Amidst the turmoil of divorce, managing stress can feel like an insurmountable challenge, but what if you could navigate it with healing, clarity and control? Join me as I teach you about the complexities of the stress cycle and uncover how understanding its nuances can transform your experience during and after a divorce. With insights in this episode, you'll discover how to reclaim your power, manage stress effectively, and lay the groundwork for a resilient future.
In this episode, you will learn what the stress cycle is, how it effects your physical, emotional and mental wellbeing, and how to complete the stress cycle to lessen the pain and suffering during your divorce. You'll also learn how to step away from the burnout of divorce - that ugly exhausting element of divorce where we just feel like we have no fight left to give.
By the end of this episode you'll have a LONG list of ways you can complete your stress cycle during and after divorce, to return to yourself connected, healed and stronger than ever.
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Grief and trauma are the two biggest struggles women deal with as they go through their divorce. It's highly likely that you are experiencing both and don't even realize what you're feeling. I'm here to tell you that it's okay for you to grieve your marriage (even if it was shitty) and it's normal to be experiencing some kind of trauma (which is essentially a disconnection from yourself - your mind, body and soul). I can help guide you through the grief in all of the forms it shows up so you can heal. I can also teach you how to ground yourself in healing so you can ease through the trauma. Schedule your free consult by clicking here.
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Full Episode Transcript:
Hi, welcome back to Becoming you Again.
You are listening to Becoming you Again, episode number 190, and I'm your host, karin Nelson. Welcome to Becoming you Again, the podcast to help you with your mental and emotional well-being during and after divorce. This is where you learn to overcome the grief and trauma of your divorce. We're going to do that by reconnecting with yourself, creating lasting emotional resilience and living a truly independent life, so that your life can be even better than when you were married. I'm your host, karin Nelson. Welcome back to the podcast. As always, I am so happy that you have come back for another episode.
In this episode, I am talking about what to do when the stress of your divorce feels like way too much, like you can't handle it anymore, like something happens and then you're like, if literally anything else happens, I'm going to be pushed over the edge and I just don't even know what to do about it. So we're going to talk about what to do for yourself to support yourself emotionally, mentally, physically, to help you as you go through something as stressful as a divorce, because either you're in it or you've been through it, but either way, divorce brings about stress. For the most part, like maybe there's, like some people, that it doesn't right, but for the most part Like maybe there's like some people that it doesn't right, but for the most part, whether you asked for it, whether it was a surprise, whether you've been left or you're doing the leaving, divorce is stressful and it creates an emotional fatigue and exhaustion that then, if not handled, turns into physical fatigue and exhaustion, which then also turns into mental fatigue and exhaustion, and for some of us, divorces drag on for months and months and years. Even that can get very overwhelming and again exhausting, and I want to give you as much support and information as possible so that you can support yourself as you go through this very challenging time in your life and then, when you're on the other side of it, hopefully you can continue to use these tools that you've been learning to help you as you create this new life after the divorce is final. So we want to talk about stress.
Stress is something that we're probably all very familiar with, and sometimes stress can actually be very useful and helpful. So I don't want you to go into this thinking that, like feeling any kind of stress is a terrible, bad thing, or that it's unusual, or that you shouldn't be feeling it, because, yes, stress is pretty normal, most. Every single human on the planet feels it from time to time, and stress when it's not too much, when it's not overwhelming, when we know what to do with it, can actually be very useful. It can help us achieve goals. We can meet challenges. With stress, we learn to take initiative and in our best moments of stress, we become very good at problem solving. When you experience stress in this way and I'm sure you probably have experienced stress in this way throughout your life you can grow and you can evolve yourself.
The problem with stress is when you get stuck in a stress cycle and you don't know how to complete that stress cycle, and then it just keeps building up more and more and more, over and over and over again. We add on lots of over-functioning, we add on lots of mental load, and carrying all of that around without processing through our emotions, without completing the stress cycle, which then, over time, is going to create burnout. That is what we don't want. It's that burnout that creates the emotional, physical and mental exhaustion that leads to feeling stuck. That leads to not caring about anything, that leads to feeling like you want to give up. That leads to feeling like nothing good is going to happen that leads to feeling like you can't handle things after divorce, that you're not capable, that you can't trust yourself. It's that stress response and that burnout that makes divorce seem a million times worse than it actually is.
