you're driving in the car or out moving your body, get ready for heartwarming stories and empowering conversations together. Let's raise a virtual toast to empowerment, because here at Life Conversations With a Twist, every story has the power to inspire. Cheers, ladies.
Welcome everyone to this week's Life Conversations With a Twist. I have the honor of having Tammy Allen on. Her and I, well, we've just personally met, but we were connected through her niece who I used to work at a restaurant here locally. And it was funny, you just mentioned that I threw her baby shower when she was pregnant. I miss her. Even though we live in the same community, we never see each other. But we will someday. That's normal, isn't it? She was actually on my podcast as well, talking about her journey, and she connected us. I'm really excited to have this conversation with you today, so welcome to the podcast.
Tammy Allen: Well, thank you, Heather. I'm so happy to be here.
Heather Nelson: Tell the listeners a little about who you are. I always like to say, where you live. And also, if you're willing to give your age, just to get people's mindset of where you sit in life.
Tammy Allen: Well, actually, I love my age. I'm 67, not too far away from 68. I don't find age to be really a limitation. I think it's a wonderful thing because it gives you perspective and experience, and there is no college degree that can get you through that. And also, just to be excited about life still. So many people are looking backwards instead of the juice of life being what you're doing now, and that can happen at any age. There's always something to learn, something that's exciting about life, period. There was an 80 year old woman. She just ran and completed Iron Man at 80 years old. So it just depends on what you just got to figure out what you like. But for me, I've had a lot of different chapters, I call them. And when it plays out, which for me in the past has been about a five year span, I kind of have a short attention span in general. So you can just feel when it's played out, and you can't be afraid to let that one go and then start a new journey. I think that that's what's kept me really excited. I call it the juice of life when you're just not afraid to say goodbye to one thing and then open a new door, and the learning curve is always there.
It's going to take time to get proficient at anything, a new business, a new skill you're learning. But once you get your sea legs now, you can start sinking your teeth into it and seeing, what can I create out of this? Or what can I do? That's personally, I think, why I'm still so excited at 60. And I do take care of my health. That helps too.
Heather Nelson: I was gonna say, so many people, as we are getting older, we are excited for the next like, oh, we're excited to be in our 40s. Oh, we can't wait till we're 50. And then you see so many, especially women who are doing such amazing things and they're older. Of course, people in their 20s are doing really cool things. But I feel like magic really happens when you can get through all of life's learning curves and be able to shine on the other side. So I'm with you. I am excited to get older.
Tammy Allen: Well, you're perfect where you are, and then you're always becoming, that's what they say.
Heather Nelson: And you live in Georgia?
Tammy Allen: I do. I love it here. I'm from California, but I like it in Georgia. I love it, the climate, the scenery.It's just gorgeous here. The weather's good, not too extreme. I know I'll be staying.
Heather Nelson: We're getting into rain this weekend, and I'm like, no. So tell our listeners a little bit, I would love to take you back to little Tammy and what life was like growing up with you. And I think you really had some juicy nuggets along your journey of growing up to get you to what we're gonna like to dive into today.
Tammy Allen: Okay. Well, I grew up with a single mother. And obviously, that had lots of stress for her, and she didn't deal with it very well. Which turned out to be good for me because there was a positive to everything. You just have to flip it. But I was the oldest, and I had a younger brother and sister, so that automatically put me into that position because there wasn't anybody else there. So about the age of 7, I started comprehending what was happening. And so because she would overreact, somebody had to keep it together. So that was me. And so that pattern got established, and then that turned out to be a really good pattern. And really that's the basis of the book, The Survival Response. It is to freak out. It is to run or fight. Or to just, ah. And in today's world, it doesn't serve us. And that survival response came from when we were running from predators. The predators now for survival are your credit rating. How do I get housing? How do I make a living? And when we get hit with those kinds of stressors, we automatically freak out again, and the nervous system goes, and then plus because we have memory, that stress response keeps happening because we're trying to figure it out. And now, it just keeps replaying. And that's where so many problems come in, and people trying to figure out how to deal with them. So that really was, to me, the basis of why I wanted to write the book. Because looking back, that's what kept me alive.
