EP 31: The Pressure Free Method with Elle Ingalls

Our mission is to give you tools and strategies that will help you move from being stressed to feeling your best.

Elle Ingalls, author of Pressure-Free Parenting: The Ten-Second Solution to Less Stress and Anxiety for High-Achieving Families is our guest this week. 

Elle is an international speaker, coach, professional violinist, conductor and founder of Pressure-Free Living. A former member of the Forbes Coaches Council, she has coached thousands of people from age 10 to 80. 

She holds a Bachelor of Musical Arts, a Master of Music, and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Michigan where she was the first woman admitted to the orchestral conducting program. 

Co -hosts Deb Timmerman and Barb Fletcher, are certified HeartMath® Trainers, and certified stress educators, who are skilled at helping people discover the power of living form the heart.  To take the Stress and Wellbeing Assessment in Canada, click here. To take the Stress and Wellbeing Assessment in the US, click here. 

Transcript

SPEAKERS

Elle Ingalls, Deb Timmerman

Deb Timmerman  00:00

You're listening to the less stress in life podcast. Your hosts, Deb Timmerman and Barb Fletcher are on a mission to help individuals and organizations manage stress and change. Together, they bring you real conversations, inspirational stories, and strategies to help move you from being stressed to feeling your best. Hello, everyone, I'm Deb Timmerman, and welcome to episode 31 of 52 practical tools for less stress in life. My cohost Bark Fletcher is on vacation this week. But it's both our goals to give you the best tools and strategies we can help you move from being stressed to feeling your best, and today I have a very special guest Elle Ingalls. Elle is the author of pressure free parenting the 10 second solution to less stress and anxiety for high achieving families. She's an international speaker, coach, professional violinist, conductor, and founder of pressure free living. She's a former member of the team of Forbes coaches, from the Forbes coaches Council, and has coached 1000s of people from age 10 to 80. She holds a Bachelor of Music arts, a Master of Music, and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Michigan (Go blue), where she was the first woman admitted to the orchestral conducting program. Elle,  I'm so pleased to have this conversation with you today. 

Elle Ingalls  01:28

So great to be with you, Deb. 

Deb Timmerman  01:30

Gosh, we kind of work in parallel circles and universes  and we never really met in person, until we guest appeared on a local television show. So, I'm really excited to have this conversation with you today and learn more, what put you on the path to this whole idea of living a life pressure free?

