How to Figure Out What Is Actually Stressing You Out | Elizabeth Earnshaw

Added: 2026-05-07

[00:00:00]So tonight we're going to look at how do we split the stressors that are in your life into these different baskets.

[00:00:12]And so the first thing I'm going to ask you to do is I want you to take a moment to take out a piece of paper or pull up a Google doc or whatever you usually write with and I want you to first reflect on what all of your external stressors are. So, these are stressors that are outside of the relationship.

[00:00:31]So, you're going to think about um you know, maybe your drive to work is an external stressor, maybe your job, maybe navigating um the senior living home that your parent lives in, um maybe trying to think of other stressors, maybe navigating your kids' school, all of those things that are outside of you.

[00:00:55]Media right now is a huge external stressor for people, the political atmosphere. So, take a moment. I'm just going to I'm going to shut my mouth for a second and I'm going to let you list your external stressors and keep writing until I say stop. So, just get them all out onto a piece of paper.

[00:01:55]Take about 30 more seconds just for the sake of our time here. But if you have more external stressors, you can certainly continue this on after our time together.

[00:02:32]Okay, great. So, you've got this list of external stressors. Now, I want you to start writing down your internal stressors. So if you remember when I was rapidly going through the difference between internal and external stressors, I was sharing with you that internal stressors are the things that are happening interpersonally between you and the other person, your partner for the sake of my book. But if you are thinking about this in terms of another person that you live with, a family member, your child, whoever it is, you can utilize that as well. And so these might be stressors that have to do with your sense of connection with that person, about whether or not you can make decisions together, and about just the temperature of the relationship.

[00:03:18]Have things um been heated recently?

[00:03:21]Have you been getting in a lot of arguments or have things been really cold and distant? So, take a moment to write down all of your internal stressors. And again, I'll stop yapping so you can do that. And then I'll let you know when I want you to stop. So, just keep writing and get all of those stressors out.

[00:04:52]Great. And then if you felt like you didn't know which category something goes into, it doesn't matter too much.

[00:04:58]These are just categories to help you kind of think. So if there's any other stressors that you were like, I don't know where this goes, you can just write it down. Sometimes, for example, people will be like, you know, I think finances is external because it's not really something that's derived because of things that have happened between my partner and I. Sometimes it's internal.

[00:05:18]Um, again, these categories are just there to help you kind of start to write about things. And so, if you have anything else, take a moment now and write it down.

[00:05:38]And remember, some of these things can be positive. So, uh, for example, I'm really excited right now because I finally am getting around to putting wallpaper up that I ordered a long time ago. Um, but the process of putting it up has added stress to my life. I know this is kind of just a silly little thing and you might be looking at your list, you might be looking at serious things, but these other little things, they can actually cause um they can cause stress, too. And they can actually be those final drips in the cup that can make us have that spillover. So, my wallpaper has been causing stress. We've had to hire somebody to come um and do it and then they came and the glue wasn't right and I had to come home early from work. It was like a whole thing. So, I want you to think about both the positive things that wouldn't be as obvious. Um, maybe it causes a lot of stress to get uh to the gym every day because you have to leave work at a certain time or you don't have child care or something like that. So, you just kind of want to push yourself to try to list as many things as possible.

[00:07:00]Okay, great. So, before we move on to the next part, I want to tell you um I want to give you an example of what this might look like. So, when I'm working with a couple in therapy and they come in and they're arguing a lot, um, and we kind of start to figure out this is probably related to how much stress you're carrying. Let's make a list together of all these stressors in the room. This might look like, let's say that this is a couple who, one person recently had a parent who passed away.

[00:07:32]The other person has an adult child who they are having to spend a lot of time taking care of because their adult child recently um was diagnosed with a chronic condition. Okay, so they have a lot of stress that's pretty obvious. Um give me one second. I'm so sorry, but my laptop started to say that it is dying and it's not plugged in. Um, and so we've we've got this couple here who they have these really obvious stressors, but they also have some other things like one of them has decided recently that they want to quit uh the position that they have and they want to um go into another job.