So about the age of 17, I was a pretty cocky 17 year old. Because being the oldest and single mom, I ran my own show. So absolutely, the family too, pretty much. I really was very brave, and that can be bad, meaning that I didn't think that there was real harm that could get me, I guess, because I had always managed to navigate everything. I went off with a man, pretty much, to get away from my mother who turned out to be a very violent man. And about three days into this trip, because I'm on this big adventure. He went out for just a convenience store, came back in, and just punched me in the face hard when he got in. No discussion, no anything, and I'm in the middle of nowhere. First, I punched him back, because what are you gonna do? And he punched harder. He's 6"3', so immediately, the other response mechanism came into play. I look around and I'm like, this is not good. Get the lay of the land, and I quickly did and assessed my situation, and I played along. So I just played along. Everything was okay. He said he was sorry, blah, blah.
So anyway, he turned out to not be a good guy. He would threaten to kill my family if I tried to leave, and all these kinds of things. But I survived, and he ended up in jail. He's still in jail, and that was like 45 years ago. So needless to say, I would not have survived had I not been able to navigate that situation. So that has translated since then to pretty much everything that I, when it's really dire. I realized that the survival stress response needs to be to stop and assess the situation, and then respond appropriately so that you can minimize the damage. We're always going to get hit with stressors. But how do we navigate? My technique is just to stop, because we can all do that. We can freeze, which is a survival response. Freeze, quickly assess, and decide at that moment, what's the best response for me in this situation? And then take that action, and then you just do that again and again, because we all are naturally geared for different things. So it takes a lot to retrain our patterns. We are pattern, pattern, pattern people. It was hard for every one of us to get new habits and everything. So one of the ways that I, it's not like I don't ever react. Of course, I do. But in just retraining all of my patterns, any pattern that I wanted to retrain, I created what I call declarations, and it was just for myself to start with. So I would write out just stories of how I wanted to respond to things in the future, and then I put them to soft music in the background. And anytime that I get any kind of stress or anything, I just listen to those over and over, and they're in the first person. So I am embedding that in my subconscious. And after about six months, my thinking patterns changed to the thinking patterns that I actually wanted to adopt. And then in response to that, life is changing. And the way that I'm responding is changing. And the feedback that I'm getting is changing.
I did actually create a whole series of declarations for others that start with that beginning of survival response, and then retraining into feeling good and how you want to feel, or empowered. I encourage people to do it for themselves, because I think that's the most powerful tool. I found that people didn't really want to do it. We all have this, okay, I'll do that. I'll get to that. But it doesn't become a priority. So I created a series that you can just listen to on my website or YouTube channel. So when you're stressed out like that, or reality is just coming at you, you can put on the headphones, and it's like it transports you to a different place. And the next thing you know, your body starts relaxing. You can breathe again. You can even just listen to the words, whether it's my words or creating your own words. However, that would work for an individual. But just training your thinking patterns and retraining them is such a powerful tool. It was literally between three to six months, I would say, I started really noticing the difference.
At first, it was just a tool for me to reset. And I love that word. In fact, I created The Great Stress Reset, a Facebook group where people can talk about this and also share tips, because we all have reset tips. We should be coming up with our own, because we're all so unique. And who cares how many tools you got in your toolbox. Use some of mine. Use somebody else's. Create your own. I have little things like mantras like that. Don't have resistance within them. I get what I need when I need it. Such a simple one. Because if you try to say, I am super abundant. Or there's another part of you saying, no, you're not that well, let's look at your bank account. So even if you know that that's a good thing to say, you have to believe it at that moment. So if you can just say, I get what I need when I need it. I always figure it out. Just very simple things that we can believe, and then it kind of goes deeper. And I have found that that has been one of the most powerful things.
Heather Nelson: When you said that, I always figure it out like that. That word, that's something that I live by. And I say it to my husband all the time when he stresses about certain things like, we always figure it out. It always gets figured out. And that's like in my day to day life. But for some reason, and I do. Everything, I always figured it out. But one thing is, I always notice at night when I wake up. Most people wake up in the middle, and at 2:00 am and that's when the stress comes again. And I'm like, I literally just tell my--
Tammy Allen: You start trying to figure out problems.
Heather Nelson:
I'm like, no, go to sleep, because you're gonna figure it out tomorrow. When you wake up, you will figure it out. And so I always have to constantly tell myself, don't worry about it right now. Just go to sleep and we'll figure it out tomorrow. But why is it that we wake up in the middle of night and it's like, I know. I know. Help me. Tell me, please.
