Ep #156: When Stress Makes You Forget Everything You’ve Learned

This is the Strong Is a Mindset podcast, Episode #156. What do you do when you’ve done the work, made real progress, and then something happens that makes it feel like it all vanished? Today, we’re talking about what to do when stress makes you forget the tools, habits, and mindset you’ve worked so hard to build.

This is the Strong Is a Mindset podcast, where you’ll learn how to build both a strong body and a strong mind by eating, moving, and thinking. I’m your host Physician, Personal Trainer, Certified Health Coach and Certified Life Coach, Carrie Holland. 

Hey, how are you? What’s new? What’s good? So, what’s good here? Today, we’re talking about something that is super frustrating, super disorienting, and also completely normal when you do the work of changing your habits and changing your thinking.

We’re talking about when something happens in your life and it feels like everything you’ve learned, all the work you’ve done, all the tools you have, and all the progress you’ve made just goes entirely out the window. Like all the coaching, all the mindset work, all the new pathways you’ve laid, just poof, gone.

And when that happens, you may find yourself spiraling. You may find yourself thinking, “I should know better,” or “This isn’t supposed to happen anymore.” You may wonder where all of your progress went and why you are suddenly back in a familiar, old, unwanted loop. It can feel like you’ve undone months or maybe even years of work all in a single moment. And that can be a really disheartening place to land.

So, if you’ve been there, if you’ve ever found yourself reacting in a way that feels like the old version of you, the one you thought you had outgrown, then this episode is for you.

And this episode is partly inspired by my own recent experience with exactly this phenomenon. I had a very tough conversation with a family member recently, and that brought back a lot of junk for me. And while the details really don’t matter, what matters is how I felt. Like I was instantly 13 years old again. Like I was small, powerless. Like I had not done any work at all. And all of the strength that I worked so hard to build had just evaporated. I got off the phone and felt completely disoriented, essentially shaken and hollow. And if you’ve ever felt that way, like your tools flew out the window, you are so not alone.

But then over a few days, and with the help of my own coach and my tools, I slowly remembered: I am not 13. I am an adult. I am not powerless. I am my own person. I have built my own life with my own family, my own values, and my own power. I remembered that I am in control here. And to be fair, I am still reminding myself that I am in control because sometimes when you get shaken or when you feel like you’re losing what you worked so hard to build, you have to remind yourself not just once, but repeatedly, especially when things get hard.

And sometimes that’s enough. Sometimes just reminding yourself is enough to help you shift away from your default. Maybe not all the way, but it’s just enough to stop the spiral. Remembering that you are in control can be just enough to bring you back to yourself, even if it’s just a little. And that right there is the work. The work is not that you never get triggered, because that may be impossible. So, it’s not that you never get triggered, but that you remember who you are when you do get triggered.

And that is what we’re going to talk about today. I want you to be able to come back to this episode when you feel like you were doing really well, and then something happened that took you off track, whether it was a major setback to your diet or a workout routine that was totally dialed in until life threw you a curveball, or even if it’s your mindset that suddenly got tested by something big. Whatever it is, I hope that this episode can help you.

Because feeling like you lost everything you learned when something big happens, that is normal, and it doesn’t mean anything is wrong with you. You did not lose all your progress. Because this work, the work that we’re doing here on the podcast and the work I do on myself, and the work I do with my clients, the work isn’t about never falling off track. Instead, it’s remembering how to get back on track and doing it with more grace and awareness and compassion each and every time. All right? So let’s go.

So first, let me just start by normalizing this. Because there is legitimate biology here, and feeling like you’ve lost everything that you worked so hard for when you get super stressed, that is totally normal.

So, when your brain is under stress, whether it’s from a difficult conversation, an unexpected event, or a moment of deep emotional pain, it goes into survival mode. And what that means from a neurologic perspective is that you’re no longer operating from your calm, rational, prefrontal brain.

So, remember, your prefrontal brain is the evolved, more advanced part of your brain that makes you human. And that part of your brain essentially goes offline when you get super stressed. It checks out. And in its place, your primitive brain, really your survival brain or your amygdala, kicks into gear.

