I am discussing how to self soothe the ol' stress response when you're going out after big goals including real life tips and tricks you can use yourself.
Show notes and the transcript can be found here: https://michellekevill.com/selfsoothe
I am discussing how to self soothe the ol' stress response when you're going out after big goals including real life tips and tricks you can use yourself.
Show notes and the transcript can be found here: https://michellekevill.com/selfsoothe
[00:00:00] Hello, everyone. I hope you are well. And if not, I got you. At least you are here. Welcome to today's episode. I have been feeling really stressed because I've been doing really, really a lot of a lot of big things that are changes in my business. And that has caused a lot of feelings and emotions. And I thought today's episode would be perfect to talk about that. And really it's about how to soothe yourself when you're going out doing big, scary things. Because what's been happening for me is my stress response. My limbic system, my survival mechanism is just kicked in and flip the fan because I'm doing things that are stretching the boundaries that are, I guess you could say for a better word, triggering some thoughts that were lying underneath the surface that have come out. And I thought, you know what, I like to also take some of these as opportunities and like I'm going to learn something from this and I'm going to share it with you. Do I enjoy feeling these feelings? No. Is that life? Yes. So I wanted to give you tips and tricks what I'm doing and how to do it for yourself. And this could be for anything. Maybe you're starting a business. Maybe it's something at a corporate job, whatever it is. I wanted to give you the lowdown on what I do to soothe myself and how you can do it for yourself.
[00:01:21] So to give a little bit of context to all of this, how this came about was around January. I was a guest on the Driven Young podcast, which you would have seen some posts about it as I'm filming this now, but when you see it, you will get it in the future. And it was like, it's basically my story of what I've gone through. We talk a little bit about like hustle culture. We also talk about how, at least in the Australian education system, how we're setting up younger people for kind of like those life skills and the workplace are a bit like they're lacking and we have a really good open discussion about that as well. And I talk about my experience and how I burnt out, how two years ago I was suicidal and it was it was visible, if that makes sense. So there is an intro and it talks about me and it and it has like it has me on a page and what I've gone through and the whole interview, like we talk about this and my brain freaked the fuck out. I was like, No, oh my God, my brain, my stress response kicked in. I felt so vulnerable and seen and I was just watching myself like, what the what is going on, girl? Like, we are open about this in our posts. Like people know about this like you, people see you, you know what I mean? And I couldn't really figure out why I was so scared, but that's just what happened.
[00:02:57] And I realized I had a lot of thoughts around judgment and shame of other people and even like my corporate, like workplace seeing this and stuff which it brought up a lot of thoughts for me and it triggered my survival response and it really triggered it like it felt back when, almost back when, like two years ago when I was quite stressed. Like the stress was quite high and I was like, Oh, this is really interesting. Like I'm feeling I've seen this out there in the world and my brain and the thoughts that I'm having about it, what I realized was just pure. Like, I'm just judging myself. I have a lot of fear, that of of judgment, of people, of others judging me for what I've done, my story, whatever. And I was internalizing that and judging myself. And I caused so much drama about it and. It was it was a lot so and I wanted to talk about that because that has this as I've been going through my business and growing and expanding and pushing myself, this is probably one of those times where my brain was like, wow, like we are becoming more visible. Like this is we're growing as a person and it's fucking scary. And my stress response, my limbic system has now interpreted that as a literal threat to my survival.
[00:04:22] So I have had to work really hard on self-soothing, and that is what I want to talk about here, because I do not doubt when you are going out for your goals, when you are doing the big thing, that survival response is going to kick in. It is self preservation. It wants you to stay in the cave, it wants you to stay safe and it's not comfortable. It feels like shit that's like that for a reason. It's why when you touch a hot pan, it feels like crap, like you feel it and you pull your weight. Otherwise you will burn your hand if you don't feel it, like you need to pull your hand away. And because I haven't felt this level of intensity for a while, it was a little bit shocking to the system. It was like, Oh my God. And I was like, What are we going to all over again? So I want to talk a little bit more on how I self soothe and I like using self soothe because especially I talk about this with thought, work, etc. but there are also some physical things that you can do. Like these are just the tools in my toolbox that I use that are super, super helpful. So of course one is doing the thought work. The thought works really important because you get to I started to understand where the thoughts were coming from.
