Smile-breaks
Oh! de-stress
Stress. Don't you love it? No??? Me neither. It's caused me no end of trouble—which you don't want to hear about. You've prob'ly had enough of your own.
Anyhow. . . a year ago I realized stress was causing all the ailments in my life. Most of them, anyway. So, light bulb! No more stress! I would never stress again. I felt light as a feather and happy as whatever makes you happiest. I literally bounced out of bed and began my new stress-free life.
Didn't work so well. Every time I realized I was stressing, as in trying to "fix" something, or worrying about plans or well, you know. . .I'd STOP myself. No more stressing. Just RELAX and forget about it. I spent a lot of time and effort making myself not stress.
A year later I realized I had a problem with this stress thing. I was constantly stressing about not stressing—de-stressing was stressing me out. So should I stop trying to de-stress, and stress to my heart's content - or utter destruction?—as the case might be?
You know how you're trying to go to sleep and you just can't? You try everything. Nothing works. That's ‘cause usually you're thinking about all that stuff. Things that have been, um, stressing you out. Half the time it isn't really that big a thing. What to wear to the party; did you forget your son's birthday; is it time for a new car? Does it really matter?
Or your mind is just going a mile a minute over all kinds of stuff that's happened or is going to happen or hopefully, might never happen, and you can't turn it off. You just can't turn it off. Now you're stressed about not being able to sleep and how will you get up at six a.m. if you can't get any sleep tonight?
One thing I've learned: stress is always going to be part of life. My big extravagant decision never to stress again is a gigantic flop. Impossible. The other, life-saving thing I've learned is that you can handle stress little by little, one at a time. You just have to know you're stressing so you can stop stressing. Little bit at a time.
Not so easy. Whatever you're stressing about is occupying your mind so much it won't let anything else in. Some say take a deep breath and let it out veee-ry slowly, or give it all to God, he without stress. Some people say put it all in a box and close the lid. Firmly. Or you could try doing all three of those.
Uh-oh. Now you're stressing about which of those you should do. Don't ask me. De-stressing is complicated. Good luck with yours—hope I haven't stressed you out.
Merry Christmas!