Everyone has a breaking point. For some, it takes quite a lot to get there. I have a handful of friends whom I have never seen angry. I've seen them upset, but not to the point of "get away from me or I'll kill you" angry. It has taken me a long number of years to learn to calm myself down and to extend my breaking point. I used to be one of those "get away from me or I'll kill you" kind of people quite easily. I've never taken meditation or anger management or anything of that nature, but I believe becoming a parent helped a lot in forcing me to step back and reassess the importance of a stressful situation. I didn't want to pass my bad habits on to my kids, so I had to look very carefully at what they were/are seeing in me. Unfortunately, simply being a parent doesn't always solve the issue of how one deals with stress. I'm certainly no expert, but I like to think that along the way, I may have picked up a few good tips.
1. Breathe. Funny how the most obvious answer seems to escape the majority of the population when it comes to stressing out. We seem to want to jump in and immediately react. Human nature, I suppose. But if we take a few moments to breathe - remember the old "count to 10" rule? - we can better focus on what exactly the issue is and how to resolve it.
2. Choose carefully.
This may seem counterintuitive, but I believe one of the best weapons we have against any adversity is to just smile (and breathe, they kind of go hand in hand). I can barely remember what I was doing yesterday, let alone what I was stressing out about a year ago. And that's a good thing! Stress comes, but it also goes away. Most of the time the things that we lose control over, the things that have us super hyper focused for that moment, don't matter for too long. Most of the time, a day, a week, a year, even a few hours after we got all stressed out, the worry has subsided, if not disappeared. Perhaps the situation was resolved. Perhaps it really wasn't such a big deal. Perhaps we just moved on with our life and found something else to think about and focus on. Smile, breathe, do what needs to be done, and continue moving forward.
It's sometimes difficult to truly understand this, but every thing we do is a choice. Do we get ourselves to work on time? Do we feed our families healthy food or junk? How do we behave toward that person we really don't like? Should we dress in jeans or shorts or dress slacks? Sometimes choosing one thing or one thought over another is easy. Sometimes it's habit or subconscious. And sometimes it takes a LOT of effort to choose wisely. Stress is simply caused by us losing control. Choosing the appropriate thoughts to overcome that loss of control definitely takes practice, but is possible to do.
3. Smile.
4. Focus on the now. What can be done? What steps can we take to help move the issue towards resolution? If it's not our direct problem, how can we comfort someone who is being affected? Giving advice may be helpful, but sometimes just being there for someone is more important. I admire one Very Dear Friend of mine very much, because (for one of many reasons) no matter what I rant to him about, he doesn't ask for details. He simply says, "I'm here for you," provides what suggestions he can, and asks me what he can do. Many people, me included, want to know the intricacies of what someone else's problem is. Getting all the juicy details doesn't always make a difference. Figuring out how we can react and what can be done to help the situation is much more progressive.
5. Don't give up.
If you wake up in the morning, you've made it to another day. Whatever it was that felt like it was going to kill you yesterday, didn't. That means we can move ahead, consider how to deal with whatever we will face today, and continue to plow forward. I do believe whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger.
Think. Breathe. Smile. Focus. And no matter what keep moving forward. Stress is just a bump in the road. We can't let it stop us.
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