Would you like to add to your self-care toolkit by managing life's stresses with more compassion for yourself and others? This new episode is for you.

Full transcript

We can internalise shame about not handling the situation with more grace, and even when it is extreme pressure. Stress can be a good thing. Think about a coal turning into a diamond, or think about a toddler, no one is yelling at that toddler, ‘Toddle! Walk!’ There's that inherent drive within all of us that we want to grow, we want to evolve, we want to learn, we want to develop. And when we're under a good stress, that eustress, that is what's happening, but where it's more distress, as in not de-stressing, but di-stress, it can be really damaging for not just the nervous system, but inflammation conditions and immunity.

Welcome to episode 55 of The Feel Better Every Day Podcast.

I'm your host and producer, Eve Menezes Cunningham, and every Tuesday there's a new episode to help with trauma-informed and VAST / ADHD-friendly Self and self-care ideas to help you connect with that highest, wisest, truest, wildest, most joyful, brilliant, and miraculous part of yourself, and to create a life you don't need to retreat from.

This week we're looking at Stress Awareness Month. As I was reflecting on stress awareness (if you would like to, you can access loads of free resources at selfcarecoaching.net/home/ stress, and they'll support you with stress, helping you understand more about it. There's also a lot in the book, 365 Ways to Feel Better: Self-care Ideas for Embodied Wellbeing, and of course other podcast episodes), I realised that while it's one of my areas of expertise for over two decades, it's especially important for sensitive nervous systems when we're dealing with VAST, also known as ADHD, and trauma recovery.

And there's room for improvement in my own life, even now, and there's, I think we just live in stressful times, it's a completely normal thing.

I realised a few days ago… I'm a BACP media spokesperson, and they'd asked me to contribute some self-care advice for young people navigating stress at work, and as I was writing my answers, advising young people, I was thinking, ‘49 Year Old Me is benefiting from this advice, too!’ Because one of the work projects I'm involved with has been very stressful for a very long time.

As always, I am and remain my first client, and when I realised I was talking to myself as well, it's like, ‘Of course!’ And it makes sense when I think about the ADHD, when I think about the trauma history, when I think about being an immigrant myself, when I think about being the daughter of immigrants, being the granddaughter of immigrants: We can know in our bones that something is too much pressure for someone, anyone else, but somehow when it's us, we can internalise shame about not handling the situation with more grace, and even when it is extreme pressure.

Stress can be a good thing. Think about a coal turning into a diamond, or think about a toddler, no one is yelling at that toddler, ‘Toddle! Walk!’ There's that inherent drive within all of us that we want to grow, we want to evolve, we want to learn, we want to develop. And when we're under a good stress, that eustress, that is what's happening, but where it's more distress, as in not de-stressing, but di-stress, it can be really damaging for not just the nervous system, but inflammation conditions and immunity.

I've got the tail end of a cold, and it's like really funny, because I was thinking to myself, ‘My immunity is great! Because I'm taking really good care of myself!’ And then I came down with this bug. But it is another sign of stress. The body takes too much, and then it goes into needing that time for recovery.

We know from Polyvagal Theory that we're wired to thrive when we feel safe, welcome, and loved. Asking yourself if there’s any situation in your life, or any relationship as it stands, where you don't feel safe, welcome, and loved. And ask yourself what might you do to improve things, or if you might need to exit the situation.

It's also, as I just said, about remembering that stress itself is not bad, there are the different types of stress. We talked a bit about eustress. We talked about distress. With eustress, you think about going to the gym, you think about the muscles actually breaking down before they come back stronger. We grow through working out.

And we sometimes forget that we always have a choice, but when we're in that kind of distress situation, we can feel powerless, we can feel helpless, we can feel burnt out, underappreciated, undervalued, and not good enough.

One thing I'm doing, as part of on an ongoing basis to reduce stress in my life, while also attempting to follow Marie Forleo's advice about simplifying to amplify. I've changed up the membership a bit. So it's still the Feel Better Every Day Podcast, and I've changed the title of my Substack to Feel Better Every Day, more in line with my overall practice, which has been Feel Better Every Day with Eve Menezes Cunningham for years, and years, and years, and years.

Feel Better Every Day with Eve Menezes. Also known as selfcarecoaching.net. But I've complicated things, because I've been working with the lunar phases and the Celtic Wheel of the Year for decades, I thought it would be really simple and easy to have things aligned for the different levels of membership.

But thinking about it, that's been a bit complicated, so I'm simply going to have the podcast remaining Feel Better Every Day, and then free subscribers will get bonus content and special offers, sorry about this cold, I'm talking a bit strangely. And then the Sole to Soul Circle will be the third option which you can upgrade for so it will no longer be a Full Moon or Super Moon membership, it will be just the Sole to Soul Circle.

With that, it's that Sole to Soul Circle, fully embodied from the soles of the feet, transpersonal approach, so it's to the soul, get it, soul, S-O-L-E to soul, S-O-U-L, and it's an approach to trauma-informed and VAST / ADHD-friendly, self and self-care.

