7 strategies to relieve never-ending stress

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This is going to be a very vulnerable episode where I am sharing the state of my own mental health and being honest with what’s going on for me in my life and in my head and my heart.  

I believe so strongly in getting support when you need it, and for not settling with your fears or anxieties or stuckness.  

So this week, I am interrupting the balance foundations series that we’ve been covering over the last few episodes, to share with you and to offer the 7 strategies I’m using right now to help me get through this very hard, difficult season of life. 

Topics in this episode:

  • Sharing personal mental health struggles  

  • Emphasizing seeking help. 

  • Impact of family and work stress on mental well-being. 

  • 7 methods for managing mental health. 

  • The challenges of maintaining mental and emotional health in balancing professional and family life. 

Show Notes & References:   

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Transcript

Intro

All right, working moms, this is going to be a very vulnerable episode for you today, where I am sharing the state of my own mental health and being honest with what's been going on in my life and in my head and my heart. I believe so strongly in getting support when you need it and for not settling for fears, anxieties, stuckness, that I'm interrupting the series that we've been in on the balance foundations and what it takes to create a foundationally work life balance. I'm interrupting the series to share with you exactly where I'm at right now and to offer you the seven strategies that I'm using to help me get through this very difficult season of my life. You ready? Let's get to it.

Welcome to the Ambitious and Balanced Working Moms Podcast, your go to resource for integrating your career ambitions with life as a mom. I'm distilling down thousands of coaching conversations I've had with working moms just like you, along with my own personal experience as a mom of two and sharing the most effective tools and strategies to help you quickly feel calm, confident, and in control of your ambitious working mom life. You ready? Let's get to it.

A Vulnerable Conversation About Mental Health

My friends, I have a very vulnerable episode for you today. We've been in the middle of a series on the foundations of balance, but I want to interrupt that series to have a really serious conversation around mental health.

And in this case, I'm going to share pretty openly about my own mental health journey—at least the season of my mental health journey. And then I definitely want to talk about some of the things that I am doing in this kind of hard season of my life.

Why I’m Interrupting the Series to Talk About Mental Health

I feel like this topic is important enough to interrupt the series for a number of reasons.

Number one, I want to set an example for you that when you're in a season of struggling, it's important to talk about it, and it's important to get help. I want to normalize the idea that mental health is a thing and that we all go through seasons at times.

Number two, I really want to be authentic. I want to be in alignment with what I teach as a life coach. And I want to show you that I'm not exempt from seasons of hardship. I have all of the tools, I teach all of the tools, I know what I'm supposed to do—and sometimes I do it and sometimes I don't. And sometimes I go through really hard seasons just like everyone else, just like any other human on the planet.

And then the last reason why I think it's really important to interrupt the series is because mental health and getting mental health and the support of your mental health can have kind of a stigma around it. When we talk about therapy or things like that, I want to normalize the idea that we all need help at times. There's nothing wrong. There's nothing wrong with you when you're going through a season where you need help. And so I want to also normalize that here as much as I can in this community.

Inspired by Simone Biles’ Courage

So next week, we're going to get back to the work-life balance series and talk all about the last C of the foundation of creating work-life balance. But this week, I want to talk about mental health—particularly my own mental health—and some of the strategies I'm using to kind of navigate this particular season of my life.

Another thing that sparked this episode today was my family's in the middle of watching the Simone Biles… I think that's how you say her name… Simone Biles docuseries. I can't think of the name of it. I think it's called Simone Biles Rising,and it is on Netflix.

And if you don't know her story, it's such an inspiring story. She's an elite gymnast—arguably the best gymnast of all time—and she removed herself from the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. She literally removed herself from the team. She stopped competing during the Olympics due to her own mental health.

Really, if you don't know much of her story, you should definitely go and watch it. She has changed not just gymnastics, but she has paved the way for all athletes to get the mental support that they need and to prioritize their own mental health over winning, ultimately.

Choosing Mental Health Over Medals

Simone Biles traded in medals—and several medals, likely gold medals—for her mental health. She traded in what was likely going to be world records and gymnastics moves that were going to be named after her at those Olympics. She traded those in for her own mental health.

She said that winning is not as important as caring for herself and her own mental health.

I'm just so inspired by her courage, her authenticity, her willingness to talk about her fears and anxieties, and the fact that she goes to therapy once—at least once a week—and she's done that for years. I'm just so inspired by her story that I really wanted to bring some authenticity here to this podcast as well, because I myself am going through my own mental health challenges.

Coaching Tools Are Mental Health Tools

And so, for all these reasons, we're talking about mental health today. Virtually everything that I do in coaching—like all of the tools that I offer, all of the things that I teach you here—almost all of it has some element of mental health in it.

It's about getting your head and your heart congruent with the things that are most important to you—like your values and the things that you do. That's really what I'm all about as a life coach.

So a lot of the things that I talk about here on the podcast are about getting your mind clear. It's about clearing up all of the negative chatter, all of the self-doubt, all of the fear, all of the anxieties, all of the imposter syndrome that take place in your mind, so that you can make decisions where you feel more free and you feel more present.

But What Happens When the Tools Don’t Work?

I teach these tools. I teach the two-minute reset, the pivot moment, the thought download. Those are all podcast episodes where I literally walk you through tools that I teach my clients and that I use myself to help get your mind back on track.

But what happens if it doesn't work long term? What happens if you have unyielding stress that never feels like it ends, and all those in-the-moment tools that you have don't have lasting effect? That's what we're going to talk about today.

If You Want Change, You Have to Do Something Different

What do you do in that scenario? Because here's what I can tell you: you can't do what you don't want to do.

What, for sure, I am not doing—you simply can't wake up tomorrow and do nothing. You cannot wake up tomorrow and not change your thoughts or perspectives or the way you're feeling or try something new and expect a different result.

If you wake up tomorrow and do nothing differently—meaning you just sort of hope things are going to be better tomorrow—you're simply going to spiral further and further down.

If you want to experience something different, if you want something different tomorrow, then you're going to have to do something different to make that happen. You're going to have to think, feel, or do something different.

Sharing My Current Mental Health Struggles

Okay, so let me give you a little bit of what's going on with me right now just to help you kind of understand my state of mental health. And then I want to talk about the things that I've been doing to address it and to sort of make change.

I have seven—seven things I want to offer to you. Seven practices, tools, whatever you want to call it—something along those lines—that I'm doing in an effort to take care of my mental health.

How Homeownership Became “A Third Child”

Right now, for me, the journey of kind of where I'm at today really goes back to when I bought a house back in January. I mean, of course, we knew—my husband and I knew—that being first-time homeowners wasn't going to be easy.

We have an 80-year-old house. Of course there were upgrades, there were things that we were going to need to do to take care of our house and so forth. But the mental space that that was going to take up? I couldn't have anticipated that.

And so for the last seven months or so, my husband and I have had kind of what I've said is almost like a third child. Something that has needed consistent attention and is very demanding of us in ways that I couldn't have anticipated.

So it has taken time, energy, space in our heads, and in our bodies. And really, away from our kids in order to take care of the things that need to be taken care of in our house.

How It’s Impacting My Kids

And our kids, of course, have not liked that so much. They have noticed it. I wouldn't necessarily say they have been able to articulate that, but we've noticed more behavioral challenges. They're not getting as much attention, so they're asking for more attention from us in ways that they weren't before.

They have bigger feelings about all sorts of things as a result of it. And so this is really where things started to kind of go downhill for me.

Parenting Challenges Add More Stress

On top of that, each one of my kids has obviously their own unique challenges. They're in their own kind of stage of growth.

My oldest, particularly my ten-year-old—her hormones are changing, her opinions are changing. She's not in that happy, easy, people-pleasing, easily entertained space that she once was. There's a lot of negativity that's brewing within her as she's kind of wrestling with lots of big feelings and big things going on.

Her best friend moving to Alaska. All sorts of things that are happening with her are taking a lot, a lot, a lot of mental energy from me as I help her navigate these ups and downs. And then a lot of that kind of negative, angry energy is being directed at me in particular—and that's absolutely exhausting.

The Demands of Running a Coaching Business

The challenge on the work front is that really, to run a successful coaching business where you're a solopreneur just like me, it requires a lot of mental and emotional stamina.

I'm writing content all of the time. I have to have the mental space to do that. I have to have the focus to listen to my clients for hours at a time and give them all of the attention and the capacity that I have to help them make change.

And I just simply don't have all of that. As I've been handling my third child—which is my house—and as I've been trying to be present and taking in all of this emotional energy from my kids right now, trying to give them everything that I have in order to help them navigate this season of their life… this has been a challenge.

Living in a State of Unyielding Stress

My heart feels like it is constantly being torn between all sorts of things. I have this pit that's right behind my heart that never feels like it's going away. It feels like I'm caving in at times.

