Stop Overwhelm And Stress Right Now! A Mindset Reset

Let's jump right in to today's topic and that's feeling stress and overwhelmed.

You know stress comes in so many forms and too much stress of any type can feel overwhelming and all-consuming at times because we all know that stress has a way of building to the point that even the simplest moment can become challenging and unmanageable.

You know it can impact our health,

It can impact our relationships and just our day-to-day lives.

Kendra from Los Angeles,

California wrote in and said,

Danielle,

I've been dealing with unusually high stress since the middle of last year.

I have trouble relaxing my mind and sometimes I feel like the pressure is so overwhelming that it's hard to sleep,

Causes headaches,

And I've found myself avoiding things that I need to do or even things that I love because it's hard to get everything in.

Could you provide a handful of things that I can do in real time to help me deal with this chronic stress and overwhelm?

It's negatively impacting my life and I need to get a handle on it now.

Kendra,

You are not alone.

So many people feel overwhelmed by their responsibilities,

Their relationship stressors,

Parenting,

Financial woes,

Health concerns,

You name it.

And to answer your question,

There are a few essential practices that you can put in place in your life today to help you manage that stress,

Whether it's short-term or long-term,

And to stop the overwhelm in its tracks.

So let's try three quick and easy to use tools to really help you get started.

And like anything that you do,

These tools and exercises must be practiced consistently for them to work.

And please know that each of these tools can be applied and done anywhere at any time.

So let's start with the first one and that is to break the stress cycle and the overwhelmed cycle by visualization.

Now before you reject this idea,

You actually use visualization all day long.

For example,

You visualize yourself taking a particular route when you leave the house,

Or you think about and run through steps in your head when you're engaging in something that needs mental focus.

You visualize daily and you can actually use it to your benefit,

Especially to break overwhelming stress.

The goal here is to restore peace in your mind so that you break the cycle of overwhelming thoughts.

There is no single correct way to use visual imagery for stress relief,

But there are a few general steps that you should take and I'm gonna walk you through those now.

So the first thing you want to do is find a calm space and make yourself comfortable.

This can be your car during a lunch break.

Moms,

Head to the bathroom and shut the door,

Right?

If that's your only escape,

Do it.

Just get calm and comfortable.

Then take a few slow deep breaths to center your attention and calm yourself.

You can close your eyes if that's comfortable.

And then the job is to really find yourself in a peaceful place.

So it could be a place that you love or a location that brings you excitement or joy,

Whether that's the beach or a mountain or wrapped in your favorite blanket reading a book somewhere.

It really doesn't matter,

But put yourself in your mind's eye into a location that brings you contentment.

Then I want you to really imagine yourself being calm,

Relaxed,

Maybe you're smiling,

You're happy,

You're having a good time.

And as you are visualizing this in your mind,

I want you to continue to breathe and focus on the different elements of what's happening in your mind's eye.

So maybe you see the sun or there's snow or you're looking at the book,

But create this perfect picture a piece.

And then I want you to really get into a place where you invoke your senses.

So maybe you smell the sunscreen,

Maybe you smell the ocean,

Maybe you see the ocean,

Maybe you can visualize yourself touching something or hearing something.

The more you invoke your senses,

The better time you will have releasing your stress.

Try to stay in this imagery for as long as you can,

You know,

Maybe it's roughly five to ten minutes,

But stay there until you feel relaxed.

And really what we're trying to do is let our mind take a little day trip,

Right?

A little daydream away from what is happening in our current reality.

And when you feel relaxed,

That's when you allow yourself to tune back into that space.

And as you're coming to,

I really want you to think about how you felt.

Try to lock that in and use it as your guide for the rest of the day.

This is an excellent practice because it trains the brain to look for comfort instead of stress.

Your brain works on patterns.

It seeks what it knows to calm itself.

But the most powerful understanding is that your brain does not know the difference between negative and positive.

That job belongs to your emotions.

So again,

This is an excellent tool for highly visual people,

But you may not be a visual person.

So if not,

This may not work for you.

So let's try this instead.

And that's technique number two,

And it's called reframing the situation.

When we are stressed,

We tend to engage in self sabotaging behaviors,

Which drives our stress levels even higher because we involve our emotions.

However,

We can look at the situation and break it down to just the facts to stop the overwhelm.

This is a written exercise.

So grab a piece of paper.

Now you can do it mentally or aloud,

But it does serve you to see what is written.

So first,

I want you to look at the situation that is causing you stress.

You can even put it as the header,

Right?

And then do your best to narrow it down to one element and name it.

So naming it in the frame of what Kendra was asking about,

Maybe her situation is that she has too much on her plate.

And then I want you to write out a statement.

So it may be,

You know,

I am stressed because there's never enough time to handle everything on my plate.

