It is no secret that we have all been under stress lately.
No, just me?
Ok, well, this is awkward.
If you have not experienced stress lately, pass by this post.
I never realized that joy and grief are so closely tied together. When you rejoice over something you gain, often you are grieving something you lost as well.
It was a rough day today.
On the surface, no. It was fine. Nothing happened.
But in my heart, it was rough.
Rejection is a funny thing, in the many ways it can come. Value and how we see ourselves.
It could be that time you called a friend and they rejected the call without a text to let you know they saw it. Or it might be when someone ignores everything you say online or in person.
For me rejection is often more about what we say and how we reject ourselves.
Someone else has a baby and we have been trying to get pregnant for many years. We ask ourselves why our body is rejecting pregnancy and blame ourselves for something we have no control over.
A friend is in a relationship, get married, or engaged and we wonder why we are not of enough value for someone to want to be there with us.
Someone has a success and we do not. Someone gets the job instead of us.
In the end, it can turn into jealousy and envy real quick if we are not careful.
What are ways to combat this and deal with it in a healthy way?
- Speak words of truth to yourself
- Accept that the jealousy is happening and then reject it. It is not worth a friendship to accept that kind of thing in your heart, but accepting that it happens is normal.
- Look for ways that you can brighten your day or change the path of your life so that if there is something very important to you, that it changes in the long term.
- Get a good therapist to talk to
Often we can see that we are not where we want to be, and we sit and moan in it. That is fine. But don’t stay there.
Easier said than done, right?
I always love it when the doctors say, “This is caused by stress.” You get that helpless feeling. But in reality, many illnesses are caused by stress and unless you make changes, it will kill you.
- Determine the cause of the stress
- Ask yourself if this is really something that you are choosing to accept as unchangeable, or if it is something you can alter.
- Map out what you want to see in the future, both dreams and reality
For a silly example, dirty dishes stress me out. I hate them. I also hate doing dishes. I don’t know if it goes back to when dishes were a huge production or what with heating the water, carrying out the dirty dish water and all that, but I hate it. It is not the most environmentally friendly, but I use paper plates a lot. Why? It is something I can do to lower stress levels and make it so I can keep up with the other dishes.
The cause of the stress is a sink full of dishes.
My solution?
Buy a huge pack of paper plates once every two months and cut down on dishes to be done.
Place on the future map?
Dishes are not a big time waster anymore. I can keep up on the dishes, wash the others in the dishwasher and work on things more important to me.
That is a semi-silly example. What would yours be?
How can you cut down on stress in your life?
How can we achieve our ultimate goal of kindness in the face of stress?
Map it out. Write down the nitty gritty, including the feelings you don’t want to have that are unkind. Map out how you will get rid of those as well.
Comment here if you feel that kindness in the face of stress has been something you have struggled with. What are some ways you have combated that?
