September 11, 3003
Copyright © 2003 by Bill Dueease
We all experience stress. Yet, some stress is good for you and some
stress is bad for you. Good stress occurs when the results from the
stress are more valuable to you than the harm (if any) caused by the
stress itself. Bad stress occurs when the damage caused by the stress
is greater than the value of the results received. The key to managing
stress is to discover which stress you are allowing to affect you that
is good for you and which is bad for you then reduce or eliminate the
bad stress.
Weight lifters and athletes purposefully place their body under physical
stress that tears down muscle fiber, so their body will rebuild even
more muscle and make them bigger and stronger. The end results from
this planned stress are good for these people.
People create unacceptable and damaging stresses every day when they
react to imagined fears and other outside forces (mostly imagined) and
override their own priorities, desires, and beliefs. For example, when
people allow their bosses to dictate their lives so they will receive
high income, power, status, or acclaim, bad stress usually occurs. These
people frequently neglect or even abandon their personal integrity,
personal lives, their family, loved ones, and their spirituality by
constantly reacting to the needs of the corporation. The immediate monetary
and power gratifying rewards can appear to be worth much more than the
sacrifices made and the damage caused by the stress of reacting to the
demanding whims and will of the corporate bosses or company expectations.
However, this stress will eventually cause people considerable harm,
because of the damage caused by neglecting other aspects of their life.
Unfortunately, this type of bad stress is much more difficult to pin
point because it is easily disguised and hidden by the busy activity
people fall into and the euphoria of apparent success. This type of
stress normally builds up over time to reach a level that eventually
causes more damage to the people than the value of all of the rewards
they ever received. Look at the number of "successful people"
who have apparently fallen apart under this self imposed stress, even
when they appeared to have great success with power, money and acclaim.
These people didn't fall from grace, they did it to themselves, because
they allowed bad stress to build up and cause them more damage than
they could manage.
One method many people use to reduce and even temporarily eliminate
bad stress is to use mind-altering drugs that only temporarily block
out the acceptance of external fears and pressures. (Recent reports
showed that over 22 million Americans are dependent on mind-altering
drugs) But, once these drugs wear off, people return to accepting the
pressures from their bosses, their spouses, their parents, their children,
their customers, their government, their rivals, their competitors,
etc., and the bad stress and the accompanying damages return.
The first step to reduce and/or eliminate bad stress is to discover
your own true values, goals, and priorities, which are mostly subconscious
at this stage. Once you know and understand your true inner subconscious
feelings and values, you will be able to recognize what outside forces
you have been allowing to control you, and which forces conflict with
your inner values and feelings. You can reduce the conflicts of bad
stress by allowing your own desires, integrity, priorities and values
to take center stage and have a greater control over your life.
Sounds simple, doesn't it? Unfortunately, executing this change of control
can appear to be a scary undertaking, especially if you are not sure
about what your true values are. However, when you truly know yourself,
reducing bad stress is easier than you think. For example, if you truly
enjoy working 10-12 hours a day and have a passion for participating
in creating something at work, whether with a corporation or on your
own, and you recognize and accept the conflicts this causes with your
other priorities, then your bad stress will be minimal. Yet, this type
of stress is normally acceptable for only short periods of time. You
will want to monitor it and not allow it to reach a damaging level.
You will want to stay in touch with your own priorities, passions and
values, many of which will change with time and circumstance, to make
sure you are not allowing previously accepted outside forces to override
your new priorities and values. One example of the quick changing priorities
is what happens to a married couple when they have their first child.
Boy do priorities, values and passions change overnight. Both parents
will undergo considerable bad stress if they continue to allow their
bosses, or parents, or their friends to control their lives, at the
expense of their baby. The new parents will have to alter the affect
of other forces and greatly reduce their reactions to these forces that
conflict with the baby. This might entail creating or finding new environments
and circumstances where they can work and live and take care of their
baby first with a minimum of conflicts.
Likewise, parents will want to recognize their own wants and needs and
fulfill them, without allowing their baby to completely dominate their
life. Parenthood is a choice and the bad stress will be reduced or eliminated
when parenting coincides with the priorities, passions and values of
the parents.
Managing stress begins with discovering and recognizing which stress
is good for you and which stress is bad for you. This is done by gaining
truthful insight and an understanding of your inner (subconscious) self
to recognize which outside forces and imagined fears you are allowing
to govern your thoughts and actions which conflict with your inner priorities
and values. You can then strive to reduce the acceptance of these conflicting
forces or find situations, which are more in line with your inner priorities.
The key is to constantly monitor your ever-changing priorities and adjust
your acceptance of outside forces to coincide with your new priorities.
We welcome your opinions and comments.
Bill Dueease
Editor
______________________________________
Sharing this Newsletter: We invite you to share this e-mail newsletter
with others. The material is copyrighted by The Coach Connection LLC
so please forward the whole newsletter and not just a portion of it.
Subscribing or Unsubscribing to this newsletter: Connecting For
Results is a free, biweekly, subscription-based, e-mail publication
from The Coach Connection, LLC. If you would like to subscribe to this
newsletter put: "subscribe to newsletter" in the subject of
an e-mail sent to: connecting@findyourcoach.com. If you want to stop
receiving this newsletter send an e-mail to: connecting@findyourcoach.com,
putting "Unsubscribe" in the subject line.
Using The Coach Connection
(TCC) is the easiest, most efficient, least costly, and most enjoyable
way to find your ideal life coach.
Calling TCC puts you in touch with a highly trained and personable advocate
who can save you time, money and energy by finding your ideal coach
for you to connect with. Start having the life you really want.
1. Call us for your Free, No Obligation, Confidential Consultation
to learn more and decide about coaching for yourself at: 800-887-7214
(toll free in the US and Canada) or 239-415-1777. (We answer
the phone by the fourth ring.)
2. Request that we call you for your
Free
Consultation,
3. Contact
us by e-mail
4. Attend a teleclass entitled:Is
Engaging a Life Coach Right for Me?
or Is Becoming
a Life Coach Right for Me?
In addition, what goes on between your
TCC Member Coach and you is so confidential and private that the only
way anyone will know about it is if you tell them. In fact, your TCC Member
Coach cannot even reveal to TCC what transpires between you two with the
exception of scheduling and coaching fee matters, which we have to know
about, because that is our job.
