150. Why You Stress, and How to Feel More in Control

In this episode we walk you through what's actually happening in your brain the moment stress takes over, and why your reactions make complete sense once you understand the system underneath them. I'll show you the five ways your nervous system steps in to protect you and why your thinking brain goes quiet right when you need it most. We'll look at one surprising trigger behind so much of our daily stress, and I'll give you a simple shift that turns a moment of being hijacked into a moment of choice. You'll leave understanding your stress response as a protector rather than an enemy, and that understanding is where resilience begins.

If you'd like to get the show notes for this episode, head to:

 https://leighgermann.com

Transcript

Why You Stress, and How to Feel More in Control

If you've ever wondered why you get reactive, shut down, or feel hijacked by your emotions, or if you've ever asked yourself, why did I say that? Or why can't I just stay calm?, you're going to want to listen to this episode, because your reactions make perfect sense once you understand what's happening in your brain. This is Leadership Parenting, Why You Stress, and How to Feel More in Control.

Did you know that resilience is the key to confidence and joy? As moms, it's what we want for our kids, but it's also what we need for ourselves. My name is Leigh Germann. I'm a therapist and I'm a mom. Join me as we explore the skills you need to know to be confident and joyful. Then get ready to teach these skills to your kids. This is Leadership Parenting, where you learn how to lead your family by showing them the way.

Hi my friends, and welcome back to our Leadership Parenting podcast. I am so glad that you're here. Today we're starting with something that affects every single one of us, and that's the way our brain responds to stress. Our human brain is so incredibly powerful, but it isn't always logical or calm. Its number one job is to protect you, not necessarily to help you stay peaceful or help you make great decisions under pressure. And this is usually where most of us notice that our brain is kind of giving us a hard time and not showing up the way we want it to.

Today I'm going to talk to you about your brain as if it's a separate part of you. Of course, it's the same part of you, it is part of your body. But I really want you to look at your brain as something that you can really try to better understand. I think once you do, you're going to be able to work with it so much better instead of feeling like it's working against you and you're working against it. Because your brain is so incredibly powerful, but it isn't always logical or calm. Its number one job is to protect you, not necessarily to help you stay peaceful or make great decisions under pressure. So you could also think about it this way: your brain is like having a really dedicated security guard who never takes a break.

The Amygdala Smoke Alarm

And this security guard has been on duty in one way or another in our human race for thousands of years with the goal to keep you alive. Everyone gets this certain part of the brain that's in charge of this kind of survival, and it's called our limbic system, specifically our amygdala. And we actually have two amygdala, kind of in the center portion of our brain, and these structures act like our brain's smoke alarm. Always on the lookout for danger, always scanning the environment, and actually about every 10 or 11 seconds. And when something even seems remotely threatening, whether it's a car swerving in traffic or your child talking back to you or saying no at the grocery store, even just receiving kind of a terse text from your boss, your brain sounds an alarm. It tells your whole body we're not safe. It kicks off what we call the stress response.

Now, here's what's fascinating: your brain cannot distinguish between real danger, like a real wild animal chasing you, and just a perceived danger, something that might seem like it would cause you some discomfort, even if it's not happening right now, even if it's happening in the future. The same alarm system that would help you run from a predator also activates your whole stress response when you're running late to a meeting, when someone maybe criticizes you for your parenting, or when you're scrolling on social media and you are just comparing yourself to others. Your brain treats all of these scenarios the same as potential dangers and triggers your stress response.

Five Stress Responses Explained

Let me walk you through five stress responses. Because when you can understand if you're in one of these five patterns, it's going to really help you know what you're going to do next.

When your stress response activates, your body prepares to fight the threat. And this might look like getting defensive, raising your voice, arguing, feeling a surge of anger or frustration inside. All of this can kind of feel like you're ready to go to battle. Even if it's with your two-year-old, even if it's with your beloved spouse, even if it's with yourself.

