making your journey one that doesn’t add to your stress:
1. Allow more time than you think you need. People often create their own stress by not doing this.
2. If you can avoid peak traffic times then maybe that’s a better use of your time. I always prefer to get somewhere an hour early and work from there rather than sit in traffic. It’s not always possible I know, but if it is it’s well worth the extra effort.
3. Go out of your way to be generous to others when travelling. Seriously! This will transform your journey, let alone theirs.
4. Music? Podcast? Audio book? Silent thinking time? What is the best way for you to enjoy your journey? I have to say I am not an advocate of listening to anything engaging or of chatting on the phone (hands free) while driving, particularly in heavy traffic, because I believe focus is best spent on driving. That said, road and traffic condition depending, enjoy your ride!
5. If you get stuck in traffic, or your means of transport is delayed, try not to be in resistance of this fact. It is what it is. The best you can do is stay cool, calm and collected so that when you do eventually arrive at your destination, albeit late, you are still cool, calm and collected. Best to arrive in that state, ready to be effective and fully present, than to arrive as a frazzled mess that is completely mentally scattered. It’s obvious I know, but how often do you arrive somewhere late in a totally stressed-out, scattered state? Late and calm is way better than late and stressed.
# The hack
Your journey is your choice. Own your state of being and do everything that you can to make your journey a stress-free one. Breathe. At the very least, your journeys can become non-adversarial, and at best they can be a really enjoyable part of your day. Even if you don’t like travel, you don’t have to be at war with it.
If you have been doing the essential hacks in Part 1, you have started to create positive momentum. You have been breathing a bit of space into your life. Every time you feel anxious, depressed, stuck, hurt, lost or stressed, continue to say to yourself the three essential words from Part 1: this can change.
Part 2 is about taking back control. It’s about recognizing how stress affects you personally and identifying your default fight, flight or freeze response, along with what you can do about it. It will help you to look the cause of your stress in the face and give you the tools to start dealing with it. You will start to take charge of your diary, stop getting sucked into other people’s stuff and learn to navigate any awkward conversations that might be long overdue. Ultimately, it’s about getting your life back.
The theme of Part 2 will be to ask yourself:
What needs to change? What can I do to change it?
Let me just put this out there now – not all stress is bad. In fact, we actually like some of it because, as humans, we enjoy overcoming challenge. Stress is created when there is a gap between the challenge we face and our ability to meet it.
Positive stress is felt when there is a challenge that might take us out of our comfort zone but we have an overall sense that we will handle it. We recognize the gap and feel equipped to close it. We love working towards something and such challenges can be exciting and energizing. They give a sense of purpose in life and a reason to get out of bed. When we handle a challenge well, it gives us a sense of achievement. It builds our confidence to face future challenges; even spurring us on to seek them out.
Negative stress, on the other hand, is a sense of feeling overwhelmed with the challenge we face. It arises when we don’t feel equipped to close the gap and meet it. Money worries, unrealistic deadlines, impossible targets or relationship issues are all examples of things that might create negative stress. The effect of negative stress in our lives can be demotivating and exhausting, and it can diminish our confidence to face future challenges. Most importantly, it gets in the way of us being the amazing human beings that we can be.
Stress affects us all differently. It becomes apparent in the day-to-day choices we make; in our lack of patience; the way that we drive; and in the way we take our loved ones for granted. It shows in our aches and pains, our chronic ailments and our appetite. When we are stressed, an underlying tension sits under everything that we do, whether we see it or not.
Most people get stressed sometimes; it’s part of life. The problem arises when we aren’t equipping ourselves to meet our challenges. Stress can sneak up on us through the accumulative effect of the many small demands of daily life. Singularly, each of these demands would be no problem but when several begin to accumulate, they can tip us over the edge. It can be a blurred line between coping and not coping. As I am sure you can relate to, even when we recognize that we are stressed it can be tempting to ignore it. We are often too busy or too scared to delve into the real cause of stress and take the actions that would be required to address it. Dealing with the ongoing trickle of daily-life stress will help you to avoid reaching burnout or breakdown.
We will all face times where life will be extremely challenging, if not totally overwhelming. That’s being human. A bereavement, accident, divorce or moving house are all examples of situations that may overwhelm us. It’s what we do when we are stressed that will make the difference. Some people spend their whole lives either failing to recognize their own stress or trying to ignore it, numb it or mask it. Owning stress is the first step in addressing it. Life isn’t about being stress-free; it is about dealing with stress when it arises, in whichever form that is.
Remember that you are not your stress.
When we are stressed, we are not the people that we want to be. We can become narrow-minded, less generous and less loving. We might become miserable, dissatisfied and impatient. Often we are less creative, less focused and less productive. We know we are more than that. Nobody gets up in the morning intending to have a bad day. None of us set the intention to look for things to irritate or upset us. We don’t intend to pass our stress on to others or to ruin their day. It’s worth remembering that. Stress isn’t something to be ashamed of or embarrassed by. It is something we should own and address. Stress is our call to action – to get whatever help we need to deal with the challenge that we face.
# The hack
Identify the cause of your stress. Is it acute stress from a specific situation? Is it the accumulation of the many demands of daily life? Or is it a mindset or belief like a lack of confidence? It might help to write it down. At the top of a piece of paper start with ‘I get stressed about…’ Just allow yourself to keep writing until you feel that you have emptied it all out onto the paper.
Negative stress causes us to become increasingly on edge. Under stress, we can become emotional, irrational and over-reactive. When stress is left unattended, our whole outlook becomes more negative; we begin to fear the worst in every situation and start to perceive everything as a threat. Eventually, everything has the potential to trigger us into an anxious, angry or withdrawn state.
