This time of year can be stressful… and this year as a whole has led to a strange series of stressors that we never could have planned for. It’s been different, that’s for sure…though it has given me the opportunity to ask more questions and start to look at what really helps to get us through times of stress.
When I found myself stressed, there are a few things that really help to get me out of the yucky, overwhelmed, cranky state. Here’s a few of the things I have used to choose beyond stress and start having ease again:
- Ask, “Who does this belong to? Is it mine or someone else’s?” So much of what we are perceiving as our thoughts and feelings aren’t actually ours. We are like sponges and pick up on so much from the world around us. When we acknowledge that what we are perceiving doesn’t actually belong to us, it can help it lighten up. If you ask this question and you get the sense that it’s someone else’s, you can just say, “Return it to sender” and see what changes.
- Ask, “If this wasn’t a problem, what possibility could it be?” See what comes up, if anything. Don’t try to figure it out, just see if any awareness comes to you. If we weren’t always looking for the problem, we have the choice to see the possibilities, and can have gratitude for the things that on first glance look like a problem to be solved.
- Go outside and breathe in fresh air and connect with nature. Put your hands on a tree or admire a cloud or put your bare feet on the ground. Even if it’s 5 minutes. It can be an instant mood booster and give your head a second to clear out the yuck.
- Destroy and uncreate everywhere you are using stress as a way to prove that you are doing it right, getting it right or as a way to fit in. How many people are feeling stressed right now and you have convinced yourself that if you are not stressed out, you must be missing something? Or you must not care enough? Would you be willing to let that go? What if it’s possible to be doing whatever is required from a space of relaxation rather than stress and overwhelm?
- Stop and breathe. Expand out. Close your eyes. Try to find the outside edges of you. Not your body, but your being. Can’t? That’s because you are an infinite being. Expand your awareness beyond the room you are in, to the whole building, to the town, the state/province, the country, the Earth… see how far out you can expand your awareness. Take a few deep breaths in. Less the stress fade and relax into being.
I have a stress relief call on January 11, 2021(Less Stress, More Joy). I’d love for you join me. What if life could be so much more joy than we’ve ever acknowledged, and stress was only an interesting point of view?
