Last week when I was writing about stress relief, I suggested your first strategy ought to be to remove the cause. Unfortunately, that sometimes simply is not possible.
Take me, please.
Ah, Henny Youngman, how I miss you.
Right now, I’m in the middle of a pretty bad patch. Due to stresses outside my control I’m unfocussed, undisciplined and having a miserable time trying to accomplish even the most basic of my daily duties, work. I like my job, I’m good at my job and fortunately, even below peak I can still do my job. But that’s about it.
My sleep seems to be fine; I’m getting enough, and it’s of decent quality, but I’m waking up feeling vaguely unrefreshed and find myself tiring out too quickly during the day. This makes me snappish with the boys and I’ve been too tired to exercise.
Clarity
Fortunately, although I can’t address the root causes of my present stress there is something I can do. I can seek clarity.
One of the major problems of stress is that, because it’s hormonal, it interferes in a lot of your systems including your emotions. When you lose your emotional balance, everything else seems to wobble with it, so getting your emotions under control has a tremendous effect on getting your stress under control.
As it happens, the two major problems I’m having (at least the ones outside of my control) are due to emotional attachments which are undergoing changes I cannot control. One of them is completely, 100% outside my reach. The other, well, I have no control, but at least it’s within my family, so I have input.
Tonight, we had an all hands on deck meeting, kind of an airing of the grievances, but without all the Jerry Stiller stupid, pointless yelling. This allowed us, as a family, to gain a great deal of clarity.
I still have no control, only an attachment that will continue, or be severed, outside of my control. But at least I have clarity.
And in finding clarity, I’ve found a little peace.
And in finding a little peace, I find my stress levels a little lower.
Serenity
Hopefully that means tomorrow I can push a little harder at the things within my control, and I can achieve a measure of serenity.
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things that I can, and wisdom to know the difference.