[00:05:32] I thought I was just afraid of being out there and we could see from the thought downloads that I was doing, I was afraid people were going to shun me and judge me and I was like, Well, why do I think, you know, I realized like, do I potentially maybe still think some of this stuff is shameful? Have I internalized some of this? And what I came down to is if I bring it back to an evolutionary perspective, if you were exiled from a tribe of humans, you were alone by yourself and you could die and you would do whatever you can to fit in with that in-group. And I realized I think that's what was happening here for me. I had seen this and it had triggered some thoughts that had probably been there in the surface, and I have addressed them before. But I think this really shook it to my core and it just it was like something for my brain to grab onto and it like uplifted it. So that's really key because I'm starting to understand, okay, this is what you know, this is what I'm thinking and this is potentially why I'm doing it. My limbic system is like, Michelle, we're going to get shunned from a fucking tribe and we're going to be all alone and then we're going to die. It doesn't realize, again, you live in the 21st century.
[00:06:47] We can basically just live. You could live isolated if you want, doesn't realize you have like Uber eats and stuff like that. You don't have to hunt for my food. So that's the first step. And having that information is really important because it makes you feel a little bit less out of control. You understand what's happening now. You need to understand what do you need to do for your body? And one of those big things and you're going to hate me saying it and I say it in every goddamn episode, it's to feel your feelings. So it's to sit there and listen to your body and actually feel these sensations. No matter how fucking shit they are. I do not mean revel in them or white knuckle them, or as I like to call, pouring gasoline on yourself in a house fire. You just notice and observe them and I don't enjoy it. I'm not going to lie to you. It's not fun. It's like diarrhea. And I realized this had been building up. I didn't realize this. Because I actually had a little bit of I believe I'm going to call it emotional constipation. Probably the past two weeks I've been doing some activities which I didn't realize were buffering. So I sometimes watch commentary, videos and like 90 day fiance day and stuff like that. And my partner actually mentioned it to me a couple of days ago.
[00:08:01] He said to me, Babe, you still watch a lot of videos whenever you were stressed. And I was like, Yeah, I did sometimes because I didn't want to deal with the emotions. He's like, Just noticed you've been doing it more like it could be nothing but just something to watch out for. And I was like, Yeah, yeah, good point. And I realized I think I've been a little bit nervous with like other things going on in my like, personal and health life, and I just haven't been choosing to process them. And then what I think has happened is this was the thing seeing this episode and everything that kind of flipped the lid and my body is now kind of like a girl. Why aren't you listening to me? Like, there are lots of factors going on here, and that's not to judge and shame myself here, but it's just to be aware that when you come to this point, because it made all made sense now, like, oh, that's why it feels so bloody intense. I've been ignoring you. You've been telling me for probably 2 to 3 weeks now that something's going on and this is just something that's tipped the scales to get me to listen to you more. Because humans are very good at, especially if you haven't had practice regulating your emotions or it's been dangerous to embrace your emotions.
[00:09:11] You can get very good at blocking them out and ignoring them. So really taking the time to sit in. I know it's painful and unclogged by constipation and let it out and realize that just because you do it once does not mean it's not going to like it'll keep coming back. Like I did some real intense work on sitting with it and it kept coming back and I noticed I started to get frustrated with myself. And that's the second thing I want to elaborate on. Getting angry at yourself creates more emotion and judgment. It's like, think of your fear response as a little three year old. You can call it you and a child if you want. And it's telling you that there's a monster in the wardrobe. And it's like, I'm afraid, you know, a monster under my bed and mom, I'm afraid. And you're like, no, like that's you know, you're rationally telling the child, no, that's not possible. There's no monster, and you're soothing it and it's like, okay, but it keeps saying, Mom is a monster in my bed and you're getting frustrated at the kid. Like, Oh, my God. Like, why? I'm telling you it's not there. And the kid's just getting frustrated because it's like, you're not listening to me. Like, I'm. I'm afraid I'm scared, and you're just judging it. That's what you're doing to yourself. And the problem is that the emotion just you're just adding to it.
[00:10:26] You're adding to the fire. Instead of almost accepting that it's a three year old, like you think there's a monster under the bed, like it's three that's common and that's normal and it's afraid. And it's the same with you. You need to accept where the fuck you're at right now. If it's I know it can be painful and that's okay. Give yourself that self compassion. So to recap really quickly, processing emotions, really key to do that. I talk about it in all my episodes, but it's noticing those physical sensations and noticing what comes up for you. What do they feel like? What? What what are the like a label? Those physical sensations. For me, I always get a lump in my throat and it's like a green ball. And that ball is kind of like an opal. I know that's a bull opal. It's a different shape, but you know what I mean? Like, I really label it and I get my brain to kind of come out of this, like come out of being in its own head because saying I have a lump in my throat is completely different to I have anxiety. Like they sound like two completely different things and you're just going to strengthen that muscle every time you do it in more situations, then having patience with yourself is so important. It's emotions are going to come in waves. I want you to see your limbic system as like when you feel like this is a little three year old scared under the bed, you're not going to try explain to the kid, you know, like, oh, my God, like, just stop it.
