stress

File That Under “S” for Someone Else’s Problem!

It’s beyond my boundaries.

You can try, but, honestly, you really can’t save most people from themselves. It’s easy to get deeply sucked into other people’s drama. We all have at least one or two of those folks in our lives; the Drama Queens and Drama Kings. They’re the ones who live in a constant state of chaos. And, like Pig Pen, the Peanuts character who lives under a dark cloud, are perpetually suffering, always victims and always with insurmountable problems… for YOU to solve.

Those folks, the ones who keep telling that same story (with, perhaps, different characters added or a change of venue to keep it ‘fresh and new’) might ask for your advice. They might even appear to listen with great interest. They may thank you profusely and sing your praises as a wise and loving sage. But, in the end, it’s unlikely that you made any significant difference over there at all. They did look like they were listening, but your brilliant words never made it beyond their outer ears.

Don’t be concerned about their inability to really have heard what you said. When the water clears, they won’t really appreciate your interference in their latest crisis, anyway. They may act like they want your advice, but they probably don’t. They may seem to beg for your “aw, poor baby” sympathy, but they probably don’t actually want to change, at all. And, although even they may think they’re looking for your help… they’re NOT!

It’s a wild and wacky Cosmic Joke! They don’t want their problems solved, their emotional addictions and distractions taken away, their stories resolved, or their messes cleaned up. Truth is, they don’t want their lives fixed, not by YOU – or anybody else for that matter.

Why not? Well, think about it. If you did all that for them, what would they have to do? To say? If you nullify their misery and take away their stories (by eliminating their myriad of ‘problems’)… what have they got left? They don’t know and they aren’t ready to know yet. And, hey, last time I checked, telling them was not on your job description!

Call me crazy, but I’m thinkin’ that we each have enough of our own issues to deal with… we don’t need anyone else’s, do we? And beyond that, when we take on someone else’s problems we:

Add to our own stress
Disempower them
Set ourselves up to be used, abused and disrespected!

Looks like the conversation is, once again, about to turn back to boundaries – yours and theirs. If boundaries are, in deed, the demarcation of where your responsibility starts and everyone else’s ends (or vice versa if you’re looking over from the ‘other side of the line’), enforce those boundaries with giant KEEP OUT signs and patrol diligently!

If the junkyard dog invited you inside the gate… to hang out, would you go? Didn’t think so. If Brer Rabbit asked you not to throw him into the briar patch would you agree? Come on, then, impose your boundaries and stop crossing your own lines. When someone who’s not you, hands you a folder marked “Issues for you to Solve”, file it under ‘S’ for ‘Someone Else’s Problem!

Wrap Yourself Up and Be PRESENT!

Holidays can be difficult times – for such varied reasons. We each have our own list of who we don’t really like seeing, what we don’t really like doing, where we don’t really like going and why we should forget it all this year and skip the holidays completely. Yes, it is supposed to be a time of joy… sharing, giving and loving. Why then, for so many of us, does it often end up being a dreaded time of year; a disappointment, or worse yet, exactly as bad as we expected it to be?

Why? Well, from a sociological standpoint, we have so many “fabulous reasons” to embrace. Thanks to a variety of alternative lifestyles, today’s families are generally “broken” or “mixed” to begin with… It’s not unusual to celebrate the holidays with “family” you just met or hardly know. By virtue of birth, death, marriage, divorce and remarriage the landscape of familyland as it used to be, has been devastated. Now, add in an abundance of alternative life styles and hey, is it any wonder that hanging out with the family is a little tense and stressful?

And then there’s what we bring to the party… We show up for the holidays with lots of presents… (get ready for a very cool PUN) and a whole lotta PAST! If there’s any time that we humans carry the past in our pockets, it’s holiday time. I know that I personally have total (and often totally inaccurate) recall about what it used to be like; those OLD familiar smells and sounds, the songs and traditions; the games we played, the inside jokes, all that warm fuzzy stuff that just gets better as the memories get older. And, oh yeah, I remember all that “other” stuff, too. “THEY” were always at least an hour late, he was always so loud and so rude to everyone, she always wore waaay too much cheap perfume, they never listened – just talked, she never helped clear the table…

Every December – for as far back as I can recall – I have watched my favorite holiday movie, Miracle on 34th Street. I lose it every time little Susan Walker (played by Natalie Wood) finds Santa’s cane next to the fireplace. Seriously, I’ve seen this movie at least 50 times and every time… I cry. I remember watching it with my family when I was a child and, later, with my own children. It’s a magical, feel good movie. Based on this movie, I have an expectation that the holidays will bring miracles. Just like in the movie, I assume that there will be bad guys, problems and upsets… followed by miracles.

Based on the past, most of us expect everyone and everything to be “just like it’s always been”. Cousin Mark and his family will be late. The Cramer clan will be early. Aunt Ruth will pinch your cheeks and call you Cupcake. Uncle Frank will eat too much and fall asleep right after dinner. Great Auntie Linda will give you pajamas. The twins will fight over their presents and Grandpa will get indigestion from overeating.

I am an adult… until I get around my brothers. At that point we revert to thinking and acting like the children we were. We play, giggle, pull pranks, get loud and get physical. Is it any wonder that I am treated, as if I was still ten or eleven years old? Oops, what happened to the holiday “present”?

