Notice the Crease Before Stress Becomes Permanent

Problems rarely explode out of nowhere. Most of the time they start as small, annoying creases we ignore, until stress hardens into something that feels permanent. We explore a simple metaphor that makes anxiety management feel doable: notice the crease, take a deep breath, and smooth it while it’s still small. Along the way, we share the kind of grounded therapy mindset that helps you move from “I’m just an anxious person” to “I’m experiencing anxiety, and I can work with it.”

We talk about how chronic stress builds when we sweep things under the carpet, and why awareness is the first real tool. You’ll hear a practical daily check-in question, how to postpone a problem on purpose without avoiding it, and why learning to challenge limiting beliefs can loosen anxiety that has started to feel like identity. We also touch on how family patterns, stereotypes, and childhood labels can quietly shape the story you tell about yourself, even when it isn’t true.

Then we widen the lens. From moments of awe in nature to the sheer scale of the universe, perspective can shrink worry and bring you back to the present moment. We share how simple rituals like mindful chores and “iron talk” can calm the mind, plus a reminder that help exists and you’re never alone in this. If you found this helpful, subscribe or follow, share it with a friend who’s carrying too much, and leave a review. What’s one “crease” you can smooth today?

Transcript

Ironing As A Stress Metaphor

SPEAKER_00 0:00

How to smooth out problems that occur in our lives. I like iron them out. People don't iron much now, do they? Well, I don't. I mean, I only iron if I really have to. Because I'm like, oh, there's I'm desperate for something. Stay tuned to this week's episode or get real. We're with the English system. Mind health and anxiety. We are therapists and we're here to help you. So we'll be reading from our book, Stress Free in Three Minutes. Yes. And it's called Eyeing Out the Creases. Yeah. A shirt after a day's work can be dirty and stained, and even a little sweaty. Full of grime and smoke, the city impregnated in its every fibre. A good wash leaves it fresh once more. And now that all that shows are the creases. To iron them out, all you need is a deep breath and an iron. Take care as you iron out each and every crease. With each and every deep breath you take, liberating you from all that you no longer need. Good iron. Yeah, it was a very good iron to liberate you. I mean, I've got a steamer. Have you yeah, you I've got the same one you got. Because I bought that professional OTA steamer. Do you remember? Oh yeah, yeah, you bought it for me as well. Said, go and get that, mum. I've had it in a hotel and it was amazing. And I had masses of creases in my blouse, and I ironed the well, I steamed them all out, which is basically like ironing. Steam them all out with the uh steamer. Do you use that a lot? I hardly ever use it. I prefer the iron. Yeah, because you have to like hang it, you're supposed to hang it in your wardrobe, aren't you? And then use it. It's handy. It's handy to have, yes. I must say it was a good investment. Well, for example, like suits. Suits are great. Yeah, for suits or um wool, things that you can't put an iron on or ruin it. Yeah, exactly. Like um, I don't know, because I've used it so little. You hardly ever use it. No, I should use it more though. I think about it. Yeah. So I try and buy these things that no longer need ironing, like this blouse, it does really, you just just just wash, wash, and wash, dry, and hang. Yeah, I do as well. I prefer it, but it is true that sometimes we're not going to be able to do a good iron. Oh, you do. And there's no point as well. Yeah, there's no point leaving the creases in there. Well, it's horrible, doesn't it? Yeah. It probably feels horrible if you leave them in. Yeah, it feels like a mental load. Yeah, absolutely. A good deep breath indeed. Tell me what a deep breath can do. And a good laugh. Yeah, absolutely. It makes you think, doesn't it? It makes you reflect on how. More often than not, we do we tend to sweep things under the carpet, they say, and like not deal with our problems. And when you don't deal with them, then they get worse and worse and worse, and then that's when they start to become really ingrained and they become like chronic. Yeah. So it's when like when you get chronic anxiety, chronic stress, and then it builds up so much that you end up like having a panic attack. And it becomes very, very difficult to so ingrained into every fibre of your existence that it becomes part of your identity. And so that you you might think anxiety is you. Well, yeah, you just think I'm an anxious person. Like those like when we met that that lady from New York, she said, I'm a New Yorker, we're all like this. Yes, yes. These these these beliefs can tend to be very, very ingrained. Yeah, and they get passed down, don't they? From generation to generation. To generation to we're just like this. This is what we're like. Yeah, those stereotypical things. Yeah, it's because we live in the city and uh and it's frenetic and we're all very, very anxious bunch of people. And then we know not really though. Is that really really necessary? Yes, life can go around you very chaotically, but if you can manage to iron out your own stress, as to say, and deal with your little tiny creases as they come along without letting me. You can just ask yourself what's stressing me today, and can I deal with it today? And you might not always be able to deal with it today. You might have to say, Okay, I'll deal with you tomorrow, the day after, but you become aware, let's say, you become aware of the creases. Yeah, I think that's become aware of your you know what's actually causing you stress, and it may be