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Stress inoculation

TimeinNature1

Find the thing that helps refocus, refresh and reset you for a better day afterwards.

I’m back from the vortex of ‘doing’ instead of ‘being’.  I haven’t posted much the past few weeks because I entered one of those time-periods where the demands of everyday living trump our best intentions to take care of our inner selves. We all encounter them and no matter how far into the journey of self-awareness I go, I still stray from what I know to be good.  I falter. I forget.  Self-care requires not only good intentions, but continual, mindful effort to make it real.

I have many good excuses why I lost my way—and they are just that: excuses.   The program at the university which I direct lost its federal funding and the university and its affiliated hospital isn’t stepping up as I had hoped to fill the void.  So I find myself in full-tilt do-whatever-it-takes-to-survive mode.  If I stop digging, people will not receive what I believe to be life-saving and life-changing educational information.  So out of deep love for this program, I’m doing more tasks with fewer financial resources and no staff .  My job is demanding and leaves little time for anything else.

In an effort to stay balanced, I decided to make time for something else.  I decided to take the coursework necessary to become a certified health coach. It is something I wanted to do for myself—I thought I would enjoy it and I did.  I thought it would help me better be able to help others, and it does.   I’m pleased to say I passed my certification exam yesterday, but the process of adding this one more thing on top of an already busy schedule was nearly too much.

I forgot to take into consideration that unexpected things always arise. There is the ‘stuff’ of life that crops up–expensive dental work, home internet going out (for days!), child breaking his band instrument, medical appointments—well, you get the idea. There are those everyday stressors which arise that on any given day might not seem so bad when taken by themselves, but added to the backdrop of other responsibilities can become the proverbial straw that breaks the camel’s back.  It happens to all of us at one time or another. It is in those moments of feeling overwhelmed when it is easy to forget about ourselves. We prioritized everything and everyone else and put ourselves last.

So what to do when things start spiraling out of control and you lose your sense of self?

  1. The first thing is to recognize it.  Just being able to take a half-step back to notice that ‘yes, I’m feeling tense and I’m tenser today than yesterday and I don’t like this path’ is a good start.  You can’t fix what you don’t know is broken.  Being mindful enough of your own self to notice when things are out of kilter and you don’t feel ‘normal’ is a big part of becoming self-aware. Taking some time during the day—even if only for a moment—to notice how you are feeling and truly be fully aware and accepting of those feelings  is crucial.
  2. Next, if you recognize that you’re on a path to a bad place, get off of it! Make a conscious decision to not go there.  Some events during the course of a day, we have no control over. But many things in our day we do have power over. We also have the choice in how we respond to those things we cannot control. We can choose to go to bed early to get extra rest and carry over a task to another day.  We can choose to ask for help..from a coworker, spouse or friend.  We can choose to not carry our burden alone, but connect with other people.  When you really start looking at what is bothering you, you’ll discover we have more control over our lives than at first is perceived.
  3. Find what refreshes you.  For myself, I find it helpful to reconnect with nature.  The past week was a long and difficult one.  Crazy things happening at work, at home and trying to study on top of it. After I finished my exam yesterday, I intentionally had lunch by a nearby lake.  While at the lake, I could simply sit and be.  I then noticed eagles hunting and felt the wind on my face and smelled the fresh air. It was a meal for the senses.  (I took the photo above during my time yesterday) It was exactly what I needed.  For me, a short time alone in nature is an inoculation against stress.  And it doesn’t have to be at a formal park or ‘nature area’.  It can just as easily be having coffee sitting outside in the sunlight or getting out of my windowless office and going for a walk outside during lunch. A bit of the natural world is what helps me in times of stress.  It may be something very different for you.  Experiment and find whatever works for you…but find that thing that helps refocus, refresh and reset you for a better day afterwards.
  4. Above all, be kind to yourself.  We are not perfect. We are human.  We will occasionally fail. It is to be expected. Try again.  Don’t give up.  Endure. Accept. Love. Thrive.
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Not letting adversity define you: A lesson from Robert Frost

FrostToday is the birthday of Robert Frost,  the great American poet (March 26, 1874 – January 29, 1963) who has inspired so many.   Unlike many poets who struggle in obscurity, Frost’s work was well-accepted in his lifetime and he received four Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry,  a Congressional Gold Medal and over forty honorary college degrees (from the esteemed likes of Harvard, Princeton, Cambridge, Oxford, etc even though he never graduated from college).

Yet, for all his professional success, Frost’s personal life was beset with tragedy.

  • His father died of tuberculosis when he was 11 years old.  If the loss of a parent weren’t enough to deal with, his father’s death left  the family financially broke and they moved cross-country from California to Massachusetts to start anew, living with his grandparents.
  • Frost’s mother suffered from bouts of depression and died from cancer when Frost was 26.
  • Frost cared for his younger sister Jeanie and had the tough decision to commit her to a metal hospital, where she died.
  • Only two of Frost’s six children outlived him:  one died three days after birth,  one died of cholera in childhood, one committed suicide as an adult, another died of fever following childbirth.
  • Frost’s wife was not healthy; she had heart problems throughout her adult life (eventually dying of heart disease), suffered bouts of depression, and developed breast cancer.  Frost outlived her by 25 years.
  • Professionally, Frost’s success did not happen immediately. He was 38 before his first book was published.   Frost made multiple attempts to attend college, but each time dropped out to take a job or for health reasons.  Early on, Frost held of string of unfulfilling jobs and several failed business/farming ventures.  He struggled early to find publishers.

By all rights, it would be easy to understand if Frost’s life left him jaded.  But that is not the message we get from looking back on his life and work.  President John F. Kennedy said about Frost, “He has bequeathed his nation a body of imperishable verse from which Americans will forever gain joy and understanding.”   Think of it: people find joy from a man whose life was filled with tragedy.

Frost’s life is a lesson.  Too often today we dismiss and justify bad behavior, even criminal behavior as “well, they had a tough childhood” or “they’ve had some hard knocks in life”.   We justify our own personal failures as “there was nothing I could do” or “I am trapped, I have no choice”.   There is always a choice:  one can view adversity as something which defeats you or as a life-lesson and something which makes you stronger.

“Two roads diverged in a wood and I – I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.” Robert Frost

Frost did not let personal adversity get in the way of his vision and creativity.  Someone with a hardened heart could not write the beautiful poetry he gave us.  His heart was open to the possibilities of life.

“There will always be something left to know, something to excite the imagination of the poet and those attuned to the great world in which they live.” Robert Frost

It is not easy to see the beauty in the world when times are tough.  Yet, we must try.  Sadness begets more sadness; anger more anger.  It is only by journeying on in a positive light and having an open heart that we find meaning in what was darkness.

“In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.”  Robert Frost

 

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Lean In? No thanks.

Success

Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg’s new book, Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead has churned up the debate over ‘what does it mean to be a woman in the 21rst century’.  If you haven’t yet heard of her…you will soon. Sandberg, her book and supporting nonprofit (LeanIn.org) is hard to miss—she’s on the cover of TIME, making the rounds on the talk shows, in just about every major newspaper.  She is cast in many of these interviews as the savior of modern feminism—the next Gloria Steinem, but with corporate business grit.

Sandberg’s underlying premise is that we women have all surely lost our way on the road to the feminist revolution and she’s here to set us straight with some no-nonsense, board room direction.

Sandberg makes some good observations and I found myself agreeing with some of what she said. However, the underlying premise is so incredibly flawed and short-sighted that I fear the book is more a danger to feminism than a help.

Sandberg fixates on why more women are not in leadership positions…heads of state, heads of corporations, etc.  Women make up 49% of the workforce, but only 4% of CEOs at fortune 500 companies.  She indicates that for a truly equal world, women would be represented in leadership roles equally.   On the one hand, I find myself thinking “yep,numbers don’t lie and  that’s clearly inequitable”.  But then upon further reflection, I have to conclude “So what?”  What do the stats really mean?

Does it mean just because we’re not at the top of the chain, that we’re living meaningless, unsuccessful lives and not enjoying the benefits of the feminist revolution?

If we were to have equal representation at the top, how would that make society more egalitarian?  Would female-led companies and countries create greater female-friendly environments and policies?  (I don’t think we’ve seen that so far and to some extent, some good cases showing quite the opposite–of women not ‘giving back’ once they are at the top.)

Climbing the corporate ladder is not the sole definition of success.  Feminism is about having equal choice and opportunity.  We are not restricted on the basis of gender alone.

One could argue it is only the traditionally male dominated, western capitalistic view of life that defines success as being at the top of an organization.  That is a narrow view of success hoisted upon us from a bygone industrial era.  If I have an equal right to define my own future, then I can choose to define success any way I damn well like, for example by  placing priority on non-corporate, non-business centric aspects of living.

One can spend all of life digging and clawing to get to the top, have the corner office, the big title and guess what…you have still not necessarily lived ‘a good life’.  When you die, the perfect job, house, car, clothes, etc will mean absolutely nothing…gone, poof, its meaning evaporates in a flash in the absence of context.

Success in achieving a ‘good life’ has less to do with one’s job title and more to do with the lives that you touch. It is our connectedness to one another that gives our lives meaning.  It is that connectedness that permeates  beyond our lives.  When we die, we live on in the lives that we touched along the way.  The job title goes away.  The memory of who we were, what we stood for, what good deeds we did for people, that is what lives on. People remember us for who were were as a human being, not what we did for a living in a corporate tower.

And isn’t that really what we all want…both men and women….to live a ‘good life’ in the way that reflects our own definition of success?  The difficulty is that my vision of what constitutes success and someone elses are likely very different.  We are all not made the same, it would be ridiculous to think we’re all going to define success the same also.

Sandberg’s premise that there is a problem with women not being equally represented in the boardroom reflects the notion that it is a desirable place to be and that it is a club we all should aspire to join.  There are many things I want to do in life, but live in a 7 day a week pressure cooker running a giant corporation beholden to shareholders and profits is not one of them. You can have it.  I won’t be competing against you.  That is not my personal definition of success.

Success to me is:  am I physically, mentally and financially well-positioned to see both my and my family’s needs comfortably met now and for years to come?

I need to be healthy to live a long life, to be around to take care of my aging parents, to do things with my husband, to see my son grow up into adulthood.  I need to be mentally fit to be stress-free such that I’m not in a constant state of worry about what each day brings, that I’m alert such that as I age, my mind stays sharp.   I need to be financially stable to be able to afford health care, mortgage, college tuition, food, gas for the car etc.

Beyond those basics…it’s all cream.   I can get ‘more stuff’…a bigger house, a better car, a seat in the boardroom…but it doesn’t change my underlying ability to be happy…because as long as my basic physical, mental and financial needs are covered, I know I’ll be alright.

Sometimes I think we spend too much time aspiring to be something, rather than simply being.  It is great to have goals—if being CEO is your thing, go for it. Lean on into it.  But it isn’t mine and I think of myself as a feminist.  At least, I still have my autographed Gloria Steinem book around here somewhere…and I believe I recall that  the true revolution which feminism brought is that I, as a woman, have the legal freedoms and societal ability to have choices. I can do whatever in the heck I want to do.

We must honor one another’s choices…one is not right or wrong.  Being an at-home mother is no less part of the feminist revolution as being a CEO–both are valid choices and we are blessed with the freedom to make those choices.  After all, it is possible that those of us who choose not to ride the corporate carousal, may prove to be the smart ones with ‘the best quality of life’.  Who is to say that rather than being held back due to stereotypes which we internalize (Sandberg’s premise) that we are, in fact, exactly where we’ve chosen to be.

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One person can make a difference

One

Sarah Kavanagh is a 15-year-old girl from Hattiesburg, Mississippi.(ref 1)  She became concerned after learning that one of the ingredients in some citrus flavored soft drinks(Gatorade, Mountain Dew, Fresca, etc)  is a food additive, brominated vegetable oil, linked in some studies to neurological and thyroid disorders.  The additive is banned in Europe and Japan, but remains legal in the United States, in part, because the FDA has not been able to properly investigate the substance due to budget constraints.

Concerning to learn that the people who should be policing our food supply are not and that we may be consuming harmful substances?  Oh, but what is to be done about it?  Well Sarah took it upon herself to start a petition–a petition that eventually surpassed 200,000 signatures and essentially pressured corporate giant PepsiCo via public shaming into removing the additive from Gatorade.  Although only a partial victory as it will remain in PepsiCo’s Mountain Dew, this is still a significant victory for Sarah and consumers and perhaps a first step in companies voluntarily removing the additive from products.

More so however, it demonstrates the power of one person to make a difference.  In this case, the power of one young teenage girl who by all accounts should have no influence at all on a large corporation.  But she did.

In the course of life, we sometimes encounter situations in which we say to ourselves ‘that’s simply not right, someone ought to do something about that…’.  Too often, we then turn a blind eye, believing ourselves to be too little and too powerless to make a difference.  That is unfortunate because all it takes sometimes is for one voice to speak up and you discover that there are other voices sharing the same sentiment.  One voice becomes two and so on until there is a critical mass of caring souls networked together which can create meaningful change.  In this way, one person CAN make a difference.

If you see something unjust or concerning to you in the world,  speak up.  Maybe it is homelessness, hunger, or shelter animals that is ‘your passion point’ that prompts you to act.  Maybe it is something far more straightforward…like seeing an unsafe pedestrian crossing and thinking ‘there really ought to be a safe crosswalk there’.  Big issue, small issue…what matters is that it speaks to you.  That it somehow compels you to get engaged and act instead of remaining passive.

Talk to your friends, talk to those in your community.  With the power of social media, we can network together from vast geographies like never before.  There is power in numbers.  But there must be the first voice.  You can be the voice.

And in addition to potentially making a difference, you get some pretty good benefits yourself…it feels good to get involved.  The MD Anderson Cancer Center in Texas is known for recommending volunteering to its patients because getting involved and helping others creates what they call a “helpers high” (Ref 2).  Doing something that will benefit others triggers the release of endorphins which produces positive feelings and even pain relief. Not a bad benefit, eh?

One person can make a difference in the world, but only if you try.

REFERENCES

1:PepsiCo will halt additive in Gatorade, NY Times,   http://dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/25/gatorade-listens-to-a-teen-and-changes-its-formula/?ref=health

2: Improve your health by helping others,  MD Anderson Cancer Center http://www2.mdanderson.org/app/pe/index.cfm?pageName=opendoc&docid=2536

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Having the courage to continue: learning from failures

Churchill1Every day cannot be roses and sunshine.  Clouds will come.  We all make mistakes. (shocking I know) We all experience failure at some point in our lives.  Hopefully along the way, we also get a taste of success now and then too.  When failures do come (and they will), they can be valuable learning experiences.   They can inspire us to change, to move in a different direction, to be bolder.

When life feels too much and failure looms large, I find it encouraging to know that I am not alone.  Even ‘great ones’ among us had their share of failures before finding success.  Did you know:

  • Albert Einstein failed grade-school mathematics.
  • Walt Disney was fired by a newspaper editor and told he ‘lacked imagination and had no good ideas’.  Disney went bankrupt five times before he found success with Disneyland.
  • Oprah Winfrey was fired from one of her first television jobs because she was considered ‘unfit for tv’.
  • Steven Spielburg was rejected from the University of Southern California film school…three times.
  • Elvis Presley was fired after his first Grand Ole Opry performance and was told by a manager that he couldn’t sing well and should ‘drive a truck instead’.
  • Thomas Edison tried over 9,000 types of filaments before he found one that worked in a light bulb.
  • Winston Churchill failed the sixth grade.  He was defeated in every major political election until the age of 62 when he was elected Prime Minister.
  • Theodor Seuss  Giesel (Dr Seuss) had his first book rejected by 27 different publishers.
  • Steven King received 30 rejections for his first book, Carrie.
  • Michael Jordan was cut from his high-school basketball team.
  • JK Rowling , just five years before her success with the Harry Potter book series which made her a billionaire, was severely depressed, broke, living on welfare and struggling to raise a child as a single mother.

In addition to failures, what the above people all have in common is that they didn’t give up.  They had a goal and they did not let one setback, one rejection, one failure keep them from moving forward.   They did not let the opinions of other people deter them from pursuing their dreams.  They viewed opportunity in failure.  They never threw up their hands and walked away.

Babe Ruth broke home-run records, but he held another record in baseball:  for a decade he held the record for strikeouts.  His viewpoint: ”Every strike brings me closer to the next home run.”  A good motto.  Keep digging. Keep trying.  Don’t ever give up.

 

REFERENCES

Ref1  California Task Force to Promote Self-Esteem and Personal and Social Responsibility  http://www.eric.ed.gov/PDFS/ED321170.pdf

Ref 2 http://www.businessinsider.com/15-people-who-failed-before-becoming-famous-2012-10?op=1

Ref 3 http://www.onlinecollege.org/2010/02/16/50-famously-successful-people-who-failed-at-first/

 

 

 

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Staying calm while working furiously

CalmDuck
In today’s fragile economy, many of us spend our days ‘doing more with less’.  Being ‘always busy’ can have an impact on health.   In one survey, 35 percent said they or a member of their household had experience physical symptoms of stress related to the economy. (ref 1)

If may be impossible to mitigate all stress, but one can stay calm in the midst of staying busy.  Relaxation techniques have been shown to change the way the body functions.  When you are calm, blood pressure lowers and breathing slows.  Relaxation techniques may “counteract the effects of long-term stress, which may contribute to or worsen a range of health problems including depression, digestive disorders, headaches, high blood pressure, and insomnia.” (Ref 2)

For tips on relaxation techniques:

On overview on various relaxation techniques from the National Institutes of Health:   http://nccam.nih.gov/health/stress/relaxation.htm

Breathing exercises from Dr Andrew Weil:  http://www.drweil.com/drw/u/ART00521/three-breathing-exercises.html

 

REFERENCES

 

Ref 1:  http://money.cnn.com/2011/06/07/pf/financial_stress_health/index.htm

Ref 2: http://nccam.nih.gov/health/stress/relaxation.htm