I wake up with anxiety. I have dreams that produce anxiety. All of these things are happening right now.

My usual reset tools, like the ones I mentioned before—the two-minute resets, the pivot moment exercises—all these things that I teach my clients how to do within the moment, sort of ups and downs and emotions and stress… it's helping for just kind of a moment.

But the stress just keeps coming back minutes, an hour later, and I feel like I'm in this perpetual state over and over and over again with unyielding stress where there just simply isn't relief.

Recognizing the Path Toward Burnout

Now, I've seen this pattern in my clients. I can observe this in other people when my clients are experiencing unyielding stress that kind of never gives. I can tell you where this ends up: it ends up in burnout.

And that's oftentimes when clients find me—right at the end of this kind of unyielding stress, when they've tried absolutely everything else and they don't know what else to do. They end up hiring help, sometimes that's me, so that they can avoid that last stage of burnout where you truly have to take a full break because your body just can't function anymore and you need to give yourself rest for a lengthy period of time.

That's what I want to try to avoid with all of my clients. I can see that that's where I'm headed if I don't intervene. If I let things keep going the way they're going, that's where I'm headed.

Now, of course, I can see all of that. I see this in my clients every day. I know the signs of it. I am getting the help that I need, and that's why we're here talking about it.

Pause and Check In With Your Own Mental Health

I want to talk to you about some of the things that I'm doing to try to mitigate what will end up being burnout if I don't do any of these things. But that's the state of my mental health. That's what's going on with me in my heart, in my mind right now.

So let's talk about the ways that I am taking care of myself during this season.

Before I do that, though, I really want to take a moment to encourage you to pause this podcast if you need to—right now—and be honest with yourself about your own state of mental health.

Maybe you can relate to some of my stressors right now. Maybe it's a really hard season with your kids or a really hard season at work. But if you are in this perpetual state of stress that feels unyielding, where the usual moments of rest or activities of rejuvenation just simply aren't working for you anymore in the ways that they used to… if that's you, I want you to listen to the rest of this podcast, and I want you to commit.

Commit to yourself to at least taking one of the seven tools that I'm about to talk about. One of the seven principles. I'm not sure if they're tools or principles or strategies—they’re one of those things. I want you to just take one of them and commit to applying it to your life.

Strategy One: Take Space

So the first one is to take space. Now, to be honest, I talk about this a lot as a day-to-day strategy. I find it absolutely essential for you to learn how to remove yourself from perpetual stress—stressful situations—to give yourself a momentary break from that.

Everything changes when you take space from things that are causing you stress. Your brain changes—literally. There's research that shows if you just move from your office to outside, that change, that space, actually does something in your brain that allows you to gain perspective and navigate things differently.

Real-Life Examples of Taking Space

Let me give you some examples of what that has looked like for me today in my own mental health.

The other day, there was an emotional moment going on with my daughter. It had been going on for quite some time—maybe 45 minutes, an hour or so—in this very long, perpetual state that my daughter was in.

I could feel like I had stayed calm and steady for a very long period of time. And I could feel my stress and anxiety and kind of anger building up inside of me. I could feel it coming out through what I call my volcano, where it's going to explode out of me.

So I left her in her room. I went to my own room—this is me taking space. I closed the door, and then I screamed at the top of my lungs. Like, I have never screamed bloody murder—so much so that I hurt my throat later. I felt it all day in my throat. That's how much I had screamed.

But I needed this. I needed to take space and get out everything that was exploding inside of me. And I didn't want that to be directed at my daughter, so I just needed to let it all go.

Sometimes, I go on a walk. I will literally just leave. I'll say, “Honey, I need a moment. I'm going to go on a walk. I'll be back.” Sometimes my daughter's in the middle of a complete meltdown. Sometimes my son can't stop attaching himself to me. And I just have to leave.

And so I need to take space. It's not going to be very long. I'm going to go on a 10–15 minute walk just to get me out of that triggered state. That's another way you might take a break.

Sometimes I close myself in the bathroom if that's all I can do at that moment—to go pee or not go pee or do whatever I need to do in the bathroom. But I hear my kids knocking: “Kids, I need space. Kids, I need space. Kids, I will come out in a few minutes. When I'm done, I'm taking a break. I'm taking a break right now.”

It's giving myself this moment where I can just breathe and actually let myself calm down and kind of give myself that internal space that's necessary.

So that's the first strategy. Space is so important when it comes to your mental health.

Strategy Two: Take a Full Break

The second one has some similarities, but we're going to talk about it in more of a longer sense. And I call this a full break.

