Stress and Finding Balance

The Wheel

Imagine your life as … a bike wheel. The kind with the inflatable tire.

When you are out of balance, the road is even bumpier than usual and it’s rough going.

Even if the wheel is balanced, if the tire is low on air, you’re in for a difficult journey.

Even when you’re in balance, sometimes you can’t avoid a rock that sets you off course or pops a hole in your tire.

What is Important To You

The spokes in your wheel are made up of the things that matter the most to you. You only have so many spokes, of course, and not everyone has the same ones.

Family, Nutrition, Work, Friends, Writing, Entertainment, Finance, Spirituality … no matter which spokes you choose, if they’re not bearing the burden of your self care equally, you’re out of balance.

You can’t fix things wrong with your unbalanced wheel if you don’t understand the spokes. You can’t fix things wrong with your unbalanced life if you don’t know what is important to you.

Energy Drainers

Your energy is the air that fills the tire. As you go throughout the day, you lose air when you come in contact with energy drainers. Little things that poke holes in your tire.

Social interaction, conflicts, work, money, health, etc.

You can’t avoid all of the energy drainers in your life — you may not even want to.

For example, I find social contact to be a huge energy drainer for me, but I consider the benefits to be worth it. I genuinely like my friends and enjoy spending time with them, even if I often leave the interaction feeling far more tired than I really should.

Identify your energy drainers and really look at them.

Is your boss an energy drainer? Without changing jobs, there may not be anything you can do about that … but you might be able to recognize the ways in which she drains your energy. What can you do to steel yourself against the repeated things that you already know bother you? Slap a patch on that weak spot in your tire.

Sometimes, people don’t even realize when something is draining their energy until their tire is completely flat, and by then there’s not enough energy left to do repairs.

Energy FILLERS

The nice thing is that we can actually refill our energy!

Sure, maybe we ran over a tack and we’re bleeding energy … but maybe we find a relaxing shower to be just the ticket to get those creative juices bubbling again. Or maybe plugging in your favorite music and singing along just gets your lips curving upward every time.

You can’t stop at figuring out what things drain your energy.

You need to go a step further and find out what FILLS your energy.

Reading
TV/Movies
Hobbies/Crafts
Camping
Lunch with friends
shower
picnics
spending time with animals
Church events 
Social or political events
sports
rearranging furniture
playing a musical instrument
saying prayers
looking at beautiful flowers
going to a restaurant
gardening
board games
swimming
running/walking
giving gifts
sex
hiking
shopping
… the list goes on and on

Problem, is, most people just lose air all day long, limping and tottering their way home and they recharge with food and vegetating on the couch. Sometimes those are effective tools, but its worth knowing which tools are in YOUR toolbox, and which ones actually work for you.

Think about it. What can you do — actively go out and do — to put yourself in a better mood?

Make a list and keep it close. Next time you want to reach for a bag of chips and disappear into a mindless television show to try and relax, remember that you’ve got other options, too.

For me? I’ve found that shopping (not even buying … just wandering through my favorite stores) is RIDICULOUSLY calming for me. On a smaller scale? My daily stress levels have dropped DRAMATICALLY since I wrote a little windows app called “Breathe” — it pops up on a timer to remind me to take a deep breath. I’ve also got a yoga music playlist on my phone that plays on repeat throughout the day, and soothing warm herbal teas which require that I get up away from my desk and move around every once in a while.

2 Kinds of Stress

In my opinion, there are two kinds of stress.

There’s the kind of stress you hide from. The stuff that really all you can do is ram into that rock, take your ding, and do your best to refill your tire with air as often as you can.

There’s another kind, though. The kind that requires you ACT against it. If you cannot, no matter what you do, handle the stress from your job? Maybe you should stop running into that rock.

Only you can evaluate your stress, but realize something important. If you get together with your friends and do nothing but complain about the same thing every time you see them? You’re dropping your negative energy on them. You’re letting the air out of THEIR tires, with your rocks. Once or twice is one thing — sometimes even the best people need to whinge, and friends are there to lend a hand.

If you’re consistently using your friend’s air to refill your tires, though, you’re not being a very good friend. It’s a sign that the stress you’re dealing with isn’t the kind that you should just be “relaxing away”.

It might be time to act and make a change in your life to actually solve the problem. Whether that problem is someone else or the way you are dealing with the issue … remember, sometimes? The problem is OUR problem, and we need to stop blaming someone else for the way we react, or expecting someone else to change who they are to make our lives easier.

 

Related posts:

Finding a Bra That Fits You
Energy Budget
Office Tunes