Do you know that a simple cleaning up can help you with your overwhelm??
“Sounds too good to be true” – you might say.
But believe me, when I say, it does work wonders.
HEAR ME OUT
After 2+ years of very stressful lockdown, we all thought we might get some time to relax, and get back to our normal lives again…
But then, comes the war in Europe affecting the whole world because of tensions between people and countries standing on different sides in the conflict, and also causing a lot of problems including world food shortage, and continuous price increases.
To top those things off, hearing all about the negative news happening in our world… mass shootings, monkeypox spreading, climate crisis, etc…
ALL of which can be very stressful and overwhelming – you just want them all away.
WHAT YOU’RE FAILING TO NOTICE…
What most of us fail to notice is that we tend to cope “without” doing anything. But it ain’t true – that we’re not doing anything.
We are…
CLEANING.
STRESS CLEANING, TO BE EXACT
For some reason, when we’re stressed, we notice all the mess and start cleaning them up, and the entire process of cleaning the messes up plus seeing them actually cleaned up – is therapeutic.
Be it cleaning off your kitchen, your bathrooms, your closets, or just simply organizing things – they do count in making us feel better.
Even if you start small such as focusing on your work desk, or go big and remodel your entire garden – they all matter.
And all that is no coincidence.
THAT IS HOW OUR BRAINS WORK
Our brains, so to speak, love to be in control! And when we clean and sort things out, we are in control.
The actual physical action of doing the cleaning eats up the stress hormones.
OUR STRESS HORMONES
These hormones, mainly adrenaline, noradrenaline, and cortisol, are released in stress as a way for you to use your core stress management tools fight or flight.
Remember – these are the tools you got 200,000 years ago that are still your body’s first choice weapon against stress.
To get the hormones out of our system, we need to be physically active – which we also achieve by cleaning.
So this simple cleaning act – in our own close environment – when we are stressed serves as our response to the basic biological stress system and replaces the fight or flight.
IT DOES NOT END WITH CLEANING
The cool fact is that this mechanism does not only work for cleaning your home.
It is a long-known fact that doing the dishes is a very powerful de-stress activity and works as mindfulness, and the best part is – it’s something you can use in your everyday life.
HOW THESE THINGS REDUCE STRESS
When you start to get disorganized, shaky or feel dizzy from overwhelming – go to the kitchen and clean up – do the dishes, and think of each thing you clean or put away – “this is my favorite cup, look how it shines when I clean it”.
That will help your brain to rest a moment from what stressed you out, to begin with, and you will come up with better solutions.
Science is fantastic because it has also shown that stitching and other textile work is a good method for mindfulness.
And I can certainly say that myself. I have been doing textile work for as long as I can remember.
I learned to crochet and stitch at an early age.
I sewed all my clothes during my teens.
I learned to weave in 9th grade in high school – and I was hooked.
Later in my 20-ties, I learned to weave professionally. I have 1 and a half of your education in hand weaving.
It always puts me in such a calm state sitting behind the loom and seeing the cloth, the rug, and the blanket grow in front of my eyes
CALM PROTECTS US
When we get in that calmer state and feel we have some control over our own life and situation it is so much easier to cope with all those dangers out there. We can look closer at the dangers without being afraid of them, we can think better of solutions.
We can see if there is anything we need to do – or if it just is a question of accepting.
MY FAIR SHARE
It was not until a couple of years ago that I realized that I had been working with meditation and mindfulness all my life – with my textile work. It has always been there, even just mending a rift or sewing on a new button when one fell off has felt good for me.
I have found it hard to do meditation, sit with my eyes closed, and so on. I can use what I call a mini-meditation to calm down in the moment of a stressful situation, or to relax when sitting on the train, and so on – but not as a time to just sit for longer.
And now I have realized that my textile work has worked just the same – that has been my lifelong meditation and mindfulness and it has helped me immensely in periods of great stress. Like in that time I mentioned earlier when I lost 2 dear people within one week just as I was starting my medical career. I was very productive during that time – and now I know why and can see how much it has helped.
MORE IDEAS
When you do get back in the calm mode you can maybe think of things or actions that could calm your mind a bit.
