Why Stress Management is Harder For Some of Us
In an ideal world, we learn how to self-regulate as infants. Our caregivers teach us (or don’t teach us) self-regulation by proxy. At such a young age, we learn these very primal skills not through verbal instruction, but through embodied nervous system reactions: breath, heart rate, facial expressions, vocal sounds, and eye gaze.
If we didn’t learn these things, regulating stress levels and emotions can be very hard, and can send us regularly into overwhelm. To further embed a vicious cycle of stress and anxiety, we make sense of this experience through mental narratives, commonly centred around a sense of shame and inadequacy.
Many of us manage these levels of stress through distractions that, if successful, can become addictions that reliably take you away from the uncomfortable feelings. Whether it’s scrolling on your phone, drinking alcohol, shopping or over-exercising, these coping mechanisms may help soothe you in the moment, but are essentially taking you out of your present-moment experience, and over time can deplete your health and vitality.
Somatic Coaching teaches your system how to regulate — how to notice when you’re dysregulated and move towards calm; to notice the thought patterns that keep you stuck in loops and navigate to a place of groundedness. Clients come to me when their coping strategies are overwhelmed, or when they’re ready to let go of addictions and distractions that have so far managed their stress.
Through the exploration of the root experiences, the subconscious beliefs and the physiological patterns that generate overwhelming stress, Somatic Coaching helps you to literally rewire your patterns so that you can live with more ease, and more energy to spend on the things that matter to you.
I coach people through stress management not because I’m so effortlessly good at it, but because I’ve been so terrible at it that I’ve had to learn it from scratch. Having been through my own journey of parental neglect, followed by addictions to help cope with overwhelming feelings, I have gained first-hand insight into the pathways to shift these patterns from the root. Having had my own coaches and therapists to guide me along this path, I very much believe in the power of empathetic attunement when it comes to learning, at the deepest level, that you are safe.
If you’re interested in learning more about 1-to-1 Somatic Coaching with me, email me to book a free consultation call, or follow the below links.
