Speaking as a Canary user, what am I missing?

OP said wrong answers only.

I’m pushing back on the notion that telling someone “don’t stress” is in any way helpful.

They would already be not stressed if an obstacle didn’t come up. Telling them to not stress is akin to telling them to not be depressed or to just chill out. There’s no pathway to how. There’s no meeting someone where they’re at. There’s just a well-meaning person lacking emotional tooling to support another.

There are lots of ways to actually provide the support. There are lots of ways for a person to reset their nervous system. “Don’t stress” isn’t either.

“Don’t stress” is terrible advice to someone who has no experience of control over what upsets them, which seems to be an issue OP deals with.

You’re a human being in the body of a human animal. While you can try to use your thoughts to fix/rationalize/justify your feelings, I suspect you’ve already made those attempts with limited success.

OP, here are 2 implementable suggestions:

• DO stress. If you’re already in that state, trying to force yourself to feel another way will make it worse. Let yourself feel what you feel. Have the experience of allowing the sensations in your body to be what they are. If the sensations involve pressure, heat, discomfort, tension, etc, have them. If you find yourself having new sensations in reaction to the feelings you experience, have those new ones too. This kind of somatic practice can help you discover a new way of experiencing life that your mind doesn’t dominate.

• Pick a breathing exercise and do it for 2 minute, 2 minutes, 5 minutes, whatever works. Doesn’t matter which one, as long as it doesn’t have an end goal. Breathwork can help you discover the different modes of being in your experience.