Ep #78: How to Identify Stress + Learn to Cope

[music] Welcome to Co-Parenting with Confidence, a podcast for those courageous moms out there who want to move past the conflict and frustration of divorce and show up as the mom they truly want to be. My name is Mikki Gardner. I'm a certified life and conscious parenting coach, with my own personal dose of co-parenting experience. Throughout my co-parenting journey, I have learned to become confident in who I am as a woman and a mother, and I'm here to help you do the same. If you're ready to learn what it takes to become a great co-parent and an amazing example to your children, well, get ready and let's dive into today's episode. [music] I've a question for you, friends. Do you feel overwhelmed the majority of the time, maybe in your co-parenting, maybe just in life, at work? Do you feel like you've gotten so used to stress that that's just the way that you live now, that you need it to thrive? Do you have physical and persistent aches and pains and ailments that you just can't get rid of no matter what you seem to try? Well, I want you to keep listening if you answered yes to any of those, because this is an episode for you. Last episode, we talked a lot about sort of de-stressing and different ways we can do that and we're gonna continue on, because periods of stress are completely normal, but there are times and events in life where stress is like on steroids, and divorce and co-parenting is one of them. And when all of the stress is left unmanaged and unchecked, we just get more stressed, right? And it has devastating effects on our mind, on our body, and our parenting and our co-parenting. That's why I'm dedicating an entire month to talking about it. It is a big topic, and I'm gonna take each week a different way to look at stress and how you can manage it. But before we dive into today's episode, I wanna invite you personally to a special workshop that I'm hosting on Monday, April 24th. It is all about de-stressing your co-parenting, and it is designed to help stressed out moms learn simple and effective skills to reduce her stress in co-parenting and feel more confident without needing the other co-parent to change. There's a link in the show notes for you to sign up, or you can just go to my website, mikkigardner.com/workshop. I really hope to see you there. But let's dive into today's episode. Stress is a given. Stress is something that happens, and it can actually, in small amounts, be really good and motivating for us. But large amounts of stress are not good for us. They actually have debilitating effects. There are so many daily challenges that cause stress. Sitting in traffic, trying to get your kids out the door, meeting deadlines, paying your bills. All of this, for a normal human, can push us past our ability to cope when we don't know how to manage it. Well, then add on divorce, pain, co-parenting, conflict, and we are upping the ante and the stress. And so when you don't have the proper skills and tools to manage it, it becomes extremely difficult. And that's what I wanna talk about today. I went to the Mayo Clinic to see what they had to say about stress. And what they talked about is that the brain is hard-wired with an alarm system that's there for your protection. Every time that it perceives a threat, it sends a signal to our body to release a burst of hormones to increase your heart rate. And then it's gonna raise your blood pressure. This is that fight or flight response that fuels us to deal with the threat. But once that threat is gone, our body is actually meant to return to normal, that normal, relaxed state. But unfortunately, this non-stop complication of modern life of all the things I just described, of the demands and all of the expectations that we hold, sometimes mean that some of our alarm systems don't get shut off properly. When those aren't getting shut off, we are living in a state of continuous stress. That stress is the reactivity that we talk so much about here on this podcast. And so what I wanted to talk about today is really what is going on and how we can learn to manage the stress in a different way to help our mind and body adapt. Because without that, we're always on high alert. And over time, that leads to significant health problems, but it leads to significant problems in our parenting, in our co-parenting. I know that many of you are gonna be able to relate to this because it feels like a constant state of vigilance, like you have to have your guard up all the time. And that comes from when we are under extreme stress and conflict with the other co-parent, or sometimes it comes when we're triggered over and over and over by the same thing, but we can't seem to get past it. All of these things are stress responses. And again, it's like the little system in our brain just wasn't able to shut down properly. And there are so many impacts of stress on our mind, on our body, on our emotions, and then on our co-parenting. When we live in this survival mode, it has massive impacts on our body. But it also keeps us in this high alert where our emotions are always really, really heightened, which means that our rational mind isn't always on track, which leads us to react a lot more. It shows up by making decisions that maybe we regret, or adding more mess to clean up later. When we're in high states of stress all the time, being triggered by conflict, it's bringing up a lot of wounds, old emotional wounds that maybe haven't been healed. But our decisions are being made from that place in that moment, and that is not where we wanna make our decisions from. It keeps us stuck in a high-anxiety state, worrying about decisions and uncertainty. And then over time, we are completely exhausted and depleted. We get stuck in the loneliness, and we get stuck in a pattern of resentment and blame. So how does stress really impact us? I think it's important for us to hear these things, because oftentimes, we think we can just manage the stress or it's not that bad. But I wanna go through some of the things that the Mayo Clinic laid out because I think it helps to be able to identify how much stress are we really under. So, some of the impacts that you will find on your body are headaches, muscle tension or pain, chest pain, fatigue, change in your sex drive, stomach upset, and sleep problems. I know, for myself, there's a few of those boxes I have experienced. And there's a lot of impacts on your mood, anxiety, restlessness, lack of motivation or focus, feeling