Hi there. Welcome to a new conversation. It's a conversation about compassion with Dr. Heather Dennison. And I'm really excited about this conversation and to share it with you.

Heather is a seasoned chiropractor with an additional certification as a wellness chiropractor. She's an NASM trained certified personal trainer, and avid athlete, health enthusiast, and writer who has a passion for inspiring people of all ages to ignite first steps towards their personal best. Heather is great at public speaking and coaching. She shares wellness fitness and nutrition expertise for those looking for a deeper change.

She's a frequent wellness strategist presenter for companies like Microsoft, so we are super blessed to have her today. And she's also the author of the three day reset. The creator of an online wellness membership program, The Change Cave, and she presents nationally and in a format that is both energetic and engaging.

And I can tell you, I've known Heather for not a long time, but her enthusiasm is completely infectious, and not in a COVID way. So I'm really excited that we can get her expertise on a really important topic that is front and center with the COVID, with what's going on in North America, and around the world, quite frankly. So thank you, Heather, for at least giving us this time today.

And I just want to open it up because I know you usually open up your discussions with a topic about self compassion with a story to tell about a coffee date. And can you just share that story and why it's so important?

Sure I can. First of all, thank you so much for having me Kathryn. I'm honored to be here and speaking to your people. So thank you very much for that. So about three years ago-- so I had a brick and mortar practice for many, many years. And about three years ago, I decided on a life change and I was led to move away from the four walls and into the online space in the coaching and consulting realm.

And I remember sitting down for coffee across from a friend during that time when I was making these very big decisions. And I remember I'm talking about all the stuff I'm super excited about. And she's just slowly kind of just doing this. Folding her arms for those of you who aren't watching and only listening.

And so I'm talking about, I'm selling my practice, I'm moving to this online space. Blah, blah, blah. And she just she goes hmm, Heather. You know you went to school for eight years for this and you've had a very successful practice. Are you sure this is a good decision?

So I kept going and then she said, do you know how many people are in the online space in the wellness industry? What makes you think you can make an impact? Geez.

And then she says, you know I really think you should just stay in your own lane. I think that's probably going to be better for you. And I was like, wow and the truth is that this wasn't an actual conversation that went on. It was a conversation that went on in my head. But can you imagine sitting across from a friend who spoke to you in that way and allowing that friendship to continue? We just wouldn't tolerate it, would we?

No, never.

Yeah, so today we're going, you and I are going to kind of bounce back and forth talking a little bit about what it means to be self compassionate because what people don't understand is that the absence of self compassion is not just a blank canvas, it's typically self-criticism. And so we're going to talk about the balance between the two, what self compassion means, and how we can kind of harness some practical tools to build our own self compassion.

Fantastic. What are the main components of self compassion? Like what does that actually mean? Is it be next to yourself? Is it? Talk to me about that a bit.

Well, if we're going to talk about that we have to mention the godmother of self compassion and that's a woman named Kristen Neff. And if you after this conversation want to further your education in self compassion she is it, 100%.

She brings self compassion into and now the world breaks out of compassion into these three components and the components are self kindness, common suffering and mindfulness. And that may seem sort of self-evident. But like you said, it's self kindness is where it starts. Which is saying kind things to yourself. Treating yourself as you would a friend that you love and adore.

The common suffering piece for me was interesting, because I didn't really think of it in terms of self compassion. But if we don't understand that all humans suffer, it's part of the human condition. We all fail. We all make mistakes. We all fall down.

And if we don't take in that collective then it isolates us and it turns our self compassion into self pity because we're like, well they couldn't have suffered as bad as I am. I've got it worse than anybody else.

When we say, oh that was hard but I know other people have been through this too and that makes it a little easier for me. That's what the common suffering is. And then when we talk about mindfulness, may I give you an example of the mindfulness piece or self compassion.

Sure, yeah.

So, I was privately coaching a client a couple of weeks ago and we get on the phone and she immediately says, Heather. I pulled, I pulled the plug. I canceled my wedding.

