"Are you stressed lately?"

When I pictured stress I always imagined someone in a suit, maybe a lawyer, living in a busy city, working long hours under deadlines, rushing to get to meetings.

This wasn't me, I wasn't "stressed".

I now know stress shows up in many hidden quiet ways.

A better way to phrase the question is "do you have stress in your life?"

Meaning anything that causes tension in your body.

Things that make your cortisol and adrenaline levels spike, that increase inflammation in the body, or that make you emotionally unhappy.

In my experience, if you ignore it long enough- your body will always find a way to tell you in a bigger way.

Digestive issues, migraines, skin issues, or often "unexplained" symptoms.

So besides the obvious (like over working or over exercising), what else causes stress and tension?

6 things that put stress on the body that you might not know about:

1. Living in an environment/location that isn't true to you

2. Not spending your days in a meaningful way

3. Not being surrounded by a network of your "people"

4. Not putting your own needs first

5. Not expressing yourself creatively

6. Not making time to do things that bring you joy

Overtime the tension caused from stress will start to manifest in the body. If the stress isn't released or solved, the unwavering tension will start to show up as physical symptoms.

And sometimes we then go to the doctor, and our blood work is fine, but we continue to wonder how to fix these mysterious symptoms.

There is no medical test for being tense, unbalanced, and unaligned with your truest self.

Your body is stressed, and you didn't even know it.

But what if we lived in a world where doctors instead asked questions like:

1. Are you spending days doing joyful things that make you YOU?

2. Are you living in an environment you love (ocean, mountains, etc)?

3. Are you surrounding yourself with people that light you up and support you on a daily basis?

4. Are you aligned with what gives you purpose and meaning?

5. Have you worked through and released past traumas?

6. Do you have a healthy creative outlet? (cooking, writing, dancing, building, designing, etc)?

If you answered no to any of these questions I highly recommended writing down ways you could make them a "yes" on a piece of paper. You'd be surprised what is waiting to poor out of you.

Nobody knows what you need to heal more than YOU. Almost always, the answers are inside of us, we just have to crack ourselves open first.

And if you are looking for ways to get started releasing tension and getting to know yourself, yoga is a beautiful way and is always waiting for you. You can practice with me here .