Ep 191: How to Stay Calm in Stressful Situations

It's about having the clarity , self-confidence and unstoppable belief to go after and get everything you want . If you'll come with me , I'll show you how Well . Hello friends . I hope you had an amazing week . Today . I want to talk about something that I think everyone is going to find useful .

I think we all need it at times , and I'm going to call it emotional self-regulation . It's a very long clinical term , you know . Psychology also calls it self-soothing .

I think a lot of times when you think about self-soothing , we think about it from the importance of teaching a child how to self-soothe , so not throwing tantrums , or they're learning how to calm themselves down .

We actually , as adults , need the same thing , especially at midlife , when there is a lot of things that can start piling on top of each other until it just all starts to feel too much .

You know , and psychology defines self-soothing as an emotional regulation strategy that you use to regain equilibrium after an upsetting event or , I think you know , even during , there are some little neuroscience-based hacks that you can use to retake control of your brain during a triggering event .

So I kind of want to talk about the range of things that you might encounter first , and then I want to talk about some different ways to think about handling those events so that you are in charge , because when we're in the middle of a triggering event , we are not in charge from a neurological functioning perspective .

I don't know if you've seen this meme , but I think this meme describes it very well . I actually think it's funny . It says never in the history of calming down has anyone calmed down by being told to calm down . I don't know if you can relate to that , but I can right . It's like imagine something has just triggered you at work .

Maybe it's not end of the world stuff , but it's just you know that person that's always grating on your nerves or whatever you know spouts off in that meeting and you feel very triggered and you're sort of letting off steam with another coworker or whatever and they tell you to calm down . It doesn't calm you down .

The reason it doesn't calm you down is because when we're triggered Because when we're triggered and I would say the more I don't know severe the triggering event , or maybe it's lots of different things piling on top of each other .

The more severe that event is , the less our executive functioning part of our brain is in charge , meaning the prefrontal cortex of our brain , the front part of from an anatomical perspective , the front part of our head or our brain is the newest part of our brain , it's the prefrontal cortex . It's the part that sets us apart from other mammals .

We have that they don't , and that's the part that's in charge of reasoning . And that's why that meme is sort of universally funny , it's like , because when we've been triggered and we're feeling that emotional overload associated with that trigger , the front part of our brain that's responsible for reasoning is not the part that's in charge .

The part that's been triggered is the primitive part of our brain which , anatomically speaking , is all the way in the back of our brain , near the brain stem .

It's the oldest part of our brain , the part that's been around since the dawn of man , since cavemen wandered the planet the dawn of man , since cavemen wander the planet and it's the part that kept them alive .

That fight or flight response , that immediate , overly emotional response to a triggering event for them might have been seeing the lion and thinking run right . So it's like danger , you know , and that was the part of their brain that got triggered and they responded to it and hopefully made it back to the cave safely .

That is the same part of our brain that we're dealing with when there are things going on . So someone who's not triggered telling you calmly to calm down doesn't help , right , I don't know about you , but it only makes it worse .

So today on this podcast , I want to talk about some strategies that you could use from a psychological perspective to prepare for a triggering event , and I would say there are a range of triggering events that could happen and that do happen to us . So I would say , at one end of the spectrum is , I don't know , just the bad meeting . Think about that .

Whether it's your boss giving you some challenging feedback on a project or something , or whether it's a meeting that you're in charge of , that doesn't go the way you were hoping it was going to go , or you know , at the other end of the spectrum are just kind of the big life things that can happen , especially at midlife .

Right , we lose our job , maybe there's a bad health diagnosis in the family .

Maybe something happens to someone in the family that's I don't know , dangerous , unfortunate , whatever , and maybe sometimes it's the piling on of many of those things , or it could even just be dealing with life , so like trying to keep up with the pace of what for many of us at midlife is a more stressful job .

We have more responsibility , so there's a lot more that we have to bring to the table in order just to deal with the day-to-day . So if that's more challenging than usual , and maybe you still have children in the home and maybe you're still caring for elderly parents or something like that , it's just .