Tammy Allen: Because the problems get worked out in our dreams. They're being worked out for, played out on a different kind of level. And so that's why you wake up with them. I woke up with a lot of answers too. I've been working on a physics theory, and it boils down to stress again. But sometimes, I'll wake up and have the clue as to what to go search for. There's problem solving that's happening, and it's jumping ahead. But one of the things about this physics theory is that we're in constant adaptation mode. Think about stress as growth. It's the driver of evolution itself. So when you were talking earlier about, there's good stress and bad stress. Stress is what creates everything. Even taking information, think about pure potential. In order to create form, it has to come down into a structure. So there's this constant cycle going on of stressors, and then the adaptation for the next frame. It's a cycle like this. And so when I talk about the great stress reset, now I'm not talking just about the stress response itself. I'm talking about the very meaning of stress. We need to reframe the very meaning of stress so that we don't fear it. That we have ways of understanding what it is, and understanding that we have control through our choices, through our actions, through asking questions. Through just reassuring ourselves with things like, I'm so smart. I'll figure it out.
My grandma, when I was young, I would talk to her and tell her my problems. And she would just listen. Then she'd go, you're so smart, you'll figure it out. And I'd be like, I might even figure it out for Mama. But it really is true. As long as we don't freak out, as long as we can maintain enough, and that doesn't mean like you're going to respond perfectly all the time. But just as long as we don't have a complete meltdown, if we can just go ahead and release the anger in the moment and be like the animals where their stress response is, they forget about it, because they don't have the memory that we have. They ruffle their feathers. Okay, I just got chased by a lion. But now, I'm gonna go get a drink of water. We don't quite have that. But we have a lot more, so it's all good. I'm just saying that this is just baked into us.
And the other thing that I had wanted to do in writing the book, when I was a child, I saw a lot of suffering like so many of us. And my goal really was, I wanted to do something to ease suffering. It was finding all these different ways of doing it throughout my life. Writing this book has taken me four years because I really did want to make it comprehensive. To go all the way from the very beginning of that survival response into problem solving, and then also owning who you are and that self agency. Not taking the outside culture and all the things that they put on us. I created what I called, The Should Monster. You should do this, and you should do that. And being brave enough to figure out for myself what was right for me, and being able to stand in my own power without overpowering other people because we all have power. There isn't one of us that is not precious and unique, and we all have this power, and we all have this inner voice that's always trying to give us guidance and ideas. Just like you waking up, you're waking up with the problem, but it's being worked out. I really focus a lot on intuition when you're not in stress. The ideas that adapt to the system cycling all the time. Well, there's an inner part of you, and it doesn't matter what name you give it. It could be anything. But intuition is the safe one.
So if you're just not in a fear based state of mind, it's constantly feeding you little ideas, Do this, do this, do this. And it doesn't solve the whole problem at that moment. It's just like a hint. It's just a little bit at a time. And every time that you take action, that leads you to a whole new set of probabilities, because time is always ticking. So as that's going around and you make one little action, well, now new actions are available to you, new options. And so this is going on all the time. So yeah, you do figure it out. But I think it's helpful to understand that you're also getting assistance, that those ideas are speaking to us, every single one of us. And it's a very quiet voice. You have to really pay attention, because we're so busy thinking thoughts that we're not letting anything in that's inspirational. But it's always there. So the more calm you are, the clearer that mind and more open that you are, you can tell the difference between the thoughts that you've generated and the thoughts that just kind of just entered in. We're just not paying attention. We're not paying attention to the subtlety because it's a very quiet voice, provided that it's not a fear. Fear is not intuition. Fear is the survival program. Look at it. Don't ignore the fear, but don't be swept away by it. Because if you start freaking out about the fear, well, you just made that choice. And now, it just keeps building momentum.
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Heather Nelson: I love what you say about getting rid of the stress thoughts in your head to allow for more positive and ideas coming in, because it's so true. I noticed when I'm in that state of stress, or I feel overwhelmed with everything going on, I'm like, the moment that I can get rid of that, whether that's taking a walk or changing my space around me, I get so creative. Then all these crazy ideas come in, and it's beautiful.