And I'm like, oh my gosh Tracy. I know, I'm so sorry. She said, no, no, no it's fine. A lot of people are suffering way more than I am, so it's not a big deal.

Well, the truth is, if we don't acknowledge our pain we can't possibly be self compassionate toward it. And so we can't shove it under the carpet and practice self compassion at the same time. And it rings true to kind of segue into the discussion around that empathy isn't a pizza pie. It's not eight slices and then it's gone.

Empathy is ever expanding and ever-growing. And the more we practice it, the more we have to give to others and to ourself. Because empathy turned inward is the definition of self compassion. So it's those three components. It's the self kindness, it's the common suffering, and it's the mindful approach to really acknowledging what you're feeling so that you then you can pour compassion over it.

Fantastic. So going back to the Tracy individual. In times like now like everybody is seeing people that are worse off, people that have lost their jobs, or people that can't pay their rent or their businesses have completely shut the doors, or they've lost loved ones. So what is it, why is that, why is it dangerous to actually to-- because you can very quickly get into comparing your suffering to somebody else's.

And if you-- work me through that because I'm kind of stuck on if I want to be self compassionate to me but there's other people that are worse off than me. So how is that, why is that, why is that, can that be dangerous? And why is that a bad thing?

Well, Brene Brown talks about how showing empathy or self compassion towards yourself first of all is very powerful. Choosing not to do it because you think some doctor in New York who's been working four days straight on the front lines needs your empathy. It's not one or the other.

And so as we just said, empathy or self compassion is empathy turned inward and the more we practice empathy the greater and more expansive it becomes the more we have to give. So if we first don't practice self compassion on ourselves then we're limiting ourselves as far as being able to have this incredible amount of empathy we can then pour on other people.

And I also think too we can't pour from an empty cup. And I just give a talk this morning Kathryn on how stress connects to self compassion, and how self compassion actually lowers our cortisol, it lowers our stress, it boosts our immunity. And so we have to be well in order to be compassionate and empathetic to other people.

And so if we're not attending to that piece of us that we need acknowledged, that we need to sort of come alongside and say, yeah, I know this is hard, then we are not our most optimized to give to other people who need us.

That totally makes sense. That completely makes sense. It's like putting your mask on first. The same thing as you do in an airplane.

So true.

So, I've heard you talk before about how you think, because I think my inner bully is quite evil, and but you actually think that your inner bully has your best interests at heart. Why?

Yeah. Well first let me just define between-- because there are a couple inner voices. And sometimes we will muddy the two. There's an inner critic who's the nasty inner bully, nasty person. And there's critical rational thought. And I'll use a story from my mother to share it, to explain it to you.

So she was an avid tennis player. She was very hopeful her youngest daughter would play tennis. I was terrible at it. However, she forced a tennis racket in my hand every first day of summer and said get up to the high school and start hitting balls against the wall.

So I was always up there dragging my racquet behind me because I hated it so much, and I'd start hitting balls. And inevitably within a few seconds my inner critic was like, you are terrible at this. This is awful. You suck as bad as you did last year. And it would just go on and on.

You're never, you're not a good athlete. You're too heavy to play tennis. Blah, blah, blah. It would just go on and on. And so that's inner critic. Now what the critical rational thought conversation might have been is this. So I'm up there, I'm playing tennis.

Wow, yeah OK. So we haven't improved a lot since last year. We could consider a coach. That might be helpful. Or I know, inline skating. Now there's a sport. And so the critical rational thought isn't afraid of telling you that you might be in the wrong space, or maybe this isn't for you, or whatever.

But it's done so non repetitively. It's not black and white, like you always, you never, it's in shades of gray. And it's always forward focused. So we have to think about that when we're talking about inner bully, that we're not muddying those two.

Because critical rational thought is essential for us to grow as humans. But that inner bully, when out of control, can be very damaging. But here's how it has our best interest at heart. Our brain is risk averse. It does not like you being in scary situations. It will do anything to stop you from making a fool of yourself, from failing, from falling.

