We live in a hectic world continuously undergoing change. Contemporary life bombards us with endless challenges, demands, responsibilities, deadlines, errands, complications and difficult people to handle, often inducing us to stress out.
Edward George Bulwer-Lytton notes “we live longer than our forefathers but we suffer more from a thousand artificial anxieties and cares. They fatigued only the muscles, we exhaust the finer strength of the nerves”. Yet we have a lot more control over our stress level than we might think.
Stress can manifest itself in every situation we feel we hold no control over. Situations are not stressful in their own right; rather it is our interpretation of the situation that increment or lessens the stress that we feel.
Stress is often regarded as negative, yet managed stress can be a pushing force, harnessing our power in achieving more. Stress becomes negative when it goes beyond a certain level, when it slips out of hand. Negative stress is felt when we perceive that “demands exceed our personal and social resources”. We often get stressed when faced by unexpected and/or unaccepted changes. We often hold high expectations or are over-demanding of ourselves, others or environment.
Life can truly challenge us with situations that may actually be dangerous, may threaten us physically, socially or in our career, yet it is the way we (mis)handle a situation that blows up stress. Unfortunately, many people cope with stress in a way to compound the problem.
We feel stressed when we judge a situation to be threatening and regard our attempts to manage it as futile and ineffective. We feel helpless when we continue to apply what we believe should work or what have worked in other situations and see no results (Nardone, Portelli 2005). We often end up doing more of the same, while witnessing our own failure. This is what actually stresses us. We often use coping strategies that may temporarily give the illusion of reducing stress but in the long run they cause more damage.
Based on a 20-year intervention-research carried out at the Mental Research Institute (Palo Alto, California) and the Centro di Terapia Strategica (Arezzo, Italy), next Wednesday’s stress management seminar at the Hotel Phoenicia will present common perceptive-coping patterns, identified to lead to stress and eventually burn out.
Stress management starts with identifying the sources of stress in your life. We often overlook our own stress-inducing perceptions, beliefs, feelings, and ineffective behaviours. Until we do not accept our responsibility in creating or maintaining stress, the tremendous beast will seem and remain outside our control. The simple realisation that you’re in control of your life is the first necessary step towards stress management.
This seminar will help participants take charge of their stress by, firstly guiding them to identify their possible redundant scripts or patterns and gather a better awareness of what they actually perceive and experience as threatening. We often overlook our own stress-inducing perceptions, beliefs, feelings, and thoughts. Does our stress arise from difficulties related to self, others or the world?
Secondly, participants can learn how to evaluate the efficiency and effectiveness of their coping attempts which often, if they are solved, may help maintain and exasperate the stressful situation, leading to a sense of helplessness. Moreover, this seminar will hand over to its participants effective coping techniques and tools based on Ancient Chinese Wisdom and Stratagems, used by great strategists and warriors, to win over even the most merciless of their enemies.
Managing stress is all about taking charge: taking charge of our perceptions, our thoughts, our emotions, our schedule, our decisions, our relationships, our language and the way we deal with problems. Hans Seyle, the author of The Stress of Life (1956) sustains that “adopting the right attitude can convert a negative stress into a positive one”, harnessing a sense of empowerment.
For more information on the seminar one may visit www.wdmalta.com.
Dr Portelli is a strategic coach and trainer at W&D’s Business Advisory Unit.