Tammy Allen: Write them down quickly, by the way, because they leave quickly too,
Heather Nelson: And they always come at 2:00 o'clock in the morning. You said you're very creative at that time. Your brain is like creating something, and that it's true. Because sometimes, those are my best thoughts, or my best ideas. Waking up and thinking about that, I'm like, oh, we'll learn about that. So yes, I'm gonna get my phone out. I have all these random notes at 2:00 am.
Tammy Allen: There you go. And you can go back to sleep after this. Get it off your mask, right? I started this a long time ago. I was a musician, that was my first love. I did that for a living till I was in my 50s. I would start to write a song, and I love songwriting. I'd get an idea and I go, you get the verse, and you get the chorus, and then nothing. So if I tried to just grind it out, it wasn't good. So I would walk away, I would do laundry, and then here's an idea. Go over there, and I'd write it all down. And then I go wash the dishes, or shower, or drive a car, anything that's allowing these two sides of your mind to communicate back and forth. And I would clear it up. That's when the idea would come, so that's when I first really started noticing it. That's when I first started cleaning. And so then, I started applying it to other things, cooking, dressing. And it was by asking questions you have to have a problem to solve. So when you have a problem to solve, that's how you get the solutions to whatever that it is. And what really clued me in was I started a marketing company, Do Good Get Rewards. I noticed that we get all the fear stuff in our media, but people are doing good too. That's going on everywhere, and it's not publicized.
So I was doing marketing at the time, and I thought, well, what a great way. Businesses have a hard time getting foot traffic. Small businesses, especially. So I created this Do Good Get Rewards to reward volunteers. They get free stuff. They go public. And so I was building this, and I had no idea about websites or anything. And I found somebody, again, kind of using intuition. But there were a lot of functions that nobody had done before that. I was asking. I would get with the person that I had hired, and I would say, I want to do this, this and this. And he'd be like, oh, I don't know how to. And then I would hang up the phone, and I would get an idea, and I'd call him back and he'd go, oh, that's great low tech. Because I was just going to ABC, right? Okay, if it goes here, then it has to connect here, then it has to connect here. And that happened about three times. I was like, wow, I don't know anything about this. I knew songwriting, but I was not familiar with that. So that's when I really started working on developing my intuition, and understanding that it is something that you can develop. It's for all of us all the time. It just depends on your state of mind, really.
And in order to get expansive thoughts, you've got to be in an expansive state of being. So if you're looking to really get intuition, elevate your emotional state of being by taking a nice walk, or listening to comedy, or something that's uplifting because we are entrained. There's brain wave entertainment because we're all connected, so we feel each other. Somebody's feeling sick and bad, then you naturally feel that we can't help it because we're human. And that's a beautiful thing. But that also means you can use that same entertainment that we naturally feel to rise, to lift, to uplift. And you can do it purposefully. And so distracting yourself, even from dire circumstances, which may seem like, I don't have the time to do that. I've got this awful thing that's on my plate, and I have to deal with it. Try to take a break. Try to do something to distract yourself so that some idea can break through. And I like to think of it as, there's always a third option. These kinds of phrases come to mind. It may not be a good option. If you're in a bad situation and you can't find any options, keep coming at it from different angles. It may not be a good option. And sometimes, it may even be a disruptive option. But you will shake up your probabilities, and now your choices and your potential actions will shift. And even that can break loose the dam.
Heather Nelson: Oh, so good. Such a good reminder too. Because when I think of people and what they're like, I'm so stressed out. I have all these things to do. I write everything down. I have to list, on list, on list. Because what happens is, once it's somewhere else, it's not in my brain. And I really am good about having a to-do list, but having it per day. So if I'm like, oh, my gosh, I need to cancel the dentist appointment. And so instead of thinking about it all day, I'm like, okay, I'm going to calendar to do it on Monday. Or put it on a date where I can show up and can do the thing. Or even just packing. If you're packing to go somewhere and you're stressed out because you're like, I have all these. Write it down to just get it out of your brain. And people ask me all the time how I do all the stuff that I do. And I'm like, I'm very, very list oriented. I'm not thinking about it constantly.