And so it has to conjure up an inner voice that stops you from stepping forward so somebody else doesn't knock you down, or tell you you're terrible at what you're doing, then it will do it. And so that's where it comes from. And it gives us an incredible power to turn on that voice and say, I know what you're doing. You're trying to protect me. And I get it. I love you for it. But I'm good. I've got this and I'm going to do it anyway.

So that's a great conversation to have with your inner bully when she rears her ugly head and is really trying to knock you down is to go, what's this about? What are you worried about? What are you fearful for? And it's a really great process to go through. It diffuses the hatred from those voices.

Right. And I'm assuming that the vocabulary that you use for that is actually really key so that you don't actually end up in the rabbit hole of going nowhere and just making it worse.

Yeah, for sure. And of course, I mean we have old stories that we tell ourselves that aren't actually true anymore. So it's first of all, is this true? Am I still terrible at this, or was I ever terrible at this? And how do I know it's true? Who can I collaborate with?

And I've had to do that with my sisters a couple of times. I have some childhood trauma. And in order for me to heal I had to go back to them and say, do you know, can we talk about what your perception was of this situation? And it often turns out that over the years I've changed the story in my head. And quite significantly sometimes.

So that inner bully is often operating on old stories and old concepts that we can rewrite.

Fantastic. Now that's actually great. And I'm going to ask this as a personal thing because I have three kids. So we have spent as a society so much time-- when you see the self-help books of how to build up your self-esteem, and how we build up self-esteem in our kids, and we've focused on that for so long. Why might that be the wrong place to focus?

Oh I love this. You know I got really interested in the self compassion work when I myself personally took a course on chronic pain. I have some chronic pain issues that I've suffered for a long time. And this chronic pain course, talked about Kristen Neff's perspective on self-esteem versus self compassion, and it hit me really hard and I would love to share it with you. So thank you for asking.

Self-esteem we've focused on for several generations as kind of a litmus of personal growth, and what we want our kids to envelop, and all of that. But there's just a little bit of an issue with that. And that is that self-esteem focuses on a separation of us from other people because it's a winning or losing.

So you get self-esteem when you excel and it's an external thing. It's also actually very triggering of our fight or flight responses. And so self-esteem encouragement often triggers competitiveness and different like deep, deep seated types of behaviors that actually aren't in line with calm and cool behaviors like in the parasympathetic-- so fight or flight versus rest and relax parts of our nervous system. It actually triggers our fight or flight which increases stress and cortisol in our bodies.

And things like, don't laugh at this, but Kristen actually did some studies to show that narcissism is at an all time high in our country and it has a lot to do with the self-esteem movement. That it's winning or losing. That you have to prove yourself and that proving yourself often separates you from other people.

And it means that other people aren't as good as you are at winning. So it's this sort of separation. But what we can focus on is self compassion because self compassion, whether you cross the finish line first or last, you can apply it. It's all about self kindness and it's not, has nothing to do with external. It focuses on the internal and every situation, how we can kind of excel there.

And I think self compassion is well, it's in line with really whole biology as far as it triggers more of a rest and relax response, it's a love response for ourselves that is very calming. And it really is so much. We can take it anywhere with us. It's not reliant on winning or losing or success or failure. And so it's a better place to focus based on Kristen's work, than the self-esteem movement.

Hopefully that was somewhat muddy clear.

Oh no, no I love that because you do. If you are kinder to yourself then it really doesn't matter what the external forces are.

And it's, what a growth opportunity. Because we will always we'll win some we'll lose some. And if our self-esteem rides on our successes, that's pretty limited. Whereas our self compassion can be grown in any situation.

Got it. So what are some tools to build it? Pure self compassion, as opposed to your self esteem.

Yeah. Yeah self compassion is kind of a new thing. And so it's a new study. And so there are lots of resources out there. And I'd love to just suggest some resources to follow up on. It's Kristen Neff. There's a fellow named Chris Gardner who focuses solely on meditation to encourage self compassion. And so all of his meditations are self compassion centered, which is amazing.

And then a lot of Brene Brown's work has to do with self compassion. And so those are the three resources I would suggest. But as far as what I teach when I talk about self compassion as part of our wellness and whole wellness being model is, it's about four or five different things.

