MORE BASIC STRESS MANAGEMENT

Well hello...

How are you doing during all of this stuff? 

I'm praying you are doing better than expected.

I'd like to explain a little more about basic stress management to help those who want to understand.

Generally, we think that stress is a situation. We fight in a relationship, our car breaks down, or we get laid off from work. To believe the situation is the stress is a common myth. 

Although this is not to reduce the actual situation to nothing because we know it can trigger stress, it is not our circumstances that stress us.

So, if stress is not our circumstances, what is stress?

A standard equation that is used to describe stress is A+B=C. 

A is the activating event (situation), 

B is our belief, 

and C is our consequences (signs and symptoms). 

For example, if we are laid off from our job (Activating Event), and we believe that this is the worst thing that could ever happen to us (Belief), then our Consequences will be doubt, fear, and worry. Or, if we are laid off from our job (Activating Event), and we believe this is the best thing that could ever happen to us (Belief), then our Consequences will be certainty, confidence, and hope.

It might sound crazy to some that a person could be elated to be laid off, but it happens. Sometimes we need a push to get out of a career or industry we don't want to be in.

Therefore, stress is caused by our reactions or belief, creating consequences. Our consequences are our signs and symptoms mentally that are manifested physically. Some signs and symptoms of stress are difficulties concentrating, a racing mind, disorganization, sadness, irritability, anger, moodiness, headaches, neck aches, backaches, gastrointestinal problems, over or under-eating, over or under sleeping, or increase in the addiction to alcohol, smoking, or drugs.

Basic stress is in our everyday life because it begins with our thoughts. Stressful people get up in the morning worrying about everything they have to do and everything that bothered them from yesterday. They go to work, to class, to being a parent, to be the provider, and to do their life. Their day is filled with stress because it is filled with habitual beliefs of doubt, fear, and worry.

Insecurity, i.e., stress versus confidence.

When a person destresses at the foundation of habitual thoughts, destressed feelings and actions will follow.

How does one destress, beginning with thoughts? He or she can recognize the fear of the future in the mind and change it into certainty, confidence, and hope. Changing thoughts into certainty, faith, and hope is not necessarily easy. 

Everyone has a choice. Sounds simple, but it may not be easy.

Thinking the worst thing could happen is just a habit that we develop, but if we start practicing the thought that everything will be okay because it always is, we begin to create a pattern of faith.

Skip the panic, I always say. We do not have to panic, and many people don't. If I could get people with anxiety to practice calmness and meditation as often as they practice fearing the future, they would discover anxiety can be skipped. I truly believe that!

When we recognize our stressful habits and change them into faithful and fearless habits, we can watch ourselves become experts at stress management. In other words, permanent stress relief.

It's all about our focus. If you've been worrying for a while, it will take a bit of practice to replace that stressful habit with faith.

The crux of human conditioning is that some people have been taught to not believe in themselves and beat themselves up. These ways of being keep a person in the state of giving up on themselves. 

Some of us are infants in our spiritual development, and so we must learn to crawl, walk, run, ride the bike, and then drive the car of our spiritual life, so to speak. 

Could you imagine belittling and criticizing a child for learning to crawl, walk, run, ride, or drive? Maybe that was your experience, and perhaps that's why you are a beater upper of the self.

When I was young and learning things, my brothers always encouraged me, and then I had friends who encouraged me. Ultimately, I am the one who encourages myself now, and I refuse to beat myself up or criticize myself, ever! It's a practice I am incredibly proud of.

This ramble is about changing stressful habits of fear into happy, healthy patterns of faith by encouraging yourself. That truly is basic stress management. Managing your habitual reactions manages your stress.

Capeesh!

I just wanted to give a little pointing to healing if you need it, and I pray it helps your way.

Speak soon, my friend...

Elizabeth Stanfill

If you like what you read here, you may find my books by clicking, books by Elizabeth Stanfill.

BASIC STRESS MANAGEMENT

Back to the basics... Basic stress management, that is...

Hey! Hey!

How are you doing today?

Hoping you are managing your stress, my friend. 

Stress levels appear very high, even in individuals who typically do not have stress.

What is stress anyway? A popular definition is "our reaction to any stimuli." This definition makes more sense when we understand that there are two kinds of stress: negative distress and eustress, which is positive.

Distress often occurs when we have a hard time in life, have a racing mind, and do not see a positive outcome.

Eustress often occurs when we are trying to obtain a specific goal, things become difficult, yet we can see a possible positive outcome. For example, attending school and studying for finals, applying for a job and having concerns about the interview process, or buying a house and feeling pressure due to the enormous decision.

The questions I ask you are, "are you managing stress?" and "how do you know if you are managing your stress?"

Well, signs and symptoms of stress, positive or negative, are very easy to see.

The most apparent sign is unhappiness. If you are unhappy, chances are you are not managing stress.

Other signs include physical ailments, emotional instability, or change in survival habits like eating and sleeping, for example, not eating, overeating, the inability to fall asleep, to stay asleep, or to sleep at all.

