Understanding Stress Signals and Self-Soothing Strategies
Throughout season two, Paula explored various techniques for recognizing and managing emotions, from navigating feedback to weathering emotional storms.
Today, she zeros in on a crucial element of mastering emotional regulation: understanding your personal stress responses and self-soothing methods.
In this episode, Paula dives into how recognizing these personal tendencies is a pivotal first step towards improving your emotional reactions. She reveals her own inclination to spring into action and explains how gaining this self-awareness has empowered her to pause and maintain composure under pressure.
This is an episode you don’t want to miss, Paula gives us tips on spotting those stress signals and finding your chill amidst the chaos. It's all about really knowing yourself and learning to listen to your mind and body when things get rocky.
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Episode Transcript:
Understanding Stress Signals & Self-Soothing Strategies
:: This transcript was generated automatically - please forgive typos. ::
[00:00:00] Paula: Welcome to today's episode of Beyond Neutral. So, over this, season, we've talked about a lot of different things that impact us, in relationship and in stressful situations. We've talked about feedback, we've talked about emotions and how to try to stay neutral in them or how to try to leverage emotions for what they're meant to offer us and not be hijacked by them.
[00:00:59] [00:01:00] And what I wanted to talk about today, a lot of the things that I've been talking about or the insights that I've been sharing have come from, an assessment tool that I use in my coaching. That's called the WEI profile that really looks at, what our internal experiences under stress, in relationship in a moment in real, in relationship.
[00:01:21] And one of the things that looks. At is also the way that we soothe ourselves in that moment, like where we get comfort. So I'm certain that we've all been in situations where, you know, we're talking with somebody, or we're in a meeting, or we're in a situation with others and something's causing us stress.
[00:01:41] There's some kind of conflict and you're going through that thought in your head and that process in your head. And. You're trying to, whether you're conscious of it or not, you're trying to figure out how to basically move out of that situation in a way that's helpful to you, right? Because nobody likes to stay in [00:02:00] stress.
[00:02:00] Nobody likes to continue to feel conflict. So we try to find the thing that soothes us in that situation and there are three different ways that we self soothe in any of those situations. We do it either through going into our head and really thinking through a situation. We do it in, taking action, okay?
[00:02:26] And I like to call that our head or our feet, right? Like moving, trying to think about what can be done. That's kind of our wants, what we're looking to achieve, what we're trying to solve. Okay. Or we do it by going into our hearts and really kind of sitting in the emotion that we're feeling in that.
[00:02:43] but one of those three things is the way that we kind of soothe ourselves in those situations of stress. Or conflict, so it's really, it's important to understand where your biases [00:03:00] because we generally all have a bias around a preferred way to move out of that state of stress. And our preference is either to take action to think about it or to feel it.
[00:03:11] Okay, ideally, we access all 3 of those things, depending on what the situation calls for, because all 3 of those things have their value and have their place and being able to access those equally is where we get the greatest benefit, right? And where we're able to leverage our own capacity and leverage our own capacity to the benefit of others.
[00:03:35] A relationship or whatever situation we're finding ourselves in reality, however, is realistically, we all tend to, skew one way or another on which of those three things we rely on, or we access most easily in a moment of difficulty. So, like anything, there's a benefit to each of them, [00:04:00] and then there's a risk to each of them if you're relying on them too quickly.
[00:04:04] If you are, a person who is prone to action, okay? what is the benefit of that? The benefit is that you want to solve a problem. So you get in this situation of conflict, or you get in this situation of stress, and you immediately go to, how do I solve this problem? You, what do I do?
[00:04:22] What do I say? Where do I go? It's action. It's forward. it's motion, right? That's why I call it your feet, right? the advantages you solve the problem, perhaps the disadvantages you miss data, the disadvantages being so quick to go to action. That you, first of all, misread the situation and think it requires it.
[00:04:46] You might, you might be premature in the action that you're taking. You might be taking it with less information that you need. And there are situations where you might be reacting perfectly. You move it off your plate and you're done. Right? [00:05:00] The downside is if you have a bias to that, you're not always paying attention to whether or not you have all the information you need, or whether you need to take action at all.
[00:05:13] Whether it's a moment where it's really just sitting in a disc and an uncomfortable feeling. Okay. If you're a person whose bias is to really think about something, that's fantastic because you take in all kinds of information. You really analyze the situation. Well, you probably mitigate risk. Well, that's fantastic.
[00:05:34] Except if that is your bias, sometimes you can get caught in an analysis paralysis loop, right? You've got to think every single thing through before you step into action. You get caught thinking you miss the opportunity to act or you overanalyze the situation and give it way too much time, way too much thought, way too much attention.[00:06:00]
[00:06:00] From a relationship standpoint, that can be very difficult for somebody who's looking for an answer. Somebody who's trying to move a process forward, okay, you're impacting the relationship by not recognizing that. it's a situation that doesn't require any more thought. It's more simple. It's more black and white than you're seeing.