Tammy Allen: We can only handle so much processing at a time. And language is how we process information. That's how we categorize everything. So the reason for journaling, and the reason for writing things down is exactly what you said. It's getting it outside of you, then you have a record of it. And now, you don't have to keep it clogging the system. But it's even more than that. Journaling for me, it really was my first thing that started allowing me to process more efficiently. I would think that I could just flip, do it in my head. But then you just end up spinning on it, and you'll try to get off that groove, and then it pulls you back. So when you put it outside of you, and when I see it physically and put it down, I can compartmentalize it. That makes sense. I can put it in some place that, oh, here's what that's all about. And lately, I've been using the LLNs because I always did it just for myself. But now, I've started using chat, it is my favorite. But there's others too. I will chat because I'll just say whatever, and it's not to depend on it. It's because it will throw back something at me I hadn't thought of in that way before. So it's a different kind of feedback, and it's also safe.
Meaning that, because I didn't want to tell anybody else when I first started journaling, I would throw every paper away. I didn't want anybody to see it. I didn't want to read it. I don't want any record of it. It just felt so personal. But now, I don't do that. I just use chat. And sometimes, it's frequent. It will phrase something that is different from me. And a lot of it is not good. It's just blah, blah, blah. It's not that. It's very supportive. But you're like, oh, shut up. It can be, oh, you're so bad. You're just like your grandma who's trying to tell you you're so smart when you don't feel smart at the time. So I use that too. The tools that we have use whatever tool works for you, and then it may work for a while, and it may not work for a while. So being in a constant search for, how do I feel better? How do I solve this problem? And your intuition or ideas will not come to you if you don't have a problem that you're trying to solve. But once you have a system where you can do it, you start getting confidence, and that's that's why I named my book, Turning Stress into Doubtless Confidence, because I realized that all of the hardships, and especially the one that was the hardest, which was surviving four years like that, and having his child, and that was even harder to survive because he inherited his father's genes. They didn't like him in preschool. They were happy when he was absent. So it was my son that really forced me to look at myself, because you can't abandon your child. You can't run from your child. You won't be able to live with yourself, because you know that we can't run from ourselves. I'm happy to say that he's doing good today, but he's like 48 years old. It took a long, long time, and I had to learn how to stand strong when it was real chaos.
Heather Nelson: And is that what a lot of your book is about? How you walked through those moments, and give people takeaways when they go through a stressful situation, how to kind of overcome that?
Tammy Allen: What I do is I have techniques, and then I weave in my stories, my real stories of how I use that, how I came to that, and how I navigated that. I have a thing I call the Information Manifestation System, because everything is information. And I will tell you how I use that. I used it at one point when I had scoliosis. Well, I still have scoliosis, but I was in constant pain. I had a doctor tell me after I thought that he had something really for me, that I was too old and not responding. That's always fun. Oh, believe me, you want to talk about some anger. How dare you say I'm too old? I took his techniques and figured out how to do them on my own. It took about two years before I really got myself out of pain. I'm back to full training, and I still experience some pain, but I know how to manage that. It's not a detriment anymore. I demonstrate how I actually use that process. Not just for that, but for other things.
You can apply it to anything. It doesn't matter the medium. I like to say whether you're creating a painting, whether you're fixing your back, whether it's a health thing, whether it's a money issue, the process is the same. Identify the problem. Research it. What are your options? Assess it. Get your ideas, take action, repeat every single day. The universe is like a cycle. We're breathing in and out, in and out. Just like a heartbeat. It's the same exact process, so nothing's going to get built in a day. There is no instant. We don't go from childhood to adulthood, or to 67 without a whole lot of frames in between. And so making peace with the time that it takes, that's another one. It takes time, you can't rush it. And if you try to rush it, you usually make bad choices. Gosh, I have a lot of them, but I will not suffer for the choices of others. It is a very powerful, and yet hard to live statement. Because again, we're empathetic beings. But if we don't get the feedback, we won't know what to do next. Everyone has to get the feedback of their choices so that they learn. And many of us learn the hard way. Some of us learn a little easier, but it's the same process. Doesn't matter who we are.
Heather Nelson: It's interesting. I feel like the framework of how you can deal with a stressful situation, it reminds me a lot of the people who go through something hard that comes at them, and they go into this like, poor me. Poor me. The universe is against me. To me, it's those tools and that framework how to work through it is exactly to help those people, or those situations as well. Not just even a stressful thing, but something hard, which could be stressful but also hard. Just feels hard, feels a lot. But I love that framework around that too.
