How to Harness Your Tension, Fuel your Purpose and find Meaning
STRESS!!! NO! LEAVE ME ALONE !
VALUABLE INSIGHTS AND PROVEN STEPS TO TRANSFORM YOUR STRESS LEVELS
In the whirlwind of today's fast-paced and intense life, it seems almost impossible to go a day without encountering stress. Stress, in essence, is the body's response to a changing environment.
But did you know there are actually two types of stress? Hans Selye introduced the concept of stress having two categories: eustress and distress.
Eustress
Eustress is essential. It is required to ensure maximal growth and development and involves embracing both the supportive and challenging events equally and simultaneously. Eustress is actually wellness promoting and occurs when you're tackling challenges in the pursuit of objectives you love and are inspired by.
Eustress is defined as “ beneficial” stress, both psychological (e.g. learning) and physical (e.g., exercise). Eustress is often a confirmation that you are on track with what is most deeply meaningful and inspiring to you. You are willing and inspired to take on the challenge.
Distress
Distress involves perceiving challenging events without equally and simultaneous supportive events. Distress can erode productivity and initiate apparent chaos in any one or more areas of life.
Distress can be illness promoting and often occurs when you’re pursuing or perceiving an unrealistic expectation or fantasy or attempting to live a one-sided life.
Distress means you may be looking for a positive without a negative, pleasure without pain or ease without difficulty, and as a result get hit by the reality of the opposite side you are trying to avoid.
Distress may also emerge when you find yourself injecting other people’s values into your life and doing what you feel you “should” do instead of what is deeply meaningful and intrinsically fulfilling to you.
Since change is inevitable, we can define distress as the inability to adapt to an ever-changing environment.
There are only two causes for distress. Read that again. There are only two causes for all the distress in our lives.
1. The fear of loss of that which you seek
2. The fear of gain of that which you avoid
That’s it. And these two fears boil down to your perceptions- what you seek, you perceive has more benefits than drawbacks, and what you avoid, you perceive has more drawbacks than benefits. Key word here -perception.
This seek and avoid strategy is a survival mechanism driven from our lower minded amygdala and represent the predator/prey model. For survival, we seek prey and we avoid predator. Anything we perceive supports our values we see as prey and we seek, anything we perceive challenges our values we see as predator and we avoid.
Distress 1: The fear of loss of that which you seek
No doubt, you have had moments in your life where you have been infatuated with an idea, opportunity or individual. In these situations, you may have felt elated or excited, and conscious of their potential upsides while unconscious of their potential downsides. This is your prey.
This skewed perception most likely activated a dopamine impulse in your amygdala - an impulse to strive for or seek that one-sided outcome. As a result, you may have become infatuated with the outcome and begun to fear its loss.
So, the first form of distress that you may have in your life is the perception of loss of that which you infatuate with and seek, that you assume has more positives than negatives. Which, by definition, is a fantasy (also known as philia) that the assumed outcome will have way more positives than negatives, way more gains than losses, way more advantages over disadvantages. This is an illusion.
Distress 2: The fear of gain of that which you try to avoid.
Now look at the same situation when you see a predator. In all likelihood, you will perceive more drawbacks than benefits, more negatives than positives, more losses than gains, and more disadvantages than advantages. You may then try to avoid the predator in order to avoid the second type of distress – the fear of gain of that which you try to avoid.
So, when you have a phobia (nightmare or fear), you are likely to be unconscious of the upsides.
What is key here is that both forms of distress – philia and phobia – result in your full consciousness or mindfulness being split so you only see one side of the situation. This may result in you polarising and destabilising your state of mind, and your resulting mental health and wellbeing. Perceiving a one-sided illusion creates distress.
Distress is the result of a polarisation of perception.
This polarisation of perception can be in any area of life. For example, when you are infatuated with somebody, you are more likely to be blind to the downsides. When you are resentful to somebody, you may be blind to the upsides. When you are infatuated with a job opportunity, you are more likely to be blind to the downsides. When you are resentful to the job demands, you may be blind to the upsides. When you are infatuated with finances coming in, you are more likely to be blind to the downsides. When you are resentful to bills demanding payment, you may be blind to the upsides.
We know that stress is the inability to adapt to a changing environment. We have the greatest inability to adapt when we are rigid with infatuation about how it ‘should’ be or how it used to be, and resentment about how it is. This is called black and white thinking. The more we resent something, the more we fear the gain of it, and the more we are infatuated with something, the more we fear its loss.
Whenever we are in fear, we operate from our amygdala, which skews things and exaggerates further the fantasies and nightmares. We are not as rational, and find it harder to see visions or possibilities, and, not being in our prefrontal cortex, struggle to come up with strategic plans to take the current reality and use it to our greatest advantage.
We are only stressed because of unrealistic expectations; expecting somehow the world being like it used to be, but it’s not, or comparing what is happening right now to a fantasy of how it should be in the future, but it’s not. Wanting reality to be one-sided, but its not. Anxiety or fear are created in your mind – understand the situation you fear, and then become aware that you only fear it because you are assuming there will be more disadvantages to you than advantages.
