Stress Management - Unglue The Flypaper Of Stress
Stress is a lot like flypaper. It will stick more or less indefinitely until you make a conscious decision to peel it off.
When you’re stuck with stress, you typically feel trapped, without many choices, like a small creature caught in a huge sticky situation. Or you feel burdened with all sorts of unnecessary “stuff” — from outdated emotions to long lists of shoulds. Those pieces of unfinished business decorate your consciousness like so many pieces of flypaper.
If you’re up for an experiment, do this. Pick up the nearest piece of paper. It need not be flypaper! Any old sheet of paper will do. Now hold this paper at arm’s length. Easy, yes? Now, hold it out there for five minutes. No, I mean five hours. Not so easy any more!
This piece of paper is like a single stressor in your life. It represents that unpaid bill nagging at the back of your mind, or your child’s latest run-in with the neighbor’s kid, or the pile of boxes you haven’t dismantled for the trash collection. It symbolizes about a mile in bumper to bumper traffic, a half hour in the doctor’s waiting room, or being on hold for ten minutes trying to reach a repair service. It seems insignificant — unless you don’t put it down.
What if you are loaded with dozens of little stressors and you can’t, won’t or don’t put them down? That’s like being tangled up with several packets of fly-paper. The load gets heavier and stickier the longer you carry it around. The pieces stick to each other and hamper your movement. (If you happen to have major stress situations in your life, such as a death or divorce, job change, or geographic move, you may feel like you’re carrying a stress-pack of boulders. This is the subject of another article to come.)
OK, you must be saying. Tell me how to get unstuck!
Getting free from stress usually requires a conscious decision. You have to stop and look at the mess you’re in and gently peel it off, or carefully step free.
This translates to a powerful two-part stress relief technique that I call Neutral Observation and Action from the Heart — NOAH for short.
1. Neutral Observation: Very gently observe your stress situation. Whether it is mainly something you experience inwardly, or it involves relating with others, just observe. (It’s important not to judge what you are noticing.) Simply look from a neutral viewing point.
Some people find it useful to imagine stepping back or to one side to get a better view. Others imagine looking down on the situation from the top of a tall building. Your objective is to see what is actually going on.
As you observe without judging, you’ll begin to gain new awareness. You’ll see connections and cause and effect relationships you might have missed before. You don’t need to do anything in this phase except notice. Be aware.
You might or might not have some instant revelations as you observe. You might find yourself saying, “Aha,” “I get it,” or “Maybe that’s it,” in a mellow sort of way. Or you might gain your understanding later, while you are actively engaged in your life. Perhaps you’re conversing with a friend and suddenly you get the connection about what is creating your stress and how you could make different choices for stress relief.
If you don’t find any immediate new awareness from your neutral observation, you might want to tell yourself, “I am willing to see and understand this differently.”
2. Action from the Heart. As you step back from stress, or climb to a position of altitude in order to observe, you automatically move to a neutral state that is stress free. You open up in the moment to a kind of natural stress relief and creative awareness, as if with a big sigh of relaxation. You are now re-connected with your heart, or intuitive wisdom from the core of your being.
These new heart-centered perspectives naturally lead to new options and new choices for stress relief. You will quite likely see more possibilities for managing or reducing your stress. You’ll find creative and practical solutions to the problems causing stress.
Once you see your next steps, follow your heart and take them. You’ll be peeling off all the unnecessary stress that seemed like it was glued on forever. You’ll enjoy the freedom of putting down, one by one, those pesky little stressors that tangled up your life.
Neutral Observation can help you see your stressful situations more clearly and find new options for solutions. Action from the Heart can move you purposefully into those solutions so you enjoy greater personal peace and reduced stress.
For more stress reduction tips, sign up for my free newsletter, 17 Simple Stress Solutions, at http://www.powerofpersonalpeace.com/optin.htm Check out my articles on success, less stress, and my Ask Dr. Ilenya advice column at my blog, http://lovingyoursuccess.blogspot.com
Dr. Ilenya Marrin is a personal peace coach, spiritual counselor, inspirational speaker and author of ebooks The Power of Personal Peace: Reducing Stress by Loving Yourself from the Inside Out and 77 Loving Steps for Success.
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