5 SUBTLE WAYS WOMEN ARE SELF-SABOTAGING

I’m here for some straight talking today, folks. I want you to imagine that we are sitting over coffee together and you are in need of a particular kind of pep talk - the one where you need a sisterly word in your ear about how much you are sabotaging and protecting yourself and holding yourself back. That’s the tone I want to take here - so if you’re up for it - pull up that chair. Get your americano ready and let’s get down to it.

In all the work I’ve done with women of all ages and backgrounds over the last decade, there have been some emerging themes of self-sabotage that I have seen with my own eyes; some particular ways that I see brilliant women like you and I tripping ourselves up repeatedly over and over again.

Firstly, I want to lovingly say that this is the stuff of being human. These ways that we minimise ourselves, hand over power, get swept up and let fear lead the way – these things do not make you faulty – they make you human. The first step to being able to move beyond them into a truer sense of who you are is owning them; acknowledging that this stuff is real for you - that it actually is something that you might need to consider. That’s a biggie. So I want you to hear this with an open mind, willing to see where it is that you might recognise yourself - being honest with yourself but also knowing that you also dont need to shame yourself either..

So let’s jump in. There are five ways that I have repeatedly seen women sabotaging their own fulfilment and desires and holding back the progress of their own growth:

1) Assuming there is not enough room for you.

Somewhere along the way, we have been fed the lie that when we see someone else doing something we would love to do that it automatically disqualifies us from doing it. Somewhere along the way we have picked up the message that there is not enough room for our version of the same thing. Somewhere along the way we have decided that if someone else is doing it, they now have the monopoly and they must be doing it better. In addition to that, we often fold in the double whammy lie that if we do decide to do something similar that people will think we are copying, we’ll be unlikable, talked about and thought of as a fraud or second rate. So we shut the idea down immediately, tuck in back in our safe zone, we retreat and let resentment and jealousy wash over us.

When we think like this, we are operating out of a scarcity mindset. This is the mindset that says that there is not enough space for us all to move around and be ourselves. This is the mindset that has us moving through the world believing that everything is a race, that competition is rife and that spaces for creativity, fulfilment and innovation are limited.

What we need are women who are willing to see past these lies, who give themselves permission to learn, try and grow and create environments for others to do the same. When we assume there is a limited amount of room for women to do the things that they are drawn to, we make the world smaller for ALL women when in reality, we have an unlimited amount of space to expand and stretch as we need to.

SOME WAYS WE CAN COUNTERACT THIS:

Acknowledge your own desires. Write them down and then tell a trusted friend. Do some light research on the thing. Practice your craft or your offering. Arrange to meet up with someone who triggers jealousy or scarcity in you. Reach out to them and tell them how brilliantly they are doing.

2) Recruiting other women to your pain.

The second way I see women self-sabotaging (and this is a biggie) is by recruiting other people to our pain. We’ve all been there on one side or the other. Wounded people tend to want to rally other people to their cause. If we have been wronged by another woman, misunderstood or failed – the temptation is to bring our people along for the ride. We want solidarity in our pain, to have an ally. Real alliance does not look like taking down the sisterhood because of our own fears or pain.

A few months ago I was faced with this. Someone I love had been hurt by another woman and they were in pain. They were so consumed with their own discomfort over it that they wanted me to join them. They really tried to get me in there in the pit with them. There was even a moment when they couldn’t see past themselves and tried to give me my own (personal) reason to join them in their annoyance, but I could see what was happening and I was able to call it out.

My friend responded so bravely and quickly realised what she was doing. We talked it out so she felt understood and seen without adding more pain to the mix.

Don’t look for solidarity in bringing other women down. Stop trying to find someone to dislike the same people as you. One of the most powerful ways that patriarchy can thrive in our world today is when women turn on each other and recruit each other to sides. We can disagree, we can find fault, we can be hurt and hurt back, but let’s not try to grab each other in from the sidelines to join in our pain. This is the kind of sabotage that ripples out and breeds insecurity like a disease.

