More About Stress

The beliefs you hold about yourself and the world can be a cause of stress

1 Believing that every conflict of personalities or events must produce a winner and a loser. You’re going to lose sometimes….. causing yourself a loss of self-esteem and a great deal of stress even in circumstances that really don’t matter. If you lay your self-esteem on the line in every situation you enter, it’s inevitable that you will become stressed.  Here is more information about your belief system.

2 Believing that other people are untrustworthy or expecting the worst from them in whatever you may be doing. Sure, you may have had bad experiences in the past. But don’t you think it’s better to start with an attitude of trust?

3 Putting prosperity, success or progress above family, friends and other people. These things are a means to an end – a fulfilled existence. The search for prosperity, success or progress as goals in themselves is very stressful. You need some overriding purpose that serves humanity. Then you’ll find the right path to riches and happiness. Here is more information on finding your true purpose.

4 Believing you should be happy all the time. Life inevitably produces some unhappy experiences – this is a normal part of the human condition.

5 Believing that life can provide everything you want with no real effort on your part. Such expectations lead to frustration, lack of motivation and effort and perhaps a failure to achieve anything at all.

6 Believing that someone else is responsible for solving your problems. They’re not. Here is more information on personal responsibility.

7 Believing that you’re right and others are wrong, or that you can judge others. Your own code of behavior has nothing more than subjective value – to you! If someone else does something which you find unacceptable, try and remember that they have acted in accordance with their own standards of behavior, which are as valid to them as your standards are to you. (That doesn’t mean you have to like it, though!)

8 Living life without goals and thinking you’ll be happy and fulfilled. Here is more information on goal setting.

9 Believing that your value as a person can be judged by your ability to measure up to a set of standards imposed by other people. This is a sure formula for stress. The same applies to the mistaken belief that you can evaluate your personal worth by evaluating what you do. There is a distinction between what you are and what you do. You can read more about this concept in terms of archetypal energies here.

10 Being dependent on another person for your emotional security. Emotionally close relationships are important for everyone, but it’s not good to make your own sense of well-being, of security, dependent upon these relationships. People and relationships change; stress happens. Whether you fear abandonment, being alone, not finding someone else….whatever, the truth is that you are in control, and if you know what you want, and you believe you can get it, it’s as good as in your hands.

Video – the importance of your belief system

So, yes, our whole existence is based on beliefs, some right, some wrong, and some downright dangerous. There are so many beliefs which can cause stress. Correcting faulty beliefs through the sort of critical analysis and self-examination like we’re suggesting here might not only reduce your level of stress, but it might just also improve your health and happiness.

We also think it is important for everyone to have a personal philosophy, a set of beliefs if you like, by which they can live. Such philosophies do not exclude material success; rather, they stress the importance of doing what is right for you in life.

Seven Golden Guidelines Towards A Lower Stress Lifestyle

1 Have a life-plan. The late Hans Selye, an expert on stress, maintained that we can only be fulfilled when we have an aim in life; that to avoid the frustration and stress of indecision and uncertainty, we must follow a path through life towards that aim; and that short-term goals for immediate gratification must be supplemented by long-term goals with measurable reward on the way to our ultimate objective.

2 Don’t suppress your basic emotional desires. This leads to stress and frustration. Be open with your loved ones. Be natural, be yourself.

3 Remember you are living your life and you have the final power of decision over what you do with it. Remember that your mind is designed to serve you, not to control you.

4 Judge yourself by your own standards. Be as emotionally independent of others as you can. If your self-esteem rests on your ability to measure up to external standards, you’re likely to be under a great deal of stress. For example, a person whose feeling of self-worth depends upon the favorable opinions of other people will be constantly on the look out for clues as to their attitude to him and fearful of the rejection which seems to indicate he is lacking as a person. If you’re a perfectionist and believe that everything must be done perfectly, you’ll rarely be able to achieve the standards necessary for self-approval.

But none of us has to spend our lives trying to measure up or prove ourselves. What we need is a satisfactory level of self-esteem and confidence to provide a feeling of self-worth. Increasing one’s self-confidence and overcoming dependency are very helpful in reducing stress. Perhaps one reason why people are dependent on others is that they see in them something which they themselves lack, and hope to become more complete through the relationship. But such strategies rarely work for long, since no relationship can substitute for one’s own feelings of self-worth.

King archetype – self esteem

5 Put the past in its place. You do have the power to choose how you feel, even if you don’t exercise it as often as you might. 

6 Know Thyself: do some work on understanding yourself. A good way to start is with this kind of therapy.

7 Be flexible in life. Know which battles to fight and which to avoid.

In addition, we have some positive suggestions on how you can alleviate stress with deep relaxation on another page of this website.

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