I'm not trying to discount or invalidate that. Your divorce is hard, probably, and stressful and difficult and challenging. I know it is, I understand it is. I work with many clients who very much have difficult divorces, difficult ex-partners, difficult things that they're trying to work out in their divorce decree, all of the things. I understand that. But very often we put this layer of suffering on top of ourselves that is so unnecessary and it's that stress that creates that burnout. That is that unnecessary suffering that we're feeling. So let me teach you some ways to let go of some of that stress, to complete that stress response cycle, so that you don't have to feel the added layer of suffering as you go through your divorce or as you're learning to heal from your divorce.
So let's talk a little bit about stress First of all. Like I kind of just explained, stress can be good, it can help us, and then it also can be difficult and challenging and bad. Right, it can make things worse for us. And there's definitely a difference between stress and stressors. There are some things, when it comes to stress, that we can control, like completing the stress cycle, which I'm going to don't worry, if you don't know what that is, I am going to teach you more about what that is and give you lots and lots of examples of what that can look like for you is, and give you lots and lots of examples of what that can look like for you.
But we can control whether or not we complete the stress cycle, like we can totally control that. That is definitely something that is in our hands, which is good news, honestly right, because when we're going through a divorce, there are so many things that are out of your control. We can't control our x or soon to be x, anything that they do. We can't control any of that. We can't control whether they fill out the divorce papers or whether they get a lawyer, or whether they show up to mediation or what like whatever right. We can't control if they pay their fees that they're supposed to pay, like their child support and their alimony. We can't control if they drop the kids off at the right time or pick that up, like we aren't in control of anything that they do or that has to do with the actual ending of the divorce decree, the decisions that the judge makes, the mediation we can't control, like so many things, and it seems very frustrating and oftentimes we feel very powerless.
So what I want you to understand is where you hold power in your own life, and so much of that comes down to learning how to have your own back, trusting yourself to make the right decisions for you and really taking care of yourself in moments where you absolutely need it, and that means learning how to control your stress cycle and complete it when necessary. There are some things that you probably can cut back on or say no to, or say yes to right, it goes both ways. Those are things that you can absolutely control, take a look at, decide on, but what happens when we go through some kind of stress is our nervous system response kicks in immediately. Like let's use, for example, let's say you're going through divorce and your soon to be ex is just like texting you constantly or messaging you or emailing you or leaving messages on your phone, like whatever, however you guys communicate, and he's just being the biggest asshole and this is a constant thing. Like, let's say, this happens very often, like several times a week, once a week, whatever. He's just constantly talking about how you're doing it wrong. You're ruining his life. Nothing good is to come of this. You're ruining the kids' lives, you're not there enough.
You're like whatever, right, he's leaving all sorts of messages and immediately, whether you read the messages or not, you see them coming in. You could look at your phone and there's just you know, 10 messages, missed messages, missed calls, whatever from your ex or soon to be ex, and you feel that heightening, that like raising of the cackles in your body. You feel that response that is your stress response kicking in, and what that means is your nervous system, which is our primitive, primal part of our body and our brain working together. It's the part that was passed down from years and years and years ago, our ancestors from thousands of years ago, who learned to protect themselves by being on alert, and we still have that in us today. Right, our stress response is the fight, flight and freeze mode that we all have, and it happens habitually. It happens instantly until we learn what to do with it, but it happens so fast that when we get triggered in some way and maybe triggered isn't the right word for you. But when we get activated in some way by seeing those messages on our phone, by seeing the little bubble number of how many text messages you have waiting for you to read, or checking your email and seeing that you have 17 unopened emails all from the same email address, like seeing those things creates an immediate activated nervous system response. And whatever your habitual way of showing up is whether it's fight, flight or freeze and it might be different at times, but most of us have one way that is a little bit more habitual than the others that kicks in and we feel heightened.
