What is stress?
When life is asking too much of us.
How do you manage it?
(1) Access your own power – from the inside.
The only way stress can be effectively managed is from inside yourself. You cannot always control or change what is happening around you. You can only control and change what is happening inside of you.
You’ve been told that facts affect your internal state. Not true. Facts do not activate your internal state. Perception and interpretaton of facts activate your internal state.
For example –
If I write the word “rape”. which is a (tragic) fact, depending on whether you’re a victim, a loved one of a victim, a perpetrator, or a prosectutor, the fact that a rape occured will have a totally different meaning and impact on your internal state.
So the “fact” that life is asking too much of you is not the source of your stress. The source of the stress is how you are processing “the problem (fact)”.
Your beliefs are formed in the theatre of your own mind. What you think (cognitive response), what you feel (emotions), and how you respond (actions) is determined by how you perceive what is happening and how youinterpret it.
(2) Develop management strategies – empowering lifestyle choices. Here are a few:
Exercise gently, consistently, and with enjoyment.
Use nutrition to produce and sustain energy.
Eliminate toxins (caffeine, sugar, alcohol, nicotine, etc.).
Sleep and rest.
(3) Conserve energy.
Learn when to say “no” to others.
Learn when to say “yes” to yourself.
Avoid toxic people – emotional vampires and bullies.
Organize your time and environment. Stop wasting your precious life.
(4) Focus on solutions.
Express your feelings – unexpressed feelings become toxic.
Stop blaming – take full responsibility for your internal state.
Negotiate resolution – focus on cooperation, collaboration, and compromise.
Find an advocate or mediator, if necessary.
(5) Stop, look listen.
Stop and remember the best decisions are made from a place of peace.
Look and observe what’s happening; be curious, ask questions.
Listen, it’s more than hearing. Listening is done with your mouth closed.
(6) Learn to forgive others and yourself.
Condemnation and blaming strip away your energy.
(7) Play.
Think about this. If your problem is “X”. Then everything else is “other than X”, including you. And everything “other than X” is larger than “X”. That is where the realm of possibility and potential exists – outside of “X”. You will never solve “X” from inside “X”. Yet every resource, possibility, and potential you need is outside of and greater than “X”.
Watch carefully:
https://youtu.be/eij1x3ZjwoQ
Cultivating strong internal resources is necessary to whether crisis, loss, and tragedy. To learn more about how you need to prepare for these inevitable challenges in your life click here:
