How to Overcome Stress
Rae Jones
Copyright © 2011 Rae Jones
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 1467924121
ISBN-13: 978-1467924122
DEDICATION
To Peter, the man I deeply care about. Your support and love has been a shining beacon of light even on the darkest of days. You have been my best friend, my confidant, my lover and most importantly, my friend. I couldn't have pursued my dream without you.
For Dave Loomis, thank you for sharing your beautiful home in Bali with me, the perfect place to start this writing adventure.
To Rain Phutureprimitive (www.phutureprimitive.com) your music kept me sane, focused and relaxed when everything was going to hell. Thank God for you, your talents and your music.
And to all the people who laughed, mocked and ridiculed me, thank you for pointing out all of my weaknesses so I could be stronger.
CONTENTS
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1 Seriously
After a San Andreas fault-like crack in my decision-making ability and a series of stress-induced, ‘I can’t take this s**t anymore’ decisions, I ended up halfway around the world.
Where? You ask. Sitting on the floor in a third-world, developing country where the dollar stretches further than my elastic-waistband at Thanksgiving dinner. Where English is not only a foreign language, but rarely used or heard. Instead, communication occurs through this twisted version of charades. Pointing, fingering, waving, shaking, always smiling, and ending with a money-palmed handshake.
It is what remains after everything else is gone. No more house on the lake, no fancy car, and no more six figure incomes. No more extravagant luxury. Not that I lived in extravagant luxury, but had settled nicely and solidly into America’s middle class. But, across the world, it was just a backpack, laptop and a cushion on the floor. And, it was beautiful. I got to where everyone gets (or dreams of getting to) at least once in their life. Letting everything else go, and escaping into the wild freedom of new-ness, and simplicity. No more rat-race. No more demands, deadlines or deals. No more responsibilities, meetings or stacks of bills arriving in the mail. Done. Over. Out!
How did I get here?
The stress knocked me out cold.
Think back, I’m sure you have had a moment (maybe many) where you just can’t take it anymore. You have walked into your office/bedroom/house, slammed the door and gotten to the end of your rope. You can’t take the boss, the traffic, the family, the demands! On the edge of a - a)nervous b)personal c)mental d)emotional or my favorite e)all of the above - breakdown and just. want. it. to. STOP!
That is where I got. After spending 14 years in various corporate environments, up to my eyeballs in paperwork, emails, spreadsheets, meetings, mergers and martini’s, I had enough. The headaches were chronic, and common. The neck tension and back pain was so bad that there were days I could hardly move. I had a chronic upset stomach (which I am sure wasn’t helped by the four shots of espresso I was drinking every morning), and every day I was totally and completely exhausted. All the time. I was cranky and high strung. I lost relationship after relationship, friends and family were becoming distant memories and developed quite the taste for the ‘drinking as much as it takes to go to sleep at night’ brand of what-have-you. I had no energy, no focus and somehow found and gave a nice snuggly little home to about 40 extra pounds.
Sure, I had a savings account, credit cards, retirement account (for someone in their early 30’s), a nice car, a nice house, nice clothes, everything all so nice. I mean, I was living the American Dream, right? So what was the problem?
I was unhappy, stressed to the max and slowly killing myself with stress. It sucked.
Usually, in the midst of the everyday chaos, rational thinking keeps most everyone from packing a bag, and leaving a note saying ‘toodles’. Those rational thoughts kept me from walking away for a long long time. Logic, a few breaths and maybe even a ten-count can bring one back to reality. Perhaps it is even just an ‘Adult Time-Out’ where one would escape into their room/office/basement or garage. Given a little time and space, the conclusion is the same, there are too many responsibilities, too many people relying on you. You can’t just walk away. Besides... Where do you go? What do you do?
But the deep breaths and voices of reason didn’t help solve the underlying issue of what got me to my personal breaking point in the first place. There was not enough space in the world, not enough ‘Adult Time-out’s’, just not enough of anything in particular. But a lot of stress.
