EP 66: Reducing Stress with Stress Coach, Elizabeth Andreyevskiy | Part 1

Hello there, how are you doing. I hope you are just having such a wonderful day, such a wonderful week. I just have to say, there is so much going on over here at Think Happy Co right now. So we just recently wrapped up the Intention and Resolution workshop that was so much fun, filled with so much goodness and drum roll please does that work as a drum roll? I hope that works as a drum roll? Drum roll please. Enrollment is officially open for Becoming your Best You, my brand new group coaching program. Yes, it is true, and it is so gosh darn exciting. So this program is jam packed with everything you need to help you ditch feelings of overwhelming stress, to help you stop running in circles and being unproductive with your time, and to help you say good bye to constantly feeling on empty, because no one likes constantly feeling on empty. So everything inside of becoming your best you, all of it are the exact same strategies that I teach my private coaching clients. Okay, so in fact, I've taken the most common coaching conversations I've had with my private clients and I've transformed them into this group program. So enrollment closes on Sunday, January. So with that being said, do not wait, do not wait. You can find all of the information about the program at think happy code dot com backslash byby. So that's think happy code dot com backslash byby. And of course, if you have any questions at all, go ahead just send me a d m over on Instagram. My Instagram handle is at think happy underscore co.

So enough of that, let's let's chat chat about today's podcast episode, shall we? Yes? We shall? So today on the podcast, I am chatting with a stress coach. Yes you heard that right. So Elizabeth is a stress coach for moms. She's the host of Emotionally Healthy Legacy podcast, and she's a mom of four. Elizabeth is super passionate about mental health and emotional wellness and motherhood. She helps overwhelmed moms reduced mental stress so they can respond with patience and calmness towards their kiddos. She teaches proactive ways to be less stressed, prioritizing mom's needs without guilt, and ways to regulate emotions when feeling triggered. So Elizabeth and I chat about a lot of good things, if I'm being honest, one of them being just the notion of having to do it all that so many women struggle with. And she talks with us about how to reframe our mindset around that feeling of, you know, having to do it all and not being able to ask for help. We also talk about the importance of creating time to reset right and just the importance of keeping our own cups filled. So this is such a good, wonderful conversation. I am so happy to get to share it with you. Part one is going to air today, Part two will air next week.

So you have lots and lots of goodness heading your way with that being said, here we go. Here's Elizabeth. Hi, Elizabeth, welcome to the Think Happy Podcast. I am so happy to have you here with us today. Thank you for having me. So let's start off. Just tell us a little bit about you and how you found yourself in the line of work that you're in. Yeah. So I'm Elizabeth. I am a stress coach for moms. I have four kids. My oldest is turning eleven and just a bit. And then I have a three boys and a girl. And our house is full of energy, a lot of noise. I can only imagine, Oh my goodness, just lots of energy. And we recently moved from Minnesota to Florida so our kids could spend my time outside so I can just be like, go play outside. It's yeah, it's like seven d s here, like, go play outside. So I got on this journey a few years back. I was struggling parenting one of my kiddos, and a friend of mine suggested for me to go to counseling and I did, and I was kind of introduced to um a new perspective of parenting. I'm sure that maybe you've heard about it. It's like such a big movement, right now online gentle parenting and slash respect parenting, conscious parenting, whatever you would call it, and it's mostly like focused on connecting with your kids emotionally, helping them feel seen, heard and understood, teaching them emotional regulation tools and skills, and well, it starts with you. It starts with you making changes, like how you your behavior and just like you're starting to learn how to emotionally regulate and um I really struggled with it in the beginning. I really liked the whole idea of gentle parenting, having that connection with your kids, building that relationship, But when my kids would not listen, I would get triggered and go back to my old ways of doing things. When I was overwhelmed or stressed out, or I had some unmant needs or hungry or tired whatever, like, I would still go back to overreacting like I used to be. And it's just wasn't the way I wanted to do mom life.