And I'll keep it brief. But the first one is kindness statements, and we've talked about that. But I want to mention the fact that some of us come from family histories that we're not compassionate. We don't know how to do this naturally. We don't know how to be kind to ourselves because we weren't shown kindness.

And so there's a website called positive psychology dot com, that has a whole list of statements that you can pick ones that resonate with you, that you can connect with, and that you can use during meditation or a deep breathing exercise, just while you're driving in the car. And it can help you learn what statements will resonate well with you.

So that's first, kindness statements. Second is forgiveness. This is an interesting one. I know. This is the tough one.

My mom was part of a course. This is so funny. And she was in BC at the time and she had high blood pressure. And there was this course that came out from the Canadian Heart Association that everybody who was on blood pressure medication had to go through, and blah, blah, blah. And it was you know, it was recipes, and food, and exercise.

But the last chapter was on forgiveness. And we thought that was so interesting. And then when we read the chapter, she and I read it together, it talked all about the impact of not forgiving others or yourself on your stress, on your blood pressure, on your cardiovascular health. And so identifying people that you need to forgive, but equally or more important is identifying parts of you that you need to forgive.

And that's self compassion work in its most raw form, isn't it? So--

For sure.

Yes. And then one of my favorites is, Kathryn, is curiosity. Because curiosity fires a very different part of the brain than self-criticism, and all of those things. It almost kind of shuts that off. And when we get curious-- so if, let's say, I had a work project and I blew it. I just blew it.

So instead of going, that was terrible. You always do this. I can't believe you did this again. You should be very embarrassed and ashamed. If I say instead, hug. I wonder why I didn't show up well there. Like, let's work back and see what happened during that time. What was going on? Getting really curious with it.

De-emotionalizes it. Allows you to look at it objectively. And it's very powerful. Do you know who Marie Forleo is?

Yes. Love her.

OK, so she tells a great story about her dad. And they'd sit around the family dinner table, and this was every night, without fail. He would go around the table and you don't talk about your wins at the dinner table, you talk about your failures. And he would say, what did you fail at today? And they used it as a growth opportunity to first get comfortable with failure.

And then second, talk about what you learned from it. Get curious about it. Grow from it. And talk about a gift to give your children is the ability to vocalize your failures comfortably, grow from them, and talk about what you've learned. And, so isn't that cool?

That is so cool. I love that. And hopefully I-- hopefully my kids aren't too old for us to start to do that. It's so important because everybody fails. And you have to fail, otherwise you can't get any better I don't think. I mean, if you win every race then you're not going to get any better.

No, and I love that he focused on his like wins boring we grow in the failures. Let's hear about that. That's interesting dinner conversation. And I'm just like, OK. That's good. So that was the curiosity piece.

Gratitude. Of course this gratitude movement has been going for some time. We know that it helps sleep. We know that it brings us joy and makes us more happy. We know that it improves our health.

So any kind of gratitude practice that you have. But I always encourage gratitude is actually better out of a journal and doused on somebody, because then you're getting a two for one. Because you're affecting their biochemistry and you're affecting your biochemistry by being specifically thankful to somebody. So that's typically what I teach with gratitude.

Generosity, now you and I just touched on this. Generosity is an amazing way to build self compassion because it's helping you build your empathy. When you give up your resources, time, or things, that's a form of empathy to someone else to say I see you and I hear you and I want to help you. I want you to feel better by my doing this.

But the problem with generosity is we're coming out of a time, and Kathryn I'm sure you have clients and people in your life that you see. We are tired. We are burnt out. We are stressed upon stressed. And if we don't have it to give, then giving it is doing a disservice.

So we have to first say, are they asking for help. And if they are, do I actually have it to give? So it's a really important question. So generosity.

And then non catastrophizing. Catastrophizing is when something happens, and we spiral it, and spiral it, and spiral it into a so much bigger story than it actually is. And that can be really hard on our self compassion practice because talk about inner bully taking advantage of that new story that's in your head that's way kind of out of proportion to what actually happened.