In all my previous stress-induced moments of desperation, I went somewhere special. Somewhere I thought for sure the answers would be waiting. Directly to the “Self Help” section of my local Barnes & Noble/Amazon/Borders. Walked through those aisles many times. Googling, pondering, picking, reading and setting back down. Grazing the section like a little Self-Help buffet with over 100,000 morsels to choose from. Read, digested and regurgitated everything from Eckart Tolle to the ‘The 4 day work week’. Not to mention the variety of personal cheerleaders I threw money at. Life-Coaches, Therapists, Counselors, and Spiritual Advisors. You can now even self-diagnose from television commercials to ‘ask your doctor if _____ is right for you’.
It was gluttonous.
It was a wonderful.
It was a comforting ‘self-help’ blanket on a cold night of overwhelm.
But, eventually, like everything else, the self-helping buffet didn’t satisfy. The rational-thought-override-safety-button was replaced by the EJECT button. I needed space, fresh air and a new perspective. I needed out.
So, I left.
I left with aftershocks of my ‘I can’t take this s**t anymore’ earthquake in the form of ‘toodles’ notes, a worried family and a lurching business. And within two short months I went from the richest country in the world with too many questions, too much stress and not enough joy, to the poorest country in the world gaining fresh ideas and a new perspective on, well... everything.
Are American’s (in general) really that f**ked up?
Yes.
Yes, because Americans suffer from the highest level of >>Enter buzzword, lights flash, sirens wail<<
“Stress”.
And just for the record, I really hate that word. Perhaps I just hate the connotation of the word, or maybe because it is so un-relate-able and overused. Everyone and their dog, mother, sister, brother and even creepy uncle uses the word ‘stress’ to describe SOME sort of ailment they are suffering from. It is the most popular excuse for irrational behavior. “Oh, she is just super stressed because (pick your poison): her husband left her for his secretary, the kids got suspended from school because of a bully, some jackass rear-ended him, his cousins-brother’s-monkey’s-uncle just died, the house is in foreclosure, the company just went under, unemployment just ran out and my third eyelash on my left eye has been twitching for weeks.“
I’ve done it, did it recently in fact, more than once. I have used the little stress-excuse-eject-button, and I’m sure you have too. Just a Google search on Stress comes back with over 350 MILLION hits. Everything from signs and symptoms to understanding it, managing it, dealing with it, cuddling with it. (Ok, not really cuddling, but seriously?!) This word ‘stress’ sneaks around like a night-stalking ninja-boogyman that hides in the shadows of every day life, ready to attack at any moment, and no one has really been able to catch it. But instead uses the word to describe every ailment known to man. The stress-boogyman is top fugitive on America’s Most Wanted with a billion dollar bounty. But, this fugitive has no name, no face, we really can’t put our finger and it, and he can strike at any time.
Who is this Stress Character?
Guess what he looks like..... -> you. Surprise! Yes you. Go ahead - take a look in the mirror, and introduce yourself to your new Stress Boogyman. I’ll wait.
I’m waiting.
Scary huh? Yes, unfortunately, in a nutshell, you - yes, I’m talking to you, the one reading this book, right now. YOU are your own worst enemy when it comes to stress. Yeah, I know, it’s not always your fault, no problem. But, it is still true.
One of my friends referred to stress once as “The self-imposed sentence in our life prison” I thought it was an apt description. How many prisoners do you think would stay in jail if the doors were flung open? No more lawyers, no more appeals, no more bars and visiting hours. I would venture to guess that there would be a surprising number that would stay. Just like there is a surprising number of people who are happy with the choice of living a totally stressed out life. Don’t you want to be free of that? If not, well... then thanks for your money, but you can stop reading now.
There is a billion-dollar industry flourishing on this ‘Stress-Monster’. Our friendly night-stalking-ninja-boogyman is the number one industry in the civilized world. It is the cause of 70-90% of all doctor’s visits, and costs Great Britain alone over $600 million dollars last year, in the USA, over $300 BILLION! From anti-anxiety medication, accidents to just plain ol’ lethargy, Stress SUCKS!
How many times have you woke up with a migraine and called in sick to work? Do you have early symptoms of diabetes, ulcers or high blood pressure? Acne, weight gain or loss? Inability to concentrate, memory loss? How many weekends have you spent watching movies, reading books, surfing the net or playing video games just to escape? Everyone at one time or another has had a sign or symptom of being stressed. No wonder the word ‘stress’ is overused enough to make me barf.