[00:11:54] It's fine. You're just going to soothe it. You're going to be like, it's okay. And then that's the other thing I want to elaborate on, which is self like other aspects of self soothing. What I literally do is I don't exercise where I will close. My eyes don't always have to close your eyes, but it helps me and I imagine myself as like a little kid. And the little kid is freaking out right now. Like, like four in this scenario came up to me. It's like, we're going to have no friends. Everyone's going to leave us, we're going to get isolated and then no one's going to love us and then we'll be alone again. I was like all girl. I told her how valid her emotions are, how she's allowed to feel this way and that it's okay because I'm here. I'm here for you. And I gave it like a big hug and I let it cry as well. Like this was going on. And in the visualization that I was doing and it weirdly, after a little while, I started to feel a little bit better because I think my body was like, okay, you hear me? You hear me? And that's what your body wants.
[00:13:02] Your body wants to be reassured that you're not in a fucking danger and you can do whatever works for you. Another one that is really good and it sounds super cliche and lame is to literally hug yourself, like rub your arms and like self soothe as if you were a child. I know what you think. Because because I've actually heard this before, especially when I was like learning like back in my uni days and I would be like, shut the fuck up is so lame. I was like, I don't want to do that. But I think about it now and when we are vulnerable, like how? Especially for me, I usually like to get my, you know, I like a hug. Like when I was a kid, I used to get hugged by my mom, like soothe dropped on the back, including my partner. And I realized, shit, it's, it's the same stuff, if that makes sense. It's those actions we need to do to ourselves, like, hey, sure, you can get your gay friend or partner whatever to do it as well. But in those moments, if I want to self regulate, I'll, I just start doing that more often and it doesn't, it's not over the top, but I just, you know, I might just give myself a little hug and say, Hey, it's okay, Michelle. We're doing really well.
[00:14:16] Like, I've got you. I fucking got you, girl. My God, it's a cool. And you're allowed to feel scared because Bay, I got you. You. I mean, and because it's the same stuff that we do to other people. So of course, we're going to be receptive when we do it to ourselves. And I know it sounds a bit silly, but I have been trying this and it has been really helpful. And if you can take away anything from this, when I talk about self-soothing, I think one of the quickest ways, like separate from thought work and all of that is treat yourself as if you were your child. When it comes up crying to you, would you be dismissing its thoughts and feelings? Would you be telling it? It's an idiot. Would you be shouting at it? Why are you upset? Stop being upset. Oh, my God. Would you be pushing it away? No. So don't do that. Don't do that to yourself. Look at how you would treat your kid, niece, whatever, and then start doing that to yourself and you're going to see amazing changes. You will going to be able to process those feelings and emotions. And I feel like this just adds on to everything that I am. Like I've learnt with, with thought work and this is super helpful. That's, it's like this I want to call it almost like the physical side of it if that makes sense.
[00:15:36] And another thing I want to elaborate on as well, which is really important, is a little bit of the science around stress as well and understanding how stress and your stress response. Aunts works for you. What I mean by that is typically so if you look at me, I get the most stressed or I feel the intensity of my stress response the moment I wake up in the morning and it would subside around between ten and 10:30 a.m. and then it would decrease dramatically. And the reason is cortisol levels are the highest when we wake up in the morning, which makes sense probably to motivate us to get out and do something and find some food. And it would subside at that time because it was dependent on when I ate breakfast. And when you have low blood sugar, your body is also releasing some levels of cortisol. And I started to notice a pattern during some of these stressful periods. Even today, actually, I started to get a little stressed, like those similar feelings of anxiety. And I'm like, That's a bit weird. I've eaten and usually it subsides by now, and I ate lunch and then I started to feel better again and I realized I was like, Oh, hang on a minute. The impact of my low blood sugar. So especially with my thyroid condition as well, my Hashimoto's like that all has an impact.
