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40. The One About Stress, Signals & Small Changes That Matter
0 Playsin 11 hours
In this episode, Victoria shares a powerful, relatable insight sparked by something as simple as cleaning dirty walls during a renovation. What started as a practical task turned into a deeper reflection on how we treat our bodies - ignoring small signs until they build into something overwhelming.
Victoria dives into the concept of stress and how it accumulates over time when left unaddressed. She explains why burnout doesn’t happen overnight, how our bodies are constantly communicating with us, and what we can do to prevent reaching that breaking point.
This episode is a gentle but honest reminder that stress isn’t something to eliminate - it’s something to manage. And often, it’s the small, consistent habits that make the biggest difference.
Key Takeaways
- Stress is unavoidable - but burnout is not
- Your body is always giving you signals - are you listening?
- Small, regular “maintenance” prevents overwhelming “clean-ups” later
- You don’t need to overhaul your life - start with simple, realistic changes
- Rest is just as important as productivity
- Emotional energy (like resentment or anger) can be just as draining as physical stress
A Gentle Reminder
You don’t need to wait until you hit burnout to make changes. Your body is constantly communicating with you - learning to listen and respond early can change everything.
Mentioned in This Episode
Victoria shares her passion for helping women understand stress, prevent burnout, and reconnect with their bodies - something she explores deeply in her programs and workshops.
Connect with Victoria
If this episode resonated with you, or you’re feeling overwhelmed and not sure where to start, Victoria invites you to reach out:
🌐 www.victoria-r.com.au
📧 hello@victoria-r.com.au
📱 Instagram: @the.victoria.r
Loved This Episode?
Share it with a friend, take a screenshot and tag Victoria on Instagram, or leave a review to help more women access these tools and insights.
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Transcript
Returning from a Break
00:00:37
Victoria R
Hello, welcome to the Mindful Educator podcast. I am so glad to be back on the mic. I ended up having a few weeks off just to enjoy at the school holidays with my children. And it was really nice, actually. yeah I really did just enjoy having that downtime and yeah, just being able to be more present with them, which is always the
Renovation and Personal Well-being
00:00:58
Victoria R
aim. so i did actually post a story the other day. We're in the middle of renovating a unit that we've brought. and It was really interesting because we were prepping it to get ready for painting the walls.
00:01:13
Victoria R
And my husband was like, oh, don't worry about cleaning the walls. I, you know, we'll just paint over the top. And I'm like, no, like we'll clean the walls. That's, you know, kind of best way to do it. Make sure then that we're not having it all gunky underneath.
00:01:26
Victoria R
And I'm really glad I did because the walls were really disgusting, especially in the kitchen, um which makes sense because, you know, if you're living in a house and, you know, your day to day,
00:01:37
Victoria R
Things build up over time. And I'm not sure when the tenants had um last cleaned the walls, if they had at all, that wasn't, you know, to my knowledge. ah So i got stuck into it and started cleaning them. And as I was doing it, my mind was like, oh, how interesting, like, imagine if they just, you know, wiped it down like once every, you know, six to 12 months, like I probably wouldn't be having to put as much effort into cleaning as what I am now.
Addressing Stress and Burnout
00:02:05
Victoria R
And then that got me thinking about how our bodies are like that and how we do that to ourselves. So, you know, how often do we have things that come up or, issues with our body. We're like, Oh, you know, I'll just leave it. It'll be fine. Like was sort itself out. And what ends up happening is if we don't end up sorting it out, it just kind of compounds and builds and ends up becoming something in our minds a lot of the time, bigger than Ben-Hur. We're like, oh, like it's just too hard. it's too hard to deal with that.
00:02:36
Victoria R
And we do that with anything in life. Like sometimes actually doing the task is a lot less time than the amount of time we actually spent thinking about doing the task. And so i kind of wanted to speak a little bit on that today and um extend a little bit on what I mentioned in my story the other day, because it it did remind me of like the stress type of thing and how if we just keep letting it build and build and build and build, then that is when our bodies can't cope anymore. And that's usually when we find kind of people hit um either burnout or, um you know, it's pretty much rock bottom, excuse me, because, know,
00:03:17
Victoria R
They've been ignoring the signals and the signs for so long. And instead of doing some maintenance work and addressing the issues as they've come up, they've just let it compound into something that's so huge that they just don't see a way out. They just don't know how how to get out of this kind of hole that they've dug. And,
00:03:37
Victoria R
I can definitely relate to that because that essentially is what ended up happening to me. I just, I let things kind of compound over time and didn't really address ah kind of getting my my system back to a state of homeostasis before, you know, taking on something else. And of course, like your body isn't designed to keep going and to keep having all these stresses and things put on it um without it coming back to balance.