Mom life just felt challenging and dreadful, and then COVID hit and it's like you're stuck with them inside, like all day my husband worked long hours and it was just so challenging and around the same time after I started therapy, like a couple of months later, I ended up buying a course from an influencer called Unburdened, and it really shifted the way I started seeing being a mom, And it shifted a lot about my mindset about prioritizing myself creating a life and a day that supports me creating like healthy habits. It was just like one of those things, a kick in the butt that really motivated me and inspired me. And that combination with weekly calls with the therapist or counselor really like worked really really wonders for me that I feel like that's what made me kind of survive, not survive even but like go through COVID and feeling okay ing at home because I didn't like lose my mind every day and just feel like I'm a you know, crazy person. And yes, and so I started to really work on like do that inner development and personal growth where I started to kind of get up early in the mornings before my kids develop healthy habits of like journaling.

I'm a Christian, so like reading the Bible and connecting with God and meditating. And I noticed a huge difference and how I was showing up as a mom throughout the day. I was not reactive like I used to be. My patients level increased so much. I was able to tolerate even though my kids, like we're still crazy and chaotic, right, Like, my tolerance level was so much higher. I wasn't as triggered, I wasn't as frustrated, and like, I also learned about myself that I'm highly sensitive. I'm an introvert. I need to have a break in the afternoon and create like quiet time with the kids, even though like they don't sleep anymore, we still have quiet I'm like time they're home during the day, And so I absolutely needed that. And what I kind of recognize these things, learn things about myself. And then the combination of learning things and counseling with like emotional regulation and tools, I'm like my motherhood completely changed. Like instead of being my norm when I'm constantly agitated and frustrated and snapped me and raising my voice, like those days still happen, but they're super rare compared to my norm being grounded and peaceful and like being in control of my own emotions instead of reacting and feeling like my emotions control me. That is a truly a testament to something that we talk a lot about here at Think Happy, and that is, you know the importance of keeping your own cup filled so that you can still have, you know, the capacity, the energy to pour into other you know, it all starts with keeping your own cup field. And it sounds like that's exactly what you started doing, you know, by incorporating that morning routine, having some quiet time, waking up before the kids, journaling, reading the Bible. What a beautiful story. And now here you are helping other moms do the same.

Yes, Yes, that's when I started to notice the transformation in my life. I'm one of those people like when I figure out something that works, I cannot shut up, and like I will like go and tell everybody, like there's this thing that I've learned and it's working really well and it's awesome and it's amazing and you need to try it and like, and that's why I work having a podcast myself, like totally is awesome because like I can teach this. That's awesome. Hey, I'm here for that. I am here for that. So the first thing that I'd love to dive in with you is a speed bump that you know, I hear about all of the time. I'm sure you do also, and that is just this notion of asking for help. So I have found that with myself, with many of the women in the Thing Happy community, that we all are just living with this feeling like, you know, I have to do it all. And I really believe that this this feeling of I have to do it all not only prevents us from having the time and energy to you know, keep our own selves filled, but it also leads to a lot of unnecessary stress. So my my first question for you here is where do you think this feeling of having to do it all or not being able to ask for help? Where do you think that feeling comes from? That's such a great question. So when I work with my clients, we always kind of dig deep and like figure out where is this coming from? Like this belief and mindset that you have that I have to do it all? And oftentimes it comes back from our childhood. You know, we never saw our moms asking for help, or maybe you had a dad. That's like asking for help is weak, Like you can't ask how you have to do it on your own? And you were kind of um like if you were struggling, you're like go figure it out on your own, right, Like you were not even allowed to ask for help. So some of it comes from that. Another of it is just like Instagram and like social media and like society, like portraying that all these like you know, influencers, they feel like they have it all together, that they get it all done, and like I know of influencers that would later on share like I actually have a babysitter and a personal assistant, but they wouldn't to talk about it, and it seemed like for years and it would seem like they had it all, you know, they were able to do it all, but they couldn't.

Here's the truth. This is what I believe, And this is kind of like a new belief in a perspective shift. So nobody can do it all. You can try for a season, but it's gonna come at expense. It's going to be either pulling for your from your mental emotional or physical well being, and something is going to suffer, and most likely it's going to be you. Right, your mental emotional, physical well being so powerful, it's pulling from somewhere and like when you think about it, like when you try to do it all, how do you show up for your family? You're overwhelmed, you're frustrated, you're agitated, hired, exhausted, you're easily snapping and overreacting. Right, so it comes at an expense, all right? And then like if we see that asking for help is like a sign of weakness also comes back from our beliefs, we need to like figure out where it's coming from and say is this even true? Question? It is it true that asking for help is a sign of weakness? No, I believe not, And I redirect my thoughts and say asking for help is a way to support myself and make it easier.