Elle Ingalls  01:51

There's a couple of really key moments in my life. And I want to focus on one of them. And that was when I was doing my double major in my grad program in Michigan. So back in the 80s, there were plenty of women choral conductors, and band conductors, very few in the orchestral field. And that is still the case today to this very day. And from the time I was a little girl, I wanted to conduct orchestras just so much. And by the time I was 10, I completely knew I wanted to be a professional musician, and Coach orchestras and conduct orchestras and so I always had this desire in me, and my very first conducting class at Michigan, my professor took me aside and said, you have what it takes, but you have to be willing to study. And before I moved to Grand Rapids from where we lived in Battle Creek for 30 years, I literally had 400 orchestral scores, like the big scores with all the people’s parts, like 400 of them, I gave three or four boxes them to Western Michigan to their conducting program. So, they're conductors don't have to go out and buy them because they're expensive. I can't even imagine how much money I poured into that. So, I was super into it. And crazy me. Let's get an NBA at the same time. That's crazy. So obviously didn't have a whole lot of time. One of the things that I did was, I was assigned to conduct a concert with a clarinetist, he won a concertos competition. So, it was it Hill Auditorium, the big hall at Michigan. And it was really fun. It was a fun piece. We just hit it off. You know, it just felt so good. So, we're back in the greenroom. And he goes, Hey, that went so well. Will you be the first violinist on the Mozart clarinet quintet for my senior recital? And I'm all geeked up. I'm like, Yeah, of course, I'll do that. And then I get home to my apartment. I'm like, Oh, crap. I'm not really practicing my violin very much. Right. And, you know, I played a lot of pro-orchestras I was I was a pro violinist. And so, I just started practicing rehearsals went really well. Everything's cool. And I've been performing since was a tiny girl. Never in my life. I've had stage fright. I love the stage. And that particular night. I don't know this kid must have been the most popular boy in the music school. We've stepped out on stage. And usually there's just a handful of people in the little Recital Hall. It was standing room, only the whole place was packed. And all this chatter like it quiets down as we enter this, it just threw me for a loop but then I looked out and all of the professors in the string department so cello, Viola bass, they all came including all the violin professors to see the string quartet that was playing with him. So, what happened inside your body at that moment, your experience, so we would call it stage fright back then today, you would call it a full blown panic attack. I thought I was having a heart attack. To be honest. I was 25 years old. 26 years old. I thought I was having a heart attack. My face turned bright red. My hands were so sweaty. I thought my boy was going to fall out. It was horrific. It was scary and I could hardly see the music. I was like to gearing up and I was out of control. My heart was beating so hard. It was just like pounding in my chest. And I had never had that happen. So, it was so jarring. And I have to leave the whole thing. So, I'm like, okay, the car. We're all tuned, I had to tune everybody. And then we're off and running. And so, I just had to play. And we got back on off stage afterwards. And I had tears in my eyes. I'm not I'm not much of a crier, like I just don't cry much, except tears of joy, actually. I said, like, Dan, I just ruined your performance. And he said, What are you talking about? And obviously, he was in his own world, right. So, he didn't even see how bright my face was. But we listened to the reel to reel the professional recording of the event. And it was decent playing on my part, not my best by any means. But I still cut the mustard. You know what I mean? And then, and so I went back to my apartment that night, and I'm like, this can never happen to me, again, I can't get in front of an orchestra of 70 people and have a meltdown. Like this can't happen. So, it was really thrown. And of course, we didn't do any phones or internet or anything. So, I'd done some work at the Medical Library for a psych class I'd taken. And I just went over there on some free time. And I asked the research librarians because then you have professional research librarians on projects to help you. I said, Can you get me everything you've got on mind body connection, and stage fright, you know, because that was before, like the inner game of tennis or any of these mental toughness things. For years, I was using mental toughness tools I had created to perform well. But this was something that had never happened. So, I dug in, I created some more little tools for myself based on that research. And I've used them and taught them to my violin students and my own sons for years. So that was in the 80s. And then fast forward to 2010 When my two older sons were playing baseball together for high school team, and they said, Mother, would you coach, our team and your mental toughness tips, we could win states, like we could be amazing, because we always lose it. If we're down. We can't recover from we're not doing well. And I know that you could help the boys. So, I thought that was pretty funny. Like who wants to their mother and the dugout? But they were serious. And so, I started writing some stuff out my husband tighten the language. He's a pro rider threw in some funny baseball graphics, took it to the coaches, even the TOUGH COACH who's got the chew in his mouth, you know? And they liked it. They liked it. Yeah, he was literally spitting into spittoon. No, but they liked it. And the head coach actually hired me on the spot to be as private coach. And then my department chair who I've coached for years violin at a college and Battle Creek, she found out what I was doing, and she literally grabbed your checkbook, and she goes, Can I start tomorrow. And so suddenly, I was on to something. And I love to say it this way, I didn't just wake up, say, Oh, I'm going to be a performance coach. It was completely organic. It just happened. And suddenly, people were finding out about me and my boys, were just telling everybody, go work with my mom, go work with my mom. If you get stressed, go work with my mom, if you're anxious, if you don't test, well go work with my mom. And so, then they started telling their parents and so the whole thing just kind of blossoms. And then I invested. I hired coaches for myself. I just feel I need to share this because maybe someone in your audience needs to hear this right now. I had worked for years, kind of behind the scenes I was I was an executive of a symphony. So, I was producing concerts. But I had taken myself out of that key role of being the conductor. And I was producing because I wanted to raise a family and have more study time. In doing that, I kind of went in behind the scenes, do you know what I mean? So, I didn't know how to promote myself and my business. I was actually really afraid of it. I never wanted to be on camera like you and I are right now I never wanted to do any of that. And so, I kind of had to get over myself kind of getting a bit teary eyed. It's not about me. It's about the people I help on the other side of the screen. It's about the people who are like you get that right. It's like, it's not about me, I have this expertise. And because I dug in so deeply on fighter flight in the fight or flight stress response. That is my expertise. I teach this to physicians, mental health professionals, people from every kind of background and walk of life. People who've been in prison, like all kinds of people. 

Deb Timmerman  09:50

I think it's so curious and interesting that it is one of the main mechanisms of the way our bodies are protect themselves. And as inhibitors of our body, most people don't understand that that mechanism and how it works. And they get all caught up in that negative loop of I can't do this, I'm not good enough to do this. And they're not able to work past that fear or stage fright to get out there and share their message, or perform at their best, not only doing a symphony, but in everyday life, because those things come up. 

Elle Ingalls  10:37

Absolutely just driving down the street. If you do a commute that's more than 15 minutes, you undoubtedly have triggered a stress response. 