Recognizing and Managing Body Signals
00:04:03
Victoria R
And what we need to recognize is there is always going to be some type of stress in our life. And we actually need that in a way. Like we we need to have some stress, but it's it's more the how we...
00:04:16
Victoria R
can have the capacity to deal with it and how quickly we can kind of go back to that homeostasis to go back to that balance level. And that is where we're kind of not really meeting, meeting in the middle so well there. This is where people are kind of falling short a little bit because we're definitely, you know, feeling the different stresses, but then we just keep building on that. And we're not actually trying to regulate our bodies in between. And, know,
00:04:46
Victoria R
Like I said, we stress is one of those things that we're never going to get rid of it. And our bodies do need it to a certain and extent. and And it's great that it lets us know that everything's working. um But we do need to find healthier ways of bringing ourselves back to some sort of balance.
Environmental and Chemical Stressors
00:05:04
Victoria R
I know for me personally, ever since I did kind of hit the big burnout and, you know, had to build my way up from there. I'm definitely a lot more conscious of my body signals now and what my body is trying to tell me. So for example,
00:05:21
Victoria R
um The last few days in particular, like I've, my signs are always like a bit of a stuffy nose and a bit more of a sore throat. Like I know what my body signs are when it's starting to get a little bit on the rundown side of things. And that's what I've had, which is makes sense because there's been a lot happening in the last few weeks. And so for me, it's simple things like, okay, instead of going and, you know,
00:05:44
Victoria R
working myself to the core at the gym, I'm just going to go for a beach walk instead, which is exactly what I did this morning. um Instead of getting up super early to go for a beach walk, I just kind of let my body wake up naturally around seven. And then once the kids were at school, that's when I went for the walk. So it's just kind of making those little adjustments where needed so that we're not just kind of boom, boom, boom, let's go, let's go. Because like I said, our bodies aren't designed for that. It's not it's not normal. We need to rest and our bodies need that rest time to actually repair and to make sure everything kind of goes back to being a bit neutral.
00:06:21
Victoria R
And so when i talk about the stress in our body, and I've actually done um a workshop on this before, and I'm actually thinking I might redo this. um It's just a free workshop that I have that I put out because it's a lot of us don't really understand exactly what stress is and where it comes from and how it does affect us. And the thing is there are lifestyle stresses as well that do affect our body. So we've got things like our chemical stresses. So they're the things like um your caffeine, your alcohol, your sugar. um
00:06:56
Victoria R
If you've got a high fat diet, the household cleaning products that you use, the toxins that might be in your environment. um So all those sorts of things actually you know, put a stress on our body as well. And so, you know, how you hear people talking about low tox, you know, living and, you know, clean living and all the rest of it. There's a reason for that.
00:07:16
Victoria R
It's actually a lot better for our bodies. And I know for so many of us, it's it's a really big thing to try and change that because it's not what we're used to. It's not what we've grown up with. um And it's only kind of once you start doing your own research and looking into it a little bit more that you realize why um changing to these things can be so important.
00:07:36
Victoria R
And I know for me, especially especially as a female and the mum in the house, I kind of feel a lot of that falls on me. And I'm not saying that is the case in every household, but I know for a lot of us, those of us that are in that position,
00:07:53
Victoria R
it tends to kind of come onto us as to, you know, the sort of um containers that you put your food in, the sort of chopping boards that you have, um where you're buying your meat from if you're a meat eater, where you're buying your eggs from. Like all
Lifestyle Changes for Stress Reduction
00:08:07
Victoria R
these things, these little decisions do often fall to us. And it's not necessarily a good bad thing. I'm not going down that path. i i That's fine. i'm Like I'm happy to do that. And it's actually something I quite enjoy doing because it means that, you maybe this is the control freaking me out. Like i know that I know where things are coming from then. You know, I've got that control element. And
00:08:27
Victoria R
My husband, he's also really great in that he will, you know, he listens to things, does his own research and, you know, offer suggestions. He's like, oh, maybe we try this or try that. And it's actually really good that we are able to discuss this because as we've kind of gone on in time and moved through things, I'm like, I've tried to change a lot of our cleaning products over to ones that aren't as harsh. Doesn't always work. um But, you know, majority of the time we are trying to do that. With things like where we're getting our meat and our fruit and veg from, I'm aiming to get them from places that, you know, are more organic. And unfortunately, there's always a higher price tag when it comes to things like that. So it's not always realistic.
