Oct 30 2016
UNTANGLING EMPLOYEE KNOTS
“Employee Stress” Blocks Productivity, Vision, Focus & Health, which Costs Employers Over $300 Billion!
What’s YOUR share?
“UNTANGLING KNOTS”
When is a knot not a knot? Stress is like that “eye of the beholder” thing. Twenty-five years, for instance, can be forever, or a blink, depend- ing on how we’ve chosen to experience it and how we choose to see it.
Sticking a thumb out to paint scenery isn’t the same as sticking it up to show approval, or down to show rejection, plugging it into a hole to stop a leak, or waving it to hitch a ride.
Neither is twenty-five years of delivering mail the same as twenty- five years of raising a family, or hammering rocks OR tuning pianos, driving trucks, stuffing pickles into assembly-line jars, selling services to corporate muckity-mucks, doing heart transplants, being a techie, running a retail store… OR plucking escargot-bound snails off jagged rocks at low tide.
Yet, we humans do all of these things to earn a living and label them as stressful.
In fact, “most stressful” to you could well be “least stressful” to me, and vice versa. To you, twenty-five years could be an eternity of pain and anguish. To me, it might be a heartbeat of joy. Some may consider it a flash of fantasy.
Or perhaps we’ve chosen to suffer what seems like a permanent backache, endless constipation, depression, addiction, or —the opposite— we’ve cultivated some ever-deepening smile wrinkles by choosing to foster a happy, healthy, productive work-and-home balance.
Every end result gives rise and a clue to the source and choices and choice reversals made or not made all along the way.
Where does CHOICE begin and end? Or does it? Maybe it’s an eternal blanket and functions only when we’re aware of its pervasiveness. Surely it doesn’t float innocuously to our shoulders from the heavens and plot to do us in, even as we sit stunned by its presence, and puzzled by its origin and intention.
But: VOILA! As truth will have it, stress doesn’t come from outside of us. It doesn’t come from other people or circumstances—or from our jobs!
All physical, mental, and emotional stress is inevitably the result of a choice we make or have once made (perhaps within this very minute… or a week, month, year, decade or lifetime ago!). So it’s fair to say we can stop blaming others and circumstances for having put us under stress. We have only ourselves to blame.
But blame doesn’t get rid of stress and may even make it worse.
As we have championed ourselves to “bring it on,” we are equally well-equipped to “let it go.” We need only to:
A) RECOGNIZE AND ACCEPT that it’s the result of a choice we just (or once) made,
AND
B) FOCUS OR REFOCUS OURSELVES on the most immediate split-second here-and-now minutes of our lives… our heartbeats, our pulses, our breathing.
When we pay attention to our breathing, our pulses, our heartbeats, we are returning our minds to this very minute, and every passing minute.
Why does this matter? Because stress only exists in dwelling on a past moment (older than a minute, or even a few ticks)… or worrying about a future moment (more than seconds or minutes away) that hasn’t yet come—and may never come!
Simply being aware of this thinking is often enough to make the difference. If you’ve read this far and are not interested in more, at least be interested enough in helping your SELF by trying and practicing these “Are You Breathing?” steps. They work and they’re free!
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Hal Alpiar is a 35-year-experienced professional coach and trainer. A business and career development mentor, Hal actively consults in marketing/PR/sales and stress management. Twice voted “Professor-of-the-Year,” he is also a national award-winning book author and national award-winning branding creator.
Serving clients nationwide since 1981, Hal has helped over 25,000 business and healthcare professional participants in his training programs, classes and workshops, and many more through his published books, articles, and over 1600 blogposts.
[NOTE: For more details, click on About Hal tab at the top of this page]
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