The next thing your stress response will do is trigger you to flee from the danger. So this could be when you feel like you physically have to leave the room. But it's even more subtle than that. It could be when you feel like you have to change the subject or avoid difficult conversations, or when you numb out with Netflix on your phone, or check your social media and scroll so that you can kind of mentally check out even when you're physically present.

The third way that your nervous system protects you is by freezing. This is when you can feel paralyzed, like a deer in the headlights. You might go blank, feel unable to speak, or find yourself unable to even just make a simple decision. Your mind can get kind of foggy, feeling almost empty, like you're disconnected.

Fourth way is to fawn. Have you ever heard that word, fawn? This is people pleasing to stay safe. Your body kind of goes into this submissive place. You might find yourself over-apologizing, agreeing when you don't really agree, or putting everyone else's needs before your own just to avoid conflict.

The fifth way that your nervous system will step in to try to protect you is to go into kind of a shutdown mode or a collapse mode. This is when those active ways of protecting yourself don't seem to work. And it might cause you to feel like you want to hide under the covers, stay in bed, lay on the couch. It may not even be so much action-oriented and more of a feeling as if you're depressed, as if you don't have the energy to step forward into your life and do the things that you really want to do.

Five ways that your nervous system steps in and protects you. These are not active choices. And I think that's perhaps one of the most important things I want you to really understand. This is an ancient response that is built into your body. It literally helped our ancestors survive. When they encountered a wild tiger, a wild animal, their brain would instantly flood their body with these stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline, and their heart rate would spike and they'd be ready to run or fight for their life. Or they might shut down and hide and really kind of not move, freeze. Your nervous system is always making a decision of how it might help you best survive a situation.

Now our brains use exactly the same system when we feel judged or overwhelmed or disconnected from the people that we care about. And the problem is, we can't actually run away from our teenager's attitude or fight our way out of a deadline for school or for work. And this is where things get tricky, because this whole process happens so automatically. You don't wake up and decide, today I'm going to shut down when my partner brings up the budget. You don't choose to snap at your kids when you're overwhelmed.

When Thinking Brain Goes Offline

It just happens. And when that alarm goes off in your brain, that stress response is activated, and your thinking brain, that's what we call the prefrontal cortex, it essentially kind of goes offline. It gets walled off. And this part of your brain is the part that you feel most aligned with most of the time. It's the solving-problems part of your brain. It's the part of your brain that thinks clearly and rationally and kind of responds with intention rather than reactivity. It's the part of your brain that helps you connect with your values and see the bigger picture and helps kind of be your compass and that helps you feel empathy and compassion. It's the part of your brain, probably right now that you're listening with, that you're going to walk away, hopefully, with some ideas and strategies and that it's all filed away and you're going to think, I'm going to be able to do all these great things that Leigh's talking about to remain calm and be a great parent and take care of myself because I have a plan. That's all in your prefrontal cortex.

But when you're in a stress response, when I'm in a stress response, that pathway to the prefrontal cortex, it gets blocked. It's like that prefrontal cortex goes dark. And your emotional brain, which is the survival part of the brain, it takes over. It just happens without our choice. That's why you might say something that you immediately regret, or maybe later regret. That's why you feel like you can't calm down no matter what you try. Or when you freeze and don't know what to do next. Or when you panic or yell or completely shut down and withdraw. Sometimes we can even feel like we're watching ourselves make decisions that don't align with who we want to be and how we want to show up, but we can't stop it.

You guys, this is not because you're weak. It's not because you're unkind or that you lack willpower. It's because your brain shows up and protects you from what it perceives as a threat.

So think of it like this: imagine you're driving down the highway and suddenly your car's emergency systems take over. The radio shuts off, the air conditioning stops, all the car's energy goes toward keeping the engine running and the brakes working. That's what happens in your brain during stress. All the nice-to-have functions, those higher-level functions, they shut down so your survival system can take over. And the challenge is, in our modern world, we often need our thinking brain to handle the very situations that are triggering our survival brain.

Disconnection as a Hidden Trigger

And you know, one of the biggest causes of the stress in our daily lives, it's disconnection. That's the category. Because we are wired for connection, designed to be in community, to feel seen, understood, and valued. And when we feel disconnected, our brain interprets this as a threat to our survival. Because historically, being cast out from our community would be devastating.