There is this saying: “Nobody can do everything but everybody can do something”
Thoughts:
Garage sale for things you cleaned out now – send the money to Ukraine???
Buy ecological food
Don’t buy things with too much packaging material
Grow your own vegetables if possible
Walk or bike instead of taking the car
Eat less meat, especially red meat
This list can be endless when you figure out what you want
Remember – any step in the right direction is a step in the right direction – so keep taking steps – even if they are small
And this will be so good for your feeling of stress and overwhelm – or anxiety or depression.
THERE’S ANOTHER WAY
Maybe you don’t feel like cleaning or moving as you just feel like staying in one corner to reflect, or even read.
Feel free to access my e-book guide on things you can explore more to easily destress at any moment.
If you tend to hold grudges, it’s time to learn to let go as letting go of your grudges lessens your stress in life and helps you achieve real happiness.
HOLDING GRUDGES
A grudge is when you have this constant feeling of resentment or ill will brought by the past memories – but in the end, up to no good.
Why? Because it constantly brings back all the negative emotions it has with it, and you feel like you’re back there all over again.
GRUDGES ARE TOXIC
Holding grudges is toxic, and at the same time – makes you toxic.
We, at some point in our lives, all have met people who deceived us, or hurt us in any way – and even after parting ways, we hold this anger or irritating feeling towards them. In the end, we get consumed by those emotions and we become toxic.
But let us face the reality.
Who loses when we hold grudges against anyone? US! Because we are allowing ourselves to lose our peace of mind from the things that are already “IN THE PAST”.
GRUDGES ARE UNHEALTHY
It’s both physically and mentally unhealthy for us to hold grudges. Grudges are like bottles full of our anger and remorse. Now when that bottle opens or breaks, we explode – and when we explode, we tend to suddenly forget what taking care of ourselves looks like.
WHY MUST WE NOT HOLD GRUDGES
If I’m going to look at some of the MANY reasons why we MUST not hold grudges… Here are my favorites:
It makes us stuck, not being able to move on.
Who wants this, right? As much as possible, we want to leave the past as it is – especially when it’s awful. But in all honesty, how are we going to do that if we can’t let go of our baggage?
It can still hurt us, BAD.
As long as we hold grudges, we’re allowing whatever or whoever to inflict the exact same amount of pain like they did the last time – and just like that, we’re back at it again, making us relive all the negative experiences over and over as if we’re in a trance.
It makes you feel like you can never trust again.
You will find it hard to trust as all you see is either black or white. You think that only two things exist: the good or the bad, forgetting that somewhere in the middle, there are a lot of beautiful reasons and possibilities.
You take it out on others.
Admit it or not, the moment you see some sign you have painted on your head after what has happened in the past – you immediately assume that everyone you see this into will automatically do the same thing to you. Hence, making you distance yourself or unconsciously be rude to them and still justify everything as an “I’m just protecting myself” kinda thing.
Sounds all bad, don’t they?
WHAT YOU NEED TO DO
Now that we’ve seen all the negative things it does to us, let’s take at our options so we can finally learn to let go of our grudges:
1. Acceptance
It already has happened, there is nothing that we can do any more or could have done, so it’s just the way that it is.
2. Forgiveness
It is admittedly hard to forgive whoever has wronged you, especially if they have done great damage.
But if I am to share a secret with you… You do not need to force yourself to forgive them, because all you need to do is…
FORGIVE YOURSELF.
Forgive yourself for letting yourself get hurt by others, or allowing them to hurt you. Forgive yourself that you failed to protect yourself from them before. Forgive yourself that you were not able to do what you think now that you should have done, let it all go… and forgive yourself.
The moment you forgive yourself fully is in reality the moment you find it easier to forgive them.
3. Remember that we are all JUST HUMANS.
We tend to get mad and irritated when we forget that we are all just humans who make wrong or bad decisions in life. Maybe they have reasons, or maybe they had no reasons and they were just in bad shape making bad decisions – regardless, we know that we have those moments too.
Maybe we overestimated them, or maybe we thought wrong of them. Whatever it is, the truth is, the majority of the disappointment always comes from people who “fail to do what we expect them to do” or people who “do what we do not expect them to do”. Let go of these, and things will be easier.
