Stress Management

The signs of stress are: excess alcohol consumption (daily), frustration, lost sense of humour, sensitive to loud noises, uncertainty, wanting to get away from people, anxiety, unusually tearful, sleeplessness.

The best remedy.

Stand with your feet about 12 inches apart and bend forward, breathing through your nose. Keep bending forward. Now waddle over to a wall and lean you bent back against that wall. Your feet should be about 1 meter from the wall. Keep leaning in until your back bends further. Your legs might begin to shake a bit as the hamstrings stretch.

Lean in further. Now the top of your head should be tucked under between your legs. Now you are in a perfect position to open your eyes and look up. You’ll see a little hole there (if you are naked) and this is where your head has been residing for the last period of your life, and that is why you are stressed.

Observe the tiny orifice and, if you have one, take a photo of this so that next time you get stressed you can remember the cause. You gave your power away, and put your head up your arse. This, Yoga position is called ignorance, and no mater how much you argue that it is justified, it’s not. Eventually, with time you’ll agree with me, even if you don’t right now.

So, in order to rearrange your anatomy so that your head is above your tail, it might be wise to consider life from a different viewpoint. Good thinking is the opposite to stress. Now, please consider the difference between healthy intensity, which feels a little stressed and therefore pressured, and the really dumb alternative of self destruction at the hands of stress.

Solutions

1/ Don’t avoid stressful situations, instead go toward them with the mindset of how can I see this differently? To evolve means to take a situation you can’t handle and learn to handle it. Most people try to change the situation. In other words change they world instead of change their mind and that is plain dumb.

2/ Be wrong allot. 99% of stress comes from trying to be right. You can be right half the time. And the other half you are negative right. (wrong) so, just accept you are going to blow it sometimes. Get over it really, even blowing it isn’t so bad if you have a sense of perspective about things.

3/ Prioritise. You know in most people’s lives the squeaky wheel gets the most oil. So, the insignificant ant can even distract an airline pilot by biting her on the tooshie. I work with people who lead major companies. They have no meeting timers so time fills meetings, they have no “guard on the door” so when people get bored they interrupt, and they have no agenda for the day that sets up a priority. It’s fire fighting from dawn till dusk. Unevolved management is no excuse.

4/ Get real. Yes, real expectations mean that you can welcome chaos with the same warmth that you offer to order. Real expectations are so important in life. If you want a relationship and you don’t want challenges and ego shattering comments from your partner, buy a dog.

5/ Exercise. Your nervous system transports information from one end of your body to the next. If it is weak from lack of exercise, well it isn’t going to take much to cook it.

6/ Stop pointing the finger. I speak to stressed out people who say “I just have too much on” or “I’m in a tight spot” or “you’d be stressed too if you had my job” Poor baby, poor, poor baby. Does mummy not show you how to manage your life. Victims are the most stressed because they blame everything and as a consequence – disempower themselves. Goodness me, it’s like dealing with children. Smell the roses. Change the process.

7/ Deal with the cause and not the affect. Think about the standard life. Go to work, get stressed, exercise to recover, eat to feel better, watch TV to escape it and hope their relationship survives it. Quantum leaps in the quality of life come when the motive for exercise, eating, watching TV and having a relationship are not based on recovering from stress. Deal with the source. Find out what thinking is causing you to end up with your head in the wrong orifice and change it. You can’t change yourself, but you can change the way you think.

Hope you enjoyed our little frolic in the park. Whether you are getting a divorce, going through illness, swallowing the weight of your business, putting on kilos, confused about your love life or grieving the passing of someone or something important, stress does not help. Stress makes it worse. Psychology doesn’t help, psychology makes it worse. We need to go to nature, find a true perspective on life, and then, rather than stress, we can really experience the emotion, witness it, appreciate it, and then get back to doing and being what we love.

Live with Spirit

Chris Walker