I know that's a big category, and I love a big category, because what it does is it helps you understand that there are a lot of reasons why you might feel your stress response turn on. And I want you to be able to think of just one basic word to help you look for the cause of that threat response turning on. And so if all you could be doing is looking at a place where you might feel disconnected, that's going to help you understand why your stress response turned on.

Because you can feel disconnected from yourself when you're so busy taking care of everyone else that you've lost touch with your own needs, your own feelings, your desires, or when you don't even know what you want, right? Like what you want to eat for dinner, let alone what you want from life. When we get disconnected from ourselves, our brain interprets that as being dangerous. I know that's weird, but so important.

When you get disconnected from someone you care about, it can turn on your stress response. Like if there's tension with your partner, when your teenager won't talk to you, when your child is tantruming or kind of pushes you away, won't let you comfort them.

You can get disconnected from your values when you're living in a way that doesn't align with what matters most to you. For instance, you might really value a peaceful kind of presence, but find yourself constantly distracted by your phone. Or you might value health, but can't seem to make time for your own sleep or for your exercise. All that's going to turn your stress response on.

And you can also feel disconnected from a sense of belonging or safety. When you feel judged by others, by yourself, when you're worried about fitting in, so you're in that comparison trap. When you might feel like you're the only one experiencing what you're experiencing, that can cause you to feel alone and like you don't belong. And that will turn your stress response on.

So even subtle forms of disconnection can trigger this fight or flight and all of those five kinds of stress responses. Things like being misunderstood in a conversation, feeling unseen or unappreciated, comparing yourself on social media. This is a huge one. Feeling like we don't belong in a group, sensing disapproval, even if it's not explicitly stated, feeling rushed or pressured. How many of us have days that are just full of feeling rushed, being interrupted or being dismissed? Your brain doesn't think, oh, this is just a minor disconnect. It thinks, I'm not safe in this situation or this environment or this relationship. And that's why it's so important to pay attention to how we feel, not just physically but emotionally, because what's happening in our inner world impacts everything we do.

Real-Life Stress Response Examples

So let me give you some real-life scenarios so you can see how this plays out. Your heart might start racing, you might feel tension in your shoulders, you might even mentally rehearse all the things you should have done to leave earlier, or why is this happening to you? And it can even morph into all the other things that went wrong today. This is your brain's alarm system activating because it perceives being late as a threat, even to your identity as a good parent.

Or here's another scenario: your partner might make a comment about the dishes in the sink, and you might feel some defensiveness rise up and want to list everything you've done that day. That's because your brain heard criticism and activated the fight response to protect you from feeling like you're not enough.

Or scenario number three: you might be in a meeting and someone asks you a question that you don't know the answer to. Your mind might go blank, your face gets hot, you stumble over your words. That's what the freeze response does when it tries to protect you from the perceived threat of looking incompetent.

And the last one: maybe your friend seems distant in a text conversation or doesn't respond to you quickly enough, and you might find yourself over-explaining or apologizing for things you didn't even do. That's the fawn response, trying to restore some kind of connection and safety for you.

In each of these situations, your brain is just doing its job, trying to protect you. The problem is that the protection often creates more problems than it solves. So my goal today isn't necessarily to solve all of these problems. It is to help us understand how things can happen that trigger that stress response inside of us. Because that has a cascading effect in our lives, in how we feel, and ultimately in what we do.

Awareness Builds Choice and Resilience

So now that you have this information, what do we do with it? How does just knowing about your stress response actually help? Well, here's how: awareness is the first step. When you don't understand what's happening in your body or your brain, you're at the mercy of your reactions. It can really feel like we're being hijacked, out of control, like we're just along for the ride and we have no access to the direction that we're going.