[00:17:07] There are some biological stuff as well going on that I need to be managing to support everything else and I really encourage you to find out for yourself what is impacting you, what are your biological like, things like going on for you as well, because that makes a big impact. And just because having that knowledge is really powerful. Once I knew that my cortisol levels were really high in the morning and then subsided, I just told myself, and it's going to happen again tomorrow. I'm, I feel like shit for 3 hours. That's it. Just 3 hours. And I'm going to feel fine again. I'm going to make sure I have a snack after breakfast because I didn't do that today to keep my blood sugars, sugar levels consistent. And it's it's going to be okay. Like some of this is just going to be my body doing its thing and I'm going to love myself through it. And that's really key, because if I just wake up every morning, I used to wake up all the time and be like, Why do I feel this way? Why would I always happen? Then when someone told me, you know, it's your cortisol levels are really high in the morning, like that's the naturally higher. I was like, Oh, I've got like excess cortisol already. And then the moment I wake up, I'm just adding to it. Oh, this makes sense.
[00:18:19] What if just for every 3 hours for the next couple of days, I'm just going to feel stressed for 3 hours until I eat and stuff like that and think of things to mitigate it. So now I eat first thing in the morning. I don't even care if I'm exercising. I have something. Something is in there to raise my blood sugar levels and bring him back up and look at all areas. Okay, all areas. What I mean by that is like, guys, I want to keep it real and authentic with you at all times. Like, that's why I'm here. Even though sometimes my brain freaks the f out of it is. Today I made the decision. I was like, You know what? With things that are going on with my physical and emotional and mental health, I am going to start a little bit of my antidepressants again. And that's okay. Sometimes I need that. Sometimes on my thyroid is really low. I need to take that and there are aspects of my life when I need to do that. And I think that yeah, that would have definitely helped as well. But it's looking at what are the building blocks that are going to help you through this. And the reason I wanted to share that too, is because I want to give you the full view. Coaching was the missing piece in everything of my life that that was the missing building block for me.
[00:19:37] And there were other things that I need as well. I needed to address my thyroid condition. I needed to address how I was eating for my gut health, which we know has an impact on our serotonin levels. And I needed to at some point like two years ago, like seek professional help. And that's okay. There are all building blocks that support you and you can choose as well how you want to view them to. Because I would say a little bit before ages ago, my brain would have like at least two years ago would have judged me for doing this again. And now I just see it as, you know, what, many times in my life where I'm going to be on thyroid medication and potentially anti-depressants. And that's okay. That's all right. I'm doing what I need to do for me, and that's fine. And I have coaching and I have all these other little things in my toolbox to help me. And that's what I say here when it comes to we've gone a little bit deep this episode, but when it comes to doing these big things and you are having some really, you know, big, you're having big fucking feelings, right? It's assessing at that time what you need. It's looking at all the tools in your toolbox and what you can do to support you from whether it be thought work to physical and emotional health.
[00:20:59] And obviously that's going to be dependent on you and your needs. I know people who get actually really anxious at night. That's because they're worried about the rest of the day. Whereas for me, I would be exhausted at night because my cortisol levels were typically running quite higher during the day. So and, you know, things are going to be different, if that makes sense. It's going to be different for you. And I encourage you to not see it as a failure, but to see it as, all right, this is my body, this is what it's doing, and I'm just going to figure out how to support it and how to be there for it. And it's where that's when you're working with your body. And then you're able to go like, again, I'm just strengthening this muscle. I had this, like, freak out. It made me realize that I'd been like, you know, have had some emotional constipation with some other things that I don't want to process. I'm working on the processing. I'm doing like I'm I'm more in tune with myself and that is going to help me in the long run. That's going to help me. That is going to help others. It's going to it's it's just better for everyone. It's better for you. So take these tools and tricks and really like, go with them. Like, give yourself a fucking hug.
[00:22:15] Talk to yourself as if you would a child. Don't get angry at yourself. I think the biggest thing as well, I never say this a lot of time, but also don't get angry at yourself when you are stressing out. Your limbic system is just trying to protect you. It doesn't actually like the way I see it is it doesn't know any better. It's just doing what it's being programmed to do. And when I think something is anxious, then it's going to react to that. That's all it's doing. So we just need to be there for it, feel those emotions, let out the emotional diarrhea and, you know, process it. And that is what I call 5050 of life. Well, that is what the life coach school calls it. And it's and it makes sense if it's 50 pain, it's it's 50 great. But the best part is when you have your own back during those hate lose post hard emotional periods because they're going to be or for me even during this like my brain is being freaking out but it has I've been able to get through it and I know I can get through it. And I have that faith and belief in myself because I've done it before and I know what I need to do for myself. I figured that out. That is all for today, everyone. So go out there, do those big scary things. Love yourself through it and I will see you in the next episode. Bye for now.