Feeling stressed out? Welcome to the club! Here are some tips.

 

Feeling stressed out? Welcome to the club!  Here are some tips.

These days many parents are experiencing a lot of anxiety/stress/guilt (fill in your pesky emotion of choice here). We often don’t need to look very hard to find triggers. Just turn on the news. If you have moments of feeling overwhelmed, you are not alone. Let me assure you that you are, in fact, in the large majority. It is actually the rare being who is sailing along without a care in the world. In the past two weeks, I have chatted with: People feeling failure and guilt because after years of careful living, their family finally caught covid Lots of people having boundary issues with parents and in-laws New moms questioning their ability to navigate the shifting family dynamics and relationships with the arrival of a new baby into the mix Parents eager to get back to work and feeling guilty about that Parents who are dreading going back to work and feeling overwhelmed Parents whose kids have asthma and they feel directly responsible since they too had it as a child. My daughter Alana is a mental health therapist here in San Francisco. Her advice is to give yourself permission to feel all of your emotions to the fullest. As she puts it, invite those feelings in for tea, just don’t let them overstay their welcome. At this little tea party, when you are ready, request the presence of your problem solving brain to join you at the table. The first thing I will have you do is to remind yourself that there are some things that are within your control and some that are not. It is essential to be able to identify which is which: Things Out of our control    Others being kind Others being honest Others forgiving us Who likes us The family we were born into The color of our skin Past mistakes Pandemics Natural disasters Death Taxes Power hungry dictators Other people making poor choices Family members who believe in conspiracy theories     Things that are in our control   Being kind Being honest Friends we choose Taking care of ourselves Working hard Apologizing Asking for help How we respond to others What we do in our free time Volunteering our time (if you have a surplus) Donating to a worthy cause (if your own needs are met) Seeking out joy Taking common sense health precautions Problem solving your situation. Identify and take first step. Of course feel free to add to either list. The key is to shift your focus to the things where you have some agency. Second, let’s evaluate your stress level.   My kids grew up having to deal with all of mom’s theories. This ‘stress theory’ is one of the classics. It is loosely based on something called the Holmes and Rahe stress measurement tool   Is there a water bottle or tea cup nearby? Take a look at it; imagine that you are that container. It is not transparent so you can not easily see how much liquid is inside.  Now imagine that elements of your life are varying amounts of fluid. Every aspect of your life adds liquid to the bottle. Good things and bad things can all contribute to the amount of stress. There are 3 levels that would correspond to mild, moderate or high stress. Obviously the more fluid in the bottle, the higher the stress level. Some amount of stress is perfectly normal and it just means you are living!   Certain things may add a few ounces, others only a tiny drop (drops can add up!) Being a sleep deprived parent is easily a couple of ounces. A new job? An illness in the family? Planning a wedding? Moving? These big ones can fill your container right up before you notice.   We generally don’t pay too much attention to how full our bottle is until it is near the top. As I mentioned, the smallest drop, something that normally you could handle with no problem, can move you from one level to the next. If you are near the top, it may make the entire bottle overflow.   This is the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back. Are you crying because you burnt your toast? The baby didn’t take a good nap? Your partner left dishes in the sink? Your mother in law made a comment about your milk supply? Take a moment to figure out what is going on that has your bottle so full that the littlest thing can set you off. Make a mental list of all the things that are filling up your bottle. Write them down if that is helpful. There is often some validation when you recognize how much all the things you are dealing with pile up. This can help make sense of why you feel like you want to curl up and ‘ugly cry’ on the shower floor. Alana shares this exercise with her clients. One of them really took it to heart and came up with the term “dump the cup.” In other words, are there things that can lower the level (don’t underestimate the power of those tears in the bathroom) ? What can you do to dump out your container a bit? Arrange a little time for yourself? Take a walk? Have the perfect cup of tea? Communicate what you are feeling to your support system? Sometimes just getting things down in writing is a good start.   Everyone who you interact with has their own stress level. It is good to keep that in mind when someone seems to be ‘overreacting’. With your young kids, they can’t hold as much. Simply being tired or hungry will fill their little ‘bottle’ right up to the top. That’s when the temper tantrums and meltdowns happen.   I just came across this saying for the first time recently and it resonated.   “The same boiling water that softens the potato will harden an egg” You may be running with the pack if you are experiencing extra stress, but you are quite unique in how different things might impact you. People react to different stressors in different ways. Something that drives you nuts, might slide right off of the back of your partner and vice versa. Some people are much more sensitive to lack of sleep or being constantly interrupted. Others are frantic if the house hasn’t been vacuumed, where some people couldn’t care less and will get to it when they get to them. The key is figuring out how YOU tick. What adds stress and what eases things.       The third aspect Try to stay grounded in the present. Is part of your stress from guilt or regret from recent decisions or actions? Did you decide to go out to dinner with friends and now you have covid? Is your toddler parroting some colorful language that they picked up from your frustrating drive home yesterday? Here is an important public service announcement (and one of my husbands favorite pieces of wisdom): “You can’t manage the past” Rather than doing the woulda shoulda dance, don’t spend your energy there. Instead learn any lessons and move on. One of my mom's favorite adages was: “It is what it is and you do the best you can” In other words, don’t be too hard on yourself! She also had the premise that when she was feeling blue, she would get up, brush her hair and put on some lipstick. Just those simple actions could change the trajectory and give her a better outlook. I hope one or all of these little tools can help you find your footing.