Stress: Is Stress Inevitable

Stress seems to be present in all areas of life. Even people at play push themselves so far and so hard that their joy fills with stress.

People stride to do their best. Or more likely, to do whatever it is better than the next guy.

Hmm. Now there you have the paradigm that says stress is inevitable in life.

But does that have to be everyone’s truth?

How do you have to run your head to see circumstances and events as stressful for you? You have to be someone who interprets events in a negative way. Rather than seeing obstacles as stepping stones that lead you through life you would have to view blocks as insurmountable objects.

For people who see that proverbial glass as half empty it never occurs to them to go over, around or through the obstacle. They see it as something that stops them. Period.

When they see life that way they fail to see the solutions that abound. Absolutely every problem that comes into your life comes with solutions – always. But you cannot possibly see them or be aware of them unless you allow yourself to resolve your situation.

That choice involves feeling worthy and deserving of good things. Yet chances are that people who see the dark side of everything likely have low self esteem, do not feel worthy or deserving of good things.

Since they have a poor self image they project their self-defeating attitude toward others and to events. For them, life is a series of stressors. Their reality says stress is everywhere. They cannot escape its grasp.

Their habit of interpreting events has them looking for what is missing or what is wrong in every situation. Their automatic response is in the direction of not feeling good, not enjoying life, not succeeding without struggle.

In fact, when things go right in their world they nervously wait for the sky to fall! Obviously they create what they think about. And then say, “See I told you so!”

Is their reality yours?

You get to choose your reality. When you love yourself you allow good things to come to you. You see the good in the nasty situation. You see the lesson in the painful circumstance.

That kind of attitude will not see stress everywhere. That mindset will not go in the direction of pain. That habit of thinking will see far fewer stressors in their lives.

The bottom line is you always see what you expect to see.  And you always see what you accept to see. If you do not accept certain possibilities (like stressors everywhere) then you will not see that possibility even if others do.

Exercise Your Brain To Improve It

Your brain works like a muscle, the more you use it the better it works.  The less you challenge yourself with games, reading conversation or problems that require thinking in new ways, the faster your brain will deteriorate.

You get to choose whether you want to stay alive in your body or become a shell, a body with “no one at home.”

My knowledge about brain power comes from my first hand experience. Back in the late 1990s I suffered a closed head injury. The repeated hitting that rocked my brain back and forth across the bony skull caused many neuronal connections to break.

Thank goodness I did not buy into the paradigm of the psychologists and neurologists who said I had a short window of time to take action before my brain would shut down and any hope of healing would be lost forever.

Can you imagine telling someone with a brain injury they had to act immediately or lose their chance and face uncertain deterioration?  Personally I think there should be a law against stealing someone’s hope regardless of the situation. The bottom line is that nothing is impossible.

I knew that lots of information sat in my brain, info I could not access – yet. I could have believed I never would reach all those nooks and crannies within again. But I chose a different paradigm.

I knew I could create new pathways to reach the info already inside my brain. One way I chose to create those new pathways was to play video games. I played games on our computer for as long as I could. Unfortunately my eyes did not work right and sitting at the computer caused excruciating headaches and pain in my eyes.

The good news is what I did, all those hours at the computer, worked. My brain re-designed itself and I did recover most of my mental powers. Okay, sometimes I feel myself thinking and knowing I am not operating at the same level I once did – and not getting exactly the same caliber of results. But I am doing way better than the doctors told me I would.

Why share all this with you? Every year more than four million people suffer closed head injuries and likely hear the same message I did – learn to live with it because this is a good as it gets.

After the injury I learned a neurosurgeon considers the operation a success when the patient survives the surgery with no thought to quality of life. No, I am sure not all brain surgeons think that way. But the ones in my world did.

What I want you to know is no matter how long it has been since your injury (or the injury of someone you know and care about), it is never too late to awaken the sleeping cells in that brain and get it working again.

