7 Ways You Can Conquer Stress

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Posted on April 22, 2019 by Cherie Roe Dirksen

Stewing in Your Juices

I’m normally quite a chilled person. Nothing phases me. Until…

I take on too much work
I get into my ‘yes’ mode and make arrangements and dates that clog my diary
I volunteer my services willy-nilly
My housework starts to mount
My ‘to do’ list grows around the garden (especially as I’m trying to do the whole sustainability thing)
I have awesome ideas but have to implement them (adding to the head clutter and time/schedule disaster)

I’m sure you can probably relate to most of the above. Then what happens is that chilled out person who thought they could take on the world in a heart beat starts to panic.

The Signs of a Meltdown

The walls of my diary close in and anxiety starts to rear its ugly head.

Panic attacks
Sweaty palms
Emotional outbursts (usually involving tears)
Temper whirlwinds
Depression
Feeling defeated and impotent
Losing it over the smallest things

Pink Green Spring Flower Quotes Pinterest Graphic (1)

Don’t forget to pin it!

We can experience the above on a smaller or larger scale, depending on the level of anxiety and what looms ahead.

Okay, so what can be done?

Anxiety Be Gone!

Well, I’m trying to give myself a well-deserved pep talk here ’cause I suddenly realized the other day that I was slipping off the cliff of the ‘work’ I had piled up.

Amid my darkest moment, I came to the conclusion that it was going to be done whether I fretted about it or not. And what couldn’t be done was just not going to be done. It’s really quite simple.

So, on a practical level, try to:

Get what’s in your head down onto paper (this works a treat!)
Now you can make a priority list
Schedule your time wisely and you’ll find you can fit a lot into your day
Don’t stress about how much you’ve got to do by getting tangled up in the future tasks — concentrate on the task at hand
Read no. 4 again.
Yip…read no. 4 and 5 again!
As Yoda said, ‘Do or do not’ — in this context, do what you must do and stop whinging about it. Have you ever stopped to think how much time we waste worrying or bitching about what we have to do instead of doing it?

Example: I have a mountain of clothes to pack away. Every morning I get up and look at this mountain and feel despair. It affects me greatly. I don’t like a messy bedroom — that’s where I’m supposed to go to relax, not stare at a heap of rags.

What not to do: Whine about the job. Look at the heap in deflated impotence. Complain about how much other stuff you have to do. Sit and have a cup of coffee and catch up on your Facebook feed. Or, in my case, write a blog about it, whilst — out of the corner of my eye — I can see into my bedroom and the washing pile is staring happily back at me.

Solution: Do it. A 5 minute rant could have you half way done by now. You can have that cuppa AND pack the washing away (what a novel idea!).

There is actually plenty of time in a day when you use it wisely. The above example is small fish compared to some of the whoppers we have to face in life and prepare for. However, inevitably, we are remarkable creatures with an ability to squeeze a lot into our lives when our minds are prepared well enough.

Let’s go back to no. 4, 5 and 6 of the tips list. This tip has helped me exponentially over the past few days. I’m a Virgo and a control freak. When my schedule starts mounting up and I feel like I’m losing control — it’s a blood bath! I have the tendency of looking ahead at what I have to do tomorrow, the next day and so on into infinity. This makes matters worse.

All we have to concentrate on is what lays before us today. You can deal with tomorrow, well, tomorrow! If it’s really a pickle, then set aside 10-15 minutes of today to work out a game-plan for tomorrow so you can at least get some sleep.

If there is ever something to remember about anxiety it’s this: one step at a time! You’re amazing and you’ll do it all, only if you tackle what’s in front of you now. As my dear mother used to say, ‘Rome wasn’t built in a day’.

And now for something completely different…a little humour to liven up your stress monster:

Cherie Roe Dirksen is a self-empowerment author and multi-media artist from South Africa. To date, she has published 3 self-help and motivational books and brings out weekly inspirational blogs at her site www.cherieroedirksen.com.

Get stuck into finding your passion, purpose and joy by downloading some of those books gratis when you click HERE. Her ambition is to help you to connect with your innate gift of creativity and living the life you came here to experience by taking responsibility for your actions and becoming the co-creator of your reality. You can also follow Cherie on Facebook (The Art of Empowerment).

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What You Need to Know About Game Changes

Posted on July 18, 2018 by Cherie Roe Dirksen

A friend posted a quirky quote to my Facebook wall the other day — it read:

When something goes wrong in your life just yell, “Plot Twist!” and move on.

