Episode 147: Dealing with Stress Amidst the Pandemic
This pandemic has had me asking myself many times over, ”How can I look at this situation differently?” What is normal now is uncertainty. This is one of the big battles that we’re facing at this time. We’re uncertain of what will happen to our jobs, our businesses, our families, and basically our entire lives. And all this uncertainty is causing us stress.
But what if we "think differently?" What could happen if we let go of all the mental, emotional and physical burdens that stress brings? Easier said than done, I know, but how about, instead of accepting stress as a part of the new normal, let’s take a different approach and learn ways to reframe it in a positive way.
In this episode, I share my personal experiences with stress in the first few months of the quarantine and how I’ve dealt with it.
You’ll hear me discuss:
Work stress
Facing the possibility of being laid off
Dealing with uncertainties
My personal experiences in feeling unbalanced, out of control, and defeated
How I took a different approach
Listen to the Episode:
Mentioned in the Episode:
Episode 125: What Changed (and What's Stayed the Same) During Quarantine
Episode 131: Reclaiming Holistic Wisdom Through Embodiment and Clarification with Sadie Adams
Connect with Naomi:
Share the Episode:
“Instead of giving up my power to the situation, I could own it. And by owning my own power, I didn’t feel inner angst.”
Read the Transcript:
A couple of weeks ago, on a Sunday night, I was really feeling the weight of a number of things, so I put a poll out on my Instagram stories, asking:
If anyone was feeling the Sunday night blues What was the top source of stress for them?
Interestingly enough, those two stories got THE most engagement in recent months, I’m talking, everyone wanted to chime in on this - so clearly, this is top of mind for a lot of people right now, and understandably so, given how this year has gone.
I mean, we were a stressed-out society before, but this year has just amplified it!
When it came to their top source of stress, unsurprisingly, the top response was:
Work The state of the world
Since this show is about helping the ambitious, driven, high-performers who are being dragged down by stress, learn how to optimize health, find balance, and upgrade their energy, I kinda feel that this is something we need to dig a little deeper into, don’t you?
So today, I’m going to pull back the curtain and share with you what work stress has been like for me for the past 4-5 months.
For context, I wear a lot of hats, what when I’m talking about work-related stress today, its in the context of my full-time job.
As you may or may not know, I work in the tech industry for my full-time job. I’ve been working in tech for 20+ years and I really enjoy it. I don’t hate my day job, nor does it suck the life out of me, which I know is how many people, unfortunately, feel about their work.
While working as a program manager doesn’t necessarily feel like my life’s mission, I enjoy the nature of the work that I do, I like the people I work with and the company is really good to us. I mean - really good, especially in comparison to other companies.
But, as is typical in the tech world, layoffs happen regularly. Usually, its the bottom 5 or 10% at the end of every fiscal year. I’m pretty sure that’s typical for many medium to large companies.
And no matter how well you think you’ve done when that time of year rolls around, there’s always a bit of anxiety wondering if it’s your turn to be impacted.
Back in the day, I used to get really worked up about this. Like - REALLY worked up because I used to work for a company that did this quarterly.
And prior to that, I was impacted. It’s the only time in my career - knock on wood - that I’ve been laid off.
It was back in 2001, about 8 or 9 weeks after 9/11.
I had started working with Nokia, the company that used to be the leader in mobile phones, earlier that year.
I had just gotten back from a business trip to corporate headquarters in Helsinki, Finland - it was my first ever trip to Europe, and flying solo to Finland, right after 9/11 didn’t exactly feel comfortable.
But it was a really interesting trip, I definitely learned a lot, but shortly after getting back, I was laid off, along with dozens of other folks. Right before the holidays.
Luckily, Nokia is a European company, and my friend, let me tell you, if you ever get laid off, hope it s from a European company because their labor laws are a lot more friendly. I had been with the company for less than a year and got a VERY generous severance package. I think it might have been like 4-6 months or something.
Anyway, at that time, I was still in my 20’s and not as financially stable as I wished I was, so that really helped ease some of my anxiety.
But of course, there’s always anxiety when something like that happens. Thankfully, I was able to land another job about 10 weeks later so it worked out okay for me.
But ever since that experience, 20 years ago, when it comes to layoffs, it makes me feel anxious, nervous, and stressed.
So when the pandemic hit in March, and we all went into quarantine, my current company said that they weren’t doing any layoffs for at least 90 days. And that really gave us some peace of mind especially when everything else going on in the world was so stressful.
But then June came around. The 90 days were up and there started to be a lot of rumblings and speculations about what might happen.
And with the pandemic this year, we knew that LR’s, aka limited restructuring, aka layoffs, were going to be more than the typical bottom 5-10%.
The last time this happened was about 10 years or so ago.
Back then I wasn’t in a good place, mentally or emotionally, and initially, I found myself reverting back to that time.
All of “what if’s.”
It’s enough to drive anyone mad, right?
We lived in this limbo for weeks, which I mean, with everything else going on in this world, to have that burden hanging in the back of your mind, day after day, I mean, it’s just not a good thing to have to deal with.
Then our fiscal year ended in July, and shortly thereafter, my company laid out the plan of what our limited restructuring was going to look like.
And that yes, it would impact people’s jobs. And to their credit, that got really creative with it. They had a three-phase plan where the first two stages were voluntary for those who qualified, then after Phases 1 and 2, Phase 3 would be the unpleasant involuntary limited-restructuring; i.e., layoffs.
And they were very transparent about when it would happen, which by the way, was, by the time this episode airs, about two weeks ago.
So we had that date circled on our calendars for about 6 weeks.
So in total, this is something that’s really hung over our heads for 4 ½ months. Not the most fun way to spend the summer.
