To open this blog, I would like to share a famous Chinese saying “rejoice in the bad times as they will be followed by good”. My friend used to remind me of this saying when I lived in the Middle East, and quite honestly – life felt bad! It was a frustrating but liberating thing to hear, ultimately driving my motivated and fighting spirit, to push through it. Now, at home in Hawkshurst near Tunbridge Wells, life is indeed good, very good in fact, and it is partly my more resilient self I have to thank for that.
I’m sure many of you can relate to the feeling of needing to push on through. If you work in financial services I bet you’ve had many weeks, months, years feeling like that and maybe you still do!
When you come home from a bad day at the office and you’re met by screaming kids, a partner who is ready to pack her bags and just to top off your day, you pierce your foot on a bit of Lego – how do you react?
Stress is a natural human response and one of nature’s ways of enabling us to ward off a threat or attack. While anger and all of its stress-evoking emotions, such as frustration and judgment, can motivate us to cope with life’s adversities, they can also become destructive. Anger in particular is a powerful energy that can take over the body and mind, damaging relationships, ending careers and having detrimental effects on your health.
Part of resilience building is developing the skill and ability to navigate through the bad times as well as the good. And HeartMath resilience skills give you the ability to better regain control and physically recover more quickly. It’s a little more than just “stop and count to 10’, and the effects will depend on your circumstances, along with your commitment to fixing your stress responses on a long-term basis.
This weekend when the kids are not listening to you or not turning off the wii to do their homework, why not try out my simple six step guide:
1. Pause
2. Breathe
yes, as a grown-up you can stop and count to 10 as well!
3. Reconnect with your body – in particular your heart
yes, guys we do want you to do this and before you say no way – if you think your heart and emotions don’t affect you please look at this YouTube video from the England v Germany match in the
2012 World Cup
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEvY7l81qS0
4. Feel a positive emotion – try to feel it not just think it
5. Now decide how you are going to react to whatever is bothering you
6. Action – make your next move in a more collected way
Clearing the decks of your emotions - frustration or irritation for example – before responding, increases your chance of getting the outcome you want without conflict.
Positive thinking is great, but we have all been programmed through our life experiences and so it takes more than just thinking to re-programme our natural response. You can do it though, so why not make the choice today to move forward, irrespective of your current stresses, personality type, perspective on life or beliefs.
HeartMath resilience skills will have a positive impact on your communication whether it be at home with your family or with your colleagues at work. So become stress-free today and…
· Manage it
· Prevent it
· Be Free of it
…but most of all have a wonderfully stress-free Father’s Day with your family!
If you want to know more then please don’t hesitate to contact me at julie@theresilienceformula.co.uk or if you live in or around Tunbridge Wells and you’d like to suss me out, you could join me at one of my Tai Chi QiGong classes that run throughout the week.