Sometimes it's like life is just too much right , and when you feel triggered in that way , you stop being able to .

That way , you stop being able to rationally control your response or even think about the situation calmly and rationally , and instead you've moved into the stress response , the fight or flight mode , and you don't want that part of the brain being responsible for how you handle things .

So I kind of want to talk about two different scenarios on this episode , and one is the one end of the spectrum where it isn't the end of the world . There's something triggering and unpleasant and just an episode let's call it an episode going on where you definitely feel triggered , but it's just one event .

But even with just one event , your primitive brain is still in charge .

So we'll talk about that one first , and then on the other end of the spectrum , what I want to talk about is when life has piled on layers of stresses , where there's just a series of different things that are going wrong right now , and how do you prepare for that and how do you deal through that right ?

So we'll talk about those two things and I would say the process for dealing with them is the same . It's a three-step process , but the toolkit that you would use for those two different things are different . So the three steps that you use , no matter which end of the spectrum you're dealing with , in terms of difficulty , are number one , pause .

Number two , assess , and number three , self-soothe . So let's talk about those three things and then what I'll do is I'll give you kind of the toolkit for each of the ends of the spectrum .

So the first thing is that when there's stuff going on in your life whether it's an in the moment argument with your partner , whether it's at the bad meeting at work , or whether it's just life piling on the problems . You have to be in touch with your emotional state . That's the key .

I'm trained in a CBT a cognitive behavioral therapy approach to coaching , which is all about thought regulation , and I'm 100% a believer in the CBT stuff . I do think it's foundational to a well-lived

life . But the truth of the matter is , when you're in a moment that is 100% emotional , very few of us are capable of grabbing a rational thought and like pivoting out . We can teach ourselves how to do that , but the way to do it that , I think , is foolproof is to be very , very in touch with your emotions , with your emotions .

So it does require you to have the self-awareness to think that you can feel an emotion rising up in you and you're aware that it's not a good one . It could be impatience , it could be anger , it could be frustration , it could be like anything on the more negative end of the spectrum .

What we don't want to do when we're triggered is we don't want to just lash out . Whether it's at our partner , at our child , at an aging parent , at someone at work , it doesn't help . It only throws gasoline on an inferno on an inferno . It's best to calm yourself , and the first step to doing that is to pause .

Pause before the words fly out of your mouth , right . Pause before you respond , in an automatic way that's driven by the reptilian brain . Pause before you lash out . And the way you do that is you get very in touch with your emotional state .

So all you have to know is okay , I'm super pissed , or okay , that's irritating , or okay , I can't have this conversation for the 1000th time . Before you respond , if you're having the feelings of Anything on the more negative end of the spectrum , you need to pause .

Give yourself a timeout If you can remove yourself from the situation and if you can't , like if you're in the middle of a meeting , I'll give you some hacks to deal with in a minute , because there is an in the moment thing you can do . That is very , very useful and it works every single time .

It'll allow you to kind of grab back control of your brain , but we'll come back to that in a minute . So that's pause . You have to give yourself a beat , at least , hopefully a day or even an hour .

But if you can't leave a meeting or you're in the moment with your spouse and they won't let you leave , or whatever it's like , you have to give yourself a very quick neurological timeout and say , okay , don't let the words leave the mouth Pause for a second , because this isn't going to be good if I just respond automatically .

This means you're kind of taking a minute to get ahead of that automatic response in the body . You know the , you know fight or flight kind of thing . You want to be in control . Number two , the assess part , is one that can only be done , I think , when you can have .

You can remove yourself from the situation for a minute , because that one is about asking yourself what's real and really working on what's real versus what's you , maybe adding your own biases or filters to it based on previous interactions with the person or previous things that were said . You're piling on versus maybe responding to what's happening in the minute .

I think a lot of arguments between couples are far more about everything else that's gone on than they are about the thing they're arguing about . Right then , that's been my experience . So giving yourself a beat to pull away and do some thought-based work .

