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For poetic prescriptions to reduce stress - CLICK HERE
I have become a bit of an expert on stress ..... mainly from personal experience ........ For many years I had a very busy medical practice in a country region with three surgeries, several partners and twenty odd staff. I was working seventy hours a week plus .... and was on call for emergencies every third night and weekend as well as giving anaesthetics at any time of day or night for other surgeons. The daily schedule was always frenetic, fitting emergencies in between normal appointments, dashing to the hospital to deliver babies or see critical patients.
During this period of building up the medical practice I also built a house and we had three young children. On top of all this I was also on several committees and in a couple of clubs. Life was always a rush and a compromise. Expenses were high and it was always a worry that the practice income would be maintained. I was constantly stressed.
But you can never see your own problems. Luckily I had my patients
Jeff was a 47 year old business man. He had a furniture removal business – high pressure, long hours, continually dealing with demanding customers, vehicle breakdowns, sick workers. Out of the blue he suddenly had a heart attack but was back at work two months later as his wife struggled with the business alone. The following year he had another heart attack but was back at work after three months. The next year he had another heart attack with a similar outcome, back at work after three months. Six months later he had his fourth heart attack. He suddenly realised that this could not go on. As he put it …”I’m a bit slow. If I got hit on the head with a baseball bat it would take four strikes before I realise I should duck”. I smile every time I remember Jeff as he was lucky that he survived had four warnings. Not all of us are so lucky.
Jeff became very focussed and went on to a low fat diet, meditated and exercised daily and downsized his business by selecting his clients. He now worked three times a day “for nearly as much profit” and much less stress.
Sitting in a doctor’s chair allows me to see the same pattern over and over again. It is only when medical disaster occurs that people will change their thinking, choose different priorities and discover what is important in life.
Denny was a forty year old business woman, married with two children, selling insurances, working long hours, chasing company quotas to earn large bonuses. When she felt a lump in her breast she ignored it for a few months rationalising that it was a cyst and would go away. She was too busy to get a medical opinion. When the lump didn’t go away and she did seek medical advice the biopsy confirmed that it was cancer. After surgery and radiotherapy she and her husband started to make radical changes in their lifestyle, spending more time with each other and the children, eating unrefined and organic food, working less hours. She was amazed that she made nearly as much money on commissions but she missed out on her bonuses.
Seeing this type of case on a frequent basis made me reflect on my lifestyle. Eventually I looked in a mirror and said to myself “What am I waiting for, a heart attack, a stroke, a cancer?? Do I need to be hit over the head with a baseball bat before I get it? ….. That there is more to life that having a living".
I decided to walk my talk. Over the next two years I left my medical practice, downsized my house and possessions, moved to the country. I now work two days a week in medicine and have a wonderful office in my house overlooking the fields and grazing cattle where I can write my poetry and speeches.
Stress has becomethe catchword for not coping with life. I see my patients become ill from stress everyday, not just having major medical catastrophes but in getting infections, high blood pressure, asthma, bowel complaints, and many many more.
I see that stress is usually associated with an unresolved fear .... fear of failure, fear of not being good enough, fear of not having enough ..... enough time, enough power, enough money, enough courage, fear of vioence. If the fear is unremitting then the stress becomes debilitating.
Initially stress may be exhilarating as the fear is momentarily overcome and there is a feeling of excitement, success and achievement. This can be a healthy response, one which allows and rewards us to take chances and find our capacity for various activities. But if the fear remains, even if we are achieving, then it starts to become depleting, eroding our energy, our esteem, taking the joy out of the activity, maintaining our bodies in a state of apprehension and nervous tension, commonly called worry.
"I have spent most of my life worrying about things that never happened -- Mark Twain
And even if it did happen then it might not be that bad .....
A king in Africa had a close friend that he grew up with. The friend had a habit of looking at every situation that ever occurred in his life (positive or negative) and remarking "This is good!" One day the king and his friend were out on a hunting expedition. The friend would load and prepare the guns for the king. The friend had apparently done something wrong in preparing one of the guns, for after taking the gun from his friend, the king fired it and his thumb was blown off. Examining the situation the friend remarked as usual "This is good!" To which the king replied, "No, this is NOT good!" and proceeded to send his friend to jail. About a year later, the king was hunting in an area that he should have known to stay clear of. Cannibals captured him and took him to their village. They tied his hands, stacked some wood, set up a stake and bound him to the stake. As they came near to set fire to the wood, they noticed that the king was missing a thumb. Being superstitious, they never ate anyone that was less than whole. So untying the king, they sent him on his way. As he returned home, he was reminded of the event that had taken his thumb and felt remorse for his treatment of his friend. He went immediately to the jail to speak with his friend. "You were right" he said, "it was good that my thumb was blown off." And he proceeded to tell the friend all that had just happened. "And so I am very sorry for sending you to jail for so long. It was bad for me to do this." "No," his friend replied, "this is good!" "What do you mean, 'this is good!' How could it be good that I sent my friend to jail for a year?" "If I had NOT been in jail, I would have been with you."
What increases our stress?
Unable to surrender to the flow of life. Many of us try to control our environment, (I was a classic!) ensuring that what happens around us is secure and safe. This usually reflects a past experiences/s in which we were hurt/betrayed/abandoned and we subconsciously resolved never to let it happen again by never being vulnerable. But when we try to control our environment we are always worried that we may lose control. There is never respite.
Dissatsfaction, lack of fulfillment and appreciation are frequently associated with stress in both the workplace and home.
Frequently the stresses that we experience are enhanced by the expectations of others; partners, team members, employers. We push ourselves to keep others happy, to gain their approval or to earn money to maintain a lifestyle that we think we should follow. We fail to set boundaries to protect our own needs and even start to feel guilty if we think we should.
More often we are the main perpetrator of causing our stress. We are our own worst taskmasters. We are our own worst critics. We judge our worth by our outcomes, our performance. We must always prove ourselves. We have a belief that we must push ourselves to the limit, be better than our peers. We do not accept ourselves for who we are but for who we think we should be!
Even when we achieve all we plan there is always the fear of losing it ........ for if we judge ourselves by what we have or our position, what will we be if it taken away from us or we lose it?
Sometimes we take on a caretaking role, feeling that we must look after other people, that we are responsible for their lives and outcomes. We are always worrying about them, giving unsolicited advice, trying to make them better people rather that letting them make their own mistakes and find their own way.
Being pessimistic, always thinking the worst, "catastrophising" and "awfulising" situationshas been well shown to increase our stress levels. Even more importantly is that we do create our own reality. If we expect something to go wrong it will. If we expect something to go right it will.
What patterns do you follow??
Take some time and read some of my poetic prescriptions to help you cope with stress:
beat the daily grind .......... get off the conveyor belt of life and choose to live life your way
mistakes ................................. learn from your mistakes and reduce your stress
worry ......................................... controlling worrying behaviour will reduce stress
the present ............................. living in the "now" is the only time to live .. stress free
musterbation ..........................being needy and wanting will only keep happiness away
coloured glasses .................... the way we see life is not how others see it
the tide will always turn ..... when you are in the midst of chaos always know it will pass
sailing through life ............ we cannot control the weather but we can choose which sail to set
my friend jim ...................... you have a friend who will always help you especially when stressed
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