4. Do not play the role of the victim.
Now, this does not sound good at all but hear me. You are the one in control of your life, so you have the power to decide what can make you happy, and what can hurt you.
It’s time for you to tell yourself, “these types of things cannot hurt me”, and live it. Remember, YOU have the power, so do not give them an inch of it.
2 Dimensions Of Forgiveness
Forgiveness has two independent dimensions:
Intrapsychic state (letting go of inner anger and resentment), and
Interpersonal act (telling the offending person “I forgive you”).
Now, which sounds better?
Remember to always choose 1, and that the number 2 is always optional. The Intrapsychic state is for your own peace of mind. If you do not do this, you will never have peace of mind. Meanwhile, the interpersonal act may or may not benefit you – depending on how you feel. If it makes you feel better saying it, go on but if it doesn’t because you never want to be associated with the person ever again – then you do not need to.
You can always forgive silently. You are not responsible for letting them know that you do, as much as you’re never responsible for helping them break free from their personal guilt.
RELEASE YOURSELF FROM THE STRESS
All these grudges do nothing to you except stress you out.
You may have a grudge against anyone, or against yourself – but whoever it is against, it’s important for you to remember that “THE GRUDGE ONLY HURTS YOU, NOT ANYBODY ELSE”.
So in reality, it can do nothing EXCEPT hurt you more, or stress you out more.
Have you ever tried preparing an event from scratch? Oh boy, the stress was unreal, especially since we had ours during the course of the pandemic.
If you have ever heard of the WIN events all over the globe, we have organized one in Sweden!
The idea came a year before the event, and during that time, we thought that the event was still too far to worry about especially considering that there are a lot of uncertainties caused by the Corona – so my co-director and I just worked on the concept.
It was a lot of planning, organizing, and coordination! And since it’s the pandemic and couldn’t just meet ALL THE TIME – we had an online document full of scribbled notes where we “brainstorm” our ideas – and it was hard.
EVENT PREP DURING THE CORONA
Since it was still when the corona’s at its peak, we were not sure if it’s going to continue the way it’s supposed to – and we were considering having it done “hybrid” – like a limited number of people at the actual event site but then virtually for the rest.
So then, came more stress: How do we do that, who will be our tech person? It’s “one more thing” to think about!
Then from there, a never-ending story…
OUR BIGGEST CONCERN
In all honesty, the biggest worry was if people are going to have fun, or if they will feel included or end up just sitting at the corner and being grumpy.
Also, there were worries like, “Are these all good enough?”
It was really hard… because you prepare for an event but at the same time it’s hard for you to weigh whether it’s enough or not – and it’s scary to think whether the event will end up well – such as people REALLY enjoying it.
THE BIGGEST SURPRISE
The biggest surprise…
Is that during the course of the promotion we’re not getting many people as we originally planned to have? There were many disappointments and I didn’t know whether to move the event date or shut it all down.
WRITE IT ALL ON PAPER
The moment I wrote everything down on paper and have it right there where it’s all clear is also the moment that I came to my senses: “I’m not gonna shut it down nor I am going to move the date. I already have it planned and we’re going to have it done beautifully for us. No matter how many come, it’s going to happen”.
THE SWEET ENDING
There may not be as many attendees as originally planned, but everyone came with joy and laughter.
There was never a dull moment at the event, and everyone was so full of spirit. Everyone basically was having fun!
THE UNEXPECTED TWIST
Who would have known that not getting the number we planned actually made things great as people who came felt more appreciated and included, as they loved how the event felt “very intimate”.
MY PIECE OF ADVICE
While good planning is a must, do not frown if things go sideways – as, in the end, you do not know what these things can do.
EVENT PREPARATION LEARNING
The thing that I have learned in this journey and will surely do next time is to plan with reverse engineering. So if I wanted on that specific date, I’ll look at the things I need to do, the latest I can do them, and look backward: Which step am I in right now?
You need to figure out who you are, how many you want, how hard is it, and what’s the subject you’re doing because that can differ in how many people will come.
FOR THE NEXT EVENT
It’s very vital that for the next event, one must have an idea of what people or where will these people come from, because without knowing the right audience, we cannot target them correctly.
