6 Ways To Stop Stress From Sabotaging You

HSP Health Blog offers insight into the highly sensitive trait and its genetic and stress diseases. It offers alternative health strategies for HSP’s to support their highest functioning.

It’s hard to believe but there was a time in my life when I was dogged by one stressful incident after another. I could attract a stressful situation from another solar system! And this is the formula that not only killed those stressful programs stone dead, but led me to my vocation.

Number 1: Never Take Stressful Incidents Personally

It is very dangerous to IDENTIFY YOURSELF as a stress magnet—thereby adding emotional power—which through repetition encodes this erroneous belief deep in your subconscious mind.

When I realized that the world wasn’t out to get me I laughed. What arrogance we can have when we’re in a victim state! What would lead me to believe that the world revolved around me to such an extent that it had nothing better to do (with 7 billion souls in the game) than victimize me and watch me squirm for fun!

By taking each stressful incident personally I identified with it, branded myself as a victim of stress—thereby installing a program that set me up for similar experiences again and again I am a magnet for stress…I can see the evidence…and no matter how hard I try, I keep getting victimized…

On brutally honest examination I became aware that there was a “poor me” pay-off that kept me repeating these experiences. This is how it went no matter how hard I soldier on, I keep getting covered in crap (look how bravely I keep putting myself in the line of fire)!

Ultimately, I understood that I was not the universal “stress target”. My self talk program changed to shit happens and I am unconsciously putting myself in its path! I am going to get out of the way from now on. And guess what? It stopped happening.

Number 2: Don’t Let The Stressful Stuff Pile Up

These are lots of little molehills—not one insurmountable psychological Everest. They are separate incidents and need to be dealt with separately one at a time. When we slip into overwhelm even things that have nothing to do with our direct experience get added into the mix. You hear something depressing on the news and you add it to your stress pack; a friend tells you a sad story and you add it to your stress pack. Something breaks or gets stolen and you add it to your stress pack.

Depressing news is all around us all the time. People tell sad stories all the time. Things break or get stolen all the time. That’s life. These things happen. Plans don’t always come together as we envisage them. Who gave you the stress franchise? It’s not just your experience. It’s every human’s experience from time to time.

Number 3: Learn From Repeating Stressful Situations

If SIMILAR stressful situations keep happening there is something YOU are not learning and applying that keeps them recurring. You are repeatedly using a strategy that you know from previous experience is not going to have the outcome you desire. So change the strategy!

I used to move on too quickly from my less-than-comfortable experiences, before evaluating the part I HAD PLAYED in them. I just put my foot on the gas and headed straight for the next disaster. But then having branded myself a victim, of course I couldn’t take responsibility—that would have blown my award winning victim role right out of the water!

Because I failed to take ownership I couldn’t relate it to something I was doing or not doing. Hey I’m the one being picked on I would tell myself, it can’t be me that’s co-creating this mess. So I never learned the lessons inherent in these experiences. I just kept stepping into the same pile of poo. It really didn’t occur to me that I could choose another route.

Sometimes it’s not what we are actively doing to keep this stress cycle repeating—it’s what we are NOT doing. It can be negligence, impulsiveness, people pleasing and not setting personal boundaries. It can be that we are not expecting a return on our efforts; undervaluing ourselves or being too unassertive.

Number 4: Set Boundaries

If you want to become immune to stress—start setting boundaries Protecting your wellbeing needs to be your first priority. From the moment I made respect boundaries top of my agenda on a daily basis in every level of my life—the stress disappeared.

Number 5: Are You Using Stress As An Excuse?

Accept that you are USING STRESS AS AN EXCUSE to evade responsibility and commit to action. Then things will change! Ask yourself how it is possible for someone as smart, capable and valuable as you to keep repeatedly experiencing these situations. It can only be an unconscious belief program that keeps drawing you back again and again. When I identified the part I was playing in this stress game and changed my behavior and beliefs—the stress cycle stopped. This is not for the faint hearted—brutal honesty is called for.

Number 6: Repetitive Experiences Are A Clue

The repetitive experiences in your life are a diagnostic clue. This is how self sabotage works—we unconsciously install a victim program with some kind of “pay off”. And for as long as we are benefiting from this “pay off” we will never solve the problem. We just keep putting ourselves in a position where the pattern repeats again and again—like lab rats pressing a button to get a reward. The names and places may be different but the dynamic is the same.

Mastering Stress

If you use these 6 strategies you cannot fail to defeat your stress saboteur. There will still be countless potential stresses around you on a daily basis.

1. Never take stressful incidents personally.
2. Never group all the stressful stuff together and make a mountain out of it.
3. If SIMILAR stressful situations keep happening—there is something YOU are not learning and applying that keeps them recurring.
4. One of the first skills to master if you want to become immune to stress is boundary setting
5. Accept that you are USING STRESS AS AN EXCUSE to evade responsibility and commit to action.
6. The repetitive experiences in your life are a clue to where the problem lies.

 There will always be stressful situations around you (just like everyone else) but they won’t have your name on them. They won’t follow you everywhere you go like a bad smell. Why? Because YOU will be consciously directing your life!

The post 6 Ways To Stop Stress From Sabotaging You appeared first on HSP Health.

Website:
HSP Stress
Relief
Blog:
HSP Health Blog

Facebook:
FB

Twitter:
Twitter

Google+
Google+