And that can trigger your fight, flight, or fawn response. So, to keep this really simple, when you have a significant stress, your prefrontal cortex, the part of your brain that is responsible for rational thinking and decision making, that goes offline. And that allows your amygdala or your primitive brain to take over, which can lead to more impulsive, survival-oriented behavior.

And your primitive survival brain does not care about mindset work. It does not care about staying calm and controlled and orderly. It cares about safety. So, remember this simple phrase: When emotion is high, cognition is low. I use it myself as a reminder for when I get super stressed and feel like I can’t think. It’s a reminder that this is normal, and your brain is doing exactly what it’s supposed to do to keep you safe.

So, that means if you’re a recovering emotional eater and you just had a really stressful interaction with your coworker, your body may tell you to go get a cookie to calm yourself because that’s what you used to do when you got super stressed out. Or, if your MO was to go straight from work to the couch after super stressful workdays, you may be inclined to skip your 6 p.m. workout and head straight to the couch if your week has been horrible.

Or, if it’s not eating and moving that are the problem for you, and it’s the way you’re thinking, maybe you can feel your brain going down a familiar path and you start shutting down like you used to when you get triggered. Maybe you feel your mind caving in on itself like a banded armadillo rolling into a ball to protect itself. And maybe you feel that. You can feel the heaviness and the slowness of your old thinking starting to seep in and take over the brain that you thought was cleaned up and more in control.

But whatever it is, if you feel like you’re reverting to your old patterns under stressful situations, the takeaway that I want you to really hear is that there is nothing wrong with you. You are human with a normal human brain that is doing what it is neurologically wired to do in order to keep you safe. You also have not lost all of your progress. You’re just in a moment where accessing that progress feels impossible. And that’s okay. It does not mean that it’s gone.

And this is exactly why we practice mindset work even when things are good. Because when things are calm and steady, that’s when we build the mental muscle memory that we’ll need to draw on when things do get hard. It’s putting in your reps, okay?

So, think of it this way: Thinking is a habit, and like any habit, it can be practiced and strengthened over time. And when you’re in a stressful situation, your ability to access the tools that you’ve learned doesn’t magically appear. It depends on how much you’ve rehearsed them when the stakes were low.

So, accessing those mindset tools, like pausing, choosing your response, managing your brain, managing your thinking, all of those skills require awareness, intention, and a slow, deliberate way of thinking. And when you’re stressed, those things are really hard to tap into, but it is not impossible.

And the goal here is to make that intentional thinking more familiar and more accessible by practicing it regularly when things are going well in your life. So, that when life gets messy, as it most surely will, you’ve already got that response pattern built in, and it doesn’t feel so foreign and so far away.

And when you do find yourself in the thick of it, feeling like everything is going sideways and you don’t know how to get it back, I want to share with you one of my favorite questions that you can fall back on. A very good coach friend shared this tool with me, and it totally stuck, and I want you to have this because it has been invaluable to me in stressful situations. And that question is: What am I forgetting to remember right now?

So, this is a very simple, basic, wake up to your brain. It’s not meant to be condescending. It’s not meant to be finger-waggy. It’s not meant to be belittling. It’s meant to help you re-center and refocus. It’s meant to bring you back to your evolved, developed, thinking brain. It’s meant to help you access the part of your brain that may have temporarily gone offline, but you’re bringing it back. What am I forgetting to remember?

It’s a powerful question because so often this work is not about discovering brand new strategies. Instead, it’s about reconnecting with what you already know deep down. It’s about recalling what you’ve practiced, what you’ve lived through, and what’s already within you, even if it feels like it went out of reach for just a minute. Sometimes we forget, and that’s okay.

So, what kinds of things might you be forgetting to remember? That you can pause before you react. That you always have a choice. That just because you think something, it does not make it absolute fact, even if it feels true. That you have done hard things before. That your urge will pass. That you can feel a negative feeling and not act on it. There are so many things that you can remind yourself of here.

And all this is a re-grounding technique. It’s to get you back to a space of controlled, calm, rational thinking. Asking that question is designed to snap you out of survival mode and back into authority so that you’re no longer operating on autopilot default mode. And here’s why I think this tool or this question can come in super handy.