MENTAL LOAD READY
Aside from being all prepared for your audience during event planning and preparation, you must also be mentally prepared for the huge load of responsibilities you’re just about to take.
Two words: Grief, and Memories. Two words with different meanings but will always be bound to be together as after the grief, comes the memories. The question is, are you willing to let the grief turn into beautiful recollections or let it eat you and lose yourself in the process?
MY STORY
May 27, 1987, when I was in Labor. My first child, our first child – was on her way out of me. The pregnancy had been really tough. I was very nauseated and I didn’t think that I was growing enough.
I was a medical student and the people around me told me that I was just reading too much and putting much into it, but I didn’t have any kids prior so I don’t really don’t know well. To be fair, I didn’t know of course, because it was my first pregnancy. But there was something that was kind of held off…
Anyway, back to the story – on May 12, 35 years ago… Our daughter was born and she came out tiny. Dave, my husband, ran out with her right to the intensive care just not telling us anything and after some hours I gotta see her in the breathing machine with all those needles and things all over her little body in this little glass box, and that’s where she was until when she was three weeks old.
That time was tough. I was staying in the maternity ward without a child with me so I got all the glances as if I wasn’t supposed to be there so I really had no support. It was like everybody expected me to know everything just because I was a medical student – forgetting that I was also just a new mother with a newborn who was very ill.
MY JOY AND MY GRIEF
Fast forward to when I got to bring her home – she was 3 weeks old and I was breastfeeding – everything seemed to work perfectly at the beginning. We were even able to bring her out with us for the first time in her 4th week after living her first few weeks in the hospital. Then comes the unexpected… Heart failure at seven weeks.
What in the world? I knew there was something off but I just couldn’t pinpoint what it was. I was a first-time mother but it is true after all, you get the maternal instincts immediately so you better listen to your feelings despite what others think.
Since the heart failure, it was then figured that she’s got a kidney problem caused by a genetic disorder – and the worst thing??? No treatment is available! So what were our options? Maybe a transplant, they said. But I was a medical student, and I know that the chance of that working is close to none and that we were just provided that option because everyone around me believed that everything was going to be okay.
INTO THE DEEP DARK HOLE
When she was nine weeks old, my brother who had schizophrenia for around 10 years committed suicide – my and my family’s world fell apart.
Another week went by, there were all these preparations for my brother’s funeral, and then exactly one week later on the Monday that my brother died, my baby daughter, all of a sudden died too.
What happened to me???? You’d never want to imagine. Just into a black hole – a very, very, very black hole. And that was the most stressful thing I could ever think that would happen. I was in bed for two days, and couldn’t even get out to go to my brother’s funeral.
THE GOOD SAMARITAN
Two days later, a neighbor of mine dragged me out just to go to the shop to buy some bread and share some moral lessons. Yes, that was a very tough time for me. When I was out on the streets, all the people I came across didn’t know how to treat me – like the moment they see me they’ll just go to the other side (I couldn’t blame them, maybe they did not know what to say), but of course, all I wanted was for them to say “Hi, I see you, I hear you, I am here” – but then maybe again, easier said than done.
MY FIRST STEP TO HEALING
I then grabbed one of my friends to come with me to a store – to buy my FIRST black dress. Yes, it was my first black dress as I have never in my life worn one – it just ain’t my color. So I put the black dress on, and for some reason, it felt good, like a relief.
Reason being? Grief process. As I’ve said, never in my life have I worn a black dress (blue, and shades near that are more of “me” than black is), so the feeling of wearing that black dress for the first time kind of put me in a bubble-like it was just a dream – but in reality, my first step of going through the “Grieving Process”.
My brother’s funeral… Then came the funeral of my little baby – it was beautiful. I wanted to take the casket home, but my husband reminded me to let go and keep her in a “good memory” for ourselves.
SLOWLY BUT SURELY…
We then went on a trip where I realized that it probably was the second step of my grieving process – just feeling it, but this time, beautifully and with acceptance. Do you know how soothing it feels to just be slow on the road, and be out in the wilderness? It was therapeutic: Nature, fresh air, and just getting out there to breathe.
