Hey diy ass-kicker!
Not sure where you hang your hat, but here in Canada, it’s our birthday.
I’m in the midst of spending a great long weekend with my family. But I’m also slightly stressed about an upcoming move I’m making that is taking my concentration away from the people I love to spend time with and the things that I love to be doing.
Urghhhh! All I want to do is chill!
Can you relate? It’s like loving your brain most of the time and then wishing it didn’t work so well when you want to take a breather!
We all experience stress. It’s what happens when something just isn’t sitting right for us. In my case, it’s the unknowns that loom not so far in the future.
When it’s double-down stress time, it’s time to double-down on some self-coaching.
You may not be stressed at this moment but if you do get caught up in it to the point where you’re pulled from the things that are most important to you, lay these questions on yourself.
Write your answers down and for the love of the goddesses, be completely honest. Recognize when your inner mean girl is trying to take over the responses, as she very well may do. If there is more than one stressful thing that is happening for you, separate them out so you can give each one some deep thought.
PS: If you are a chronic stresser, first of all I want to acknowledge that you must feel like shit most of the time. Secondly, this is just a start to figuring out your pressure releases. Hit reply to this message and we can talk about what more you can do to help yourself. Here we go…
What is it that’s stressing you out?
What is worrisome about the situation? Is what you believe about it actually true? Sometimes we make shit up! 😀
What if you put on your vacation sunglasses and could see this situation through those lens? What would it look like then? How can you adopt that perspective?
What can you do to manage the tangible parts of your stress? For example, if you think you might leave your job soon, maybe beefing up your resume and connecting with your network to see what’s out there would be a healthy start.
What are you doing now to manage your stress that isn’t truly serving you any longer than the moment you do it? Or spend, yell at it, or consume it?
What brings you real physical or mental relief from your feelings of stress, and how can you kick your own ass hard enough to ensure you actually do it? Remember that habits create momentum!
Who can help support you during this stressful time? A strong friend, a mentor, a coach?
And there is more…
Stress is NEVER something that we ignore, even if it’s one of those things that you think is part of everyday life.
The costs to our bodies and our brains when we ignore our stress is just too fucking high. So if you can feel stress in your body, if it keeps you awake at night, or keeps you from living life full out, take the time to manage it.
Your stressful circumstances on their own may not be something you have the power to change to your benefit. In fact, most of the time our stress is about someone else’s shit or things that are just unknown to us.
But you do have the power to change your responses to it, in ways that will leave you feeling that sweet spot inside where peace lives. You may not go from 0 to 60 in one sitting but you will feel some incremental change as you challenge yourself to look at your stress and how you can feel better.
On that note, I’m shutting down my Mac and heading out to the beach to meet my grand babies. The first thing I’m going to do is watch the water, breath in the smells of summer, and find that sweet spot where peace lives in me.
And after the appropriate number of Grandma hugs, let the Canada Day celebrations begin!!
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