So this is the second strategy: to take a full break. It's not just going to your room and closing the door. It is actually getting away for an afternoon, for a day, for a weekend, or for longer than a weekend.

It's actually taking a full break away for hours at a time where your whole body is out of the triggers that tend to bring up all of the stress and the anxiety.

Strategy Two: Taking a Full Break

Right. So for me, just recently, I went to Las Vegas. Now, it was originally for a work trip, and it still was. I still went on this work retreat, but I also added a couple of days onto it—tacked on a couple of days just for some extra time away from my family.

I was gone for six full days away from my kids and five nights. And it was very… like, that break just was so rejuvenating. It actually took me almost two days to really feel that pit behind my heart—the whole chest-caving-in feeling. It took almost two days for that to fully go away and for me to really feel the air again, like the space again inside of my body.

Sometimes you don't have that much time. That's rare for me to have that much time. But I had a friend invite me to a day retreat, like a silent retreat for a day. And I cleared my schedule to make that happen—that’s coming up in just a few days.

I had somebody reach out to me and say, “Hey, we need somebody to substitute on our ultimate frisbee team tonight. Will you do that?”

I know how difficult it is for me to leave my kids with my husband. My kids are so clingy right now; they are likely going to cry and cry when I go play ultimate frisbee. But I need the break. I'm taking a full break out, away from the trigger.

So this isn’t just momentary space like the first strategy. This is a break. And you need to plan those breaks in. When’s the next available afternoon you have off, or a day that you have off, where you can remove yourself fully from those triggers?

Strategy Three: Be Vulnerable

The third strategy I have for you in taking care of your mental health is to be vulnerable. I'm doing that right now on this podcast. I'm sharing with you. Literally thousands of people are going to listen to this episode and know where my mental health is right now and what's going on inside of me and internally and with my daughter—all these things.

But even beyond that, when people ask me how I'm doing, I don't shy away from telling people: “I'm in a really hard season right now.” And usually when I say that, even now as I say it, tears start to well up in my eyes. This is a hard season, and I just don't shy away from it.

Most people say, “I'm so sorry.” A lot of women, in particular moms, can relate to difficult seasons with their kids, and so I can feel their sympathy. I just let myself be honest and vulnerable with the people around me. I don't shy away from saying, “I'm not okay,” and it's okay to not be okay.

I'm also honest with my kids—and definitely my husband—about where I'm at. So I tell my kids if I'm particularly having a hard moment: “You know, kids, I just need a little space right now. Please don't touch me. I just need a little bit of quiet. I'm having a really hard time right now.”

When I'm crying and they see me cry, I just let them know: “Hey, this is a tough season for me right now. I have a lot of feelings, just like you have a lot of feelings. It's okay. It's okay to not be okay.”

Sometimes I can use it as a teaching moment. And sometimes I don't need to say any of that. I just am okay with not being okay, and I let people know that.

Vulnerability and honesty is not just about being that way with other people. More than anything, it's about being that way with yourself. And when you're honest and vulnerable with yourself, you actually allow for more healing, more perspective, and all the things you’re going to need in order to get through this season.

Strategy Four: Find an Outlet

Strategy number four is to find an outlet. This is your way to get everything that's going on inside of you—outside of you.

Right now, I've intentionally sought out a couple of friends to share with. A couple of these people have been friends with me for a long time. A couple of people are newer friends of mine, like parents of friends of my kids that I’ve recently developed relationships with through school or whatnot.

But I've reached out to say, “Man, parenting is tough right now. I need a community. Will you be in my community? Can I share with you when I'm having a really hard day, a really hard time?”

These are people that I just let—like, I word vomit, if you will. Or I thought download, another way to say that, to these friends. Sometimes just via text, sometimes I call them. Sometimes I leave a message, an audio message, or something like that.

Having a place to let all of those thoughts and those emotions out in their rawest form is so important. To be able to not edit what you have to say or think, and just get it all out. Right?

So finding an outlet—that's the fourth strategy.

Strategy Five: Create a Mental Health Routine

The fifth strategy I have for you is to get into a mental health routine. Our brains love routines. Our brains love to know what's next. They love to know what to expect. They love plans.

And you need to have a mental health plan. It can be very simple.

Here’s my plan, as I just share with you, okay? My plan is:

  • I get up at 6:00 a.m., and I either do a ten-minute yoga session or I make tea and I sit down for maybe five minutes and do a meditation.