overwhelmed, irritability or anger, and sadness or depression. And then there's also a lot of impact that stress plays on your behavior. Stress can cause you to overeat or undereat. It can cause angry outbursts. It can cause us to misuse drugs or alcohol or tobacco. It also can cause us to socially withdraw, or exercising less often. These are all ways that it shows up. And so if you have any of the physiological signs of stress, I want you to at least acknowledge it to yourself. Because in the end of this episode, we're gonna talk about ways that you can start to assess where you are as it relates to stress. But those physiological signs of stress, again, some basic ones that I see all of the time with my clients, change in sleep patterns, headaches, a change in your appetite, feeling exhausted, muscle tension, upset stomach. Listen, these things are there as signals. It's not there to hurt you; it's simply saying that You are misaligned, that you are under extreme stress, and we need to address that. Now, I can think of so many of my clients that exhibit many of these signs, the not sleeping, the headaches, the upset stomach. That's a big one. The feeling completely exhausted. Or the muscle tension. When we have just one of these, we might wanna say, "Oh, it's just... It's something that happened," or "I slept wrong," or any of those kind of things, sort of ignoring them or just pushing it aside, when really, it's your body's way of saying it needs help, that the stress is getting to it, that it needs to be able to shut down that little alarm system so that your body can get back to that normal, more stress-free existence, because that is where we're meant to be. So there's different ways of managing stress, and we're gonna talk about a few of them. But a lot of it just is looking like regular physical activity, practicing relaxation techniques, spending time with friends and family, setting aside time for things that fill your soul up, and keeping a sense of humor. Because when we're under extreme stress, I noticed that, for sure, me, I go to a very negative place. I don't find humor and a lot of things. My normal sort of lightness is gone, and I feel very heavy. I feel very constricted. So I wonder, for you, what is it that you feel when you know that you're under stress? What are those ways that your body is trying to send you a signal that you need help, that you need to manage your stress? And a lot of times, we don't even know how stressed out we are. We've learned to accept it. We've gotten so used to it that it's just become the normal. It's like bad behavior with the other co-parent. Sometimes when we're so used to it, we just kind of accept it as, "Well, it's just the way that it is." But that doesn't mean that it's right, and it doesn't mean that we have to tolerate it. And we certainly don't wanna normalize it. And when we aren't aware of what is stressing us out or not even aware that we're in a high-stress situation, we're not able to normalize it and we're not able to become aware, and as you know, awareness is always the first step to change. I think back to one of my clients who have gone through a really difficult divorce, who had two kids, one of which had medical issues. And her financial situation changed significantly after the divorce. She just wanted to get divorced. She just wanted to get out of the situation that she was in. It was very toxic. It was verbally abusive. It was very difficult, and she just wanted out. And so, during the divorce, she didn't fight for what she needed, but more, she was focused on just getting out and reducing the conflict, so she agreed to a lot of things that long-term were not in her best interest. So by the time that she found me and we were working together, she was in a very difficult financial situation because her ex, he was still doing great, but she had agreed to a lot of things in the divorce. And she's not the only one. I see this over and over. Women just wanting to get away from the situation that they're in, not wanting to create more conflict, not wanting to make it harder or have to deal with their shenanigans. So they just kind of say, "Okay. I'll figure it out. I'll make it work." But what they end up doing is putting themselves in an intensely stressful situation, because maybe they weren't working, maybe they didn't have the income during the marriage to be able to manage all of this. So then they find themselves divorced with the children, and now solely responsible for many or all of the expenses. And this creates intense stress. Financial stress is definitely one of the top things that causes issues in marriage, in adulting, in co-parenting. Money can be a huge stressor. So I know, for this client, the stress was really getting to her, because she was always in this intense fight or flight state. She was always flooded with stress hormones. And when we're in that state, we're not thinking clearly. And so she would tend to make decisions that in the short term, seemed okay, but long-term, they were not serving her. So she was just adding more and more problems, more and more mess to clean up later, found herself in difficult relationships that she sort of got into because financially it seemed like a better decision. But they were not better decisions. It was just a self-fulfilling prophecy that continued to deepen the situation because the stress was so high. I wonder if you can see yourself in any part of her story. I know that I can. And when we aren't managing our stress and we're just living under it, we're not thriving; we're simply surviving. And there's different kinds of stress, and therefore, there's different kinds of managing it. And each of us has our own unique way of dealing with it. Some of us are internalizers, and some of us are externalizers. An internalizer really means that you'll tend to implode on yourself. When you get really highly stressed, you might blame or shame yourself while all is smooth on the surface. This can be a really insidious way of dealing with stress, because it goes unnoticed and it leads to burnout. When we internalize it, we're really setting ourselves up for just more stress, because we're cutting ourselves off from all the things that can help us to actually reduce our stress. Maybe you're an externalizer. This is somebody who might explode on to others. Maybe you blame and shame others while they run for cover. And externalizers out themselves very quickly, because there's a lot of collateral damage. You know when these are