Stress Management - Three Tips to Stop the Stress of Seeing Yourself as a Victim
By Ilenya Marrin
Is Your Stress From Seeing Yourself as a Victim?
Here is one of the major mistakes I see people making in coping with stress, with tips on how to switch gears for genuine stress reduction.
Problem: Thinking your stress exists because you are a victim of circumstances or the decisions of others, and spending your valuable energy in complaining about how helpless and unhappy you are.
How to Create Stress Relief:
1. Take control of your response to the stressful situation.
Blaming others or events will not reduce your stress level. It is true that you may not have control over forces of nature, or decisions of a boss or spouse. But you are 110% responsible for how you respond to those situations and decisions. You get to choose your response at any point along a continuum from rage and resistance to calm acceptance and ready problem solving.
Imagine how you would respond if suddenly the governor of your state walked in for a visit. Could you control your emotions in a hurry? Then you can do it now through a conscious choice.
The good news is that when you own your response-ability in a stressful situation, you are in an excellent position to make positive changes which will resolve issues, create solutions and lower your stress level.
2. Look for a loving response to the stressful situation.
Once you are able to look at the situation objectively, ask yourself, “What would be the most loving response I could make right now?”
The most loving approach might be simply getting out of the way of the fellow throwing bricks. It might be walking away from an argument to give yourself time for reflection, or sitting down for a heart to heart discussion. The most loving response might be saying “No,” to your sixteen year old wanting to borrow the family car. When you look for a loving solution, you could be surprised at what appears in your mind.
The presence of loving is a good guide that you are responding and not merely reacting from anger, hurt or fear.
3. Remember that all you have to do is take your next steps.
You’re doing the best you can with what you know and the resources you have at hand. Make those choices and take those steps with as much caring as possible for all who are involved, including yourself.
When you focus on controlling your inner response to stressful situations, choosing a loving response and taking your next steps, you are lifting yourself above the battleground where you were feeling such a victim. You have just empowered yourself to find solutions. A natural by-product will be lower stress.
While you are working on your response-ability to stress, I invite you to sign up for more self-compassionate stress reduction tips in my free newsletter, 17 Simple Stress Solutions, at http://www.powerofpersonalpeace.com/optin.htm
Dr. Ilenya Marrin is a personal peace consultant, inspirational speaker and author of ebooks The Power of Personal Peace: Reducing Stress by Loving Yourself from the Inside Out and 77 Loving Steps for Success.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Ilenya_Marrin
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