This , like I said , will not work in the moment when you're in the argument or when you're in the meeting , but if you can take a minute , whether it's half an hour or a day . I do recommend that you do a thought download for the assess part and I've talked about this before on the podcast , but I'll describe what it is now really fast .

It is a way to take the situation and put it at the top of the page . It can be hard to make it fact-based , but try to just take all of the adjectives out of the phrase and say what happened . Like if somebody said something to you , write down the quote . Don't add words to it . Write down what they said Exactly Jenny said . Insert .

Quote I hate the dress you're wearing , or whatever they said . I don't know what they said . Write that down . Or if it's the doctor called and the diagnosis is , insert the diagnosis . Or lost my job today , that kind of thing . Facts only , not my horrible boss fired me , or you know that's full of your own biases . Like , try to keep it to the facts .

Put that at the top of the page . And then I want you to look at that sentence , whatever's there , whether it's a quote of something someone said to you or a health diagnosis or something an event has happened . I want you to write down everything that is in your mind , everything that you're thinking about that .

I want you to write it down on the page , and my rules for that are one sentence per line . Don't write a big long paragraph . One sentence per line and just keep writing . Keep writing until you're done and when you think there's nothing more to say , I want you to ask yourself what else ?

Is there anything else that I'm thinking right now and write it all down . You're trying to basically do the mental equivalent of taking a wet dishcloth and wringing all of the excess water out of it . You're trying to take every thought from your head related to that thing and putting it down on paper , because that's going to allow you to assess .

You can look at all of the things that are written down there when you're done and ask yourself which ones are true and which ones are your emotional response based on your own biases , previous experience with that person , whatever , and the reason why that's important is that part of what happens when we just feel like it's all too much is there's just this

piling up of things and we end up in this place emotionally where we feel overwhelmed , and we feel overwhelmed really because of the types of thoughts we're having . I don't want to digress too much , but I think this is helpful . It was probably I guess it was June of 2022 through April of 2023 .

I went through a lot . I started a new job in a new industry while I was still growing my coaching business as the entertainment industry and I'm very passionate about films . So when they called about this opportunity , I could not say no . So I decided to do it , and a week later my brother called and my mom had fallen .

My parents were elderly They've both since passed , so you kind of know where this is headed and she was 87 . And my dad was 90 . And I'm a third of four children .

So , anyway , while she was in the hospital she had a stroke and then that started a eight month thing of each of the four of us took a week , because I live across the country from where they live and so does my younger sister . Only my brother was in the same city and my other sister lived a couple hours away .

We each took a week of the month and we rotated and went there to care for them in their home and my dad had some cognitive decline because he was 90 and she was not Alzheimer's , but just not able to be by himself , and so she was his caretaker , and then we learned that summer that she was dying of terminal cancer , which is actually what caused the stroke

. So it was a lot you can imagine .

So there was a lot of things and on any one day , depending on if I was there caring for them or if I was dealing with whatever at work , it just felt like there were times where I was like , okay , this is officially too much , like I cannot , and the flights were such in the US that summer of the summer of 2022 , they were just canceled all the time .

All the time , every weekend . You heard about thousands of canceled flights and I couldn't . If I had to be there that weekend , I could not just not show up , like we all four of us my siblings have a life , you know , and we had to be there for my parents . So it was just I had a drive , and that's a nine and a half if you're speeding .

So it was just I had a drive , and that's a nine and a half , if you're speeding , should be a 10 hour drive there and without really stopping much , and it was a lot to deal with , and so I had to have a way of dealing with all of those different things so that I could keep going and not completely , you know , nuke my own emotional well-being or you

know the way I was taking care of myself physically or whatever it was . Just it was really , really hard , and that's a lot of what I'm talking about is , like you know , these downloads can help you sort through , and I did them all the time , because it's very easy to tell yourself things that just aren't true .