Deb Timmerman  10:45

And it was one of my big keys that I was managing the stress response and better was, I used to get behind the wheel and just turn into this raging crazy woman. And I noticed after I started learning the tools that I was so much better about not grumping about other drivers 

Elle Ingalls  11:07

Oh my gosh, yeah, most people have a little bit of road rage, or you're running late, you know any of those anything that makes you feel a certain number of emotions, and I call them my eight emotions. I like to joke that in my course you don't want A's. Those are things like feeling angry or annoyed, anxious, afraid? What do you argue about when you start to tease those things out. And, you know, I'm 12 years into using my own method on myself and still finding things that make me feel a certain emotion where I am priming the pump to trigger fight or flight. And so, teaching people deeply about their bodies and the stress response. And that's where I get some feedback from people in the field that say, I remember once I was coaching 10, psychologists in a roundtable, and I got to a point to go, Well, you already know this. And they go, actually, we don't, that kind of blew my mind, because they know so much, first of all, and they're professionals. And what I realized my son just graduated from Columbia, one of the greatest schools in the country in psychology, one of the greatest psych departments in the world. And he's shares all his books with me. So, I get to see what they learn. And yes, they learn about a fight or flight and the stress response. But it doesn't go that deep. It's just like physicians, there's so much to cover, that they can't really go really deeply. So, because I came to this whole thing as a performer, and how to perform at my best, and help other people perform at their best and like you say, just in everyday life, not just on stage or on the baseball field, but anywhere, anytime. And I had no idea that I mean, I thought I was just at first helping people perform well, so they feel great. Like this is off and running. Now I'm performing at my best. And then I had people saying to me, You know what, I don't have allergies anymore. Oh, you know what, my face looks so much younger, my skin is healthier. Like all the things that the stress hormones do to us, when I teach that to you. It's like mind blowing. And one of the things that I teach that for so many people, it's like this big aha, most people understand that when you trigger the stress response, there's a flood of adrenaline. It's actually cocktail, I call it a cocktail, these, they're called catecholamines. But you're now under the influence of these stress hormones. You are You might feel a little better A few moments later or an hour later. So, but actually, it's going to take your body hours, because there's a second flood of hormones that goes out to actually repair the damage you did with the first ones but has its own other set of side effects. So, each set of floods of hormones has a whole bunch of side effects. Like when I touch about the red face and all that the second flood of hormones, one of the things that just its eye opening for my clients, it can make you feel anxious for no reason and actually cause insomnia. So, if you have an argument in that 5pm to when you go to sleep period, if you have on a regular day cycle. If you have an argument in there, you might get to sleep but at two or 3am, you're wide awake. That's because those hormones are going out to fix your brain cells. They're actually trying to do good work and your extremities. But if you're feeling anxious, those nagging like looping worries, I shouldn't be worried here but I'm worried about this like just going on. So, I love to say this your biology is fueling your psychology. It's affecting how you think. 

Deb Timmerman  14:43

And I would just add that I don't know that professionals, most of them at least the ones that I've also worked with, recognize when they're having that stress reaction in their body. They are disconnected. Mind is one thing. Body is another, and the body and the mind work so closely together. They're not always in tune that it's happening in their own bodies. 

Elle Ingalls  15:08

That's very true. And when I, when I work in a group, it's really fascinating. I just was at a festival music festival where I had two sessions. And so we were around in a group, and it was a smart one of them was small enough, we actually went around, because I want people to see it, I asked him, What do you feel when you're stressed, every individual will be different, you can read the textbook definition of what's going to happen to a person. And I'm just going to bring it out here, but like some people have instant diarrhea. Other people have constipation for days, like two completely different results from the release of these hormones. So, each person is so complex, and all your past history, all your past traumas, your stories, all those things fit into this whole whole organism of you, if you especially if you allow that story to keep going. So, So there's so it's there's so much complexity that you can be so unaware of what's really happening to you. Plus, you can be addicted to adrenaline. I was Hello, my name is Elle.

Deb Timmerman  16:12

I can relate to that

Elle Ingalls  16:13

Because it made me feel like a superwoman, I was like boop boop, boop boop, three kids’, executive, going here,  doing this, doing that. 

Deb Timmerman  16:20

when that adrenaline is gone, and you feel the wear and tear on the body after because all those other hormones come doing those things. You just feel so exhausted and tired that if you don't stay in that adrenaline loop, you really are lost. 

