From Stress to Success: 10 Steps to a Relaxed and Happy Life: a unique mind and body plan. Xandria Williams
Читать онлайн книгу.
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 of sympathy. You may feel ashamed or guilty if everything in your own life is going smoothly.
Does this apply to you? If the answer is yes then congratulations for recognizing a behaviour pattern that you can now change to your advantage. If you think this does not apply to you then ask yourself when did you last tell someone about something bad that happened to you. What was your motive in telling them? Were you seeking attention, sympathy, a ready ear? What was your goal? Why did you want to be seen as a victim?
Harold enjoyed being a victim. He, in some perverse way, enjoyed having things to complain about. Later on I spoke with his wife who worked with him and she said he seemed to thrive in the mornings. If things were going wrong he could complain of the terrible time he was having. If things were going smoothly and all the work was getting done he complained at the lack of orders and what that would do to their income. She also told me that Harold’s father had been the same and that he had, ultimately, been a successful man.
‘I really think that Harold feels he can only be successful if he is worked off his feet. Also,’ she said with rare insight, ‘I think he feels guilty at how well we are doing and how much money he is making and only feels he has deserved it if he has suffered to get it.’
Until Harold is willing to make changes in his attitude and give up the need for victim status he will continue to feel stressed and continue to have and get ulcers, whatever medication, drug-based or natural, he takes to help him in the short term.
Christina’s response was different. Initially she complained that it was not her fault that she felt stressed. It was the fault of her boss and the way he did his work, the fault of the children who would not help to prepare dinner and the fault of her husband who did not earn enough so that she could work less. She was a victim and relished the complaining this allowed her, the sympathy it earned her and the limelight that fell on her.
When she decided to accept that she was responsible she also learnt that she did have the ability to change things and to control the situation. After some sessions during which we explored her options and her fears, she was ready to change. She talked with her boss and explained the situation to him and told him that from the following Monday she would leave on time, no matter what work he gave her to do late in the afternoon. She told the children that they would have to take care of their own rooms and their own clothes and her husband that, if he wanted her to work full time, he would have to help with dinner or they wouldn’t eat.
The results surprised her. Her boss did not sack her. After two days of letters not sent on time he reprogrammed his work so she could have them typed and completed by the time she was supposed to leave. After a week of having no clean or ironed clothes to wear, the children got the hang of putting their dirty clothes in the washing machine and after only one evening with bread and cheese for dinner her husband started to prepare the vegetables and have things ready for when she got home. Since she was now able to catch the