In my experience with stress, I have found good stress, which is motivating and exciting. Then there is stress which has felt overwhelming for me, for lack of a better description, I will call this bad stress. I personally believe that all the stress I believe I have in my life is caused by the thoughts I am believing at the time. I also believe when I didn’t have a healthy way to deal with this stress in my life, that lead to the depression I experienced years ago.
When I started NLP counseling many years ago, I realized I felt much better after a session. I further realized if what I had just done made me feel better, it could be repeated and I could feel even better. I have proven this theory to be true for me.
I have found so many healthy ways to deal with stress, and I believe when you are open to it, more solutions show up all the time.
Stress: Fear, Anxiety
Over the past many years I have worked on allowing fear to be here and feeling it completely. I had an experience many years ago where I experienced terror. My reaction to this terror was to jump up from my bed and run. What I found was, shutting myself down to the emotion cost me my peace. I ran from this terror for over 15 years. The funny part is, when I allowed the terror to be there and feel it, it lasted a few seconds and I fell asleep. I have also learned fear is caused by thoughts I am believing and images I am seeing. I also realized I was terrified of bodily sensations. With every twitch, pain, sensation in the body came a thought and images of what was wrong. I could even feel fear of bringing my awareness into parts of my body. What I have learned is, when I bring awareness into the body there are less thoughts and I feel more peaceful. The body has infinite wisdom, as I focus on areas of the body it still amazes me how memories and emotions come up. When I relax and experience this, it passes. My natural comfort zone has been to be in my head with thoughts. The more I work on being in my body and experiencing what that feels like the easier it gets.
Here is a meditation: Becoming aware of your internal experience
There are still times in my life where I require assistance if I get overwhelmed with fear. I allow myself to ask for that help to get through these situations. At Listening Unlimited, this is the service I provide for you! When you feel you need help, I am here. I have experienced it is much easier to feel emotions than I previously thought!