your earlier adult life.
One woman, Rosemary H., felt stressed every time her queue in the supermarket was not the fastest. By using various techniques that are described later in this book, she came to realize that this reaction stemmed from a feeling that if she was served last she was not getting the attention she deserved, and this in turn meant that she was not good or important enough. This came from a childhood where she was the youngest of four and her older siblings were always calling her stupid simply because she, being three years younger than the youngest of them, could not keep up.
When she understood this and realized how many things she had achieved in her life, she was able to develop the assurance she needed to be ready to drop the belief that she was not good enough. Her feelings of stress in queues then evaporated. Instead she spent the time usefully in thought and contemplation, or took something to read with her so the time in the queue wasn’t wasted.
Another woman felt stressed every time she thought about the fact that her husband, a senior executive laid off in the recession, was no longer supporting her. The money was not the issue – they had reserve assets and his golden handshake. Her problem was a subconscious belief that if he didn’t make the effort to go out and look for another job, hard to get at his age, and if he didn’t actively work to support her, he didn’t care, if he didn’t care then he didn’t love her, if he didn’t love her she was no longer part of the loving and nurturing relationship that she craved.
Her stress came from the underlying fear of not being loved and nurtured, not from the more obvious cause of having a non-working husband. The stress she felt both caused her direct distress and led to overeating. This increased her weight which in turn made her feel more stressed, inadequate and unlovable. Once she identified the real problem she was able to discuss it with her husband.
The solution was not for him to go out and work again but rather for him to show her how much he loved her. Even more importantly, she had to develop her own sense of self-worth since, without that, all the loving he gave her would be insufficient for her to feel secure in that love. Resolving her beliefs about being inadequate and unlovable helped her to deal with the situation and reduce her experience of stress. She was then able to enjoy the free time her husband had and they started to share a number of hobbies. In the long run her recognition of the underlying problem brought them closer together.
Learning how to look at the subconscious beliefs that make you respond to outside events and experiences in a manner that you label ‘feeling stressed’ can lead you to a number of positive results. Provided you act on what you learn, are willing to change and to put the information to good use, it can take the stress out of your life, increase your self-respect and self-confidence, increase your positive plans and improve the outlook for the future.
4 Be willing to change what you are doing if what you are doing is not working and has not been generating the desired result.
Have you ever seen anyone beating their head against a brick wall? Unless they are mentally ill, if they beat their head against a brick wall and it hurts they will soon stop doing it. Yet at the emotional level this is what many people do for much of their lives and it leads to enormous stress. They continue in behaviour patterns that result in rows, in disappointment, in irritation and frustration, in boredom, in being let down. Sometimes they even realize what they are doing yet refuse to change; more often they don’t.
Harold sat across from me telling me about his ulcers and how stressed he felt every day. He ran a small retail business, a delicatessen and a takeaway food bar with lunch-time catering. He was very successful but at great cost to his health. The work was intense all morning as the staff got the food bar ready for the lunch-time crowd and for the regular orders to be delivered to nearby offices. Then came the lunch-hour rush when everyone wanted their sandwiches or take-away food in a hurry. Once or twice a week there would be a sudden phone call during the morning for a rush order of 50 sandwiches to be delivered by one o’clock to an office that was not on the regular list, or for a double order to be delivered to one of the regular customers. This upset Harold’s routine and caused him enormous stress. So much so that he blamed the stress of his job for everything else that went wrong in his life and for his ulcer.
‘There is nothing I can do. How can I stop feeling stressed? I shout at the staff and tell them to work harder but they won’t. They don’t seem to care, and it all comes back to me.’
Was he willing to put on more staff? No, that cost too much money. Was he willing to look for better staff? No, that took too much time, he worked non-stop as it was. Was he willing to tell people their orders had to be in by nine o’clock? No, he might lose customers. Was he willing to sell up and find a more routine business? No, this was not the time to sell. He had just built the business up and started to make good money.
Harold was not willing to change. As I asked him to consider other options all he could focus on was the reasons why there was no alternative to his present actions.
Stop beating your head against a brick wall and be willing to change. If you are not, then you must ask yourself why you are not, what benefit you are getting from your present course of action. Harold was not willing to change. Ultimately that is an individual’s right, but it does not lead to a reduction in stress.
Christina’s problems were with her boss and her family and the demands that, she felt, they each made on her time. Her boss kept giving her work to do at the end of the day with the result that she stayed back to complete it, missed her express bus home and got in too late to cook dinner for a tired and irate husband who had arrived home an hour earlier and for two teenage children who were no help around the house. She told me that her job was stressful, so was the boss, so was the travelling, so was her husband who expected her to do all the housework as well as her job and so were the children who wouldn’t help. She had plenty to say, to me, to her boss, to her husband, to the children and to anyone who would listen about the problems they and other people caused in her life. But what she was saying and what she was doing weren’t working. Her words and her deeds did not change the amount of stress she experienced.
She had told her boss repeatedly that she had to have the last letters before three o’clock so she could get them typed and finished and get the express bus home. She had told her husband she couldn’t help being late, it was the boss’s fault. She had told the children over and over again that it was time they did some of the chores round the house. She kept talking. It wasn’t working. But she kept doing it.
What she really wanted was for them to change. The real solution was for her to change. She could either change her job or change her reactions or change the way she handled things. If she didn’t she could continue as she was and complain and feel stressed. Until she was ready to change she would feel stressed, no matter what changes occurred externally. Like Harold, she had to be willing to change. In addition, she had to be willing to take responsibility for the way things were and not to blame everything on the other people involved.
We will follow Harold and Christina’s stories as we move to the next point.
5 You are responsible for all that happens, and has happened, in your life. Be willing to assume that you are in total control. Be willing to give up victim status.
There is a definite pleasure, for many people, in being badly done by, in having something to complain about and in getting sympathy for their hard lot in life. You may prefer getting sympathy to relying on people liking you for yourself. You may feel that other people will be more tolerant, more kindly, more generous if you yourself have something to complain about and are deserving