But when you can recognize, oh, I'm just triggered right now. My amygdala is activated right now, which, you actually say that? I don't know, but I hope you would. My stress response is on. I also like to say, my nervous system is responding. I'm in fight mode, or I'm feeling that freeze response kicking in, or I can feel I'm kind of shutting down right now.Suddenly, you have some distance from the experience. You're not just in the stress response, you're also observing it. And that tiny bit of observer awareness, that's your thinking brain coming back online. That's the beginning of being able to respond instead of just react.

It's like the difference between being caught in a riptide when you're out in the ocean and not knowing what's happening, versus being caught in a riptide and thinking, okay, I know what this is. I know I shouldn't fight it directly. I need to swim parallel to the shore. Have you ever heard that explained to you, so that if you're out in the ocean swimming, there's something you can actually do to get to safety? And it's never fighting against the riptide, it's learning to work with it instead of against it. That's what we're doing with understanding how your brain and body work when it goes into the stress response.

Reflection Questions and Closing

So before we end today, I want to leave you with some questions for reflection. You don't need to answer them right now, but I want you to hold them in your mind this week.

Here's the first. Do you flee? Avoid conflict, change the subject, check out? Do you find yourself freezing, where you kind of feel that paralyzed feeling? Or fawning, where you feel like you have to constantly please others or over-apologize? Or do you go into that shutdown mode where you feel like you just kind of don't have the energy to get up and go?

Second question: when are you most likely to get activated? Is it when you're tired or hungry? Is it when you feel judged or criticized? Maybe when you're feeling that rushed feeling or you're running late? Often it happens when we feel misunderstood or unheard.

Third question: what are your early warning signs? I want you to think about how this shows up in your body. Do you get a tight chest, a clenched jaw, something in your physical experience that tells you that your nervous system is turned on? Or do you tend to notice those big feelings first, the irritation, the sadness, the anxiety? We also have signs that show up in what we do, where we're kind of getting fidgety, or we start to avoid eye contact, or we talk faster than we normally do.

Knowing your go-to response and your triggers is going to give you power. It's not a diagnosis, it's not a label, it's just insight. And insight leads to choice. The more familiar that you are with your own patterns, the faster you'll be able to catch yourself and choose different responses.

So here's the truth I want to leave with you today, and I want you to really hear this. You're not overreacting. Your nervous system is overwhelmed. You're not broken, you are wired this way. Your nervous system is just responding in a way to protect you. And you're not oversensitive. You're just human. Your body is doing exactly what it was designed to do to keep you alive. And the stress response that sometimes feels like your enemy is actually trying to be your friend. It's just using very old software to navigate our new common problems.

So your nervous system is like a friend who's looking out for your safety, always trying to protect you from harm. And they sometimes get it wrong. We don't want to hate our nervous systems for that. We just need to help it understand when its help is needed and when it isn't. The moment we understand this, something shifts. That our nervous system isn't against us, it's just working to try to protect us. We can stop fighting ourselves. We can stop thinking there's something fundamentally wrong with us. We can say, I know what this is. This is my nervous system getting activated. My brain thinks there's danger here, and maybe there isn't. And from there, you can begin to calm and support yourself so you can get back to that sense of centeredness.

This is the very beginning of resilience. Not always feeling calm, but understanding what those feelings mean and how to work with them. Some days you're going to catch yourself early and be able to shift into a calmer state. And other days you're going to realize hours later what happened. And both are normal and valuable responses. Once we notice what's going on inside of us, really notice it, we're going to have so much more freedom in how we show up.

So thank you for being with me today. I know you're showing up for your own growth, and that matters more than you might realize. I want you to take care of yourself this week. Be gentle with your beautiful, protective brain. Be patient as you come to understand how your nervous system is really, truly working for your benefit. I will see you all next week. Take care.

You can always find me on Instagram at @LeighGermann or on my website at leighgermann.com.

The Leadership Parenting Podcast is for general information purposes only. It is not therapy and should not take the place of meeting with a qualified mental health professional. The information on this podcast is not intended to diagnose or treat any condition, illness, or disease. It's also not intended to be legal, medical, or therapeutic advice. Please consult your doctor or mental health professional for your individual circumstances. Thanks again, and take care.