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Stress to Joy — Your Toolkit for Peace of Mind in Minutes

6 min readMar 20, 2018

Stress to Joy — Sneak Peek

“Stress to Joy — Your Toolkit for Peace of Mind in Minutes” is set to come out soon! As a special “thank you” for reading my blog, I am going to post some of the content you will find in my book. Check back frequently to see what I have shared.

Excerpt from Stress to Joy; Chapter 1:

Do you find that theoretical concepts make more sense when you see how someone is able to apply them in her real life? Let me introduce you to my friends. Sam, Rene, and Natasha share how they were able to apply these tools on their journeys from stress to joy. The steps will be evident within the acronym ACR. What is A? It’s the first step.

Sam

Sam is a single woman in her thirties. She works as a director of finance for a midsize company. She acknowledged one day, when we met at a community gathering, that she was feeling stressed and overwhelmed due to her extra-long commute. She was spending 90 minutes each way, 5 days a week, in addition to more than 10 hours a day at work (a total of more than 65 hours a week). She didn’t have time for exercise or art, which were her usual outlets, and the stress was making her skin condition worse. She wanted to feel happy and stress-free so she could enjoy time with her family.

Rene

Rene is a married woman in her fifties. She works as a mortgage broker. She acknowledged one day on the phone that she was feeling stressed and overwhelmed due to the demands of her many clients. She was meticulous about completing all the paperwork needed to close the mortgages on time. Feeling overwhelmed was affecting her productivity and her frustration tolerance. She was getting irritated with her family. She was stuck in a cycle of emotional eating. When I asked her what she would be doing differently if she was less stressed, she said that she would feel relaxed, work with focus, eat healthily, and enjoy her loved ones. She wanted to change because she valued her work and her family.

Natasha

Natasha is another very good friend of mine. She is a married woman in her forties with three kids, a husband, a highly demanding job in the IT industry, and a very involved community life. On top of those, she is a perfectionist. She acknowledged one day that the stress was causing her back pain and sleep difficulties as her mind kept spinning with issues that worried or angered her. She noticed that she was getting easily irritated with her family and coworkers. She wanted to feel calm again and improve her relationships. She valued her health and her family’s happiness.

These three women were able to start their journeys from stress to joy once they acknowledged where they were, where they wanted to be, and why. Therefore, the journey of transformation from stress to joy starts with acknowledgment.

It seems obvious that you’d need to acknowledge the issue before you can solve it? But you would be surprised how many people go through life without acknowledging their body’s signals. Somehow, we get trained to behave like machines while competing in this meritocratic society. We learn to suppress our feelings.

Many people think that acknowledging the fact that they are feeling overwhelmed or worried is acknowledging that they are weak and cannot handle the pressure. Really? Is it weaker to acknowledge your feelings so you can take steps to improve, or to suppress the feelings until you break down?

Notice, observe, and become aware, so you can acknowledge how you feel. Name your feeling, as these feelings are an indicator of the balance in your Emotional Coping Account.

What is an Emotional Coping Account (ECA)? It is an internal, emotional account that we all have. Your feelings are the alert system for this account. You get alerts from your bank when your bank balance goes below a certain amount. Similarly, when the balance in your ECA drops, you get stress signals in the form of negative feelings. If you don’t attend to it, it starts manifesting in the form of body symptoms. The higher the balance in ECA, the better you feel — the lower the balance, the worse you feel.

You need to respond by taking action. If you are feeling stress and overwhelmed, they are your signals that you may have a low balance in your Emotional Coping Account. Acknowledge them. Tell yourself that it is okay to feel the feelings. You just need to take some steps to bring the balance back to positive.

Question 1: What are your feelings now? Are they indicating a positive or negative balance in your emotional coping account?

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Like any bank account, the balance in this Emotional Coping Account is affected by the amounts of withdrawals and deposits. Everything that makes you feel bad is a withdrawal from this account. This includes all of the outside stressful situations and your reactions that drain you and make you feel stressed. Everything that makes you feel good is your deposit. That includes good things that may happen to you or your internal response in the form of what you feel, say, and do that energize you and make you feel joy.

Withdrawals

Sam’s withdrawals (stressors) were her commuting hours, not eating/drinking/sleeping at the right time, and how she was reacting to her work demands. Rene’s withdrawals were her need to meet the timelines for multiple clients and how she was prioritizing or not prioritizing her time. Natasha’s withdrawals were her multiple demands and her need for perfection leading to a difficult relationship with coworkers and family. These are some of the common stressors most people face.

In research done by the American Psychological Association, American Institute of Stress, NY, published 7/8/2014; people identified the following seven most common stressors:

Job Pressures (tension with coworkers, bosses, and work overload
Money (loss of job, reduced retirement, medical expenses)
Health (health crisis, terminal or chronic illness)
Relationships (divorce, death of spouse, arguments with friends, loneliness)
Poor Nutrition (inadequate nutrition, caffeine, processed foods, refined sugars)
Media Overload (television, radio, the Internet, email, social networking)
Sleep Deprivation (inability to release adrenaline and other stress hormones)

Question 2: What are your withdrawals?

Deposits

For your bank account balance to stay positive, your deposits have to be higher than your withdrawals. You know what happens if your withdrawals increase more than your balance and your deposits don’t grow to match. Your account becomes negative, right? Your checks bounce and you have to pay the penalty. So, what do prudent people do? They make regular deposits and keep a reserve as an emergency fund. For situations when there are unexpected withdrawals, the reserve can save them from going into the negative.

When there is so much happening to us from the outside that’s not in our control, sometimes we forget what is still in our control. Although some of the withdrawals may not be in our control, many deposits are.

Sam identified that art and exercise were her deposits. Rene identified listening to music, writing in her journal, and taking a tub bath as her deposits. Natasha identified that taking some quiet time sitting by her window, meditation, and socializing with her friends were her deposits. She had to be selective about how she socialized since some of her friends consider alcohol as one of their deposits. She knows that although alcohol may temporarily numb her feelings, it also blurs her thinking, causes disinhibition and makes people do things that they regret. Therefore, alcohol is a withdrawal, and not a deposit, in the long run.

Question 3: What are your deposits?

Make a list and keep it in an accessible place, because when you are feeling down it can be hard to remember.

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I can’t put all of chapter one here because that would be a very long article, but the book is coming out soon so you can read the rest when you get your copy!

In this chapter, you will also learn a technique to make your affirmations and visualization work for you without having your rational mind interference.

If you haven’t already, it is not too late to Sign Up to get a free copy of the audio “Relaxation exercise for busy people”, receive notifications of new free gifts, and receive notification when “Stress to Joy” is available for free! Don’t forget to check out my other articles for more tips and tools for stress reduction.