Welcome to Self Esteem Truths. Here we safely address the real-life struggles that effect your self-esteem, including life changes, the daily grind and deep emotional pain. Each episode dives into a truth about why you struggle and what we can do about it with your host, Christine, a certified Confidence Coach. In episode one you can hear Christine's story and learn more about how she can help. This is an easy to listen to podcast that will make you laugh and relate and give you that push you've been looking for to finally start gaining confidence in yourself.
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If you are like me, you know exactly what it feels like to be stressed AND you don't like it one bit! Luckily, I know a bit about what to do about that! Let's chat
ABOUT CHRISTINE
Christine Crise is a Master Certified Confidence Coach, author, speaker, and host of Self Esteem Truths.
She helps heart-centered, high-achieving adults strengthen their confidence, communicate clearly, and set healthy boundaries—so they can create greater success and freedom without abandoning themselves in the process.
Christine is also the bestselling author of Break the Cycle with Your Mother: Best Practices When Your Past Stands in the Way of Your Success.
WORK WITH CHRISTINE
Interested in the Boundary Bootcamp, the Confidence Course, private coaching, or inviting Christine to speak?
Welcome. I am your host, Christine, and this is the Self-Esteem Truths podcast. A podcast about discovering the truth, about who we are, why we struggle, and how we can overcome. This podcast is designed to help you transform your life as we dive weekly into new questions about self-esteem truth. Hi, this is Christine, and this is episode nine. Today we're going to talk about stress. Stress can seem to come from many different places. Work, family, finances, health, all kinds of different circumstances. These things may seem to be completely out of our control. And frankly, that lack of control adds to the stress. If you are like most people, you probably try to avoid stress. You may even find yourself avoiding or neglecting the things that cause you stress. The bill goes on the kitchen counter, the phone call doesn't get returned, you don't set up that doctor appointment because you don't want to know what they're going to say. If you're like me, doing this might give you a minute of reprieve, but that stress is going to get to you eventually. Maybe while you're driving or in the middle of the night, or when your kids ask for something that's going to cost money. I don't like the feeling of being stressed any more than anyone else does. And stress can make the best of us act poorly. In fact, I did an update on my computer and it messed up my recording software and it broke the adapter I used to connect to the internet. I was mid-recording and I was afraid if I updated the software to work with the computer update, it would actually boot out all of my work. On top of that, the new adapter I had to order was going to take days to come in. Oh, and did I mention that I had some Zoom meetings I had to attend during those days? I was stressed out. And to be honest, it showed up in how I spoke to my husband when I was frantically calling him for help. Stress is ugly on all of us. I do know something though that helped me here. Stress is actually like a security system for the body. It's letting us know that something is not right. Now, you may be saying, yeah, we heard the story. Obviously, something wasn't right. We don't need like an intense emotional reaction of stress to help us figure this out. And you're right. Partly. See, stress wasn't letting me know about all of those things that I just shared with you. Stress was letting me know that I was making too big of a deal about those things. Let me break it down like this. I temporarily had no internet in my office, but I did have internet in my home, and I had a sunroom there I could work out of. Yeah, I had Zoom meetings I had to be on camera for, but my sunroom is beautiful, and the natural light there is actually pretty fantastic. My podcast recording may have been lost, but these are 15-minute episodes. It would have taken me just a few minutes to re-record the part I would have lost, and honestly, maybe it would have been better the second time around, who knows, right? Within three days I was back in my office. So what was I really stressed out about? I was stressing because I was afraid of the big, bad what ifs? What if I don't put my episode out on time? What if I don't look professional sitting in my sunroom? Well, what if? So what if my episode goes out on Tuesday instead of Monday and I just attach a quick little explanation? And really, I will look professional regardless on my Zoom calls. I have been on Zoom calls with very professional people that are clearly sitting in their bedroom or their dining room, and it never changed how much I valued their words. And actually, one lady commented on how beautiful my surroundings were, so it worked out. Life isn't easy, guys, but it is pretty simple. And stress lets us know when we are letting it get complicated with things that shouldn't be complicating it. These things look like what if, I should, I shouldn't, I don't know if I can, I don't know how to, what will people think? Now, if you're feeling yourself revolt against what I just said, let's address that before we go any further. Life is not easy. I think we can all agree on that. We have to survive for one thing. And then you heard me say, but it is pretty simple. Let me ask you this. How many times have you felt like you can fix someone else's problems, but yours seem hard? How many times has the right choice seemed obvious to you