Managing anxiety and stress

In this section, I share my experiences of anxiety and work-related stress and how I have learned to manage these more effectively. Posts are displayed in reverse chronological order; scroll down to read about my experiences of deciding to speak to a GP about work-related stress and managing my anxiety once I returned to work. More recent posts explore the anxiety of uncertainty when embarking on a career change; in my case leaving full-time employment to develop a freelance portfolio career. Other topics include “overthinking” (or what happens when thinking gets stuck) and practical ways that help me move forward and resolve dilemmas.

Preparing for future storms

2023 was a year full of challenges and my mental wellbeing deteriorated. By making sense of what happened and creating a wellbeing action plan, I stopped fearing a future downward spiral.

Overthinking

Have you ever criticised yourself for overthinking? I certainly have. The term “overthinking” suggests we are thinking too much and encourages us to stop thinking and move on. But when we have valid concerns, this is not always a helpful response.

In this post, I share three techniques that have helped me untangle my thinking and why I think they work.

Transitions

Stepping away from a full-time career and transitioning to a new pattern of life and work often feels discombobulating. Especially when everything is new. This was certainly my experience. I also love the word discombobulation and how it sounds; inspiration for this poem.

New beginnings

A poem about managing the stress and discomfort of doing something new.

Money worries

Worry about when and how I would start to earn money again reared its head every few months after I left my job to change career. This post shares the impact of these money worries, which stemmed from what was going on in my head more than my bank account, and how I quietened them.

Perspectives on resilience

Do you view resilience as the ability to “keep calm and carry on” or to pay attention to signs of stress and replenish?

Two different perspectives explored in this poem.

Indecision

A poem about how anxiety, low mood and depression can make even simple decision-making difficult.

Sitting with uncertainty

Having quit my job several months earlier I was in the middle of my initial coach training when anxiety about my career-change bubbled up. Unpicking the bundle of anxious threads, I identified several causes of stress. I was then able to choose how to manage them.

Anxiety is not a problem to be solved

In this post I share my experiences of completing stress risk assessments at work. While they can be very useful, they can also be counter-productive, especially if they (inadvertently) encourage attempts to problem-solve emotions.

From anxiety to learning about resilience

I found deciding whether to contact a GP about work-related stress neither easy nor clear-cut. In this post I share how I made this decision.

Afterwards, learning about the three emotion regulation systems helped me make sense of the situation I had been in and provided a model for rebuilding resilience.

RAIN

A poem about managing unpleasant emotions in the moment using the RAIN mindfulness meditation.