So, something I have experienced myself and something I have seen my clients experience too is that they forget they have control. They forget they can choose. They forget that even in challenging situations, like at a restaurant, on vacation, or in an argument or super uncomfortable situation, they are still the ones in the driver’s seat. So, asking that question will help you flip the switch. It will help put you back in charge.

And when I say this, I want to be clear, this is not about blame or criticism. It’s not about scolding yourself. It’s about empowerment. I want you to see and really feel this in your bones, that no matter where you are, no matter what’s happening in your life, you still have agency. And so, what does that mean to have agency? It means you can pause. You can think and choose on purpose. You do not have to act on your first urge. You don’t have to obey your thoughts and accept them as fact. You can make a new decision at any moment. That is what it means to have agency. And that is powerful.

And I bring this up specifically because what often happens instead is that you feel like you should know better. You expect so much from yourself, and when you don’t deliver, it becomes a spiral. You start beating yourself up. You think to yourself, oh my god, I can’t believe I did that. I thought I was past this. Why do I keep messing up? And then it ends up being a double whammy. You feel bad, and then you feel bad for feeling bad.

So, you take your pain, and then because of the way that you feel or act in response, you layer judgment on top of that pain. And that makes it that much harder to come back to yourself, to the grounded, clearheaded version of you that knows how to respond with intention.

And I want you to be able to get back to the version of you that remembers what matters, what’s really true, and what tools you have available. When you’re buried under guilt and judgment for feeling bad, and then feeling bad for feeling bad, it’s much harder to find your way back to that place.

So, I want you to really hear this: You are allowed to be human. You are allowed to fall down. You don’t need to shame yourself because that is not accountability, okay? That is cruelty towards yourself disguised as discipline. You are allowed to forget. That doesn’t mean that you’ve failed. It means you’re in the process of practicing. It means you’re doing the work.

And here is something else really important I want you to hear. When it comes to mindset work and changing your thinking and changing your habits, success, it is not about never falling apart, okay? That is perfection talking. When you are so bold as to do the work of changing your habits, whether that’s how you eat, how you move, or how you think, or really all of the above, when you do this work, you can rest assured there will be times when it all falls apart. And that’s because life happens. There will be stress, and those stressful times are when you have the opportunity to really put these tools into practice. And sometimes, you’re going to mess up.

And success is absolutely not at all measured by whether or not you mess up. Instead, your success on your pathway to change is measured by how quickly and how compassionately you come back to yourself. Do you see that? This is so essential to understand. Your success is measured by how you take care of yourself when you mess up and get back to yourself.

Okay? And one other thing I want to add here: When you are under serious, legitimate stress, I want to offer you one other question that also came from the same super smart coach friend. And that is: What do I need right now? And I really like this question for a number of reasons.

So, sometimes when we get into stressful situations, that can push you into overwhelm. And when you get to overwhelm, that’s when things become very big and insurmountable. So, as an example, I work with a lot of women who are trying to establish the habit of exercise, and they often put plans in place to get up early and get in exercise before work, but that usually comes with some trial and error.

And I can think of one client in particular who was having a really stressful stretch at work, and I asked her, what do you think you need? And her answer was a new work schedule. And then I learned from my mistake and clarified the question and asked, okay, knowing that we’re working on your work schedule and addressing that piece, which will most definitely take time, what do you need right now while you are feeling super stressed?

And that last bit, right now, is important because it brings you back to what’s right in front of you. It brings you back to the here and now. You are not going to solve your work schedule in one day. You’re not going to hire a private chef and a nutritionist to plan and cook all of your meals for you today. Or at least, I don’t think so for most of us, right?

You aren’t going to suddenly in one phone call fix a decades-long problem that’s been destroying your family, right? It would be great if we had that ability to fix big problems so quickly, but the reality is, these things take time.

So, instead of asking, what do I need, which is more of a zooming out question, consider what do I need right now, which is a zooming in question that addresses your immediate needs right in front of you in this very moment.

Do you need to take two deep breaths? Do you need to get up and move away from your desk? Do you need to go outside for just a minute and breathe? Do you need to put your phone away and just sit? So, do you see the difference here? Asking, what do I need right now is a way for you to come back to the moment and address your immediate needs, your immediate state, and your immediate safety.

