Can You Reduce Your Stress To Zero In The Next 30 Days?
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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.
Hi Rob,
Do you not think that stress can be mainly due to repetitve thinking/negative thinking that is inherently difficult to stop? I’ll be interested to here your thoughts on clearing the mind!
Thanks Rob
Hum…is it not about perspective, conflicting personal values and lack of faith? rocking in a chair doesn’t get you anywhere.
FEAR=STRESS
addressing what a person is afraid of, identify possible solutions, try one, then letting it go and wait to see what happens. Life is an experiment.
Ruminations requires tools. Once you idenitfy that you are doing it you have a choice to use a tool to stop it. If you choose not to stop then you choose to continue the same way as you have always done and you will get the same results. That’s called “nuts” because insanity is easier than facing ones fear.
Sounds good to me. I agree with stress = our mind being unable to cope with all the crap that is being thrown our way. If we could take the time to look at one issue at a time, and look at it from a completely different angle than the norm, then we may have a chance of reducing the stress that issue causes. Maybe try to look at the positives, not the negatives? I was driving home from work yesterday evening, in piles of traffic, of course i got every red light going, stress levels were rising, i really wanted to get home and get the grungy clothes off, hop in th warm shower and say g’day to my kids whom i haven’t had a chance to spend any time with. At one particular set of lights, the person in the front of the line didn’t bother moving when the light turned green, neither did the guy next to him, i felt the urge to honk and yell but then realised that the people in front couldnt see the green light because the lights infront of them were out, finally they realised it must be thier turn to go and they took off, which got me thinking…what if they had seen the light, we had taken off 30 secs earlier and because of that i may have been just in time for a collision down the road or just in time to hit a pedestrian that jumped out at me in haste to cross the street, what if that 30secs had bought me safety?? You just never know, all the little things that happen, all the times you have been late because of other drivers, or because your car wouldnt start straight away that morning, what if all those frustrating times were actually the times that kept you on a safe path through your life??
Anyway, thinking that way reduced my stress levels a lot yesterday and i decided to “go with the flow” all the way home, no matter how many red lights and delays.
In the last week i have been working at an inner city hospital doing my practical for my nursing diploma. It’s a sad sad place to be. These people are been thrown curve balls the size of houses every day, some are very young and they know that they will never have what they perceive to be a life of normality, they are lost. I have been lucky enough to come into the lives of these people and try and give them hope, see them smile on thier dark days and listen to the stories they have to share, and learn a million lessons through contact with them every day. Things i never woud normally consider thinking about. I have learned that the things that cause my stress to skyrocket would be things that would give these people JOY! Driving home in the afternoon in chaotic traffic would be heaven to these young people with no lower limbs. Having children to drive them nuts would be heaven to these young girls that will never be able to have kids, suffering heartburn after a meal of curry would be heaven to the oldies on vitamised plain meals and thickened fluids. Going to get a flu shot “just in case” is not an option for the people who’s lungs are already full of fluid…,…if these people could live what i call my VERY STRESSFUL life, they would be so so happy, they would think it was really heaven.
I have found that stress is self generated. Yes sometimes by fear, but most often by being tired, hungery, or in pain. If you take care of your bodies physical needs then you are better equiped to handle the stress.
Hi Rob, I look forward to hearing your big idea of zeroing stress level. I think stress is a mix of insecurity and failure to meet my expectations.
Thinking and self talking in a positive way helps reduce my stress level considerably. On the contrary, if I keep on ruminating the negative thoughts in my mind, I will quickly descend into despair.
Zero Basing stress – sounds fantastic..
SRESS = System to proccess life is unable to cope with the demands that life throws at us..
Two possible options:
1. Improve the system to process life.
2. Reduce the demands that life throw at us.
1. Improve the system to process life:
Know your goals and priorities in life..Do not lose track of the big picture.
Focus the mind in the present momemt or present activity.
i think our mind is capable of doing both of the above without diminishing th intrinsic value of either of them.
Get better organized (have a good time and project management system/tool)
Keep your body and mind in great shape (exercise, yoga, meditate, god reading)
Contribute and be of service in some way or other..This will help us to get self-absorbed..Self-absorbtion is a great cause of stress.
2. Reduce the demands that life throws at us:
A more difficult option indeed, yet possible.
Keep the big picture in mind and kno your priorities.. This will automatically over time bring your awareness to a lot of unnecessary shit that we take on. and we have to find ways to say NO to stress generators..
Redefine the concept of YOU.. Change your identity from that which is prompted by our EGO to that of our authentic self.. Know that you are a point in the consciousness space and you can choose your emotional response.
When you idenify with your “bigger self”, then you become “life” and you become one with everything.. Then there is no question of life throwing something at you.. there is no question of pocessing life’s demands.. you just are life and experiencing the flow of life using your small little body and mind.. this kind of identity helps you to be in the flow…
When I read the premise and the comments that follow, I can’t help but get drawn back to the perspective that says “what you experience is a direct result of where your attention is focused. That always seems to be the bottom line.
That’s not to say it isn’t difficult to focus on the good, because in my own life staying focused on the ‘good’ is often my greatest challenge. The path ahead however, always meanders in the direction of my gaze.
I do like what Jill said about how a stress-inducing drive home for her, could seem like a slice of heaven to someone without the ability to drive (ie; no legs). It reminded me of a response I try to keep in mind and have been teaching to my kids, regarding the “less than pleasant” realities when they occur. It is to practice saying, “what’s good about this”?
I was having a talk with a friend a while back and this topic of perspective came up, so I mentioned the phrase to him. We tried to put it to the test, by coming up with something the average person would surely find nothing “good” about. And so my friend thought for a bit and came up with this. “OK” he said, “how about taking a crap? What’s good about that”? Already in the frame of mind to consider a new prospective I said, “Well what about how awesome that would be for someone who has to wear a colostomy bag”?
As we toyed around with other examples it was sometimes more difficult, especially regarding tradegies, but certainly for most of our stress-inducing circumstances there are those less fortunate perhaps, who would find them otherwise. Even if the only good thing about a circumstance is that in it’s annoyance we see an area in which we need to grow, there can be something valuable.
I do like these kind of discussions though and would greatly enjoy participating via this blog and/or phone. Thanks Rob.