This week, the deeper dive content for Sole to Soul Circle members will include a video with some stress-reducing yoga poses and an energy technique that's hilariously simple but really effective. It really amps up that self-empathy and it really grounds and empowers the person.

I’m looking forward to sharing that soon. And, of course, there's access to the exclusive membership benefits area, including the entire Love Your WHOLE Self chakra journey.

We know that yoga is especially good for stress, and Dr Chris Streeter found many, many years ago in a study, that just attending a one-hour class creates GABA, which is a naturally occurring, it's mimicked in drugs like Xanax to help calm the system, but it occurs naturally in the body through yoga. It's one of those things that we know again through working with the vagus nerve, there are so many things we can do with our body, with our breaths, to change our physiology, change the way we feel.

For example, Forward Folds help us come into deeper contact with our bodies in the present moment. We have that stretch reflex at the back of the legs which can help us, especially with ADHD, feel more stimulated in the pose. And there's more to focus the attention on, as well as connecting with the breath, having that deeper breath, that slightly longer exhalation or your Ujjayi breathing, whatever feels best for you.

When we use the Forward Folds with the relaxation response, and you can listen to the podcast episode about that if you'd like, it can be especially helpful.

Lion pose is one of the ones I'll be sharing in the Sole to Soul Circle. It's a great way to roar away any stresses and strains, and it's really about never underestimating the power of even acknowledging your current situation.

Once you've acknowledged it, even to yourself, you can empower yourself to improve it. And that's one of the reasons EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques including tapping) can be especially helpful, because EFT can help us move from sympathetic activation of the autonomic nervous system, the ‘stress response’, to the parasympathetic activation, the ‘rest / digest response’.

We're coming into our body, we're tapping on certain points around the face and upper body, and like yoga, like anything that grounds us, that feels soothing, there are so many things we can do and we forget.

I'm hoping that this episode is going to remind you of things that are already in your toolkit as well. But today, or any time it's helpful for you to revisit this, think about any situation that's stressing you out, and as we do this EFT Tap Along, your words are going to resonate more than mine, so use mine as a guide, but trust yourself and trust your own inner wisdom.

We're working with that stressed part of yourself, and that stressed part of you is really ready to be heard, because it's sick of you ignoring it, it's sick of you taking on more and more as if you're somehow to blame for the circumstances you found yourself in, and if you just somehow hustle harder, work harder, it will all be okay.

It's like, ‘No, you need a break, you need, like the stress symptoms are trying to tell you something, we're not machines, we're not superhuman, really pay attention.’

So start by asking yourself where you would rate your current feeling of stress.

With EFT, (Emotional Freedom Techniques, including tapping) part of the reason they can be so effective is that we can release tension. If you think about a toddler who falls over, gets a hug from its carer, and is happily gurgling and laughing and playing again the next moment, babies are brilliant at moving emotions through the system, through the body, and not getting stuck in it.

But the older we get, we learn to not move as freely as we would like, we're having to sit still at school, or we're having to do all sorts of things that go against our body's innate wisdom. And I'm not saying that that's entirely a terrible thing, because we have to be socialised to a certain degree, but even doing this work over the decades I've been doing it, it goes too far, it goes way too far.

So many people are suffering way more than they need to be suffering, by not doing the little things that can be done each day, or each moment, to ease that stress and enhance that comfort.

The tapping helps to move the energy. It might come out through laughing, it might come out through shaking, it might come out through yawning or farting or burping, or sometimes we get bored as we're tapping away and wander off, it's just the energy has shifted.

To help us recognise that, ‘Actually, yeah, I was feeling really bad about this particular thing, really stressed out, and now I can't even remember what I was worried about, I can't remember what I was thinking’ before we start tapping, it's really helpful to rate your current level of stress.

If you were to think of a scale between minus 10 being terrible, and plus 10 being amazing, and 0 being neutral, ask yourself where you are on that scale right now when you think about this stressful situation.

We're going to start with the side of the hand for the setup statement. We're going to start with, ‘Even though I feel so stressed, I choose to soothe and support myself. Even though I'm feeling so stressed out, I choose to soothe and support myself.’

‘Even though I'm feeling really stressed, I choose to soothe and support myself.’

The tapping points are the inside of the eyebrow, outside of the eye, under the eye, under the nose, under the lip, under the mouth, the thymus, like using the palm of the hand on the thymus and tapping the collarbone. That, just on its own, can be a really comforting thing.

And then under the arm, so if you imagine the side of a bra, whether you're wearing one or not, the top of the head. So you've done that, even though I'm feeling so stressed. And again, with the setup statement, the idea of doing it around whatever it is you're feeling, whether it's an emotional thing you want freedom from or a physical thing.

It used to always be. ‘I deeply and completely love and accept myself’. ‘Even though [whatever it is], I deeply and completely love and accept myself.’

‘Even though [whatever it is] I choose to soothe and support myself’ can be more accessible for a lot of people, because we live in a world where unfortunately many of us have been taught to not love ourselves. And it can take a lot of healing, a lot of work to reconnect with that inherent worthiness, that inherent being lovable.

