The Roots of Stress
Stress manifests from one source and that is the maintenance of your story(s).
We each have a story of who we are … AND … You are not that story.
To complicate things, you didn’t consciously create all of the story, much of the story you accepted from your family and the culture you grew up in without a thought. Think about your ideas around grieving and death, typically these are absorbed from your cultural surroundings growing up, unchanged until you are personally effected. This is not wrong it is just how the self develops.
Stress develops when our story and reality diverge. The farther apart they are the greater the stress.
If we are successful at re-inventing our self as things change, life is fairly stress free and fulfilling. Many of us had a couple decades of career growth where this was true. We parlayed one story into the next, we were told and told everyone, we were growing. As the economy changed and corporate environment shifted, we found no motivation to re-invent ourselves in a direction we considered un-growth.
White collar stories don’t accommodate being happy as the cheese guy at Whole Foods.
As an aside, I chose this example because I know a guy who went from CEO to cheese guy and is quite happy.
Un-knotting the psyche and psychology of the story is a long arduous process, it is much easier to just see through the whole story business and drop it. Get in touch with your true self. Contemplative practices are good for this, but are not really convenient in our culture. This doesn’t mean you should not learn from them however. First, there is enough data available by googling these days to accept it is true. Secondly, you do not have to leave your cultural comfort zone; Brain Science, Quantum Mechanics, Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Sufism, etc… all have material for you.
Loosening your grip on the current story allows the efforts you make to go toward moving forward on a new plan.
The first steps to moving forward on a new plan is to determine what is no longer serving you.
You may already have an idea or two, but I encourage you to grab a coffee or beer and make a list of all the relationships you have in life. These can be people or jobs or hobbies or even habits. As you write them, observe the immediate hit of thinking of them put a + or -. Some you wont even be able to write on a piece of paper. How can you face changing ‘Spouse -’ or ‘Career -’ if you can not even write them down? even on a bar napkin you will destroy in a few moments.
Focusing on the ‘Friends +’ or ‘Workmates +’ and limiting minus interactions maybe awkward at first, but will change your perspective fairly quickly with little upset. Observing the change there will give you the courage to tackle the bigger minuses.
You may be surprised to find those big minuses in your life are just as anxious for change as you are.
Empower yourself to write a new screen play where you lead the interesting and fulfilling life you desire.
May your life go well
