Articles Archives - Courage Space Coaching & Consulting

3 Strategies to Manage Stress More Effectively

by Dagmar Meachem | Dec 5, 2023

If there’s one thing we all share in common, it’s experiencing stress in our lives.

The way we handle and cope with stress varies for all of us. And what might be encouraging to know is that it’s not something you’re born good or bad at, it’s a skill you can develop.

For those that manage stress well, they’ve developed an effective skillset throughout their life for coping and navigating through stressful situations. In emotional intelligence, this skillset is called stress management.

Something important to note, before I go further, is that there are other things that complicate our ability to cope with stress effectively, which include trauma. Past trauma adds additional complexity to our thinking, our stress response and our ability to regulate our nervous system. For those struggling with past trauma, I would encourage the support of a therapist or other trained professional in times of increased stress.

However, regardless of where you find yourself and what stress you’re navigating right now, there are 3 strategies that you can start using right away to learn to manage stress more effectively.

1. Learn ways to regulate your nervous system

Regulating your nervous system is crucial for overall well-being and functioning. The nervous system plays a central role in controlling and coordinating all the activities of the body.

When it comes to stress management, the nervous system is closely linked to the body’s stress response. Chronic stress can lead to an overactive sympathetic nervous system(fight-or-flight response), which can have detrimental effects on physical and mental health. Learning to regulate your nervous system helps manage stress and promotes a more balanced and relaxed state.

Here are some ways you can start regulating your nervous system:

Breath work
Meditation
Mindfulness practices
Yoga
Exercise
Adequate sleep

2. Check and challenge your mindset

Your current mindset can have a huge impact on how you experience the situation you’re in.

The beliefs you have about yourself, the assumptions you have about the situation you’re in and how you let your fears dominate your thinking directly affect how you respond to certain situations, the stories you make up, the feelings that surface from those stories and consequently how you experience stress.

If you are feeling powerless, if your optimism is low, if you are consumed with worry and if you’re overthinking and struggling to come up with a solution, these are all indications that possibly your current mindset isn’t serving you.

What we don’t often realize is how much our mindset keeps us from seeing a solution or a way forward. It can often keep us in the past pointing to where we’re most afraid. The key in these situations is to challenge our current thinking and look beyond our current frame of reference.

Here are some questions that will help you do that:

What are you currently hustling for? – perfectionism, FOPO (fear of other people’s opinions) fear of failure, fear of being seen as weak, stupid, incapable.
What limiting beliefs are running the show that need to be reframed into more empowering ones?
What fear might be dominating your thinking that you need to face and address?
What could you be learning from this right now and what opportunity is there for you to grow?

After answering these questions ask yourself how you might shift your current mindset and thinking to be more empowering. Then, create action steps from this new thinking which will help move things forward.

3. Create an intention for how you’d rather be right now

When we’re stuck in stress, it’s hard to see our way out. It’s hard to see past a certain stressful situation or time frame. We get lost in the trees instead of being able to see the whole forest.

An empowering way of moving ourselves through stress is to create an intention for how you’d rather be experiencing life right now? It’s essentially a vision for a future time and a future you.

Examples of intentions are:

I want to feel more calm and relaxed
I want to feel more empowered in my life
I want to feel more in control
I want to be more boundaried with others
I want to speak my truth more often

Here are some questions to help you create your new intention:

What would you rather feel right now?
How would you rather be responding to life right now?
What would you like to take action on that you’re afraid to?
What things do you need to say and to whom?
What’s most important right now?
What word represents an intention that you’d like to make?

Now that you have these 3 strategies, look into them a bit deeper, learn more about different aspects of these strategies (eg. learn about breath work) and start trying them today.

Maybe you could commit to doing one breath work or meditation practice every day, maybe you could commit to 30 min of exercise 3 times per week, maybe you could have a crack answering the questions about your current mindset.

Whatever it is, start doing it.

Because the reality is, no one’s going to do it for you, no magic wizard is going to appear and remove all of your stress with her wand.

