If your body is tense you can massage it into relaxation. What if your mind is tense? How do you relax that?
It is possible to eliminate stressful thinking and massage your mind into relaxation. This is the second in a series of articles on stress management explaining the simple and practical ways in which you can reduce stress in your life to a level that you can then do something positive about it. Yesterday we covered ways to eliminate sources of unwarranted stress. How did you go?
Journaling creates paths forward
We do not realise how accelerated the rate of our lives has become, or the speed at which we are driving ourselves. Many people are destroying their physical bodies by this pace, but what is even more tragic, they are tearing their minds and souls to shreds as well.
I am quite capable of carrying a lot of stressful thoughts around in my head. The moment when I scream inside is that very moment when my mind and soul tear. I no longer feel as capable as I was before. These are the moments when I most need to have a conversation with myself.
A mind tearing itself to shreds is not capable of having a conversation with itself. You just can’t hear yourself think over the stressful thoughts and as thinking occurs fast there is no chance to interrupt.
Writing your thoughts down is one way of breaking this cycle. I call it journalling and others will say writing in a diary. It doesn’t matter which. What is important is your willingness to pick up a pen and start writing what you are thinking. The lag between the two i.e., the difference in speed at which you think and write, is where the magic occurs.
I frequently journal my thoughts onto paper. Daily if I can, but always when I am stressed. It acts as a pressure valve to get what I really think onto paper and out of my head. Often it doesn’t matter what I write but that I have written something. As I write I listen for the real thoughts which now have space to surface. *Each and every time I do this *I learn something which provides a new path forward. With that my stress is reduced.
So instead of running or going to the gym to relieve stress, take out a pen and exercise with that instead.
The three-fold nature of work
David Allen’s Getting Things Done describes a Three-fold nature of work. Stress can come from being imbalanced across the areas. Take a look and see where your balance lies.
- Doing pre-defined work: This is choosing from what is already on your to-do list and calendar
- Doing work as it appears: Responding to the latest, loudest and new opportunities
- Defining work: Working out what is important, scheduling etc.
If you are stressed it is likely you are working too much in one area or you have conflicts between areas which you are not adequately handling.
Tomorrow: If you don’t affirm yourself now you’ll hate yourself later