Rainbows Happen: Thoughts on Living and Dying

Reducing stress idea - Don't facilitate crap

Most of us have been raised to facilitate conversations. Little things like nodding the head or saying, "you're not kidding," or "that must have sucked," or "I know what you mean." These things all imply that you want the person to keep talking. It's hard to break that habit but break it we must if we want the perpetual bitchers to shut up.

Now don't get me wrong, a direct "Shut up," has its place but I really think it should be a last resort. Just don't facilitate misery or crap. Don't give eye contact when the same old b.s. is coming down the pike. When they're done with a line or two or twenty of bitching, change the subject. Don't even link the new subject to whatever the person said. Just change the subject.

One of the nice things about short attention spans is that many times the person will just go with you. They'll forget what the hell they were talking about. I once had a second year teacher tell me she would have rather had lunch outside, naked, in a windstorm than eat in the teacher's lounge where she worked. I have always thought that wouldn't it be nice if the bitcher was the one leaving the room. I'm not against just telling the person who is the perpetual bitcher that you would rather not talk about that stuff. That's probably the most mature, adult thing to do. And it probably will blow up in your face. If you want my opinion save that for the second to last option before "Shut up."

You're probably thinking that would be great if it wasn't for the fact that almost everybody is a perpetual bitcher. Even though it seems that way sometimes, I don't really think that's true. I think that for many people it is just a habit and if one or two people keep changing the direction into something beyond bitching many people will follow. And if they don't change, don't bitch to me about it. I'll be talking about that great sunset I saw.

www.mystresscoach.com

Perhaps the root cause of stress. . .

Dr.Rachel Remen wrote in her book My Grandfather's Blessings, "Perhaps the root cause of stress is not overbearing bosses, ill-behaved children, the breakdown of relationships. It is the loss of a sense of our soul. If so, all the ways in which we have attempted to ease stress cannot heal it at the deepest level. Stress may heal only through the recognition that we cannot betray our spiritual nature without paying a great price. It is not that we have a soul but that we are a soul."

What a powerful perception. I have thought for a long time we have trivialized the whole concept of stress, especially with the "manage your stress" mantra. I keep saying that going to a class to learn how to manage your stress is like going to a class to learn how to be organized with your misery. We need to rethink our approach not just to stress but to life itself. I agree with Remen. Stress is more than just stuff out there. It is deep and it is profound. And it isn't about turning into a fundamentalist "whatever". I hate that we seem to get stuck in the idea of either/or. I don't believe reconnecting to our soul means we have to believe any particular religious dogma. If it helps fine, but it isn't necessary in my opinion.  And we can talk about psychological things and behavioral things we can do to help us with our stress. I do that all the time and I think they can be helpful. But if that is all we do and we neglect our spirit, our soul, we are like a technically great concert pianist who just doesn't seem to "get it" on the deeper level.

I think what we need to do is put the fragments back together. We are a soul that has splintered.We are Humpty-Dumpty and we are looking for "all the kings' men" - the superficial cures - often cloaked in psychological and religious terms to put us back together again. We seem reluctant to do the work ourselves. This work, I believe should be on rediscovering our integrity. Most of us think of integrity in relationship to the idea of being an honest person. But there is a much deeper meaning. Integrity refers to a wholeness. It is about being whole, of putting our pieces together, of being honest and true to ourselves.

Feeling tense, harried, put upon etc. is not what stress is - at least the stress that I, and I believe Remen are talking about.  It is about being fragmented and not knowing which way to go. Because we are fragmented we have lost our way. And what makes it worse is that there a lot of people out there who will tell you they know the way - - for sure - - no doubt about it. You don't have to think anymore or explore. Just follow like sheep. In fact if someone gives you suggestions and they begin with "Just". . . start running away - Just stay positive. Just let go and let God. Just believe in yourself. You don't have to turn into little Sigmund Freuds, but you have to be willing to get involved in your life. And getting involved is more than a "just." You have to be willing to experience your life. You have to be willing to be open so that you can experience your life. Someone once said that the most important thing we can do is wake up. Perhaps waking up will help us put our soul together again. Perhaps.

Whining our lunch away

You sit down at lunch and somebody joins you. Within about 10 seconds what are most people doing? Bitching! People love to bitch. Have you ever been to lunch and people are "one-upping" each other? "You think your morning was bad? I'll give you bad." I have seen people leave the lunch room basically going, "I won lunch!" We get off on suffering - not 9/11 or cancer suffering but the day to day grind. "You don't know my boss." "Oh my god it was a nightmare today."

What we love to say now is that we were "venting." "Oh, it's good to vent. If you don't get it out it just eats away at you." Well if you are going to a counselor then it is good to get it out and WORK ON IT! But most of the time when we vent we just get it out and then put it back in for tomorrow. We don't do squat with it of any use. Would you like it if somebody came up to your lunch table every day and threw up on it? I would imagine that wouldn't go over very well and when you saw the person coming you would say get away from here. And if they said that they always felt so much better when they threw up you would probably encourage them to go to another table. "Feel better over there." When people are bitching they are throwing up on each other. It's a gross description but we have to see it that way to start thinking about stopping it. "Venting" doesn't sound so bad. "Vomiting" doesn't sound so good.

But it takes courage to stop the bitching and whining. If you don't think so, next time you're at lunch and everybody is doing it, you be the one to say, "Hey come on. Let's not be negative today. Let's be positive." And watch your friends turn on you like sharks at a feeding frenzy. "Ohhh. Mother Theresa's alive." You know they'll go for your throat or at best think you're just nuts. Bitching is entrenched. Don't go there. Change the subject. Eat alone. Don't just follow. Here's a little song I wrote about it. See if it resonates.