When I posted my questions about work stress to my Instagram stories, one of the responses I got back was, “I just want to REST and that seems impossible right now with the state of the world. I have no energy.”
And my goodness, that struck a chord with me because you know, during the summer is when we take our vacations. But with the threat of possible layoffs hanging over our heads, I didn’t want to take any time off because unused PTO days meant being paid out for those days if I’m laid off.
So even though I was mentally, emotionally, and physically spent, I powered through and resisted taking any time off, and really focused on keeping my head in a positive place.
Because if you let yourself go down that dark road of speculation, you’re only going to stress yourself out. And then what happens?
You start to reach for more comfort food - as if we weren’t already doing that when the pandemic hit. And comfort food usually means sugary, carb-heavy, processed foods. And all that does is throw your blood sugar off, which then wreaks havoc on your hormones, just to name a few things.
You can also feel even more stressed and anxious, which then….
Affects your sleep Makes you short-tempered and angry, possibly impacting your relationships with other people - family, friends, colleagues And it just doesn’t feel good. You’re not your best self
You feel out of sorts, unbalanced, out of control, tired, defeated, and yes, burnt out, especially when you feel that you can’t take time off.
And that’s what I’ve spent the past 4-5 months struggling to avoid because 19 years ago, this is how that time was for me. Everything I described is based upon personal experience. And it would have been so easy to revert right back there.
But I’ve worked too hard over the years to let that happen.
And so I worked really hard to take a different approach.
I recognized that I had zero control over the situation. I had no influence on what the criteria were in deciding who would be impacted; I had no influence in deciding what business functions and roles were still critical versus ones that could be eliminated, and I had zero influence on who got put on the list and who didn’t.
So spending countless hours obsessing over it, was really unproductive, wasted energy. Nothing good would have come out of it. My time could be better spent.
Now that’s not to say I didn’t spend ANY time thinking about it, because I did. My poor friends and family - I did talk about it a lot with them because it helped me just to be able to talk about it you know, get outside of my head a bit, even though I knew they couldn’t relate to any of it.
But and here’s a big difference, I didn’t go down a dark hole of feeling like it would be the end of the world if I had been impacted.
Like I said, talking about it, and having people willing to listen, ask questions, and offer their perspectives help a lot, as did my friend Sadie Adams, who I’ve spoken about a lot in past episodes, and who also joined me in Episodes 117 and 131.
Her weekly meditation circle and my one-on-one guided embodiment sessions have really helped me change my perspective on a lot of things. Well, maybe not change my perspective, but come to it another way that helped me feel a sense of calm, and see that I had more control of my situation than I realized.
She challenged my thinking and really, is how I’ve started to reparent some of my beliefs and assumptions that I had about myself, the world, and how things are “supposed to be.”
And what this did was help me to feel inner peace. It helped me to feel confident that no matter what the outcome was, things were going to be okay, I was going to be okay.
I didn’t need to feel nervous, anxious or stressed because whatever happens, happened.
And instead of giving up my power to this situation, I could own it.
And by owning my own power, I didn’t have this inner angst.
I didn’t stress eat.
I kept up with my regular workouts.
Instead of feeling defeated and failing to thrive, I feel like I put a lot of work into taking care of myself.
I made better life choices, wanted to spend time with others in my own little bubble…
This could have gone a whole different way, and I know how unhelpful, unhealthy and unproductive that way is because I’ve been down that path before, but thankfully, this time I chose a different path.
So if you find yourself in a similar situation, with uncertainty about your employment status, financial situation, relationships, whatever it may be that’s causing you more-than-normal stress and anxiety, I really challenge you to ask yourself:
What parts or aspects of this situation do I control? What do I not have control over? What do I need to help me deal with the situation, and who can I ask to help me with it? Am I taking care of myself as I live through this experience? Is what I want really the outcome that I want to have happened? (trust me, I asked myself this question a lot)? How can I look at this situation differently? Challenge your thought process and way of thinking.
And if you can work through these questions, and keep yourself in a positive place, or as positive as possible, with an optimistic mindset, I promise you’ll be in a healthier, more balanced place mentally, emotionally, and physically.
And you’ll be better equipped to handle whatever the outcomes come your way.
Thankfully, I wasn’t impacted, I’m still employed, I’m so thankful to still be employed, but even if I wasn’t, I think I would have still been optimistic about the opportunities that might have opened up for me.
The bottom line is that I feel good about how things have worked out, I’m immensely thankful it’s worked out this way, and I plan on taking some of those stockpiled PTO days for some R&R.
That’s it for today. If this resonated with you, I’d love to hear from you.
You can come over to the show notes for this episode at www.livefablife.com/147 and leave a comment, or come and find me on Instagram at @livefablifewithnaomi. I respond to all the messages that I receive.
As always, thanks so much for listening and spending time with me.
I’ll see you right back here again next week - bye!
Naomi Nakamura is a Functional Wellness & Human Design Coach. She helps women who struggle with stress, fatigue, and burnout find freedom and empowerment by optimizing their health, finding balance, and upgrading their energy so they can live life on their own terms.
Combining her diverse professional background, and her unique approach integrates Functional Nutrition and Human Design she guide clients on a highly individualized journey of self-discovery, observation, and integration by removing physical, mental, and emotional confusion and overwhelm, simply taking them back to the very basics of health through their Human Design.
She believes that when our bodies function optimally, our personalities and souls can shine through everything that we think and do with empowering clarity and ease.
Naomi resides in the San Francisco Bay Area and can often be found exploring the area with her puppy girl, Coco Pop!
Connect with Naomi on: Instagram
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