First, I want to thank all of you who have become followers of my Blog. I can’t begin to believe the response I have received from the articles I have written. From the comments I have read (and there have been many) the subject matter has connected.
Second, many of you have asked how you can learn more about who I am and what I do. I want to invite you to my website, www.RichardFlint.com. There you can learn about all the things I have and am doing. Please pay attention to my Morning Minute and my summer StarMaker Conference. These are opportunities I know you will find valuable to your growth journey.
So many times I have been asked to write “a little more” on several of the articles, but none more than the Blog I wrote on “Controlling The Stress In Your Life.” In my years of counseling, speaking and working with human behavior, I have never seen so many people challenged with stress like I am today. The uncertainty of the times and the affect that uncertainty is having on the lives of people has increased the level of stress so many are feeling.
In a recent conversation with a seatmate on a flight, he put it this way, “I have been through several economic adjustments, but none that have lasted this long. When we first started this slide, I just thought here we go again. Little did I know four years later I would find myself struggling financially, living with a level of fear I have never experienced and lost as to what to do. Am I stressed? The answer is YES in all caps. I just hope I can hang on and stay internally together long enough to see the other side.”
This conversation is one I have had over and over with people from all walks of life. I want to take a chapter out of my book The Truth About Stress and share with you “Twelve Realities.”
Please hear this!! You can’t eliminate stress! It is a daily part of your life. The good news is YOU CAN CONTROL IT’S AFFECT ON YOUR LIFE. Take the following information seriously:
An excerpt from “The Truth About Stress”
CHAPTER 4
Twelve Realities
Before you tour your Stress House, you need to stand in the front yard for a few minutes and take a look at some things that will make a difference to your tour. As you move through your Stress House, you are going to discover parts of your life in each room. As you sense and see this, you are going to ask “Why?” I’m going to give you 12 realities that will prepare you for your visit to your Stress House. Without an understanding of these twelve realities, you will enter the house without some very necessary information. These realities are not magical, but they give you insights you need to understand the truth about stress and how to control the stress in your life. You do not have to agree with what I say, but I do want you to pay close attention to what you are reading.
Reality 1:
You Create Your Own Realities
It is important that you understand this: the only definition your mind has of “truth” is what you tell it. The human mind records everything it sees and hears, but it only gives back what is requested.
Let’s look at two people experiencing the same situation: one enters the situation, feels it is going to be bad, and spends his energy looking for the pain. He is really telling his mind, “Show me the pain of this event.” What does his mind do? It shows him everything that is wrong and gives the requested pain. What is his mind doing? It is responding to his request.
Another person enters the same event, but asks her mind to show the value of this situation in her life. What does her mind do? It shows the meaning and growth of the situation. What is her mind doing? It is giving the information requested.
Your mind responds to your request for information. It contains so much more than you ask, but it responds according to what you want.
The game Trivial Pursuit gives us a very valuable lesson. While playing the game, have you ever been asked a question you didn’t think you knew the answer to it and had some strange thought pop into your mind? You blurted it out, and someone said, “That’s right!” You didn’t tell anyone you guessed, did you?
While playing partners, have you ever been asked a question, had a strange answer pop into your mind, and whispered it in your partner’s ear? He or she looked at you like you were crazy, but blurted it out anyway? Someone stared at the question card and with a look of amazement said, “That’s right!” What do you do? You tell everyone you told your partner the answer, right?
The game teaches a very important lesson: The human mind really never forgets anything; however, it does not volunteer information, either.
The only definition your mind has for “truth” is what you tell it. It gives, responds, and defines according to what you request, or what you want.
It is from those “wants” you define reality. “Reality” is your painting of what is happening. Reality will vary from person-to-person. Your definition of reality is based on your feelings, your desires, and your wants.
You create your own realities. It is not the situation, not the event, but what you feel that creates your sense of reality. This, in turn, gives you your understandings of what’s happening in your life.