SOME WAYS WE CAN COUNTERACT THIS:

Give other women the benefit of the doubt when you hear things about them. Deal with your own pain. Redirect conversations that would tempt you to get involved in petty talk or that try to drag you into mutual disdain for someone. Challenge negative talk. Be obnoxiously supportive of other women.

 3) We are not taking ourselves seriously.

Another subtle way I can see women self-sabotaging is by seriously underestimating themselves. I can see clearly where this comes from: if we take ourselves seriously, invest in things, put ourselves out there and it doesn’t work out – then we have egg on our face and everyone will know. If we stay in the shallow, never invest fully, never talk about our offerings with any intensity or authority then we stay safe. No one can shame us.  

The thing about not taking ourselves seriously is that we never move from that place. There is nowhere to go from here. We are stuck. And that stuck-ness will eventually spill out into resentment, frustration, grief and heartache. We will never realise our fuller potential. We will never fail and learn. We will never find the true fulfilment that comes from giving things our best shot and growing along the way.

If you are not investing in your own betterment, if you are shying away from opportunities that will bring discomfort, if you are downplaying what you do or hiding it away from the world – fulfilment is going to be a really hard reach for you. There is rarely any comfort to be found in growth. Take yourself seriously. Take your own growth and fulfillment seriously and watch how you evolve.

SOME WAYS WE CAN COUNTERACT THIS:

Invest in yourself; even something small. Take a course, join a facebook group, book into a workshop, tell people about your products or services. Eliminate minimising language from how you talk about what you do: “my little business” or “just my side-hustle”. 

4) Making our minds up about what other people will pay for, engage with or buy.

We are SO good at assuming we know what people are thinking. We are EXCELLENT at making up whole scenarios and thought processes about how we will be perceived, what other people’s buying habits are, their budgets, their interests, aren’t we?

Some of us are so quick to write off our own ideas, sabotaging them before they get out of the gate that we have never let our ideas out into the air to breathe so they stay within us, choking us up. Let me tell you, there is a whole WORLD out there of people who need to hear what you have to say, who may need to hear things from your perspective to find healing, who may need to engage with your product to find a solution to their problems.

The ever-expanding ways that people are able to consume or connect with things in the world today means that we just cannot write off who might be interested in what we have to offer. If there is something burning in your soul that you feel drawn to put out into the world, you owe it to yourself to set it free. We cannot control who buys it or who can afford it or if it will sell – we simply have to be true to the thing that we are being called to do.

SOME WAYS WE CAN COUNTERACT THIS:

Do your research! Ask your target market about the things you are considering offering. Use social media to build community and offer value to the people in your orbit. GET SOME INFORMATION! Stay curious and open to possibilities. Stay true to your pricing. Don’t look around at what other people are charging for things (they could have major issues around this stuff as well!) – figure out what you want to offer, how much it costs you to make or produce and what you want to be paid and then ASK FOR IT!  

Finally… 

5) Being consumed by perfectionism.

Oh my goodness, I get this one. I totally do. I am a recovering perfectionist that relapses all the tiem. It is hard work. It has cost me a lot to be consumed with perfection and striving.

Let me give you a little example: A few years ago I finally decided to turn some of my favourite coaching resources into a download PDF  to sell on my website. I spent ages going through the content, compiling it and converting it into a PDF. I agonised over fonts and settings and colours. Finally I let it out into the world and a bunch of people bought it! I made some money from it!

Then I went through it again recently and you know what – there’s a whole paragraph missing on one of the pages. A whole freaking paragraph, just sitting there, half written.

Four years ago this would have crippled me and kept me up at night – hopelessly obsessed that people would think I was a fraud, that I was unprofessional, that I wasn’t to be trusted (the drama of my inner critic is obscene). Four years ago me would have taken it down from my website right away and had it redone and made a big public apology to all my readers and resent it to them again.

This time, I just cringed and then laughed. Of course there was a mistake in it! It was 80 pages long and I’m not a professional editor. It’s one tiny paragraph and it doesn’t take anything away from the overall goodness of the book. It’s still on my website, still for sale, in all it’s imperfect glory. 

If you are waiting around for the perfect website, perfect branding, perfect whatever before even dipping your toe in the waters of the thing you want to do then can I please encourage you to stop that and just start. This perfectionism is a guise for hiding. This need to get everything just ‘so’ before you present it to the world is wasting your precious life minutes and is just fear showing up in a different outfit.

