You know what really stresses me out? Nothing. Know why? Because nothing can. There is no such thing as a stressful event. There are only events. And they aren’t “stressful” until I choose to interpret them in that manner.
There’s a lot of freedom in understanding that.
Stress cannot occur until I interpret something as stressful. In other words, nothing, by itself, is stressful. And there are no exceptions to this.
But it sure seems like plenty of things are stressful. It sure seems like things “stress me out”. “Seems” is the operative there. It simply appears to be the case but isn’t.
I lose my job. Stressful? Nope. Just an event. Not stressful until I interpret it that way.
As an example, let’s consider a tennis serve. Rafael Nadal aces Roger Federer in a match. Rafa is psyched. Roger’s pissed. And the umpire doesn’t give a damn.
One event. Three unique interpretations. The aced serve isn’t good bad or neutral. It just IS. Until interpreted.
The value in this is that we are free to CHOOSE our interpretations. And we can choose to interpret things in ways that not only do not result in stress, but rather activate creative genius and inspiration and peace, joy, compassion, enthusiasm, competence, etc.
Pay attention to your stress levels. Notice when you’re feeling stressed out. Become acutely aware of it. And then remember that you aren’t feeling stressed because of the event itself. You’re feeling stressed because of your interpretation of that event (this, by the way, is the classical distinction between the Owner and Victim Mentalities). And you reserve the right to revoke that interpretation and upgrade it at all times.
It took years of practice for each of us to become so adept at interpreting things in such miserable ways. It’ll take less practice to return to our natural state of interpreting reality in ways that inspire us and make it easier to be, do and have what we want.
What we choose become reality. If we choose to be happy, we feel happy. If we choose to be sad, we feel sad.
Amen to that, Christy!
Sooooo….my biggest struggle in life. If my mother dies. Suddenly. That’s stressful. To me. If the ceo I work for commits fraud that’s stressful to me. I don’t know how else to interpret that.
Hi, Tonya. I hear you! And I completely agree that events like the two you mentioned are circumstances that are very very easy to interpret in stressful ways. And it is easy to interpret any event as stressful when we have rehearsed interpreting them that way. Think of looking in the rearview mirror and seeing police lights right behind you. Is that stressful? To many, yes. Why? Because of the stories we have about what it means to be getting pulled over by the police and all the possible undesirable outcomes of that. All stories. But imagine you have a passenger with you in the car from a tribal culture that has never seen police lights. When they first see the lights they might be fascinated instead of worried. Same circumstance, different interpretations. Because of the stories we have learned and continue to believe about the circumstance. We are able to re-author all of our stories about all circumstances. It ain’t easy! But it’s possible. And liberating.