Tammy Allen: It pretty much applies to every little thing. Even now, I love that you can just use your imagination frequently, too. It applies to everything, whether I'm cooking, creating my own little recipe. It doesn't have to be always hard either. I used it for art. I became an abstract artist after not being a musician anymore, and that gave me the ability to see things in images. And there's actually a lot more information that can happen in an image than just an idea. So in the course of painting, I would have the idea, just like in songwriting. I'd be, God, this is great. Then all sudden, you're like, no. No, it's not great. I wouldn't know where to go next, and I would walk away to clean my brushes. See cleaning is just such a good thing. Clean my brushes and a flash of an image would come into my mind, because here's the problem I'm working on. And then you have to catch it. The thing is so subtle. Those ideas are so subtle. You have to be paying attention, and then you got to unpack them. Then I would try to recreate the image in my mind, and then I would go try it on the painting. Sometimes, it worked. And sometimes, it didn't. But it would always lead me to a new direction, and I think that that's it. In the entrepreneurial world, you have to pivot the minute. Something doesn't work, pivot, pivot, pivot. Don't be afraid to pivot just because you had an idea. That's just the beginning, that's just the blueprint, and that is constantly changing. I feel like this has just given me such fearlessness to try anything.
And I'm not saying that to be in a way boastful. I just feel like I've tapped into something that is accessible, and that's what makes me, that gives me this kind of confidence. It's the experiences which all of these processes were pretty much gathered just by me trying to figure my own stuff out. I went for all the different tools and anything that worked for me, and I don't think that there's one way to do anything. But the more that we can gather, the more information that we have, then the more we can do with that information, the more empowered that we become, and that's what's exciting. Getting an award for something is a very fleeting thing. To me, even when I would perform and somebody would compliment me like, okay, great. Thank you. For me, it was all about, did I sing to the level that I knew that I could? Did I meet my own standards? And if I did not, but frequently I did not, and somebody would say, you sing great. It'd be like, no, I didn't.
Heather Nelson: For sure.
Tammy Allen: Oh, absolutely. But even that's a fun process. When you just think about it because you're aspiring to hit your mark, I call it when I know I hit my mark. That's what excites me. Not so much the reward of it, which I'm not against. I love getting compliments, too, but it's really all an internal gage. We've got to know it inside. Somebody from the outside can't give you confidence. When my son was young, I would try to tell him that he was so smart. Did not land, did not land. And then one day, he got some serious compliments for a teacher and had all these great things happen. And I said that, see? I told you. And I see this little smirk, like he felt it inside. Even though we compliment our children, and that's what you're supposed to do, of course, they have to feel it and own it for themselves. Otherwise, it doesn't take, not in any real way, maybe later. My grandma saying that it definitely helped me later on. But at the time, I was like, yeah, right. But anyway, that's all I got to say on that.
Heather Nelson: I love all these tools, especially stress or situations that we can really control. But one of the things that we had talked about briefly is there's a lot of stress that we can't control, and that's what's going on in the world, or what we're seeing on the news. What advice do you have? Because I see, especially on social media, people are all freaking out about everything, which I get it. What advice, or basically advice do you have for these people who get sucked into the chaos that's happening around and take that stress and apply it to their everyday life?
Tammy Allen: I think you focus on what you can control, which is your own life. And if you're focused on the chaos, you're in chaos, and your own life will reflect the chaos that you're observing. I look at the big picture. We are going through a time of evolutionary change, and so it is changing. And sometimes the disruption, if you look back throughout history, these cycles happen too. Cycles are everywhere. This is another cycle. And while change is always difficult, none of us like change. Ultimately, change is growth. It's part of the system, and you have to take the long view and still focus on yourself. Now, let's say you're really into doing something about it. You want to take action. You're compelled to take action. Take action, but try to take the most strategic, effective action you can take. So plan.