SOME WAYS WE CAN COUNTERACT THIS:

Set yourself deadlines for doing things and STICK TO THEM! No more pushing back timings because of polishing things endlessly. If something feels too big and you’re really not ready, find a smaller way to get it out there in the time being. Go for good enough when you can. Don’t be a slave to an algorithm. Try and inject some spontaneity into your day. Look back and reflect on how far you have come. Make a point to celebrate small milestones. Remember your own humanity and the humanity of others. Give yourself a freaking break.

THE TRUTH ABOUT BEING AN INFLUENCER

I don't know how long you’ve been following along in terms of the work that I do or what I share, but if you were around pre-pandemic, you may have seen that I had a little bit of time where I was exploring the idea of influence. I went on a bit of a quest to explore what it means in culture today; to break open the word and dig out all the flesh that we have put around it and try to find out what is at its core – the real juicy stuff.

And I got somewhere with it. Somewhere surprising. It was exciting to lift the layers and see what’s underneath all the trappings of influence that we have created for ourselves. (sidenote: what we have created - not wonderful)

You see, for the majority of my early career I was involved in activism work. Working with charities, running charity projects, advocating, lobbying, creating movements for change. I’ve met people along the way that have shaped my idea of influence while working in that world. I’ve witnessed a hunger for influence in the social justice sphere and been fascinated at how the power dynamics work when working for systemic change. I’ve seen what it takes for shifts to happen in the policy room or the campaign planning session; how influence is used – in healthy and unhealthy ways.  Yes. The non-profit sector is not always healthy. Activism is not always healthy. Crazy, right? Imagine.

And then of course in the last several years I’ve also been building my own business, one that largely operates online. And I believe that my business holds closely the same values as my non-profit work – empowering, advocating and opening conversations about systemic issues that have held women and girls back and creating connections so they can flourish – but this time my medium for this work has changed. I’ve been immersed in the world of social media, working to have my message heard there, connecting with others who are doing the same. And I’ve noticed that to have influence in this sphere requires very different trappings and associations and what is held up as influential when it comes to the online world has sometimes left a lot to desire. For me, anyway.

Both of these worlds have been fascinating to be part of and what influence looks like and what it takes to acquire it are very contrasting from one to the other. Not better. Not more effective. Just different.

In one world, influence is largely about who you know at the top.

In the other world, influence is largely about how many people are looking.

In one world, influence is about needing to be an expert in your field.

In the other world, influence can be gained by staging expertise or being the loudest in the room.

In one world, influence is mastered by having firm boundaries.

In the other world, influence is largely gained by blurred personal/private lines.

There are so many contrasts to it all.

How does influence work so differently in one area to another?

Are there common threads that run through both?

A couple of years back while I was exploring this more deeply,  I asked my friends on Instagram to think about who has truly been influential in their lives. I wanted to know what the top qualities of that person were that made them so significantly influential to them.

The answers to this came in thick and fast and it would seem that the people who have been incredible influences on our lives are quite close to our minds, easy to recount.

I paid close attention to the responses and what fascinated me was that there were some recurring themes. Themes that I spent some time sorting through to make sense of.

What occurred to me in sifting through this all, these personal lived experiences of being influenced by someone else is that influence isn’t actually about what happens on the outside.

Influence seems to be an inside job.

Being a person of influence isn’t something that you can cajole or project - it’s an inner work that makes it’s way out and seems to have depth to it that makes it last a long time..

As I looked through all the data and the interviews and research I did back then, I thought it would be encourage to share with you some of the life-changing things that emerged in my findings about the inside out idea of influence. You may want to make notes for this one. Be challenged and hopeful.

• Influence isn’t actually about outer platforms – it’s about an inner posture.

People shared with me about their secondary school teachers, their grandparents, their foster mums, their neighbours who didnt necessarily have some sort of wild following or fame, but their inner landscape was so rich and magnetic that it left a lasting impact on them. It inspired them or comforted them so much so that they hold that person in such high regard as someone who continues to influence how they live their lives and show up for others. 