Video games, physical exercise that demands both large scale coordination and small scale activity too, are very helpful. Reading and writing may be challenging for a time. As soon as possible return to using those skills too. Make sure the eyes track properly to avoid eye-headache issues.

Most important, believe in yourself. You can heal if you really want to. Healing does not mean you will be how you once were. Healing means you accept yourself as you are now and be the very best you can be exactly as you are now.

Core Values: Priorities and Directions of Core Values

Core Values create your world. You live according to the beliefs and perform only the behaviors that align with your core values. Well, you live in happiness and find success when you do. However you fail to find either happiness or success when you fail to live in alignment with what you, in your core, believe is right.

If you have never done so create a list of your core values. Now rearrange the list in order of importance to you with the value you find most important listed first.

Done? Excellent. (If you think you will do this later then you have a value saying procrastination and incompletion of tasks works for you.) We both know the likelihood of you coming back to make your list later is slim to none. So take a few minutes to make it now. Remember to prioritize your values.

How did you determine the order of your priorities? Even more to the point, how did you discover your core values?

Those deep beliefs, alive and well in your subconscious mind, run your life. The thing is, some of what you think defines your most important values really do not meet that definition at all.

What am I talking about?

Core values move you forward toward your Very Excellent Life. Sometimes you think your behaviors protect you from what you do not want rather than forward you along your happiness path.

For most of my life I consistently rated honesty as my top core value. I could not tolerate anyone or anything dishonest. I used to ask my mom to go out and walk the dog rather than answer it and tell someone she was not home when she actually was. (That is how powerful my core value of honesty was for me – or so I thought.)

When I learned the true definition of core values then I found that honesty was so important because of all the dishonest people and experiences running scattered across my life. I was moving away from (avoiding) any new experiences with dishonesty.

Honesty remains on my list now but for different reasons. And it no longer holds the primo spot.

Okay. Got it?

Now go through your list of core values and note which move you forward toward your dream life and which serve to move you away from what you do not want.

Happiness happens when you move toward what you want rather than away from what you do not want.

Creativity Flows Effortlessly

Creativity flows when you allow it to. If you try to force it you experience obstacles and frustration. This video reveals the secret to getting your creativity to flow. Join the conversation and leave a comment sharing your experience with creativity and being in the flow.

Core Values: What Are Your Core Values?

Core values define how you live your life. They create the box that limits how you behave and what you believe.

Most people live their lives without knowing their core values. Yet even more important than knowing your the values you hld most dear may be knowing why you chose to live according to those beliefs taking only those types of actions. Add to that issue knowing whether your deepest beliefs move you toward the life you want or away from the life you do not want.

Phew! What a lot of information, yes? Too much for one short article. So right now let’s investigate how to uncover and prioritize your personal core values.

What is really important to you in your life? What sort of behaviors are okay for you to live and which are acceptable when other people exhibit them?

On a less concrete level, what is okay with you and what do you avoid?

Most people create include areas like these on their lists: integrity, love, family, health, truth, honesty, fun, spirituality, ethics, religion, privacy, silliness, pride

Consider the points on that list and see which areas are important to you in your life. I am talking vital to how you live your life. Deep in your core, the center of your being, what do you value (have to experience) in each area that you consider a core value for you?

For example, for me love is the primary core value by which I live. I feel love for myself, for all creatures, for the planet and for what I do. I must love what I do in all areas of my life or I know I will not experience any degree of success.

I believe love is the single solution to every problem. Love is the antithesis of apathy. For me loving my life and everything and everyone in my world becomes a driving force. (Being in love is different from loving, okay?)

Once you make your list of core values put them in the order of important to you. That way if you ever encounter a situation where you find it difficult to make a choice you can examine the choices against your core values and choose whatever path allows you align with the core value that ranks higher for you.

If your life does not look the way you want it to then make a list of your core values and see if you live in alignment with every single one of them. You will never know true happiness until you do.