Fast forward to a couple of months after everything – I finally was able to take my real (last) exam, got my medical license, got a job, and started working. Yay! Everything’s slowly, but surely getting better.
MY REALIZATIONS
Every day before going to sleep, I think and reflect on everything – and in the end, I decided to take care of myself, have a daily routine, eat good food, and exercise. While doing all these, I realized that “self-care” is actually my way of dealing with my stress, and can actually be considered “treatment”, or basically, a way to de-stress.
Then came the realization: If I who had all these what I could say were beyond worse experiences, was able to get out of that deep dark hole and get back up, what’s the reason others can’t?
Maybe they find it hard because they don’t know what to do, maybe they have no strong support system, or maybe, it’s just because they lack the awareness of what self-care can do.
SELF-CARE and ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Self-care doesn’t mean doing everything by yourself. Acknowledging that you need help from other people is also a form of self-care. As the famous John Donne says, “No Man Is an Island”.
So as someone who’s committed to self-care, I scheduled sessions with a psychologist, to further help me get better by providing the necessary support that I need. As someone working in healthcare to tend to other people, I must make sure that I myself am well-cared for.
IMPORTANCE OF HONESTY
One important thing in all these is for you to remember the importance of being honest and out in the open with someone you trust who in my case was my back the psychologist.
Being honest and open just makes everything better. An unexpected strong support system comes in, and you’ll be surprised how big of a help they’re going to partake in your journey.
UNTIL ONE DAY…
You’ll just be shocked how the grief has turned into wonderful memories and beautiful stories with a lot of lessons you’re going to take with you for the rest of your life. That everything may not be back to where it’s supposed to be, but at least you know that now, it’s better.
As for me, it was a time that I could freely talk about her, and every time I mention her I imagined her photo attached to the wall together with ours – and who would have known that after that, I got three more beautiful girls.
THE LESSON
Grieving can be good, as it is the first step in the process of healing. We grieve for a lot of different things or reasons, and it may keep us from moving forward – but we must remember that nobody heals without going through its tormenting process.
Allow yourself to grieve, until you can one day accept the way things are, and then you can live with it in peace, knowing that what caused your grief once, has now turned into a beautiful recollection of the past.
YOU ARE NOT ON YOUR OWN
Whatever it is, always remember you’re not on your own and that people are just waiting for you to ask. Plus, there is no harm in asking.
If you have ever wondered if quick fixes work better than long-term changes in life or vice versa, you might want to consider working from both ends for a good life.
Why?
Stress is and will always be part of our lives.
We can’t get rid of it basically as it’s a biological reaction that we can’t just lock it out. It always comes knocking when our ability doesn’t meet the current demands. We just have to find ways to put our stress system at its normal level. When you are challenged, you don’t want to be irritated. When you are challenged, you’d still want to remain calm.
From my own experience of stress in life, tragic deaths, too much work, overload in life in general… I was lost and wanted to know what to do.
In searching for an answer on what and how I did it, I found you need 2 different sets of skills to beat stress.
I call them:
HERE AND NOW AND LONG TERM
The Here and Now
This skill is to use “at the very moment” the stress comes, and helps you avoid ending up in anxiety or getting a panic attack. This skill set is your natural-born tool or your internal toolkit so to speak.
It is like if you need to present to a crowd but have stage fright, you have to get yourself in control, and what usually works is: taking deep breaths, wiggling your hands, or just walking around.
There also comes mini-meditation to lift up your spirits or pull your strength. We all have these different ways, and to me, it’s closing my eyes and repeating the word “release”.
2. The Long term
This is very important as this means getting to the root cause of your stress and making changes in your life.
Real changes that will prevent you from constantly getting into overwhelm and anxious. The main purpose of these is to make the knocking of stress on your shoulders come less often. They still will knock from time to time – just because as I said stress is part of life.
And it was in this part of my work with stress, I saw a pattern: 3 things that matter in your Long Term toolkit, and you need to keep this as long as you live..
THE 2 PATTERNS
1. Mindset
Are you prepared to make changes? Because YOU HAVE TO. You won’t if you don’t.
2. Energy
You can’t buy energy or get it from someone else, you have to generate that energy yourself by living healthy. Because you need to first care for those basic things to stay healthy and strong to resist the stress attacks.