[00:08:12]Another one has decided that they would like to invest in something that's kind of been expensive. They have to get a new roof done. All of these things. And so I'm sitting with this couple and I say, "Write down your stressors." And what this couple starts to do is they start to write down all of the stressors. And some of those things are um you know, it's been really hard dealing ever since your dad died, it's been really hard navigating in-law relationships because your brother has been difficult or your mother has been difficult. And I feel like um it's caused me a lot of stress because when we're trying to navigate our own boundaries, your parents aren't respecting those. And so that this couple might put down that stressors for them are in-law issues, boundaries, um navigating finances with the adult child who is struggling, um navigating how much time is spent tending to the adult child's illness versus how much time is spent at home. Maybe they say that one of their stressors is a loss of affection in the relationship. That's an internal stressor. It's causing them a lot of pain together. they don't have as much of affecteffect affection for each other because they're dealing with all of this outside stuff. And so this couple makes this list and they're going to combine it together. And so if you're doing this by yourself, this system works just for a solo person. This doesn't have to just be for partners. I wrote a book for partners, but these stressors, we're going to go through them. Even if it's just you, if you're doing this with a partner, you can combine your lists. that actually want you to combine your lists. Number one, so that you can validate what your partner is seeing as stressful. And number two, so that you can see how big that list is between the two of you. And I also think that it's incredibly important to recognize that what you find stressful might not be the same as what your partner finds stressful. And because we're different in that way, sometimes we will accidentally dismiss the other person's stress. So, this couple I just gave you an example of, um, the the one the partner who lost their father might not be noticing that there's any stress related to their mother or to their brother, let's say, but their partner is experiencing interpersonal stress with their family members. And so, they're both having different stressors. And that's completely normal. But we want to put all of those on a piece of paper and we want to see what's really there and what's impacting us. So if you're doing this alone, you've got your list. If you have a partner you would like to do this with, you'll combine your lists. All right. Okay. Great. So we're going to move on to the next part. And again, if you didn't finish your list, um you can come back to this. I actually encourage you to keep filling it in over the week anytime something comes up because I really want you to see, oh my gosh, look at all this stuff. No wonder I've been tired or snappy or agitated or whatever.

[00:11:08]But we're going to move on and what we're going to look at now is shedding.

[00:11:12]So on your list, I want you to go through and I want you to put a star next to anything you can shed.

[00:11:21]Shedding means that you could make choices to remove or resolve the stressor in your life. Some of these choices will be high stakes. I gave the example before like you might have to say um my job is getting in the way of family life significantly and so I'm going to actually find another job. A really common example of that when I work with attorneys in big law. And if you're an attorney in big law, this doesn't mean you have to quit your job, but I will work with them and their partners. And something that they come to recognize is that no stress management technique is going to improve their relationship until they're not working 17 hours a day. And that there is no way to reduce the amount of time working at the big law firm. And so they go and they find another job that's in house. So some of these things are high stakes. Some of these things are low stakes. They might be things like rearranging your schedule, um getting rid of junk in the house, uh changing obligations. So any of the things that you could shed, whether high stakes or low stakes, I want you to put a star next to these things.

[00:12:41]And I'll give you just a moment to think through that.

[00:12:52]So for me, something when my husband and I did this exercise together, a low stakes thing for me is our laundry. Um, that was on our stress list, and that was something that shedding could really help with. We have too many clothes. Um, and it's probably because we don't keep up with our laundry enough. So, we buy clothes because we don't think we have anything or we don't think our kids have stuff. And so, one of the things that I put a star next to was clothing because it was out of control. And that was something that I worked on getting rid of. So, we don't have as much.

[00:13:31]All right. Now, we're going to move to the next one. So, you're going to look at this list and we're going to think about what you can prevent. And so, when we have stressors, some things are preventable. What does this mean? This means that with planning, there could be and systems there could be certain stressors that don't impact us as heavily or that just don't become stressors at all. So, I'm a parent to young children. Um, so I give those examples because they are real to me right now. But we have horrible mornings that cause stress the rest of the day when I do not have the clothes ready the night before um, and when I don't have the stuff ready for the lunches. We have way better mornings when all of that is finished so that I can just focus on breakfast and so that my husband and I can focus on dividing and conquering and getting the kids out the door and getting them to school. So, I want you to go through and look at your stressors and I want you to circle anything that if you had a plan or a system might have been might be prevented in your life.

[00:14:45]These might overlap. So you might have a star next to the some some of the things and you might have prevention next to some of the things. Um this prevention basket should have fewer things than your shedding basket.

[00:14:59]We really want to push ourselves to try to shed as much as we can. Um, but look through and think if I had a system, if I had a system with my money, would maybe I have less stress at the beginning of the month month when all the stuff is taken out at the same time.

[00:15:16]If I had a system where it wasn't all taken out at the same time, maybe I would feel less stress. Um, so just think through what could be prevented.

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