The most important thing to remember is the starring role that we play in our own lives. Your feelings, your anxieties and how you react to what happens around you will dictate how your day, your holiday, your relationship and everything else around you unfolds.
You might find that hard to believe, but the truth is that we have choices to make every day about how we are going to deal with the predictable and the uncommon circumstances we come across. We can choose whether we allow ourselves to react to that throwaway remark our partner or friend makes about our weight or our parenting skills. We can decide whether or not to get totally wound up when our children are dawdling to get out of the house and off to school. Everything feels personal when, in fact, it has nothing to do with us. Other people have their own choices to make and that includes our children who will have to deal with the consequences of being late, especially if it’s the third time in a week.
The truth is that we react to these episodes in the same way that our cave dweller ancestors reacted to the threat of being devoured whole by a wild beast. They relied on the fight or flight reflex to help them when they were being chased or threatened but, in that situation, their reaction could make the difference between surviving and perishing. Very few of us face similar dangers in our day to day life, and we are certainly not going to be swallowed up by a hungry creature if we are late for work. Yet, we experience the same rush of adrenaline and heightened emotion which we would need in order to survive a life threatening situation when the photocopier is playing up, our partner is grumpy or we think are going to be five minutes late for a meeting. This adrenaline rush and heightened emotional state may have served our ancestors well but is totally counterproductive in our day to day lives in the twenty-first century.
When the body’s stress response is activated like this on a regular basis, it does not always get the chance to return to normal and this can result in chronic stress which, if left unchecked, can have a serious impact on day to day living as we find ourselves more and more agitated and less and less able to take things in our stride.
There are things you can do, new habits you can learn, which will make all the difference in your life. We all know about the benefits of taking time out to do something relaxing, whether that’s on the golf course or up to your neck in bubbles reading a good book. Creating healthy new habits to replace the old, anxious thoughts and behaviours and learning how to challenge stressful thinking will help develop and build your resilience, i.e. the quality that lets you bounce back after encountering stressful or challenging events. Hypnotherapy and Coaching with NLP will support you to learn and practice new, healthy habits.
To talk about how Hypnotherapy and Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) can help you, contact Francine at Orrganise on 07720 401 634.