You could tell yourself I can't do this anymore , this is too hard . Well , that's not a helpful thought . You know why ? Because it's not going to empower you to actually do the things you need to do , which is deal with your day-to-day .

When I was in Dallas , I had to do that , which was adjusting to a new job and managing the rest of my life and controlling the stressors that came in on a daily basis about the state of my parents' health , right , and then me , every four weeks , driving to St Louis and back to take care of my ailing parents . That's what I'm talking about .

I had to choose very specific thoughts when I could catch myself feeling overwhelmed , which I did , I chose very , very specific thoughts on how to deal with this , and my go-to thought at the time was this is a lot , but I choose to be there for my parents right now , and so that kept me going . That was my North Star .

It was like , yeah , yes to all of the scary thoughts about I don't know where this is headed . This is too much I can't deal with . Yes to all of the scary thoughts about I don't know where this is headed . This is too much I can't deal with . Yes to all of that .

That is very much how I feel , but I'm going to anchor myself back to what is true for me , which is this is a lot , but I choose to be there for my parents . That's what I mean about the thought download . I could see all of the words on the page . This is too much , I can't deal with it .

I need to go back to my old job , because dealing with all this crap on top of this new job is too much . I need to find a nurse who can take my week . I can't be there right .

So it's like and none of that was going to serve me and I was able to handle it get through and make a huge success out of my first year at that company in the new industry and get promoted and be there for both of my parents until their end , and that was for me even now .

I knew at the time I did not want to have that regret that I wanted to be there for them when they needed me in the way they were there for me when I needed them when I was a child and there was just nothing that was going to interfere with that . So that's what I mean by the assess phase .

I want you to do the thought download , just as I indicated , because it is very revealing . You suddenly learn exactly why you're feeling those negative emotions of overwhelm or agitation or anger or frustration or irritate , whatever they are .

You'll see it in the sentences that you write down and that is very revealing Learning that , oh , this emotion of it's all just too much wasn't caused by the thing going on or the things going on . It's caused by what you're thinking about , the things going on .

So , like my example of what I shared , of my anchor thought that I went to in that time with my parents and the new job and all the stuff I chose , that thought it was true , it was a hundred percent true . You know it was . Yeah , this is a lot , but I'm going to be there for my parents right now .

What emotion do you think that engendered in me ? Determination , commitment . It didn't deny that it was just a lot of stuff . It didn't deny any of the other things I wrote down , which were all like this is too hard , I can't do it . I did feel that way , but if I had anchored to those thoughts , I would not have been able to do what I did .

It is 100% your choice what you choose to think , but the only way you can get there during times when there's a lot going on is by using a tool like a thought download that will allow you to sort through and say , well , none of these things are going to allow me to respond to this situation in a way that's helpful , and so you have to kind of decide

what would , what could I think about this thing that will allow me to respond to it with neutrality or from the best possible perspective , the most empowering perspective . Right , that is critical to put yourself in charge . So that's I just described number one , which was pause , take a minute .

Number two if you can remove yourself for 30 minutes an hour a day , do the thought download , do the assessment . And then number three is self-soothe , and that is about a predetermined technique that you can use . There are many , many , many of them , but I'm going to share two techniques on this episode that you can use .

One technique is for the in the moment thing , where you're in the meeting , you're in the middle of the argument and you can't remove yourself , right , so you can't do the thought , download , you can't . You're sitting there , right . I'm going to give you a technique for that .

And then I'm going to give you a technique for what do you do if you can give yourself a little time , a little beat ?

So if you're in the moment scenario number one if you're sitting in the meeting and the meeting's not going well I don't know about you , but I've had many of those meetings , right and or you're in the middle of an argument with your Maybe you're trying to respond back in what you hope is a reasoned way to the person . It's still not going well , right .

One of the best things to do is to do a kind of a neuro hack . This is a neuroscience based thing , and what I like to do in the moment is you want to basically shift the function of your brain from the fight or flight , you can feel that negative emotion welling up . You know that the reptilian part of your brain is taking over .

