Ever feel like you can’t breath? Your chest is tight, your jaw clinched, your focus impaired. It happens when things just come down on you like a ton of bricks. It’s as if you can’t move, your flexibility is gone, your understanding of how things work seems to went awry, and your confidence in yourself is shot.
Stress has no where to go. It festers, it builds, it wants to discharge but it can’t, there is no outlet. I can meditate, or pray and those things do help. But the reality of it is that you’ve lost control and it’s probably why you feel stress.
Do you really have control anyway? That is the real question. I’d say no we don’t. We make decisions – but making a decision to say – getting out of bed, is not the same as being in control. You may think it is the same, but truly it is not. Control is believing that the circumstances around you can be managed, and held accountable. Decisions are what we do to manage our circumstances or to deal with our situations.
I decided to get up at 7:30 AM – and when I got to work my boss had three deliverables waiting on me. He tells me I have until COB to complete them. So, what do I do? I stress. I work hard to meet the deadline. The whole time I’m thinking will I meet the deadline or fail. You can make decisions to try and manage the situation but you cannot guarantee the outcome – you are not able to control it. So, realize you cannot control the outcome, but you can manage to make good sound decisions. If your best is not good enough, well let your boss deal with how he’ll manage it, because he’ll soon experience the same stress, the same sense that he’s lost control. And he never had it to begin with.
I’m not in control am I? Nope, I’ve let go of control. That is the benefit of being away from your electronic leash, or the responsibilities of home, or all the other countless things you are trying to control. Let it go. This is the time to think on what it was you were doing to help avoid this stress. I thought of hiking, camping, and being out in the woods. I was doing a lot of it lately, then I strapped myself back to my chair and desk for the past two months, and stress built back up.
So, why does getting out, being in nature, and just admiring what is around me work? It’s because I am not in control of the heat, of the cold, of the rain, or the sun, and if the wind blows it does it on its own. I am not in control. I am apart of life. It is this innate understanding that our daily lives are no different. We must realize we are a part of life, and that we are not in control of it. Then we can let ourselves relax and go with the flow.
Sincerely,
D.W. Rigsby
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