When You Numb Your Stress, You're Also Numbing Your Intuition
Every high-stress high achiever I know uses something to numb out their stress.
It could be a few drinks at the end of the day, a big bowl of ice cream at 10 pm, hours spent on Instagram or TikTok — or even doing more work!
The action isn’t good or bad. But in this case, it’s being used to block out the annoying, persistent background noise of stress and anxiety.
I don’t want to take your stress-numbing mechanism away from you. I know the critical purpose it’s serving in keeping you sane right now.
But here’s what’s happening every time you turn to that numbing mechanism:
There is an alarm going off in your brain and body. An important message is trying to get through.
You’re using the alcohol / ice cream / social media / emails / etc. to put your earmuffs on so you don’t have to listen to the alarm.
What would you do if an alarm went off inside your house?
Would you put earmuffs on and try to block it out?
Or would you investigate and figure out what the alarm is trying to tell you?
Is it a fire alarm? A carbon monoxide detector? Someone breaking in through your window? Just an old phone alarm you forgot to turn off?
If you put your earmuffs on, you’ll never find out! And you certainly won’t be able to correct whatever is going wrong so that the alarm finally turns off.
Instead you’ll just be sitting in your house, putting on more and more earmuffs, working harder and harder to ignore this annoying alarm, and stressing yourself the heck out.
So here’s what I want you to do this week:
You don’t have to throw your earmuffs away. You don’t have to listen to the alarm blaring all night.
But just for five minutes, before you put the earmuffs on…
Before you grab the drink, order the takeout, open the app on your phone, or log in to knock out some more emails…
LISTEN to the alarm your brain and body are sending you.
What is the message?
Just take five minutes to listen and write it down.
What is bothering you? What is stressing you out? What is the message you don’t want to hear?
You don’t have to do anything with it yet.
It may be a scary message like “I don’t want to do this job anymore” or “I need to start saying no to my boss” or “I’m not good enough.”
The message may hint at a big can of worms that you don’t want to open and resolve just yet.
That’s okay. You don’t have to resolve it today. We can fix whatever’s triggering the alarm later.
For now, your only mission is to write down the message the alarm is trying to send you.
JUST defining the problem is a huge first step.
And once you’ve done that, go ahead and put those earmuffs on :)
Every uncomfortable emotion is a message from your brain and your nervous system.
Learning how to listen to those messages (instead of tuning them out, running from them, or suppressing them)…
And then learning what to do with those messages so you can create resolution, clarity, and alignment for yourself…
So that you can create the life you actually want…
Is exactly what you’ll learn in my course.
The low-level background stress you feel all day at work.
The spikes of anxiety you feel when you get a ping from your boss.
The confusion you spin up when you wonder if you should leave or stay.
All the messages are right there waiting for you.
We just need to untangle them one at a time, decide what’s worth keeping and what needs to go, and create the aligned answer that works for YOU.
(Not the “right answer” that reflects what you’re “supposed to do.”)
And that’s exactly what I’m going to teach you how to do in my course.
From Imposter to “I Got This.”
Your step-by-step guide to eliminating imposter syndrome, building confidence without arrogance, and doing better work than ever.
Course coming early 2023. Join the waitlist today ⤵️
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