• Influence isn’t about momentary notoriety – it’s about long-term dedication.

Often these stories about people who have been influential were about long term witnessing of integrity. There was no real fan fare but a deep knowledge of someone being a consistent and steady presence. 

• Influence isn’t about power – it’s about contribution.

All of these people mentioned as being influential seemed to have some sort of willingness to contribute with intention. They seemed to recognise their significance in the relationship and wanted to add value to other peoples lives. It never came up that someone was influential because they had power or because they could get them further up a ladder - it was about an investment in the wellbeing of the persons life.

• Influence isn’t about reach, it’s about depth.

Integrity plays a big part here. Those reflections were often about admiring the persons responses to difficulties in life and learning from that example. It wasn’t about how many people loved them, it was about the depth of character that they could see and feel.

• Influence isn’t about accumulation, it’s about generosity.

Similarly, there was a huge amount of generosity mentioned in these interviews and responses - the people that had great influence tended to be those that, wether wealthy or not - were generous with their time, generous in their relationship. And that seemed to count for a lot more.

• Influence isn’t about perfecting who we are, it’s about becoming who we are.

No one claimed these people to be perfect - and in some instances, there was discussion of how the person actually had changed over time or transformed in a way from situations of difficulty and chaos into creating a life that was meaningful and had purpose. There was never any illusion that they were perfect people or that that was even important, but that they could see their evolution as inspiring.

• Influence isn’t about striving, it’s about ease.

I heard phrases like ‘they had a peaceful presence’ or they were a safe space, which felt like an important thing to note - it seems like people of true lasting influence are not always striving or trying to earn their place - they seem to be able to be present and a true person of calm.

These are life-changing truths because they tip our cultures idea of influence on it’s head.

I would love for this definition of influence  - the ones that have emerged based on the stories of real people I heard about, to be the new rebrand of the word. I love that this definition means that we don’t have to wait for numbers and figures to have an impact. We don’t have to show up perfectly or expertly or loudly. We don’t have to wait for some sort of status. We get to have an impact on people now - we get to influence each other now.. We get to do the inner work that brings integrity back into a world that so badly needs some now. This could just be the relief we all need to keep perspective in a world that can be so loud, so distracted by shiny things. 

As always, I’m here - willing to chat more - you can email me hello@melwiggins.com or catch me on IG or my email list  if you want to hear more on this - Sign up below!

Three ways you can work with me right now:

• Over the summer I have a few spaces available for VIP Days. If you need a more in depth burst of strategy and clarity but are short on time, join me for an in-person (or virtual online) day of getting clear, strategic and excited about the next stage of your business. These days have been amazing for my clients. We solve problems, generate new ideas and ways of working and have the best time doing it.

• Join my Brand Builder Group Programme! It is GLORIOUS! I've been running this programme ongoing for the last year and it really is so special. It's part self-learning, part live group-coaching and right now I have a beautiful group of female business owners going through the modules to help them create super sonic clarity, greater self-belief and ways of working that completely change the game for their energy and goals in their businesses. If you'd like to hear more about it, click the link in the shownotes or let's find a time to chat about where things are at for you and if this could be the right next step in developing you and your work. There is a link to Book a call with me in the show notes as well. ​

• If you’re not a business owner but you think your workplace could benefit from some coaching and training from me to help bring more connection to your teams and better ways of working when it comes to challenges and change, then I’d love to chat about that too. 

3 HUGE DISTRACTIONS THAT WILL KEEP YOU FROM DOING FULFILLING WORK

I’ve been involved in the personal development industry for just about a decade - 6 of those years directly coaching and building a business. I’ve been around the block in terms of the kind of gurus there are in this industry and have experienced a lot of different schools of thought when it comes to the ways you can make your business successful, grow your income and your influence etc and in this episode I want to shed some light on some of the more formulaic things that are being peddled that I think that are ultimately huge distractions that especially for women, are keeping us from doing fulfilling work. .

It is more important than ever, in this noisy culture that wants to tell us the formula for ‘success’, that we sift through the nonsense and tune into our own intuition and desires.

Here are three things that I see as huge distractions that are keeping us from doing work that is fulfilling and meaningful.