What you want to do is grab back control of your thoughts so you can use the prefrontal cortex in the front , the executive function , and choose a more reasoned way to respond to the situation . And the way to do that is if you're in the middle of that argument or difficult meeting , that argument or difficult meeting , and you feel the negative emotion rising .

Take a beat , and it doesn't take any more than 10 seconds , 15 seconds , and I want you to . As soon as you think okay , I'm starting to get pissed here or I can't have this argument again , or whatever it is you're thinking , whether you catch a negative thought or you catch your emotion rising , either one .

I want you to immediately shift your attention to the weight of your feet on the floor . If you crossed your legs , uncross your legs , feel your feet on the floor Just for 5-10 seconds , focused on how your feet feel in your shoes , and think about how they feel sitting on the floor .

I know it sounds really weird , but all you're doing is you are taking back control . So every beat you spend thinking about your feet on the floor .

You are not thinking about I'm going to tell this person to go to hell or whatever it is you want to tell them , right , and it gives you a moment to decide something to say that , I think , ideally buys you some time , because I still think you haven't had a chance to sort through it and I think you need to go through the assessment phase .

So if you can like , if you're in the moment business meeting , you can say something like you know what ? I think we need to take this offline , like let me look into that a little bit more and I'll set up a follow up , or I'll get back to you with XYZ whatever it is , you know , because maybe you could say I don't have all the information .

Whatever it is that gives you time to go away . Do the thorough kind of assessment of what they actually said . What are they pushing back on ? Is it real or , and do you actually need to respond to what they're saying ? Or , you know , is it just old baggage , either on your part or their part , and then you can go back to them with rational .

Same thing , for if you're in an in the moment argument with your partner , it's like you can just say you know what ? I think I need a beat Because I'm not gonna be able to respond in a way that's helpful . So let's take an hour and come back and talk about it . When we're both a little calmer is probably the best way to do that . One right ?

So that's the in the moment thing . Grab control of your brain back by using that neuroscience hack . Where you're focused on something , you can do it . If you don't want to do that , you can focus on a dot on the wall . You can focus on a pen . You can pick up a pen and roll it between your fingertips and feel the tactile texture of the pen .

That's a different way to do . It Accomplishes the same thing . No one will know what you're doing and you're controlling your emotional response in the moment , which is critically important . So that's the way to handle it in the moment .

If you have the luxury of time , if it's like you're in a time when there's just a lot of different things piling on and there's no real time pressure for you to respond , it's more just like you feel the weight of the world piling up and you need to deal with it . That's where you pause . You recognize that . You do the thought download and the assessment .

Try to anchor yourself to a more helpful thought , like I described I did during that era of the new job , the ailing parents and how I chose to think . A thought like this is really hard and I'm going to be there for my parents right now . So those two things allowed me to keep going without a lot of drama .

I just kind of was like a soldier , I just sort of powered through it , you know , and it helped . It was really really helpful .

But the third thing to do is , even when you're anchoring to that thought , when there's a time in your life that is very , very , very , very challenging , old bad behaviors can pile up Overspending , overdrinking , overeating , over Netflixing , like any of the consumption behaviors . This is when they usually , for many of us , flare up .

Right when it just feels like life is too much and we need to soothe ourselves . Right , when it just feels like life is too much and we need to soothe ourselves . A lot of us will do that by consuming things , things that don't help us .

It doesn't help your financial situation to have a closet full of things that you don't need , but you did feel better by buying it in the moment . Probably it doesn't help for you to consume all of the ice cream , because it's just going to cause another set of problems . You know you're going to gain a few pounds or whatever .

So it's better to find a healthy way to soothe yourself , and one of the things recommended by a psychologist is to have a selfothing toolkit . Now , for this , you can use a variety of different things , but you want a toolkit that addresses each of the five senses , so sight , sound , smell , touch and taste .

