Understanding Stress and Anxiety

Before delving into how coaching can help, it’s important to understand what stress and anxiety really are. Stress is your body’s response to a challenge or demand. It can be triggered by anything from a tight deadline at work to a major life change. Anxiety, on the other hand, is the lingering worry or fear that something bad might happen. While some level of stress and anxiety is normal and functional, chronic feelings can take a toll on your mental and physical health.

Functional Stress

The stress we experience in response to a challenge or demand, is as a result of our bodies releasing the hormone’s required to override the “rest and digest” function, so that we can stay on the task in hand until it is done.  Our ancestors would have experienced a stress response when they were in physical danger, so the release of hormones would have been entirely appropriate and, crucially – used, whilst dealing with the threat.

Functional Anxiety

In a similar way, our ancestors knew that it wasn’t safe to be completely relaxed, as a threat to their survival could crop up at any moment.  So it was wise and healthy to retain a degree of vigilance, to ensure that they were ready when then next threat did arrive.  Or it meant that they put adequate risk mitigation strategies into place, to allow them to be able to relax and engage in enjoyable activities (think centaury duty).

Functional Stress & Anxiety Today

While most of us, in our current day and age, aren’t expecting an imminent threat, stress and anxiety are still functional.  Helping us to respond to the challenges of our daily lives in a timely fashion and ensuring that we don’t act recklessly.  But much of the stress and anxiety we experience is something we learnt as a conditioned response to keep us safe in childhood.   So I see the function of a lot of stress and anxiety as being a flag when one of these learnt responses is triggered, to help you identify (and thus move forward from) your blocks.

How Working with a Coach can Help Dissolve Stress and Anxiety

Working with a coach you can start to uncover the core wounds or beliefs that are behind the stress and anxiety that you experience in the present, so that you can learn how to let go of these old beliefs.  They will help you to learn what is really going on underneath the emotions, which when seen in the light of day, can then start to be unravelled.  This will improve your response to certain triggers over time.  You can also learn tools and techniques for transmuting these emotions (e-motion, energy in motion) so that they can be processed and released, rather than becoming chronically experienced emotions that can lead to problems with your health, work and relationships.

Stress and anxiety are not present to be suffered, or to be stuffed down.  They are here to show you your potential for growth.  They are your system’s feedback response, letting you know where things are not functioning as well as they could be – and I would love to help you learn how to navigate and dissolve yours.

If the idea of coaching to dissolve your stress and anxiety appeals to you, I offer a free discovery call – which is a chance to get to know one another and test the water, with no obligation.  Just get in touch to book, or use the link below.  Coaching sessions start at £80 ph with options to bulk book for a small discount.