Two Things To Help you Bust Stress

About twenty years ago when I was a psychotherapist, I was discussing work with colleagues. One worked in a prison setting with inmates who were depressed. I’ll never forget when he said, “I tell my clients that being depressed is to be expected given their situation, and that I am there to help them manage their depression.” 

I asked this therapist how he explained that some inmates go on to live happy and productive lives. He stared at me in awkward silence until someone else rescued him by changing the subject. As an executive coach, I help my clients deal with pretty tough stuff. Sometimes they tell me, “It’s too much and I’m stressed out.” 

Almost always, when someone says that, they are pointing to something external they believe is creating the stress. That’s what most people believe—they think it’s the difficult situations or people in their life that’s causing their stress. That’s not so, and here are two things you must know about “stress” and how to make stress work for you: 

There’s “empowering stress” and there’s “toxic stress.”

Empowering stress (“eustress”) is a necessary and healthy part of life. In fact, your mind, body and spirit all need to be challenged in order to thrive. We create empowering stress when we believe we’re capable of responding to a challenge and that there will be a payoff after doing so.

We create toxic stress when we believe we are powerless and helpless in the face of our challenges, which is damaging to the human mind and spirit.

Toxic stress is created when you think and believe things like:

I can’t handle this, it’s just too much.
This is only going to get worse.
I can’t change this, I’m stuck with it and I hate it.
This shouldn’t have happened (It did happen, so saying it shouldn’t have fights reality, which causes toxic stress).
What’s the point in dealing with this—it will take everything from me but won’t give me anything in return.

You’re dealing with the wrong problem.

Dr. Stephen R. Covey said it the best: “Remember, every time you think the problem is ‘out there,’ that very thought is the problem.” When it comes to toxic stress, the problem isn’t “out there”—it’s hiding inside our thoughts and beliefs. We create this stress when we come from a place of fear, denial or blame. Your state of stress (empowering or toxic) isn’t determined by your state of circumstances. 

We know that to be true because some people react to challenging circumstances with fear and indecision, while others respond with vision, solutions and action. When something challenging comes your way and it “stresses you out,” your “problem” isn’t the problem you might think it is. 

Your problem is that you may not believe you are up to the task, and can’t see how you will benefit from handling it. If you believe you are capable of rising to the challenge and that doing so will benefit you, you’ll feel in control and motivated—not overwhelmed or “stressed out.”

- Alan Allard, Executive Coach