#133 Downward Spiral: How to Quickly Snap Out of It — Martina Fink

If you follow me on Instagram, you might have seen that I had a really bad day last week! Many things went unplanned and unexpected and got me on a whole downward spiral that wanted me to throw everything out the window!

Over the years of practicing meditation, conscious self-care, journaling, and other techniques, I have learned how to best handle situations like these - without just packing my bags and leaving the war zone! I'm sharing all about that in this episode.

IN TODAY’S EPISODE, WE TALK ABOUT:

How to overcome big life challenges - the glow way
How to quickly snap out of a downward spiral and get back into glow state
Why avoiding your feelings can hurt you even more
How to use life-transforming skills for conflict management

And so much more!

Have you downloaded the free Self-Care Guide for Perfectionist? Click here to access it:
martinafink.lpages.co/perfectionist-bundle

EPISODE RESOURCES

TODAY’S EPISODE TRANSCRIBED:

Martina Fink 0:00

This is episode number 133. Welcome to the Glow Life podcast. The one and only place for ambitious, high achieving and perfectionist women like you who want to leave, overwhelm behind. Turn self doubt into self confidence, and learn to trust yourself again, so that you can work less fully love and accept yourself and live a fulfilled and glowing life. Every week, I'll be giving you tips and inspiration on how to think less, feel more slow down, you can use your body and your daily habits to help you step up, level up, and glow up in all areas of your life. This is not just about the big shifts, you can glow just a little more every single day.

Martina Fink 1:00

Welcome back to the Glow Life podcast. And today I want to share with you one of the biggest struggles that I have had in the past year, I would say and something happened last week that came up that really threw me off and completely out of control, I was crying in the session with my coach, I didn't understand what was going on. I didn't know what to do. It was something that was affecting my business. And I instantly downward spiraled into a situation where I already saw myself throwing my entire business out the window, give up on the glow life. And all I wanted to do was to pack my bags, get on a plane and go a far away from this situation. And in that moment, I realized that it is definitely something that I used to do in the past in terms of avoiding the feelings, avoiding the challenging emotions, avoiding the conflict, avoiding the fact that I was not in control. Not that I would pack my bags and leave, but I would hide under the covers, I would not address the issue and get away from it as quickly as I could so I didn't have to deal with it. And now, last week, I remembered that that is not a solution. That is not the way to go. Because when we do avoid these challenges, what happens is that energetically and emotionally, they are still stuck in our energetic bodies. So we carry them around with us, until one day we sit down and actually face down. So what I did last week was to sit with it, to feel all of it, feel the pain, feel the frustration, feel the loss of control, and I cried over it, I cried myself to sleep called my girlfriend's, cried to them on the phone. And I proactively asked for help. And that is another thing that I never did in the past, I always thought I needed to figure everything out on my own, that I needed to be a strong woman that has it all together. And that meant that I don't have problems and I don't struggle. And I don't have challenges, right? Reaching out to people that you know love you and care about you, and even mentors, or coaches or therapists, is actually a strength. Because everyone that I reached out to was offering their support and their help. And since I used to not do that in the past, since I used to try to figure it all out by myself, aka ignoring it completely, it still feels very uncomfortable for me to receive all the support and the love. It still feels like if I, when I received something from someone, I need to give them back, like I owe them something, right? But we don't really. It is safe for us to ask for help, it's safe for us to receive it. And that is the kind of reality that you get to create for yourself. Nobody can ask for help for you. Nobody knows if there is a struggle in your life but you, and if you don't acknowledge it, then nothing will change and nothing will get better. So the first step is acknowledging that there is something that is out of alignment, that's not working, that is painful, that is, you know, difficult and challenging. The next step is to ask for help, because not everybody can read our minds. And those who can ask us if there's anything going on, we usually don't want to admit it, right? There is something I want to talk about now that I call the bounce back time. The bounce back time is the time from when you experience a challenge to the moment you feel good again. And in the past, it used to take me several days to get over something that was really irritating and painful. Maybe like a challenge at work where I had conflict with a client, or with my boss, or, you know, some difficult situation with some other person that would completely throw me off. And I could be angry and resentful and mad and frustrated and, and even like self loathing for days. And now, it usually takes me a couple of hours to get over things, sometimes less, sometimes more. Sometimes I just need a really good sleep over. And the next day, it feels fresh again, although sleeping over certain things can also be a form of avoiding the thing, the challenge and the emotion. But most of the times, it's really just giving the issues some space and letting the anger kind of come down, right? And all of this, through certain practices that I have done in my life in the past few years really, which include meditation, journaling, mindfulness, allowing my emotions to be there, feeling them and all of these kinds of things. And you know, coaching myself, I have been able to reduce this time, I have been able to reduce this bounce back time from several days to a couple of hours. And this is not about avoiding or ignoring your emotions at all. It doesn't mean, the shorter the better. It doesn't mean you need to force yourself to get over something. Not at all, it means that we acknowledge what's there. We own them, we own our own responsibility in them too. Because any situation we create in life really is also something that we co created. So take radical responsibility for what happened, allowing yourself to feel the feelings that need to be felt, and then take a conscious decision to move forward. We really need to feel the pain. But one of my mentors once told me that emotions last 90 seconds, just like babies and dogs, you can distract them. And after 90 seconds, they stop crying and stop locking and things like that. We too can consciously shift out of certain emotions. And again, it's not about avoiding them. It's about being mindful of what is happening. And how is it serving us. Sometimes it serves us to cry for days. Sometimes it doesn't. So loving yourself means being aware of what's going on. And practicing self awareness, practicing meditation, practice in journaling, practicing talking to people about it, practicing asking for help. And that will help you get that bounce back time down. So that any future challenges that you will face, which you will, you will be able to handle them more in a more glowing way. Let's just say that. And maybe you have experienced situations where life throws you curveballs and maybe it's something that happens very regularly for you and gets you into a loop of stress and frustration and anger. I want to remind you that you get to learn certain skills to manage and navigate these challenges. These are not things that we are born with. We're not born with knowing how to deal with overwhelm and knowing how to reduce stress and how to acknowledge our emotions. But those are things that you actually can learn - how to effectively manage stress, how to connect with your heart and tune into your emotions, how to get yourself onto a path of moving forward again, like there are so many different skills and practices that you can implement in like five minutes of your day that are going to change your life.