1) TRACKING NUMBERS / FOLLOWERS

Please hear this. Hitting 1K or 5K or 100K followers on instagram means jack shit when it comes to fulfillment. You do not need to have a big following on social media or even a huge email list to build a sustainable, thriving business, service or community. Social media and email platforms didn’t exist as a medium for businesses to use until the recent past and even though it can be an effective, free space for sharing your offerings and building trust in your products, services or values - the numbers game is a dangerous one.

One of my mentors has a thriving, six figure business doing what she absolutely loves and is gifted in with a relatively small following on instagram. She has built her business through writing regularly to email subscribers and developing online courses to teach the stuff that she knows, with a really strong referral system where alumni of her programmes stay on and word of mouth is powerful because they have such a great experience. She has harnessed the truth of quality over quantity and has been showing up consistently, building trust with the people she wants to serve. Her work is fulfilling and sustainable and she is not distracted by follower counting as a means to determine her success.

Big numbers does not equal ‘success’ or fulfilment. It is a façade that the ego wants to lure us into that we really need to do away with. If you’ve been struggling with feeling legitimate because of a small following, or you think you couldn’t possibly sell what you love or your ideas because you don’t have enough “reach” – it’s simply not true. Serve the people that have chosen to have you in their orbit well - develop consistency and congruency and repetition  in what you are doing and remember that business is a long game. All of the mediums like social media continue to change rapidly, so instead of panicking about having to get your head around the latest trend or platform, show up where people are already paying attention and continue to hold your own.

2) ENDLESS EDUCATION

The second thing I think is really significantly stopping people from doing fulfilling work is endless education. And its a common myth that a lot of women buy into - a mindset that desperately needs some updating.

I see this all the time. We have ideas, passions, ideas bubbling up and instead of trying things out or dipping our toes out into the water of sharing those ideas or starting that thing, we spend our time trying to legitimize ourselves by going to every event, every training, every course, researching every other similar business or idea instead of knuckling down and doing the work (this does not apply if you want to be a surgeon - please get a qualification for that).

Here’s the thing. You could have all the letters after your name and all the qualifications in the world and STILL - putting yourself out there to do the work you know will fulfill you will feel stretchy and uncomfortable. It will because it is precious to you and letting it out into the world will feel vulnerable.

This mindset of always feeling like we need to do more training and education is an easy one to slip into because we are programmed to try and keep ourselves safe from vulnerability and staying behind research or doing more and more qualifications is a safer space to occupy than putting yourself out there and actually getting to the part where you get to really get stuck into the work that you have over trained for. 

The danger is that often all of this endless education distracts us from the stuff we know we’d love to just be out there doing. It swallows up all our time and energy and ends up leaving us feeling burned out and unable to take action on the thing we longed to do in the first place. You do not need a business degree, a marketing course or a fancy qualification to dip your toe in, to launch that business or to talk about something you feel passionately about. In fact, in most cases, all you’ll ever need to know about the thing you want to do can be best learned by actually doing it and taking a beginners posture, being experimental and kind to yourself and learning as you do. Ive said it before, and ill say it again - Courage loves action. 

3) WAITING FOR APPROVAL

The last thing that I think can be really distracting advice from the industry is doing your research. Now I say this with some caution, because I am all for research. I love getting into the details of things, figuring out how things work, what the best methods are, what would truly resonate and what else is out there so you can provide a solution in an authentic way etc. BUT - and here is the caveat - often research turns into approval seeking really quickly. When we have ideas that we’d like to put out into the world, what can happen is that we tend to hang back and wait for someone else to give us permission; to tell us that we’re adequate or allowed. It’s likely a lifetime of school girl conditioning that has us this way.

Allowing the opinions or approval of others to shape our ideas rather than confidently trusting our own intuition and energy is a huge distraction from getting on with the work that we most want to do and is a slippery slope towards people-pleasing and losing our own voice.