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That's such a great reframe. Do you have how can we reframe our mindset to help us overcome this feeling? Right, So you just gave us a great example of a reframe. Do you have any other best practices or suggestions for someone who might be struggling in this area or for someone who maybe is ready to start trying to ask for help for the first time. Yeah, and so one of the suggestion is, like, recognize that when you start doing this in the beginning, it will be uncomfortable because it's unfamiliar, you haven't done it. It feels just uncomfortable. But the more times you practice asking for help, the easier it's going to be. So maybe start out with simple things, right, Like there are ways that you can quote unquote ask for help and make life easier that, um, sometimes you know, don't even require necessarily people, Like in your home, for example, you do instant card pick up. That's like a way a version of asking for help and delegating to somebody to make it easier. Or get one of those robo vacuums that like, you know, I love mine. It's like one that's like you're literally like delegating it to your to somebody that takes, you know, reduces some of the time that you have to spend on it and just makes it easier. But when it comes to like asking your kids and your spouse for help, you can have like a conversation with them and be like, I feel really overwhelmed, I feel super stressed out, and the way things have been going have not been serving me or anybody else in this family. I need support, Okay, Like frame it like this, not like I need help, I need support. I really like that word, like I need support. Okay, how can we create you know, more support for me? Or like what can we do to make things a little bit easier we all live in this family, Like, let's pick some tasks. These are the things that need to get done, Like what can your husband do? What can your kids do? It's like I feel overwhelmed and stressed out and I'm yelling at everybody. It's not serving anybody in this family. I need support to feel less stressed, to be more calm, to be more patient with everybody. What I so something else that I think it's forgotten when we have this conversation about, you know, asking for help. Is that Also, there are people whose cups get filled by helping others by performing acts of service.

If we just reframe asking for help with us, you know, allowing a friend, a loved one, um, our own parents the opportunity to fill their own cup by helping us, like that is the definition of a win win scenario. Also, yes, I love that because you know what, you are robbing someone of a opportunity to bless you. Right. Some people love to bless by giving finances to others. Some people love to bless by giving their time and doing tasks for others. Some people love to bless others by offering them emotional support and creating that space for them, right, And so you're literally robbing somebody of an opportunity to bless you. And I'm not talking about here forcing other people to help you, um like you know, but I'm talking about like giving them an opportunity to bless you. You can ask them for support and if they decline, you technically literally can't make someone do anything, but you you asked, and if it didn't go well, you find another way to ask someone else or shift and redirect, right, Like, it doesn't mean you need you just you need to stay stuck where you are now, right right. One other thing, just like my brain is is on overdrive right now thinking about all of this. Another reframe on this is, you know, so maybe your version of asking for help in a certain season is having to pay someone to do something. Right. So the first thing that's coming to my mind is like a lawn crew that comes and mows your grass and brakes your leaves. You are serving the people who you are providing income to. Right, So, yes, you're you're spending money, but you know that money it's not just going out of the window. It's it's a trade, right. You're you're paying someone for a service. They are getting paid and can now in turn that helps them provide for their own families. And it's just all in how we view this. It's all in our mindset. Oh my gosh, I love mindset work. I remember there's a couple more quotes. It's like you can do anything, but you can't do everything. Yes, that's a really good one. And then I like another one is like every time you say yes to something, you say no to something else. So every time you say yes to all the things that you're trying to do all on your own. You're saying no to taking care of yourself. Yep, here's another one. I think you'll like it. say no to the good so that you can say yes to the great. Oh. I love that one. I haven't heard it yet. That one's really good. I really really like that one because that also just like, you know, some times things are going to seem like it's a really good opportunity or a really good thing to say yes to, but like, are you sacrificing something even better, something that could be great? Um? So yeah, I love that one from the bottom of my heart.

Thank you for joining me for this week's episode of the Think Happy Podcast. If you just can't get enough, find me on Instagram at think Happy Underscore Co. That's CEO, and online at think Happy code dot com. See you next week.