And along with this, I will add one other tool that can help bring you back to yourself and bring you back to the moment. It’s another grounding exercise, and it’s a simple body scan. And all that means is that you’re engaging your senses to take note of what your body is feeling in real time. Do you feel your feet on the floor? Do you feel your legs sitting in your chair? Do you feel your hands on the keyboard of your computer? What do you see in front of you?

So really, it’s just another way to wake you up, both your mind and your body, to bring you back to the present moment. Sometimes when we get into overwhelm, you feel like everything is getting away from you. Like everything is getting too big and too nebulous and out of reach, like you can’t wrap your hands around it or get it under control.

But asking yourself, what do I need right now and focusing on what is going on in your body right now by grounding yourself, that is a way to bring yourself back. That’s how you can come back from that big, nebulous, shapeless, overwhelming space and get back to what is real and what’s in front of you.

And let me address something else here. So, I’m going to call on one of my most favorite Peloton instructors and share a phrase that she has said numerous times before, and I think it applies here. So, she often says, you’ve made it through 100% of your bad days. So, really think about that for a moment because she’s right. You’re still here. You are still standing. And how did you make it through 100% of those bad days?

Well, the reason you’re still standing is because for every hard situation you encountered, you persevered. You got through it. And so, another tool I want to offer you that represents this idea is your highlight reel. So, for me, when I felt myself slipping, I went to my highlight reel. It’s a concept I’ve mentioned here before, but let me reiterate it here. Your highlight reel is your collection of previous successes that you hang on to when you need a reminder of just how strong you are.

So, for me, when I felt like I was falling apart after that phone call, I reminded myself of how I have been through similar conversations in the past, how I have been through similar bad pockets in the past, and I have come out okay. I reminded myself of the other times in my life where I was kind to myself and got through the hard stuff, even in that moment when I didn’t think I would.

So, your highlight reel is there to remind you of the times that you have felt discomfort, pain, frustration, grief, and you rose up. You moved through it. Maybe not immediately, maybe not perfectly, but the point is that you came back. You regrouped. You returned to your values, your goals, and your tools, and you got on with it. And that is where your evidence lives. It’s your highlight reel.

So, find your highlights. Find the times in your life when you encountered a hard thing and you persevered. Whatever it is, whether that was a stressful situation at work, a terrible time in your relationship, a health issue, whatever it is, I want you to remind yourself of the times in your life when things got hard, but you managed. You got through it. Those moments belong on your highlight reel.

That’s where your evidence of success sits. That’s your answer to, I don’t think I can do this, okay? You give yourself examples of all the times in your life where you did do it. So, your highlight reel contains your moments of proof that you can do it, that you have done it, and that you will do it again.

And here’s one other super important concept I want to point out. When we’re going through super stressful times, sometimes we feel like all of our tools are escaping us because there is a difference between understanding something intellectually versus being able to access it emotionally. I see this so often in the women I coach, and I have experienced it myself. For all of my high achievers listening out there, you might be able to relate to this. It’s the idea that when you’re stressed, your tendency is to try and think your way through discomfort instead of feeling your way through it.

And I want to slow down here because this is a really important point. We just talked about a bunch of tools, right? And those tools, that’s the how. Now, we’re getting into the deeper, harder stuff, and I want to invite you to come with me on this. And this is coming from someone who used to turn around and run from all the deeper, harder stuff, but now I know better.

So, hear me out. If you’ve ever found yourself making a pro-con list in the middle of a meltdown, or if you found yourself getting into fix-it mode in order to solve for a super strong, overwhelming emotion, or if you’ve ever tried to fix a feeling by thinking harder or working more, that’s what I mean.

We try to solve emotional pain with logic. We try to outthink sadness, out plan anxiety, outsmart grief or disappointment. But emotions are not equations. Emotional discomfort, it is not a math problem. You cannot solve your way out of it. You have to feel your way through it. And this is where so many of us get stuck, especially those of us who are used to solving problems with our heads or putting our noses down and working our tails off. If you’ve always relied on your intellect to get things done, it might feel strange and even pointless to just sit and feel.

