Journey to Oprah

I have been addicted to stress for about 10 years now. At first I felt that I just liked drama, or had to always have something to do otherwise I would die somehow, but then it hit me–I feel like I can’t function without a certain level of stress. But why is that? Well reading this article called Stress Junkie over at oprah.com, I have learned that a lot of the reasons why we turn to stress can be for the simple fact that we don’t know how else to function or we are trying to hide from other tasks. In the meantime we continue to build our lives around doing more, and more and more until we are tightly wound and must continue on in this path of destruction. I find myself almost feeling like I’m going to die because of all the stress in my life and expectations that I put on myself to be better and better.

So what can we do to stop this horrible addiction? The advice that Martha Beck gives is to let yourself go, accept your stress and don’t allow it take you over. Also running, or exerting your energy in something else besides the stress will you help you to “balance out”. By being patient with ourselves we are able to tell that stress to calm down, and in turn WE calm down and things will start to balance out.

What you should know by now: Life is short, breathe deep.

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One of the main reasons why I started this blog was to achieve a goal. Well a few of them actually. First and foremost, it is to meet Oprah. And while that is a big goal I know it’s not unattainable. The second goal is to be a better writer. The third goal is to actually stick with something as I always felt like I could never stick with anything, like I was always going to have a laundry list of goals and wishes that I would never get around to and be like Dorothy off of Golden Girls when she found out that she made a list and did NOTHING on it. I knew that something as “simple” as writing a blog shouldn’t take much time out of the day as I always have something valuable to say that people would want to read right? WRONG. It’s a hard task because you are literally shifting a part of you to be something contrary to what you currently are. Zen Habits wrote an article on how to effectively ingrain a behavior and cuts the myth that it takes 21 days to change a habit, but rather 66 days.

But it’s even deeper than that.

It starts with the mind first.

Oprah Article – Make your dreams come true

Robin Smith talks about the power to change by starting with little steps and making sure that it starts with you not justifying why you should continue with the behavior you are trying to change, but being accountable and actually taking small steps towards the goal. A friend and I are actually practicing that now as we try to tackle the big goals that we have been trying to tackle for many years. Her goal is to take her vitamins, and mine is write a blog post everyday. While small, it’s steps to a bigger future goal that we both want to be able to get to. It also helps when you are held accountable not only by yourself but also by other people. There’s nothing worse than calling your friend and saying you failed at your goal. It’s not life or death, but then again it just may be.

What you should know by now: It starts with the mind.

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