Dumping the Zings

Dumping the Zings

So part of this “Why am I happy” campaign of mine includes finding better ways of dealing with stress than a fifth of bad scotch before bed.

One really great way I’ve found is to avoid it. Yeah, it’s kind of obvious, but just bear with me.

Think about your morning time. Do you love it? Is it time for you? Are you spending some of that morning time on something that really matters to you personally?

When we start our day in chaos, we set ourselves up for the rest of the day. By noticing where we get rushed or stress, and changing that, we can start our day with our peace on.

I raced around in the morning trying to find the stuff I needed to take with me, trying to figure out what I was going to wear, and the other sock. And suddenly, there wasn’t enough time to dry my hair, and I couldn’t find my bus card or my keys. And now I am going to be late. Again. ARRRGGGGG!!!

Now, ten minutes in the evening and I’ve laid my clothes out, with socks, packed my bag, and keys and bus card are where they are supposed to be. And if I wash my hair tonight, my morning is peaceful.

When we take a step back and see where we create our own stresses, we can start finding resolutions for those stressors.

Why am I so creative? How do I see solutions? Why do resolutions come easily to me?

I stop stressing over traffic when I think of it as an opportunity to be alert and patient at the same time, like a weird video game.

Knowing where I am on that scale of one to ten with one being relaxed and ten being stressed can be useful. The more I let myself go to stressed the more yelly and sweary I get. Now, I think being yelly can be really fun, and I love Halloween as my personal Holiday of Screams. Screaming is also mega fun, and I will, from time to time, scream into pillows so’s not to scare the neighbors. But I digress.

Yelly isn’t fun when I’m mad. And I get to mad faster when I’m feeling stressed.

So what else can I do to ease my stress? I’ve learned to handle tasks that will only take a couple minutes as they come up. Did you know that it takes nine seconds to change a roll of toilet paper? Two minutes to clean the cat box. Two minutes to take out the trash and recycling. Thirty seconds to wash my cup, and that includes waiting for the water to get hot.

Little things don’t build up into overwhelming things. I like that.

I also look for pockets of time where I can stop for a few minutes in the middle of things. It’s like a quicky body-scan meditation. I notice my feet, become aware of my toes, notice up my legs, notice my breath. Sometimes, I will take a few moments, cover my eyes, and block my ears and just listen to my insides. It reminds me that I am not my stress. I am a being with resources.

How have I changed from feeling tight as a violin string ready to snap to feeling relaxed, peaceful, and centered?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2013 all rights reserved 11202013

Troubles to Bubbles

Troubles to Bubbles

It’s time to stop having problems. I know I’ve mentioned this before, but, believe me, it’s worth talking about again.

A really simple way to do that is to change your language, in your speech, in your thoughts.

Semantics, the meaning of words and phrases, are a great big hairy deal to humans because we have speech, and thought. And, even though we tend to use the same words as each other, they don’t always have the same meanings. If you wanna play with this, try asking your friends what they experience in their mind when they hear the word, “dog” and notice that each person has a different idea of “dog.”

Based on our ideas about words, they, like everything else, have vibrational weight, frequencies. Personal, vibrational weight. Low vibrations leave us feeling bad, high vibrations leave us feeling good, to make it really simple. For example, the phrase, “you people” can fire me up to mad  when used in the context of a customer service complaint. Likewise, “gal” is one that simply brushes my fur backwards. Do you know what words or phrases can tweak you?

A silly way to look at it is that changing the vibrational weight of our language can turn a trouble to a bubble. Heh.

So, when I decided that I wanted to stop having problems, I needed to find words to lift the vibrational weight, since “problem” for me is a heavy word.

Topic, issue, subject, these are words that are pretty neutral for me, and when I don’t feel weighted down by my language, I find it much easier to look for solutions, resolutions, direction, and progress. And I feel light.

Making this shift, from problems to progress, has the additional benefit of leaving me feeling successful, accomplished. I like that.

Why do I find solutions? Why do things go my way? How do I know the outcome?

That’s a lot of nice results for one, small shift.

Why is it all so easy?

When I notice I am looking down at the problem, I can look up for a solution. Sometimes, I can come up with  not just one, but many possible solutions. An embarrassment of solutions, so to speak. Sometimes I may not find any right away, and that’s when all that playing with my creativity pays off. I can start brainstorming solutions, even outrageous ones, and generally speaking, before too long, a viable solution will emerge.

If this were a motivational speech, I would point out here that one of the primary differences between folks who realize their dreams, and folks who don’t, is this particular skill, the skill of finding solutions.

If this were a motivational speech, I would mention the fact that you are brilliant, and creative, and can progress as you wish, even with, let’s say, certain physical limitations, as long as you continue to expand the limits of your mind. The more you push those limits, the more resources you will have.

How have I change from thinking in problems to thinking in solutions?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2013 all rights reserved 11082013