Entries Tagged 'Stress Trap' ↓
June 1st, 2008 — Lifelong Learning, Love and Compassion, Stress Trap
I’ve never been lost, but I was mighty turned around for three days once.
—Daniel Boone
At the moment I can identify with this rat in the maze…I’m exploring new territory and expanding my mental map of the world of blogging. In the process I’m going through a period of confusion. But like Daniel Boone I’m not lost…I’m just a bit “turned around” for a while.
Why the confusion? I just switched to a MacBook from the PCs I’ve been using for years. I also installed a more recent version of WordPress, which has a different interface from the old one. Neither of those changes are difficult, but it takes some practice to be able to work without having to think of the mechanics.
And if that weren’t enough to keep me amused, I decided to change my blog themes from three columns to two. That means going into the inner workings of my WordPress files and learning something about PHP (a scripting language for building web sites) and becoming more adept at CSS (Cascading Style Sheets). When I developed my sites last year, I took an open source theme and hacked around until my site looked the way I wanted it to. The resulting coding wasn’t very elegant, and I knew someday I would have to spend a lot of time understanding how to do it correctly. That time is now. It’s a big job, but I’m breaking it down into bite-sized pieces and am learning a lot. Being confused in the process is a small price to pay for a bit more mastery. All it takes is the courage to be confused and the courage to be patient.
What about you? Are you trying something new at the moment? How do you feel about it? Please share your experience in the comments section.
Thanks to bikehikebabe for commenting on last week’s post.
November 25th, 2007 — Stress Trap
Preparing for the holidays is a great time to practice our stress-management skills. It’s easy to slip out of our optimal stress zone into being overly stressed…where we feel frazzled, waste energy in nervous tension, and lose our effectiveness. I slipped into this state this past week…I had an attack of the “hurry sickness”, that stressful feeling that there’s too much to do and not enough time to do it. Taking action doesn’t make the tension go away…when I’m working on one thing part of me is worrying about the ten other things I’m not doing. I have this feeling that I have to move faster and faster to keep up.
To me that’s a signal to step out of the stress trap. My favorite strategy right now may seem strange: I start by getting on my Nordic Track treadmill and play some Sudoku. On first glance that might seem like a time waster, but it works for me. It stops those racing feelings in my mind by focusing on something else, and the physical activity releases the tension in my body. (I’ve fixed up a stand on my treadmill to hold reading material/puzzles, so I can also use my arms in the exercise.)
Once I’ve cleared my mind and relaxed my body, I get out a pencil and some paper and write down my “possibility” list…all those items that have been going through my mind. I look at each one and decide where to put it in my time-management system:
- Do it,
- Delay it,
- Ditch it, or
- Delegate it.
The question I ask as I look at each item is “What do I do with this in the spirit of the season…with feelings of love, joy and generosity of spirit?” Once I look at the list from that viewpoint, the answers are usually easy.
So that’s my strategy. A friend of mine does something similar, only she brews a hot cup of tea and listens to music as she makes her list. And some people have the opposite problem, their problem is loneliness rather than too much to do. What about you? How do you handle the holidays? Please share your experiences in the comment section.
Monkey picture by amateur_photo_bore via Flickr. Creative Commons license.
Sudoku photo by psd via Flickr. Creative Commons license.
Photo of girl writing by youngdoo via Flickr. Creative Commons license.
Thanks to Galba and bikehikebabe for commenting last week.
Related posts: The Stress Trap, The Stress Trap Redefined.
October 21st, 2007 — Stress Trap
For every problem
under the sun,
There is a solution
or there is none.
If there is one,
try to find it.
If there is none,
never mind it.
—Anonymous
Like many words of wisdom, the above poem is easier said than done. And that’s a great reason for blogging, to remind us to keep trying. And that we are not alone.
In a comment to last week’s post Bob mentioned he sometimes gets stuck rehashing a conflict long after it’s over. I’ve been thinking about that a lot this week…for most of us learning to let go is a lifelong challenge.
