Stress could be a habitual way of feeling and our default response when coping with life.

Especially if we’ve experienced a lot of chaos growing up. 

Responding by stressing out could be a very familiar feeling and way of handling things or not handling them actually.

A typical response to handle stress is something in our coaching world is called buffering:

Grabbing a drink

Binge watching something on TV

Scrolling mindlessly through social media

Procrastinating

blame

Eating too much or snacking on sweets or chips or whatever your snack of choice is

… anything that allows you to avoid facing the situation that’s causing stress.

The first thing we can do to handle stress is to identify what’s causing it by breaking it down

Having someone who can offer an objective perspective is essential because we’re sometimes too invested in our own way of thinking and can’t see another way.

First: We separate the circumstance from the thought.

Identify the meaning you’re assigning to the circumstance and ask yourself if it’s true. 

Ask yourself if there’s any other way of thinking about it. 

Ask yourself what else is true.

Having a life coach or someone you trust to help you separate thoughts from facts can be beneficial as oftentimes it can be difficult to zoom out and see things differently.

A coach can help you process hard feelings. When we avoid feeling hard feelings all we’re doing is pushing them down or resisting it. Nevertheless, they don’t disappear. Processing feelings is an essential part of doing the inner work of learning and growing.