When you see both sides, the positives and the negatives, and are neutral and objective, you become less likely to fear the loss or the gain. There is less distress because you are in a state of balance and as a result become more resilient and adaptable.
By equilibrating the comparison of what is and what should be, the philias and phobias, governance comes to the executive centre in the brain, the autonomic nervous system balances, which brings physiological wellness. This turns distress into eustress.
Distress emerges when you feel you are unable to adapt to a changing environment.
A balanced perspective enhances your eustress levels
Eustress
As mentioned, eustress is the wellness-promoting type of stress when you embrace both the support and the challenge equally and results in emotional wellbeing, mental health, and greater performance. When you embrace both in a balanced manner, you are less likely to have distress and more likely to grow in certainty.
An intriguing aspect is that the moment you grow more certainty, you tend to make decisions instead of offloading to others, thereby taking command as a leader.
As such, maintaining a balanced perspective enhances your resilience, adaptability, leadership abilities, and capacity for proactive action, emphasising foresight and proactivity over reactive hindsight.
Both your mental health and wellbeing are therefore enhanced to the degree that you can see both sides of an event.
How our unique values are involved with distress
Each of us has a unique set of values, things that are most important and highest on our list of priorities down to things that are lower on our list of values or priorities.
Our hierarchy of values literally dictates the way we perceive our world, make decisions in it and act upon it and therefore governs our destinies and our adaptability to changing environments and therefore stress levels.
If we perceive something to support our values, we label that as ‘good; if we perceive something to challenge our values, we label that as ‘bad’. The label of ‘bad’, the challenge to what is most important to us, is something we try to avoid, and is the root of our distress.
Either we fear the loss of something we require for sustenance (prey) or we feel fear of the gain of something that will interfere with or jeopardise our survival (predator).
However,
"We maximally grow and develop at the border of support and challenge” Dr. John Demartini
This has been biologically demonstrated in every species including our own. We have something that supports us which is the food, the prey that we eat. And we have something that challenges us, the predator that keeps us on our toes. Infatuation and resentment. If we eat too much, we become fat, slow, and easy prey, and die, if we are hunted too much, we become emaciated, weak, and die. We thrive at the border of support and challenge. The balance of predator and prey.
We must have a balance of both in order to continue to grow, adapt and maximally evolve as a species. Therefore, we require both support and challenge in order to adapt to our forever changing environment.
When we have difficulties adapting, we feel stress. When we unrealistically expect supportive without challenging events to occur, we add to our levels of distress. When we unrealistically expect ourselves to avoid challenge to our values and only receive support in our values, we add to our levels of distress.
Both our infatuations and resentments take up space and time in our minds, distracting and clouding our thinking. It is crucial to neutralise the intensity of these in order to gain a balanced and poised state of mind and being.
The stronger our attachments are to our infatuations and resentments, the harder it is for us to adapt and the more chaotic our minds become. Knowing how to calm those attractive and repulsive emotions down can reduce their effects.
Mental wellbeing is the ability to ask questions to stabilise your perceptions and take command of your life again.
"Stress is actually a feedback mechanism to help us to be more authentic, productive and inspired or more balanced or poised with our perceptions." Dr. John Demartini
As such, it is wise to see both eustress and distress as feedback to help you become more authentic, balanced, inspired and fulfilled in your life.
So, what to do to manage this distress….
If you live in alignment and congruent with what you value most you will tend to be the most objective, most resilient, most adaptable, most spontaneous, and most inspired. It’s also when you solve many of our mental health issues.
If you prioritise your life on a daily basis and do the actions that are truly meaningful, inspiring, highest in priority, and highest in productivity you will be least likely to experience poor mental health, emotional distress, and emotional bipolar responses.
So….. steps to transform your stress levels
STEP 1:
Values
Identify your highest value based primary mission and vision – take the time to refine and clarify what your life demonstrates you are really committed to fulfilling.
If you are clear about what you want to dedicate your energies in life to, you’ll be more inclined to take action towards your inspired goals and that you will tend to achieve more and reduce your distress levels
Knowing your highest values enables you to align your life’s actions with the goals and objectives that mean the most to you. Not being aware of your highest values makes it less likely to create a meaningful life and achieve self-mastery.
If you can clarify and get concise about your life’s vision, and begin living congruently with this you are less likely to have distress in life. When you’re clear about what you are committed to, it's easier to say no to things that aren't a priority. This is where you are likely to have the greatest fulfilment, creativity, resilience and adaptability.
Compare this with someone who is wandering around aimlessly and emotionally, feeling anxious by all the perceived dramas of pleasure and pain that surround them. Distractions can be overpowering and form part of distress because you will tend to get side-tracked or distracted instead of sticking to your highest priority at that moment.
This is the difference between eustress and distress.
Any time you are not living by your highest priority or highest value, you tend to increase the probability of distress and distraction.
When you're living by your highest values, on the other hand, you increase the probability of self-governance and look forward to tackling challenges that inspire you resulting in eustress.
It is for this reason that you can reduce distress in your life by clearly defining what you're committed to, what is most deeply meaningful to you, and your primary objective or mission in life and taking high priority action toward fulfilling it daily.