00:09:09
Victoria R
But if we can just do a little bit more research into where our products are actually coming from, you know, even little things like i was chatting to some of my friends the other day and a lot of us were saying like a lot of us are trying to do a lot more homemade stuff because, again, we know what's in the products and we know where they're coming from. And we know that um it's just not full of crap because all these things are actually making our bodies more stressed. If we're, if our bodies are having to fight off, the toxins and the chemicals and everything else around us, then that's putting more stress on our bodies. so there actually is a method to this madness that, you know, kind of, I'm not suggesting that you go out and you overhaul every aspect of your life straight away. It's something that is a very slow process. um Some people may already be there, which is amazing. And I'm always open to kind of hearing suggestions or, you know, other thoughts on what to do here.
00:10:04
Victoria R
But like I said, it's it's something that you can just start off slowly. Just start off doing, just kind of research a little bit, see where things are coming from, see what's in things. um And I find a lot of the time it can be a bit of a minefield because things can be quite deceiving. especially labels and all the rest of it. So this is where we do need to look into it a little bit. um But environmental and chemical toxins, they're big thing. So if we look into these a little bit more, then that's going to kind of help relieve the stress in our body in one way.
00:10:36
Victoria R
So other stresses that we may have are our physical stress. And this is also also part of our lifestyle stress. so things like not moving. So lack of movement is definitely one.
00:10:49
Victoria R
And then we've got the other end of for the extreme where we're moving too much. So we've got people that are doing excessive exercise, which is also placing stress on the body. um Things like your noise pollution. If you have accidents, um if you're having really crap sleep, you And this also depends if you are in the child um rearing era of your life, you may not be getting a whole lot of sleep depending on what your children may or may not be doing. You know, even simple things like air pressure. so all these things kind of contribute to stress on the body as well.
Emotional Impact on Stress
00:11:24
Victoria R
So again, it's having that awareness. And I think for many of us, we know how beneficial moving our bodies are. We know that it,
00:11:32
Victoria R
It is great for changing our state of mind, for, you know, feeling good within ourselves to actually move our body. But we need to make sure that we're not going to the extreme and, you know, you hitting the gym, you know, several times, you know, a day or a week or whatever it might be. Like there's, you need to read your body as well. And I think for women is especially, and I often mention this as well, this is where we do need to pay attention to our cycle. You know, some...
00:12:02
Victoria R
days in your cycle, you're going to feel so energetic and ready to take on the world. Other days, you might just need to lay on the couch and do nothing. That's totally okay as well. So this is where it's important to read our body. And yes, it's great to have a routine and to get up and to go to the gym every single day or to exercise every single day. But some days your body may just need to rest. All right. And this is where you kind of need to have that discernment and kind of check in in with yourself and go,
00:12:29
Victoria R
Do I need to rest or do I need to move in some way? All right. And our bodies will usually let us know. and then another lifestyle stress that we also have is kind of like our emotional stress as well. So this is where our emotions are, you know, creating that stress within our body. And it's usually these really big emotions, things that might be things like our anger or our guilt, our resentment, If we're grieving, of course, grieving is going to have a different type of stress on our body as well. um Things like resentment as well, or um guilt, they're things that we can address ourselves and,
00:13:11
Victoria R
it actually takes so much energy, I find, to be angry or to be resentful um towards a certain person. And i I don't know if you find this as well, but it's actually, it's a lot of energy. It's a lot of brain power. It's a lot of thought time spent feeling these emotions and directing that anger or whatever it is towards another person. And I often think,
00:13:39
Victoria R
is that really worth it? Is it really worth them getting all this um of my attention on them for something that happened that they may not even be aware of or something that maybe I can just address with them straight away? So this is where we we need to kind of maybe check in with those thoughts, if there's kind of certain thoughts on repeat where you're finding that, you know, oh, I really hate that person or this or that or whatever it might be, maybe just check in and think, do I need to be putting all that energy into this? Because these really...
00:14:14
Victoria R
Heavy emotions like that, again, are creating a stress on the body. So this is where just having that awareness, maybe spending a little bit of time working through things if we need to, that can help with it as well. Obviously, for something like grief, that's something very different. And that that's something that you just need to be really kind with yourself as you're working through. And it's not something that is necessarily a quick fix.
