The One You Feed - Questions to Ask Yourself About Stress

Episode Date: March 24, 2018

This an an excerpt from our The One You Feed Stress Reducer CourseThe course is available for a limited time. Click here for more detailsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together, our mission on the Really Know Really podcast is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why the bathroom door doesn't go all the way to the floor, what's in the museum of failure, and does your dog truly love you? We have the answer. Go to reallyknowreally.com

and register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. The Really Know Really podcast. Follow us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, everyone. This mini episode is a short clip from our One You Feed stress reducer course. This comes from a section called Questions to Ask Yourself When You're Stressed. The course itself is on sale until Monday, March 26th at 11.59pm. After that, it is gone. If you're interested in the course, go to oneufeed.net slash stress. Again,

the Stress Reducer course is at oneufeed.net slash stress. I hope that you check it out and enjoy this short clip. Another episode out as always on Tuesday. Bye. There's a bunch of questions that you can ask that fall into this, but I'll start with a couple of them, but they all kind of tie together. And essentially it's, what am I making this mean? Or what is the story I'm telling myself? Because stress is very largely introduced by what we think about what's happening. Now, this is not totally true. If you are suddenly about to be run over by a car, there's going to be a great deal of stress, and that's going to be natural. But a lot of the stress that we feel, and what makes us feel overwhelmed, is because we're assigning stories

or meaning to the things that are happening. So if you can explore what is it when you say, I'm worried about X or I'm stressed about X, what does that mean? What is it that's threatened in that case? What is the worry? And then a corollary to this is to realize when we are taking a specific instance of a situation and blowing it out to be the way things always are. We call it all or nothing thinking or black and white thinking. So a fight with my husband means that we're going to get divorced and then the kids are going to grow up and then one of them is going to become a drug addict and then that means that they're going to murder somebody and then I'm going to have to go on Maury Povich as the parent of a kid who murdered someone, right? We have a tendency

to take a very little thing and blow it up into big things because we've got some meaning attached to it. There's a story that's attached to it. And I think what we want to do is watch for those stories and understand what they are. Another variant on this is how can I see this situation in a different light? Oftentimes things that are unpleasant for us are also good for us. It's very interesting that a lot of stress research seems to show that the amount that we suffer from stress has to do to some extent with how much we think the stress is harming us. So in other words, you and I could have an equal amount of stress or pressure, but if you think it's a terrible thing and I think it's going to make me

stronger, I'm going to respond much better in all respects and a lot of them even physically. It's going to have less of a toll on my body than your body. So reframing things into a different light where possible can make these things seem less stressful. And recognizing that, okay, can I reframe this in a different light and saying, okay, I'm strong enough to handle this, or this means I'm developing this skill. So reframing, it's very similar to what am I making this mean, but it's a slightly different twist on that. The other thing is to ask yourself, what are you really feeling? Stress isn't exactly a feeling. Just like saying that I feel fat often for people means that we're tired, we're uncomfortable in our own

skin, we feel guilty for eating too much, so we say, I feel fat. But what is the feeling underneath it? And same thing with stress. Are you tired? Are you overwhelmed? Are you pressured by time? Are you frustrated with someone? Are you angry? Are you sad? So look for what the emotion is that is under this general category of stress, and then it's going to allow you to deal with it more precisely. Another one that is often helpful for me is I often feel very stressed when I feel trapped, like I have to do this, and I have to do that, and I have to do all these things. It's very helpful for me to remember that no, I don't actually have to do any of it. Now, before you rear up and say, well, of course, I have to do the things I have to do, you don't. People don't. People choose to not take care of their kids. People choose to not pay the mortgage. People

choose to not go to work. You may not like the consequences of that. You may not like the go to work. You may not like the consequences of that. You may not like the consequences of the decision not to do any of that stuff, but you still have the decision. We have way more choices than we think we do. And remembering that is helpful because we can look and go, okay, I am choosing to do these things based on the values that I have. I'm spending this much time and energy on the kids because I value that. I'm working this hard because my work is important to me and the money that I bring home allows me to do X, Y, and Z for my family. Whatever those things are, if we can reframe it from I have to, I have to, to this is something I'm choosing to do, it can be helpful.