Category Archives for stress

Stress And Personal Values

Stress develops when you fail to live in alignment with your core values.

One of the very things I do when I work with clients is assist them in determining their true core values. Until you know what you really and truly value with all your being you cannot attain it or live your Very Excellent Life.

When you work at a job that runs contrary to your values, or even one that just plain fails to support your values, you will not find success. The alignment between values and work provides endless powerful motivation to succeed.

When you live any part of our life contrary to your values you create stress.

All my life I valued all life. As a kid, and later as an adult, I found it very painful to eat meat. How can you raise an animal with the intention of killing it to feed you?
Well, after a serious injury wiped out my health a holistic doctor informed me that I needed animal protein to regain my health and thrive.

As much as I denied that possibility he was right – at least at the time.

That kind of choice, that goes against our grain, causes stress. Stress hurts us.

I recently had to make some big choices that caused a great deal of stress to enter my life.

I discovered I had mice living in my house. Mice are dirty and destructive. I needed them out and could not figure out how to get them to leave.

I did something runs against my beliefs regarding killing anything AND against my way of life – which is to do everything naturally and never use chemicals, most of all dangerous poisons that come with pages of warnings!

That decision was not the only stressor. After suffering the aftermath of multiple spider bites, when I started seeing multiple spiders in my house again I knew my health could not afford any more bites. Some very poisonous varieties live out here – in and around my house.

But it wasn’t just the spiders. I thought about what to do about the spiders for many months. It was the past few weeks of watching the tiniest insects walk across my ceiling at night – and even during daylight hours, that got to me.

Knowing I cannot open any windows because they come in through the screens (that is how small they are) and not being able to open my front door because flies of all sorts are sitting inside the screen door waiting to gain entry – all those factors really got me.

I felt like the critters owned my house and I was the intruder!

With all those stresses weighing heaving on my well being and health I chose to hire a pest control company to spray poison in and around my house.

I am still adjusting to the stench of the poison – which he told me was not seriously a danger as it was safe around pets and kids. Hmm. Know it stinks and I felt sick the day after.

Well, I figured while I was doing things contrary to my beliefs in being all natural I also gave in and used a chemical drain cleaner to open my seriously clogged shower drain. I had tried over and over again to use natural means to unclog the drain. All attempts failed.

So I took advantage of being in that place of allowing my health concerns to over-ride my feelings of waiting until I find the “right” natural remedies and went the conventional route.

Frankly I am not certain which stress is greater – going against my natural way of life or killing living creatures.

I do know I made a choice for my own health. I feel consistent about what I chose to do – which lessens the stress. And as I see my world get cleaner I know I will lose the stressful feelings. Yes, it is happening already.

I am not saying I will revert to a non-natural way of life. I did what I needed to do and now I can move forward in my life feeling healthier and happier.

Stress: Taking Actions Contrary to Your Values Causes Stress

Making choices that run contrary to your core values causes stress – lots of stress.

The past two weeks have been an extremely stressful time in my life. I managed to attract a circumstance that left me needing to take actions contrary to some of my deepest held values to remedy the situation.

Let me share my experience with you so you will understand what I mean and maybe avoid a similar situation.

I have been a health fanatic for over 37 years. Not only do I pay attention to what I eat but also to everything in my house (making sure it does not release harmful gases into the environment of my home) and everything I use, product-wise, on myself and my home.

All these years I have used only very pure products that I know all about—item and company. I value my health and well being. Without health you cannot know joy full out!

About two weeks ago I discovered I had at least one mouse in my house. It did such an amazing job of hiding and doing all its damage without making any noise that I really have no idea how long it lived in my home.

I used to have cat. I recommend that if you live in the country you get a cat. I never had mouse problems before. My cat always any critters indoors.

One day, much to my horror, I discovered a huge amount of mice droppings amongst my clothing. I really freaked out knowing that all that dirt was in my closet in my apparel.

I cleaned out the mess. I knew I had seen the mouse scurry from my room. I heard nothing and assumed it feared me as much as I feared it and it had left.

The other day I saw it run across my office. Then I followed it and discovered it had a hiding place. And it made regular forays into my house.

The situation bothered me something awful. It left messes all about – and I had no idea where because the carpeting in my home conceals pretty much everything!

I do not like to kill things. Without a cat I had no way to catch it and put it out. So I called my country friend and followed her suggestion – putting out poison bait.

Me, who caught hundreds of flies rather than kill them last year, I was about to put out a poison to kill a creature that didn’t have wings.

That was a huge stressor for me. What was even worse was finding the dead mouse. Turns out there were two dead mice.

Upon cleaning out their messes I found they had destroyed my clothing and other property and left such a huge disgusting mess in every closet and other areas in my home I no longer felt the remorse about eliminating them.

Yet I had gone against my value of the preciousness of all life. And as right as I feel about taking care of my own well being by eliminating their horrible filth the stress weighs heavily at times.

What happens now? I am ready to remove the energy blocks I created to how I handle that situation so I can remove the lingering stress and optimize my own health again.

Stress: When Stress Moves You To New Behaviors (That Aren’t You)

Stress can cause us to take actions we would never consider taking under usual non-stressful circumstances. Sometimes that new behavior turns out to be in our highest and best interest.

As with everything in life, there are no accidents. Everything happens exactly as it needs to so we can grow and change. Often those changes surprise us.

I wrote a series of articles describing my experiences of country living and how the stress of a mouse in the house impacted my life. I thought I had found peace with that issue until…

I found a dead mouse. I knew I had killed him with the poison I put out since I had not been able to get him to leave.

Turns out there were two dead mice. As I cleaned each room and each closet preparing for the pest control service’s arrival I discovered those little creatures are extremely destructive.