Now I want you to think back to a time when this may have happened to you, when you felt this, maybe the last time this happened, try to remember what was happening in your body. Did your muscles tighten? Did you feel a pit or a rock in your stomach? Did your heartbeat start to beat a little bit faster? Did you feel maybe clammy or sweaty? Did you get any change in temperature, like the heat rising into your face or into your head? Did you feel any kind of tightness in your chest or your throat? Did you feel like your shoulders kind of inch up toward your ears, or a tightness, or holding that tension in your shoulders and your upper back or maybe something else. But try and go back to the last time that you felt this immediate need to fight, to run away, flight or to freeze and to not do anything at all. Notice what's happening in your body, because the more aware you are of that instantaneous stress response kicking in, the more you'll be able to recognize it in the moment and choose some kind of stress cycle response to mitigate that, to realign, even if it's just a little bit, to help bring your prefrontal cortex back online. And basically what that means is when we go into a stress response, when our nervous system is heightened in some way above or below right Fight and flight is above the like heightened line below would be like the freeze response, like I don't know what to do, but either way we've been activated.
When that happens, our prefrontal cortex, which is the part of our brain that does the reasoning and the decision making and the logical thinking and the being able to problem solve, that part of our brain, scientifically goes offline. It basically means that your intelligence goes down. So in plain old terms, we get a little bit dumber. And I'm not trying to like say that you're dumb or that you're doing it wrong, because we all, as humans, do this. We get a little bit dumber when our body is in fight, flight or freeze mode and we are activated by that nervous system stress response. We want to be able to get that prefrontal cortex part of our brain, the thinking part of our brain, back online to know how to respond to these stressors that are happening to us during our divorce. We want to show up as a best part of ourself that we can open up to in these moments where things are really difficult and really hard. But it's hard to do that when we're always feeling activated, when we don't know how to complete that stress response cycle.
And what's important to know about this stress response cycle is that it's an important part of our DNA. If you were actually threatened in some way let's say you were a woman and you're walking out to your car after going to the grocery store late at night and there's only maybe like four cars in the parking lot and you hear someone walking up a little too close for comfort, right, that doesn't feel good. Guess what happens. Our stress response immediately kicks in because it knows, uh-oh, something bad might happen. What can I do to protect myself? Do I need to run away? Do I need to fight this person off? Do I need to jump in my car as quickly as possible and sit there and call the police? Like, what do I need to do to protect myself?
This is a very useful, at times, part of our DNA. However, it becomes not useful when our brain cannot tell the difference between actual physical danger and emotional danger. And what I'm talking about when you are going through this stress response while you're going through your divorce, when you see those message numbers or you see the number of emails that you received, or you look and you have 17 voicemails from your ex and you just know, because you feel that pit in your stomach, you just know that nothing good is on the other side of those messages. That is an emotional danger. But your body and your brain do not know the difference, does not know the difference between actual physical danger and emotional danger. It just categorizes it all as the same thing Danger. Something bad could happen. We better watch out and figure out what the fuck to do next. And figure out what the fuck to do next.
So now that we know that this is a good part of our DNA, but also very not useful in many, many moments, especially when it comes to our emotional intelligence and being able to support ourselves and help ourselves and heal ourselves when we're going through really difficult, challenging things in our lives. We need to learn how to complete that stress cycle to calm our nervous system down and bring our prefrontal cortex back online, to get back to the reasoning, the logical thinking, the problem solving, to be able to unstick ourselves and decide intentionally what to do next, how to handle the next thing. All right, so let's talk about how we complete the stress response cycle. Definitely, grounding is important, and I do have many, many podcast episodes where I give you grounding techniques and I think that can bring you back into the present moment, which is a beautiful thing, and that can definitely be a part of the stress response cycle.