There is no stress "out there"

How many times did you hear during the holiday season about how stressful the holidays are. "Christmas just drives me crazy." This all comes from our distorted belief that “stress” is somehow “out there” in the world and not a result of our thinking processes. Stress is a word that supposedly reflects a physiological state whereby certain hormones are kicked into the system affecting certain organs. Nowadays stress is this nebulous force out there in the world. We are “under stress” and “coping with stress” and dealing with “stressful jobs” and “stressful holidays.”

Stress isn’t out there. All that is out there are situations. They might be situations we like or don’t like, but whether we have this adverse "stressful" physiological reaction happening in us depends on how we think about those situations. Now I know you’ve heard this before. There are a lot of writers and speakers who sort of talk the talk – that we must be responsible for our lives etc. But when push comes to shove they still talk the talk of victims. “How did that make you feel?” is a favorite question of parents and counselors. They think they are really doing a good job of getting to your feelings. The only problem is that the question implies that the event totally controlled your reaction. Wrong. Or here's one, "Stress is part of life. The only people who don't have stress are dead people." The first time I heard that 30 plus years ago I thought, "There's a hell of a choice. Stress or dead." It's a stupid statement.

I have worked with people in all types of tragic circumstances including people who have had their children murdered. Some people stay angry and hateful and bitter, and they obviously can make a good case for that. Others however choose not to go in that direction. One person told me and a group of survivors I was talking to that it finally dawned on him after waking up every day for ten years and hating the person who killed his daughter that she deserved better than that from him. He said that she hadn't lived all those years just for him to hate someone.

Power is about choices. If you don’t see the choices you don’t see the power.

If you are going crazy around the holidays, the odds are you are trying to meet some type of expectations either from others or from yourself. But don’t get me wrong. If you start defying those expectations you will get some flack. Count on it. However if you don’t make changes you will eventually be a reflection of B.B. King’s song, “The Thrill Is Gone.”

I guarantee you though, that if you keep blaming the holidays or your boss or your car as stressful you will be stuck until you die. However if you start to accept some responsibility for your inner life, you will begin to see that the way you think is triggering most of your stress response.

I realize that changing the way you think is very difficult. When I speak about this at my presentations I sometimes have people say, “Easier said than done.” Well, duh! It is easier said than done. But difficult is not impossible. It’s just difficult.

If you are tired of your holidays being a mess, make different choices. Just because you're screwed up don't blame Christmas. Don't get me wrong this isn't Dr. Phil just saying "Get over it." This is hard to do. The first time you do this your holiday or your marriage or your life in general still might not be great, but you will start to feel a certain sense of power coming back. Take back your holidays. Take back your life.

Pay attention to the words you use

Pay attention to the words you use when you are describing your life or situations in your life. The more you use words like terrible, horrible, awful and other more colorful and possibly crude descriptions the more you make the situation worse. Remember that words don't just describe situations, they create them. You have other choices to pick from. How about difficult? How about instead of "This next week is going to suck," or "tonight is going to be horrible," try "Next week is going to be very difficult," or "tonight is going to be a real challenge."

I know. You want to gag. Who talks like that? I've heard those suggestions before and thought the same thing. But part of the reason I thought that was because the people making the suggestion just stopped there. They made it sound like that if you just use a different word everything will be fine. That's stupid. It's not about using the word at any specific time. It's about the cumulative effect of using certain words.

If you're always using words like terrible and horrible you start to create a misery environment for yourself and others around you. And that environment has a life of its own! It's not just about saying a different word, it's understanding the power of the words. Do you think there is a difference between difficult and terrible? If I came up to you and said I have a couple of jobs for you to pick from; one is difficult and one is terrible, do you think you might notice the difference in the words? Neither job may sound fun, but terrible has some things floating around that difficult doesn't. Over a period of time that difference becomes noticeable in how you live your life.

It isn't about "magical" thinking. It's about creating an environment. If you let your house become full of garbage, it becomes an unpleasant place to be. If you keep filling your days with verbal garbage you create another type of mess. Pay attention to your words. Don't make things worse than they are.

Easier said than done

Many motivational speakers make it sound so easy to just turn your life all around. For example, if you have been negative all the time, why just quit it. That sure was easy wasn't it? I travel around the country and talk about stress and personal power and a variety of other intra and inter personal situations to businesses, schools, health care instituations and other organizations. I constantly remind my participants that everything I say is easier said than done. It is incredibly difficult to change directions in your life. If you have developed a way of looking at things over a period of many years, it just isn't going to change on a dime. I think that message needs to be conveyed so that people don't think themselves the biggest losers on earth because they seem to be having trouble changing things for themselves. "Get over it," is a popular phrase today. And yes, eventually if you hold onto anger or sadness long enough it will become very destructive. But just saying get over it is an arrogant approach, and one which is lacking in compassion. Don't get me wrong, when I worked in therapy, I could be very tough on my clients, challenging their thinking, behavior and a variety of other things. Getting over it can be tough and that needs to be acknowledged as strategies start to unfold. Some people however try to hide behind "easier said than done." Sometimes in my talks an audience member would say that as if to just wipe out everything I had been talking about. My response to that type of thinking is, "Yes it is difficult. But difficult is not impossible - just difficult." So don't give up if you're struggling, whether you are discouraged with yourself, or the problem. Find someone to work with you and believe in you.