How to NOT Feel STRESSED

Stress

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Ep. 38  This episode is all about STRESS and how to NOT feel stressed. The goal is to understand that it IS possible to have a lot on your plate and to NOT feel STRESSED about it. Listen to learn POWERFUL thoughts to help you to NOT feel STRESSED.

THE PROBLEM

So often we believe that we have so much to do and not enough time to do it all. We believe ALL the things are so important and we worry that our effort won’t be good enough. Therefore, we end up panicked and stressed, which actually freezes us and limits our ability to finish ALL the things. We end up working frenetically, staying up late, getting sick, but not finishing the tasks. 

THE SOLUTION

I promise that life does NOT have to feel STRESSFUL. It is entirely possible to have a lot on your plate and to NOT feel STRESSED about it. You can have an amazing life and be engaged in purposeful work and move forward through accomplishments and success steps and never feel stressed.

If you think this can’t possibly be true, that I’m exaggerating, then this is going to be an excellent episode for you. I’m glad you’re here. 

WHY WE FEEL STRESS

Let’s talk about Why We Feel Stress:

Every emotion comes from thoughts. Every. Single. One. It’s not possible to have an emotion that wasn’t triggered, that wasn’t created by a thought in your head.

Now, that thought in your head doesn’t necessarily have to be your own thought. Other people can put thoughts in your head, dark spirits can put thoughts in your head, TV/media/billboards can put thoughts in your head. Sometimes this can be frustrating because we can’t always control what thoughts pop up in our minds, but can control how we think about, how we react to those thoughts.  In any case, the emotions we feel always derive from a thought.

I’m not saying this to chastise or belittle anyone for experiencing stress. I feel stress at times, not too often these days, but I used to live in a chronic state of stress. And it’s not fun. Stress is a real kill-joy, it sucks the bliss out of life and makes you not a very pleasurable person to be around. Not to mention that it can make you really sick. 

STRESS-INDUCING THOUGHTS

Let’s look at some of the thoughts that lead to us feeling stressed.

“I don’t have enough time.” 

You feel the crunch of the deadline. The calendar days are turning, the clock is ticking, and you are running out of time. This is a common thought. I think we’ve all been here, probably several times already today.

“Not good enough.”

This is the thought of either “I’m not good enough” or “What I’m doing isn’t good enough.” This is where perfectionism comes to roost. This thought is a relative of the thought of not having enough time, because usually we are afraid that we don’t have enough time to make our work be good enough. We fear our imperfections and weaknesses and so often we allow our subconscious to make it be about time, when in truth, it’s about fear of not being good enough.

“I should do more”

 

CHALLENGE THESE THOUGHTS

I’ve practiced noticing when I’m feeling stressed and following that feeling, like a detective hunting for clues, back until I discover the thought triggering the stress. Then, I’ve found it helpful to ask questions: Is this thought true? Or, is this a useful thought?

I discovered this tool of discovering and questioning thought when I was searching for healing from postpartum depression and autoimmune disease. This is when I realized that my thoughts were the roots of so many of my so-called problems and stress and that my sickness stemmed from my toxic thoughts. Most everything that I talk about on this podcast comes down to what’s going on in our heads.  If there’s one thing you get out of this podcast, or any of these podcasts, if you learn to question your thoughts, that skill alone will launch your life in powerful ways. 

Let’s do it. Let’s question these thoughts.

Thought: “I don’t have enough time.”

There are so many ways your brain can verbalize this. I’m so busy. I can’t do it all. I have too much to do,  thus I don’t have enough time. 

Challenge:  Is it TRUE that I don’t have enough time?

Instead of going into a huge existential discussion about what is TRUTH, let’s skip to the understanding that when it comes to your life, you get to create your truth. It’s a gift called Free Agency. So I would ask, Do I want this to be true  for me that I don’t have enough time?

I can choose to believe that it’s true and my brain will be extremely skilled at finding evidence to support why I don’t have enough time.  Or, I can choose to say it’s not true. I can choose to think that I have plenty of time. I have SO much time. Time is an unlimited commodity. I can use time today and I will have more tomorrow. I can use tomorrow’s time and I will have more time the next day. It’s amazing!

For so long, self help people have pushed this idea, this “thought” that time is a precious, and limited commodity. Get it done today because there are no guarantees for tomorrow! And it’s true you could die at any moment. But still, I believe that death is not the end of me, that I will go on living and have, get this, even MORE time! More time to learn, progress, experience, etc. When my brain throws up that idea that I don’t have enough time, I challenge it and I argue for all the reason why I have an abundance of time.

I’ve never found a scenario where the thought “I don’t have enough time” is a useful thought. It doesn’t serve me well. The panic of running out of time makes my insides contract, it freezes me up, and it drains my power to take action. Ironically this thought of not having enough time actually leads to procrastination rather than prevents procrastination. 

Replace: What to Think Instead

I have plenty of time.

I have exactly enough time.

I have an abundance of time.

I have exactly enough time to accomplish all the things that are important to me

For Full Text Listen to the Podcast

SOUTH AFRICA: What I Learned from My Travels

giraffes, south africa

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Ep. 25 South Africa

A few weeks ago I left my monochromatic Utah County life (which I rarely do, even though I love diversity) and traveled thousands of miles around the globe to visit South Africa and Lesotho. I experienced diversity in culture, language, race, religion, food, plant and animal life, and traffic. But for all the diversity, the biggest thing I brought home from my travels is the reminder that we are more alike than different.

Shoes

While waiting to board my flight to Dubai, I passed time watching people. I was studying the traditional Arab dress of one particular woman, when I realized that she and I were wearing the exact same shoes. I wondered if she had bought hers at Costco like I had. Do they have Costco in Dubai? Or perhaps she lives in the States and is traveling to Dubai like I am. Did she buy her shoes for the same reasons I had, because they are perfect for traveling?

