them from our loving, true self. When we are stressed we often make choices through fear. This can leave us trapped in a negative cycle of events. Every choice has an effect and is creating the reality we live. That’s why the breath practices (see #hack 4) are so valuable when we are stressed. They help to interrupt any knee-jerk, fear-based reactions and choices and enable us to make more supportive ones.
We only have so much time, and what we choose to spend that time on is more of our choice than we realize. We only have so much energy too, and how we use that is also our choice. Then there is how we spend our money. All of these choices are creating the life we are living. What we think we spend our time, energy and money on and what we actually spend them on are not always in alignment.
What do you actually spend your time, energy and money on?
Is that in alignment with what’s important to you? With the life you want to live? If it’s out of alignment, it isn’t because you mean it to be. It’s because you haven’t taken control of, or owned, your choices. If you, your choices or your life aren’t really how you want them to be, then before you get disheartened know that they can change. Everything can change.
The reason I know this is because I’ve done it myself. I have completely changed my life and who I am. I was previously in a career that I thought was my childhood dream, until the day that it wasn’t. After much denial and avoidance of facing that fact, I had to admit to myself that it was no longer what I wanted. While I could have stayed in it, I knew that it didn’t fit any more. I was becoming more and more unhappy. I also realized that the person I found myself to be was not the one I wanted to be, or even liked. I was often impatient and tunnel-visioned. I could overthink things and become over-reactive and over-emotional. So I set about changing it all. I plunged into self-development and changed my life beyond all recognition. I always had the belief that I could choose my path in life. That gave me the confidence to literally leave one life and start another. I have also always believed that we can change, especially when we want to.
The great thing about living in a world with so many possibilities is that it’s never too late to change direction or to create a lifestyle we wish to have. It’s never too late to change who we are or how we are. From my own experience, I know that it takes effort and a commitment to change and that it’s not necessarily a smooth ride. It starts with taking an honest look at ourselves and our lives, and requires us to become more self-aware. We have to take full responsibility for every choice we make and for how we are responding to life. All of this takes courage and not everyone is up for that. As you are reading this book though, I suspect that you are up for it. Whether you want to be less stressed, don’t like who you are, or you’re living a life that just doesn’t quite fit, you can change it all. I know you can. You just have to choose to.
# The hack
Start recognizing, and owning, that you have a choice. It’s your life. Start to pay attention to what’s driving your choices, and whether you are actually making choices that are in alignment with who you really are. Learn to say yes when you want to, and no when you don’t!
We can’t ignore the pace of life or the volume of information our minds attempt to process every day as potential causes of stress. In the digital world we now live in, we are fast becoming checkaholics and it is getting in the way of our peace, sanity and quality of actual real life. If your smartphone has become the third person in your relationship, the additional child that you focus your energy on, or the extra workload in your day job, then really think about whether it’s worth it.
Have you thought about the amount of extra work your brain has to do just to filter through all of that relentless scrolling? Have you thought about the lost time? I ran a lunchtime session in an organization a few years ago and we were talking about exactly this. One of the participants had said how stressed she was with having too much work to do. When we came onto the subject of smartphones interrupting productivity, someone brought up their screen time app, which this particular participant hadn’t realized she had on her phone. When she checked it she had already been on social media for three hours that day! Now, I doubt very much she had actually sat at her desk for three solid hours on social media. More likely, from the moment she had woken up until this session started, she had been checking her phone in between everything she was doing, or trying to do. By lunchtime she had put in three hours of scrolling.
The constant scrolling that many have become addicted to can leave a feeling of anxiety or dissatisfaction in life. While it is easy to blame work for feeling overwhelmed, we can’t ignore this voluntary overload of mental processing. Keeping up to speed with everything that everyone is doing is wearing us out. We have to question whether this addiction to being connected to everyone in our online world is robbing us of real-life connection. I am not saying it is, but it might be. Becoming addicted to ‘just checking’ creeps up on us until we are filling every spare moment with checking something. Before the emergence of mobile technology, those extra moments were an opportunity to be momentarily still; to pause, to take a breath, to process things happening in the day. If you want to significantly reduce the stress in your life, try going a few weeks without having your phone attached to your every move. After the initial withdrawal symptoms, you will likely feel space and peace opening up in your life that you hadn’t realized were so readily available.
I should also mention emails here too. Detox your emails by unsubscribing to everything that you don’t open or read. Keep your communication succinct when emailing, and don’t forget you have the option to pick up the phone, which can turn ten emails into a two-minute conversation.
# The hack
Pay attention to how much time you spend scrolling on your smartphone. Pay attention to what you spend your time, energy and focus scrolling through. Is it worth it? Do you need to do it? Does it add quality to your life? There’s no right or wrong here: it’s your choice.
Detox your emails.
Whatever means of transport you use, journeys can be stressful. But they needn’t be. It doesn’t seem to matter which way we travel; we are all going to meet busyness and delays sometimes, and that will mean we will at times be late. We have a choice in those moments – to get frustrated and anxious, or to remain calm and make the best of our journey.
When I mention the term road rage, people often get a glint in their eye and appear quite happy to be part of that club. I mean, idiots need telling, right? But think about this for a moment. Road rage is a classic symptom of chronic stress. It makes no logical sense at all to get irate with a stranger that you have likely never seen before, nor will again. It makes no logical sense to further endanger your life by getting right up behind the person that has just pulled out in front of you. No logical sense at all, other than to the stressed-out ego which feels totally justified in its rage.
So the question is this – do you let your frustrations and rage get the better of you or do you choose to own your state of being and do something about it to restore calm? Which is better for your overall sense of peace in life? You honestly don’t need to get involved in anyone else’s driving ability, other than to drive safely yourself and keep out of harm’s way. We don’t need to battle with anyone on our journeys – only our stress does that. In the words of Elsa from Frozen again, next time you get tempted by road rage, see if you have the ability to ‘let it go’. Honestly, it’s transformative, as I have learnt myself.
So
