James was crawling home in slow traffic after his workday, but his mind was still at the office. James’ boss had asked him to come in early tomorrow morning to meet with him, but hadn’t told him the reason for the meeting. It had been a stressful couple of weeks at his job. James felt like he hadn’t been performing at his best, and he wasn’t sure where he stood with his boss at the moment. Now James could feel his mind racing as he thought about the meeting tomorrow. The stress from work these past couple of weeks had ruined a few evenings with his family by causing James to be distracted, distant, and grouchy. He didn’t want this to keep happening, so James had worked on this situation at his last counselling appointment. James had started counselling a couple months ago because he was finding that stress and anxiety had been negatively affecting his life quite a bit recently. He and his counsellor had decided that the next time James had a really stressful workday he would try and use the time while he was driving home to think through it in hopes of having a better evening with his family…
Introducing S.T.E.P. – Self, Thoughts, Emotions, & Physiology
Life is full of difficult moments and situations like this one experienced by James, and it can be very challenging to respond to these moments in the way that we really hope to respond; the way that we think our “best self” might respond. James isn’t a real person, but the situation that he faces here would be familiar to many of the clients that I work with as a counselling therapist. I use a framework and process called “STEP” to help people work through many different types of tough situations and circumstances in life. In this anecdote, James will use STEP to deal with work-related stress, however, STEP can be used for a wide variety of situations: negative moods like depression or anger; challenges with anxiety; difficulties in relationships; resolving past traumas; preparing for important moments; grief and loss; and many more.
STEP refers to four important domains related to our mental health: Self, Thoughts, Emotions, & Physiology. This article is part one of a two-part introduction to STEP. In part one, you’ll see STEP in action as James uses it to deal with work-related stress. Part two will be an overview of STEP and will briefly introduce you to each of the four STEP domains. Subsequent articles will take a deeper dive into Self, Thoughts, Emotions, & Physiology.
But for now let’s get back to James and his job stress. James tried to recall what he and his counsellor had worked on at their last session. He remembered “STEP”: S for “Self”, T for “Thoughts”, E for “Emotions”, and P for “Physiology” (or “Physical body”).
Step – Self
James began with the Self domain, and asked himself “What’s important to me that’s connected to this situation?”. Obviously, his job was important to him. He enjoyed it (for the most part), it felt like it had a future, and it paid the bills. James also recalled that he had identified another very important part of his life that was connected to this situation…his family. James didn’t want to lose another summer evening with his wife and kids because he was feeling stressed and irritable. Between these two important parts of his life – his job and his family – James knew that he wanted his family to be the priority. This felt good to acknowledge, and gave him a bit of extra motivation and energy to try hard to have a decent night, despite the work stress. James had learned that visualization was an important tool that can really help people prepare for difficult situations the same way that visualization helps athletes prepare for competition. So James spent a few moments imagining himself responding as warmly as he could to his family when he was at home tonight, despite feelings of stress and worry being in the background.
sTep – Thoughts
James then reflected on the T for “Thoughts” and asked himself, “What are the Thoughts that are going through my mind in this situation?”. He definitely noticed that he was asking himself over and over, “What if tomorrow’s meeting is somehow the beginning of me losing this job?”. He recognized this type of “What if…?” thinking that he and his counsellor had discussed. James had learned that “What if…?” thinking can lead people down a rabbit hole of negative predictions that can cause lots of worry. He decided to question the realism of this worrisome thought. How likely was it that he was going to lose his job? Sure, it had been a tough couple of weeks, but he found that it was really helpful to think about his very positive 6-month review with his boss that he had a couple months ago. James could feel the helpfulness of that thought as he brought it to mind, and remembered to try and make it “stick” a bit more by recalling the details of the positive feedback that he had received. James decided it would be helpful to try and bring this memory to mind this evening any time he found himself starting to think worrisome thoughts about the meeting tomorrow.
stEp – Emotions
The letter E was next, so James took stock of his Emotions. What was he feeling in this situation? He’d learned that something as simple as naming the emotions that he was feeling can be helpful in difficult situations… “name it to tame it”. Worry was definitely an emotion that he was feeling in this situation… James was worried about losing his job. He was feeling some sadness too… he was sad about the prospect of ruining the evening with his family because of this stress. James thought about another phrase he had learned in counselling: “we hurt where we care”. He reminded himself that it made sense that he would be feeling some negative emotions in this situation because he cared about both his family and his job. James felt a little better knowing the emotions made some sense, and that they were doing what they were “supposed” to do, which is letting him know that this situation is connected to some important aspects of his life.
steP – Physiology
P was the last letter… “Physiology” (or Physical body). James tried to notice what was happening with his body. He realized that he was tensing up. He noticed that he was squeezing the steering wheel pretty tightly, so he loosened his grip a bit. He also let go of some of the tension he noticed in his gut and took in a couple deeper breaths. It felt good to physically unwind a little bit. James noticed a little more relief, and was starting to be hopeful that his work stress might not take over the evening after all. After going through each of the STEP domains, James felt that he’d given this enough airtime for now, and he decided to try set and aside thoughts about work, turn on the radio, and try and relax for the rest of the drive home.
How can STEP help you?
As I mentioned, James’ issue is one example of a situation that STEP can help with, but it can also help with many other type of issues. STEP can be used to work on past, present, or future situations by helping you process difficult events from your past, give you tools to respond well in the present moment, or help you prepare for future situations that you’re expecting to be challenging.
As a counsellor, I enjoy working with the STEP model because, once clients are familiar with it, they can use it on their own to help them with challenging moments and situations. Feel free to contact me at eli@mtnviewcounselling.com or 778-802-8385 if you have any questions or would like to book an appointment. I’d be happy to meet with you and discuss how you can apply STEP to your own difficult situations & circumstances.