Martina Fink 9:45

If this is something that you would love to learn and love to become better at, then I am doing a three day Stop the Stress challenge which is starting on April 12. It's April 12 to 14th and it is 100% free and you can find the link in the show notes or it's also in my Instagram bio @martinaglows, too. During the three days we're going to talk about ways to improve your energy, or find out why your energy is feeling depleted or overwhelmed and stressed. We're also talking about how to handle stress and anger and frustration and allow yourself to feel all those feelings in the way that it feels supportive for you. And we're also talking about the stories that you're telling yourself and the expectations that you have of yourself as a perfectionist, as a leader in your job. What needs to shift and change so that the thoughts that you have and the beliefs that you have about yourself are actually moving you forward and are supportive for you.

Martina Fink 10:56

If you are ready to dive even deeper, we are opening enrollment for Perfectionist Rehab around mid April. This is a three months coaching container for an intimate group of women that really want to tackle perfectionism and get to a space where their bounce back time is a lot shorter, and they really know how to organize their lives better, have better priorities, put themselves first fill their own cup first so that they can get into or create a lifestyle or no work life balance that feels just really good. Doesn't mean you have to quit your job. It just means you approach the stress and overwhelm in a very different way. You can find more info about this program on my website martinafink.com/rehab and the link is also in the show notes. Thank you so much for being here today and for really caring for yourself so deeply and I want to remind you that all the work that you do for yourself is also impacting every single soul that you touch. Being able to manage stress, being able to be at peace with yourself, is directly impacting the people that you see and love every single day. If you love this episode, it would make me so happy for you left me a review for it and for anything that we mentioned in today's episode, you can go check out the show notes at martinafink.com/podcast/133. If there is anyone that you love that needs to hear this episode because they're struggling with something similar, please forward it to them right now. Follow the Glow Life podcast on iTunes and Spotify and I would love to connect with you on social media you can find me at @martinaglows. You deserve to feel glowing and confident, beautiful.

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All material in this episode is provided for your information only and may not be construed as medical advice or instruction. No action or inaction should be taken based solely on the contents of this podcast episode. Instead, readers should consult appropriate health professionals on any matter relating to their health and well-being.

The information and opinions expressed here are believed to be accurate, based on the best judgement available to the speakers, and readers and listeners who fail to consult with appropriate health authorities assume the risk of any injuries. In addition, the information and opinions expressed here do not necessarily reflect the views of every contributor. The Company acknowledges occasional differences in opinion and welcomes the exchange of different viewpoints.