18/04/2026
When everything in your life changes at once, what do you do?
Think back over the last few years and how quickly things we took for granted changed. One moment life feels stable, the next you are facing limits on your movement, a declining social life, rising costs in everyday shopping, and gaps on shelves where essentials used to be. Shocks like these create pressure because what you normally rely on no longer holds.
These wider shifts can start being reflected in your personal life, too. Work may become unpredictable and demanding. Your relationship may take an unexpected turn. And your mind stays preoccupied with it all.
There are two different versions of you in how you can respond to these stresses.
In version one of you, you begin drinking a bit more to help you cope.
You eat a bit more, too, mostly comfort foods and snacks. Drink and comfort foods help to numb these unpleasant emotions and feelings, but it never lasts and so you have to keep doing these things daily.
The emotional stress continues to build. You begin to feel helpless but also very, very frustrated. And that frustration makes things even worse. You simply don’t know where to put it. You try to suppress it, act like it doesn’t exist but it leaks out when you snap at your kids.
Being so preoccupied with all these stresses, you now find yourself procrastinating even with simple things. You feel like you can’t get anything done.
And it doesn’t stop there. A couple of years ago, you felt anxious for a few weeks. Your heart was beating faster, you felt afraid and you were worrying all the time. Now this worry is back, and it is now there every day.
And everything is feeling out of control.
You wonder why you feel so bad all the time when you used to have a good routine.
You feel like you no longer know yourself.
Version two is a very different story.
In version two of you, you notice the emotional stress as all that bad news comes pelting down.
It’s a tough situation. You’re no happier about these things than you are in version one, but there is one crucial difference: you know what to do to regulate your emotions in such a way that within a short time, you become calm and grounded, no matter what goes on around you.
Because you know these powerful and yet super simple techniques, it doesn’t even occur to you to drink more during this time of stress. There’s no need for that.
Instead, in this version of you, you listen to your body. You know drinking leaves you feeling awful the next morning, so you cut back. There’s too much going on to dull yourself.
Same with food. You know where comfort eating leads. You’ve been there before, and you’re not going back. Because you have better ways of regulating your emotions, you don’t need to.
And also, you bring some moderate exercise into your days so you can keep your body well.
Regulating your emotions daily, eating well, and doing some moderate exercise all help you to feel well and think clearly.
The stress is still there. The uncertainty is still there. But it no longer puts you in a total spin. Instead, you feel able to tackle the challenges head on.
You begin by confronting the unpleasant work situation. If you’re honest with yourself, you haven’t been happy there for some time and have felt undervalued, even before those recent stressful changes which you now take as a clear sign that the time has come to take action.
So you look into new directions, identify what skills you need, find a course, arrange funding for it, and begin applying for new roles in a higher salary bracket.
Because you now have a concrete plan up your sleeve and you know what’s coming, you feel much less at the mercy of your boss and work becomes more bearable for the period of time you still have to endure it.
Next, you face your private life with the same honesty. You initiate conversations with your partner to see where you both stand, what still fits, and if you can work things out.
It’s still difficult but because you were able to do something about it, it feels somewhat better already.
Where your social life and wider society are concerned, you decide you’re not going to stew in all of this.
You join a choir. One evening a week where you’re with people, doing something that lifts your mood and gets you out of your head.
And you don’t stop there. You get involved in a citizen initiative that pushes for fairer conditions for people who are struggling. You contribute your energy and your time, so decisions aren’t left to others.
And because you are now putting yourself in the driver’s seat of your life, you feel more in control and optimistic about how you’re going to get through this difficult time in one piece.
Although version two of you might feel like a pie in the sky, in actual fact, it’s within your grasp.
Come along to one of my free workshops that run in the evenings, GMT time, where I’ll show you simple techniques that help to regulate your emotions quickly. These techniques put the power over your destiny in your own hands.
You can register here for my waitlist: https://events.repairenting.com/registration
See you inside.
