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Understanding Stress We Can’t Control

Interviewer: Sometimes, stress isn't something you can fix. It's something you have to live through. Whether it's job instability, health issues, caring for a loved one, or a world that feels constantly uncertain, many of us are carrying stress we didn't choose and personally just can't solve. So how do we deal with that, and how do we get relief?

We are here with Claudine Miller. She is a licensed clinical social worker with Huntsman Mental Health Institute's Community Crisis Intervention Support Services team.

Now, Claudine, I guess one of the questions I wanted to start with is how do you define stress that's outside of a person's control?

Claudine: Oh, my goodness. I think all we have to do is watch the news today. There is so much stress that's completely outside of our control. There are concerns about the environment, concerns about a local law and things that are happening here. It's not hard to find things outside of our control. Job insecurity is one that you had mentioned. Stress with our kids, stress with school, with employment, it's not hard to find those. I feel like it's really easy to find things that we don't have a lot of control over.

Why This Kind of Stress Feels So Heavy

Interviewer: Why does that kind of stress feel heavier almost or more exhausting than some of the other things that happen in my day-to-day life?

Claudine: I think it's heavier because we don't have that control. When we're in our day-to-day life, if something doesn't go well, if we don't get a project in, we don't complete some sort of assignment, or we have a yucky conversation with somebody, we can do something else immediately to try and shift that.

When these bigger things that we feel like we don't have a say in, that we're not consulted on, those become very difficult to try to handle and try to navigate because we feel kind of helpless.

And we are a society that likes to be helpers. We like to be able to step in. We like to be able to do something. And when you have that feeling that you can't do anything, that makes it really difficult. 

Validation Before Advice

Interviewer: Understood. And I did want to kind of talk a little bit about maybe validating some of the struggle people might be having. I don't know, but I've been in places where when someone tells me, "Oh, just be mindful," or, "Go for a walk," it doesn't seem like it's enough, right? What do you say to patients or people that are experiencing something where they're like, "I just don't think that's going to be enough"?

Claudine: I think we have to start with validation. And validation doesn't always mean that we agree, but we can validate where someone is. Because you're right, it's not helpful when somebody is having a panic attack or when they're really stressed to just say, "Oh, breathe." It's not helpful because you're sitting there thinking, "I am freaking breathing because I'm yelling at you. I'm obviously breathing." Those types of suggestions that are coming from a helpful space don't feel helpful when you're in the midst of it, if that makes sense.

How to Be There for Someone in Crisis

Interviewer: Yeah, it does. And I felt very much the scenario you were playing out. Is it normal to feel, say, anger or guilt with these types of stresses and maybe with people trying to help?

Claudine: Oh, most definitely. Really, the person who is really stressed, we want to be heard. We want somebody to be like, "Dang, that's a tough situation." We don't want somebody to offer suggestions most of the time. There's kind of a hierarchy of emotional needs, but when we're really elevated, that's not the time to offer suggestions. That's the time when we try to support and de-escalate.

So when somebody is really heightened, when things aren't going well, suggestions don't help. It just feels like someone is talking at you. And we don't like to be talked at. We want to be heard. So that ability to allow somebody to de-escalate, to sit with them and just, "Dang, that's tough," can make a big difference.

And then once somebody is not in that highest level of crisis, whatever their crisis is or whatever is happening, that's when we're able to then provide some different suggestions or how we figure out what's the next best step.

But you have to sit in that with somebody for a minute, and that could feel uncomfortable. It can feel kind of yucky to be like, "Oh, boy, this is a tough situation to sit in." You might have to tap into an emotion that kind of resonates within ourselves, and we don't like to do that. That's uncomfortable, but it makes a big difference.

So sitting with a coworker, sitting with a patient, a child, whoever it is, to be able to sit there and hear them and just, "Yeah, that's tough. That's yucky." And whatever we do . . . there's Brene Brown who says, "We don't need to silver line everything." We shouldn't "at least" when somebody is having a bad day. "Well, at least your car is still running." If you're going through a divorce, it's, "Well, at least you found out now and you're taking action." It doesn't feel great. 

And I think that's more for the person who's not in that crisis situation. They're trying to empathize, they're trying to relate, but that's not helpful. We just need to allow that space for someone to express what's happening.

Creative Coping Tools You Can Prepare Ahead

Interviewer: What's the next step for, say, finding stability or weathering the storm of this uncontrollable stress?

Claudine: I think that there are preventative things. And I say preventative not in the medical term, but in the mental health world, we often will say, "Use your skills. What are your coping skills?" If we have some things already predetermined before a crisis happens, if you have a playlist of music that you can match a mood to.