But here’s the truth: Feeling is what allows you to heal. Ugh, I know, but that is the truth here. Feeling is the gateway to processing and moving forward, and you cannot skip this part because the longer you avoid feeling, the longer you stay stuck. And the point here is that you don’t think an emotion, you feel it. You have to feel it.

This is where emotional growth happens, not by analyzing more, but by being willing to stay present in the discomfort of what you’re feeling. You open your heart and your body to it, and you let yourself feel all of it. And yes, it hurts. Sometimes it hurts like hell. But when you learn that you can survive your hardest emotions and come out on the other side, that is when things start to shift.

So, the solution when you get super stressed and feel like you’re losing all your tools and all your progress, the solution is not work harder. It’s also not think harder. This is not about rationalizing your way through something. Instead, it’s about feeling harder and feeling your way through something. It’s remembering that you can feel something hard and still be okay. That is your work.

And as you do that work of remembering, of returning, of feeling, you might start to wonder, how do I know if this is working? You might be thinking to yourself, okay, I’m in. I’m doing all the things. How do I know I’m actually making progress, especially when everything still feels messy?

Well, let’s talk about that because to be honest, your progress in this work can take on a number of different shapes. But the key thing to remember here is that it’s not going to be perfect. Remember the goal in doing this work is not that you never get triggered or that you never get stressed, because that is impossible. Instead, the goal is to remember who you are and who you want to be when you do get triggered and then act accordingly.

So, what does that progress actually look like? It can look like shorter valleys where you don’t stay stuck as long. It can look like softer spirals where you catch yourself before a complete and total meltdown. It might be faster recoveries where you rebound quicker and with less damage. It might be kinder self-talk where you treat yourself with grace instead of punishment. It might be that you have more awareness while it’s happening and you can actually name what’s going on instead of just feeling off. It might be owning the mess sooner where you see it, name it, and shift faster.

Progress might also look like making a slightly better choice than you used to. It might look like pausing mid-reaction to course correct. It might simply be noticing that you’re in an old pattern, and honestly, that noticing alone, that’s a win. And the point here is that progress does not always feel shiny or wild or impressive. Sometimes it’s quiet. Sometimes it’s subtle. Sometimes it’s as simple as, I didn’t yell this time, or I took a breath, or I didn’t quit.

Progress includes setbacks. But when the setbacks don’t derail you for days, weeks, or months, when you don’t make them mean something is wrong with you, that is also progress. So, if you are doing this work, keep going and trust that it’s adding up, even when it doesn’t feel like it, and even when it doesn’t look dramatic on the outside. If you commit to doing this work and you keep at it, you will see progress. I will be so bold and promise you that it’s working because you are working. All right? So, there it is.

To bring this all home, the next time it feels like everything you’ve learned has gone out the window, please remember what we’re talking about today. Remember that it is totally normal to feel like you’ve lost all your progress because that’s your brain trying to protect you. Ask yourself, what are you forgetting to remember and what do you need right now in order to bring you back to yourself. Let those questions anchor you. Let them interrupt the spiral. Let them calm the chaos and ground you in the truth that you have not lost anything. You just momentarily disconnected from it.

You have not lost your growth. You have not lost your strength. You have not lost your progress. You are not broken, and you are not back at square one. You are a human doing the work. You’re just in a moment, and that moment and that setback is all part of the process. And when you’re willing to ask yourself those questions, to reflect, and to come back and keep trying, that alone is proof that the work is working.

So please, take a breath. Ask yourself the questions and trust that you can return to yourself over and over with more kindness each and every time. All right? And if you want help with this, let’s go. When you coach with me, you’ll practice accessing your tools even when it’s hard. You’ll learn how to shorten the distance between the spiral and the comeback. Check out my website, send me a message at www.CarrieHollandMD.com/contact and let’s talk about how coaching will change how you show up for your life, even on the hard days.

All right? Thank you again for hanging out with me, and I’ll catch you again next week.

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Thank you for listening to the Strong Is a Mindset podcast. If you want to learn more about how to build both a strong mind and a strong body by eating, moving, and most importantly, thinking, check out CarrieHollandMD.com.