There is something about flying that connects travelers. All of us at Gate A-12 had booked tickets on the same flight. We were literally all traveling in the same direction. And at the moment we were all hoping for much the same thing: to get settled on the plane and to sleep as much as possible during the 13-hour flight. And we were probably all fretting about the same thing: having to use that itty bitty airplane bathroom.

Maya Angelou titled her 5th narrative memoir, All God’s Children Need Traveling Shoes. 

We come from different cultures, ethnicities, religions, traditions. We might speak different languages. But we are all on a journey, and we need good traveling shoes. 

Home

“The ache for home lives in all of us. The safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.” Maya Angelou

As a black woman born in Missouri in 1928, Maya Angelou never felt completely at home in America. In 1966, at age 33, Maya traveled to Ghana in search of her roots, in search of home. She was surprised to discover that as a black American, she wasn’t readily accepted in Africa either. She wrote, “[I] had not come home, but had left one familiar place of painful memory for another strange place with none.” 

Home isn’t a place that exists, home is a place we create. It’s connection. During my travels, though I was far from “home,” I experienced moments of home—connecting with a mother traveling with her autistic child, washing my feet in the Dubai airport, traveling through familiar scenery in Lesotho, learning to say Sawubona, or realizing that an Arab woman and I were literally in each other shoes. 

Does any of us ever feel completely at home or do we all struggle to find the place where we truly belong? Is the human life really just a journey home?

Indeed, all God’s children need traveling shoes.

Chapter 2 Lies of the Magpie

Postpartum Depression Memoir

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Ch. 2 Lies of the Magpie

The story of my journey healing through postpartum depression and chronic illness. 

The thing Aaron remembers most about me from college is my fast-paced walk around campus. His tennis class met at three o’clock at the courts across from my off-campus housing. For weeks he watched me leave my apartment, hurry across the road, rush past the tennis courts, short cut across the grass and disappear into the Humanities Building. His tennis partner noticed him staring and said, “Don’t waste your time. That is Maleah Day. She is the Academic Vice President. Ten bucks says you can’t get her to stop to talk to you. She walks that fast everywhere she goes.”

It was my sophomore year. I was ten years older than the straggly nine-year-old girl from Ms. Wickersham’s fourth grade class. My bean-pole figure had filled out in a few key places. Two years of orthodontic work and contact lenses had tamed my profile, but my ambition—if possible—was still as potent. I’d traded my dream of becoming a firefighter and astronaut to becoming an Airforce pilot and a foreign ambassador. I declared a Political Science major and carried an application for the Peace Corps in my backpack.

Still, I’d never forgotten my dream to become Mrs. Murry from A Wrinkle in Time and have my own kitchen/chemistry lab. My scholarship covered full tuition and fees, regardless of number of credit hours, so in addition to my social science courses, I registered for a Biochemistry Series, Anatomy, Microbiology, and Physiology. These would cover all lab science prerequisites, just in case I changed my mind about Foreign Diplomacy and decided to apply to Medical School. It was a good plan, I thought, to keep both options open.

Play button above to hear the full chapter.

Listen to Chapter 1: https://maleahwarner.com/?p=1258&preview=true&_thumbnail_id=1269

Listen to the Introduction of Lies of the Magpie https://maleahwarner.com/new-summer-series/

 

Book Cover Art by:

Bethany Baker  of Midsummer Studios https://midsummerstudios.weebly.com/

Ep. 3 The Power of Permission Part 1

Power Permission

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The Power of Giving Yourself Permission

Have you given yourself permission to do what you love? Often we think we need outside permission before we can pursue a goal or passion. Sometimes we think that other people know better what we can do. That’s not true! No one knows your passions and desires better than you, and no one needs to give you permission to go for your dreams.

Other Places We Get Permission

Going for our dreams without external endorsement can be scary, so sometimes we wait for life to let us know it’s okay to move ahead. We get default permission from three sources:

 
  1. Seeing or Hearing Someone Else Do It: I always felt guilty for taking a nap during the day until I read that Stephen Covey, the author of 7 Habits of Highly Successful People, loved to take power naps any time, any place, including on the floor of trains. I also felt embarrassed for my mismatched collection of partially-filled notebook diaries until I saw J.K. Rowling’s haphazard collection of papers and notebooks. Sometimes knowing that we’re not crazy and not alone gives us permission to be true to ourself. 
  2. Accident, Illness, or Near-Death Experience:  This is the “Live Like You’re Dying” paradigm. It’s not the ideal way to get permission, but it can be very effective. I’m betting that you know someone who really started to live and pursue long-buried dream as a result of an accident, illness, or near-death experience. Before Postpartum Depression and Chronic Illness, I lived in full-out martyr mode. I could not give myself permission to slow down, take a nap, or take care of myself. Getting sick definitely gave me permission to safe-guard my own health, but wouldn’t it have been better if I’d just given myself permission to be healthy in the first place? I think so.
  3. Being Asked to Do It: You might also know aspiring actors, singers, authors, etc, who want someone else to discover their talent and take care of all the career building. Having someone else tell us that we are good enough and ask us to share our talent feels much safer than going it alone. But the truth is that most successful people are self-made. Their permission came from inside. 

I Give Myself Permission To . . .

Part of my journey of healing through depression and chronic illness has been learning to give myself permission to:

  • Take my time
  • Take a Nap
  • Make mistakes
  • Leave thing undone
  • Try
  • Figure things out
  • Play
  • Be an amateur
  • ASK FOR HELP
  • and much more

Next Week: The Power of Permission Part 2

In Episode 4 we will explore the Power of Permission in Specifics areas such as happiness, money, health, decision-making, and doing less. See you next week. mw