For the woman who is stressed out & losing her mind: Building Emotional Resilience

(This post is a little longer & meatier) When you’re under stress, do you feel like you’re losing your mind?  Well, you kind of are.

The human brain has a pretty predictable reaction to stress:  fight, flight, or freeze.  All brains use all three strategies, but consider for a second which of these is more your style:

Fight:  Fighting brains feel wound up or agitated under stress.  

• In low levels this can be energizing and give you the get-up-and-go you need to push through the hard thing.  

• But in high levels, you may feel irritable or short tempered under stress, and find yourself getting angry or arguing with others.

Action step:  Actually, fighters need to practice pausing and gently observing a little longer before acting.  Research has found that your moms advice of counting (30 is the magic number) actually does help.

Flight:  If you’re a fleer, you respond to overwhelm by withdrawing from the thing that’s stressing you out, or trying to avoid it all together.  

• In low levels this can look like stepping back for a few moments and taking a break.  

• At higher levels you may feel so anxious you just want to quit altogether.  

Action step:  Avoid avoiding.  Stretch yourself to do the thing that is making you anxious or bored or uncomfortable, and practice just tolerating the discomfort.  Remind yourself that while you’re learning new skills it’s better to stay and be bad at it than leave.  

Freeze:  The gut reaction to stress for freezers is to just stop.  

• At low levels this can look like pausing and catching your breath, so to speak, before continuing forward.  

• But if ramped up, you can’t think clearly or keep things in perspective.  You may even feel sort of paralyzed.  

There are two flavors of freezing, perfectionist and apathetic:

• When perfectionists, or those with high (often unrealistic) expectations of themselves, get overwhelmed they may think the counsel “work harder, serve more, do better,” is directed at them.  But those strategies will actually backfire. Instead, these folks need to decrease the pressure on themselves by embracing failure without shame, rewarding effort over outcome, and by intentionally building in breaks, silliness, and fun.  

• Folks who do not care enough and are checked out can also appear “frozen” in inaction. They naturally gravitate to the advice to relax and have more fun.  But this type of frozen actually needs clearer hooks connecting them to why they want to be here, more specific goals, and some gentle nudging or downright pushing in order to get active and more engaged.  

Both types can benefit from breaking down tasks, or time, into smaller chunks.

Under stress:

• Fighters might argue or buck the rules. 

  
  

• Fleers may find themselves unmotivated and just wanting to give up. 

  
  

• Freezers may get to the point where they feel so paralyzed in facing stressors that even getting out of bed is hard.

Any of these can be misunderstood as rebellious disobedience, laziness, or a lack of faith.  Actually, these may just be symptoms of an overloaded brain trying to manage stress. 

Okay, so how do we work with our brain to better tolerate stress?

When overloaded, our instinct is to get rid of the thing stressing us out!  Sometimes that’s possible - but often you can’t get rid of stressors, you have to learn to tolerate them.  Here’s 4 tips on how:  

1) Put words on it.  When emotionally resilient people are under stress, they use words to describe what they are experiencing.  That seems weird, right?  Why would that help?  

Let’s go back to the brain.

The deepest, primitive, not-so-nuanced part of our brain reacts to stress instinctively with fight/flight/freeze, and we lose the creative problem solving and empathic thinking of our higher brain.  It turns out, since this higher brain is also the brain's language center, simply describing our stressful experience in words actually gets our higher brain back on line.  This higher brain is much better at keeping things in perspective and at being emotionally resilient to stress, so just putting our stressful experience into words actually helps us tolerate stress better.

Let’s do it:

• Which is most helpful for me as I try to put words to a stressful experience:  Talking to a friend?  Journaling?  Prayer?  Writing an email or letter?  

• When I feel stressed out, what sensations happen in my body?  What emotions arise?  What thoughts come to mind that let me know I’m overwhelmed?  Am I in fight, flee, or freeze brain?

• Can I name what is making me angry, overwhelmed, scared, or wanting to quit?  Is there something I can do to change that situation?  If this stressor isn’t going to change, what can I do to change my approach or attitude towards it?  What skills do I need to help me manage this stress better? 

2) Calm down your body.  It’s not just your brain that reacts to stress overload, if your body perceives danger or threat, a whole host of alarms go off in your physical system.  These include muscle tension, GI issues, changes in breathing patterns, and increased heart rate.  In the short term, these reactions prepare your body to fight or flee from a stressor. 

But if your body stays in this hyper alert mode too long, it actually tires us out and erodes our ability to tolerate stress.  Emotional resilience means not running your body on stress unnecessarily, and calming your body down after a stressful event so it can recover.  

Let’s do it: 

• Am I getting myself to bed on time and up in the morning? Am I eating in a way that gives me sustainable energy?  Am I exercising in a way that works for my body?  

• Can I recognize the signs that my body is tired, dehydrated, or hungry?  

