Archive for July, 2009

July29

Worrying About Worrying

By: Ririan

Stress is a normal part of everyday life. Sometimes it is even healthy. Worrying too much, on the other hand, never is. Fear of problems in your life can take it over, and make you lose concentration both at work and in other important areas of your life. It can lead to much more serious problems like anxiety and depression. Luckily, there are ways you can treat your worries and make them more manageable.

A seed needs sun and water to grow. Likewise, your worries need feeding from you to keep them getting bigger. By getting control of your thoughts and not letting your concerns take them over so much, you avoid letting yourself fuel your own problems. Think back to past issues that have made you worry. Could the time you spent obsessing over them have been better used actually finding a solution? Having a little anxiety is completely natural. However, the first step in defeating worry is seeing when it becomes too much.

Remember that worrying about a problem is no way to fix it. In fact, it is even very detrimental because it gets in the way of your ability to think clearly. Typically, all we can think about when we worry is everything that could go wrong, which makes it even harder to recognize what would be right. Moreover, if you cannot address an issue directly, it will remain unsolved and continue to add to your stress. Soon, this will all become too much and you won’t be able to get anything done at all.

As you can see, the process of worrying turns into a cycle, with worries doing nothing except making themselves worse. The only way to stop this is by changing your thought process. You can will yourself into a more positive mindset. You have to begin by focusing on the positive possible outcomes that will rise as you tackle issues, which can give you a sense of hope and self-fulfillment. You shouldn’t feel blindly happy, but you definitely shouldn’t panic. Try to find the middle ground.

As the song goes, “accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative.” When you find yourself worrying, direct your thoughts to be more hopeful. Begin with the small things so that they don’t trouble you as you move on to bigger issues. You can’t simply grow bigger shoulders to carry your troubles on – so make sure you let some of them go, and get on with your life.

Posted in: Self Improvement12 comments

July29

Understanding Anger and What It Makes of You

By: Ririan

Understanding Anger and What It Makes of You

Understanding Anger and What It Makes of You

I recently saw something I won’t soon forget. Two women stood in a parking lot, screaming and waving their arms around fighting over a parking spot. Even though there were plenty of other spaces available, they kept at it until they were reduced to name-calling. As their own children watched from the car, a crowd began to gather around. Needless to say, it had to be embarrassing to the kids – and it would soon be embarrassing to the ladies themselves, too.

Everybody gets angry. Sometimes it’s over something as simple as a parking space, while at other times the issues are more serious. However, anger in and of itself never gets anything done. It is simply us losing control of ourselves in heated situations. However, in its effect on ourselves, anger is only a letter away from danger – literally and figuratively. Acting out of anger can make us look immature and lose a variety of opportunities in life.

It would be unfair to simply judge the women in that parking lot because we will almost always act equally foolish at one point or another in our lives. Anger pushes us to do things we would normally think to stop ourselves doing. The effects are similar to being drunk, in that we often don’t see ourselves becoming angry, but all of a sudden, find that we are. Of even more concern is the fact that once we are angry, it can be hard to calm down before we do something we regret.

Identify what causes anger. Almost always, it boils down to someone not acting as we wanted them to. The point of this is that anger is a reaction, not an independent action itself. Try to think of any time you got angry and it showed, but had something good come of the situation, and chances are you’ll come up dry. You wouldn’t let someone else control you, but when you get mad, you’re letting your anger do just that. Above all, ask if what you are upset about will matter in a year, a month, or even a day.

How do you get rid of anger? By getting control over yourself. Try to model Buddha, who said “Holding on to anger is like holding on to a red-hot coal, you’re the only one who’s going to get burned.” Indeed, he was right. Anger only harms and never helps. Nobody benefits from anger, and it’s certainly not worth winning an argument. As much as you might want to do otherwise, it would help to simply try to bite your tongue.

Posted in: Self Improvement7 comments

July29

3 Tips to Reduce Your Stress in a Stressful World

By: Ririan

Everyone gets stressed on a day-to-day basis. We typically can’t stop worrying about problems that we should have already put behind us. Things that were already past concerns build up and can soon become overwhelming. If you do not make an effort to overcome stress, it will quickly take over your life. Try these three tips that make a big difference in your stress level and teach you to handle your issues so you can better get on with your day.

Tip # 1: Focus on the here and now. Take a moment to simply let all your previous concerns go and think only about the present moment. Take three slow, deep breaths, and you will quickly start to relax. Tell yourself that you will be able to address your problems individually in time and their presence in your mind will start to fade. Take this further and find a place in yourself where you can be at peace. Stay there until you calm down and your problems start to feel more manageable. Do this whenever you need to relax.

Tip # 2- In addition to finding your own quiet place, it can also be comforting to think of certain actions you do on a regular basis that help put you at ease. You can rock your baby, rake leaves, or take a walk. This offers another opportunity to take a moment for yourself, and provides you with an escape route from the pressures of every day life. Step away as soon as you start to feel like the stress is coming too much and, like before, focus completely on what you are doing without letting other thoughts break into this peace.

Tip # 3- The most important thing you can do for your mental health is also the most important thing you can do for your physical health. Simply eat well and take care of your body. Eat and drink what your body needs, being careful around things like sugar, salt, and alcohol. Exercise gets you in shape and helps you relax. Make sure you are getting a full night’s sleep every time you can, because exhaustion will only make you feel worse. Breathe properly and don’t be afraid to laugh even when you feel on the edge. When it comes to defeating stress, focus on your soul as much as you do your body.

Find balance in your life and your stress will quickly start to fade. When you reduce tension towards issues that are already present, you will be more able to deal with the new ones that arise. Take the things that cause you stress and solve them on a one-by-one basis. Always be sure to have hope and know you can overcome your problems.

Posted in: Self Improvement2 comments

July8

Three Reasons to be Yourself, Good, Bad, or Ugly

By: Ririan

Three Reasons to be Yourself, Good, Bad, or Ugly

Three Reasons to be Yourself, Good, Bad, or Ugly

As children, we are constantly told to “be ourselves”. Adults claim that we are unique and that the only one who can ever be us is us. For a time, we buy into it. Then we find ourselves smack dab in the middle of Junior High School. That’s the point in life where being ourselves isn’t good enough. We have to start being like other people. We look to role models, some of them our peers who, unbeknownst to us are desperately seeking for their own sense of identity. We forget how to be ourselves, and we learn quickly which secrets to tell and which secrets to keep.

By the time we are in our mid 20’s we are usually happy in our lives or else terribly miserable and usually that is based on the secrets we have chosen to keep. For up to ten years we wrestle constantly with the choice to tell our secrets or not to tell them. We find ways to indulge our private paradoxes; those things we enjoy despite being told we should not. All the while, we fear being caught and yet wish to live free. The funny thing about it is that we think we are alone. There is a reason that so few claim to love Barry Mannilow, but so many of us know every word to all of his songs. This is the time of life that the majority of gays and lesbians “come out of the closet”, and why so many others, unwilling to confess to being themselves find themselves in despondency, often to the point of suicide. All of this pain and sadness can be avoided, but first we need to find the value in choosing to be our complete and honest selves.

The primary reason that we need to simply be ourselves is that when we are anybody but ourselves, we can never truly know that anyone loves us. They love a put on version of us that isn’t truly the totality of who we are. To be anyone other than who we are with the people we love is not only fraudulent, but bases their love for us on a false premise. Depending on the secrets involved, some of the people we love might love us differently or not at all. This is of course, why we are so afraid of honesty, but it’s also why we must be honest. The fact is that if someone we know might not love us if they knew, then they already don’t love us truly. They simply don’t know it yet. You owe it to them, and to yourself, to force them to make a choice regarding their love for you and how they will manifest those feelings.

Secondarily, we need to be ourselves because the consequences of faking our way through life, lying about who we are leaves us short tempered, prone to depression, and overall unhappy. Unhappy people have unhappy lives. Choose happiness. Those who choose honesty find themselves happy. It’s amazing how often a gay, lesbian, or transsexual person will claim happiness that fell on them in waves the moment they chose to be honest and to act as their genuine selves.

The tertiary reason for being ourselves at the risk of personal expense is that when we present ourselves as flawless, others feel the need to appear flawless as well. When you are honest and forthright about who you are, you open the door for others to be honest with you. You offer those whom you love the liberty to reveal their secrets, to find happiness themselves, and that is a tremendous gift. You might lose some relationships as the result of your honesty, but you will likely find richness in your relationships like never before. Happy relationships make for happy people.

May you find your true happiness, true love, and truly open and honest relationships.

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