coming. And we know when we are one, because we are offloading all of our stress unto others, and there is always a wake of mess after that. And listen, we're not saying any of this to blame or shame anyone. We all have stress. And when we're not proactively coping with it, you run the risk of bringing it into your family, into your co-parenting, into your parenting. Internalizers will bury their stress, often suffering and silent until they get to a breaking point and they can't take it anymore. Externalizers will spread their stress across everybody, and it becomes everybody's problem, and sometimes we're a little mix of both. Again, there's no shame or blaming here. But what we wanna do is start to get curious, start to look at the ways that we might be under high stress, or even look back at times in our lives when we were very stressed. There are times, certainly divorce is one of those intensely stressful times, times of financial uncertainty can be extremely stressful, job change, moving. Any of these things can be times of stress, and so we can look back and gain awareness on how did I handle these things? How did I show up? Because that might give you some indication of what you need to be working on now. So there are effective and ineffective ways to manage our stress. Some effective ways are meditating, living a healthy lifestyle, including exercise, eating healthy, sleeping. Also, connecting with others is a great way to manage stress, because we feel less alone. And also seeking professional help is so key in high-stress times, because often, we're in it because we don't know how to manage it in a way that we can cope with it. Then there are a lot of ineffective ways to deal with stress, things like too much sleeping or not enough, eating too much or too little, increasing screen time, or taking our stress out on other people. All of those can be really ineffective ways. We all have stress, and it is a state of physical, mental and emotional strain. And it's caused by circumstances that are happening, demands and situations, and significant life changes. And yes, it can be beneficial, but when it's chronic and ongoing, it can undermine every part of life. The Mental Health Foundation says that 74% of people feel so stressed, they have been overwhelmed or unable to cope. And I know that co-parents feel this all the more, because after divorce and getting into co-parenting, it is one of the most stressful experiences we can go through. So if I could only offer you a couple of ways to really help manage your stress, I'm gonna say them on each of these episodes. But physical exercise is really key, because getting outside, getting some fresh air, doing just a light walk, even around just a nightly stroll, can help so much. Living a healthier lifestyle is so, so crucial, from a healthy diet to just drinking more water and making sure that we're giving our body everything that it needs. But connecting with others is a huge way to reduce stress. And that's why I wanted to create the workshop so that we can all get together and do this in community. Because when we're talking about a problem, it can help start to break it down into smaller chunks so we stop feeling so overwhelmed and it can lighten our load. When we feel like there's others who have experienced this, too, and are going through this, we feel calmer and our stress is reduced. And seeking professional help is never weak. It is the most courageous thing you can do. Talking with a professional, whether that's a therapist, whether that's your doctor, whether that's a coach like me, talking with a professional about the difficulties you're experiencing can help you understand what is really going on underneath, what those underlying issues are that are causing your stress, so that you can find ways to manage it, so that you can find ways to cope with it so that it is not impacting your parenting or your co-parenting long-term. Listen, mamas, I know life is stressful. And I know that co-parenting can be so difficult and so lonely and feel like you don't know where to go. But just this week, what I want you to do is just notice when you are stressed. Maybe it's a trigger, maybe you're just feeling any of those physiological signs we mentioned. But I want you to look at it and just notice what was going on, and maybe write these things down. I want you to keep a little bit of a log so that you have awareness. But notice, what was the situation that was happening? How was I feeling about it, physically and emotionally? What was going on in my body at that time, and what did I do? Again, zero judgment. It's just starting to understand, what do I do when I'm stressed? How do I typically react? Because when we start to understand that, we can start to figure out what do we need to cope and move forward differently. And the last thing that I wanna tell you, in case nobody else tells you this today, that I want you to know that you are 100% loved and worthy and deserving of a joy-filled, stress-free life. Okay, maybe not stress-free, but definitely less stress. You don't have to go on this journey all by yourself, dealing with everything all by yourself. And the great news is is that you already have everything inside of you to be able to handle whatever comes your way and for you to live the most extraordinary version of your life. It's all about you learning how to believe that, uncover what you have already within you, and start acting on it in a way that serves you. And part of this is learning how to de-stress so that we aren't in a fight or flight state, we aren't in a survival state, but you are in a state to thrive, where you can start to really show up for yourself, for your kiddos, and for the life that you want to create. It is 100% possible for you. I know this. And I just want you to remember that I know this to be true about you, and you are loved, and you are worthy, and you are deserving of all of the wonderful things. So until next week, I want you to take a really, really good care of you, friend, and just notice, when are you getting stressed and start to build that picture of where you need support so that you can support yourself through that. Thanks for being here. If you know someone who could use this message, I'd be so grateful if you share with them, and I'll see you next week. [music] Thanks for listening to Co-Parenting with Confidence. If you want more information or resources from this podcast, visit coparentingwithconfidence.com. I'll see you next week. [music]