Well, hello there my friend!
How are you this wonderful Wednesday? I hope that you are very happy and grateful!
A funny thing was said to me the other day.
People always ask me, "So what do you do?" And I usually say something like, I destress people or I help people create happier lives.
After this lady asked me that very question I told her that I teach stress management and she said, "I don't know what that is."
Isn't that really funny? She does not know what stress management is. Actually, it is very common for people to NOT know what stress management is.
Stress management means to manage your stress. When we manage something, we are in charge of and/or we oversee it. Therefore, when we manage stress we are in charge of and we oversee our stress.
So, I guess I don't really teach people to manage stress because I do not teach people to oversee or be in charge of there stress, I teach them to destress.
What does destress mean? When the prefix 'de' is added to a word it can mean the opposite, not, or to stop. Therefore, destress means the opposite of stress, not stress, or to stop stress.
Pretty cool eh? I really do believe that we can live without stress and that is why I created DESTRESS YOURSELF.
It is very human to have stress. Stress is mental, emotional, and or physical strain and tension.
If you worry and have a racing mind, you have stress.
If you have any negative emotion like anger, anxiety, blame, depression, fear, hatred, hostility, insecurity, irritability, feeling offended, regret, resentment, or any other negative emotion, you have stress.
If you have physical strain or tension like back aches, headaches, neck aches, stomach aches, exhaustion, increased blood pressure, increased heart rate, increased respiratory rate, or lack of sleep, you have stress.
Stress is not our circumstances, and you have heard this before. Stress is caused by our reaction to our circumstances.
For example, my nephew's eye was twitching for, I want to say, two months. After he told me this, I told him, "You have stress!"
He said, "I don't have stress!" The most common reaction to the stress accusation (lol).
After we talked a while, we discovered that he did indeed have worry that was causing him stress.
When we worry we tend to create a physiological reaction very similar to the fight or flight syndrome that we provoke when we have serious fear.
The next day he text me that his eye stopped twitching. Do I know my shiz or what? LOL!
What I am trying to share is that his circumstances did not cause his stress but his reaction or his worry caused his eye to twitch, which is a result of stress.
Destress means to discover what thoughts, feelings, and/or reactions you are experiencing, and maintaining that are causing YOUR stress so that you can STOP and DO THE OPPOSITE.
It sounds a lot easier than it really is. These reactions are often habits and so we have to eliminate the unhealthy, stressful habit, and replace it with a successful practice and that is what it means to DESTRESS YOURSELF.
A very common stressful habit is feeling insecure. If you are insecure you will worry about everything because it's a habit. If you have feelings of insecurity you will feel unsafe often. You will feel unsafe about your success or lack of, your significant other, your children, your family, your friends, and whatever else you can think of.
If insecurity is the case, the worry that you experience can, and will, manifest into a racing mind, anxiety, depression, anger, lack of sleep, headaches, stomach aches, or exhaustion.
In order to DESTRESS YOURSELF, you would have to stop the insecurity and replace it with certainty, confidence, and faith.
Staying Destressed in a highly stressed out world is not difficult it just takes a little self-discovery and application of a new habit that will replace the old. When we establish successful practices that replace stressful habits there can be nothing but increased happiness.
The most effective self-discovery and application that I have found is through meditation. When we meditate we become more aware of out thoughts, which create our feelings, and ultimately our actions.
When I talk to people who seem stressed out, I always recommend meditation.
Meditation is the key to a mental exercise that will create awareness, focus, organization, and productivity, not to mention higher energy and better moods.
The single most important thing anyone could do, especially parents, is meditate.
I'm not gonna lie, I want to teach the world to meditate.
Try it...
Find the meditation for you...
You will be so glad you did, and if you do, I promise you...
You will know what destress really means.
Have a wonderful rest of your week.
I love you...
Elizabeth Stanfill
