Homemaker, are You Stuck in Fight or Flight? 4 Toxic Behaviors to Stop if You’re Chronically Stressed
If you’re a homemaker who experiences various ailments, chronic symptoms, and/or fatigue then I have help for you.
Hi homemakers, my name is Kyrie with the Transformed Homemakers Society and my mission is to help homemakers go from overstimulation and chronic stress to a peaceful and thriving home so that they can serve their families and the Lord.
Over the years I’ve had my own major transformation in my homemaking, going from overstimulated, highly sensitive and chronically stressed to cool, calm, collected and unbelievably fulfilled in my role.
Now I help other homemakers have their own transformations. If you’re interested in working with me then please check out my free workshop.
In this post I’m going to talk about the chronic fight or flight response. I’ll tell you what leads to a chronic state of fight or flight.
Then I’m going to talk to you about how this can affect your homemaking and what this may look like as a homemaker. Finally I’m going to give you the 4 toxic behaviors to stop right now if you’re chronically stressed.
What is fight/flight?
It can be really any stressful situation — running for your life from a bear, your children crying or getting hurt, your husband losing his job, or an illness or injury — these stressors call for a cascade of hormones to be produced which change the state of your physiology.
You know the feeling… your face gets red, your heart starts racing, your muscles tighten.
God created us to have a fight to flight response in order to protect us from potentially life-threatening situations. Unfortunately, the body can use this same response to inappropriately react to stressors that are not life-threatening.
How chronic fight or flight happens
So how does the body get into this vicious cycle of chronic fight or flight? Living in a chronic state of stress can put your body in a prolonged state of fight/flight. The way you perceive stressful situations can also put your body into this state.
For example, if something traumatic happens to person A and they perceive it as extremely traumatic and hold on to the emotions surrounding the event, ruminating on them, talking about them, etc.
Yet person B experiences the same event but doesn’t perceive it as traumatic as person A and they bounce back fairly quickly, then person A will have long-term physiological effects whereas person B will likely go unscathed.
Most of the time the perceived stress is through no fault of the person, but there are some things people can do to mitigate unnecessary stress on their bodies which could keep them in fight or flight – for example, rumination, excessively talking about the issue, etc.
4 toxic behaviors to stop if you’re a chronically stressed homemaker
That leads me into my 4 toxic behaviors to stop if you’re a chronically stressed homemaker.
Toxic behavior #1
Stop seeking healing. Instead, seek God. so many people, including myself before I learned about christian brain rewiring, seek healing from their chronic ailments through supplement protocols, diets, and anything else promising to heal them.
Once I stopped incessantly searching google for every symptom I was experiencing and put that time and energy toward seeking and growing closer to the Lord, is when I actually started actually healing.
Whether you’re experiencing illness, pain, emotional, or all of the above symptoms, the moment you stop trying to control the symptoms and instead give it all to God is when you will find true healing.
Toxic behavior #2
Stop catering to the symptoms. don’t stop all activity due to the symptoms – continue with your daily life as much as possible. I know this can be terribly difficult when you’re in pain, and there are certain symptoms where this just won’t be possible, however, if you just stick to your to do list and “just keep swimming” you may find that the symptoms go away.
In my experience, with certain symptoms of mine, if I catered to them they would grow and get worse and worse. For example, I would often experience bouts POTS, which is dizziness or light-headedness, fainting or almost fainting, heart palpitations, and chest pain.
I’ll tell you, this stuff was scary! And I would often give into the feelings and rest all day and cancel what I had planned in order to cater to the symptoms and this told my brain –
oh no, she’s scared, this really is serious, give more discomfort. but then I realized that if I just kept right along, the symptoms would go away instead of lasting all day like when I would cancel all my plans.
So try this if you can. I know all too well how miserable certain symptoms can be though and sometimes it really is not possible to grind through the discomfort – but if there’s any part of you that can, you may find that it tells your brain that you’re actually safe and it doesn’t have to give you more pain.
Toxic behavior #3
Stop talking about symptoms all day. Telling everyone about your symptoms is only going to scare your brain. If you must talk about your symptoms, keep it very light and almost play it down.
This can be very difficult when you’re going through misery, I know. But if you exercise this muscle then your brain will realize that you aren’t scared and it doesn’t need to keep giving you more symptoms.
Toxic behavior #4
Get rid of all bitterness in your life. unforgiveness, anger, resentment, etc. can lead to physical illness. Bitterness has been called the poison of the soul for a reason.
So you do struggle with anger and bitterness – am I just saying to simply stop being angry? Well, yes, if you’re able.
But what if there was a way to alleviate yourself from propensity to being angry and bitter?
What if you could rewire the anger out of your brain? Thats what I teach in my course, the Transformed Homemakers Society.
In my course, I use Christian brain rewiring and home management systems to transform your homemaking from drudgery to perfect peace. I provide you with a Christian brain rewiring formula, simplified homemaking rhythms, help you create your own family vision, culture and unique homemaker qualities, and so much more.
If this is something that you feel that would be a blessing to you I hope that you consider taking my free workshop – it’s my five step framework for overwhelmed and overworked homemakers.
Homemaker Homework
What stood out to you most today? Was it to seek God instead of the healing? Or maybe to stop catering to your symptoms. Was it to stop talking about your symptoms all day? Or to remove all bitterness and anger in your life? Let me know in the comments below.
Your homemaker homework for today is to pick one of these behaviors that really resonated and work to eliminate it in your life.
