It’s a hot topic, right? Don’t get stressed. Are you stressed? How do you feel less stress? Reduce stress! Live stress-free, and on and on and on. Here’s a simple explanation of stress. Think about it. If you think life should be one way and it is another way, the space in between those two thoughts is called stress. Different things stress different people and people handle stress in many different ways. The trick to reducing stress is to narrow the space between the two lines (see video below). That involves either changing your expectations or changing your life. Easier said than done, but possible, and it doesn’t take a pill to do it. What’s wrong with a pill, you ask? Maybe nothing, but for many of us, we’d prefer to work on the deeper issues rather than medicate ourselves. We like to know there are choices, which there are!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KA2Cfee_JPA&feature=youtube_gdata
What is stress?
The Extension Cord
Do you ever get into that black and white thinking, certain there are only two choices to a given situation? It’s not unusual with my clients, and since they normally hate either choice, they feel trapped and stuck, unable to move forward. Normally, when I think there are only two choices, I remember there’s grey and look for more options which are almost always lurking around the corner. So it was a surprise to me to realize that I had fallen into the trap while on my road trip, and hadn’t realized that was the situation. My husband and I were laughing about how I worked so hard to either find a campsite that had an electrical outlet near the picnic table OR find a campsite where the table wasn’t so far from the outlet that I could physically maneuver the table (with great difficulty) closer to the outlet. There I was, in that old either/or, black or white thinking. My husband asked me why I didn’t simply buy an extension cord, and the suggestion caught me completely by surprise. It was so simple and so obvious and so do-able, but it had never occurred to me. I had limited my options in my mind and had forgotten that there could be a “grey” choice.
Often those “grey” choices aren’t quite as easy to find, but they do exist. If you’re stuck between a rock and a hard spot, it might help to tell someone else your thinking and ask for their help to find more options. Surely, there will be “an extension cord” just around the corner for you, too.