Is it simple to get rid of stress?

It was one of those times when the big boss called my team into a conference room and told us our manager was leaving and Dan was taking over as our new boss. He asked us if we had any questions and then gave a pep talk about the new guy and sent us back to work.

I knew a little about Dan and I made up the rest. I mean it. I didn’t realize I was doing that, making stuff up, but I did. Here’s what happened.

A week later he was brought to my desk and we were introduced. I welcomed him and he said he was looking forward to getting to know me and would schedule a meeting for us to talk.

Two weeks later I was invited to a meeting and then he cancelled the day before and rescheduled for the following week. The following week he cancelled (with many apologies) and told me to call his assistant to reschedule. I started to think it was clear he didn’t give a crap about me.

I finally got my 30 minutes with him about a month into his new job. It was supposed to be an hour but we were cut short. Really?

That’s when the stories in my head really started to fly off into never-never land.

I was confused, irritated, mad, inconvenienced, hurt so I made up this story in my head. I thought that he didn’t like me, didn’t care about my work, didn’t respect me and thought he was better than me because he didn’t value my time. I started to complain to a few of my colleagues and definitely brought my stories home to my husband.
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Some of you may be thinking I was justified in my feelings. He WAS going to be a horrible boss who was never around.

But that couldn’t be further from the truth! Dan was actually a really nice guy.

What I learned later was that he was still doing his old job and trying to do the new one too. He was stretched so thin he didn’t even have time to communicate properly. This ever happen to any of you?

In that situation, what is the first thing to eliminate off your plate? The low maintenance people. The people who are good workers, who don’t have any drama, who don’t need a lot of direction or handholding and can be left on their own for a while.

When he finally got to breath a bit and we started our 1-on-1 meetings, he thanked me for holding down the fort while he could get on board. He was so grateful, he said, to have people like me that he could trust right away and didn’t need a lot of oversite.

Honestly I felt quite humbled. I had made up these stories in my head that I wasn’t going to like him and he proved me wrong. I learned a valuable lesson not to assume what others think of me.

All stress comes from situations not looking the way we want it to look or being the way we want it to be. (You might want to read that again.)

As human beings we sometimes forget we have a thinking center (mind/ego) and a feeling center (heart/soul/gut).

When our thinking center thinks thoughts such as “I’m not happy with the way life is right now” or “this sucks” or “I’m not good enough” etc., it causes our ‘feeling’ center to respond appropriately. Different thoughts stimulates different brain chemistry that produces a biochemical chain reaction we interpret as emotional responses.

So to simplify: lousy thoughts make us feel lousy. Happy thoughts make us feel better. Yes, it’s that simple.

To get going on this please stop telling yourself negative lies and having lousy thoughts! Only you can be responsible for this!

One way to do this is to bypass the thinking center all together and connect to the feeling center. How? Try smiling. Yes, for no other reason other than it feels good. It really works.

Feeling stressed out? Stop. Take a breath, place your focus on your feeling center and simply speak to it in its language.

Pick something on the right side of the picture below to focus on and find the magic in taking charge of your feelings rather than letting them be at the mercy of lousy untrained thoughts.

If you don’t like your current circumstances, then simply thank them for the inspiration to start looking at ways to create new ones. But bitch about them and you’ll find a strange but obvious fact that most people miss which is this:

What you resist, persists.

So first, look at your thoughts. What story are you telling in your head? Is it negative? Is it real? (The ego is a liar ya know.)

After checking it out and deciding if your situation is something that you cannot change externally, make small internal changes to stay in your heart instead of your head. When you are acting from your heart space, you can then be inspired to take action in new directions.

Remember happiness is ALWAYS available as an option and it never depends on the outer world having to look a certain way every minute. Even though we’ve been sold on the lie that it should.

The source of most people’s pain and stress comes from revisiting, reliving and retelling themselves the bad stores of what has happened in their past or what they assume to be true that is causing them pain.

For every situation or story in your life, we CHOOSE the meaning of that experience. Nothing has ANY meaning except for what you give it. (You can read that again too!)

Exercise your free will and create better meanings, think better thoughts and you will be utterly amazed at how your experiences and situations will begin to change.

Dan turned out to be a really kind and caring boss who did not micro-manage me, but empowered me to be the best I could. I just needed to let go of my resistance that he should be a certain way and stop making up stories in my head.

You’re in charge. Choose better thoughts and you’ll feel better and lower your stress too.

All my best,

Maureen

P.S. I currently have 2 open slots in my coaching program. I’m taking applications now.​

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On the Emerge. Evolve. Lead. podcast this week . . .

This week I had a great conversation with David Greenwalt about the addiction many Americans have with eating ultra-processed foods. David is a Certified Health Coach, fitness expert, and author.

At age 32 and a body weight of 235 pounds, David discovered an evidence-based approach for getting off his own 50 excess pounds and kept it off for 25 years and counting. Since 1999, through his company Leanness Lifestyle University, David has been helping his students, from every walk of life, lose excess fat, keep the muscle and manage this crazy life.

If you are working on your health you’ll want to tune into this one.

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