LET IT GO...

I have written a number of posts on stress, but I wanted to help you with some management techniques and psychology on why we don’t allow good things to happen throughout our day/life. 

How many times throughout your day have you noticed the large sigh you let out, more often than not?  That sigh, my friends, is a sign that you are not getting enough oxygen, most likely due to the fact that you are breathing incorrectly which is usually due to stress.  So to get you thinking about this, let’s first get you conscious of recognizing that sigh.  The way I accomplished this was by noticing, especially if I was talking at the time (which I usually am…lol), that I had to take in more air and would then let out a deeper sigh during my sentence.  It made it easier to hear that way and then I began to notice it whenever I was sitting still at my desk, etc.   So I began to stop myself whenever I heard it, even if there were customers in front of me.  I would take a slow, deep, diaphragmatic breath through my nose and slowly blow it out through my mouth.  I would do this three times in a row.  Yes, I would get some funny looks from people, but then I would laugh and say, just killing the stress, and more often than not we would have a conversation about how great that worked.  Once I finished the three breaths, I incorporated some questions to ask myself, the first of which was, is everything positive, right here, right now, in this moment?  The second was, if so then why are you sighing?  The third was, is this situation worth getting stressed about (although ultimately no situation is)?  If I answered those questions honestly, I could adjust.  I could say, wow, I’m stressing over whether these copies got out to the correct people while there are people out there with no food or homes or limbs or jobs or loved ones, who don’t even stress as much as I do about this small, insignificant stuff.  Most times this would make me calmer and grateful, but like all change, some of us need to manage it in baby steps, I being one of those people. 

The thing we know about stress is that it kills you by slowly destroying your health and can create doubt and disability in your head and then your heart.  If we learn to listen to our souls, we know the answer, but we usually fight ourselves because our judgments of our lives get in the way.  We overthink everything because we think we have to as we have conditioned ourselves to hold onto everything and not let go. 

This is the part where I say, why do you not want to be happy.  Then you would say, I do want to be happy.  But ultimately I would have to counter with, if you truly wanted to be happy you would let yourself have the good things in your life that are put into your path, without going around them with every excuse you can think of that it isn’t right.  Trust me, it is right or it wouldn’t even be a possibility for you in the here and the now.  One of my friends, God bless her, is so used to having things come to her at a cost and has always been the one trying to help everyone else so when really good things come her way she tries every excuse in the book to make sure they don’t enter her life.  She likes that illusion of control but it turns out to be self-sabotage as she throws all of the wonderful things away because she thinks she doesn’t deserve them.  I get this, I do, it is the life I had always had as well.  But what I want to say to her and to all of you is this, if the universe (or God or whatever your belief system) says, here is this wonderful thing for you to have in your life, be it experiences or material things, you need to just say thank you.  Not but, but, but…just thank you.  You need to gratefully accept this gift that is being given to you and enjoy it for all it is worth.  Don’t let your head rule what you know in your heart you deserve. 

Life is SO short and if you turn all of these gifts away, you certainly won’t have had much of a life at all.  You would be one of those sad people who merely existed and never really lived life.  I don’t know about you, but I want to live my life to its fullest and enjoy every wonderful and positive gift I have been offered…with much gratitude.

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