3. EXTERNAL PLATFORM
Your world outside your body is what matters in the long term.
It is all about RAISING YOUR POTENTIAL CAPACITY
Raising your potential capacity means doing what you can to increase your energy. With more energy, you will be able to do more, and as I’ve said – stress comes when you cannot handle the number of demands.
DELEGATE SOME TASKS
If there’s too much ongoing – literally too much than what you can take even after doing the sorting of things, then you might want to consider delegating or outsourcing.
Outsourcing is a good way to take some tasks off your plate. Just choose the tasks that don’t really need to be done by you personally, and you can focus on the bigger things.
Take the time to ponder, , raise your potential capacity, and delegate some tasks. Combine these all together and you’ll have less stress from too many tasks!
WHERE TO GET ENOUGH ENERGY
You can easily achieve “real energy” by doing ONLY three simple things…And to make it easier to remember and not make it more complicated, just remember the acronym “SEE”.
SEE, as in:
S-leep
E-at
E-xercise
It all sounds so easy, doesn’t it? But then why is it hard to do it consistently? These three things are the inner engines that help us stay alive and do things we wanna do.
The problem is some people are just good at doing it from the beginning, but it doesn’t work like that. It needs to be done consistently to get the abundance of energy that will help us go from chaos to calm.
BONUS
For the bonus, it’s what I call “friendship”.
Meeting people decreases stress and increases calm in life.
Honestly, possibilities are almost endless and all might seem overwhelmingly much to do but we just need to start with small changes….
One at a time, maybe start by changing your diet, or stretching a little, or sleeping an extra hour.
Whatever it is, just remember that all those small positive changes, when added up together become BIG.
WHAT YOU NEED TODAY
It is only when you have the mindset for change and the energy to do it is when you can start looking at everything in life around you.
Your world outside your body, despite being your internal platform, s still internal work, inside your brain, using your built-in tools to manage the outside world around you.
WHAT ARE THE EXTERNAL THINGS
The external things that matter may be: your Job – including that overloaded to-do list, Money, your Network, and people around you – are they good for you, or do they steal your energy, Family/intimacy? Yes, even where you live matters – these are a few of the things you may want to change.
WRITE THINGS DOWN
However, there is no one size fits all solution. Problems are different from one another, so solutions can also look totally different.
In times like this, the best thing to do is ponder about it and WRITE IT ALL DOWN.
YOU CAN NEVER GO WRONG WITH WRITING THINGS DOWN.
Here are questions to answer that can help.
1. “Where do I get stressed the most?” What stresses me out the most?
2. Where do you want to be? What are your goals?
3. Take a look at how it currently is in your life – not someone else’s life or what others think.
4. What’s the next best step to take?
PILLS AND TRANQUILIZERS TO EASE STRESS
To break it to you this early…
Pills or tranquilizers won’t solve your problem as they might just make you end up being an addict.
If you are someone who panics on problems and relies on pills to calm down, you might want to start changing that.
TRANQUILIZERS DO NOT SOLVE THE CAUSE OF STRESS
Tranquilizers make you feel calm, but they DO NOT SOLVE ANYTHING.
And they can make you think slow, CALM but SLOW THINKING.
Let’s get into its effects.
THE EFFECTS OF TRANQUILIZERS
Alcohol is a natural tranquilizer. It is a day of help, and only good for the benefit of the moment.
I also guess that most of you know what it looks like for someone on constant alcohol use – or rather abuse.
Just like alcohol, pill tranquilizers also offer only temporary relief, unless you want to be tranquilizer dependent which also does no good because What happens after it wears off, or after you decide that you’re done being dependent on it? You will have a terrible time getting out of the habit and the urge for it.
You are just back to square one and in a worse physical state.
Additionally, tranquilizers just turn your brains off, and when you’re stressed out, you actually need more of your brain as you need to gather all your thoughts to help you get out of that stressful situation and find a good solution.
So really, does it solve any of your problems at all?
Na-da. Because what it gives you is a temporary relief of bad quality. Nothing more.
REAL STRESS MANAGEMENT
Real stress management is not trying to push the stress away, it is fixing and working on your life so the stress does not come often.