It is really tempting, especially when we are thinking of beginning something new, or contemplating putting our ideas or products or whatever out into the world to consult all areas. We ask people in our family what they think (please tread carefully on that one), we ask the whole of Instagram (kind of crazy to do because just because people think something is a cool idea doesn’t mean theyre going to buy it!), we ask and we endlessly gather opinions. Often, what we’re really looking for is either validation that our ideas are good or for someone to tell us they are shit so we can back away and not have to sit in the potential discomfort of birthing something that feels important to us. Neither of these responses are going to propel us into meaningful work.

What is important is that you are excited and drawn to the ‘what’ of what you want to do, that you have information about the ‘how’ from your target market (not your auntie or your brother who will likely not be your target market) and that you cultivate a sense of inner trust in yourself and your own ideas that you can make decisions based on. 

Ok, so tell me - are you seeing anything here that you may have been told is good business advice but may be distracting you from getting on with the things you’d love to do? 

It’s totally normal and human to get sucked into business advice that you have always heard, but it’s also ok to question it and consider if it is actually moving you towards getting on with doing fulfilling work or moving you away from it and distracting you from actually getting stuck in - fear and all. 
As always, I’m here - willing to chat more - you can email me hello@melwiggins.com or catch me on IG or my email list.


Three ways you can work with me right now:

• Over the summer I have a few spaces available for VIP Days. If you need a more in depth burst of strategy and clarity but are short on time, join me for an in-person (or virtual online) day of getting clear, strategic and excited about the next stage of your business. These days have been amazing for my clients. We solve problems, generate new ideas and ways of working and have the best time doing it.

• Join my Brand Builder Group Programme! It is GLORIOUS! I've been running this programme ongoing for the last year and it really is so special. It's part self-learning, part live group-coaching and right now I have a beautiful group of female business owners going through the modules to help them create super sonic clarity, greater self-belief and ways of working that completely change the game for their energy and goals in their businesses. If you'd like to hear more about it, click the link below or let's find a time to chat about where things are at for you and if this could be the right next step in developing you and your work. There is a link to Book a call with me as well. ​

• If you’re not a business owner but you think your workplace could benefit from some coaching and training from me to help bring more connection to your teams and better ways of working when it comes to challenges and change, then I’d love to chat about that too. 

How To Regulate For Resilience

The second tier in the resilience pyramid, the building block on that internal safety that we can cultivate is understanding regulation. Go back to last week’s post to read about the first tier.

Regulation is our ability to head back to practices that notify our body that we are safe when we feel stress or experience difficult moments or feelings..

Before we get into some important regulation techniques, I want to take a minute and explain a bit about stress. Because it often feels like we misunderstand stress as something that is largely dependent on circumstances outside of us and that can put the brakes on our ability to regulate. So let’s get into it.

There are stressors and there is stress.  

Our stressors are the things that activate the stress response in our bodies. Most of them are external, so things like work, kids, money, red tape, maybe even small things that activate the stress response like waiting for an important bit of information or traffic or when something is broken that we really need access too. Stressors can also be  internal things like body self-criticism or those voices of the inner protector, and they also activate the stress response. If these things are the stressors - the stress itself is what happens in your body. It’s this chemical mash up of energy and hormones that gets activated in response to the stressor, and ultimately it’s our body’s evolutionary protection mode that flares up to notify us that something is at risk, is not right, is in struggle within.

In their book Burnout, sisters Emily and Amelia Nagoski talk about stress as a cycle that needs to be completed. I think this is a really revolutionary way of explaining and understanding regulation. And it’s also accessible, because what it means is that even if the stressors in our life aren’t going away, we can still learn to complete the cycle of stress in our bodies and regulate ourselves amidst the stressors. 

In turn then, this also means that when the stressors do go away, you also have to prioritise dealing with the stress itself separately because it’s happening in our bodies. 

