Happiness 2.0: The Zero Stress System

In part one of this series we talked about what stress is. My definition was that stress is the conscious awareness of a thought.  Today we’ll start to talk about managing stress.

Most people don’t define themselves as being stressed until they reach a point somewhere close to meltdown. Yet there’s a range that begins with the with conscious thought and builds up pressure until you reach the tipping point that causes a breakdown.

Becoming more skilled at dealing with stress means getting an awareness that you are on the road to being stressed earlier and earlier. As you develop your awareness and speed with which you can process the details of life, you free up more brainpower and clarity to deal with the situations and problems in your life. Also the quicker you deal with these aspects, the less chance there is of fear and strong emotions biasing and distorting your thought processes.

What happens when you are slower to deal with problems and thoughts is that your brain gets pulled in many different directions. It starts to work on one issue, then you feel a pang of fear about some impending situation and so that becomes your priority.

The result is that you start down one journey and change direction before reaching the end. And you keep doing this until you reach the end of the day and realize you haven’t finished any, but you’re completely exhausted. And in the morning you have to start again only with more being added.

If you could focus your full attention on one thought, you’d have your full brainpower focused on it and so you could process it quicker.

There is an almost perfect analogy to stress.

Housekeeping.

I know this because neither my Wife, nor I, like housework. And so it’s something that we’ve had to work hard to consciously keep under control.

If you let things slip in your house, if you take a couple of days and slack off, you wake up the next morning to a mess. There’s a whole backlog of tasks that have to be done just to get to a blank slate.

Then there are continually going to be more mess created, more jobs that need doing as you go through the day. And it is much harder to get a house tidy than it is to keep it tidy.

This is true also of the mind. We’re always producing and encountering problems, conflicts and cognitive loose ends. In time these almost always will be resolved, but when you have them in your head simultaneously, they cause your brain to split into too many different directions.

Part Two to follow;

What is stress?

You could say it was making and uploading a video for the first time :).

Sorry for the delay, but getting to grips with a new technology is always filled with potholes.  I would have liked to have made the video better, but I if I was to get anything out this week, it would have to be this.

The written version on what is stress is here and the audio version is here.

I’ve received a couple of emails asking me why I haven’t posted anything yet this week.  I was planning to get to work on a series of posts about stress.  But life got in the way, as it tends to…

Over the end of last week my daughter got sick.  It eventually transpired she had measles.  The school’s policy is that she shouldn’t attend for five days.  The result is she’s perfectly fine, full of energy and bored here at home.  And so with her and my dog bouncing around I’m not getting anything worth posting written.

So I have another plan for this week.  Something I’ve been meaning to do for ages.  Which is to provide information in a variety of formats.  So rather than just post to my blog, as I have done up to now, I’m working on making the same information available as a video post, an mp3 file and a weekly email newsletter.

I may also make a physical version available in book and cd format every 6 months or so, if there’s enough interest, which will of course have to be paid for.

I’ve played about with video and audio, but held off because I don’t think it suits my style.  Some people say they have the face for radio, I would add in the personality and voice for print.  However I think these formats are useful and maybe I should just get over myself.  Audio is more convenient to listen to when travelling and video can be the closest to being there in person with someone.

So let me know, what do you think?

Image via Wikipedia

I promised you I had a big idea and here it is. If you’ve read the book ‘Wisdom of Crowds’ you’ll understand the power of focused groups.

None of us is smarter than all of us put together. I’ve always thought of each of us as apart of a cosmic jigsaw puzzle. That together we can make the greater picture, but alone we see only a fraction of it. So having many minds focus on the ideas is like refining and polishing the rough diamond.

The other part that helps us to learn is experience. Ideas are great, they are like the seeds that grow into a great plant, but it is experience that proves or disproves the idea.

Most of us will only have 70 - 100 years of experience. Some people will experience more in that time and some less of course. But none of uswill be able to draw on the breadth of experience that a group can tap into. Which leads me to my idea…

How about a group challenge?

In the next 30 days to Zero-Base your stress levels. What is Zero-Basing? It’s eliminating all stress from your mind, returning your mind to complete emptiness. You may not have experienced this before, but I challenge you to in the next 30 days.

You see, stress is what happens when our system for processing life is slower than the demands life makes on us.

So, over the next 30 days I’ll share my ideas for processing life and reducing stress. Then you can help me polish and refine them through adding your thoughts and through your experiences.

So you’ll have an evolving system to deal with stress. Plus there will be a group here to support you. So you if you have an issue that is causing you stress and you can’t get past it, ask others for help, suggestions or how they have dealt with similar issues.

Or for the next 30 days I will clear a couple of hours most days to take calls so you can call me and I’ll work on the issue with you. There’s a graph of how I see the challenge working below.

Let me know your thoughts in the comments.

I’m sure you are probably missing some of the most valuable insights from this blog. You see I write a post with my views and you probably read it within a day or so. But for days after, people are joining in the conversation and bringing in their experiences, different perspectives and insights. So someone could make the most insightful comment or share a great resource and because it wasn’t there when you read the post, you may have missed out on the best part of the whole page.

