Stress is so common now that there is an American Institute of Stress. Unfortunate. I read a statistic recently that 75-90% of all visits to a primary care doctor is due to stress. What is stress?
Essentially it is an emotional dis-ease. It is a chronic feeling of overwhelm, insecurity and feeling out of control in some way. It is a perception based in danger or threat. And the good news is, it is by far psychological. I say “good” in that if you learn how to change your mindset, you can change your level of stress.
I know from first hand experience. It’s not even how much you do, as it is how you are thinking ABOUT what you are doing. It is generally not due to a real physical threat, only one in your imagination.
If you set your intention to change, and find someone, like me, who understands how to consciously calm down your brain, and reframe the way you perceive life, you can shift your reality from one based in fear, dread and unhappiness to one that is expansive, abundant and out right peaceful. Does it take effort?
Yes, and probably not as much as you think. However I will say, if you think you can change your life without any determination or commitment, you are just going to continue to stress yourself out.
Eliminating stress is really an inside job. Once you change your inner reality, the outer will just line up – it’s magical how that happens.
We have been taught almost everything that leads to empowerment in a backwards order. We are taught to look outside of ourselves for our security, love and self-esteem and then we wonder why enough is never enough and why our happiness feels so unstable.
If you have to find your happiness in the weather, your job (see what’s going on now?), or the opinions of flaky acting people, is it any wonder that life feels like a rollercoaster ride? Since you need to start somewhere, for now, you can help yourself if you would just start taking your attention away from the following five things that you cannot control – except by choosing to think and feel differently and learning how to do it.
Just by becoming aware to take your focus off of what you don’t want, and instead looking for something – anything – to be grateful for, you can lower your sense of stress and overwhelm. Here are five common things people do that can raise their stress levels:
1. Listen to and focus on negative news online or off
2. Ruminating about the past
3. Worrying about your job or future
4. Multitasking an overloaded “To-Do” lists
5. Worrying about what others say about you
As a bonus, a variant of number 5, negative self-talk, will also send your stress levels through the roof and help to worsen your self-esteem on top of it. There are studies that show how this works. Look at the list.
All items can be changed when you learn to change your mindset. The past is just the way you choose to remember the event; you ascribe the meaning and significance to it. You can learn how to re-write these unproductive stories and release the emotional charge from the cellular memory in your body.
Empowering yourself will help you to stress less and be your best – from the inside out! Have you ever thought about how you can stress less?
Tags: Confidence, Empowerment, Mindset, Self-Esteem, Stress
Thanks for one more excellent post. Keep rocking.