You may feel stressed-out when waiting in a line at the bank or the post office, when driving in traffic or along an unfamiliar route, when facing a deadline, or when having an uncomfortable conversation.
You can even experience stress reactions as a result of anticipating or remembering such events.
Though these stresses seem fairly minor, they can cause all sorts of symptoms, such as muscular tension, headaches, insomnia, gastrointestinal upset, and skin conditions. Long-term stress can also be a factor in serious diseases such as cancer, heart disease, and dementia, particularly if you rely on unhealthy strategies to cope with stress, such as smoking, substance abuse, overeating, or overworking.
One of the gifts that mindfulness offers is helping you recognize that there are choices in how you respond to any stressful situation.
Viktor Frankl, psychiatrist and holocaust survivor, describes this eloquently: “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom” (Pattakos 2008, viii).
Even amidst Frankl’s imprisonment, he found ways to provide comfort and healing to those around him, underscoring that, with awareness, everyone has freedom of choice how to respond. The key is awareness.
Of course, conditioning is a powerful force that can make it difficult to change. Just as water finds the path of least resistance, you’ll tend to fall back on habits because in many ways this is the easiest course to follow. This includes habitual ways of seeing and reacting.
To help provide motivation for the challenging work of turning off your autopilot and resisting habitual reactions and behaviors, mindfulness activities such as Mandala art , meditation or breath awareness will help you explore how stress is impacting your life.
Becoming truly aware of the stress in your life and how you interact with it is a necessary first step in choosing new responses that will serve you better.
Let me ask you today – Are you aware in the present moment? And from a scale of 1-10 how aware are you?
(Adapted from the book- Mindfulness Stress Based Reduction workbook)
Who ever thought dreams can make you insomniac, like literally insomniac? Thousands of questions and doubts in our hearts, we take a leap of faith just to find the internal contentment. But sometimes, we just become too hard on ourselves. We forget that we have our limitations. The burden of dreams is like carrying an entire world on your shoulders. You must let that warrior inside you rest for a bit.
Not a long time ago, I was interviewing Lopamudra Banerjee, an entrepreneur, and a fitness coach. As soon as I made the announcement, I received a flood of messages in my inbox for Lopa to share her entrepreneurial journey. She is one brave soul. But I will tell you why this interview was a lot unique then what we see all the time. Lopa gave us all something to think about. From a sales professional to a personal fitness coach turned health entrepreneur, her journey says a lot about what happens when you choose to not take a break. Meanwhile, we hear people talking about breaking your limits and giving up everything for your goals, she shared the darker aspect of dreaming and overdoing things.
So, as per my rendezvous with Lopa, I will tell you what I have learned about the dreams and working too hard on yourself. Also, please do visit my Instagram page to find my interview with Lopa, and don’t forget to comment and share your thoughts on dreams. Also, please feel free to share your experience and how you found your warrior spirit.
Phase One: Opportunity knocks
When opportunity knocks our doors, what a time of merriment it is. You are filled with a reviving energy and you are ready to take the world down. But have you planned things the right way? Planning is an essential part of any journey. Do you just take a vacation to a place unknown without even checking the weather of the place? No, everything that we do, requires planning. Deep down we know going without plan is a lot adventurous and we all want to feel the thrill. But a smart person will always be prepared beforehand, so that when the weather is all stormy, they have a safe shelter.
Phase Two: Nobody tells it is going to be stressful
The actual story begins in phase two. Meanwhile, it is great that you are following your dreams, but the stress is just going to take a toll on your mind and body. It is going to break you and will make you feel helpless. If you are young your body will support you longer in the journey, but eventually depriving it of the needful rest, fun, and peace, you will notice your will starts to wither. The worst part is, you lose the quality at which you were always performing.
For many of us, it is important to give our 100% in whatever we do. But when you face work overload, are you still sure you will be able to keep up the quality? For any person quality is something which we all want to achieve. I am one of those people. Lopa is one of those people. You might be too.
It is essential in these times that we understand our limitations. We have to reinstate the lost balance. Sometimes, in the hurry to catch up with your dreams we leave behind the beautiful moments. We compromise our time with family to work hard. And in the end, we have to make do with whatever little connections are left with our loved ones.
Just like our body, the mind needs to rest too. But how to do that? It is constantly thinking, calculating your next move. Are things in your control when you are already juggling thousands of things at a time. In my conversation with Lopa ,I understood how badly restless she was while managing her growing business. It got her worried when a client did not get the results she promised. Though she never lost the business, it was too bad for her self-esteem.
As a result, things start to fall apart. Brick by brick you are back to square one with the burden of broken dreams. You must realize the importance of rejuvenating yourself. Resting your mind. Investing your time in knowing your limits and realizing when you are overdoing it. Empires aren’t formed in days or months, they take years. When we increase our pace, we forget we don’t have the energy to do it all ourselves. And also, you don’t have the resources to manage it.
Phase Three: Rejuvenating and Restarting Again
You don’t have to give up on your dreams. Take some time out of work and start working on your peace of mind. In the end, don’t forget you wanted to achieve this all to attain a great degree of self-contentment.
Understand where things are going wrong. Make a list of things that you will like to change from the last time. Start working on them. Choose wisely what and how much you want to work. Work exclusive if necessary. In the end entrepreneurship, job or business are not just about money, they are about gaining that expert badge.
Humans are emotional beings; we make connections with inanimate or animate things. And, so we do with our current environment. Sometimes, we become comfortable in discomfort. It is downright sadistic and you are inflicting pain on yourself. No sane person would want to feel pain all the time.
You want to leave them behind and have a fresh start with spontaneity and positive feelings. But your mind has become used to of these negative thoughts, how do you overcome that? It will not let go of something it has invested so much energy and time to hold and pile up. It works against you. It would tend to make you weak. But your will alone will help you triumph.
Make drastic changes, and command your mind to cope with it. Don’t let it fool you with the illusions of finding happiness in the darkness. Darkness makes you lose vision – the vision of life, opportunity, love, kindness, positivity; the list goes on. Nothing takes root in toxic soil. You have to nourish it again and that can happen only in the light.
Would letting go make you win the war?
Letting go is the first signal you give to your brain that you want to quit living like a victim. You want to cherish your battle scars and move on to the next level, and keep it up.
It is just a battle; a long war awaits you. But the first step will always be letting go of the baggage and taking time from that exhausting sulking to evaluate your environment. It includes giving up on your pre-notions, it is about adapting to the changes in your mental and physical environment and doing your best to survive. Above all, never forget to keep moving forward. Remember it is a war, and you don’t run back or standstill in the war you have to keep leading your life forward to win.
My rendezvous with letting go
Working for IBM for 15 years and having total work experience of 23 years, I too grew a lot attached to the badge that I was wearing. Being a part of a prestigious organization, people identifying me with the name of the brand, I was scared to take that sharp exit from that lane towards a new beginning – the making of Ranjini Rao, a life coach, and an entrepreneur.
But despite making peace with something that never gave me wholesome satisfaction, I gave up the comfort that emptiness offered me. I decided to take a rocky road, right up to the hilltop. It is never easy; it is never intended to be easy. Afterall battling with self is like fighting someone who knows all your secrets, it knows your strategy, and worse part is your brain has the power of seeding an illusion. See-through does lies and I am sure, even the simplest strategy will work out. Take firm decisions, challenge your mind to accept the ground reality and it will lose. You control your mind, and the rest is history.
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