Understanding Stress Tolerance
00:14:41
Victoria R
And that's something that needs to be...
00:14:44
Victoria R
kind of understood that yes that is going to be a more stressful time if you are grieving because it it is a lot and just being kind with yourself during those times as well so We just need to make sure that we are aware of the fact that these lifestyle stresses are actually a thing. So a lot of us seem to think that when it comes to stress, it's just us doing too much or having too much on our plate. And yes, that is part of it, but it's not the only part of it.
00:15:17
Victoria R
So these are the things that have been mentioned. So you like your chemicals, the physical side of things and the emotional side of things also do have a role to play in this. And then it's like, okay, so now that I'm aware of this, well, what the hell do I do about it And this is where, like I said, we can start, um start to slowly make those changes. And as with anything, awareness is the first step in understanding what's going on. So once you're aware of these things, once you're aware of the stresses that are maybe present in your life, you can actually then start making some changes or start working through them.
00:15:56
Victoria R
Now, When it comes to things like the chemical side of things, that's that's a relatively easy thing to address in that you can swap things out.
00:16:08
Victoria R
you can look at you You can look at the ingredients, you can swap things out, you can make changes that way. When it comes to the physical side of things, this is something that is going to be very different for everyone as well. And one thing I actually want to say about stress, which I should have mentioned, is everybody is different in what they can handle and how much of something they can handle. And a lot of this has to do with um kind of how your conditioning as you were growing up. So, you know, if, for example, you grew up in a household where, you know, you could
00:16:41
Victoria R
express your opinion. You could have a chat, you could do whatever you want without there being judgmental repercussions. All right. Your system nervous system is probably able to take on a lot more. Whereas if you grew up in a household where perhaps you're kind of like walking on eggshells all the time, you weren't able to say what you wanted to say because you would have been yelled at, or there might've been some physical abuse, then your threshold is going to be a lot different. And this is what is important to understand as well, is that Our childhood conditioning actually does have a role to play in how we handle stress later in life. And it's really quite interesting to realize that too. And it's not, again, we're not playing the blame game because we can't go back and change things. So there's no point, you know, blaming someone for how you were or were not raised. You know, everyone was doing the best with what they had.
00:17:29
Victoria R
And so it's just understanding that, okay, so I may be able to handle a big car backfiring, like, you know, the car backfiring noise, but someone else may have like be absolutely terrified and that may set off their nervous system in a completely different way. You know, it's understanding that there is going to be different responses to the same situation and people are going to perceive the situations differently as well based on what,
00:17:55
Victoria R
they have previously experienced. so it's like I said, it's a case of recognizing that. And the great thing is, though, we can actually build up our tolerance of things. We can actually improve how much we can handle and how much our bodies can handle.
00:18:12
Victoria R
And one of the great ways to do this really simply is through our breath, through just taking a pause as well.
Breathing Techniques for Stress Management
00:18:21
Victoria R
So i'm trying to explain um to some of the children in my life that before we respond, we've actually got about a six second window in which we can actually just pause and decide what our response will be. So instead of reacting to whatever emotion has come up, if we just pause
00:18:46
Victoria R
for six seconds, all right, it can give us that little bit of clarity that we might need to decide to respond differently. Okay. So that's one way. And then also just bringing it back to our breathing. So our breathing is something that we can control. And this is where a lot of breath work and that type of thing actually comes into it. So i know i have had Tash on here before. i interviewed her, I think it was last thing So last year about breath work and just how it helps build your capacity to handle things. so even if you're not going to go down the realm of actual breath work, even just the deep breathing is a way to build the capacity of what your body can handle.
00:19:30
Victoria R
right. So that deep breath in through your nose, out through your mouth, you know, just breathe, count to five, just taking a moment. All right. And that can really help how your body is responding to the stress in that moment. And again, it will help build the capacity of how much you can actually hold. Um,
00:19:49
Victoria R
which is really important as well, because if we're kind of recovering from, you know, burnout or whatever it might be, where our capacity is usually quite low. So we do want to try and build that up a little bit more as well.
00:20:02
Victoria R
So like I said, stress, it's, it's actually, it really fascinates me this whole subject in case you hadn't realized.