One thing I use is a list of traits that I’m trying to develop in myself. It’s now included on its own page, Stress-Hardiness Traits, in the menu on the left. I review that list often and check to see where I’ve integrated it into my life and where I need more practice. It’s a big help reminding me of the bigger picture and of what I’m aiming for in life. It’s the day-to-day practice that prepares us for challenges.
I also use a powerful image to help me let go. It’s of how hunters in Asia used to trap monkeys. They would hollow out a coconut, leaving a hole just big enough for a monkey to slip its hand in, but not big enough for the monkey to pull its fist out. The hunters would then attach the coconut to a tree with a rope and put a sweet treat in the hole. When a monkey came by it would smell the treat, reach in with its hand to grasp it, and get trapped. It was incapable of letting go.
So whenever I get stuck I think of myself as that monkey, keeping myself trapped because I can’t let go. Being able to see myself from that outside perspective helps me see the situation more clearly, and eventually I’m willing to let go of the trap and get on with my life.
What about you? How do you you let go? This site is about sharing, so please tell us your thoughts in the comments section. I especially invite Bob and Galba to continue this discussion.
Photo by RomuloArrais via Flickr. Creative Commons license.
May 23rd, 2007 — Stress Trap
Last Monday Ronni Bennet at Time Goes By described a nightmare trip home on an airline. The whole tone of her post was just the opposite of yesterday’s post here. It was primarily complaining about the airlines. I suppose I wouldn’t have minded so much if she had at least taken some responsibility for her feet hurting. It had been her choice to wear impractical shoes.
I posted the following comment:
“The airlines are in trouble, so I’m afraid things are not going to get better soon. They’ve been downsizing and the workers are stressed, so don’t expect much catering. I keep thinking of J. K. Rowling’s, ‘Have a stout heart. The worst is yet to come.’
My husband and I won’t fly any more. We can live without it and have too much respect for our dignity.
I’m not sure I agree with your statement:
‘As the population ages in the coming years, air transportation must be improved for those who are slower or disabled.’ I’m only a couple of years older than you and can still remember the time when flying was not an entitlement. I’m not convinced it should be today. We all might be better off if we simplified our lives and reduced our expectations/demands.
In the meantime, good luck! I hope you wear more sensible shoes next time. When I used to travel as part of my work about 20 years ago, we always wore running shoes at airports. Even then we expected long walks and having to run to catch planes.”
I’m not saying we should never try to change things, but somehow complaining out of a sense of entitlement doesn’t work for me. I want to be doing something constructive to make this world a better place, not just demanding that other people do it for me.
May 21st, 2007 — Stress Trap
In the last post I said the Stress Trap was “when we’re in a new and/or somewhat scary situation and our minds shut down. Our energy is diverted to our muscles so we can either fight or run. That’s not a very helpful reaction to most of the pressures we face in this modern world.”
I’ve been thinking of that a lot. And what I mean by the Stress Trap is much broader than that. My new definition goes more like this:
What is the stress trap? The stress trap is the belief that stress is something that happens to us from the outer world, that we are victims of external circumstances. It is wasting our time complaining about other people and our life circumstances, resenting things that have happened in the past, and scaring ourselves about what might happen in the future.
Stepping out of the stress trap is doing our best to see things clearly and adopting the attitude, “That’s the way things are, so what am I going to do about it?” Stepping out of the stress trap is taking responsibility for our lives. Responsibility doesn’t mean blame, it simply means choosing our response. And, hopefully, it means choosing a response that will lead to more effectiveness and joy.
What do you think?
May 20th, 2007 — Stress Trap
A friend of mine, who hasn’t had much experience with computers, has been learning some software for editing and sending photos via e-mail. She managed to send a whole slide show last night, and we were both celebrating her success.
Then this morning she was going to ask me to send them to her husband, when he pointed out she could do it herself. That was one of those “Duh!” experiences when our mind gets stuck and it takes us a while to see the obvious. As she said, “Amazing, how anxiety turns the mind rigid. I see that all the time in clients.”
And that’s what exactly what I mean by the stress trap. It’s when we’re in a new and/or somewhat scary situation and our minds shut down. Our energy is diverted to our muscles so we can either fight or run. That’s not a very helpful reaction to most of the pressures we face in this modern world. Tomorrow we’ll start discussing more helpful responses.