This could be raising a beautiful family, building a business, or committing to a social cause. There are no rules about what it is and no “right” answer it is simply what is truly most meaningful and important to you.
As a side note, it is unwise to compare yourself to somebody else or subordinating to what they perceive your values, mission or vision “should” be. Instead, dig deep inside to discover your intrinsic drive, what's important that you want to dedicate your life to. Look at what your life demonstrates every day that you spontaneously do that nobody has to remind you to do and that'll be a great idea of what your mission is in life. (Determine you values HERE)
STEP 2:
Live by priority
In learning to manage your stress or distress and live by priority, it is wise to ask yourself daily, “What is the highest priority action I can do today to fulfil my primary mission?”
When you live by your highest priority:
You activate the executive centre of your brain.
You become more self-governed and disciplined.
You become more objective.
You become more resilient.
You become more reliable, focused, enthused, inspired, present, certain about your goals, not to mention grateful for your life.
When you choose not to live by priority:
Your day is likely to fill up with low priority distractions that’ll likely leave you feeling frustrated and that you’re not getting much closer to your vision and mission in life.
You're also more likely to live by duty, which means subordinating to the world around you instead of designing and ruling the world around you.
If you would love to be a leader and have more resilience and adaptability, it is essential that you prioritise your life.
If you don't fill your day with challenges and priorities that inspire you, your day will fill up with challenges and distractions that don't.
STEP 3:
Delegate
Delegate all lower priority tasks to people who are qualified and inspired to do them.
It is highly unlikely for you to live an inspired and distress-free life without delegating your lower priority actions.
Anytime you perform tasks that you perceive you “have to do”, “should do”, “must do” or “are supposed to do”, you are likely to be living by duty or according to other people’s or authority’s expectations.
As a result, you tend to trap yourself in time instead of liberating yourself to do the highest priority tasks that produce the most results to make your unique difference in the world.
Prioritise your life and watch what happens - your distress levels will go down and you won't feel drained from a day filled with low priority tasks.
STEP 4:
Equilibrate your perceptions
In order to assist people in neutralising the often highly emotionally charged effects of distress, I use the Demartini Method in order to dissolve distraction and distresses and bring back balance and poise. This liberates you from any emotional baggage and assist you in living by priority and with meaning.
When you are infatuated, you tend to be conscious of the upsides and unconscious of the downsides. When you are resentful, you tend to be conscious of the downsides and unconscious of the upsides.
In both instances, you are highly likely to experience distress; you will fear the loss of that which you are seeking and infatuated with and fear the gain of that which you are avoiding and resent.
Our sessions bring you to a balanced perspective where you regain poise and governance.
STEP 5
Gratitude
A valuable exercise is to write down at the end of each day, what you learnt, what you accomplished and what you have experienced that you can be grateful for. Gratitude ensures a poised and balanced mind, shift you from the judging amygdala into the objective prefrontal cortex, and transforms imbalanced distress into poised eustress.
STEP 6
Diet
Eat wisely, moderately and supplement your nutrition
If you have a deeply meaningful mission in life, something that is a priority to you, you are more likely to:
Eat to live instead of live to eat;
Eat the highest priority foods that will fuel your journey;
Be more disciplined and self-governed; and
Perform more effectively.
As such, you may want to ask what is working and not working in your diet. Self-reflection on what eating pattern, quantity and content works and what doesn't work daily can be fruitful.
Anything that causes volatility, including sugar and stimulants, can increase fluctuations in your blood sugar and physiology, which can result in fluctuations in your emotions, which can make you more distracted and distressed.
Cravings for sugar and stimulants can also be feedback that you may not be living congruently with your highest values and are looking for instant gratification to self-soothe.
STEP 7
Exercise
Exercise adequately, moderately and spontaneously.
A regime of moderate exercise can help get your circulation going and retain flexibility, especially as you age. This isn’t meaning exercise to the extreme as this can place more strain on the body, oxidizing it with excessive exercise and accelerating aging.
Moderate and periodic exercise is wise– anything that you love spontaneously doing without feeling like you are being forced to do it.
STEP 8
Rest
Adequate rest will differ from person to person – your body will tell you what is adequate for you. How will you know you are getting adequate rest? Your mind will be clear, you'll have more energy, you won't be as easily distracted, and you won’t be frequently yawning.
If you are finding sleep challenging because your mind is overly active or because you are distressed by something, book a session to equilibrate your perceptions, while also mentally listing everything you are grateful for. Anytime you are in a state of gratitude, you will tend to be more balanced in your thinking.
Stress can be wellness-promoting in the sense that it provides feedback on the direction in which you are headed in case you need to readjust. In that way, it can be perceived as being “on the way” and not “in the way.” It is vital feedback to adjust your sails in your voyage int the journey of a hundred tacks towards your north star.
Life throws many surprises at us that’s for sure. If you are feeling you are in a time of uncertainty and challenge that has brought up many stress related fears and concerns, and if you need focus on helping you to deal with your fears and uncertainties, when the crazy voices on the outside seem louder than your own inner voice, I would love to offer my services to you.
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