Working Through Stress ~ Choices, Intention & Gratitude

Posted by Dr. Mom Online in A Healthy Mindset, Outlook and Attitude on February 22, 2010

A few months ago, we made a big decision in our family. It was a decision that didn’t come easily… there were many pro’s and con’s on each side of the ‘argument’. Ultimately we “had to do what we had to do”, for now anyway.

When I have the presence of mind to step outside the situation and become an observer of my life for a little while, I find the whole thing pretty interesting! It’s providing me the perfect opportunity to practice what I preach on many levels.

Since I wasn’t 100% behind the decision we went with, of course I’ve experienced much stress surrounding this issue for the past couple months.

Sound familiar? How many times have I urged readers here, “Your beliefs and your actions/behaviors have got to be aligned with each other in order for you to have success… and less stress.”

Yep. I know this!

I keep trying to be OK with our decision… to embrace it. But since I haven’t done so fully, the gap between what I truly believe and want, and what we’re feeling we ‘need’ to do right now, is causing stress. My beliefs don’t fully align with our actions. Recipe for stress!

The challenge, of course, is that the other option wasn’t perfect either!! Figures. Either way, I would be experiencing some stress in the gap.

A few weeks ago, a friend asked me how we were doing with our decision and our big change. I moaned about it for awhile. Pathetic! That didn’t make anything better.

Then I resolved to saying, “Ah, it’ll be all right… I just need to get used to it. I’ll get used to it… just a little more time.”

On my way home after having that conversation, I was thinking about what I had said. I thought, “Well, that’s pretty lame! ‘I’ll get used to it’?! Right! I’ll get used to it once: (a) I lower my standards, and/or (b) I start caring LESS about the situation!!”

I pondered that for a few days, wondering if that’s how we all feel on some level, conscious or not, when we do things that aren’t necessarily our first choice. We lower our standards, or resign ourselves to less caring about the situation.

I don’t have the answer, by the way… I was just wondering! lol!

After a few more days of realizing these “in-limbo” feelings are really quite useless, I remembered that I always have a choice. This time around, I have a choice in how I’ll feel about the whole scenario, and what I’ll focus on the most.

It would be SO easy to focus on all the things that are clearly not ideal… are not as I wish they could be. Great. Where will that get me? I’ll continue to convince myself that “I’m right”… but I’ll also continue to be stressed out, negative and feel like crap about this decision!! Not health-promoting, to say the least.

In every situation there ARE blessings. I really had this lesson reinforced as I walked my mom’s breast cancer journey with her. Sometimes we have to look a little harder for those blessings than other times, but they ARE always there.

It takes intention.

In the weeks that have passed since this little self-help-talk to myself, I’ve shifted my focus… for the most part! I’m making the effort to intentionally choose to focus on “the good stuff” about our decision each day. Some days, it’s a BIG stretch to find the good stuff… but I find something! Our decision has caused some stress, some discomfort and some uncertainty… like most changes do, but it has also opened up some new doors that were previously closed.

I guess I’m just thinking about the various paths we can end up on in this little journey of ours. Some planned, some planned for us, some that completely blind-side us! We may take a little time to find our groove on the new path, but if we open up to the opportunity and the blessings, and keep an attitude of gratitude surrounding the situation, pretty soon we find a groove that can work for us… at least on some level!

Dr. Mom Online

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