Reality 2:
You Are An Integrated System
This is very important in forming a system to control the stress in your life. For years it was taught that a human was three separate entities – mind, body, and emotion. Each was important, but was not related to the other. Then, one day someone discovered that the three really were related. The mind, the body, and the emotion work together as a system of checks and balances. Have you ever had a day when you were so mentally exhausted that you were physically tired? Have you ever had a time when you were so physically drained that mentally you had a headache? What about a time when you were so emotionally shot that you were physically a wreck?
Here is something to think about: Your body is smarter than you are. It responds better in working to control stress than your whole person does. On those days when the mental part of you is at load capacity, the other two provide the relief you need. Any time one of the three is about to short-circuit, the other two provide a release valve. The real danger arises when you are mentally exhausted, emotionally shot, and physically drained all at the same time. At that point there is no release valve, and the system will break down.
For checks and balances, you must learn to listen to your system. Your mind, body, and emotions warn you in plenty of time to control the impending pressure. You are an integrated system. You are designed to handle pressure as long as you are in control. At the point where pressure controls you, none of the systems are of any value. The result is a break down.
Reality 3:
You Prove Your Beliefs To Yourself
Realities 3, 4, and 5 work together as a trio of thought. You need to look at them individually, but keep in mind that each has a bearing on the others.
Everyday people tell you everything you need to know about them, and they don’t even have to open their mouths to do it. If you want to know what people think or feel about a situation, watch their actions. What people believe about a situation controls their responses, and they will work to prove what they feel.
I’m sure you have been around people who worked hard to prove their beliefs. For instance, people who feel they cannot do a certain task work hard to prove to everyone they cannot do it. Encouragement from others around them may cause them to put forth a little effort, but they will make sure it is not enough to accomplish the task. When they have tried and did not achieve, they will respond with, “I told you so!”
It is amazing to watch people work to prove what they can and cannot do. When they are committed to proving they “cannot,” they are defeated before they ever start. It is important you understand that negative is not a concept, but an action that is expressed through how you deal with a situation. There can be no question that this process creates stress. When you are working to prove a belief, there is inherent pressure to make sure you are right. This is another part of the theory of justification. What you believe, you will work to justify through your actions. You work to prove your beliefs to yourself.
Reality 4:
Behavior Follows Beliefs
It’s easy to see how this answer relates to #3, You Prove Your Beliefs to Yourself. When you are working to prove what you feel, your behavior will be arranged to coincide with your belief. Let me take you back a few years in my life to draw an illustration.
I come from a family where I was the only male child on either side. All my parent’s brothers and sisters had female children. In my home the only males were my dad and I. Even the animals were female! Being one of a kind with three sisters made for some very interesting childhood experiences. To this day, I still say that my sisters did not like me. It is a wonder I am alive today.
I’ll never forget the day my sisters decided it was time for me to learn to swim. I was five years old, and they were nine, seven, and four. At the time we lived in New Orleans, a block from a canal and five blocks from the Mississippi River. There was a playground area on the bank of the canal where the neighborhood group would always gather. This particular morning the game was not an exciting one for me. It was called “Teach Richard to Swim.” I didn’t want to play this game, but that did not matter to my sisters. They made the rules. They cornered me, grabbed me, picked me up and tossed me into the canal. They stood on the bank with lots of soil under their feet screaming, “Swim, Dummy! Swim!” I was in the canal with no soil under my feet, going up and down like a cork, screaming, “Help me! Help me!” A little man, who had come to the canal to enjoy fishing, heard my plea for help. After inspecting the situation, he decided that I was not going to swim, so he jumped in and pulled me to the shore.
That experience led me to believe that if I ever got into water I would drown. Any time I was around a lake, a river, a stream, or any body of water, I was terrified. My beliefs conditioned my behavior.
Have you ever had an experience that conditioned your behavior? When you feel strongly about something, it will condition your behavioral patterns.
Behavior follows beliefs. We must take this one step further and look at what happens when you try to fix it: if you try to change your behavior without examining your beliefs, no change will occur. Change that does not deal with beliefs only creates frustration. The more you understand why you do what you do, the easier it becomes to handle the frustration. Behind each action is a belief. Too many times you become so caught up in the action that you forget to deal with your feelings and beliefs. If you do not deal with your feelings, the end result will be resistance, fear, and frustration.
Reality 5:
Thoughts Create Feelings
This is the last in the trio of related answers about your beliefs and feelings. We’re now getting a little deeper inside the human response system. This answer deals with a very important aspect of control. Have you ever tried to change your attitude and thought you had changed it, but then found yourself back in the same frame of mind?
Thoughts create feelings. Attitudes are not feelings; they are the expression of inner thoughts. Attitudes are not problems; they are visual symptoms of deeper issues. Attitudes are the visual projection of thoughts. By the time someone actually sees your attitude, you have already designed your feelings. You will not be able to change your attitudes until you reconstruct your thoughts about the event. Until you redefine your thoughts, your attitude will remain the same. Your attitude may change for a brief time, but your thoughts will always resurface.
There is a “cousin” term that needs a moment of attention. It’s called habit. Have you ever seen people try to change a habit, only to end up frustrated? Most explanations of habits leave out a very important point. Habits are not just actions people do over and over again. Habits are actions that people do with consistency because they get satisfaction from them. As long as the satisfaction is there, the habits will remain. When the habits no longer provide satisfaction, people will change them by finding something that does offer the feeling of satisfaction.
Think about this: have you ever seen people who say they want to lose weight, yet no matter how hard they try, they do not succeed? What’s the problem? The reason they are unsuccessful is because the habit of eating is still more satisfying than the advantages of losing weight. The same can be said about people who are always talking about their desire to stop smoking. The habit is still more satisfying than any of the alternatives.
Thoughts create feelings. Until you learn to deal with your thoughts in an open and honest way, your feelings will remain unchanged. If those feelings are a source of frustration, the longer they remain unchanged, the stronger the frustration will become.
Reality 6:
No One Can Change Another Person
For ages this has been one of the most common creators of stress ever. Time and time again people enter jobs and relationships with the attitude that they can change another person. What we all need to know is that people are not change-oriented. People live their lives in an attempt to establish comfortable routines, not to change. Change is one of the most frightening things you can ask anyone to do. People spend their lives running from change, not toward it.
When I was on the counseling staff of First Baptist Church of West Palm Beach, Florida, I did a lot of premarital counseling. I enjoyed talking with young couples who were planning to spend the rest of their lives together. I would always talk to them together and then would ask the groom-to-be to go for a walk. I wanted to talk to the future bride alone. I always got strange looks from the groom, but I would assure him that it was going to be okay. After he left, I would open my desk and take out a note pad on which I had written, “Things I Plan to Change About Him After We Are Married.” On the sheet were six blanks. I would ask the young lady to list the six things she intended to change about him after they were married. Most of the brides listed at least seven things! I later realized that I should have asked the grooms to make a list because they, too, have expectations of making changes.
Do you know the frustration that arises when people enter situations intent on being creators of change? Human beings do not like change. When people enter situations bent on being creators of change, they are not met by willing participants. Most people do want to improve, BUT they don’t want to have to change to get the improvement.
I’ll never forget one woman who came to me totally despondent. Jane married a gentleman, knowing that he possessed traits she could not stand, but feeling confident that she could change him. She sat in my office defeated. She had given up.
She said, “I’ve tried . . .I’ve tried every way I know to change him, but he won’t change.” She paused for a few moments as if she were reliving every aspect of the relationship where she had tried to change him. Then with a look of total disgust, she said “Do you know what? I don’t think he wants to change.”
Jane had defined the lesson, even if she hadn’t accepted it. No one can change another person. Trying to change another person creates an arena of personal frustration. You cannot do anything to people without their permission and cooperation. You cannot change other people. To think you can is to place yourself in a very stressful situation. Now, don’t read my message incorrectly. I am not saying that people cannot change. People can change, but they–not you must institute the change! You cannot change another person!
Reality 7:
Intuition (what you feel) Is Just As Important As Cognition (what you know)
Have you ever been in an internal tug-of-war where your feelings were in conflict with your mind? Your mind told you to do one thing, while your gut-level feelings told you to do another. Your intuition (what you feel about an event) is just as important as your cognition (what you know about the event). Sometimes what you know becomes your justified thoughts. These gut level feelings are based upon feelings defined by information you have accepted as factual. Nothing is wrong with this. There is a place and time for this type of decision-making, however you must be sure this does not become your only way of understanding or defining a situation. Your thoughts can mislead you. Sometimes what you feel provides a more honest evaluation of the situation.
Don’t ever just disregard your gut-level feelings. They are the most honest emotions you have. Give them their proper place among your emotions, and they will help take some of the pressure out of the decision-making process. Deny them their place and they will leave you with questions that will become nagging memories.
Reality 8:
People Talk To Hear Themselves Talk
I have seen many living illustrations of this in my lifetime, but there is one that stands above the rest. I had endured a long day of speaking on the west coast and was looking forward to leaning back and relaxing as I boarded the plane to fly home to the east coast. I took my seat, settled in, and then I saw him coming. You could tell by the way he was walking he had experienced one of those days you do not want to experience. I whispered a little prayer “God, don’t put him next to me.” It was too late. He didn’t sit in the seat: he fell into the seat. I tried very hard not to notice him. I knew if I did, I would not be able to get rid of him for the entire flight.
Once he got his body and mind arranged, he was ready. He needed someone to “vent” to, not have a conversation with. He began by asking me what I did, and I knew that when I told him, the rest of the trip would be spent indulging his emotional needs. I told him I was a professional speaker and naturally he wanted to know what was my area of expertise. When I told him that my background was in psychology, his eyes grew big and he got the biggest grin on his face. He looked at me and said, “I knew you weren’t here by accident!”
For the next four hours, I listened to his life history from two months before conception until the present. In all that time I don’t think I said over ten words. If I started to say something, he would give me one of his looks that said “Hold on. I’m not finished yet.” When we arrived at the gate, he was the first one out of his seat. He grabbed my hand and said, “Thank you! Thank you! No one has ever helped me as much as you did. Thanks for talking to me.”
I thought to myself, “I didn’t talk to you. You did all the talking.” Then it hit me: I had met another person who was talking to hear himself talk.
You must learn certain things about people. There are people who talk to you because they want you to talk back to them, and there are people who talk to you but do not want you to talk back to them. They need ears, not a responding mouth. If you try to talk to them, they become offended. They will even accuse you of not wanting to listen. They are not looking for answers, advice, or any form of words. What they want is someone to sit there and be their personal sounding board. They are simply talking to hear themselves.
Pressure exists on both sides of this fence. If you have ever been around these people, you know how much pressure they can put on you. They can stress you out in a very short while. It takes a lot of mental energy to just sit and listen. When you can respond with words, it creates a form of release. When you have to just sit there and listen, knowing they don’t want you to respond, that creates pressure.
Pressure also exists for those people who want to do all the talking. What they are doing is using other people. They don’t always understand what they are doing. They don’t see themselves as using others; they just know they need someone who will listen. Eventually, other people will become less willing to lend them an ear. The harder it becomes for them to find a set of ears without a mouth, the more rejected they feel.
People talk to hear themselves talk. The more you understand this, the easier it will become for you to understand why communication is such a huge challenge and the quicker you will be able to recognize this type of personality. When you can recognize these people, you can control the pressure they place on you. Part of controlling pressure is recognizing what creates it!
Reality 9:
Each One Of Us Is Alone
This may be the hardest of all the answers for you to understand. I know each time I talk about this during a program, I get a lot of strange looks from people. “Each one of us is alone” is a hard statement to accept. Most people don’t like the feeling of being alone. We live our lives desiring and seeking the approval of others, sometimes at the cost of our personal happiness.
People who spend their lives seeking the approval of others create a lot of stress for themselves. They spend their lives being what others want them to be, rather than becoming what they really can become. These people have not learned the difference between being “lonely” and being “alone.” You need to understand this if you want to control the stress in your life.
“Lonely” is when you find yourself by yourself and you don’t like it. Being by yourself is one of the most frightening things that can happen to you. You do not enjoy your own company and always want to be with someone else because you know when you are alone you must deal with all the things you are running from in your life.
“Alone” is when you find yourself by yourself and you love it. You don’t need people to be happy, because you realize other people do not create happiness. Happiness comes from within you. You don’t need people to feel secure, because you realize that if people can give you security, they can also take it away. You don’t need people in order to feel worthwhile. You realize that what other people offer you is their definition of you based on what they want you to be. If you accept that, then you become their creation and not who you really are.
When you understand this concept, then you can also understand the difference between “need” and “want.” If you need people, you live with blinders that hinder your vision. “Need” limits your ability to see and know the value of people and events. If your understanding is based on need that is all you will see. As long as the situation or person meets your needs, things are great. If it does not meet your needs, then what do you do? You become critical. Most of your criticisms are based upon the fact something has not gone the way you needed it to go, or someone has not done what you expected them to do.
“Want” is a different story. When want is stronger than need, you see through a more mature set of eyes. Want removes restrictions. Want accepts as is; need demands change. Want creates an attitude of freedom; need constructs a cell. Want makes one responsible for self; need tries to make others responsible for what has or has not been.
In this world, you must understand you are alone. You are responsible for yourself. Others may share your world, but they are not your world. They may fill your world, but they are only there because at this moment they share a point of common existence. What you do with your sphere of life must be your decision, not one made for you by someone else. Otherwise, you lose your uniqueness and become just another clone in a world of copies.
Each one of us is alone. The more secure you become in that thought, the more freedom you will grant the others in your life. The more comfortable you become with your “aloneness,” the more willing you will be to grant others the space they need to be themselves. People who smother or place restrictions on the others in their lives do so out of their own insecurities. The more secure you are in your aloneness, the less threatened you are by others.
Aloneness allows people to stop focusing on differences and start looking for how they connect. Instead of being threatened by the difference, you can champion the right to be alone and unique. Instead of working to make other people be like you or make them into what you need them to become, you can begin to discover the uniqueness of the relationship. Instead of being disappointed by the fact others don’t meet your expectations, you can treasure their personal touches to your life and search for the gifts they offer you. Only when you free others of your needs, can you discover who they really are and what they really mean to your life. That is a great stress control!
Reality 10:
Change Is Inevitable
This is mandatory for stress control. I believe change is one of the top creators of stress. People live their lives in an attempt to establish comfortable routines, not to change. We will explore this idea in depth as we walk through your Stress House and its four rooms. Most people feel they would be a lot happier if they did not have to deal with change. Change is viewed as a stressful, negative thing in life.
You must understand that change is inevitable. The stress is created in the resistance, not in the fact of change. There is growth in change. Without change there is not growth – reality is, things die. You need to see change as a natural part of life’s order. The more you understand that everything will change, whether you want it or not, the easier the process becomes.
Change is only an enemy when it is defined as a threat. When change is understood (not necessarily agreed to, but understood), it can be seen as a friend. Change is inevitable. One of the secrets to stress control is working to understand what the change means, rather than working to keep it from happening.
Reality 11:
The More You Resist, The More It Persists
I really don’t think this answer needs a lot of defining. You have experienced it many times. Things don’t just go away. They must be dealt with. Not only do things not disappear, they often get worse. The more you resist, the more it persists. Situations demand action. That demand might create stress, but stress also comes with postponement. Postponement creates a lingering stress that just keeps gnawing at you. That stress grows each time you resist. The longer anything persists, the more energy it requires. The more energy it requires, the greater the pressure that is created. Dealing with the event, rather than postponing the inevitable is a great stress control.
Reality 12:
You Already Know What To Do
You already know what to do with 99% of the things you struggle with in your life. You create stress by justifying not doing what you know needs to be done. One of the greatest stress controls is to practice acceptance, rather than denial. Denial is our way of running from necessary action. Acceptance is the mature pattern of growth. You already know what you need to do – so do it!
Dennis’ email reply to me was simply “I knew you were going to say that.”
My response was “How did you know how I was going to respond?”
“Richard, I knew the answer to the question when I wrote it. I just didn’t want to hear me say it, so I looked for you to tell me what I already knew.”
Life is not about not knowing; life is about doing what you know you should do. I believe that many people who have come to me over the years for counseling have not come looking for answers, but to have me tell them what they already knew, but didn’t want to hear themselves say. You already know what to do! ♦
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