Managing Stress

“I’m just so overwhelmed.” We’re hearing this everywhere - from our clients, friends, and family. It’s as if we’re each being handed a new ball to juggle or a new plate to keep in the air without being given the opportunity to put any of the old ones down. It’s becoming more and more overwhelming to stop it from crashing around our feet. So what does it look like to manage stress in an ever-changing and unpredictable environment? 

Well, we’re sorry to say that it can’t all be solved with a nice bubble bath or a massage - though these things can certainly help! The first thing to consider is how we approach managing difficult emotions, whether that’s stress, anger, disappointment, guilt, or a number of other uncomfortable feelings. Many people view “dealing” with these feelings as a light switch. There seems to be a belief that if you just do X, then Y will disappear. 

I’m going to suggest a different visual here. I like to view these feelings like a plate of delicious food. If we try to scarf down that meal in a single move, we’re certainly going to be overwhelmed by the magnitude of it and choke. We won’t be able to appreciate the nuanced flavors or really feel nourished by it at all. Instead, we go one bite at a time. Stress can be addressed in much the same way. And, believe it or not, even these negative feelings can nourish us in their own way. 

But that “one bite at a time” approach? It takes practice—and permission. Permission to slow down, to not have it all figured out, and to acknowledge that you are not the problem. Our culture rewards productivity and resilience, but rarely makes space for the very human truth that living in a fast-paced, ever-shifting world is hard. The pressure to keep juggling, to keep smiling, to keep showing up—can be crushing.

So what does one bite look like?

It could be pausing for 30 seconds to breathe deeply before your next meeting. It might mean naming the emotion you’re feeling—“I’m overwhelmed,” “I’m afraid I’ll drop the ball,”—and just letting that statement be true, without immediately trying to fix it. It might be reaching out to a friend and saying, “Hey, I just need someone to listen right now.”

Sometimes the bite is simply not adding anything more. Resisting the impulse to optimize every moment, solve every problem, or be everything to everyone. Slowing down doesn’t mean you’re failing—it means you’re honoring your limits.

And here’s something else: those uncomfortable emotions you’re feeling? They carry information. Stress might be pointing you toward a boundary that needs reinforcing. Guilt might reveal a misalignment between your actions and your values. Even anger can be a sign that something deeply important to you isn’t being honored.

When we treat our emotions like data instead of enemies, we stop fighting them and start learning from them. That’s where the real nourishment begins.

So no, managing stress isn’t about erasing it. It’s about building a relationship with it—learning to hear what it’s trying to say, taking it one small bite at a time, and trusting that you don’t have to do it perfectly to be doing it well.