The Stress Is Not the Problem. The Avoidance Is. | Kerry Siggins

In 2025, Kerry Siggins was going through a divorce, navigating a company under economic pressure, managing her son's health issues across two households, finishing a book, and trying to hire a VP of sales who turned out not to work. She woke up overwhelmed every day. There was a constant noise in her head: am I doing enough, how am I going to get it all done, what happens if I fall behind. And she kept avoiding things. The difficult conversation she needed to have with someone on her team. The decision she knew she needed to make. The boundary she needed to set with her ex-husband. She told herself she was just waiting for the right moment, that things might resolve on their own. What she eventually understood is that she was spending more energy worrying about and avoiding those things than it would have taken to just face them. This episode came out of that realization. Not the challenges themselves, but the weight of carrying everything unaddressed, was what was creating the suffering. And the moment she started doing things one at a time, one conversation, one decision, one boundary, the anxiety lifted. Not because her life got easier. Because she stopped accumulating what she had not yet faced. Kerry also draws a distinction that runs through the whole episode: some stress is a calling, and some stress is a burden. Learning to tell the difference, and asking whether a given stress is worth carrying because of what it is helping you become, is the actual skill. Not eliminating stress. Becoming someone who can carry more of it without losing themselves in it. To learn more, visit http://kerrysiggins.com Her new book, Talk With Trust, comes out August 4th and is available for pre-order now. Let’s connect on LinkedIn, Instagram, or TikTok! LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kerry-siggins-166b66/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kerry.siggins/ TikTok:https://www.tiktok.com/@kerry.siggins