How do I channel my stress?

Dear EQuipped Leaders,

How are you today? Stressed? Easy breezy? Somewhere in between?

Today we’re going to talk about stress–that dear old friend of mine.

What’s your relationship with your stress like? If you drew a picture of it, what would it look like?

I think my first love language was stress. I loved people by worrying about them as I tried to control everything in my environment. My body was constantly filled with tension, and I was upright, hypervigilant, always on high alert. NOT easy breezy. It was an exhausting way to be.

I was all gas, no breaks. It was good for my career, but terrible for my body. Turns out, being in a constant state of stress takes a toll.

When I felt stress, I looked outward:

Once I get _______ done, then I will feel better.

But I would accomplish all my goals and still the state of dis-ease gnawed at me. The goal post of peace always outside of my reach no matter how fast I ran.

Now when I feel stress, I am learning to look inward. Not at first. My first instinct is still to blame outside circumstances. That’s easier in the short term and more automatic. It always makes other things and people the problem, not me. :)

Learning to lovingly face myself instead of offloading my stress onto others is a lesson I think I’ll be learning for a very long time.

So let’s get some more tools in our tool belts to channel our stress into building the life and relationships we want!

Stress tool #1: What are my beliefs about stress? Here are some of mine. How you think about stress impacts how it affects you, so figuring out your stories about stress is key to understanding how to channel in consciously in a way that aligns with your values.

It can help to take a step back and look at stress from a biological perspective:

“Stress is the energy you produce as you wonder whether you can deal effectively with a threatening situation. Symptoms include increase heart rate, muscle tension, preoccupation,

We usually use the energy to attack the source of our stress (fight) or run from it (flight), and either option can be helpful or not helpful.”

— EQuipped Classroom PD Training

The metaphor we often use in trainings is thinking of stress as fuel.

Fuel that you can put in your car and drive across the country.

Fuel you can pour on top of your car and set on fire.

So let’s start with what fuel is building up inside of you today. Identify your current stressors right now, two professional and two personal:

Just by doing this exercise, you’ve already taken a big step in making the unconscious conscious. You’ve taken the swirly stress running in the background and brought it into your awareness where you can actually see and deal with it. That’s no small thing. You may have even prevented a fire!

Now that you know what stressors you’re working with, let’s look at some different tools you can use.

Stress tool #2: If you want to set your car on fire (which is always an option), you can use these hurtful ways of engaging and disengaging with your stress:

So these will lead to temporary relief but you’re setting the car on fire, not driving to a desired destination. Who among us hasn’t set a few metaphorical cars on fire?

I find it helps me to brainstorm what destructive things I wish I could do to offload my stress before moving on to the more constructive options.

Stress tool #3: If you want to put that fuel in your car instead of lighting it on fire, you can use these helpful ways of engaging and disengaging with your stress: