Stress & Tension

Tension is a form of stress that everyone experiences each day through hundreds of different outlets. There is a conscious or unconscious concern about our ability to perform that lies at the basis of this very common stress: Feelings of tension.

We sometimes speak of nervous tension, tense situations, or of tensions between people, but tension only exists in the muscles. It is a physical reaction, a contracting of the muscles, which occurs in all of us when we are threatened. In one respect this tension is good. It prepares us for emergencies and keeps us alert.

When the tension persists, however, we become restless, fidgety, and unable to concentrate. We might bite our nails or show other nervous mannerisms, and very often there are such physical reactions such as backaches, chest pains, stiff necks, or headaches. One recent report has suggested that roughly half of all headaches come from a muscle tension which results from the pressures of daily living.

Popularity: 85% [?]

The True Definition Of Forgiveness

The true definition of forgiveness should center on the benefits of feeling peaceful. Finding peace does not need to be complicated. Remember, all grievances begin when something in a person’s life happens that they do not want to happen. From that initial unpleasantness they take things too personally, blame the offender for how they feel, and tell a grievance story. The grievance means that too much space is rented in their minds to hurt and anger.

Remember this definition of forgiveness: It is first foremost a practical definition. Your goal is to feel peaceful. The feeling of peace comes as you heal your grievances - blaming less, taking responsibility for how you feel, and changing the story you tell. This is called peace forgiveness. As you feel more and more peace, you are progressing in your goal to heal from your grievances. You are learning to forgive.

There are three components when it comes to forgiveness. The most critical component is the story we tell. When we tell a story of victimization we have already taken something too personally and are blaming the offender for how we feel. When you tell the story of your heroic overcoming of an injustice, you will naturally blame less and take things less personally. However, it is very difficult to move directly to changing a well-rehearsed grievance story.

To avoid that problem, you should begin by taking responsibility for how you feel. We have to remember that we are responsible for our emotional experience. Our past is not responsible for our present feelings. Just because something unpleasant occurred in our past or may occur in our future does not mean that day after day should be ruined.

Difficulties, mistreatments, and unkindness do not have an extended warranty. We become helpless when we give the person who hurt us excessive power over how we feel. Our painful feelings will diminish only when we take that power back and show we are responsible for
how we feel.

There is a complementary technique that will help us reclaim responsibility for how we feel. This technique is easy to practice and available to everyone. It is to not lose sight of the good things in our life. This sounds simple but takes some effort. What this means is we spend time and energy finding the beauty and love in our life to balance the time we spend on grudges, grievances, and wounds.

Popularity: 88% [?]

10 Questions To Help You Deal With Problems

Here is a technique to release yourself from being stuck in a problem, and help you find its gift instead. Use the following list of questions and write the answers in your book of goals and dreams. You may find this method valuable for many issues now and in the future.

1. What is bothering me?

2. What are the effects of this issue on me—mentally, physically and emotionally?

3. What is the effect of the issue on those around me?

4. What does the issue cause me to do or not do?

5. What are the advantages of these effects, with respect to living my dream?

6. What are the disadvantages of these effects, with respect to living my dream?

7. How would life be different if the issue were gone?

8. Why do I need the issue?

9. What beliefs do I have that explain how this issue might have developed?

10. What are the payoffs for keeping the status quo regarding this issue?

Popularity: 40% [?]

How to feel better through relaxation techniques

The tried and true foundation for conquering any type of anxiety attack or fear based emotion is through the practice of relaxation. Believe it or not it is physically impossible to have any type of anxiety attack if the mind and body are relaxed. In fact, relaxation works so well that virtually every health care facility in the United States is teaching such techniques.

What are some areas where relaxation techniques have made huge improvements in our lives? Childbirth for example, is made much easier using relaxation. Also, high blood pressure has been greatly reduced for hundreds of thousands of patience through these techniques. And last but not least, even recovering cardiac patients are being instructed by their doctor to use relaxation techniques to reduce stress on their hearts.

There is absolutely no question that we can all reduce our stress levels and anxiety fears by learning the fundamental and easy-to-implement techniques of relaxation. There are many programs on the market through books and tapes that will get you started learning the skill of relaxation.

You can even join up for group teachings in public places, although most people choose to practice privately, especially those men and women with anxiety problems to begin with. But if you are confident and enjoy such group activities, then learning to meditate and relax in a setting of other like minded individuals can be a huge chance for personal growth in the area of relaxation.

Practicing concentrated relaxation is one of the most basic of skills that is taught in any course relating to easing your mind and body for greater comfort and less anxiety. These concentration periods should be practiced no less than one time each day and ranging up to six or more times on a daily basis.

However, it is very important to find out what works best for you. Once you have mastered your personal relaxation technique, you will be able to click your mind and body into total relaxation with the thought of one word, or by speaking out loud one phrase.

This one-word-cue can and will become that powerful of an ignition of relaxation in your life so long as you take the time each day in your life to master your techniques. And it is as skill that you can use over and over again for the rest of your life.

Our favorite stress relief program is called Totally Tranquil by Holothink. Try a free demo on their site - I think you’ll like it.

Popularity: 47% [?]

Eckhart Tolle, the enormous power of YES

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Popularity: 42% [?]

The Insanity Of Collecting Stuff That We Don’t Need

The word “collecting” is not the best word to describe this problem. Collecting indicates some order or design which in this case is lacking. What I have in mind is the keen desire to gather lots of things because they “might come in handy someday.” Or to keep them for the sake of the past.

Why do we love to collect so many things and have such a hard time throwing them out? Either we do it for the past or for the future. Certainly it isn’t for the present, since the present is suffering because of all this stuff we are trying to live with.

We feel we have to hold on to things from the past because we are trying to preserve some beautiful memory. The things we keep are attached in our minds to some important person or event in our lives, and we keep them out of respect. This is a particular problem when the person whose things we are keeping has died.

One of my best friends felt compelled to keep several houses full of furniture because they were from the estates of deceased loved ones. The same woman had four closets full of clothes four sizes too big from her admired, deceased mother-in-law, whose memory she wished to preserve. A widow I knew felt that if she threw away anything that had belonged to her husband she would be throwing away part of him. My guess is that anyone who loved us would be the first to urge us to live our lives in the present and not try to hang on to the past.

We also try to keep things for the future - just in case we ever need them. We save for possible needs or emergencies that might come. Don’t sacrifice the present for the future. That’s no healthier than living in the past.

There is freedom in having no more than you need, no more than you can control. But the collecting impulse is hard to control because on the surface it seems so logical. Why not keep that yarn? Someday you may learn to knit, and it will be wonderful to have your own supply already! Why not keep all prescription medicines?

The problem with this thinking is that it just doesn’t work. We gather and gather and gather good things, and some things that are not so good. Soon the pile gets out of control, and we can’t find what we want when we need it. Things control us and our lives. We begin to make adjustments in our way of life to accommodate all the “stuff” we have. We tell ourselves that we can’t throw anything out. We end up with so much that it is a monumental task to clean or organize. I am not saying that everything must go. But the collecting mania has to be taken in hand and controlled.

Popularity: 42% [?]

The spiritual and emotional side of stress

The amount of stress that you experience in a certain situation and your ability to process and relieve that stress is determined mostly by your attitude. It is in your attitude toward facing your circumstances and whether you feel isolated, out of control, or at the mercy of fate.

Studies have shown that people who strongly believe in faith are more likely to be able to manage stress better than those who have no belief system. In addition, those who feel a strong spiritual bond to their world find a source of relief and comfort in that relationship as well.

Families who enjoy each other’s company, who enjoy spending their time together, who support each other and provide a secure and safe haven for their members are known to deal with stress???????? ????? ???????? better than those who are distant from their families and go their own way. Those who have a least one good and reliable friend to confide in has more shield against stress that the loner misses out on.

Popularity: 44% [?]

Larry Crane Interview on Stress Release

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For more stress relief information.

Popularity: 42% [?]

Try Forgiving Yourself If You Are Angry At Someone Else

When we feel hurt or angry, it’s easy to fault someone else. “You’re to blame,” we insist. “You made me feel this way.” But the fact that we feel upset at someone doesn’t necessarily mean he or she is guilty.

Sometimes our rage is our own, forged in our own hearts and minds, fed by our personalities, our provocations, our exaggerated response to conflict. Yes, this other person may have done something to offend us, but perhaps not to the degree that our intense response would suggest. Our reaction may be entirely inappropriate or even dangerously misguided.

Owning up to your issues - tearing down your defenses and looking honestly at yourself—can be painful work. The process may teach you that you were more than just a victim, and that, perhaps, there is no one to forgive but yourself.

The same factors that influenced the way the offender treated you may have influenced the way you treated him. Again, some of these factors may be external. You might ask yourself, “What was going on in my world at the time of the injury that may have affected me emotionally, making me feel more vulnerable, less in control, less resilient, so that I reacted inappropriately? Did these life events throw me off-balance and lead me to act in ways that were callous or otherwise offensive?”

Internal factors may also shape your response. It helps to ask such questions as, “How did my personality affect my reaction? How did it influence the way I was treated?” If you’re innately shy, say, and the offender took this personally and assumed you didn’t like him, that was his mistake, not yours. You didn’t hurt him; his mistaken assumptions about you hurt him.

But if you’re shy and didn’t speak up and then felt offended that someone didn’t show interest in you or respect your position, you need to confront how you contributed to your own pain. It may be that your own silence - not his behavior - set a trap for you.

What about your dysfunctional ideas about yourself and the world, ideas that may have been based on damaging early life experiences? Did they play a role in your mistreatment? These fixed ideas often pre-date the offense and even your relationship with the offender, and create what are called “channels” of psychological vulnerability. What happens is that your heightened sensitivity - to being abandoned or ridiculed, for example 0 leads you to misperceive or mis-react to events today.

Popularity: 33% [?]

Does love take work?

There is a natural phenomenon that occurs when we first fall in love. We are happy, vibrant, and confident. Nobody needs to be told how to be happy when falling in love. This kind of happiness just comes naturally when we are discovering another person in life. It is one of the blessings of finding that unique human chemistry within somebody else. Falling in love gives you a freeing sense of being “ok”, just the way you are.

Falling in love is the easy part, it happens naturally. On the other hand, staying in love is a lot more difficult. There are many people that might argue that the best we can hope for over the long haul is a quiet kind of loving that is full of care and tenderness, but without harsh negativity and arguing, that at worst may end in disenchantment. Even couples who are very happy today with their relationships often feel anxiety over the future. Just the divorce statistics alone is enough to make us feel like love may go sour.

Part of the problem is that what worked for our parents, or rather what they thought worked for them, will not necessary work for us today. When you search around for couples who seem to be growing in a positive direction with their relationship, those that you want to emulate, there aren’t very many of these models available. So what should we do, should be just be happy for what we can get on the go, even if we lose it, or is it possible to find love and stay in love?

Personally I believe in relationships that last over time. Yes, it is extremely hard at to remain intimate with another man or woman for years on end, while keeping up the passion, and without having the desire for that initial newly discovered joy of excitement. Being a romantic person myself, I believe it can work, but on the other hand, it takes lots of work to keep a relationship going with the same vibrancy.

Do not confuse the word “work” with anything negative. It just means that to keep the magic going for the long haul, certain choices have to be made to stay close and have fun. Most couples engage in various forms of spontaneous play. I’m not referring to activities like tennis, bowling, or board games, rather, I’m talking about joking with each other, discussing fantasies, role playing, mock fighting, and private pet names to for you and your partner to call each other.

Popularity: 27% [?]

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