For example: I have friends that work in am-dram. When they are in a show, it’s full on. They are often working day jobs in a demanding physical, emotional roles and then going straight to rehearsals and performances. You can guarantee that the week after their show ends its run, they will be unwell for a few days - like clockwork. They will have throat problems, their stomach issues will flare up, their body will responding to the stress. Even though the stressor is gone - the show is finished. The stress in their body will manifest. It has been working the cycle all along but it has got stuck because the adrenaline of the pressure and the performance of the show has masked it. But now that the stressor is gone, even if it was an enjoyable one that felt fulfilling as a whole - the body is speaking up - “pay attention! I’m still stuck!” Im sure we all have examples of this in our own lives. We’ve all experienced times where we’ve had stressors to contend with - be it the death of a loved one, submitting a big project or paper, being on a deadline for work, working on something complex or even conflict in relationships or building up to a difficult conversation we know we have to have - and often times once those experiences come to a close or are sorted in some way, our body feels like it’s been through a war. And internally it likely has. It has been stuck in a stress cycle. So we get sick, we need to take to bed for a day or two, we feel rotten. 

And it’s not because we all of a sudden got sick, you were likely unwell from the stress in your body all along, but now your immune system can finally get its voice heard over the noise of all the stress. Our nervous system has been deregulated and that system impacts a whole bunch of other areas of our physical bodies and their abilities to thrive.. 

Nervous system deregulation occurs when the nervous system is in a state of continual or repeated activation or in extended conditions of stress.

The impact ranges from chronic physical illness and dis-ease such as: memory problems, insomnia, dizziness, digestive problems and psychological: fear being seen, people-pleasing, hyper-vigilance, overworking, lack based thinking, planning for the worst, feeling unsafe in your body, easily overwhelmed, a need to control/ win/ be good/ right, maybe even addicted to negative reinforcement.

COMPLETING THE STRESS CYCLE:

So if stress is a cycle that happen in your body and involves the full intelligence of your nervous system - which extends from the top of your head to the tip of your toes and beyond the skin, burnout is what happens when we do not complete the stress cycle. We get stuck in the middle of it. 

And burnout is the result of chronic stress - when your stress level outpaces the resources you have available to drain off the stress or complete the stress cycle. You go from stressor to stressor and continue to go halfway through the cycle in the stress response and back again to a new stressor without deploying ways to notify your body that the stress cycle is complete. And that notification that we give the body to complete the stress cycle is what I mean by regulation. 

So how do we regulate and complete the stress cycle? Let’s talk about it.

• Most efficient – physical activity.

So it can be any form of physical activity. It can be dancing it out in your living room. It can be just standing up from your desk, tensing every muscle really hard, every muscle in your body until they’re shaking and begging for you to stop and then you flop down, put your hands on the ground and let your body soak and release. And that, even by itself, is going to begin to release the physical chemical stuff that was happening in your body with the stress. Any movement of your body

• Next up - Breathing down-regulates your nervous system.

Especially when you can take a slow breath in and especially a slow, long breath out. All the way to the ends of your abdominal muscles contract. That’s how you know you’re engaging the parasympathetic nervous system to down regulate the central nervous system. It is the gentlest way in to completing the stress response cycle. It sounds too hippy, too easy. But it’s science and it works. Most popular with two groups: yoga instructors and military special forces.

Other ways to complete the stress cycle: 

Positive social interaction

Laughter

Affection

A good old cry

Creative Expression

It’s important to remember, stress is not bad for you. Being stuck in stress and not completing the stress cycle is bad for you. We must find ways to regulate ourselves in times of stress, even if we aren’t able to remove the stressor. I find this to be a really powerful bit of information to keep in mind when it comes to resilience building.

If we are able to understand the conditions that bring us internal or emotional safety and do our best to maintain that AND THEN deploy our resources to regulate and complete the stress cycle when we do feel threatened by stress or uncertainty or risk then we are setting ourselves up for a really healthy way of navigating the inevitability of life and can be confident that resilience - the ability to move through difficulty without adding more pain to the experience - is within reach because we have ways and means to understand it and manage it those tougher times.

As always, I’m here - willing to chat more - you can email me hello@melwiggins.com if you want to reflect on anything I’ve said today and if there’s anything I can do to go further with this and support you or your maybe even spend some time with your team or workplace looking at resilience building, know that I’d love to do that and you can email me for more details of what that could look like. 

And if you’re a female business owner keen to do more work on building your resilience as you build your business, we make space for all of this in my four month brand builder programme which is open right now. If you want to chat to me about what the brand builder involves, there’s a link in the show notes to book a little bit of time with me, for free and chat that through.