IS STRESS (JUST) A MINDSET?

Some say we cause ourselves stress.  

Stress used to be a badge of honor. Now, we shame people for it? I admit I get upset when I see people being wronged for normal human emotions and experiences. 

The question is: Do you believe it’s possible to avoid stress? Do you think you should be able to live without stress and not let worry affect you? Do you think stress is a problem and it means you don’t have it together? 

I don’t. However, I very firmly believe that we cannot let stress run our lives, our decisions, or our relationships at work and at home. And if we don’t talk about it, stress will. It will lurk, and we will pretend we are not affected, don’t feel it, and we will suppress it instead of using it to create change. 

This newsletter is more of a rant because I care about you, even if we haven’t met personally. That’s why I wrote my book, that’s why I do the work I do in the world, and it’s why I write newsletters that are about sharing insight and tools rather than selling you something - except, of course, I hope you get my book and share it with people you care about. 

These days, I’m having a difficult relationship with social media and self-proclaimed gurus and mental health “experts” who use quotes and slogans that most of them didn’t come up with themselves. They repeat something that they might not have the knowledge or wisdom to speak up about, and… they do it for the likes, not for you to learn something that might help you navigate the very thing that our society is struggling with right now. STRESS. 

I constantly see phrases like “stress is all in your mind, stress is just a mindset, stress means you are weak.” Thank you very much… Does that mean I should be ashamed if I feel stressed? Like I’m making it up? 

Let’s be real about this: Stress is neither a badge of honor nor a defect. You are not more important because you are stressed or less capable. You are stressed because you care. And we want you to care. The problem isn’t you; our social construct fuels the FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) and then tells us that resilience means to ignore it, so we work harder because we fear loss. 

It’s not you, it’s work. 

When I was coaching one-on-one, I consistently saw the impact of stress and how it not only wears us out but also breaks us down. It wears on our mental health, and we adapt habits that just numb the pain of stress but actually don’t teach us how to work with it. And when I say work with stress, I don’t mean keep working and ignore it. I mean, learn how to recognize the stressors and have the tools to navigate challenges. 

This is why and how I developed the tools I share in The Self-Care Mindset, which helps you learn how to pause, listen, and ask questions that prompt your mind to focus on what you want to achieve, how you want to feel, and what you can do about it. 

Does it make you stress-free? No. I don’t believe we can be. 

But we can learn tools to see the difference between stress that breaks us down and stress that builds us up. Stress that breaks us down is when we feel we have no way out of a situation. In the book, I talk about the power of acceptance, which sometimes is all we can do. The stress that builds us up is the kind of stress that we feel when we do something out of our comfort zone. There will always be tension when we do something different. And that’s OK. It’s part of learning. 

Navigating stress means to focus on the small steps we can take. It starts with learning to listen to ourselves with a sense of curiosity and kindness instead of judgments so that we can learn what we need to support ourselves in taking action, navigating uncertainty, and harnessing the ever-changing work and life experiences we live in.

We can learn to pause and observe our own minds. Learn to recognize when the 6000 daily thoughts that rush through are stuck in the mud of what’s not working that we can shift our attention to what we need so that we can deal with it. 

That is our human power - we have the ability to make a conscious choice. We can consciously use our intention to fuel our attention. But that’s not the same as “stress is just a mindset.” 

Stress is real. 

There’s survival stress, there’s performance stress, there’s growth stress, there’s care stress, there’s belonging stress, there’s stress about our worth and value, and there’s stress about our health. 

We often wrongly believe we must control our environment to avoid or manage stress. Instead, we can improve our ability to navigate stress by pausing and listening to become aware of our stressors and triggers so that we can make discerning choices about how we can and want to respond. Learning to work more productively with stress is key to reclaiming our health and happiness.

The thing is, stress is an information system that we need to help us navigate. It’s when we feel powerless in the face of events that stress builds up, and what can seem simple to some is like survival mode to others.

Survival mode is an adaptive system the body enters when experiencing danger or crisis. You've likely heard of it as fight, flight, or freeze, which is how humans react when faced with a stressful situation.

We might grow angry seemingly out of nowhere (fight).

We might find ourselves rushing as fast as we can without thinking about anything other than getting through the situation (flight).

We might feel paralyzed, foggy, overwhelmed, and don't know what to do (freeze).

Unfortunately, the stress that’s most prevalent in our society is still survival stress. You would think we are past that in our modern lives, but no, because survival stress is more than just shelter and food. It’s relationships. 

At the core of our human survival is relationships, and the quality of our culture is built on the quality of our relationships. And the quality of our relationships is affected by stress. 

Do you see the paradox? 

Alas… my rant is over. Please don’t think there’s something wrong with you when you feel stressed. Instead, pause, listen, and then ask what you need so that you can feel more curious about what you can do about it, courageous that you will be able to figure it out, and confident that you will find your way forward. 

We cannot control what happens; we can only control how we respond. That doesn’t make it easy, but hopefully, it makes it possible for you to “embrace” your stress and use it to grow stronger from the inside out because it’s what we care about that matters.