But we want to move a little bit beyond just grounding. So what can that look like? Number one thing that I think is going to help most, if it's possible, if it's something that you can do right now, in this moment or when you're feeling that stress response right, is some kind of movement. Now I just did a podcast episode that came out about a month ago called Move, and it's a somatic practice that I think could be very useful in moments like this and basically what you're doing is you're changing your movement state. If your typical stress response is to freeze, that's my very typical, habitual response is I freeze, I just shut down, I don't know what to do, so I just don't do anything.
The move idea is that in those moments when you recognize it, because you're becoming aware of these things, you're learning, you're starting to see it in moments or after the fact and you go okay, if that happens again, what am I going to do? How am I going to support myself? So this idea of move and you can go back and listen to the episode is you change your physical state, so you either stand up immediately and start walking, you march in place, you move your hands like, swing your arms forward and back, you punch forward and back in the air, like something that creates a movement state for you, that helps your body recognize oh, we actually are safe in this moment. We're going to complete that stress response cycle so that we can actually breathe, know we're safe and bring our brain back online. So I think movement is probably number one, and it doesn't have to be that somatic response that I talk about in that podcast episode that was about a month ago. It could be any kind of movement. It could be walking, it could be turning on some incredibly like heart pounding music and dancing in a very like animalistic way. It could be swimming, it could be just exercising in any form with the intention of releasing any emotion that is ready to be released. So before you started that exercise yoga, running, hiking, biking, whatever right you set the intention in your brain, with this movement I am going to release any of the emotions that are building up inside of me that are ready to be released, or however you want to say it, right, and then you move with that intention.
But there are so many other ways to complete the stress response cycle, especially if you're not feeling up to moving. Sometimes we're not, sometimes we're just not feeling it, which is something that I want to remind you that you know you best. I know a lot of times it doesn't feel like that is true, but that is 100% true. And the more you tap into listening to what your body needs in those moments when things are hard, when things are challenging, when you don't know what to do when you just feel like you can't do any of it anymore. When we tap into listening and providing what it is that we need, that creates reconnection to ourself, that creates self-trust and that creates a reconnection between our brain, our body and our intuition, which brings you closer to you and reconnected to you. You have always known what is best for you. It's just been society, the system that we live in, the cultural programming that has taught you to believe that you don't know what's best for you, that other people need to tell you what's best for you, that other people need to tell you and define who you are and what your worth is and what your value is, and none of that is true. We want to get you reconnected with you so that you know the answers, because hidden inside, somewhere, under the layers of figuring out who you are, there is the answers of what it is that you truly need to support yourself, to heal and to be the best version of you. Okay, so that was a little side tangent, but let me go through this list of some other ways that you can complete the stress response cycle, because maybe movement isn't what you need in that minute right. You are the ultimate authority of you and you always get to decide what works best for you, and it probably will change from time to time depending on the stress that you're feeling and what you're going through.
Crying huge one huge one For me when I was going through my divorce movement and crying together was a huge stress response cycle completion. That helped me heal almost more than anything else that I did. I would go for a walk almost every single day and many times especially those first, probably four to six weeks I would cry while I was on my walk. I didn't ever feel like I was going to be super judged or seen by a lot of other people, and so I felt safe crying outdoors while I was on my walk and I did that a lot. I would go for a walk and I would just cry. I would just allow my emotions to release in that way, and it always felt healing by the end of my walk.
So crying might be something that you can do to complete your stress response cycle, maybe listening to specific songs that make you feel a certain way, a way that you want to feel in these moments where you feel very stressed. Maybe it's empowering songs. I have playlists that I will play at certain times that I have created, where I feel empowered or I feel angry and I need to work out some anger. Or I feel like I want to have fun and dance and be silly, like find some songs that evoke certain emotions in you and do that, feel that, listen to that and allow those emotions to move through you in whatever way. That looks like it could also be like sitting on the couch, snuggling in a very soft cozy blanket.