It’s not about how often they come, but about how you handle yourself and tackle them when they come.
I’ll let you in on a little secret…
Stress can either take lives or save lives. It’s part of basic biology and its real purpose is to WARN us when our body can’t take any longer – it tells us to REST. Treat it as a warning system and it can save you. Abuse your body and ignore your warning system and it can kill you.
YOU JUST HAVE TO LEARN TO LISTEN TO IT AND LET IT SERVE ITS PURPOSE.
STRESS AS A WARNING SYSTEM
Stress is in fact a WARNING SYSTEM. It warns us when our minds and bodies can’t take more anymore.
It warns us WHEN TO PAUSE, RELAX, and BREATHE that if we don’t do it we know we’ll end up being vulnerable.
WE JUST HAVE TO LEARN TO USE IT RIGHT.
Because this WARNING SYSTEM, if USED CORRECTLY, CAN SAVE LIVES – your life.
WHAT ARE THE SIGNALS TO LOOK FOR
The first signal from your body when stress hormones start to rise above the “good for you” limit can differ massively from person to person. YOU need to learn your stress pattern.
It can be anxiety, shaking, memory loss, concentration problems, stomach ache, headache, making faults repeatedly, getting angry for no reason, being grumpy, taking on every infection that passes by, sleep problems, overeating, under-eating, getting speeded, getting slow (this is me in a nutshell – everything is in slow motion in my head when I get stressed out).
Figure your early signs, and associate them with things you recently thought of as those are the possible triggers.
Once you’re able to identify them you can easily avoid them.
ASK FOR HELP TOO
When you already know your signals, ask someone you trust to be sort of your accountability buddy, or a person who knows you well and can spot your signs, so if you miss it, you still can be reminded.
If you have no one in mind, remember that getting a mentor is another option too, plus, you can reap more benefits. See HERE how I can help.
We, humans, are more alike than we think, more than we can imagine.
Surprising, isn’t it?
While we all think we’re so different, we’ll be surprised with the info that we’re not.
But how’s that even possible?
To begin with, the differences are just really minor differences such as the countries we come from, the languages we talk, or our physical features.
But boil it down to beliefs, and cultures, dig deep down and we’re still more alike than different.
WHAT’S INSIDE US
We all have the same basic biology, regardless of color or gender, we’re all exactly the same inside.
The stress hormone systems that we have are all exactly the same and work the same. So really, we could all look so differently outside but looking deeper, we’re not.
HUMANS ARE HERD ANIMALS
Do you know that a person can change so much in an instant?
It’s true. Observe someone you know, and focus on how that person interacts with different types of groups, does that person act all the same?
I know a lot of people, who have different groups of people, and in one group they are quiet and more preserved because that’s the way their group works, and in the other, they’d be super energetic, doing whatever.
It’s like seeing a person with different versions, and the version depends on the crowd they are with.
Why? Because we all have our basic parrot padding and we mimic the ones we have around us. We are herd animals and we want to be like the rest of the group because that is how we are trained, how we’re taught.
Remember your childhood? You were taught to act like the adults around you.
Well, we still do that now, unconsciously, we tend to act like those who are around us.
THE SCIENCE BEHIND HUMANS
Biology is universal by logic. We were only brought up differently from childhood but in reality, we haven’t changed in 200,000 years, why would we change in a lifetime that we don’t?
“No, we are all still different, my belief is different from theirs, from yours.”
I know, that’s how it is and I’ve nothing against that. To each his own, right?
What I’m only saying is…
A belief is a choice, and at any second of the day, we can choose something different, we can change what we believe in.
If you choose to believe in something negative in the morning, you can just quickly change that and choose to believe in something positive in the afternoon.
WE HAD NO CHOICE when we were kids – that is the time in our lives when we are shaped in so many ways
TAKE LANGUAGE FOR EXAMPLE
I have always been amazed by the fact that children in other countries speak THEIR language fluently when I know how hard it is to learn a second language.
Of course, they did not speak Swedish but I did not reflect on it that way when I was younger.
Today I know that a healthy child just HAS TO learn the language spoken around them when they are babies.
That is how our biology works – they just do learn in the first couple of years – they have no stop mechanism for that.
