If you come home from work with less energy than you went with in the morning, you are sabotaging your relationship. Nobody wants the leftovers of a dull, exhausted and stressed partner.
Stress kills libido, it sucks life out of those around it and turns beautiful relationships into rescue hospitals for the incompetent. Money, success, victory or whatever the cause of stress needs to be evaluated in the context of the cost to relationships. Worry kills relationship, no matter what the source.
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Most stress goes undetected. It's called worry. Worry and stress are cumulative. They add. For most people the cure for stress is to take a break. Breaks come in the form of time out, a few beers, sleep, food and play. These breaks are not stress relieving at all. They are distractions from the cause of the stress. There are seven areas of life. Therefore seven areas of worry.
Worry is the worst stress of all. It ages people rapidly and attacks the immune system
The most challenging thing about worry is that very often we get busy in order to "shut it out of our mind"
When I was in Japan studying Zen, I finished a long practice. After many months I got into a taxi to go to the airport and got caught in a traffic jam. I put the potential disaster of missing my prepaid flight and the awareness that there were no vacant seats out of Tokyo for months, out of my head.
I meditated in the back of the taxi.
But nature is never so foolish. My palms started to sweat. I had achieved the skill of putting things out of my conscious mind, but my subconscious and nervous system were still free. Free to roam into places I'd prefer they didn't. I was worried and nature was showing me so.
There are seven areas of life. A worry in one area might not seem important while at work, but, like my taxi ride, nature will reveal our subconscious worries through our moods, people's response to us and our immune system.
This is a profound opportunity.
But many people see the symptoms of reduced immunity, like allergies, colds, coughs, reflux and more and instead of recognising the opportunity, treat the illness.
All illness, 100% of it relates to stress and worry.
Our immune system can fight anything, except our own mind.
Cholesterol, arthritis, IBS, depression... these are opportunities because they can trace you back to a worry, a cause, and then you can both treat the symptom and win the opportunity to treat the cause, the stress in the subconscious mind.
One of the greatest causes of worry in the short term, is running late - like my example in the taxi on the way to the airport.
We can block out our worry about being late, but the anxiety can really destroy our health and well being.
Here are just a few ideas to help:
Limit all meetings to 30 minutes Take breaks during, before and after meetings Always be the first into the meeting. First out. Trigger time warnings well before meeting end times Ask yourself daily "in the seven areas of my life, what are my worries?" Be honest with yourself Identify the topic of worry and ask, "Why am I worried about that?" Solve all worries in the following way, "Do, Dump, Delegate"
Until you can say, "if the worst happens I'm OK with it" then worry will age you and destroy your immune function.
Dependency causes more subconscious worry than any other topic. Subconsciously, dependency is a vulnerability that creates insecurity, dishonesty, disharmony and dysfunction.
"I need nothing, want nothing and therefore I have everything" is a worry free state. Can you say that truthfully in all seven areas of your life?