Elle Ingalls  16:36

And then when the cortisol goes up and glucocorticoids go out, you can't get to sleep. So, then you're fatigued the next morning, it's just a never-ending cycle. So, for males, when they trigger this biological males trigger the fight or flight stress response, it can last that the dissipation of the hormones out of the cells can take up to nine hours. But for females isn't up to 24-hour deal. That is huge for either gender. That is

Deb Timmerman  17:04

Yes. And then the next stressor comes this layering of stuff. So tell me about your parenting book, your Pressure Free parenting book, do you go into the neurobiology and all of the cellular functions on a deep level so parents can understand what's happening in there child's body?

Elle Ingalls  17:25

 So, this is my book, pressure free parenting, I'm also writing finishing up the pressure free CEO right now. So, leadership book for executives, and business owners, entrepreneurs. But this one here, I wrote, because I had a parent in 2020, who said Elle, we need help. So, I wrote this book in 90 days, I just like, poured and poured into it. It's got three sections to it. So, the first section I go into, I actually teach you the pressure free method. And I don't go deeply because you could spend 1000 pages on what happens at each at each one of these things. But I go into the ones that I see that are the most important ones for parents, so they can recognize fight or flight in themselves. And whether or not they're actually causing their children go into fight or flight. And then I have two other sections of book, I call it age specific stressors. So, at each point all the way to adulthood, because I surveyed women once who said that, and some of them were in their 50s 60s 70s, their adult children are the ones causing the most stress that was going on for those families. It's just enormous stress and causing sleepless nights. So, I take it all the way from pregnancy all the way to adulthood and creating a legacy for your family. And then the third part of the book actually, it's in the middle is Maslow's hierarchy of needs. This is gonna sound weird, but here's what I see happening with some of my clients, my parents. They're hitting on some of the higher needs for their kids very well, but they're feeding them crap. So, your brain cannot operate well on poor poor diet, or not enough hydration. So, I get right to Maslow's hierarchy hierarchy of needs. Because even sleep Why are we having so much of a sleep issue, it's all stress based. And that should be the most natural thing we do is just fall asleep to have rest. So those are the three sections of the book for people to really take a look at, you know, what, where do I need to dig in a little bit as a parent.

Deb Timmerman  19:40

So as there's something that is common between all of those levels, other than the I'm looking at, at the higher level of Maslow before I'm looking at those basic needs? Is there something common that seems to be running through what those parents are asking for, or need?

Elle Ingalls  20:03

ah, that gets into, I think I'm gonna write another book. This one is this is the title, it just popped in my head as I was walking through the woods this morning. Mental wellness in the age of perfectionism. So, here's what I see is there's such a level of perfectionism, there's two things a level of perfectionism going on, because of social media and everything that people feel they can't meet those expectations. So, we're seeing a really high rate of suicide we're seeing we're seeing all kinds of things happening. Because people just don't feel like they're, they're doing it like they're doing what they're supposed to. They're, they're too far behind, they'll never catch up, especially when 2020 hit. So, I see that. And that's kind of a recurring theme no matter what. So, some people have let go of things like, Oh, we're not going to do music lessons, anywhere, we're not going to do this, we're not going to do that which are hitting on some of the higher-level needs, because we need creative expression. So, if you had a child who was learning the flute, and suddenly they're not taking their private lessons, because the studio closed down in 2020, and oh, well, now we're just going to not spend money on that, or whatever, that child lost this ability to really delve deeply into their creative expression. So um, so that's what I see. And then the other thing I see, and I'm just gonna come out and say it is that when we went to the Cultural Revolution in the 70s, we developed what I call the me generation, it's all about me, it's all about me, it's all about meeting my needs. And that was seventh 1970 was the first time we had a 50% divorce rate. So now the children of those people are now parents. And what we're seeing there is they don't know how to have relationship. They don't know how to have relationship with a part with themselves even with a partner, and then you bring a child into this situation. And so, I honestly, I feel there's a ton of neglect going on. And there's not enough people really in this in our entire society really deeply caring about the growth of a child and what a child really needs to foster themselves to adulthood. That window is so small, the window is so small. And I think the other thing is we have everyone tried to live all their chapters all at the same time. And I'm like, You know what, now you're in this chapter, it's okay to just do this chapter for 10 years, or 18 years or however many years you're going to do that. And now you're in a new chapter. Now, what are you doing in this chapter? I just met a friend, and I didn't realize this, but she had parented her own children. And when the last one left high school, suddenly she was parenting two grandchildren. So, she's got to be close to 70. And she's the last one just graduated. So, she says, I have been raising children. That was a long couple of chapters. Yes. It was, it's like it's not it's not that long a time. And if you're properly doing your, your, how you care for yourself, actually, for me, if I simply do not trigger the stress response, I don't need any self-care. I have already taken care of myself. I don't need anything extra. No. Calgon take me away, which is See I was i lived under the Smith my parents did and they both died of stress-based diseases. Live you have you have your tough day, work hard, work hard. And then Calgon take me away or go for a run exercise, do yoga, meditate? I was praying, meditating, two times a day morning night. I always exercise I always got to bed early. Because I lived under the method that would take care of my stress.  Completely false. 