As an example, go back and look at the last post. The comments on stress have made for interesting reading. I think Doug started everyone off on a great basis with his summary of stress. Louise summed up how everyday life creates stress and Steve focused us on a few areas where we can reduce stress. I love the fact that Tom brought up the issue of defining stress. I have very strong opinions on this (as with most things) and will be sharing with you shortly.

Then I could go on with Maggie, Sean, Ruth, Galen, Dan, Pattie and Ois, but I think you get the point and you can read for yourself here.

And if you haven’t commented yet, share your 2 cents. There’s a few of us here gathering to chew on ideas and find ways of living with less hassle. How can we help each other to reduce stress? Or what stress do you face from day to day? Or what would help you be less stressed? Or what has helped you reduce or overcome your stress?

I’m just waiting for a few more comments before unleashing my rant on stress.

Up to now, most of my energy has been focused on developing theoretical knowledge. Now I’m looking at finding more practical ways that people can live more enjoyably with less hassle.

I’ve been doing a lot of study into stress recently. I have searched high and low and I haven’t found any source that adequately explains what stress is or how to effectively deal with it. Almost everything I have come across has been the same old rubbish, regurgitated from 50 odd years ago.

Yet it is probably the easiest personal problem to solve. I’m going to be working with some groups to share my ideas and solutions to reduce stress and I thought of you. I hate waste and it’d be a waste to have ideas that could help you and neglect to share them. So I wondered if stress is something that affects and bothers you.

If it is, please could you reply by adding a comment and share how stress affects you and what you believe would most help you to live without getting stressed. Not something like my boss dropping dead or winning the lottery, but more like having someone to talk to or knowing how to communicate more clearly.

If there is enough interest, I have some information and a big idea that I believe will help, but there have to be enough people involved for it to work.

Some people have asked for clarification about the Ego. Here’s something that hopefully, might make it clearer and more understandable.

Imagine that long ago two countries went to war.

One was filled with excitement at the glory of victory, anticipating the spoils of victory, the access to new technologies and knowledge. They were eager to conquer the other and anticipating doubling the size of their proud nation.

They surround the enemy and set up to lay siege and eventually conquer the nations castle.

The defending country, meanwhile has been battening down their hatches. It’s Generals are rushing about making sure every possible part is protected. Orders are urgently barked and everyone is rushing to protect their homes and country. All are fearful and anxiously awaiting the impending attack. Each thinks of his or her loved ones and hopes they will get through unscathed and see off the Intruding army.

The Attacker has all to gain. The Defender can at best limit the damage.

This is the difference between the Ego and the Higher Self. The war analogy is not the best way to understand the Higher Self. While it is a great Explorer and Adventurer, it does not seek war or harm any other. However it is exactly the analogy that the Ego experiences.

The feeling of persecution and impending destruction.  There is no upside to the Ego.  Therefore Egoic thoughts are inherently negative.

Nothing originates from the Ego.  You may want love or fame.  These are ideas that in their pure and original form came from your Higher Self.  However the Ego is the original hijacker.  It then jumps on and diverts your original intent and distorts it a form that becomes tainted and sordid.

You might remember the What is Happiness Survey from a couple of weeks ago. A few people have asked about the results , so here they are;

http://livewithoutconflict.com/whatishappinesssurvey.pdf

I did want to do a kind of before and after comparison with the insights from the Happiness 2.0 report. Unfortunately there weren’t enough responses to make that work.

I always greatly preferred Carl Jung’s perspectives to Freuds and when I studied Neuro Linguistic Programming I liked his personality types. No typology will ever be completely accurate, but I find these interesting as a starting point. Their fun to take with others and can be helpful in interacting.

I just came across a Jung Personality test that seemed accurate for me. The funny thing is that I fell into the same type as Carl Jung.

I thought I’d share the link with you here. It takes about three to five minutes to fill out the test and then you get a report. If you want to see what the report will cover before you take the test, click the link to see mine.

Once you’ve taken the test, take a couple of moments to share your type, if it was accurate for you and whether you learned anything about yourself from it.

One of the most common phrases people say to others in some form of grief is, ‘time heals’ or ‘it takes time’. It usually does, but time is not the healer. There is a certain process that has to be gone through in order to move things from being painful to being accepted. And this also relates to living with more integrity, being happier and changing a habit.

Some people can get through this process much quicker than others. And so can you. It all depends on 2 things.

1. How effective your process for dealing with change and loss is.

2. The velocity of your life.

There is a process to everything. A certain sequence of events that have to happen before you let something go. Some people have it down so effectively that it’s just like stepping on an escalator and waiting as it passes through the stages. For some it’s like being stuck at the bottom of a deep well, without ladders or steps. Every inch they claw up by their nails is another painful exertion.

The velocity of life is a term I use to mean how much experience you pack into your life. Say someone has been stuck in a cell with little contact or stimulation. They are going to have a much lower velocity of experience than most.

It’s relevant because the process you have to go through, needs certain situations and experiences to move onto the next stage.

The process determines how many stages, experiences and situations you need. The velocity of your life determines how long it will take for them to happen.