Self-talk
and Stress
One
of the major areas that life coaching helps you to become even more aware of
is your self talk. Self–talk
refers to the dialogue that goes on inside your head when faced with
conflict or life challenges or even simple day-to-day concerns. This aspect
of yourself has a running commentary about everything you do. It never lets
anything go by with out some comment, remark or evaluation.
Self-talk can be positive or negative.
More often than not, it is negative, causing unnecessary stress and
making life a misery.
Becoming
aware of this process is the first step in taking charge of this
self-sabotaging part of yourself. The automatic reactions you have to this
constant barrage of negative thoughts, judgments and evaluations can keep
you feeling stressed and less able to meet life’s challenges.
It can also compromise your immune system, leading to a host of minor
symptoms and ultimately, if left unchecked, to serious health problems of
one sort or another.
You’ll recognize these thoughts because you have heard them all your life;
“I'm not smart enough, something is wrong, I can't do it, I never finish
anything, this is too hard, change takes too long, etc”. You may initially
have formed these negative ideas and beliefs about yourself from things you
heard from a parent, teacher, family member or someone else who was in
authority over you, or they may have been decisions that you made in
reaction to some distressing event. Now, as an adult, you have incorporated
them into your own personality. In effect you don't need those people in
authority telling you what to do any more, they are living inside your own
head!
These
thoughts surface when you are faced with doing something that is counter to
what your mind thinks you can do, or has a negative opinion about. Think
back over some times when your own ideas or thoughts about what you could or
could not accomplish got in the way of something you really wanted.
This
internal monologue is present in everyone. The bad news is that there is no
getting rid of it. The good news is that you can learn how to manage your
mind so that it is your servant and you are the master, not the other way
around.
What
is needed first is awareness. You must become aware of the inner dialogue.
Your coach will ask you to begin to notice when it shows up, what it is telling you. You will have to
be vigilant to begin with. You think that voice is you. It isn't. The fact
that you can discuss it means that it is something that you do, not who you
are. Your coach will encourage you to begin to pay attention to what you think. Observe it without buying
into what your mind is telling you. See if you can start to recognize the
repetitive nature of the thoughts.
As
your awareness develops, you begin to realise that you don't have to
react to the thoughts your mind presents to you. It is a habit you can break
with that newly acquired awareness. The moment you notice that it is just a thought
and not a command you have a choice. You are in touch with your
"observing self". That gap or moment of awareness allows you to
notice the thought and either choose to do what you have always done,
or choose to do something different.
Start
with observing how often you listen to “your mind”. Remember, change
takes time, effort and persistent practice.
|
"You have
everything you need: a miraculous body, a phenomenal brain, and a vast
and powerful subconscious mind. Now it's just a matter of focusing
them in the right direction."
---- James Allen, As You Think ----
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Stress
Management
Stress
is Unavoidable. No
one can live a completely stress-free life. Nor would that be desirable.
"Good" stress or to put it another way, "optimum"
stress, is necessary for healthy growth and development. On the other hand,
ongoing, relentless, frustrating, unresolved events and, even more
importantly, your responses to them, wreak havoc on your physical and
emotional well-being. Since you do not have absolute control over your
universe, the only thing you can truly master is how you respond to it.
On
a physiological level, your reaction to stressful events, whether you judge
them to be positive or negative, is basically the same. This is an aspect of
the “fight or flight” response - your body preparing you for action.
Your body gears up to be able to do what is required to ensure your
survival. This "gearing up" is not a cause for alarm if it occurs
on a temporary and infrequent basis. But, if your response keeps you in a
hyper-aroused state for very long, body systems start to show wear and tear
and can result in symptoms such as chronic headaches, anxiety, insomnia,
depression, irritable bowel syndrome, Raynaud's Syndrome, hypertension,
panic attacks, adrenal fatigue, exhaustion and a whole host of other
chronic, resistant ailments.
The
psychological factors related to stress can also take a toll on your
emotional health. Consider, for example, the stress of getting fired from
your job. Not only do you experience a physiological response to such a
highly stressful event, but you may further incapacitate yourself with such
self-talk as "I am worthless", “I am a failure”, "I can't
do anything right", “I’ll never get such a good job again”, or
"What will my friends/family think of me?" The good news is that
you can learn ways of managing your responses to challenging events to
minimize their negative impact.
Two
Approaches to Successfully Managing Stress. a) Learn how to recognize your body's stress response and learn how to
relax. b) Take stock of your environment and your lifestyle and make changes to
counteract the ongoing stress. Which
do you think is the hardest to do?