[00:06:21] And your bias being so much about thinking that you miss the opportunity. So that's not necessarily where you always want to trend either. Emotion if you rely so much on emotion in those to soothe yourself, which by the way, most people don't, it's only really 5 percent of the population that has an over reliance on emotion.
[00:06:44] We should think about that for a minute, by the way, but anyway, as an over reliance on that, but that can be tough because you're, you can get caught in a churn. Or you can be viewed as way too, quote, unquote, touchy feely, right? Instead of kind of looking at [00:07:00] the nuts and bolts of the situation. So any one of those biases can be, can have an advantage and have a disadvantage.
[00:07:09] By the way, if you negate emotion all the time. You also can not read a situation where somebody just really needs you to be with them in the emotion of the moment and doesn't want a problem solved or doesn't want to think about it anymore. And by not being able to sit there with them, okay, you kind of are impacting the quality of your relationship.
[00:07:32] So, like I said, every single one of these strategies. Has its place and is important. The key is to be able to move between them appropriately and easily. So how do you do that? Okay. The first thing is you have to know where your biases and I find that that is, is a pretty easy thing to understand by looking at.
[00:07:58] Paying attention to your [00:08:00] body. And I notice it when I'm meeting with people or talking to people, I can tell when they suddenly get into a stressful situation, they almost have a physical reaction. They almost point to where they're feeling something. Like I'll have somebody go, wow, that's, you know, that's interesting.
[00:08:16] And they'll close their eyes and they'll almost point to their head, right? They're a thought person. For me, My bias, hands down, I'm an action oriented girl, right? So my bias is to make a decision on what to do. And I can feel when I'm in a stressful situation or I'm in a conflict situation, I literally start to move.
[00:08:37] I get jittery. My foot shakes, my knee goes up and down, my hands start moving, I physically start reacting to a situation and that's about wanting to take action. That's a bias to action. And I've had to pay attention to the fact that I'm having this physical reaction and take a deep breath and slow it down [00:09:00] so that I'm thinking it through more, or I'm paying attention to my emotion more because I have such a bias to action to solve problems that
[00:09:11] I need to sometimes sit down and realize that it doesn't require a problem solving. Okay. That taking time might help present other options. Okay. So where I feel that is in my body. I've noticed that people who are, and I do have a couple of clients who really become very emotional under times of stress.
[00:09:35] Or times of conflict, and they will literally put their hand on their chest. They'll be and you can see it. You can see it in there. You can see it in their face, but they tend to feel it here. Okay. They tend to take on the emotions of other people and can become paralyzed in a moment about them. So in terms of understanding your, or where your own [00:10:00] bias lies, pay attention to your body when you're in a situation of conflict, when you're in a situation of stress, is it your head?
[00:10:07] Is it your hands and feet, or is it your heart where you're feeling it? Think about that and become attuned to where that is. And how often it's there and then think about whether or not that is, in fact, how you're trying to soothe yourself in a difficult situation, how you're trying to get comfort. When somebody's talking to you about something and you're becoming stressed or you're becoming emotional.
[00:10:37] are you feeling jittery like you need to do something? Are you pulling back a little bit and going into your head and saying, well, I need to really think this through and analyze this and, you know, come up with a plan and, you know. And really, really, and are you getting comfort from either one of those things?
[00:10:56] Because that's the key. Like where is your, where are [00:11:00] you soothing yourself in that moment of stress? Are you soothing yourself by just connecting to somebody else's emotion or your own emotion? That's unlikely, but it does happen. Okay.less likely. I shouldn't say unlikely, less likely. So pay attention to where your bias is because like anything else
[00:11:20] identifying your bias enables you to take a step back and become more aware of the other possible options that you have in responding to that situation, or in looking at that situation. I have had to literally put my feet flat on the floor and hold them there to stop myself from moving. Wanting to take action from wanting to solve a problem andand in doing so enabled myself to think it through more or to feel it more understanding where our biases lie [00:12:00] is the very first step in utilizing more of our capacities
[00:12:06] in any given situation. And being able to access more of our capacity is not only what allows us to solve problems more effectively, but just as important or more important. It's also the thing that enables us to connect and be relational with others in solving those problems. Because if you are always going to action and you're with somebody else who's, who is a part of your, the conflict, and they're a thinker, then you guys are going to butt heads a little bit on how you move forward in that.
[00:12:47] If you both have the ability to step back and recognize the bias in that, it gives each other. As well as yourself space, okay, to find [00:13:00] room to meet in a new way, and that's incredibly invaluable in staying in relationship and leveraging all of ourselves to move forward in a more effective way. So that's the conversation of the day.
[00:13:16] Think about what your self soothing strategy is. Bet you didn't, you may not have even realized you have them, but you do. Okay. What is your self soothing strategy in a time of stress? In a time of conflict, how do you use, how do you make sure you're accessing the other tools that you need to look at and bring to any given situation?
[00:13:44] Conversation of the day. If you'd like to talk further about this or anything else, always happy to. In the meantime, I hope you're having a great day. Keep driving. Take care. [00:14:00]
This podcast was produced by The Willoughby Co.