Maybe you bring up your pet and have them come sit on your lap your dog, your cat, like for me it would be my cat Bring them over and hopefully, when they're sitting by you, they purr Like. It's been proven scientifically that cats purring can help with our stress response. It can help calm our nerves and help clear the anxiety that we are feeling. Pets play an important role in our healing. That is why emotional support animals have become so important in today's world and why so many people are leaning on the idea of getting an emotional support animal because they are such loving, healing beings that we can use their love to help heal us. So animals, pets, coziness, sitting with the soft blanket, allowing yourself to feel embraced and loved.
Pleasurable food that brings you pleasure and joy, talking with a friend that you feel safe and connected with, laying outside on the grass in the sun, standing with bare feet on a warm concrete sidewalk, playing, playing with your kids, doing some kind of play just for yourself, where you're being silly, juggling that you guys know. That's something that I taught myself almost two years ago now some kind of playful movement in that way, play, play can be a huge healing device and it can definitely complete that stress response cycle for you. Stomping your feet, throwing a pillow on the ground over and over, punching a pillow, shadow boxing, jumping on a mattress or hitting a mattress, going somewhere where you want to be alone, where you have privacy and quiet, where you feel safe to cry, to yell, to scream, to do anything else that feels healing and like it's going to give you exactly what you need in those moments, whatever your reaction is, it's totally normal. It is totally okay for you to feel what you are feeling, whether it's anger, whether it's frustration, whether it's sadness, whether it's grief, whether it's rejection, whether it's whatever is coming up for you. It's totally okay for you to feel those things and to allow them to move through you in these ways. Very often, like I said, we want to tap into what it is that you actually need in those moments, and the way we do that is we ask ourselves what do I need most right now, in this moment? What is going to fill me up, help me feel safe, help me feel connected, help me feel like I can handle this. Just help me feel these things that I'm feeling. What is it in these moments? And then use any of those things that I gave you in that list or something else that comes to mind.
I remember when I was first learning about the stress response cycle and I was with my trauma coach and she was coaching me and a group of other women and there was like four or five of us where we were all like, okay, well, my brain is telling me this thing, but I don't know if that's the right answer, and that is such a typical response for a woman. We question ourselves, right. We question because we've been taught not to trust our intuition. We've been taught that we're wrong and everyone else's authority over us is right, that we don't know ourselves well enough to know. And that's what I want to teach you is that you do know what's right. You can trust your intuition. We want to tap back into that.
So if you ask yourself, what do I need most right now, in this very stressful situation, and something pops into your head, try that thing and see if it gives you what it is that you're looking for An alignment of your nervous system, a feeling of safety, a feeling of compassion for yourself and what you're going through. Because I promise you that whatever is popping into your head is your intuition telling you this is probably the thing that you need. Let's do our best to provide it. So when you get to that point and it may happen very often, it may only happen once, maybe it'll happen once a week, I don't know. But when you get to that point during and after your divorce, when you feel like the stress is just too much to handle and you're like is just too much to handle and you're like I can't take any more of this, I just I have nothing left to give.
It's in these moments that we want to complete the stress response cycle in any of those ways and beyond, to support yourself, to heal yourself, to love yourself, to give yourself what it is that you actually need in those moments. Bring yourself back to you. You deserve it, you are worthy of it and you are valuable enough to do it for you. I love you so much. I know that you got this. You can handle everything that is coming at you. Let's make it easier and less heavy and hard by completing the stress response cycle. That is what I have for you today. I love you all so so much.
Thank you for listening and I will be back next week. Hi, friend, I'm so glad you're here and thanks for listening. I wanted to let you know that if you're wanting more, a way to make deeper, more lasting change, then working one-on-one with me as your coach may be exactly what you need. Together, we'll take everything you're learning in the podcast and implement it in your life, with weekly coaching, real-life practice and practical guidance. To learn more about how to work with me one-on-one, go to karinnelsoncoaching dot com. That's wwwkarinnelsoncoaching dot com. Thanks for listening. If this podcast agreed with you in any way, please take a minute to follow and give me a rating wherever you listen to podcasts and for more details about how I can help you live an even better life than when you were married. Make sure and check out the full show notes by clicking the link in the description.
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