From there,

Ask yourself,

What about this situation is causing me stress?

I want you to write down everything that comes to mind.

And here's what's interesting.

You will likely find that you will write sentences that have some element of feelings involved.

So words like I feel may pop up.

And once you've written everything that comes to mind,

I want you to eliminate the feelings and get down to just the facts.

So a fact would be my schedule is too full.

I am overcommitted.

Whatever your facts are,

Put them down and remove the emotion.

So facts in any situation will also always sound like this happened and then this happened and then this occurred.

Once you have the facts down,

I want you to look at how many of your facts are actual needs that need to be addressed for you to change your situation.

Meaning,

Is there something in this experience that you could release,

But you haven't given yourself a chance to do so because you've not given yourself the permission to look at the experience in a more focused way.

Sometimes our overwhelm and stress come down to nothing more than being unfocused and being led by your emotions.

So the next step in reframing your situation is to offer tangible solutions to yourself for everything that's before you.

You know,

What can be moved?

What can be released?

What can be reassigned?

What can be shifted?

This is really important.

And the last big question is,

What is worth my energy?

Reframing helps us shift and create workable experiences that are not as overwhelming and helps us really get a handle on the load that we're carrying,

Whether it's mentally,

Emotionally,

Or even physically.

And this experience can be applied to every experience we run up against.

And exercise three,

Which is our last for today,

Is to use the STOP technique.

The STOP technique is a bit of a combination of the first two,

And it's a beautiful mindfulness practice that does take a little effort,

But it's highly effective.

So STOP is an acronym for stop,

Take a breath,

Observe,

And proceed.

We use this technique to stop overwhelm in its tracks,

And often I will ask women just to say the word STOP aloud,

And that often will help break the thoughts or the stress.

But here,

Let's expand that practice.

So first,

You will stop and allow yourself to recognize that there are strong emotions involved in a situation.

Regardless of what it is,

We can take command of the moment by stopping,

Interrupting the thoughts,

And hitting pause.

Right?

This gives us a moment to disconnect and slow everything down.

It's so important when we're feeling overwhelmed.

From there,

We move into the T,

Which is to take a breath.

Your breath is your body's way,

And it's the natural way of regulating its nervous system.

When we are overwhelmed and stressed,

Our nervous system is on high alert.

As a result,

We can feel panicked,

We can have headaches,

We can have trouble sleeping,

Right?

And so to calm the nervous system,

We have to bring our attention to our breath and draw our attention back into our body.

The best practice here is to breathe in slowly through the nose with your mouth closed,

Expanding your belly,

And then slowly letting that breath move out of you through an open mouth.

And you're gonna want to continue to breathe until you feel yourself slow down.

Once you do,

Move into the O of observe.

To observe means to lean into what you're feeling at the moment.

You can stop and observe your thoughts,

Right?

You can go back to technique two and really look at what you're thinking and why you're thinking that way.

Or you can simply ask the question,

Do I believe this thought to be my truth?

You could observe your emotions by saying,

What am I feeling at the moment?

And are these emotions serving me?

Or you can check in physically.

To do so,

Maybe you place your hand over your heart to see if your heart rate is elevated.

Or maybe you rub your hands together to witness that your palms are sweaty or your hands are tingling.

It's really just becoming aware of what's happening within.

You can narrow your focus and really get into using your breath work again.

Next is the P and that is to proceed.

Mindfully consider what's important to you right now and how you want to show up in the moment.

What can you focus on that's going to impact today?

Not tomorrow,

But today.

As you narrow your focus,

You can find a pathway forward.

Plus,

This is a place where loads of personal insights are realized.

You can use these factors as the determination you need to shift your mindset and proceed effectively and immediately.

So stop.

Stop.

Take a breath.

Observe.

And proceed.

These three techniques are really simple once you practice them.

But you know what's important to realize right now is that we often shift into patterns that do not serve us when we are stressed because we get in our own way.

So taking a step back,

Engaging in a new tool,

And allowing ourselves to really just take a moment breaks the cycle of stress and the overwhelm and it just helps us elevate,

You know,

Our lives.

So I challenge you to stop.

Use your imagination and reframe anything that isn't working for you.

Besides,

Doing so is an essential life tool and it helps you reset your mindset and really get into a place where life is working for you.

I want to thank Kendra from LA for submitting your question.

Don't forget to submit yours too.

I'd love to answer them for you and hopefully give you a tool that can help really get your life together.

Thank you for taking the time to listen to this episode which originally aired on the Get Your Life Together Girl podcast.

Please take the time to review this conversation and follow me here on Insight Timer for more courses,

Meditations,

And additional conversations.

Until next time,

Be kind to yourself and others.