• What activities work best to calm my body when I’m stressed out?  Vigorous exercise?  Gentle walking?  Being in nature?  Stretching & yoga?  Meditation?  Prayer?  Deep breathing?  Drinking cold water?  Drinking hot chocolate?  Wrapping up in a blanket and resting?   

3)  Calm down your thoughts.  Negative or distorted thinking is a pretty normal reaction to stress.  We may notice ourselves jumping to worst case scenarios, beating ourselves up for not being good enough, dwelling on ours or others shortcomings, or having difficulty keeping things in perspective.  

We have 3 helpful options when we recognize such thought patterns.  

1. Talk back to the negative thinking with the kind of positive, affirming assurances that a really good friend would offer.  Challenge any distorted thinking.

2. Consider this thought storm to be like a rainstorm - not necessarily a problem in need of fixing, and nothing to be afraid of or take too seriously.  It will pass.  

3. Try to “change the channel” in your brain by very consciously focussing on gratitude when negative thinking creeps up.  

Let’s do it:

• Just like I notice, but delete, “spam” email, can I notice, then let go of, negative thoughts?  When distorted thoughts appear, can I acknowledge that they’re not telling me the full story, or do I believe their negative messages?    

• Is there a pattern or theme to my negative thinking?  What could I say that would be more compassionate and truthful to “talk back” to recurring distorted thoughts?  Who could give my advice on what to say to myself when such negative thinking pops up?

• How could I incorporate more gratitude into my thinking?

4)  Have clear core values.  Emotionally resilient people know what their core values are and refer to them as they’re making decisions.  A core value is a central defining principle that guides you.  Healthy living could be a core value.  Or kindness.  Or adventure!  Usually we have 2-5 core values that especially shape who we are and the kind of life we want to have. 

For example, I’m guessing one of Nephi’s core values was “joy.”  (2 Nephi 2:25)  And it’s probably fair to say that two of Christ’s core values were “love God” and “love your neighbor.”  (Mark 12:30-31) 

When you’re aligned with your core values, you’re more invested and resilient to the inevitable frustrations of life.  Identifying and working towards short term goals aligned with your values can also help your day to day activities feel more meaningful.  

Let’s do it:

• What are 1-3 of my core values?  If I was really behaving in alignment with that core value, what would I be doing differently right now?

• What are some goals that I could work on today, or this week, that are aligned with my values?

• Is my time spent manifesting one of my core values?  Which one?  

Final advice

Stress brings our skill deficits to the surface.  That’s normal!  Exposing those weaknesses is not a problem, it allows you to see yourself with more clarity and is a sign of growth.     

I had a friend who was called to serve as a mission president's wife.  Determined to give her very best, she bent over backward trying to be the perfect stereotypical “mission mom.”  And she was miserable.  Only a few months into the assignment she was incredibly discouraged as she battled to overcome her increasingly visible weaknesses.  Repeated prayers gradually led to a beautiful personal revelation from God:  “I didn’t call you here to overcome your weaknesses.  I called you here for your strengths.”  Instead of trying to be someone she wasn’t, this insight allowed her to concentrate on how her unique talents and gifts could bless her mission. 

Look for your strengths!  And find creative ways to use those talents.

Similarly, focus on seeing, and magnifying, the strengths in your family, co-workers, and ward members.  We each have an important place in God’s family and in building Zion.  

Core Values Exercise:  

Circle 10 values that especially resonate with you.  From those, pull out 1-3 Core Values that you want to prioritize.  How can you orient yourself around those core values?

Accountability Achievement Adaptability Adventure Altruism Ambition Authenticity Balance Beauty Being the best Belonging Career Caring Charity Christ-like  Collaboration Commitment Community Compassion Competence Confidence Connection Contentment Contribution Cooperation Courage Covenants Creativity Curiosity Dignity Discipleship Diversity Divine nature Environment

Efficiency Equality Ethics Excellence Financial stability Forgiveness Fairness Faith Family Freedom Fitness Friendship Fun Future generation Generosity Giving back Good works Grace Gratitude Growth Happiness Harmony Health Helping Home Honesty Hope Humility Humor Inclusion Independence Initiative Integrity Intuition

Job security Joy Justice Kindness Knowledge Leadership Learning Legacy Leisure Love Loving God Loving my neighbor Loyalty Making a difference Meekness Nature Obedience  Openness Optimism Order Parenting Patience Patriotism Peace Peacemaking Perseverance Personal fulfillment Power Pride Priesthood Recognition Reliability Resourcefulness Respect

Responsibility Righteousness Risk-taking Safety Security Self-discipline Self-expression Self-respect Serenity Service Simplicity Spirituality Sportsmanship Stewardship Success Teamwork Temple Thrift Time Tradition Travel Trust Truth Understanding Uniqueness Usefulness Vision Vulnerability Wealth Well-being Wonder/awe Wholeheartedness Zion Another not listed:

If this sparked ideas for you, but you're wondering where to start, I can help! We can identify and challenge the negative thinking unique to you, teach your body how to stay calm under stress, and figure out how to stay in alignment with your core values.

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