Imagine what that means! What if I in Sweden gave birth to 5 babies – and they stayed with me they would all speak Swedish when they grew up? If the father in my family would be native English speaking, the children would be bi-lingual – not by choice but by rule. And they would have adopted the Swedish English traditions that we feed them with.
AND if we had sent those 5 babies away right after birth to 5 different continents, with totally different languages and traditions they would have no knowledge of Swedish or English and they would have totally different basic traditions in their way of living.
And if these 5 persons met in later years – they would look alike but have no common language.
Get the idea?
WE WEREN’T GIVEN MANY CHOICES, WE WERE MOLDED
What did I want to say with this: We weren’t really given much choice and we were raised and molded instead by people around us when we were kids.
But now, WE CAN CHOOSE WHO WE WANT TO BE, WE CAN EVEN CHOOSE WHO WE SURROUND OURSELVES WITH.
YOU YESTERDAY, OR YOU TODAY?
Do you want to be that person from yesterday or start finding the real you today?
No matter what, remember that despite the tiny differences we have, WE ARE MUCH MORE ALIKE.
So, be kind to one another and treat everyone with respect.
HUMANS ALIKE, THE SAME STRESS SYSTEM
Regardless of the minor differences…We all have the same stress system that steers our basic behavior.
Biology needs us to be like herd animals to survive – that makes us look for people who are alike – because with similar people we feel safer. And when we are alike we reassure each other with what we do and we do the same.
This ends up in groups that will do good and also in groups that will do bad.
Since we encourage each other in a group to do the same – by those biological laws – a group that is hostile towards others can do a lot of harm – to be accepted in the group.
WHAT WE LONG FOR
As individuals we long for appreciation, to be seen – it is a basic need to survive. First of all, appreciation of who we are, just as that.
If we don’t get that appreciation, we search for appreciation for what we do – good things, hard work, good grades, work, etc. because we want and need to be seen.
If that doesn’t work either – then we start doing bad things – just to be seen. And if necessary we do really bad things to reach the goal. Or it might end up in suicide – that is how strong this drive is.
And this basic personal need is then put into the group mechanism and we have all these tragic things going on and all the hatred towards others – just because it works this way
And all we wanted was to be seen…
WHAT HAPPENS TO OUR BRAIN WHEN STRESSED
One can say we have 3 layers in our brain system: The Reptile Brain, the Limbic System, and the Logical Brain.
The Reptile Brain stands for our automatically regulated functions – like keeping blood sugar levels right, temperature, hunger, and that heart beating – all basic functions that we cannot control with our will. It works on instinct – and when it is in charge we don’t think clearly or reflect – we just do.
The Limbic System is where our center for feelings is (aka the mammal brain). This is where our behavior is steered by feelings – like if you feel sad you feel an urge for comfort food and think of going to get some sweets or so. You do things to lessen the bad or sad feelings and it can make you do dumb things just to silence your feelings.
The Logical Brain is the one we use for all thinking, with a will, cognition, memory, processing of sensory input, and abstractions, but what’s interesting is the logical brain can quickly throw us into our mammal or reptile brains.
For example, if we read a scary part in that book it might throw us back into the mammal brain to seek comfort, go eat something for example, or it might throw us all the way into the reptile brain where we have the feeling of fear.
It is within these layers of our brain that we live and the more insecure you are the more likely it is that you are in the inner two layers – bouncing between feelings and instinct action – and this is not the place where we feel happiness or health or wealth.
Our logical brain requires a lot of energy and when we are stressed it’s the first part to shut down, which means that it turns into the mammal brain by automation and that deprives us of making conscious decisions and makes us more prone to follow old set biological programs that were installed in us in our childhood as I talked about earlier.
If we go on with the stress, we will go into the brain fog and it stops working – we then just work on instinct – we have hit the stress wall.
So, now that you can see how simple our basic biology is and still how extremely hard it is to navigate all these laws to stay healthy, less stressed, and be able to look at all other creatures = people whatever different they look like – and accept them as equal.
I’ll repeat again –
Be kind to one another and treat everyone with respect. And since all we want is to be seen… show appreciation to everyone around you.
Here’s access to a more step-by-step guide on self-development: Access Here!
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