So that’s what we bring to the party… We show up for the holidays with lots of presents… and a whole lotta PAST! If there’s any time that we humans carry the past in our pockets, it’s holiday time. Empty your pockets… and get PRESENT!

STRESS AIN’T ALL THAT BAD

STRESS AIN’T ALL THAT BAD

By Sandye Linnetz

Most discussions of STRESS generally focus on its negative side. Yes, ‘bad’ stress (aka distress) can be at the root, the cause, of so many problems, but there are other degrees and types of STRESS, too. The question is not “Do you have STRESS”, because the answer will always be “YES” if you are alive. It is, instead, “What kind of STRESS do you have”? (And in a future blog the question will be: How do I manage my stress?)

Physical Stress (head aches, adrenalin rush, indigestion, insomnia – lots of sick days, high energy, quick movement, sudden strength)

Social Stress (feels like all you do is work and sleep, excitement, find yourself withdrawing, the thrill of ‘wowing’ the crowd)

Cerebral Stress (feel brain dead, come to work and can’t even get started, unexplainable brilliance)

Emotional Stress (clinical depression, endorphin release, adrenalin rush, love, addictions – might be shopping or coffee, elation)

Spiritual Stress (joy, feeling of helplessness – want BIG changes, rapture)

So STRESS isn’t really a totally bad thing, then? No… not all stress…

Good stress (aka eustress) is manifest as drive, energy or excitement. It’s what makes you want to get up in the morning and get started on your day. Good stress is what you feel when you are standing at the top of the mountain ready to ski down, when you are about to make a presentation or when you are defending a co- worker. Good stress gave the firefighters at the World Trade Center the energy they needed to rescue people. Good stress gives us the adrenaline boost we need to jump out of the way of the car that ran a red light and is speeding toward us. Other examples of good stress might include physical exercise, mental challenges, emotional elation or spiritual fulfillment. Many or most of the activities that we enjoy, place us under pressure; so, we are technically under stress while performing them. The difference is that we are wholeheartedly – and consciously – choosing these pressures. There is no conflict within – we enjoy the experience of good stress.

We embrace these kinds of pressures and stimulation. Without good stress, we grow complacent, indifferent or simply bored, but with good stress we are constantly growing – we feel truly alive!

In order to know joy, we must feel stress. I experienced joyful stress when my daughter announced she was pregnant… and again when I saw my grandchild for the first time. Think of the best times you’ve ever had; your heart beats wildly, your emotions surge (your adrenalin is definitely flowing) but because it’s a pleasant reaction, we don’t generally label it as a stress reaction. Yet it is. When you go to watch your favorite hockey team play, the adrenalin flows. And depending on which team scores, you experience joy or disappointment. Either way, your arousal rate is very high, your system is pumping out chemicals. You are being STIMULATED! Thank you, stress.

Good stress is the excitement you feel on Christmas morning, or when you see your child perform in a concert, or you get a call unexpectedly from a dear friend, or you smell cookies baking, or you win at bingo, or you hear a golden oldie on the radio that fills you with cherished memories. (Sometimes good stress is good sex, too!) These are all positive healing stresses.

At work you experience positive stress when you are about to deliver a presentation, find out you are getting a raise or promotion with new responsibility, solve a problem, move to a new office, get a new assignment, meet a new co-worker, receive praise, know you did a good job and as you wait for acknowledgement.

We all need a degree of stress to get up in the morning; it is critical to feeling motivated and interested in getting on with your life. And beyond that, and the real reason that we’d never want to be ‘un-stressed’, is that stress has us jump out of the way when we are about to collide with a car or falling object; when we are in danger and that fight or flight thing kicks in. Don’t poo poo it, celebrate it! Stress can do a body good!

WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?

a message from Sandye Linnetz

I have always hated waiting. I’m the quick and impatient type, always moving, doing – in action. I was never very good at waiting. What a waste of my precious, limited time! How unproductive! How boring!

You know what I’m talking about. Waiting for the train to pass or the light to change… You have place a to go and people to see! Waiting in line at the store… You have far more important things to do! Waiting for your appointment when you got there on time! Being left on hold when you have an important question… or answer… or problem. Waiting for that repair person to show up or the mail or that phone call can be hell on earth! Some of you might even have issues with waiting for a slow speaker to finish a sentence or for the other person to ‘get the concept’.

And then there are the BIG waits: Did I get the job? Where’s the acceptance letter? What are the test results? Is it a boy or a girl? When will THIS be over?

Whoa. Hold on there. WAIT a minute! (oops, sorry ‘bout that) Perhaps we would all benefit from a little ‘waiting coaching’. If we could train ourselves to wait – and wait patiently – maybe we would even (dare I say it?) learn to enjoy waiting.

Ready for a shift? Think of yourself as a student who’s been working hard on long division all period long. And envision waiting as recess time. Remember the thrill of the recess bell? We all loved recess, didn’t we? It’s time to go back to those glorious days and relish the break – take charge of it and make waiting your play time.

Decide how you will use your time; will you use it to BE or as a time to DO? Using your time management skills you could do some strategic planning. Make lists. Make that phone call or write that email. On a more cerebral level: meditate, pray, really look around – wherever you are – and appreciate what is.

It’s all about ‘reframing’ what is… reframe the annoying wait so that it becomes an opportunity to…

Make the shift from annoyance to relaxation and get good at waiting.