It’s up to you to look after yourself. And you’ll thank yourself for it, I guarantee it.

Learning To Let Go of Control

by Dagmar Meachem | Nov 11, 2023

“If only I could control what happens then everything would be ok.”

Imagine if you could control how people respond to you and treat you and how things operate around you? Imagine if you could have things exactly the way you want them? Imagine if you didn’t have to deal with this thing called ‘uncertainty’. Ah, what a world that would be?

I know as you read this, a part of you is daydreaming for a brief moment about how good this would be. Although that might sound nice, there are limiting factors to always needing to have control. In fact, needing to have control is actually something that has control over you.

What do I mean by this? Let me explain.

When we need to have control over things, we need things to go a certain way in order to feel ok. We tend to be rigid in our approach to things, we tend to be less flexible with others and we tend to be closed to feedback or new ideas. In effect, we close ourselves off from the outside world and operate in a closed loop of our own internal thoughts, beliefs and assumptions.

At a deeper level, we are operating out of fear.

Fear of:

Rejection
Being hurt
Not being heard or seen
Uncertainty
Emotional exposure

When we operate out of fear, this is where the fantasy of control ends. When we operate out of fear we’re no longer in control, we are now controlled by our need to be in control.

When we operate out of fear, we’re reactive and protective. When we operate out of fear, we’re rigid and inflexible. When we operate out of fear, we often feel powerless. When we operate out of fear we’re at the affect of our blindspots and default negative behaviours. We’re not being discerning or thoughtful.

What we need most in these moments is not to focus on holding onto control. We need to let go of the idea that control will protect us and make us ok.

Instead, we need to address the fears that are driving our need for control. We need to face the thoughts and assumptions that are bringing up those fears. And then, we need to bring curiosity, compassion and empathy to that.

This might also involve:

Having a difficult conversation with someone
Making a difficult decision
Trusting that the future is not the past
Being open to a different perspective
Being wrong
Trusting and forgiving others

A simple question you might want to ask yourself to help in this process is “what am I protecting myself from or avoiding by being in control or needing to have control?”

And then, give yourself the time and space to explore the answer to that question.

This will be the beginning of learning how to let go of control so it doesn’t control you. The more you practice this inquiry, the easier it will get. Slowly, the need for control will ease as you shift to being more present and self-aware to what’s going on for you during challenging situations. Slowly, you’ll learn to address your fears and take the required action that will help you move through them.

When you learn how to move through your fears and take action in your life, that’s when you get a sense of being in control again. It’s the very thing you wanted in the first place, you just needed to approach it from a different direction!

The Work of Authenticity

by Dagmar Meachem | Oct 12, 2023

How many times have you said to someone or you’ve heard it said to you, ‘just be yourself’?

Or, ‘just be you, everyone else is taken’.

It turns out that being yourself is harder than all those quotes say.

In fact, this takes up the majority of the work I do as a coach, supporting individuals to not only be their authentic self but first they sometimes have to find it first.

Why is it hard though? Why do we have such a hard time showing our true selves, saying what we really think, sharing our feelings and admitting our fears?

This is such a huge question and without trying to sound like a great philosopher or even admitting that I have the answer, from a coaching perspective, it all comes down to how we learn to adapt to our life experiences. Human’s are highly adaptable, that’s what makes us successful as a species.

However, it’s also this trait that comes into play when we’re struggling to ‘be ourselves’ or be vulnerable or be more authentic in how we show up in our lives. Ultimately, we adapt our way out of being ourselves as we learn to protect ourselves from being hurt and learn strategies to get our needs met.

And then there’s Jennifer or Thomas, both working professionals, aged 43 and 51 respectively who come to me feeling stuck, wanting to find a deeper sense of meaning in their work and feeling a bit lost with what the next step is in their career (and life as it often happens that way).

This is where the work of authenticity comes in.

Because it is work.

It’s work to undo or even look at the adaptations you’ve made to navigate your life experiences that have distanced you from your authentic self and/or your values.

