Tackle the hard work of stress management to improve your life
Perceptions can often be blamed for stress
Stress for Success
January 29, 2008

§ “You see the world not as it is but as you are.” -- Stephen Covey, author
§ You are what you think you are. Your perceptions become your reality.
§ Be careful how you tell your story.
§ Wherever your thoughts are going that’s where you are going.
§ "It's not what happens to you that matters but what you do with it." -- Source Unknown

In other words, stress is in the mind of the beholder. How you view the world and interpret your experiences determine what kind of stress, not to mention life, you have. They determine which options you can see therefore how well you solve your stressors and the resiliency you have (or don’t have) to stress.

Since how you “behold” situations determines whether or not you’re stressed by them, doesn’t it behoove you to be more aware of how you are beholding?

This is the difficult part of stress management because it requires you to accept that life isn’t necessarily causing your stress. How you look at it usually is. (This is communicated to you through your thoughts about the situation.) You most likely assume your interpretations (thoughts) of situations are correct and may not be willing to concede that sometimes you are your own biggest stressor, but that’s basically what you have to consider.

For example, you and I work for the same critical boss. Each time he criticizes me I fold like a house of cards and whine about him to friends and family. You let his criticisms roll off your back. The same situation produces two entirely different results because you and I interpret the criticism differently. In short, I'm probably taking it personally and you aren't.

When you notice that you’re more stressed than is another person in the same situation it's an indicator that maybe, just maybe, your perceptions ARE your stress, which means you can’t trust what you’re thinking. Instead of assuming your perception is accurate find factual proof. If you say "he's always criticizing me" find proof of "always". It's highly unlikely that anyone always does anything. Literally count the number of times in one week that he criticizes you and when you complain about him substitute "three times this week he criticized me" for “he always criticizes me.”

This doesn't mean that your perceptions are automatically “wrong”. Everyone interprets life based on their lifelong experiences, temperament and possibly even genetics. They are such a part of you that you don't even pay particular attention to them, you just tend not to question them. To lower your stress however you'll need to develop a healthy skepticism about your own interpretations, especially when red flags are waving, telling you not to trust what you're thinking.

How can you know when your interpretation of a stressor is more responsible for your stress than is the situation itself? It’s not easy and next week we’ll consider one particular red flag, how you tell your story, and how it can imprison you in a stressful life pattern.

Jacquelyn Ferguson, M. S., of InterAction Associates, is a trainer and a Stress Coach. E-mail her at www.jackieferguson.com with your questions or for information about her workshops on this and other topics and to invite her to speak to your organization.