Stress is a part of life. If you are breathing, the chances are pretty great that there is some degree of stress in your life. If you become aware of the stress points in your life, it will help you to better deal with them. By learning to be aware of what causes you stress, you can develop ways to help eliminate it. Today we will discuss some stress identification tools.
Through the past several years, I have learned to relieve stress and anxiety by consciously becoming aware of it. Instead of hoping it did not exist or ignoring it, I actually paid attention to it. I realized that stress could be a good teacher for me. By dealing with the tasks, people or events that caused me stress in my day to day life, I would be better able to deal with the really, really large stressful events that life does bring.
Seeing my former husband’s name appear in the caller ID on my cell phone caused me stress. Doesn’t that sound silly? A trivial thing, but, it give me a feeling of panic and distress in my solar plexus. I was probably associating it with the nasty times during the divorce. I learned to identify this and eliminate it by taking a few deep breaths and thinking of our wonderful sons.
Exercise: Stress Identification Tools
- Write down as many things (people, tasks, and future events) that currently cause you stress.
- Complete the sentences below:
- I feel stressed when
- I worry when
- I wish I had more help with
- Now make a 3 column table. At the top of the columns write: Stressor, Follow up Action, Helpful Resources. Using what you identified in step 1 and 2, fill in the columns. For Example, Stressor-My former husband’s caller ID in my cell phone. Follow up Action-Deep Breaths, Vision of my sons. Helpful Resources-Affirmations.
What stressors did you identify? Let me know?