Use Your Words
Merriam-Webster defines stress as a constraining force or influence; a physical, chemical, or emotional factor that causes bodily or mental tension and may be a factor in disease causation; a state resulting from a stress especially: one of bodily or mental tension resulting from factors that tend to alter an existent equilibrium.
You know, I never actually looked this word up! Yet here, in the definition, lie the basics of stress reduction. Through managing stress, we can live more healthy, free, balanced and productive lives.
Lately life has offered many opportunities for stress to creep into my life. No one seems safe-guarded from the down-turn in the economy, including we freelancers and consultants. I have been traveling far and wide, spending up to 22 hours on airplanes to reach my destination(s). Here is what I have learned:
1) Surrender: There are many things you can plan for and more things you can not. For example, you can schedule ample time to arrive at the airport, check in and prepare for your flight; you can not force the plane to leave on time. You can invest your money wisely; you can not guarantee the market will remain stable. Stress builds when we try to manipulate or control aspects of life that are completely out of our control. Do what you can, surrender to the fact that there is much left to others.
2) Compassion: After surrender, must come compassion. If you give up your ideas of control only to judge the job everyone else is doing, you will drive yourself equally crazy! Practice compassion for yourself and others. Let people be where they are and laugh at the illusions we harbor about ‘who’s in charge’. Work, relationships, travel, raising children, and the economy are collaborations. Hundreds, possibly millions, of factors come together to create any situation. The best we can do for ourselves is to be gentle, kind and understanding of both the roles we play and the simultaneous unimportance and importance of those roles.
3) Take Charge and Let GO: Fulfill your responsibilities and let go of the rest. Get yourself to the departure gate, help your neighbor if they need it, sit down with your child and assist with his/her schoolwork -period. The second we focus on outcome rather than action, we begin to live in a projection of ‘what if’ instead of ‘what is’. This invariably leads to stress as we are then unable to do what we need to, in the moment. If you are living with an image of your child graduating college with honors, while they are failing math, you may be unable to see how best to help. If you are on an airplane with 10 hours left in a flight and all you can think of is arriving at your destination, you are wasting precious time. Sit in the driver’s seat of your life now and realize that you can not control your fellow passengers, motorists or the weather outside the car.
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