it could be your life partner, and you're thinking, Well, I need to change something about this. Yeah, because if you think about it, when you're wearing your newborn, you're you're not really born with all well, you're not ideally, you you know, if your mother isn't that if she's a normal, calm person, not normal is a big word, and it's not a it's an incorrect what I meant to say. If she's a quite serene human being at the moment of giving birth, with normal anxiety, that's what I wanted to say, with normal level of anxiety that we all have, then there is no reason for the bet the newborn to be particularly anxious, even though he's a New Yorker or she is a New Yorker. That is what I mean to say by defining all New Yorkers know what what make what changes you is your environment, yeah, is the people that surround you and how they react to the challenges around them, how they react to the traffic, how they react to whatever it is they're reacting to. So it's it's not necessarily true. I think if we ask ourselves that question, is it necessarily true that I uh why am I like this? Maybe you're not like that. Maybe you're not. Maybe that's a belief that you're learning behaviour and a belief that you have about yourself. Beliefs that you have about yourself, we know they can be challenged and changed. Challenged indeed, as we did with that lady. Yeah, and they're often they're often very limited beliefs that limit you and hold you back and hold you down and keep you in that stress position. And there are deep creases that are formed inside your mind that can be ironed out. That don't necessarily have to be there, that doesn't necessarily it's not I think what I'm trying to say is that they don't have to be part of your identity. No. It's not necessarily maybe you're not really like that. You might be somebody that does like just sitting down and looking and enjoying the flowers and the trees or whatever. Even if you are in New York, you go to the park. It might not be you, you might be, as to say, imitating some other kind of behavior you've learnt. You may not have had the chance to really find out who you really are and who you really want to be. No. And who you want to grow into because we don't just grow at the beginning of our lives when we're little and grow into like adults, we grow throughout our whole lives, we're always growing and learning. There's so many times to do so, no matter what age you are at the moment. No, no, just like the tulips, we come back every year and we can grow stronger and stronger, and we can become we can change and evolve. Each time we have a period of rest, we can find ourselves changing, but we do need to go through that period of rest and to understand to nourish ourselves, to nourish ourselves, and by rest I don't mean we have to be like a tulip in the ground for for the for however the winter months. What I'm saying is that to nurture our bulb, our internal state of mind is very, very important. And I think already if you're listening to this podcast, or you know, you're already interested in these kind of um solutions and ways and well you're interested in mind health and anxiety, I'm just that's what the podcast is called. Yes, so you're already interested, so you're well on your way to becoming to healing, to healing your mind, to becoming a calm, more grounded person because you and you can you can think about is this perhaps a limiting belief? And by limiting belief, we mean some kind of belief that was installed in you as a very young age, you know, as as somebody told you, gosh, you're a nervous person, gosh, you're so anxious, stop freaking out, you know. Perhaps when you weren't even really freaking out that much, and you you've become to understand that that's who you are by some maybe that, or maybe a teacher in the classroom told you you were very restless, you couldn't keep still, and you have uh come to understand that's you. That that might might not be necessarily true. You might be a person that is active, but at the same time can understand how to find calm inside. Because I find I'm like that. I I I love being active. You're very active, I'm active, it's really quite hard for me to sit down, even like if we go to a restaurant, we're sitting down, I want to get up. You always do, I always end up doing, and my husband said, Where the hell are you going? Just gonna go and have a look there and there, and I I don't know, you know. I I like to I like to be active. Oh, we can give a shout out to your son's restaurant. Shout out to your son's restaurant, yeah. Yeah, so enoteca, it's a one restaurant. Trebichieri. Enoteca trebicieri. Where was it? San Vito Romano. San Vito Romano. Romano! So if you're ever in the area, we can highly recommend it. Yeah, yeah, it's very nice, lovely food. And when we went the other night, I was just thinking you were getting up every five minutes, weren't you? And I was too, because we were going around. Well, obviously, I was going to see him because he's a he was cooking, yes. I was going to say hello. But yeah, I do like to get up. I am active, but at the same time, that doesn't mean that I'm a nervous person. No, he said he was slightly stressed at the beginning when they were opening up, wasn't he? Well, they've only just opened on the 1st of April, so yes, he was very stressed. But they've they've been coping extremely well. They have been, yes. I mean, starting a new adventure. It's very, very exciting, but at the same time it can be very challenging. Very overwhelming. And that's when you have to like take a deep breath and and yeah, iron out all the little creases, all the little problems that you may have. Yeah. But you get there in the end, don't you? And it's so satisfying. Yes, you can feel frustrated and overwhelmed and thinking, gosh, when is this like at the beginning of the project when they had to actually redo the whole the whole restaurant, you know, and decide on everything, all the cooking utensils, all the fridges, the ovens, everything. So it's a massive project. But so worthwhile. But yes. But when they see happy customers. Happy customers, you said he was saying to me, Mum, it's amazing when they when they like it, when they're happy, they're satisfied. Uh they they they've eaten well. They've eaten well, yes, they love it. They drank good wine. Yeah, they love it. So definitely. And and I think in life it's like that, isn't it? It's it's it's sometimes it's the most challenging creases that you may have that are the ones that give you the most satisfaction in the end. That is very true, Charlie. The difficult ones. How can I? How can I iron that? I mean, we started this podcast. I remember we started the podcast because I had two retina detachments, one in each eye. Oh, yeah, you can't do it. And I couldn't see, so we thought, what we were doing videos before just on YouTube. Now we've actually got the video on YouTube, but we thought, what can we do that we don't need to do that? Well, you do need to see with the videos either. Well, you have to see what you're doing, and I was in recovery, so I thought we'd do audio, and we started doing audio. Is that why? Yeah, I couldn't remember it. And then we thought from audio, just doing audio recordings, we'll do a podcast. That's what gave us the idea, and it was from the most challenging time. Exactly. Yeah, I absolutely forgot about that. I did. I do know, I do remember now that we I remember you saying, Well, we won't do video because I can't see properly. Exactly. I don't really understand. You just we did audio first. We did audio recordings like meditations and hypnotherapy. Yeah. Do you remember? Yeah, we did it a while ago, yeah. And then then we said, well, from there it but it facilitated the path to going towards the and to podcasting, yeah. Which was only audio at first, but then we've we've also we also do the video podcast, which is on YouTube. Well, that's why, yeah, that's why I was thinking what's the difference. Yeah, but um yeah, yeah, but that's how it originally started. So it started from a what a very challenging situation that that it's that you managed to find because I was I've I've managed to recover most of my sight. Yes. So it's been a good thing, but yeah, it started from a very challenging p place. Absolutely, absolutely a place of fear and dread, because I was really terrified at first. Yeah, it's pretty scary. It's scary, and then you think, well, what but life gives you it gives you the courage in the end to to face your challenges and to to look for different different solutions. Solutions, yeah. Yeah. To find a different solution. Yeah. All right, we'll just do audio, because with patches on the eyes and not seeing properly, it wasn't exactly ideal to do videos. But then again, I mean, you could have you could have, but it was challenging. It was harder. It was harder even just to look at the phone, wasn't it? To actually be able to record. Just to record with your eyes closed. Exactly. Yeah, with your eyes closed. Goodness me, yes. You in life you overcome many challenges, and and these can be ironed out if you have the right kind of tools to deal with it. As we know, many people do deal with them very, very well. Uh and they have lots of challenges, physical challenges, and um and and you think it you know that that could also be, you know, an example for many people. Yeah, it's an it's a way of like uh you find you find benefits. If you look for them, you'll find them. You can always have there's always uh like a silver line. We're always saying it, but there always is. There's always something that's yeah that can be found to be positive, but mostly, not always, but nearly always. Yeah, unfortunately, you know, yeah. We don't want to say it because we we say often, but you know, there's sometimes there's there's nothing that can, you know, if when you come to the end of your road and it's your destiny to to to die or whatever, that's what happens. But until that time, you always have a resource within you. I think that's what's empowering. You can always have so and if you feel very desperate, there's always someone that you can ask for help. There is help out there, so you know you must always remember that. You can never, you know, there's always that person that's gonna help you iron out the creases and iron out like very j difficult and challenging situations, you're not alone, you're never alone. No, it might feel like that, it feels like that, and you think I can't go anywhere, I can't go and talk to anyone. Nobody's really bothered with me. They are bothered, but they are bothered, and there is a lot more kinder people than there are nasty people and evil people. People will take the time to help you. Yes, and and we will take the time we will defend us, we're always here for you. You know, you could you can write to us at any time, we'll always we'll do our best to help you with any challenging situation you may have. And we have our own life experience, but we we also have our experience as therapists. Absolutely. Um, you know, it's never, it's never until the that last day that comes, that comes to you. It's never, it's never end, it never ends, does it? You can always go on. There's always some positivity you can find. Yes, indeed. Even if it's just a wake-up call, like so many people that get really ill, they say, Oh my gosh, it was a wake-up call. I realized I wasn't spending enough time with my family or my friends, and I was working too hard, or I was doing this, that, and the other. You know, people learn, you learn to grow from it. From all your your hardships. Indeed, indeed. Very well said. I'm just thinking that you