stress Archives - My Happi Life

We’ve been going through a hard time as a family lately. (Public school issues mainly.)

I know my blog posts are normally only rainbows and butterflies. But I also know we all experience the highs and lows in life. We can never escape it. It’s gonna happen. We’ll lose loved ones. Fight with friends. Get kicked off a team. Have something lost or stolen. Break a bone. Or worse, have our heart broken. Especially as parents, we see injustice in the world. Far too often.

This. Is. Life. It’s bound to happen.

When I experience these things, which I do, ALL THE TIME. I tend to pull away from sharing. Not because I’m afraid or ashamed to share the shit and the trials and tribulations. But because I turn inward. And I have a habit of suffering in silence. Thinking no one will get it. Thinking that I may come off as negative or weak. Fearing that it will only make things worse if I speak of my troubles and stresses.

So today I put my coaching hat on and told myself what I would tell one of my clients.

DO NOT SUFFER IN SILENCE. Ask for the help you need.

Speak to your fears. Name and claim your stressful thoughts. And find someone to help you THROUGH them.

Don’t suffer in silence. Do the work it takes to get you on the other side of this tunnel. Ask for the help you need to see the light. Use all your tools and lean on your tribe so you can find your way and make it to the other side.

We don’t need to suffer in silence. And in my opinion that never works. If anything it only causes us to stuff it down and experience it again tenfold.

There are so many practices we can use to move THROUGH our suffering.

The Byron Katie Work (one of my faves that I do with all my clients but have a hard time doing for myself when I’m really in the soup.)

EFT or Tapping (simple and easy, search it on Youtube. but then you still have to DO IT)

Therapy, counseling, coaching (Duh)

Talk to a friend (Not just any friend. Not a friend who will just agree and say “wow yea that SUCKS” but a TRUTH friend who will show you how you can do better, help you turn your thoughts around and hold your hand until you’re on the other side.)

A 3 part solution I share with my clients in times like these:

(reminding myself of them now so I’ll use them)

Step 1. Focus on the END RESULT of what you DO want. Stop dwelling on and thinking about what you don’t want.

Step 2. Give it away to a higher power. We’re not alone here. Stop acting like it.

Step 3. Safeguard your happiness. Do everything and anything that brings you JOY. Laugh, make love, dance, have FUN because no amount of suffering ever got us on the other side of the tunnel.

Have you ever found yourself suffering in silence? What do you do to get through it?

Xxxx,

I hope you’re having a great holiday season already. It’s going by so fast. I’m decorating my house and my friends helped me. Thank God for my friends because I wouldn’t know what to do. I would just have a bunch of red Christmas pillows and that’s it.

Instead, thanks to my friend Liz at Two Story Farm House, I have all these gorgeous things and my mantel with beautiful pompoms hanging. I mean, who knew that you could hang pompoms from your mantle and it would look so cute! I’m putting up some really cute stockings and more stuff to come. It’s amazing!

Decorating for the holidays for me is like a month long because decorating isn’t easy and I needed more things. I needed more things that I really love and to get rid of some old things that I didn’t love.

So I wanted to talk quickly about some tips and tools of how you can shift out of over-whelm and really enjoy the holidays more.

These are some really simple things, but for me, they’re still kind of smack on the head, ‘Oh my God, why didn’t I do that sooner?’

Tip 1: Get Everything Into Your Calendar.

Every. little. detail. Goes into your calendar.

For example, my husband texted me and said we should order some things for Christmas Eve dinner. So I put it in the calendar for Monday at 11:00 AM.

Every. little. thing.

We’re dropping off some gifts at this wonderful organization today.
We have a family that we bought gifts for and we’re delivering them today between five and nine.

Take my daughter to ballet at 5:15.

So putting everything on the calendar is a big important thing.

I know it sounds silly, but I even put in my calendar when I want to reach out to my sister in law and invite her to Christmas Eve.

When things live in our head, it can feel so overwhelming. That’s where so much overwhelm comes from. So putting everything in your calendar or on paper really helps.

I have notes in my phone about people that I need to call or dinners that I want to schedule or my gift list – everything.

Overwhelm is a state of mind, but it also comes from all of the things being only up in your head.

Tip 2: Get in the Right State Every Morning.

I know I talk about this a lot, but it’s been a process for me to learn over many years. But now it’s something that I don’t miss.

Get in the right state every morning by listening to music and doing a meditation, doing some affirmations, doing a gratitude list or whatever fills you up.

During the holidays it’s so much more important to do things in the morning that get you in the right state.

You want to show up as your best self instead of frazzled and busy. I mean, if you’re a mom, you’re taking on 90-95 percent of the work, maybe 98 percent of the work. You’re doing it all so your state matters.

So do everything you can first thing in the morning to really fill you up and get into the most peaceful state possible. Then you can be ready for any of the challenges that might come your way.

Tip 3: Ask for help.

Outsource that shit as much as you can.

I asked my friends to come over and help me decorate and Liz showed up with things from her store and helped me decorate.
I asked my friend Andy to come over and help me decorate and she helped put things together.
I’m asking my friends to do some shopping for me.
I’m asking my assistant to help me with buying some of the gifts.

There’s so much that we can ask for help with and outsource.

I know we all want to be supermom. I know we all want to say that we’ve done it all, but why?

I mean if I can, I will. I love hosting things and having everyone bring something because then I have the house to host. I can have drinks and appetizers and everyone brings something. I can handle that.

On Christmas Eve I’m actually going to cook. I’m going to ask my friend Jen, who’s my most amazing chef and friend, what to do. Right? I’m going to ask her for help. I’m not going to try and do it all by myself.

Ask for help with shopping.

Ask for help with your parties.

Ask for help with everything.

I hope you’re having an awesome holiday,

Steffani

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I have a Happier Moms for the Holidays Challenge going on right now. There are hundreds of women signed up. We have six days worth of short videos with a challenge each day all around the same topic of how you can get out of overwhelm and step into what really matters most to create your happiest holidays ever.

So I hope you will join me for that. It’s totally free.

Suffering in silence…