And so with self catastrophizing, I just often say what works for me is this. Is I ask, wait a second. Is this thing that's going on Is it true? How do I know it's true? And who can I collaborate with?

And so that goes back to me kind of talking to my sisters about certain things that happened to me when I was younger, or whatever. Or even if it's a more recent event that you've really got yourself wound up about. Step back and say hold on. Is that true? How do I know it's true, and who can I collaborate with?

So that's the catastrophizing pieces. Can I do two more?

Sure. Absolutely. In my head I'm going, oh yeah do that. Done that.

Well the second to last is the concept of self soothing. And we know about this from spectrum disorder, that joint compression, weighted blankets, self hugging, are very positive and happy hormone dumping maneuvers we can do to self soothe. What we can do it to ourselves as well.

And so it sounds silly, but a big old' self hug is actually very, very powerful. And even if-- one of the things that I do, I have a little bit of anxiety, particularly in crowds of people. And when I squeeze my wrists like this, it fires proprioception, which dump's happy hormones. And it actually helps me.

So there are self soothing techniques we can learn for ourselves to help us kind of build that compassion to say, hey, I know this is hard for you. So I'm going to do this for you. And so self soothing is a great one.

And then finally, my favorite, fueling self-love through incredible food and powerful movement. Because a lot of people don't realize that what you feed yourself is an act of self compassion. How you move your body is an act of self compassion, and it's a great way to build that practice in your life is by doing healthy, really whole food, nutrient dense diet for yourself. And really powerful movement that respects your body and acknowledges its need for movement.

We are a perpetual movement machines. And so those are the tools that I like to use and share for helping build a self compassion practice in your life.

Those were amazing. I'm thinking of that because I hold a rock and I get nervous. And I used to have a rock in my pocket always. And so if I would just sort of rub the rock, and so the rock ended up being very, very soft after many years of rubbing it. But it was that was my self soother, when you were talking about the hand.

You have a gift for everybody today, which I'm really excited about. Can you tell us about it?

Yes. I published a book called the three day reset. And it's a really gentle way to do a reboot, refresh, from a diet perspective. Just over a three day period. So it's not a 21 day this, or a 30 day that. It's very straightforward. But it teaches whole food organic eating, alkalizing diet, it's got all the recipes, how to shop, and everything you need to in a very little sweet book.

But I'm going to send it to anybody who's listening who wants it digitally, and they can take a look on it and have a nice self compassion practice of eating healthy over a three day period of time. So that they can practice kind of what that looks like to eat a really good, whole food diet.

That's amazing. Thank you so much. That's so kind of you. How do people reach you if they want to follow up after today, after hearing your beautiful insights today?

Oh, thank you. Yeah, I am well fit and fed on all social. And I produce a show on YouTube. So if you want like a bunch of great like wellness subjects, there's about 150 shows there on YouTube under Well, Fit, and Fed. But ideally, I'd like this to be the beginning of a relationship.

So if anybody wants to reach out and message me your questions, or anything at all, Instagram messenger is the place to go. So just go to Well, Fit and Fed, hit subscribe and then message me. And I'd love to hear from anybody who has any questions.

You're amazing. And I'm sure everybody that listens to this is going to say, she does have an infectious energy. And she's brilliant at what she does. And they're simple tools. Like it's not, it's not, it's just actually taking a pause and giving yourself a minute and really sort of going back in your head. And being kind to each other. Kindness rules.

Thank you so much. I really appreciate you taking the time today. And I'm going to put the links for-- I'll try and put the link below. And people can reach out to me. And I have all your information too. So I'm happy to share it with people because everybody should be healthier.

And self compassion is so key right now, especially given what we're going through right now across the world. Like if we can fix it here then we can fix it out there, I think.

And there's enough, scary stuff with the disease and people being worried about their jobs and the rest of the stuff that we-- self compassion can go a long way, I think, in healing a lot of people right now. So thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

It's my pleasure. Thank you Kathryn and I appreciate you too. So, thanks.

Thank you. be Well.