know it's it it is it's we are we're humans on this earth. Like now that the the the you know, they've gone round the moon, for instance. It makes you reflect they've gone round people, people humans and humans have actually gone round. And we have a friend of ours who's uh who launches satellites into space. Yes, and he was telling us, and we obviously we've all been watching it in the news and that, that they've gone round the whole at the moon, and they've like taken lots of, you know, they've done lots of studies and things. But how amazing is that that people can go around the moon and watch, you know, see Earth from a different perspective and from how tiny we are and how much how many millions of stars and planets there are in our universe. That helps me sort of put things in but help you. Well, when I think, and and uh lately I haven't really been doing it, but sometimes when I think I'm actually traveling on this planet, and then I'm actually moving on it, and I think, gosh, I'm actually moving. I don't think we're moving, do we? Because of gravity. Yeah, I think I'm actually travelling, like I could be in this room, but I'm travelling around on this planet that's moving, and I think wow, you know, it has made me feel a sense of awe at that, and sometimes it has helped me in the past redimension my problems because I think the sense of awe of just just moving around on this planet earth is just so overwhelming. It's just it's just incredible, and I think here I am worrying about what Monday or Tuesday or never know the magnitude of it. I don't think our brains can comprehend the magnitude of this travelling that we're doing right now in this moment. How miraculous everything is we're floating in the universe. You look out at your and you said you look out at your trees and the nature, and you say how you feel like we're not. I honestly didn't. Yet the other day I was having breakfast on a Sunday morning, and I in front of the the wisteria tree over this my pond in the garden, and I thought I had this sense, I thought, oh my gosh, you know, this is it's like the religious people believe in paradise. I thought, this is paradise, this is truly paradise. This is uh my present moment right now, just this moment, without any worry. Oh, that it I all my mind became free, and I just felt it didn't last long. It lasts for like but it was a moment of awe. It was a moment of awe that I'll take with me. That's enough and and I if you manage to get little moments of awe throughout, or even just one one every now and again, they're not that many too much because I had this one, and then like a couple of months ago, I had another moment of awe when I was hanging out the sheets because I love the washing and Uh and I I was hanging in the garden hanging. But I do like ironing still. I'm not putting the ironing board out, but I like ironing. You find ironing a lot of satisfaction to see it all nicely ironing. Yeah. I'm not crazy about ironing. I don't like getting it out there. No, no. No. When I'm doing it, it's a little act see a little action as well. What happens is that it can become, especially because if you become very good at it, and you be it's it's an unconscious competence that allows your hands to be busy and your mind can be free or wonder and go into little chats. It's often I remember when we were very little, you would sit down next to mum and she would be chatting to you as she was being productive with her hands and doing the ironing. And and then I used to do that with my children before when I used to iron, and I we would decide to call it iron talk. Oh yes. And it was just a form of chatting away while you're ironing. So your hands are busy, but and it was actually quite relaxing. And I think Because it's talking about nothing, wasn't it? Nothing, it wasn't much. It was called iron talk because it was just little babbles. Babbles, yeah, in sync. Bits and bobs. Bits and bobs, yeah. But in the end they were sort of like relaxing. It's like when you're painting or therapeutic, actually, yes. Got time to get the iron out. Absolutely. Now I tend if I do any ironing, I put a podcast on. That's also good. It's a relaxing one. Yeah. We've got to say it's good. No, it is. No, it's good. It is good. It's a relaxing one. Because in the end, like I was just leaving it in the morning, but then your mind still wanders. I still my mind went wandering off. I was driving, it went wandering off to different things. Yes, finding different solutions. Your mind can still wander off. Absolutely. Can't it? Well, as you iron out your greases. Remember to take a few deep deep breaths and and um well say goodbye, I think. I think we will on that. Yes, so absolutely. Please remember to send us a message, a text that's very easy now on on whichever app you listen to, get real with English Sisters, Mind, Health, and Anxiety. You can send us a text. And please do subscribe or follow because it really does help us grow and it helps the algorithms like notice us. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it helps us grow, and so that gives us a lot of it. It really does make a difference. We love to know we're of help. We love to hear from you and the podcasting world. Too often they're not, you don't hear from we know we have listeners all over the world because it tells us you have to tell us, but we don't often hear from you, and it's so lovely when we do. We really like it. We really really love it. We love it. Yes, let's hear more from you. Tell us where you just say, hey, I'm in Australia, hey, I'm in New York, hey, I'm this. Oh, yeah. You know, and a little love heart, and we love we're we send love hearts back. It doesn't have to be a big conversation, just know that you're not alone and we're here for you. Lots of love and smile from the English sisters. Bye bye, bye.