When you are not in control anymore...

I read a truth written by Joyce Meyers this week, which stuck with me: how you react to the things you can’t control determine your stress level.

We all aim to lead a stress-free life. We would all love to constantly feel that we are in control of our lives. So often the things we do, think and feel are all woven around the heart of this longing to obtain peace and calm. We do yoga, meditate, draw up schedules burdened with to-do-lists. We try, but so often all in vain.

But why?

After reading this piece by Joyce it struck me that we often try to maintain a stress-free life through focussing on how we react to the things we can control. We do have many choices in life and thankfully through exercising disciplined choices after careful consideration of the consequences, we have the ability to avoid many, unnecessary stressors. Unfortunately that does not guarantee a life devoid from stress.

To our dismay, after all our careful planning we still end up with stomach ulcers, headaches, muscle spasms and sleep disturbances as a result of stress.

But why?

The answer is simple. There are so many things over which we simply do not have any control, and never will have. A bumper bash, the death of a loved one, the weather, the choices of others, just to name a few. All these uncontrollable events have the potential to cause stress, either negative or positive in your life. That is a given – you have no control over that. The only thing you do have control over is your reaction to those events. That reaction is a choice. As a child, most of us struggle to gain control over this reaction. We tend to overreact. But as years pass by, we do gain wisdom ( or most of us) and with the application of this wisdom comes the opportunity to minimise the amount of stress uncontrollable events generate in our lives.

Life will never be stress free. The moment you wake-up without a source of stress in your life, you are most probably dead or on a vacation, only existing in your dreams. That does not mean we should stop minimising stress in our lives. We all need stress to function. Stress gives us energy, a drive, the fuel to aim for the stars. But all within limits. Fire is a useful and much needed source of energy, but a fire out of control is dangerous. It can give life, but it can also kill, if not kept under control.

The same with stress. We need it, but when it is not kept under control, it will ‘kill’ us from the inside .

Kindle the fire, but don’t let it break through into the reaction field of those events beyond your control.