In my opinion, the number one sign of stress is denial. Denial shows its ugly little self when we have excuses for our behavior or condition and rationalize that we are not stressed. Other people can see our stressful signs and symptoms, yet we justify them by saying, "everything is fine."

Managing stress is managing our life, which includes managing our energy, thoughts, feelings, and actions.

How do we manage our energy? We all know the answer to this question because living a healthy lifestyle is constantly in our faces with the media. Living a healthy lifestyle includes eating healthy, exercising, and getting plenty of rest. Eating healthy is eating for energy; in other words, eating plenty of vitamin-rich foods like fruits, vegetables, and proteins and eliminating processed food. Processed food takes a lot of energy to digest and, therefore, depletes the power we can use to sustain our day and stress.

How do we manage our thoughts? The number one way to manage our thoughts, whether stressed or not, is by meditating. When we learn to quiet our minds, we are doing the opposite of stress because when we are stressed, our minds are racing.

Meditating and quieting the mind is the ultimate patience and focus, and stressing may become impatience, annoyance, irritation, and intolerance.

Another way to manage our thoughts is to have goals that combat our stress and faith that everything will be okay. We know everything will be okay because it always is. No matter what we go through, we always survive. When we set goals to combat our stress, we just work towards solutions rather than worrying about our problems. When we manage our thoughts, we manage our feelings because our feelings follow whatever we are thinking.

If we are worried about money, then we feel fear. If we set goals to make money and create confidence that everything will be okay, we will feel certainty and trust.

When we manage our thoughts, which govern our feelings, we work our actions. If we worry about certain things, we feel fear and act upon that fear. When we quiet our minds and focus, we feel calm and confident and act upon those feelings of calmness and confidence.

Managing our stress is recognizing our stressful habits, like fear, doubt, and worry, eliminating these habits, and then creating successful practices, like confidence, faith, and hope.

Praying for you and rooting for you to create confidence, faith, and hope so you may manage your stress.

Speak soon...

Elizabeth Stanfill 

If you love what you read here, you may find my books by clicking, books by Elizabeth Stanfill.

Advanced Stress Management

Hey there!!!  How are you today?  I hope that you are doing absolutely perfect.

I thought I would talk a little about Advanced Stress Management today.  There are many things we can do that fall under the category of Basic Stress Management. We know that we can eat right, exercise, get plenty of rest, and eliminate addictive habits like caffeine, nicotine, alcohol, and drugs.

These types of behaviors will create energy and it takes energy to manage stress.

So what do we know about Advanced Stress Management?

Advanced Stress Management is evolving our stressful habits into successful practices by evolving the mind.

In order to evolve our mind we must take responsibility for our thoughts, feelings, actions, and attitude.

Frequently we live our lives while our thoughts are on autopilot. When our mind is on autopilot we are not necessarily thinking but reacting from our habits.

We get up in the morning, without intention, get ready for the day, go to work or school, get home, watch TV, go to bed, and then we do it all over again.

In order to evolve our mind we must remove ourselves and our thoughts from autopilot and take responsibility for our thoughts, feelings, actions, and attitude by living with intention.

We can start our day with intention, live our day with intention, and end our day with intention.

How do we live with intention? One way is we can take our worries and turn them into faith.

For example, we may be worried about not having enough money. When we worry about not having enough money we may feel doubt and fear about our situation. When we feel doubt and fear we start to make decisions based on this doubt and fear. Some decisions may be to cut back on our expenses and luxuries.

When we evolve our mind we take responsibility for our thoughts, become aware of our worry, and then focus on a what we want. We focus on a solution, move towards that solution, and that will create faith.

When we are worried about not having enough money, the opposite would be having more than enough money. This goal of having more than enough money is our intention.

We should then wake up in the morning with intention, asking ourselves, "how can I make more money?" We should go through our day thinking, "What can I do today, right now to make more money?" And then we can go to sleep with intention by thinking about what we would like to do to make more money.

When we think like this we feel desire and make decisions based on the feelings of desire. Some decisions may be to start a business or look for a better job or career.

This intentional behavior is taking responsibility for our thoughts, feelings, actions, and attitude.

We take responsibility for our thoughts by taking them off autopilot and the habit of worry, and focus them on goals.

We take responsibility for our feelings by removing the doubt and fear and replacing it with intention, expectation, and hope.

We take responsibility for our actions because we take action towards our goals versus taking action in the direction of our troubles. This behavior creates faith, the opposite of worry.

Finally, we take responsibility for our attitude by having faith rather than fear.

Advanced Stress Management is truly evolving the mind by taking responsibility for our thoughts, feelings, actions, and attitude. These successful habits create desire, faith, and confidence by becoming aware of and eliminating thoughts of doubt, fear, and worry.

If you are a worrier evolving your mind might take some serious dedication. But, when we become accountable for our thoughts, feelings, actions, and attitude, we truly become experts at managing our stress.

If you are having a hard time and are unhappy something must be done.

Thank you for visiting my blog.

I hope this is helpful.

Have a great day and until next post...

Don't forget to have fun and be playful!

Elizabeth