Coping with Stress - Part II

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“Opposition is a natural part of life. Just as we develop our physical muscles through overcoming opposition - such as lifting weights - we develop our character muscles by overcoming challenges and adversity.” ~ Stephen R. Covey .

This article is the continuation of the article titled “Coping with Stress - Part I“.

Value the challenge

Remind yourself that although this event is stressful and taxing on your resources, you will learn from it. You will emerge stronger. You will learn new techniques for coping with stressful events to add to your arsenal. Value the event as a challenge. Appreciate its worth. Recognizing that the event has some positive value to you helps to overcome the overwhelmingly negative feelings associated with it. It actually helps you to make your way through it with less stress. You see, it actually allows you to change the outcome – the stressful event becomes less stressful.

Try to identify other possible opportunities that might arise out of this stressful event. This requires doing a complete reversal in thinking and you might find that the adversity is a blessing in disguise. If you have lost your job, perhaps it is an opportunity to start that business you have been thinking of for years. Or perhaps it is an opportunity to take a part time job and spend more time with your children. If you have been diagnosed with a disease, perhaps it is an opportunity to become an activist raising money for disease research. Seeking out the opportunity in a major stressful event is challenging but be creative and you will find it.

Use your support group

Speak to your family and friends about how stressed you feel. That is what they are there for – to support you in times of need. They may be able to offer practical assistance or just the relief of knowing that someone cares. One word of caution, do not make this stressful event your only topic of conversation. Apart from the fact that your friends will start to feel unable to help you, it will make the event more stressful as it will seem overwhelming and take it out of perspective. It will seem as if it is the only thing in your life.

Also keep up with the lives of others – share in their challenges and successes. It will again help establish perspective that your challenge is just one item in the many items of your life and the wider world. It will help to reinforce the knowledge that everyone has challenges and that the world still continues to turn on its axis.

Continue to take time to relax and laugh. During stressful events people tend to feel as if they could not possibly relax or stop thinking about it for even a moment. Some people even feel guilty at the thought of enjoying themselves. But these are the times when recreation and relaxation and enjoyment of life are most important. It serves to keep the stressful event in perspective. It serves to reinforce the fact that the stressful event is just one facet of life and life goes on, and has other good parts to it. It serves to prevent the event from overwhelming your life.

Keep your routine

Try as much as possible to keep your routine. Again this helps towards maintaining perspective. Do not let dishes pile up in the sink. Do not stop going to the gym. Do not stop your Friday evening movie. By all means, please continue showering and maintaining your personal hygiene (for the sake of my nose :)). All these items send a message to your subconscious that all will be well in the future, that life is continuing on, that happiness and satisfaction will soon return. And your subconscious in turn will continue to seek solutions and remind you of the proper useful crisis response methods that we are identifying here.

If you let your routine slip, you will encourage that overwhelming feeling that things are spinning out of control. Maintain control of all the things that are in still within your control. This will help you to bring the stressful situation under your control as well even though its occurrence may not have been within your control.

Seek advice

It is necessary to seek advice because in a stressful situation your subjective view and reaction might not be the best solution. Objective advice is required. Seek advice from those whose advice has proven to be sound in the past, and who have no personal stake in the outcome other than doing what is best for you. It is often wise to seek advice from those known to be experts in a certain field. A particular friend might always give excellent relationship advice, while an uncle might be the font of knowledge on dealing with work issues. Understand the reasons behind their advice. You will only follow advice whose reasoning you believe will provide you with the outcome you desire.

You can even seek advice from agencies set up to provide guidance on handling specific stressful situations, such as the rape crisis centre, psychologists, marriage guidance centers, career guidance experts, cancer treatment centers, drug rehabilitation centers and the like.

Keep your eye on the resolution

In the midst of the stressful situation, you might be apt to lose your temper, become irritable, give in to feelings of hopelessness and despair. Whenever you start feeling this way, bring to mind the solution you identified. Focus on that resolution. That is your goal. The stressful events of the moment are temporary because you are taking action to get to that resolution. That resolution is your lifeline. Imagine a silver cord tying you to that resolution. It will keep you grounded and focused and moving towards resolution at all times.

Repeat

Our habitual reactions to stressful events are so strong that we must keep monitoring ourselves constantly and being very careful not to allow any negative unsanctioned behavior. All behavior must be deliberately controlled and sanctioned by you – no automatic reactions allowed. Reread this or similar articles whenever you feel overwhelmed and put the positive actions in place over and over and over again. They will become an automatic response to stress one day.

The objective is to take an event whose occurrence was out of our control and control the outcome. Most likely you have survived similar stresses before in your life and you will do it again. Keep your eye on the solution.

In each moment, be guided by the question:

“Am I taking the most positive optimistic action which will lead me to my identified solution?”

Do not fear the winds of adversity. Remember: A kite rises against the wind rather than with it.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 10th, 2006 at 5:43 pm and is filed under A New Start, Choices, Depression, Optimism and Positive Thinking, Self Discipline . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.