Before you know it, you’ll regain control of your inner self, find the exit to your stress trap, and spend more time living in the present. And as you do this, it will be easier to turn your attention to what you appreciate about your life and what you are grateful for.
By Sue Kasson www.suekasson.com
Our natural state of mind is joy and contentment. Feelings of gratitude, inner peace and happiness are more natural than negative and stressful feelings and thoughts. But sometimes we get so caught up in stressful thoughts and feelings that we lose our way. We need help in finding out how to get back to those normal thoughts and feelings of calmness and happiness.
And that may be precisely where you are: struggling with overwhelming stress, and trying to find an “exit” that takes you to a better place. Well guess what? There’s a way to exit your stress trap, and move you forward into your better life ahead.
Want to feel calmer and more centered?
The strategy is clear: stop focusing on your negative thoughts. One of the main causes of your stress is the negative thoughts that cycle through your mind. You know which ones I mean: “I need to finish this spreadsheet tonight. I cannot believe I left so much of this to the last minute! I’ll never finish it tonight, etc.”.
Science proves this works
Scientific studies have proven that meditation, mental relaxation and visualization work. Dr. Herbert Benson established that fact back in 1982, and current studies show that stress reduction through mindfulness and visualization has helped people with anxiety, mild depression, insomnia, chronic pain, headaches and PMS.
We can see measurable physiological changes. For example, functional MRI studies have shown that when people do relaxation strategies regularly, a calming of the mind happens where you have less “inner static.” Also, your brain will be more able to focus and it will be easier to learn anything new. You’ll also make better decisions after relaxing your brain regularly. All good reasons to put in that five to ten minutes a day!
How do you do it?
The way you feel is determined by what you are thinking. You will feel anxious and stressed the more you try to think something through. The process of thinking itself is what is stressing you out. The secret to calming yourself down is to drop your negative, stressful thoughts and to quiet your mind.
The strategy is to drop your thoughts before you start thinking even more about the situation. Stop the negative thought spiral right in its tracks! Negative thinking is a vicious cycle that is started with just one stressful thought. It is easy to get out of this negative thought spiral – just stop the cycle in the very beginning by dropping the negative thought. Every time you think a negative or stressful thought, quickly drop it from your mind. It’s easy but it does take practice.
Our minds are powerful tools that can work for us or against us at any given moment. We have a choice. We can learn to flow with it by dropping our stressful thoughts, or we can struggle and end up overwhelmed and stressed out.
As you practice dropping your initial negative, stressful thoughts one at a time as they appear, you will get used to the process and experience more and more relaxation, calm and happiness. You’ll also notice that negative thoughts tend to travel in streams, one after the other. And so when you stop one of them, you can stop the whole chain.
Right now, having a stream of those kinds of nourishing thoughts may seem impossible. And I totally understand that. However, I’m not asking you to believe me. I’m asking you to experiment and see the proof for yourself, in the “laboratory” of your own life.
Don’t worry (or get stressed out!) if you don’t catch every stressful, negative thought. You won’t become an expert overnight. Just start by paying attention and stopping at least one negative thought an hour. That’s all. Then increase the frequency.
Before you know it, you’ll regain control of your inner self, find the exit to your stress trap, and spend more time living in the present. And as you do this, it will be easier to turn your attention to what you appreciate about your life and what you are grateful for.
Gratitude is a wonderful state of mind and is so much more nurturing than “thought attack” thinking! By practicing this strategy every day, you are taking a powerful step to ensure your happiness and longevity by preventing stress-related illness.
Sue Kasson
Sue Kasson specializes in helping business owners get more clients by having relaxed, authentic and confident client enrollment conversations. She is on a mission to help coaches and consultants fill their practices and learn to enjoy getting clients without stress or fear.
Sue has a 20+ year sales and sales management background with several Fortune 500 companies and, in the last 11 years, has trained and coached hundreds of people to help them get more clients and sell more of their products and services. She is also the author of two books, including “Zero Stress Selling: 7 No-Fail Strategies to Lose Your Stress Now.”
If you enjoyed these tips about article marketing and would like more practical sales and marketing strategies, visit http://suekasson.com today. Sue is known for her relaxed and authentic customized client enrollment and sales conversion training.
