Coping with “stuff”

Sometimes you can’t avoid having “stuff” dumped in your lap.

Your kid’s teacher wants a conference with you.

Your significant other comes home from work with the flu.

Your flight has been cancelled due to weather.

You’re stuck in traffic and can’t make it to the gym on time.

You have to get two kids in two different places at the same time.

Your “friend” is talking about you behind your back.

We’ve all had something, somewhere, sometime set us off.

There’s really nothing you can do about any of the things above.

What we can control is how we react to these situations.

Reacting to them emotionally is not the best way (although it is the easiest!).

The best thing to do is to pause before the emotions kick in and take you someplace unproductive (for your kid, your spouse, your friend, or yourself).

Raise your hand if you have had a glass of wine or a pint of ice cream when confronted with stress? 🙋

Pausing before you open that bottle or the freezer can be the hard part.

Enter The 54321 Grounding Technique.

It’s extremely simple:

Acknowledge…

Five things you can see,

Four things you can touch

Three things you can hear

Two things you can smell

One thing you can taste.

Doing this forces you to stop just long enough so that you can more calmly and rationally react to a situation.

It has worked for me on quite a few occasions, times when something unexpected happened, and I started to get overwhelmed.

Like anything, it only works if you do it.

Give it a shot; it’s free!

Coach Dylan