It’s work to undo the strategies you’ve developed to protect yourself. It’s work to face the fears you might have found a way to avoid. And it’s work to acknowledge those parts of yourself that perhaps you learned to reject or be ashamed of.

In this article I’m not sharing a ‘how to’ or a ‘5 steps to being authentic’ or any kind of answer on how to do it. I’m simply telling you that it’s work, it’s deep work and it’s hard work.

It’s hard work to be authentic because of all the forces against us to not be, especially as we get older.

So don’t give up the endeavour because it’s hard. Don’t stop the work because you’re afraid of what you’ll find. Keep going, keep searching, keep opening and keep being curious.

Because the gift of it all, of all the work you’re doing is freedom, healing, inner peace, connection with yourself and others, being who you want to be and having what you truly want in your life.

Experience the gift of authenticity in your life. Inquire today about being supported in the work through professional coaching.

Two Kinds of Burnout & What To Do About It

by Dagmar Meachem | Aug 12, 2023

You might be surprised to know that many of my coaching conversations involve the question ‘how are you going to make time to look after yourself?’

The topic of burnout is all around us. Almost everywhere you turn there’s articles, social media posts and books around the topic. Here are some articles I found just today:

“How to deal with Workplace Burnout”
“Burnout Prevention and Treatment”
“4 Steps to Beating Burnout”
“Burnout and Stress are Everywhere”

We might also know people personally who are suffering from burnout or it might be ourselves.

In my work, what I’ve discovered is that there are 2 different kinds of burnout and in this article I’m going to share what you can do about it.

Circumstantial Burnout
Self-Burnout

Circumstantial Burnout

Circumstantial Burnout is when there are circumstances and situations that lead to burnout that are mostly out of our control such as:

Toxic workplaces
High pressure and demanding work cultures
Challenging personal circumstances involving:
- illness
- loss of a loved one
- financial hardship
- conflict in the workplace
- unfair / inequitable treatment
- workplace harassment

These situations require a unique approach to burnout typically relying on external tools, resources and people to support us and help shift our mindset. Examples of these are mindfulness meditation, breathing techniques, mindset shift exercises and professionals such as coaches, therapists and mediators.

The goal with this approach is to find ways to cope and deal with the stress and difficult emotions that come with these situations and effectively navigate the challenging circumstance.

Self Burnout

Self-Burnout is the second type of burnout.

This is the burnout we do to ourselves when we unknowingly create situations and circumstances that drive our own burnout.

This is where I focus most of my coaching when the topic comes up. What most people discover is that they are the ones driving their own burnout.

They’re saying yes to things when they could be saying no. They’re taking on workloads that are too much. They’re fixing other people’s problems. They’re staying up late and responding to emails. They’re sacrificing themselves, their personal time, their health and their time with loved ones willingly.

They think that by working hard in this way, it shows that they’re committed and people can count on them. They think that it’s what’s expected of someone at their level. They think that if they say no or don’t work like this they won’t be eligible for the better opportunities.

Under all of these thoughts I always find one common thought pattern:

“If I don’t do this or work in this way or get these results, it won’t be enough…I won’t be enough.”

The approach for self-burnout is first, understanding what’s driving you to create circumstances that contribute to your burnout. Part of this involves a deeper conversation with yourself around naming your ‘not enough’ statement and creating a new supportive statement instead. The second part of the approach is to create a new strategy for avoiding burnout and creating new situations and circumstances that support you in being your best self instead.

This involves:

saying no to things that will overload you
establishing healthy boundaries with colleagues around work and personal hours
leading and coaching more and fixing other people’s problems less
making time for healthy lifestyle habits, exercise, time with friends and family

Self-burnout requires a bit more personal development than circumstantial burnout.

In order to hop off your own burnout train, it will take some effort for sure! It’ll take doing some personal reflection, taking responsibility and a willingness to let go of habits and thought patterns that you’ve held onto for a long time.

Both types of burnout will take work to navigate AND the work is always worth it. Because whether a situation is within our control or not, when we take personal responsibility in our lives and take action, we take one step closer to creating the life we want and the outcomes we seek.