I really suggest before anything happens that somebody creates a playlist that maybe starts with the most angry songs that you can think of, because if you're angry and you turn on classical music, that's not going to help either.

So you create a playlist to match a mood, but then maybe it's just two songs that are the most angry, and then the next two songs are a little less angry, and then the next couple are a little less so that you're gradually able to match your mood to the music. That's something that's more preventative.

Maybe I'm at work, horrible interaction with a coworker or a patient, and I'm just, "Ugh, I'm really angry." I'm going to do something I can control, and maybe in that moment the only thing that I can control is to count my steps to the next room. I'm going to count how many steps. I'm going to do a 30-second wall-sit in the break room. I'm going to do something that uses my mind in a completely different way. That's where we can use that sense of control.

I'm going to look at a painting, and I'm going to tell you every single shade of green that I see. But I'm going to be doing it in my head. So something that allows us to come back to ourselves, because it's really easy to stay in our head.

It's taking that step back and saying, "What can I control in this moment?" I can control taking a walk outside real fast. I can control counting my steps. And sometimes it has to be something that simple because there are tons of things we can't control.

And I think the other key takeaway that I would say is have a list of maybe four things . . . again, preventative . . . that you've decided on ahead of time that you can do.

If you're somebody who likes to bake, maybe one of the things on your list when you're feeling overwhelmed is to bake. And you're going to put this list somewhere where you see it. If you're somebody who likes to be in your room and you slam your door, maybe you put it on the back of your door. Maybe you put it on your fridge.

Again, it's those things that you don't have to think about, but what can I do in this moment? Maybe you like to watch funny cat videos on YouTube. Maybe you like to garden. For me, I love pulling weeds. I can only do it seasonally, but there is such a sense of satisfaction to get a weed out and that whole root. 

So determine a few different things that you can do, but you want it in a place where you'll see it when you really need it.

The Strange Walk and Other Grounding Techniques

My other favorite one is do something called a strange walk.

Interviewer: What's a strange walk?

Claudine: So a strange walk is something where you will go for a walk until you find something that seems strange. You get to determine what that is. And so when you go and you do this walk, and it could be indoors, it could be outdoors, it creates this sense of wonder and some curiosity. But you're also on the lookout for something.

To see a flower growing in a crack somewhere might seem strange. You're like, "Huh, how'd that flower start growing there?" Maybe that's the thing that you see that's strange.

Once you find that strange thing, you can turn around and come back. Or maybe you have to find five strange things.

But again, it's very strategic in that you're getting out of your head, you're getting some fresh air, you're changing your heart rate a little bit. So maybe your heart rate will go up while you're walking, but it's being very purposeful about what you're doing.

Interviewer: I like that strange walk a lot. I might have to start doing that.

Claudine: You will be surprised how many odd things you can see on a street when you start looking for them.

When It's Time to Seek Professional Help

Interviewer: Oh, I'm sure. How would a person either identify in themselves or in a loved one that maybe their mental state is in a place where they should probably seek some professional help? What are some of the warning signs that we might be looking for when stress has gotten to that point?

Claudine: I think one of the key indicators would be that you're not able to self-regulate anymore. Maybe you're having a massive panic attack, and it's not settling. Maybe there's nobody to talk to and you want to check, "Is this okay? Am I out in left field? Is this within the realm of the normal spectrum of things?"

So I think it's very personal to everybody as to what that threshold is. But if you're feeling like you can't settle, if you're feeling like these tips, tricks, you've read all these different books, and maybe you haven't read anything, but you know in the last day that these thoughts keep running through your head and through your head and through your head, that would be a sign that, "Maybe I can reach out and talk to somebody."

Holding On to Hope in a Difficult World

Interviewer: That sounds like a lot of really good strategies and insights that might help someone, but how do you get someone to, say, hold on to hope that things might get better, or that their ability to manage situations can get better, when it feels like everything is just stuck?

Claudine: That can be hard. And I'm just going to be true in saying that our society is tricky right now and that feeling of hope on a bigger scale can be harder to find. I think we have to tap into the hope in ourselves. We have to take a moment to look at the really small things that provide us that ability to say, "Gosh, things are shifting."

Simple things like, "I haven't made my bed for the last two days, but this morning I did. And to me, that's progress." Something as simple as, "I packed my own lunch today."

Personally, I recently went grocery shopping, and I've been able to cook dinners at home and felt this amazing sense of pride that I had the ingredients that I needed for this recipe, and that felt so good.

So really tapping into the small day-to-day things and celebrating those is really how we're going to be able to build that internal hope within ourselves. It also allows us to have the fuel to engage in the different things that are happening within our work, within our world, within our little small pocket of society.

It's honoring and taking a moment to notice those little things that are changing just on a daily or maybe minute-by-minute basis.