It's Kathryn Finn, Portfolio Manager at RBC Dominion Securities. This week, I am very happy to have Deborah Stellingwerff, who is a life and business coach, who focuses on transformational growth, personal leadership, and mental fitness. She has been combining her experience as an educator with her business expertise, guiding high-performing leaders and entrepreneurs out of anxiety-driven performance, and supports them in creating a more sustainable lifestyle while enjoying optimal success. I have had the pleasure of enjoying Deb speak multiple times, and I'm thrilled to be bringing her with us today. Thank you so much for joining us today.

Thank you so much for having me.

Deb, one of the things I've heard you use-- your motto, which is expand and inspire. Can you tell me a little bit more about that, and let's just start there.

Yes, thanks for asking that. So my blog and my early business was called the Stellar Life Project. And partly because it suits what I'm doing, but also because my last name is really hard to spell and pronounce. So it was easier to remember.

But the Stellar Life Project came out of this idea that the universe is always expanding. And when we're in harmony with the universe, we're expanding too. And so, this is where I got this idea expand and inspire. Because when we're expanding to our full potential, we can't help but inspire other people to do the same.

Think about it. When you've been around people who just are expanding, you're like, yeah, I want to do more with my life. I want to have more possibility in my life. And so, that's what expand and inspire is about. If we all do it, imagine the world we could have.

Totally, I love that. That's a good-- that's a solid motto. You talk about the importance of mental fitness in your work all the time. What exactly do you mean by mental fitness?

So mental fitness is a term that comes out of the work of Shirzad Chamine from Positive Intelligence. And I'm a Positive Intelligence certified coach among other things. And your positive intelligence is your ratio of positive to negative thoughts-- your PQ. And your mental fitness determines your positive intelligence.

Your mental fitness is, quite frankly, your ability to handle life's challenges with a positive mindset rather than getting stressed or upset. And the best way to describe this, actually, is to use a physical analogy. When we are physically fit, we can climb steep hills and even mountains with little physical stress.

But when we're not physically fit and we try to climb a mountain, we're going to reach the limits of our endurance pretty quickly. And the same with our mental fitness, when we are faced with life's challenges-- the mountains-- the more mentally fit we are, the more we have capacity and endurance to deal with those challenges. And we have a worldwide mental health crisis. I think everyone would agree. And I believe that the conversation needs to shift to talking about mental fitness to head off mental crisis. Mental health crisis is in the past.

When we're physically fit, we have less health concerns. When we're mentally fit, we have less mental health concerns. And so, that's part of the work that I do and why I think it's really important.

So not only, when we improve our mental fitness, we're going to be-- we will have more positive intelligence. Is that correct?

Exactly, yeah. So and when we have a higher positive intelligence, then we are going to have better relationships. Because frankly, we're easier to be around when we are positive. We all know those people who are super negative. Nobody wants to be around them, right? And we don't want to be that person.

A lot of peak performance and more peace of mind, and you know, we live in this hustle culture where there's this belief we've got to do more, have more, be more, struggle, struggle, struggle, hustle, hustle, hustle. And then, maybe there'll be some time left over for wellness afterwards.

Whereas, when we grow our positive intelligence, we can experience this ability to have peak performance and wellness at the same time. Because we're not being driven by the anxiety part of our brain-- the fear and survival. We're being pulled by the positive powers of our mental-- our right brain of creativity, innovation, imagination, intuition, empathy for self and others, and clear, laser-focused action.

And so, we're more able to create that sustainable lifestyle as well and to respond to challenges. Like I'm sure in your work, lots of people responded to, with stress and anxiety when the pandemic hit. It's like, what does this mean for the market? What does this mean for my investments? And there was this fear.

And that's going to happen for a moment, but if we have a stronger positive intelligence and mental fitness, we can recover from that and go, OK, this is happening. How can I adjust? How can I deal with it? Rather than being in fight, flight, or freeze, and panic mode all the time, so there's some benefits to having our mental fitness before we're faced with these challenges.