Deb Timmerman  23:57

Yeah, I believe that it is stress care, not self-care. Because if you take care of yourself in the moment, and you're able to dial back that stress response, learn how to turn it off. That's the key to longevity. 

Elle Ingalls  24:14

Totally, It is I know I have people say to me, I think you gave me the fountain of youth. I have a couple of executives here that I've just met in this my new city here Grand Rapids, and I mean, one of them actually texted me she's an executive. She texts me from the dental chair. And she goes first time I went to the dentist, and I didn't trigger the stress response. And then in capital, she wrote I love pressure free. I love this lifestyle.

Deb Timmerman  24:41

There is truth to that because when we are able to get out of that pressure cooker and switch our biology around to the more renewing state. It's DHEA without Fountain of Youth hormone. Yep. So, I always tell people we have a choice. We can either go down the stress road, or we can go down the best road and the best road is learning how to work. So, I'm curious, what's your favorite stress relief tool? What is your go to during the day? 

Elle Ingalls  25:13

I have several. I teach over 40 tools in my toolkit. And there are things you use right in a 10 second window. So, I would say that two of my favorites are relaxing my abs. and, and I call it flip the switch. But asking an empowering question, how can I solve this. So my greatest instantly involved in solving rather than going back, but you just said something that I want to key off of, and that's that, a lot of times people stay trapped in the stress response, because you can rationalize and justify your annoyance, your anger, why you want to argue, and you've been taught, we've been taught in the past 30 years, that you have validation that you you should be angry here, you should be upset, and you get to vent your anger, we've been taught that the only person that really hurts is you it hurts all your relationships, but it really hurts you it leaves you isolated, lonely, and maybe that venting felt good. But if you had caught the 10 seconds, when you were first feeling the emotion, and actually didn't release the stress hormones, the stress hormones, or what put you into war mode, if that's your tendency, or you flee, you run away, or you freeze and you can't think of anything, because your brain is shut down.

Deb Timmerman  26:36

Where to folks find your books Elle?

Elle Ingalls  26:38

This book, pressure free parenting is right on Amazon. And I have a really, really beautiful workbook that's so big, that doesn't fit on anything except in my course. Again, delivered out in an email because it's too beautiful. I just finished it on my birthday. It's like a reworking of my workbook. But if you go to my website, I have a free little seven-day series, it gets on sleep goes to sleep, anxiety, some of the main things that people experience. And day seven is actual training on my method for people. So, you can dive right in and get started. And that's all free and it's at ElleIngalls.com. You can also reach that if you forget how to spell my name at pressure-free.com. So, I on both of those. And yeah, and if you want to talk to me just to see maybe it's not you maybe it's your child, just book a time with me at speakwithelle.com. So that's my calendar, and E-L-L- E is my name. So, SpeakWithElle.com is my calendar. But yeah, I'm really on a big mission to so if any of you are in the helping fields, I now have a certification program. So, I want to spread this method all around the world, and teach other people how to learn it, master it and teach it to others. So, I'm happy to have a conversation with anyone in the helping fields of any kind educators, coaches of any kind, health care professionals, mental health care professionals. So that's, um, that's my really big baby right now, I don't know how many years I got left on this planet. 

Deb Timmerman  28:17

we certainly need more of that. So, our call to action this week is to take stock of what stress is doing in your life. If you're disconnected from your body, and you don't know what stress feels like in your body reach out to one of us. We'll have a conversation about that, because that's really the place to start. It's feeling what you feel, and really being sick and tired of being sick and tired and wanting to make a change. So, I am so excited that you could join me today on this podcast, and I am wishing you all the best in your new book and your certification program. The world absolutely needs this work. So, keep doing what you're doing. 

Elle Ingalls  28:18

Oh, thank you, Deb. Thank you so much. I love your encouragement because sometimes we can get a little stuck. So, thank you. 

Deb Timmerman  28:42

So have a great week, everybody you know where to find us less stress in life.com. Thank you. Less stress in life is possible. If you're new to this kind of thinking and would like to explore what's possible for you. We'd love to connect. You can reach us through our website at less stress in life.com. That's less stress in life.com