So this is a sensory toolkit and it can use a combination of things , things that are easy to carry with you , but let's go through each because it's interesting . So for the sensory toolkit in smell , you might choose to carry with you a lotion , scented lotion , an essential oil . This would be a scent that you really are drawn to .

So for me , that would be lavender , lemon or eucalyptus . Those are some of my favorite things . So if you enjoy lavender , lavender , scented hand lotion , that could be something that you know you're feeling a time of high stress . You might take out your hand lotion . You know you're feeling a time of high stress .

You might take out your hand lotion , use it as a dual factor of soothing your hand . But also , you know , the scent of it can trigger a more pleasant sensory and emotion , right . So that's kind of the benefit of that . For the touch , this could be anything , really anything you can feel . So you know , those little fidget spinners .

It could be that , like I like to have little things on my desk at work , a stress ball or a fidget spinner . That's really what they're tapping into is this sensory toolkit thing . It helps you to ease your stress , so for some people it could be a stone . Helps you to ease your stress .

So for some people it could be a stone or a crystal or something like that . It could be a piece of fabric , it could be the texture of a pen , it could be one of those little fidget devices like that can be helpful to kind of play with to kind of calm yourself down . Taste is another part of the sensory toolkit .

So a little treat , not like the pint of ice cream , but maybe it's a little piece of dark chocolate that you carry with you , or maybe it's like a little Tic Tac , if you enjoy , like a peppermint taste or something like that , and you can take that out .

It doesn't cause a ton of problems but it sort of gives you a little treat that can have a calming effect on you . A cup of tea could also do that . Sight this , I think , could be pictures of places or people that you love .

So you could have a whole album on your smartphone , that or your iPad or whatever that just has pictures of favorite vacations , beautiful landscape views . I love beautiful places . It could be a picture of the mountains or an ocean . It could be a picture of someone you love . So I have pictures sometimes of my parents or pets , favorite pets that you've had .

It can evoke good memories . So that's sight . And then sounds . I think the Calm app is the beautiful thing for this . So if you've ever used that , you could listen to the sounds of water , sounds of birds .

You could also , if you're a music lover , you could think of either empowering , uplifting musical soundtracks or calming ones , like I love some of the classics . Bach is one of my favorites , so it's like you can listen to some of those things and they can . They can actually sort of soothe your soul .

So that's what I'm talking about is kind of having things at the ready where , after you've paused , after you've done the assessment and the thought , download and chosen like a word that you want to anchor to tapping into one of your senses using one of those mechanisms in your sensory toolkit . You can put this together in advance , have it at the ready .

You know , take out your cell phone and , like , go to your pictures and go to that album and look at the things that you love and that's a reminder .

Or , you know , hit the button on the app , turn on the call map and listen to the sound of water like in a stream , like that is very , very , very soothing and it'll bring you back to emotional equilibrium , which is really the goal

. We're all going to have those times when there's just a lot going on and it can all feel like too much . And what I want you to know is that you can take control . Whether it's in the moment and you're unable to remove yourself from that situation , you can use that neuroscience-based hack I shared .

Or , if you can ideally give yourself the benefit of a little time , whether it be 20 minutes or a day , and go through the full assessment , really trying to challenge yourself with what's real and what are you piling on and what is a more helpful thought that you could anchor to so that you could respond to the situation in an irrational way and then treating

yourself in some way , using that sensory toolkit , by tapping into some of the things that you love that relate to one of your five senses , so that you can kind of bring your back yourself back to a positive emotional state . So I hope you found this episode helpful .

I think you'll agree , we all have those times when it can just feel like too much , and this will give you the tools you need to manage through it . And with that I'll leave you till next time . Make it a great week . My friends , do you have a life coach ? If not , I'd be so honored to be your coach .

I've created a virtual coaching program and monthly membership called Next Level . Inside we take the material you hear on this podcast , study it and then apply it . Join me at thepurposefulcareercom backslash next level . Don't forget the thepurposefulcareercom backslash next level . Join me and together we'll make your career in life Everything you dream of .

We'll see you there .