I was shocked to see they had penetrated every closet even making it to top shelves. They ate through fabric and plastic destroying some very important heirloom items.

Two little mice did that. And that was just the beginning.

They left droppings every place. Yucky loads of mess in my stuff. They ruined some items to the point I had to throw them away. I spent hours upon hours cleaning up and realize I have many more hours to go.

I never had that problem when I had a cat. I knew they were dirty and that bothered me. Surely I never imagined they could be so destructive.

The thing is I am someone who never kills anything. Scratch that. I used to be someone who never killed anything.

I have this mechanical flycatcher. Last year I caught more than one hundred flies and let them lose outside. Flies, spiders, moths – you name it. And when my cat caught mice he didn’t kill them. He gifted me with his catch and I put those outside too.

Hmm. So what did I accomplish? The insects and mice I freed bred producing more of them – to come into my space and do things that hurt me.

It took me a while to figure that one out.

I have this new attitude about creatures and about whether or not killing them is okay. Realize when I discovered the mouse had eaten the poison I was terribly upset I had put it out. When I saw the dead mouse (the pest control person found the other one) I freaked and felt guilty something awful.

No more. I warned every non-human creature in my house that they are not welcome and they can leave on their own .If I see them I will kill them.

Now that is new behavior for me. What I realize is that is healthy choice for me—both emotionally and physically.

Who’d a thought?

Stress: Stress Impacts Your Mental and Physical Health

Stress impacts your physical and mental health. You know that truth, perhaps personally. But then who doesn’t? Stress is implicated in 7 of the top leading causes of death.

People often fail to recognize early signs of stress impacting their health and well being. The sooner you become aware of the symptoms as expressions of stress, the sooner you can eliminate the cause of the stress.

You may not be able to eliminate the actual stressor. After all it could be your boss, your pet, your neighbor, etc. What you can erase is your interpretation of circumstances and behaviors that leave you feeling stressed.

Events have no meaning other than the meaning we assign to them. What if you consciously assigned different non-stressing meanings to behaviors you have, until now, seen as weighing heavily on your sanity?

I used to be very bothered by a certain person’s tapping on the steering wheel while driving. The more I allowed it to irritate me the louder it seemed. When I told that person how it affected me he said he could not help it.

Hmm. I had a choice. Continue to go bonkers when he started doing it OR refuse to let it bother me.

Here is what I discovered. If I said something when he started tap tap tapping he and I both felt aggravated and he would do it even more, telling me he could not help it.

Ah, then I decided to ignore it. Guess what. When I ignored the tapping he stopped dong it within seconds. Yes, seconds. Interesting, yes?

Then I realized I don’t have to let other little things bother me either. So gradually I found myself paying attention to what made me feel uptight and stressed. Then I had the choice about whether to continue to let it bother me or not.

In cases when I had more of a challenge disregarding behaviors I chose to remember that each and every one of us is an expression of the Divine. We are each Divine Beings living Human experiences.

When I look at someone in that Light the annoying feeling inside me dissipates. Pretty neat, the way that works!

Frankly, when I remember to look at every creature as a way that God gets to experience life, to feel as we do with five senses, my whole world looks different. Better yet, I feel at peace. And usually I find myself smiling.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder – How I Eliminated PTSD In Less Than 20 minutes

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) not only results from a traumatic experience but is, in itself, a very disturbing time triggered by thoughts and events in the environment that may or may not be in your awareness.

While mainstream psychology says you cannot possibly get over that disorder (as they label it) instantly, I know it is possible because I did it.

In 1996, while working as a psychotherapist in crisis care I frequently worked with very dangerous clients. One night one of them cornered me and attacked me leaving me disabled with a brain in jury.

Stop and think about that event for a moment. The attack was traumatic. I could not get away. I could not even move because her enormous size (this person weighed more than 400 pounds) pinned me in a corner.

The aftermath was just as traumatic for me as it turned my life upside-down – I am talking absolutely every area of my life. Nothing was the same again – including my functioning.

In addition to the physical issues that ensued I found myself afraid of places, any places where I had worked with clients. (I used to drive them to appointments). So my life had become limited in where I could comfortably go.

Worse than that was the nightmares. Every time I closed my eyes (you only heal when you experience deep sleep. And trust me, with a brain injury all your brain wants you to do is sleep!) I saw either people chasing me or dead bodies. The scenes were so bizarre and always about death and attacks.

No matter how exhausted I was I could not get rest.

Enter the suicidal thoughts. I had no idea why but I became suicidal. Add that to the symptoms of the PTSD.

Now you have a picture of PTSD as I lived it. While each person has a different trauma define their state, the life disruption remains similar across the board. (Well, I don’t know how many people become inexplicably suicidal.)

The people on my medial team obviously wanted me to heal. So they tried one drug after another. I am not a drug-type person and my body immediately and severely reacted to every drug they offered.

So there I was, suffering, scared, not really feeling completely safe. (I was not really a danger to myself. The feelings were confusing and I did not want to act on them.)

I knew I needed to do something different. I knew I needed something that no one had been able to offer – as yet.

I do not even recall how I learned about it but somehow I discovered the field of Energy Psychology and found a practitioner who taught classes on how to do that work. I made it to the classes and since we learned by working on each other I got to know, first hand, the power of energy healing in the form of energy psychology.

In less than twenty minutes the PTSD was gone. –ALL the symptoms disappeared forever! I did not lose any memory of the event. They remained as vivid as ever. Yet all the emotional impact vanished.

I became an energy psychology practitioner and found instant results with my clients in every instance ranging from grief over the sudden death of a fiancé/bet friend and life partner, to anxiety and claustrophobia, to pain and allergies. The list goes on and on.

You are an energy being. When energy blocks happen, you heal by releasing those blocks.