HOW TO MANAGE AND CHANGE DIFFICULT MOMENTS
It’s inevitable. Change happens. It can feel exciting, and it can be perceived as a threat. It can be welcomed or resisted.
Either way, it shows up daily and in a million different ways.
Sometimes, you can control the change; other times, you cannot.
For some, a loss of control can be terrifying and anxiety-inducing and leave you with a sense of powerlessness. While others adapt painlessly, with fluidity – never losing their sense of self or power.
Amid stressful change, your sympathetic nervous system kicks in and delivers one of the four responses:
Fight / Flight / Freeze / Fawn
The fight is when you resist or fight the change.
Flight is when you (try) to run from it.
Freeze is when you ‘freeze’ and thus do nothing in the hopes that the change will somehow bypass (save you). According to the National Institute of Health, the freeze response is not a passive state but rather a hard brake on the motor system.
Another, less known, is the Fawn. This is when you attempt to befriend/side with the change-maker to limit potential conflict and pain. You’ve likely experienced this as a strategy to belong/fit into a social group like high school. The tricky bit about the Fawn response is that you are essentially abandoning yourself.
These response systems are brilliant and deeply programmed into our evolutionary systems. Remember when real dangers such as lions and tigers lived amongst us? There was a legitimate reason for our bodies to produce the hormones needed to keep us alive. For the most part, though, we no longer experience those types of threats/changes… but our bodies don’t know that!
When any of the four Fs are activated, the perceived threat/change activates the sympathetic nervous system. It triggers an acute stress response that prepares the body to handle the situation. At this point, your body fills with cortisol – a stress hormone that can feel like an anxiety, heart, or panic attack.
Long-term increased levels of cortisol increase your risk for high blood pressure, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, osteoporosis, other chronic diseases, and weight gain, according to Mayo Clinic.
And since we’re all living through a lot of change, managing this sympathetic nervous system response is paramount to limiting the harm caused by elevated cortisol levels.
The easiest ways to regain some control and reduce cortisol are:
Breathing techniques
Relaxation exercises such as visualization, meditation and journaling
Physical activity; and,
Social environment/network (your friends, colleagues and the media you consume)
One strategy not mentioned anywhere in the literature I’ve found is this:
Accept (without judgement) and appreciate that your thoughts and feelings are simply that – thoughts and feelings. You are not your thoughts and feelings. You are the spirit/soul experiencing those thoughts and feelings.
The best news is that your thoughts and feelings are something YOU and only you can control. How’s that for life-affirming, powerfulness?
You can't always control the changes around you, but you can control how you respond to them.
Need a coach to help you manage your stress response? Send me a message. I have a list of amazing wellness coaches and therapists who can support you during these ever-changing times.
My best. Sincerely,
Tina