That's great. And I always say, when the pandemic hit, that's totally true. People were flight, freeze, or whatever the third one was. But I used to always say, let's take a bird's eye view. Let's pretend we're a bird or a helicopter and look from the top down as opposed to just being in it. Like, don't be in the mud.

So what are some of the things that we can do to improve our mental fitness and then therefore, our positive intelligence?

Well, a lot of the things that you can do, people are doing already. They just need to adjust their focus a little bit. So basically, anything that is psychosensory-- so in my practice, I offer a mental fitness training. Because it's important if you're going to build this fitness, that you do some intense training around it and then build some habits and change your habits.

And they include embodiment work and psychosensory techniques. So let me explain what those are. Meditation is one of the tools that is a psychosensory, because you're really focusing on just stilling your mind and focusing on your breath. And people say, oh, I can't meditate. It's like, well, I can't run a marathon. But if I train for it, I could.

And so, I always say, if you want to start meditating, one minute a day. Start there. It makes a huge difference.

Embodiment work is anything that's physical. So one of my favorite things to do from the program is what I call finger yoga. Or just focusing on the tips of our fingers. And for 10 seconds is all it takes to activate this region of your brain where your positive intelligence resides. And so, the more often we're doing this, the more that you're building that positive intelligence, that mental fitness.

And breath work is another tool that you can use. We've all got that tool at our disposal. And three deep breaths is all it takes to reset your parasympathetic nervous system. And when you reset your parasympathetic nervous system, you are training your brain that being in this relaxed state is an actually OK thing to do. And it's safe to be there.

And so, it's easier to get back there the more you train yourself when you're not stressed, by doing these techniques. This can get you out of stress, and the breath work can get you out of stress. But the more you do it when you're not stressed, the easier it is to shift out of that stress response into the more positive response when you are faced with challenges.

Another thing you can do is getting out in nature and being really present to it. I mean, last night I sat out and I watched the clouds move. And I count that as mental fitness practice because I'm really present to it.

Many people who are physically fit tend to have a better mental fitness just by the nature of the fact that they're physically fit. Because it's all about being in our bodies. The more we're in our bodies and aware of our bodies and having the psychosensory of focus on our bodies, the more we're building our mental fitness. Because we're not in fear.

Because fear is always about the future. It's not about the present. And-- well, sometimes it is. But mostly it's about the future. And so, any form of physical exercise as long as you're present. If you go exercise and you tune out completely and you're not being present, you're not getting the full benefit. But if you're, say, on a treadmill and you are just-- and you're running and you're focusing on the feeling of your feet hitting the treadmill, or the pavement if you're outside, feeling the sensations of it reverberating up through your body, aware of your breath, aware of how your shoulders are moving, how you're running, and you're just really aware, you're building your mental fitness.

Anything to do with coming to your senses, so focusing on music, focusing on what you see, focusing on what you smell, all serves to build your mental fitness. And there's ways that you can put that practice into place that become routine, and habit, and systematic. So it becomes a habit for you so that you can build your mental fitness when you're not stressed. So that when stressful things happen, you can respond from a really positive place.

Oh, I love that. That makes so much sense too. And it's nice that you can-- you said one key thing. To do it when you're not stressed, just to practice. It's like the same as bicep curls or whatever it would be in the gym. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

So helpful. Have a great day.

Thanks. You too.

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September 5, also known as the International Day of Charity. Today, we are encouraged to promote charity-related activities around the world that are run by individuals, charitable philanthropic, and volunteer organizations. I'm Katherine Finn, associate portfolio manager at Dominion Securities.

Charitable giving is something I've integrated in my practice as I encourage clients to think about giving as part of their financial plan. What does that mean exactly? We can either elect to leave a donation or gift in your will to your preferred organization or you can make donations throughout the year through a donor advised fund. But I've been doing recently with my clients is honoring a loved one through a legacy gift or foundation.

Personally, we set up a foundation with the hospital after my father passed away that funds research to a cause that was really important to him. So think about how you want to get back on this International Day of Charity.