Think about what is the problem I'm trying to solve. The reason that I came up with the physics theory was I kept studying physics because I wanted to understand how the system works. I knew it had to be a self perpetuating system, but a systems thinker gets to the root cause, and everything is a system. So I kept looking, what are the mechanics? Because if I understood the mechanics, I could work the system better. It was pretty selfish. So what is it that you can work? Here's your goal. It's the same process. Here's my goal. I want to affect change for future generations, or even just for right now. Is there anything that I can do within my power that would be effective, not just complaining about it, or worrying about it? Because you're just perpetuating what you don't want, and you're putting your own self in harm's way. But that doesn't mean not do anything about it. I don't go outside of my own scope unless I'm solid. I have no power. All I can do is influence myself through my own example, first and foremost. And if I don't have my own self, and I call it coherence, you have to be in coherence. So I have to be consistent in order to be effective for myself, first and foremost, or anybody else. And the more coherent that I am, then I have more power to affect change with others. I can only influence, and that's why I do not suffer for the choices of others because I have no power there. Where is your power? It's here.
Heather Nelson: It's so good, so good. We have talked about lots of different things to manage stress, and you know how to kind of overcome that. Is there anything that we didn't get to talk about when it comes to stress, or any tips and tricks that you have learned along the way that have helped you?
Tammy Allen: I think I pretty much covered them all. And if I didn't cover them, then they're also in the book. I have a lot of short chapters and some fun stories. It's not heavy. You can see, I don't like to be heavy. In fact, I even made The Should Monster. I like to put a lot of fun in my videos because they're serious topics, but we can't take ourselves too seriously. And so I did actually create an animated character called The Should Monster. He's pretty funny, and just still keeping light about it. We have to find our balance. While on the one hand, life is serious. The other hand, don't take life too seriously. What can you do to have fun and balance out within yourself? That is because life is supposed to be enjoyable and fulfilling. And I think once we get a handle on how to navigate it, then we can make room for that joy that's within us, and not make it just such a struggle to live. And we are at that state of place of evolution where I'm certainly feeling it too, and I constantly have to rebalance myself. I look at it too, and it's not like it doesn't affect me, and it doesn't make me feel bad for those that are suffering. But I don't have power there. I have more power trying to empower others with what I know. To me, that's how I can affect change.
Heather Nelson: That's beautiful. Your book is not out yet, but it comes out next week. But by the time this is released, it will already be out. So how can people find your book?
Tammy Allen: tammyallen.com, pretty easy for that one. I have a YouTube channel, again. Tammy Allen, YouTube, Facebook. You go to my website, everything is there, as well as a lot of free stuff. The declarations are there. I also have worksheets and lots of free things, because I just want to put them out there. We all need to make money, but I don't think money can ever be the driver. Because then, that has a hold. I'm not saying that I don't want that. I'm just saying that, to me, just making it a little easier for future generations, planting those seeds like my grandma helped me, that is exciting. That is fulfilling, and that's my bang. So then, just go to tammyallen.com, and find me on social media. I got a lot of silliness out there, as well as The Great Stress Reset Facebook group. They plug that in there. They'll find The Great Stress Reset. And if others have stress tips, please share, please talk about. Not to make it like everybody whining about their own stories, but just touching on them because we all share the same stories. In essence, we're all dealing with similar things. And by supporting each other, it alleviates our stress, and not to mention that we're not alone in it.
Heather Nelson: It's so true. That is why I made this podcast, because I wanted to have these conversations. Because knowing that everybody's going through, if you're struggling with something right now, someone else is as well. You can connect with them. I'm really big about connections and being able to connect to people, and you've learned so much from them, and you can support each other. So that is exactly why I started this podcast, because just for that reason. So thank you so much. So happy that you did. Yes, I know it's four years ticking along every week, because it's stories like yours, it's your experiences, it's your journeys that really inspire others, and this is exactly why I do it.
Tammy Allen: Oh, well, I'm happy for you. And I'm happy that there are many people in this conversation. Fortunately, this is a time where we are not alone. While it may feel like it's overwhelmingly negative, I think there are more people that are working underneath effecting that change. That ocean is rising and rising, and it's natural because we're empathetic beings. We're all in this together. When it comes down to it, it's just that not everybody's figured that out yet.
Heather Nelson: So true, so true. Well, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for sharing your story. We'll include how everybody can find and follow you, and be inspired by you. But I just wanted to thank you for being here today.
Tammy Allen: Well, I appreciate you, Heather, thank you.
Heather Nelson: Thank you. I hope today's episode resonated with you. And if it did, don't keep it to yourself. Spread inspiration. Share this episode on your socials, and tag me. And if there's anyone in your life who can use a dose of encouragement, pass it along. Looking forward to continuing this journey of inspiration with you. Until next time, stay empowered and connected.