3-Phase Approach to Managing Transitions

by Dagmar Meachem | Jul 13, 2023

“All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind is part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter into another.”
Anatole France

Let’s talk about transitions. What are transitions and why is it important to understand them?

According to William R Bridges, transition is the inner psychological process that people go through as they internalize and come to terms with the new situation that the change brings about. He desribes it also in simple terms as the personal and human side of change.

The biggest mistake individuals and organizations make when trying to navigate or implement change is not understanding giving attention to the personal experience of change. We as humans go through a deeply personal process as we navigate change, often requiring grief, letting go, acceptance, encouragement, validation, support, hope and a vision of the future. If individuals or teams are feeling stuck in change, it’s typically because one of these requirements are not being met.

Common examples of professional and personal transitions include:

Career change
Taking on a new role at work
Implementing new systems or technology
Divorce
Moving in together with an intimate partner
Moving countries and relocating
Critical illness of yourself or a loved one

What makes transitions difficult isn’t necessarily the change itself, but rather the evolving within ourselves that has to occur to successfully move through a transition.

Each of the examples above require a kind of personal evolving. Like William R Bridges explains, individuals will go through an inner pschological process as they come to terms with the new situation.

It’s during this inner process that’s the hardest and often brings up the most amount of fear such as:

Fear of the unknown and uncertainty
Fear of getting hurt
Fear of looking incompetent
Fear of being irrelevant
Fear of failure
Fear of other people finding out about your faults
Fear of feeling difficult emotions
Fear of loss
Self-doubt that you will be successful in making the transition

So how do we deal with this fear and self-doubt? How can we effectively navigate this inner psychological process and this required evolving? How do we do this without getting stuck?

William and Susan Bridges created a road map to get through the most difficult work and life passages. In their book Managing Transitions – Making the Most of Change they introduce their practical and powerful 3 phase approach, The Bridges Transition Model, to managing transitions and share examples on how to apply it for yourself and in organizations.

This 3 phase model is so helpful because when you can see the big picture of the transition, it gives you understanding where you might find yourself in it. Finding yourself, your team and your organization in this model also provides validation and acknowledgement for how and why you might be struggling. It also provides valuable context for creating a plan and strategy for a way forward and how to become unstuck. From this, it can provide individuals and teams a sense of hope and encouragement in creating their new beginning.

The 3 phases of transition are:

Endings – Letting go of the old ways and the old identity you had. This first phase of transition is an ending and the time when you need support in dealing with your losses.
Neutral Zone – Going through an in-between time when the old is gone but the new isn’t fully operational. We call this the ‘neutral zone’: it’s when the critical psychological realignments and repatternings take place.
New Beginnings – Coming out of the transition and making a new beginning. This is when you develop the new identity, experience the new energy, and discover the new sense of purpose that makes the change begin to work.

“Because transition is a process by which people unplug from an old world and plug into a new world, we can say that transition begins with an ending and finishes with a beginning.” William Bridges, PhD.

If you’re finding yourself in a transition that’s challenging, try asking yourself these 3 questions:

What phase are you possibly feeling stuck in?
How could you give yourself or your team validation and acknowledgement right now for where you’re at?
What are some things you could do to support you and/or your team in moving through either phase 1 or 2 so you can experience the energy and renewal that awaits you in phase 3?

Most transitions are accompanied with discomfort. Most transitions are difficult. AND, most transitions will present you and/or your team with an opportunity to evolve and grow.

We can be more successful in evolving, growing and feeling renewed when we have a strategy or a framework to help us navigate the process.

3 Strategies to Manage Stress More Effectively

1. Learn ways to regulate your nervous system

2. Check and challenge your mindset

3. Create an intention for how you’d rather be right now

Learning To Let Go of Control

The Work of Authenticity

Two Kinds of Burnout & What To Do About It

Circumstantial Burnout

Self Burnout

3-Phase Approach to Managing Transitions

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