Being
able to take your body to a state of deep relaxation is the key to success. If done
consistently, your body can recuperate from chronic stress. Since you are in
control of your behaviour, this is usually the easiest place to start.
The
problem with relaxation is that most people think they already know what it
is. Unfortunately, stressed individuals have often lost the ability to
recognise what a really relaxed state feels like in their body. When people
under chronic stress think of relaxation, they often think of recreation, or
the release created by exercise, alcohol, cigarettes or recreational drugs,
rather than true physiological relaxation.
Begin with Awareness Training.
To
effectively manage stress you must pay attention to the signals your body is
giving you that tell you whether you are stressed or relaxed. This may sound
simple, but in many people, those signals have been ignored for so long that
they either a) don't know what to look for and/or b) would not
even recognize the signs if they did.
Paying
attention to your body’s signals is a major step in reducing stress. In
our fast-paced society, people often override symptoms of stress in order to
be more productive. Over time,
this causes an increase in stress levels, eventually leading to symptoms
that can no longer be ignored as the “fight or flight” response is
triggered:
-
Increased heart
rate
-
Fast, shallow
breathing/hyperventilating
-
Chest pains,
tightness in the chest, and/or a feeling of suffocation/shortness of breath
-
Dry mouth
-
Feeling
increasingly hot/sweating palms
-
Tight, tensed
muscles
-
Feeling of
panic/shock/extreme anxiety
-
Overwhelming
frustration/anger
-
General
numbness and/or feeling of unreality
and detachment
-
Tingling
hands/”pins and needles”
-
Dizziness/light-headedness/feeling
faint
-
Difficulty in
concentrating/shortened attention span
-
Indigestion/nausea/vomiting/diarrhoea
-
Difficulty in
sleeping
To reduce the damaging effects on the body of ongoing stressors, the body needs
to be allowed to relax and recharge after getting geared up for a challenge.
Practice Relaxation Techniques.
One
of the best relaxation exercises is the practice of abdominal breathing.
Yoga, meditation, T'ai Chi and other meditative disciplines often use
abdominal respiration to promote relaxation. When you practice relaxation
consistently, over time the body develops a baseline level of relaxation
that provides a 'buffer' against the negative effects of stress. In other
words, because you take your body to a relaxed state often, the cumulative
effects of this relaxation training provide you with protection from the
daily effects of stress. Regular relaxation training is useful as part of a
programme of disease prevention and maintenance of a happy, healthy
lifestyle.
Daily
relaxation practice is different from the physical exercise you do to stay
in shape. It helps you stay 'in shape' in another way, through helping you
maintain optimum functioning. In order to obtain the greatest benefits from
relaxation, you must be present and attuned to how your body feels. This is
quite different from going to the gym and reading a book or listening to
music while exercising on the cross trainer, treadmill or stationary
bicycle, where your body is being worked, but your attention is somewhere
else.
If
you develop some skill in reducing the physical symptoms of stress and still
have a nervous system that usually operates in the 'red zone', you will need
to investigate how your current coping strategies and your activities
contribute to the level of tension or anxiety in your body. If you feel
pushed, exhausted, too busy, irritable and at your wits end much of the
time, then you are probably in the 'red zone' too often. And if there are
ongoing, unresolved issues in your relationships at home and at work that
you feel you are just 'putting up with' but never seem to change, you are
also flirting with the 'red zone'.
Another
way to look at this is to use the analogy of a car. You can view the
sympathetic (heightened) nervous system activity as an accelerator pedal and
the parasympathetic (relaxation) nervous system activity as a brake pedal.
In order to remain healthy, you have to apply the brake pedal regularly in
order to bring the 'rpms' of your body engine down to normal. This is what
regular breathing/relaxation practice helps you to do. By regularly
resetting the nervous system back down to normal, you stay out of the red
zone.
No Pain, No Gain. Change
is probably the hardest thing for human beings to do. This is especially
true with conscious change, like a new exercise or diet programme, or
changing how you react to things. We like familiarity; it gives us a feeling
of comfort and certainty. We have the same routines in the morning, relate to our spouse
or boss in the same way. And we often stay the same even when faced with the
fact that our lives not working the way we would like them to. While useful
alternatives like reading a book on relationships, taking a class or seeing
a counsellor are available, we say “no”, preferring the familiar simply because change is uncomfortable.
Sustained effort is required in order to achieve results, and this is where
the support of a coach can make all the difference.