So we're going to do it again: ‘Even though I'm really stressed, I choose to soothe and support myself. Even though I'm really stressed, I choose to soothe and support myself.

Even though I'm really stressed out, I deeply and completely love and accept myself.’

And if you feel tearful, know that that's completely normal. Just be gentle with yourself.

I hate feeling so stressed out inside of the eyebrow. I hate feeling completely overwhelmed so much of the time outside of the eye. This is not sustainable under the eye.

I can't keep going like this under the nose. I'm scared of what's going to happen if I stop under the mouth. I can't keep going on like this.

Collarbone. I don't know how to get off this treadmill under the arm. It's too much stress.

And then back to the inside of the eyebrow. I feel like I'm somehow not being good enough outside of the eye. Like if I was somehow more efficient and productive, I wouldn't be feeling this stressed.

Under the eye. Like it's me that's the problem. It's me.

I am the problem. It's me. Under the nose.

Even though I know that's not true. Under the mouth. There's that part of me that feels like I'm not good enough.

And the collarbone. And that's stressing me out too. Under the arm.

And I don't know who to ask without giving my power away. I want things to change top of the head. But it feels vulnerable asking for help and support.

So taking a big breath in through the nose and out through the mouth. And noticing for yourself where that number is. It may have got worse as we've tapped on some of the more challenging aspects of how you might be feeling.

Or it may have moved in the other direction. Or it may not have moved at all. But just make a note of your new number.

And feel free to message me to let me know what it was, what it is, what it's going to become. And for the purposes of this tap along, we're going to, I'm going to encourage you to pause the recording and keep tapping on other issues that have come up for you. Trust yourself.

Let yourself make noises. Let yourself swear. Let yourself just get the stress out of your system and tap it away.

We're working with acupressure points. The ends of the meridians. It's amazingly effective.

You can do it through a duvet. You can do it through an enormous winter coat. I often tap mentally while I'm swimming.

It's so much to do with intention. But it's a really powerful tool, which I hope you're already feeling the benefits from. And we're going to then close this with around where we connect with a more positive element.

So again, your words are going to resonate more than mine. But because I'm doing this for people, I don't know your specific situation. Change it where it doesn't resonate for you and use what works in terms of what does.

I am looking forward to letting go of all of this stress. I'm looking forward to feeling calmer, more relaxed. I deserve to feel calm.

I deserve to relax. I deserve rest. I deserve downtime.

I deserve to not feel anxious about rest and downtime. I deserve to have fun. I deserve time to daydream.

I deserve to be forgiven for making mistakes. To not take all the stress onto myself. To recognise that everything is collaborative.

That it's safe to ask for help, even when it feels unnatural. And it's safe to assert myself and set boundaries. I deserve to feel relaxed.

I deserve to assert myself. I deserve to notice what's the information coming back at me. There will be some people who don't like the boundaries I'm setting.

There will be some people who try to shame me for asserting myself. That's still not my problem. That's not my issue.

That's them not liking me putting down the stress that I've been carrying for them. I deserve to release that stress. I deserve to focus on what feels good to focus on.

My time, my money, my energy, my effort. Can I imagine how free I'm going to feel? How much fun I'm going to have? How good I'm going to feel? I like even thinking about letting go of a lot of this stress. And I don't have to overdo it.

I don't have to clear it all in one go. I don't have to change my entire life. I don't have to quit everything.

I don't have to have all the challenging conversations. Just this tapping I'm doing on myself. Just the journaling I'm going to do afterwards.

It's all getting to know what is stressing me out. What do I want to do about it? And what could I do about it even if I don't want to do those things? I deserve to feel wonderful. So another big breath in through your nose, out through the mouth.

So I encourage you to pause this. Make some notes. Let me know how you're getting on.

I hope you found it helpful. I love hearing how you're getting on. And if you think that the changes I've made or I'm making to the Sole to Soul Circle sound less stressful to you, I'd love to hear!

I also hope that you will go to the website selfcarecoaching.net and check out the book, the Circle, the other free resources for stress and other episodes. And you can find out more at selfcarecoaching.net. And if you haven't already and you would like to, please share, subscribe, rate, review, comment. Let me know what you want more of.

Let me know what you're going to do from this episode to take better care of yourself and create a life you don't need to retreat from.

Have a gorgeous week. And for Sole to Soul Circle members, you'll be getting your yoga poses and that energy technique.

And if you are a subscriber to Feel Better Every Day on Substack, again, you can find out all that information on selfcarecoaching.net or evemc.substack.com. You'll be getting some journal prompts as well to help you go a bit deeper. And yeah, recognise that stress like everything else is simply information and it's up to you what you do with it. But I can tell you from experience that when we empower ourselves to speak up for ourselves and make the changes we know we need to make, it's a matter of progress, not perfection.

It gets easier with practice. But I mean, when we're in a stressed state, we're not at our most resourceful.

With all these practices, you do them, it becomes easier, it becomes more a part of your daily life.

But you're still going to get tripped up. We're living in a really, really like interesting times. There's an enormous amount of suffering.

There's an enormous amount of pain. Give yourself a break. Sending enormous love and looking forward to connecting with you again next week.