for someone else, but you have no clue where to turn in your own life? That is because when we are looking at someone else's life, we are looking at it from the perspective of a helicopter. We can see what is coming from a mile away and can clearly see each street and turn and obstacle. In our own life, we're down in the streets, and we can only see the nearest buildings and the closest bend in the road. Yet as we are aware, when looking at others, the answers are usually pretty simple. And stress is that alarm letting us know we are off course. So be glad for it, because there is no helicopter ride over your own life. So we feel stressed, and now we know why. What do we do about it? Just as in my own story, check and see if you're making it too big. Even though this thing wasn't in the plans, is it actually hurting you? Is there a simple fix? Maybe it wasn't your original plan? But does that make the new curveball actually bad? Maybe that stress is trying to stop you from letting it get too big. And by this I mean are you allowing issues to snowball? Is the mail piling up because you don't want to see the bill? But what happens if you don't address the bill? What would happen if you just looked at it? And remember in a previous episode we talked about not self-rejecting? What would happen if you made a phone call and explained your situation? Maybe the stress is trying to help you by keeping that bill on your mind so you address it instead of letting it go to collections. Are you stressed at work? You may be working at something you don't actually want to be doing and you're not following your passion. Is that the case? Thank goodness for stress then. It doesn't want you to allow your dreams to go down the drain. Are you stressing because you don't want to get something checked at the doctor's? What would happen if you go? Either they tell you nothing is wrong, or they come up with a treatment plan. But what happens if you don't go? Now you are stressed indefinitely for no reason, or you wait too long and the treatment is more invasive, more expensive, or less optimistic? Which one's actually worse? See, our stress is not trying to hurt us. When you're feeling stressed, keep in mind what it's trying to tell you. Take a pause to focus on what is really going on. Get aligned with what you are meant to be doing and give space for your plans to adapt if they need to. I was driving home from feeding the homeless a few weeks ago. I had a webinar class the same day and I was already late. I turned it on in the car so I could listen on my drive, and then I got stopped by a train. A long train. A slow moving train. Old me would have gotten frustrated and so lost in my own head that I would have tuned out the class. Instead, I thought, hey, thanks, train. Now I have a chance to take notes. That train took 10 minutes to finish crossing the street. 10. Thankfully, I got some really good notes during that time. When I got back home, I was hungry and I needed a restroom, but class was still going on and it wasn't lunch break yet. Right as I was getting out of my car, our teacher said, Let's take a 10-minute break. Can you believe it? I got to use the restroom, grab a snack, freshen up my water bottle, get to my desk with my pen and my cute little notebook, and I even got my blanket across my lap before the class started up again. What wonderful timing! What a magnificent train sent to get my timing perfectly lined up to be present for the rest of class. What a frustration I was saved from. Seriously, imagine if I had spent those minutes rushing around trying to get ready to sit down, only to have the teacher send us on a break the second I got to my seat. And can you imagine how much worse it would have been if I had already missed the whole beginning of class on my drive because I had been lost in my head, because I was frustrated and stressed, because my plans had been messed with? What is stress taking from you because you are misunderstanding its message? What are you missing out on that stress is trying to alert you to? What passion are you letting die that stress is trying to awaken you to? I want to challenge you this week to look at the stresses in your life and with this new perspective, ask what message it is trying to send you and see what different steps you can take to become more aligned with where you are supposed to be at. What might those steps look like? Well, really, it's the same steps we take for anything else, right? Take some deep breaths. Just stop for a moment. Remind yourself that you actually are okay and you have survived stressful things before. This isn't the first. Remember that the stress is trying to help us. So this isn't a sign that there is no answer. It's just a sign we haven't found the answer yet, or we can't see it yet. And as scary as that may seem in the moment, that's okay. Remember, God did not put us here to fail and to be trampled by stress and anxiety. That's not how this was meant to work. This stress is sending you a message to help. So let's listen to it like that. And don't get confused if the answer that comes to you doesn't seem easy and think that that means the answer must be wrong. Life isn't easy. We all know this. So our solution in a stressful moment probably isn't an easy answer. But it probably is good and right and simple. If you need support addressing the stress in your life, you can always reach out to me, Christine, at newbranchlifecoaching.com, or through the Facebook group Self Esteem Truths. If you enjoyed this episode, please like, subscribe, and share this podcast. I wish you all a wonderful week listening to those signals, letting you know when something is off. And I will talk to you next time. Bye.
