On the regular, I hear people apologize for their unfocused, rude, or emotional behavior. “I’m just under a lot of stress,” they say. Then they list everything that’s causing them stress.
“My workplace is short staffed, so now I’m doing two jobs instead of one”.
“I got hit with an unexpected bill that I can’t afford”.
“I’ve got this thing coming up that’s gonna totally suck”.
“Whenever I try to get finish something, I hit a new road block”.
Contrary to popular belief, stress is NOT caused by life circumstances, but we can tell when it’s coming by our reactions to life circumstances. Such as:
- Being too rigid with our expectations.
- Taking things personally.
- Dreading an activity before we even do it.
Let’s look at the first one, If we go through life, leaving no room for mishaps (computer crashes, car troubles, cancelled appointments, etc.), clinging to the notion that “this shouldn’t happen”, we’ve become too rigid with our expectations. What if we let go of all expectations, knowing that life is unpredictable no matter how well we plan? And with that knowing, what if we also knew that we are built to handle any situation?
If you’re familiar with Don Miguel Ruiz’s The Four Agreements, then you know that taking things personally is one of the worst energy sucks we can experience. So then why do we do it? Why do we take it personally when a person cuts in front of us? Or a friend makes us wait when we were on time? Or a co-worker leaves us to do all the work? It’s because we’ve forgotten that we’re gonna be just fine. We’ve put meaning where there is no meaning. If someone is thoughtless, it has nothing to do with us – that is how they choose to go through life. We’ll be fine. We’ll get our turn, we’ll go on with our day, and we can choose to set boundaries. But we forget.
Finally, when we’re about to do something we don’t want to do – like a project that’s gonna take a lot of time, or an activity that’s out of our comfort zone – we’ve already decided that we’re gonna be miserable doing it. We’ve chosen to predict the future in a worst case scenario. Stress is created by imagining how awful something will be long before we actually do it. Believe me, the more I fly, the more I know this to be true.
Stress is 100% thought generated.
1. Quit thinking so much
2. Just show up, and
3. Play!
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