Hi, I'm Katherine Finn, Associate Portfolio Manager at RBC Dominion Securities. Tomorrow is International Women's Day, a day to celebrate the movement of women's rights.

March 8th has become a symbol to celebrate the achievements on a global scale. The theme for this year's International Women's Day is "an equal world is an enabled world." And we are all encouraged to raise awareness against bias and take action for equality.

Being a female in a male-dominated industry has allowed me to level the playing field by empowering other women to lean into their financial well-being through education. Through organizations, such as CHEO, I've had the privilege to support female entrepreneurs to grow personally and professionally through financial education. And this movement is able to shine a spotlight on them. I've been able to see my clients launch and run successful businesses that literally started from dining room tables, university dorms, or local coffee shops.

What gets me up in the morning is that I get to be an integral part of the process in planning for the entrepreneurs I work with so that there is one less thing on their plate. So while they're growing their business, I'm taking care of their assets and planning for their family and future generations.

In Canada, we have a 50% divorce rate. The average age of a female widow is 56, and our life expectancy is 84 years. What does all this mean?

Women will be making decisions over their finances and controlling most of the wealth in this country for the next 30 years. And I'm thrilled to get to be a part of this movement in some way shape or form. As a mom of a 20-year-old daughter, it's a very exciting time for her and I to be part of this evolution. I want to wish all a very Happy International Women's Day and remind you to take the time to celebrate the women in your life.

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Every year since 1970, April 22 marks the anniversary of the modern environmental movement we know as Earth Day. When this movement originated, it gave a voice to an emerging public consciousness about the state of our planet. 20 years later, it went global and spread across 141 countries and lifted environmental issues to the world stage.

As an associate portfolio manager, this has really changed the way we invest for some of our clients. Socially responsible investing, also known as SRI, is the practice of investing money in companies or funds that have positive social impacts. We measure these impacts through ESG factors. ESG stands for environmental, social and governance.

What I see for my clients is a growing desire to preserve or grow their assets while supporting companies that have the sustainability factor. If you would like more information about socially responsible investing or ESG, please comment below.

Living on a better planet starts today, and this can mean planting trees or through your investment choices. Today events are going to be held in 193 countries to educate communities and discuss how we can change our environment for the better.

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Happy International Donut Day. If you didn't already know, National Donut Day was created by the Salvation Army in 1938 to honor the women who served the donuts to soldiers in World War I. The women went to the front lines to bring homecooked foods to the troops to boost the morale. And donuts were their specialty.

Mind you, the donuts were made a little bit differently than they are today. They were often cooked in oil inside the metal helmets of American soldiers. Traditionally, you would get a free donut if you passed by a donut shop on this day. I tried that today. It didn't work.

But when I think about the meaning behind this day it reminds me of my clients that own family businesses that started with an act of kindness, and now have developed from mom and pop shops to supply chain factories. It's a great lesson in entrepreneurship that came to be simply from showing kindness. So be kind and buy your neighbor a donut today.

Hi, it's Kathryn Finn, portfolio manager from RBC Dominion Securities. And today, I have with us Anna-Marie Musson from Musson Law. And she's a family lawyer, and going to help us out with some of the questions that are really happening right now in society with what's going on in the world. Because I'm hearing from clients-- and I know IT was an adjustment, even in my own family, the strain of having everybody under one household. Is your phone just ringing off the hook right now? And how hard is it to sort of navigate through all of this?

Well, thank you for having me, Kathryn. I'm really excited to chat with you about what's been going on. First of all, yes, the phone has been ringing off the hook. I would say we're at about 200% higher, in terms of call volume, this time than we were last year. So it's definitely been a big uptick in terms of people having questions and concerns during this time.

What's most interesting is, I think what's been happening is, couples who have been in relationships that were working, but maybe there was some strain before isolation and COVID, they [AUDIO OUT] situation at home where, before isolation, they had other outlets. They could go to work, or they could go to the gym, or they could go see their friends at the restaurant, or a drink after work. They don't have those outlets. And so really, that sort of situation where, before, there were some tensions and some concerns, they have really been magnified. So that's what we're seeing a lot of.