Untangling Stress

Lindsay Miller  0:22  
Hey there! This is Lindsay, and I'm so glad you're here. Some weeks on the podcast, I interview experts to help us all keep an eye on our stress levels, reducing them when possible, and building our resilience when there's not a lot we can do to mitigate the stress. Other weeks, I share tools and insights here and do solo episodes. This week is a solo episode. And I'm looking forward to sharing an activity called untangling stress with you. 

If you've ever untangled a ball of yarn, you know, it can be a process that takes some time. So the other day, I had been doing some spring cleaning, and our whole closet had several tangled up balls of yarn. So I pulled them out. And it's kind of cathartic for me actually to untangle a ball of yarn. So you know, it had all these different knots in it. And it wasn't in any like semblance of a ball. And it was kind of just a skein of yarn that had been pulled and cut and randomly used until it was just kind of falling apart. So it lost its the inner structure to hold it together. And it was just really falling apart. And so I started, you know, taking one end of it and tracing back where that connected how it was creating the knots, what was going on, you know, within the internal structure of the yarn, to create these different bulges that were making it hard to, you know, get the yarn in organized ball. And so I went through, and as I started pulling the yarn out, I realized there were like three and pieces, you know, like sticking out of this big jumble of yarn. So obviously, I wasn't dealing with just, you know, two ends right there, were just a bunch of different pieces in there. So as I untangled I got to the end of one and it was just this tiny little ball, just a small, probably two inch in diameter ball of yarn by the time I you know, pulled out all those pieces. So I set it aside and then got to work on the next end. And lo and behold it like had its own ending also. So it was probably a three or four inch ball of yarn by the time I finished that one. And then there were still a couple of ends sticking out. And so it kept going. And I did this over like the course of a couple of days while my daughter was going to bed, I kind of sat in a room and just was, you know, kind of untangling yarn. While we were watching show I was just going through and trying to you know, pull out the places where it was tight and make sure there were, you know, there was organized, organized yarn coming out of this jumble. And so on the second one, yeah, it was three or four inches in diameter. The third one is probably like a five or six inch ball. And then I had like the big ball that was you know, all of the rest of the yarn. But what was interesting to me is when I started, I thought I was just dealing with two ends, right, I thought I was just dealing with a couple of ends of yarn, and it was going to be simple to just kind of peel back the layers and, and put the ball into an order, you know, so that it was functional. But once I got in there and realized it was all these different pieces tangled together made it a little more challenging, because all of a sudden, I had knots, you know, like on top of knots and different different ends had created different jumbles within the whole mix. And so I think stress can sometimes be like that, where we think at first that we're maybe just dealing with one thing, when we see a really obvious stressor or something that is, you know, very acute or something that's really bothering us at a certain time. But a lot of times once we get into it, we realize that it's kind of like that tingle of yarn where there might be some stressors that are a little smaller, like those little small lengths that made the tiny two inch diameter yarn ball. And there may be others that are three or four inches, there may be another one, that's five, and then there might be the big one, right. And a lot of times stress can compound just like when there were a bunch of end pieces, and they were getting all jumbled up and we kept pulling on, you know, and taking a piece off or trying to wrap it up using one and getting mixed up with another one. Like when we try to address stress, sometimes there are repercussions, right, and there are trickle down effects to some of our efforts. And so when we can think about stress in this way and think about it is kind of an a process of untangling, it can really help us to start to get discerning about where to focus our attention. And there are a variety of ways we can do this. Right. We can focus on the big stressor first, which is what I did, I took that