Hello and welcome to another episode of Taming Thumos!
My guest for this episode is Rich Burrows. Rich is a high performance coach, former intelligence officer and father. Rich has trained a range of people from world champion ultra endurance athletes to corporate CEOs and tech entrepreneurs. This conversation centres around stress and ways that we can often find ourselves like a frog in boiling water; incrementally becoming burned out by modern western living and the various micro-stressors we face on a daily basis. And most importantly, ways that we can manage and develop tolerance for stress rather than avoiding it.
Scroll down if you’d like to watch the conversation or if you’re listening on Spotify please visit the Substack page here.
Expect to hear how Rich uses tools such as breathwork, cold water exposure as well as pool training to help his clients transcend the limits of their own resistance and fear. He emphasises the importance of building range rather than just calm to handle life’s stressors. Focussing on controlling the controllables, nervous system regulation and movement and environment. As well as training for acute stress vs. living in chronic stress.
We also dive into finding balance between logic and emotional regulation. Rich shares how marriage and parenting have been great teachers for him to learn how to see the emotional experience alongside the rational.
Finally, we touch on the pillar of health often missed, the spiritual one. For Rich, spiritual health is tied to purpose; what one wants to leave behind for their family and community. Value Alignment; stepping back for a “thousand-yard view” to ensure daily behaviors align with core values. And transcendence; moving from self-improvement to responsibility for others, such as the gift of shaping a child’s life.
Learn more about Rich’s work with The Resistance Lab here, focusing on meeting the resistance of cold exposure and expanding one’s window of tolerance. He is planning on hosting another Range Workshop on the Sunshine Coast following the success of the last workshop in Melbourne, collaborating with former AFL player Troy Simmonds to explore how movement informs performance and well-being. Stay tuned by following him on Instagram!
"We're not about building calm, we're about building range. You want to actually widen the scope of what's available to you to feel, to experience, to activate without it causing you to completely flip your lid or shut down."
I hope you enjoyed that conversation with Rich. As always, please leave your thoughts on the episode in the comments section on Substack. Pssst… this is where you can watch the video version of this episode!
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