Tis the season for stress – eh? I’ve had several epiphanies this week but one really stands out the most. Even though I quit my job and have effectively eradicated 95% of the things that previously caused me stress I’m still stressed.
It’s as if new stressors moved in the second the old one’s moved out. What does that tell me? That clearly demonstrates that it’s not the outer world causing the problem…it’s my inner world.
Coming to that realisation must be half the battle –surely!
I am the creator of my stress and in order to change the effect it has over me (strained shoulders, shallow breathing, anxiousness, pimples, reduced immune system, headaches, bad attitude…dare I go on?!) I need to change my perception of what is going on in my life.
Rather than feel nervous about driving to a new location tomorrow, I could perceive the trip as an exciting adventure. Instead of wondering how I’m going to make money I might want to wonder what I’ll spend money on. In place of worrying about my daughter failing to sleep again tonight (teething) I could go with the flow and if she doesn’t sleep, just deal with it. And as for my sore throat and croaky voice – rather than worry that I’m burning out…I could refuse to feel ill and spend my time thinking about how grateful I am to live in such during such an exciting time in the history of Earth.
We have a choice – don’t we? Or perhaps we don’t?
Let’s look at my driving anxiety more closely…what’s causing me to feel nervous about driving to Hook tomorrow? I know the exact route I need to take. I have sat nav. I know there’s ample parking. So what the heck is causing me to feel anxious? I once got lost near the NEC in Birmingham and cried for hours (it was more like 10 minutes) and since then I think I’ve been afraid that I might get lost. I wonder if that is the source of my anxiety?
Hmmmmm.
I’ve read 3 books this week all about how to reduce stress and/or change outdated beliefs. If what the authors say is correct, sub consciously I have an outdated belief about driving to new places that is causing me stress – perhaps my Birmingham incident formed a belief such as, “When I drive to new places I might get lost and if I get lost I get scared and cry”.
So…I need to apply one of the techniques and see if I can change that.
<Let me pause to test out one of my new found belief busting techniques>
Okay…I did two techniques – I did two to hedge my bets. I rated my anxiety a 4 out of 10. It’s not earth-shattering anxiety…but it’s enough to cause me to feel worrisome.
So – how do I feel now? Surprisingly, I actually don’t feel anxious at all. Could this be true?
Let me test this out again on my fear/anxiety that my daughter will once again keep me up all night…My rating is a 7 – it’s been over a week of seriously broken sleep. I’m deprived and it’s making me cranky! I’m so stressed over the thought of her once again keeping us up all night.
<Pause to do my newly learned stress reduction techniques>
Well, well, well. I feel lighter, my shoulders don’t feel strained and I can actually say that if my daughter doesn’t sleep then that’s okay. The emotional charge associated with the future event of sleep deprivation seems to have been removed. If nothing else, it’s way lower than a 7!
Hmmmmm.
Before I tell you about the techniques I’ve used I’m going to do this for a few more days and determine if it’s really working.
We can all live in hope!
Hi Kim,
I understand where you coming from. I think it’s true that stress comes from within ourselves. I think you can see it on how other people deal with it. Some get stressed very easily and some are relaxed about anything if you know what I mean.
I have also wondered if this can be something to do with how we feel about things inside.
Personally, I think I can look at things from the positive prospective sometimes although I am not sure how I would put a positive spin on being waken up every night by an unhappy little girl in pain from teething.
I sometimes make myself more stressed by over-thinking things and analysing everything too much until I worry about them. I know that about myself and try stopping myself from doing it but can’t always do it.
Another thing I found is not good for me is having too much time on my hands to think – if that makes sense… A good way to stay positive is plan something positive or having a good routine filled with things that will make you feel good.
I recently started doing gym classes and I am loving it. I do 3 classes every week. I enjoy them because I can get away from work and taxes (my most recent headache that I bought on myself) and it’s my time. I know it’s planned in my week and when I am there I can’t worry about anything else because I can’t change anything while I am there. It makes it easier to deal with the stressful things later because I know they can’t keep me stressed non-stop the whole week.
I hope this makes sense. I must admit there are other things that may case more stress and we can’t always control it.
I am looking forward to hearing how your techniques worked Kim.
Olga
Hi Olga – thank you for your comments. It’s funny that you mention working out to relieve stress because exercise, in it’s own right, is a stressor to me. I totally understand the whole exercise thing – it makes perfect sense to me, HOWEVER, I can’t motivate myself enough to continue doing it. I go for a week or two and then my life gets busy and it’s as if I completely forget about exercising.
I’m interested to know what you did to help yourself get motivated? How did you manage to keep going back to the gym? Surely in the past you went a couple times and then didn’t go again? So – what has caused you to keep it up this time?
I actually get stressed by the fact that I don’t exercise – that’s nuts. Two bad’s can’t make a good!
Thank you for your comments as they make a lot of sense. Oh – one other thing…Last night my daughter was sitting on my lap and we were watching ‘In the night garden.’ I suddenly noticed that my shoulders were shrugged.
I thought – wooooooooah. Wait a second… All this time I thought work type stuff was causing me the majority of my stress and my daughter was the cherry on the top. But then I started to think about pregnancy, labour, being a new mum and realised that it’s the most stressful thing I’ve ever done.
It dawned on me that society seems to make you feel as if motherhood is difficult, but it’s no big deal. Well…actually…it’s a massive big deal and it’s hugely stressful. I just did a little search on google looking for life event stressors and would you believe many lists didn’t even cover having a child! And those that did had it way low on the list.
How can having a child be less stressful than moving or getting a divorce? Maybe it’s just me…but a move doesn’t massively change your life and often a divorce helps you move on to a better situation.
Anyway…what I’m saying is that I think we often have things stressing us out that we don’t even know about. I was simply holding my daughter – there was no need to worry as she was happily watching TV. Once I realised my shoulders were shrugged I thought – wow…perhaps every time I’m around her I’m conditioned to be on egg shells. I’m worrying without knowing I’m worrying. I kept watching my shoulders as the went up over and over and eventually I was able to keep them down…
Needless to say, I woke up this morning with less painful shoulders
Isn’t life funny? Or should I say, as they do in the nightgarden…’Isn’t that a pip?’