huge was like just kind of floppy, like bunch of yarn. And I took it and you know, sat with it for a while and kind of worked through what was there, it was at that point that I realized there were some other pieces, right that were coming into play, and that I was going to need to work with those as well. Stress can be like that, we're like that one big thing that kind of takes us over the top, maybe we are having panic attacks, maybe we're having you know, moments where anxiety feels super overwhelming to us. Maybe we're having a child who's having a lot of emotional meltdowns, maybe they're not eating, maybe their habits for connection have changed. And you notice that they're isolating a lot more, any of those things can be like the big stress, right, the thing that we're like, Oh, we got to sort it out. But a lot of times, as we get into that, we noticed some of these smaller things that are playing a role. And they might be complicating the process of untangling that big stress. And they might be relatively easy to resolve like that first little ball of yarn, it didn't take me a long time to kind of tease out that that little length of yarn, because it wasn't a lot. It hadn't been, you know, tangled into the whole thing, right. But the bigger lengths of yarn, the ones that made the the four inch diameter ball and the five inch diameter ball, by the time I was done, those ones were pretty integrated into that big mass of yarn. And so it took a while for them to kind of pull out. But the point is, we can start with a big one and kind of address it. But a lot of times along the way, what we find is smaller ones that need to be addressed as well. So for example, for kids who are navigating a lot of anxiety, right now, sometimes social skills are coming into play, right, because they haven't had a lot of practice with social skills the last couple of years. So they may be feeling a sense of social anxiety, because they haven't been, you know, just practicing. And so they've kind of forgotten what to say, or they're uncertain, or they just haven't developed that sense of confidence yet. Or maybe if they're feeling anxious, it's a result of emotional awareness and kind of learning how to process emotion, feel it, know what to do with it. A lot of times for kids, it can be overwhelming if they don't know what to do with those big feelings. And so over the last couple of years, we've had a lot of big feelings to process. And sometimes kids and adults wait until there's kind of more space in order to process it. So it's not uncommon for people to kind of the body. And the subconscious actually do this quite a bit, where they'll kind of hold something back a little bit, and wait until there's capacity to process and then kind of send it up. And then it will emerge as something that that needs to be addressed. So it's possible that with kids, they've been having these big emotions throughout the COVID, shutdowns throughout, you know, moments of reentry, and that they're finally feeling comfortable enough to start to process. Now I know as a parent that feels so overwhelming, because we think to ourselves, like who we made it through, right. And a lot of what we're seeing, you know, and I'm seeing this in, in my, with my collaborators and in professional circles is like stress starting to emerge for kids in ways that is really are really unique. And that are maybe indicative of like a stress burden from the last couple of years kind of surfacing to be processed. And in those moments, it's really helpful for kids to just help them identify the emotion, walk through the emotion, understand how to process it. And by process it, I mean, how to feel it, how to move the energy from it. So if it's an emotion like anger, being able to like express the anger, maybe stomping maybe hitting a pillow, in our house, we have a rule that we don't take out anger on any living thing. So if it's not living, and it's not gonna hurt you, then it's fair game. So pillows, we can stomp on the floor, you know, whatever it is. Bubble wrap is one that kids really, really love for expressing anger, you can get like that extra pop if you get the big bubble wrap, and then have them stomp on it. Things like anxiety, it can help us to move around to maybe take some postures or yoga poses where we pull our shoulders back. And we put the body in a stance of confidence. Deep breathing and relaxation exercises can help with anxiety, putting your legs up the wall. So that's like laying on the floor with your bottom right next to the wall and then just raising your legs up the wall that's really soothing for the nervous system.

So a lot of times kids just need to know right, they need to help to figure out what they're experiencing. And then they need help to understand what to do with it. And hear on the podcast on my website and in my work. The definition that I like to use for mindfulness is knowing what's going on inside of us knowing what's going on outside of us and then making a choice on purpose. And so you can see how it feeling big feelings and feeling this sense have chaos internally is really, really hard if you don't have the language to kind of name it and tame it. So once you give kids the tools like, Okay, this is anger, it looks like you're feeling really anxious right now, then they can start to do something with it, right? They know what's going on inside of them. So then they can make, you know, if you're there and you're supportive, they know they have a supportive space to process, they can make a choice on purpose about how they process from there. But if they're just left on their own, to kind of sort through that feeling, and they don't have the awareness or they don't have the capacity to identify it, it can be really challenging, and they can end up getting stuck in it. And so we're seeing a lot right now with kids, just big emotions coming up, and then kind of a fear or reticence around around processing. So they're just holding them. And it's kind of like trying to hold a beach ball underwater, like eventually, it's going to pop up somewhere and you don't always know where it's going to pop up. And so in my own life, you know, those moments have been scary and unnerving when I've been hanging on to emotion or trying to suppress it or repress it or deny it. Like I'm not feeling sad, right now, I'm not feeling sad, I'm fine, everything's fine, like COVID is over, there's nothing wrong. I shouldn't be sad right now. But those lines of thinking are really, really challenging for kids who are trying to process emotion. Because if we deny them their experience, and say like, well, what's wrong, COVID is done. Like there's nothing for you to be worried about anymore. We deny them the opportunity to learn to process and we also deny them the safe space to process. So for, for us, as parents as caregivers, people who care about children, a lot of our goal right now in helping kids untangle stress is helping them name it, identify those big stressors and help them start to sift through them with the recognition that there are going to be some smaller ones that come into play. And that that's okay, we can process those at the same time. It can be easy as caregivers, for us to get overwhelmed when we realize that the stress has compounded or maybe there are more pieces to it than we thought. But it's actually really normal for that to happen. And so if your child is having social stress, there may also be physical stress, right? And there's going to be emotional stress. If your child is having relational stress in in terms of like friendships or sibling relationships, there are going to be other emotional ramifications for that there will likely be social ramifications and perhaps physical ones as well. So being able to kind of tease that out and have the the people on your team to help you is really important. One of the things that I always encourage parents to do is to look at it with that big picture perspective and see all the different ways that the stress is impacting the child and then prioritize like, what's going to have the biggest impact right off the bat? And what action is going to have the biggest impact right off the bat, and how can you support the child and kind of just increasing awareness about the stress in general, and about small tools that will bring, you know a big impact in all the areas. And again, that's one of the reasons that I feel strongly about mindfulness is, mindfulness helps us reduce the impact of stress, right, because it changes the way we think about stress changes the way we think about ourselves. And that simultaneously helps us build resilience because it has a capacity to take the nervous system down to a space of calm, so kids can approach stress from that relaxed and ready place. And every time right, the stress is going to return there's going to be something else they're stressed about or some other thing that comes along. But if they know how to reframe if they know how to look to their strengths, and if they know how to draw on their reservoir of resilience, then they're much better positioned to navigate the stress in a healthy way and in a way that helps them to grow through it, as opposed to kind of stunting their development. And I think a lot of parents right now are concerned in that space, where they're seeing development, just like hurdles hurdles to development showing up. And they're watching kids navigate them, sometimes skillfully, and sometimes not so skillfully. But a lot of times, it's just a function of needing some different tools, needing a few more tools to navigate the stress. Once you untangle it and get clear on what it is you can develop those tools that you need in order to work through it. So I have on my website, a discovery survey. So if this is resonating with you, and you're feeling like oh my gosh, this is what's going on, like I need to untangle some of the stress my child is facing. There's a free survey you can take and it'll just help you get some clarity around what you know what what's going on for your kid, what you see as the the ramifications of those major stressors, and then what it's going to look like when those stressors are gone. So it's a powerful question asked like, what will it look like when my child is navigating these stressors with resilience or what will it look like when my child has overcome these struggles. And that way you know where you're headed. Once you know where you're headed, it's easier to click the tools you need to get there. But a lot of times as parents or caregivers, we can get stuck in that space of just feeling stressed about their stress. And we don't always get clarity about where we want to go or where we would like them to be. So you can take that survey, it's totally free. If you want to have a chat afterwards, I'm happy to have a free call with you. To help you sort through some of the resources that are available for you. I have a variety of free resources, low cost resources, and then my higher end coaching resources that are available to help families sort through stress, I also collaborate with so many other fantastic professionals. And so if the thing that your child is stressed about is something that's not within the scope of my practice, there are so many other great people that I'm connected with that I can refer you to who can help you get to the bottom of the stress and untangle it so that your child can move forward and create something beautiful with their life. One of the things that was so nice about untangling that yarn was that it was functional right after all the tangles were out, it wasn't just this big mess in the closet. I set those yarn balls back in, they're in like a very nice order. And now they can get pulled out and be used for anything. And so the functionality was dramatically increased by untangling, untangling all the knots. And it's like that with kids too. They have so much potential. And one of the things I love is seeing them access that potential when they're able to untangle their stress and then move forward freely without it. So here's to untangling stress. 

Thanks for being here this week. If you enjoyed the podcast, I'd really appreciate it if you would leave a review. You can go to rate this podcast slash the stress nanny to leave a review. I'd love to have you follow along and share the podcast with friend. So many families are navigating stress right now. We're in a variety of ways. And I love the opportunity to help families and give them simple tools to navigate that stress more skillfully. Thanks again for being here. Until next time!

Transcribed by https://otter.ai