I am sad. I miss my cat. Moving is hard. I miss my family.

Carry On

So, I chose last week to proactively address my high stress level, which pretty much landed me in the ER last Monday afternoon, just before the bombs went of in Boston.

Suffice to say that I have not lowered my stress level at all this week.

And I don't want to write trite phrases about how the world is not a bad place, and most people are good, or Bible verses for you (though I do feel all of those ways right now in addition to a million other ways.)

Here is the thing I am going to cull from this week into this discussion about stress - big leap or not.

Tip #2: You cannot control the world around you, or the people around you, or the way that those people interact with that world. And something else - you cannot control your feelings either. You can only control your actions in response to your world, these people, your feelings.

You should feel the things you feel, and let yourself work out what to do with the feelings, when you are ready and fully able to work out what that "doing" will be. Some verbs come easier than others. Sometimes we just have to accept the way that we can Be while we work out what we can Do. 

We can also choose positive energies, positive thoughts, positive words, over negative intentions, images, or sensory input that is all throughout our world.

Tomorrow many of my students go back to school. I saw a few in town today and it was hard, how to speak of such unspeakable horrors? How to articulate or cause to articulate the nightmare that we wish had never been dreamt?

I like this song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7yCLn-O-Y0

Goodnight,
CG

Stress Buster: Long Time, No Blog

I am trying to cut the stress in my life in a more aggressive way.
Uh oh, aggressive is a stressful word.

I am trying to cut the stress in my life in a more aggressive pro-active way.

I will share with you one thing I did each day to cut my stress.

The first thing I did was email my friend Chicken Patty^, who knows a lot about stress-busting, to ask her advice. She told me,

"Stress, to review, can be mental, emotional, physical, infection, blah blah blah, you know the list. Make your body happy- keep the food & hydration consistent (hunger & dehydration add metabolic stress) and sleep as much as your body wants. When you're not sleeping, rest. Put on your big robe and pet your cat, do the things that put you at ease. The cortisol levels can shoot up fast, but It takes a few days to get them back down."

So, the thing I tell you first in order to bust your stress:

STEP 1: Cut a hole in box. Reach out to your smart, healthy friends. (Health can be mental, emotional, physical, spiritual, etc.), and tell them you are stressed!

More later!

Your old friend,
CG

^This is psuedonym.