Emily Tayler and I have a conversation about how to manage your stress to reignite your spark. Watch the original here.

Which of the ideas resonates most for you?

TRANSCRIPT ALLISON GRAHAM CHCH 2025/04/01

Thu, Apr 03, 2025 8:22AM • 5:11

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Stress Management, Resiliency, Overwhelmed, Anxiety, News Cycle, Destructive Stress, Survival Stress, Empowering Stress, Zoom In Zoom Out, Shield Yourself, Stack Fun, Mundane Tasks, Reframe Stories, Health Impact, Performance.

SPEAKERS

Allison Graham, Emily Tayler

Emily Tayler  00:00

Is life feeling too hard to handle right now, if you’re feeling overwhelmed and anxious, you are not alone. Stress Management and resiliency consultant Allison Graham is here to help us regain our spark. I love that phrase, regain our Spark, because there’s just there’s so much going on right now, Allison, there

Allison Graham  00:15

is a lot of pressure, and I think it’s coming at us from so many different angles, and people are going through in their personal lives, but then watching the news cycle, it can be really overwhelming. Yeah, we’re talking

Emily Tayler  00:25

about some the craziness the news cycle, and being able to sort of unplug from it, hopefully, when you can, what are some of the signs that you’re doing too much? You’re consuming too much? There’s just so much going on your life. I

Allison Graham  00:36

think it’s a sense of anxiety that we have in our body, and it’s like you just can’t shake it. And it’s like, I know for myself, if I start scrolling, and I can get right in there, Allison, take your own advice, and I can feel it bubbling over. And then what I notice is this misdirected emotion. Okay, so you get upset about this, you’re not really processing it, and then all of a sudden, your family member comes to you, the people closest to you, and maybe you snap at them and are a little bit edgier than you would like to be.

Emily Tayler  01:07

You can’t take it out on the news, so you have to redirect it elsewhere. How does this impact us in our day to day life? Well,

Allison Graham  01:13

if you are working outside of the home or even our family relationships, it’s going to impact your health. It’s your performance. Everything is impacted when we are feeling destructive. Stress brewing and

Emily Tayler  01:27

destructive stress. Can you tell me the difference between that and like a regular stress?

Allison Graham  01:32

So destructive stress. In my model, I have three types of stress. There’s the survival stress, when we’re actually in danger, and that’s so good for us, because it keeps us alive. It tells us there’s a problem. Then there’s the empowering stress, when we feel like we’re reaching a goal and we’re so excited about it, and we’re, you know, chemically, we’re like, going after something, and that’s really positive. We want to harness that. And then the destructive stress is when we are spinning, when we feel overwhelmed, when we feel like we’re completely out of control, and that’s when we need to step in with some really simple tactics to reframe the situation so we can feel a more sense of control, more grounded, and then do our best work and be our healthiest self. And

Emily Tayler  02:13

speaking of those tactics, we have a few that we want to cover today. I want to start with the idea of zoom in, zoom out. What the heck is that? Well,

Allison Graham  02:18

just like we do on our cameras, right? If only you could have a screen that would work for us in life, but it’s essentially that. So we get overwhelmed when we look at the big picture, and there’s so many pieces of the puzzle and problems, but if we zoom in and we go, okay, what’s this one piece? What can I do to alleviate that? And then we zoom out to see the bigger perspective, okay? And really see how does this fit into my overall life, how does this fit into my month or my overall career? And so the sense of zooming in and zooming out is, I have a lot of fun with that, with my client,

Emily Tayler  02:54

yeah, it feels very physical to be able to say, like, zoom in and zoom out. Okay, we’re two minutes left. I understand we have two more tips. Shield

Allison Graham  03:01

yourself. There is no one I know who can have constant negativity input and then have positive output. I was working with a client. He’s very even keeled accountant, managing partner, and he was just really un like he wasn’t typically very irritated, okay? And he was being that. And it turned out news 24/7 that will do it, going to bed with it, waking up with it. It’s it’s just too hard. You’ve got to shield yourself. Put some parameters on

Emily Tayler  03:32

look. And trust me, we know very well how much news can be very overwhelming when you’re watching it constantly. So being able to step back from it, turning off those push notifications, whatever it is you’re shielding yourself. And the

Allison Graham  03:43

last tip is to stack fun onto the mundane. As we become more overwhelmed and stressed and there’s so much pressure, what happens is we forget who we are. Yeah, who are you? When you used to have a dance party in the kitchen, we used to do a cartwheel down the hall, like, how can you put your favorite comedian on while you’re doing the laundry? Yeah, there’s so many mundane tasks. Find ways to put a little bit of you back into your

Emily Tayler  04:10

day? Okay, all right, we only have a 45 seconds left. What’s your favorite way to add a little bit of you back in? Oh, it’s

Allison Graham  04:16

about that reframing the zooming in, zooming out. And you know, I’ll have clients who will call me and they’ll say, I’m just, I know I’m spinning. Yeah, I need perspective. And it’s so fun to go, Well, what about this? Okay, what about that? Because often it’s our stories that are creating the destructive stress. Yes, we have an assumption. Well, they’re just trying to make my life difficult. They’re dropping the ball the intention, and playing with those other potential story lines that actually can feel healthier and bring more grounding and peacefulness to our day. Amazing.

Emily Tayler  04:47

These are great insights. Thank you, Allison, thank you for having me find your information. Allison

Allison Graham  04:51

graham.com, come on over. Say hello, and of course, LinkedIn and all the social medias. But of course, put a timer on it and. Too much.

Emily Tayler  05:00

Exactly, pop into social medias and then pop out and go and reframe. All right. Thank you so much. Love all of your information up on our website and more. Morning live after this, you.