Preventing Long-term Stress
00:20:10
Victoria R
And I know that when i um created the program Reclaim, which used to be Revive Your Spark, that a lot of that kind of is based around ways to kind of move beyond the stress and,
00:20:25
Victoria R
going to build that capacity that we have as well, because it really is so important because a lot of us just don't know how to deal with this. We're not taught how to deal with all these things that get thrown at us. So yeah it is something that I do really love chatting about. And I keep bringing it back to the fact that if we want to make sure that we're not like these grimy walls that I was having to clean that were really, really hard to scrub, we don't want to keep letting things build to the point where it feels like we we don't know what to do. It's too much. And like I said,
00:20:57
Victoria R
before and i've I've said it many a times, your body will give you signals that things aren't right. Your body will let you know that it's stressed out.
00:21:08
Victoria R
Things will change. They do change.
Practical Stress Reduction Tips
00:21:11
Victoria R
um Chronic stress is directly linked to things like your IBS, your bloating, your diarrhea, your constipation, gas, cramping, um loss of appetite. That is all directly linked to chronic stress and chronic stress is your long-term stress that's what we want to try and avoid all right then like i said there will always be stress there will always be little bouts of stress throughout a life that's just the way it is and our bodies are designed to deal with that but it needs to go back to that homeostasis it needs to get that balance back which is what a lot of us are missing
00:21:45
Victoria R
So some simple things that you might be able to start doing is firstly, like I said focusing on doing your deep breathing where you can. If you know that ah things are maybe feeling a little uncomfy in the body, but just taking a moment to pause and do the deep breathing. Some other things, really simple things that you can do just have a look at the cleaning products in your home. Have a look at where your food is coming from. right If there's some simple swaps that you can do now that will create kind of a
00:22:18
Victoria R
a bit more of a change to kind of ease that stress on the body a little bit then we can start making them we can start bringing that kind of the more low tox type things as well um another great one to do is if you know that you've got maybe a really big weekend or a really big day or a big event that you have coming up instead of planning to just continue on as normal after Can you kind of plan it so that you maybe have a day or two to recover if possible? Is there something that you can do? So just say you've, um you know, I know for me, I often have to go driving down to the city or a few hours away.
00:22:57
Victoria R
Each time I get back, I always try and make sure the day after is a very important calm day in the sense that I actually get time to rest because even though it's not that far, ah it still does take it out of my body a little bit. And I've recognized that now as well. So is there a way that you can plan? All right, instead of, you know, rushing here, there and everywhere, I'm just going to have a really chill day the next day. You know, I'm,
00:23:22
Victoria R
Maybe we'll go for a walk instead of going to the gym. Maybe I'll do this instead. Maybe I might just have a bit of a couch day. Is there some way that you can rejig your schedule to fit those things in?
00:23:33
Victoria R
So
Engagement and Future Plans
00:23:34
Victoria R
like I said, these are just some really simple ones that you can start off doing. um But i like I said, i am I am pretty sure I'm going to run the schedule. the free workshop again on stress, because I think it's something that so many of us don't really understand. So if we can kind of get a little bit more knowledge about it and how we can actually improve things so that we're not getting stressed out so much, then that's definitely a win-win for everyone. So that's just a little bit ah further explanation on my video from the other day. um and as I said in my stories, please make sure you clean your walls like every six to 12 months.
00:24:14
Victoria R
That's just my other my other little suggestion for you. um So if you have any questions about stress or you're wanting some more clarification on some different areas, please let me know. i love to have a chat about it. um It's something that I am very passionate about because I don't want anyone else to burnout the way I did. it It's definitely been a huge learning curve for me. And I think one of the really hard things for me to see as well is I can see when people are pushing themselves too much, you can see it. You can see it in the way that their energy is. You can see it in the way that they are responding to things. um
00:24:54
Victoria R
But until we realize that ourselves, it it's a really tricky one to approach. So if you feel that, perhaps you're kind of getting to that point where it's all getting a little bit too much and you can feel your body is not coping. You've noticed a lot of changes. You've noticed that things aren't quite right, but you're not really sure where to start. Please reach out. And I'm more than happy to to have a chat as to how I can help you because like I said, i don't I don't want everyone to have to.
00:25:23
Victoria R
to have to hit burnout and go to hospital and have all these things done. All right, let's, let's not do that. So yeah like I said, just feel free to reach out. My DMs are always open. Same with my emails and yeah, happy to have a chat anytime. So have an amazing rest of your week. I'm so glad to be back on the mic. I've got a few awesome um interviews coming up soon as well. So they'll be released over the next few months um with some amazing guests. so yes, lots to look forward to All right, I'll speak to you all soon.