Tag: stress

On Attachment, Reality and Stress

the level of stress we experience is directly proportional to the atta

Figure 1 Attachment – Stress relationship

Attachment
This is an important insight to grasp, or rather as we shall see, to hold lightly 🙂 , because, I believe, it is the underlying driver of much stress, sadness and suffering, in that we hold on to some things too tightly, setting up expectations around them and expending a lot of energy and attention on them .

The brain,  is a meaning seeking, pattern making, prediction organ, operating on the principle, minimise threat – maximise reward. When we use our wonderful brain, and it holds the belief, I am right, 🙂 to predict what reality will do and reality does not match that prediction or expectation, then we stress,   see figure 1. We stress about what reality has to be, what it should be, what it must be, what it ought to be and eh, it isn’t! It does what it does! It is what it is! 

If we have a high level of attachment to the outcome being the way we predicted, we will experience high levels of stress, #controlfreak.

Let me bring in an insight here, from NLP, called modal operators. A modal operator is language that we use either internally or externally with others and if, (using your Observer), you just pay attention to your own self talk, or the conversations of others, you will hear these modal operators. They are “should”, “shouldn’t”,” must”, “have to”, “ got to” and “ought to”. You will hear yourself saying to someone as you talk about someone else, they should really do this or that. The issue with modal operators is that there is no law that says we should / shouldn’t, must, or ought to, do anything at all. Is there? (Otherwise people would not break the law once they knew it 🙂 ). I want you to really think about this. There is no law!  When these modal operators are used there is always stress generated for someone. For instance ourselves, when we say ‘John must reply to my note’ and he doesn’t!
What you can teach yourself to use, instead of these modal operators is, ‘I would prefer that….’ so the phrase becomes ‘ I would prefer that John replies to my note.’ As you practice this (and you will need to practice using ‘ I would prefer…’ as opposed to ‘they must…’), you will find the pattern that you’ve had laid down for years begins to change and you become a little less stressed 🙂
Coupling these two things together, ‘we are fine and everybody else needs to change’ with ‘we cannot change others’ and get stressed when we try to’. It would seem that a useful thing to do would be to change ourselves! One of the most important things I have learned, put the focus on myself, not everybody else, not easy 🙂

A quote from Anthony de Mello (One minute wisdom)
“How shall I help the World?”
“By understanding it,” said the Master
“And how shall I understand it?”
“By turning away from it.”
“How then shall I serve humanity?”
“By understanding yourself.”

The key to lowering stress levels triggered by attachment ? Change the language you use. Instead of using should, must, have to, ought to, try using the word prefer. Viz:- “what I would prefer is…” or “what are the possibilities here?”

  • When and where do you use ‘should, must etc’?
  • What happens when you change to using prefer?

Responding with and through your Orchestra.

You are learning in life, how to Respond appropriately, to what reality puts in front of you.

This is a major concept to understand and take control of, in your journey to becoming you. By learning how to Pause and Respond, you reduce the levels of stress you put yourself under.

Question:-

Who / what makes you angry?

Answer:- You do! Stuff happens, then you make yourself angry. Until we take responsibility for our feelings, we will find them difficult to control. I.e. as long as the responsibility is out there, viz:- “he’s really annoying me”  then I do not have to change anything, he does! So the responsibility for how I feel, lies with him! So there!

Eh, no, the responsibility for how you feel, lies with you 🙂

See also the serenity prayer:-

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

I love this quote from an American Pastor, Chuck Swindoll:-

“The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, the education, the money, than circumstances, than failure, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company… a church… a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice everyday regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past… we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude. I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it. And so it is with you… we are in charge of our Attitudes.”
― Charles R. Swindoll

Life is 10% what happens, 90% how we deal with it

We can ALWAYS choose our attitude in any given moment, if you choose not to, or default to not choosing your attitude, then  you will React to what is in front of you.

If you choose a resourceful positive attitude, than that is how you will be 🙂

Let me talk about building more resources for you

Imagine learning to play a musical instrument, or possibly more apt, building and conducting an orchestra.

In the ‘orchestra’ of our mind, some of us have perfected the percussion section (loud drums etc), played when we get annoyed, (there is a great book that talks to this “The Chimp Paradox” by Steve Peters). It may be when the orchestra plays, that’s all we get!

Maybe you never play percussion and how you respond to reality, is just to play a beautiful single note from a violin, or anywhere in between. This of course will vary according to the context we find ourselves in.

In an orchestra, the musicians are arranged into four sections:- the strings—such as violins and cellos—sit at the front. The woodwind—such as oboes, clarinets, saxophones, bassoons—and brass—such as trumpets and French horns—sit in the middle. Percussion—such as kettledrums and a xylophone—sit at the back.

Notice the percussion sits at the back (because they are very loud)
What about building all your sections? Woodwind, brass, strings and percussion.

This will create much richer sounds and can be very delicate, when only one violin is gently playing

What am I saying here? Perhaps you know how to do percussion, or play some notes quietly on a violin and that is mainly what you do automatically when you are stressed and you React.

The work here is to LEARN how to ‘play’ all or any of your violins, oboes, clarinets, saxophones, trumpets and timpani, so that, when you need to, you can Respond appropriately.

How to do that?

Think through and prepare before an event, situation e.g. a meeting, what might trigger you to React (e.g. with percussion) and prepare yourself to Respond through your violins softly, gently, sweetly.

Now practice, practice, practice in your mind, play it through in your mind, imagine for example, playing the “violins, violas, cellos”, adding richness of tone to your Response

Then once you have the strings, move to woodwind then brass, and percussion, imagine your Response as you ‘play’ those instruments. Of course it may also be necessary to bring in percussion 🙂 This time though, you will be doing that consciously.

Then, when you actually are in the situation, meeting or event, you have already practiced your response, so it becomes easier to invoke it.

Like learning anything it will appear ‘clunky’ in the beginning (conscious incompetence), then as you repeat the experiences of Responding, now using your full orchestra, becomes ‘easier’.
Won’t  it be great, in any situation having access to the resource of your full orchestra!

In a Team context, where you are the Leader and the Team are your ‘orchestra’ :-
You are the integrating member of your team, you are:-

Composer (of the music) or you may be handed a piece from above that needs some subtle rewriting 🙂
Conductor to ensure harmony and that all are heard at the right time and in proportion, e.g. your gentle (perhaps key) violin solo, as you conduct through the composition
Player, when it needs some piano (soft) you play that, needs more brass you play that, more percussion you play that, a little bit of oboe, etc. you have to play what may be missing in any given ‘piece of music’ to harmonise.

You are the Harmoniser.

  • What are the main instruments in your ‘orchestra’?
  • Which new instruments do you need to add?
  • How good a composer, conductor, player are you?
  • What do you need to practice more?