  • If my kids aren't up, I'll take extra time to get my journal out and write out some thoughts. Sometimes I pick up the Bible and read a story.

This is all part of my routine—movement and journaling.

When my workday starts, I do an exercise that I call the Daily Work. This is an exercise I give to all of my clients that helps them feel very grounded as they start their workday. I use it as well. It's just a really intentional way to start my workday and kind of ground myself. So that's a big part of my mental health, too.

And then I have a plan for when I feel that pit behind my heart. There are a few things I'll go to:

  • I'll pull out my journal and do some journaling.

  • Sometimes I do specific journaling exercises. Sometimes it's just a thought download.

  • Sometimes I'll go for a walk.

  • Sometimes I'll reach out to somebody in my support group and share what's going on.

  • Sometimes I'll change my environment—step outside, sit with my work, or take a call outdoors.

I literally have a list of things that I can do when I need to work through whatever's going on. So I have a plan for how to take care of myself when this physical experience happens, and a way to help ground myself each and every day.

Strategy Six: Stop Catastrophizing

The sixth thing I want to talk about is to stop catastrophizing.

This is something my brain likes to do a lot right now. It says things like: “It’s only going to get worse from here. My kids are just going to become teenagers, and this is never going to go away. My daughter’s never going to grow out of this. This is always going to be hard. This is always going to be a problem. I’m never going to have the mental and emotional space to get back to work the way I want.”

I find myself in these big, sweeping generalizations. That’s called catastrophizing. I do it too—and almost all of my clients do it. Our brains like to jump to the worst-case scenario.

But here’s what I’ve been doing: I’ve been on to myself about it. I know what it sounds like when I’m thinking: “This is forever. This is always going to be hard. She’ll never change. We’ll never figure it out.”

When I notice those thoughts, I literally stop and say: “Hold on. Breathe.”

Of course nothing stays the same forever. My 10-year-old will be different at 11. She’ll be super different at 16, at 20, at 30. I know this because it was true for me, and it’s true for every human.

That perspective helps me remember: This isn’t forever. We can handle this. We’ll figure it out. And that’s how I stop the spiral when catastrophizing shows up.

Strategy Seven: Get Professional Help

The last strategy I want to offer you—the seventh—is to get professional help.

Right now, I’m looking for support for my daughter. We’ve already seen her pediatrician for both physical and emotional needs. We’re looking into therapy for her.

I hired a personal coach for myself, as well as a business coach. I’ve even taken on additional debt to make that happen.

I’ve picked back up my involvement in the parenting membership I’m a part of with Dr. Becky Kennedy. That’s another form of paid support to help me with intentional parenting.

I’m also looking into therapy for myself. And if anyone else in my family needs grounded support, I’m willing to invest there too.

Because here’s what I know: it’s the best use of my money.

Investing in Mental Health Is Always Worth It

I know how difficult it can be to ask for help. It’s even harder to pay for help and use your funds on mental health. But here’s the truth:

I ask my clients to do this when they hire me. They make an investment in coaching because it matters. And I can stand in integrity and ask them to do that because I invest dollars into my own mental health and my family’s.

Getting expert help means you get results faster. You move through hard seasons more efficiently. You navigate with more compassion for yourself.

Right now, I need help with parenting. I need help with my mental space. I need help with business strategy. And I’m getting actual professional help—because it’s the most valuable thing I can do.

Seven Mental Health Strategies I’m Using Right Now

So there you go: seven strategies I’m using right now to take care of myself and my mental health.

You can hear it—even in this podcast—it feels less edited, less scripted. That’s because I’m being really honest and vulnerable about where I’m at.

I’m right here in the middle of it. Not looking back retrospectively, not telling you how I got through it. I’m saying: This is where I am. This is the raw truth. Here’s what I’m doing that’s making an impact. Here’s what I’ll keep doing to move through this season.

I interrupted our series on the foundations of work-life balance because I believe so strongly in getting the help you need. I believe in being vulnerable and sharing where we’re at. I couldn’t record another episode without telling you what’s really going on in my heart and in my head.

And I hope this helped you feel seen. I hope you recognize you’re not alone.

If even one of you hears this and says, “Oh my gosh, even Rebecca Olson—even a life coach—needs this level of support. That means I can get support too.” Then it’s worth it.

What’s Next: Control Your Time and Energy

All right, working moms. Next week, we’ll get back into the series on the foundations of work-life balance.

We’re going to talk all about control—controlling your time and controlling your energy.

Until then… let’s get to it.

Rebecca Olson