I had a good laugh and then a light-bulb went on in the old noggin — that’s totally true and a helluva great life strategy!

Here’s why:

It was Shakespeare who cited that all the worlds a stage and all the men and woman merely players. Bearing this in mind, we are all in a kind of giant theatrical production and can, at any point, be the actor, director, script writer or producer.
Being part of the cast and crew is great news because whenever there is a twist in the tale or the plot thickens, we can interpretatively work it out and move along with the other players — yes, a bit like a pantomime.

How Can We Rewrite Our Scripts to Better Suit Our Needs?

I can’t help you with absolutely every twist and turn — inevitably life is going to throw a curve-ball, surprise or unexpected hurdle in the path of every living player — all I can do is offer perspective.

Here are 3 things to contemplate when you come across a “Plot Twist”:

Reason — I know a lot of people despise the old adage, ‘everything happens for a reason’…but, really it does. You may not be able to see the end result from where you’re standing but there is a greater scheme at work in our lives. If you want to call that major playwright God or your Higher Self, be my guest, but if there’s one thing I’ve noted in my life, it’s when I think I know what’s best for me and try to control my destiny — I get a plot twist. And I don’t think it’s a form of punishment, not at all. From my experiences these ‘plot twists’ have always worked better for me than anything I could have tried to dream up for myself. It’s like a slipway to your destiny. When we try to control everything, we can be very shortsighted. The universe is trying to work with you to get you what you want quicker than you could ever attempt. So when we seem to hit a bump in the road, it could be a detour to a better situation even if it may not look that way at first. Sometimes it takes years to see the outcome of one of these ‘twists’.
Rhyme — this is when you end with a sound that corresponds to another. Huh? Oh come on…I had to work rhyme into reason! But seriously, we can write the scripts of our lives to some extent. If you encounter a plot twist and you feel things are unraveling at the seams, write your own ending! Use the curve ball to add an interesting turn in your life. In other words, from this moment on, get down on paper how you want to see this specific ‘scene’ turn out. Then inject the outcome with feeling, like it’s already on DVD. Rewind and replay this episode in your mind knowing that the conclusion is something you really want and can feel.
Playfulness — seeing you’re already in a play, you may as well be playful! Or, in other words, find the humor in your plot twist. There’s always something to laugh about, it may as well be our pickles as much as our pleasures. Nothing kills a bad mood more than laughing. When you can do this you can be lighthearted. When you’re lighthearted it’s easier to find the up in the down. There’s nothing wrong with being down for a while but at some point, one must make the effort to get back up — humor is always going to be your greatest ally.

Have I lost the plot completely? Gone round the twist? You’ll have to wait for the sequel!

Cherie Roe Dirksen is a self-empowerment author, multi-media artist and musician from South Africa.

To date, she has published 3 self-help and motivational books and brings out weekly inspirational blogs at her site www.cherieroedirksen.com. Get stuck into finding your passion, purpose and joy by downloading some of those books gratis when you click HERE.

Her ambition is to help you to connect with your innate gift of creativity and living the life you came here to experience by taking responsibility for your actions and becoming the co-creator of your reality. You can also follow Cherie on Facebook (The Art of Empowerment).

Cherie posts a new article on CLN every Thursday. To view her articles, click HERE.

Plot Twist! 3 Things You Desperately Need to Know About Game Changes

Posted on June 1, 2016 by Cherie Roe Dirksen

A friend posted a quirky quote to my Facebook wall the other day — it read:

When something goes wrong in your life just yell, “Plot Twist!” and move on.

I had a good laugh and then a light-bulb went on in the old noggin — that’s totally true and a helluva great life strategy!

Here’s why:

It was Shakespeare who cited that all the worlds a stage and all the men and woman merely players. Bearing this in mind, we are all in a kind of giant theatrical production and can, at any point, be the actor, director, script writer or producer.
Being part of the cast and crew is great news because whenever there is a twist in the tale or the plot thickens, we can interpretatively work it out and move along with the other players — yes, a bit like a pantomime.

How Can We Rewrite Our Scripts to Better Suit Our Needs?

Here are 3 things to contemplate when you come across a “Plot Twist”:

Reason — I know a lot of people despise the old adage, ‘everything happens for a reason’…but, really it does. You may not be able to see the end result from where you’re standing but there is a greater scheme at work in our lives. If you want to call that major playwright God or your Higher Self, be my guest, but if there’s one thing I’ve noted in my life, it’s when I think I know what’s best for me and try to control my destiny — I get a plot twist. And I don’t think it’s a form of punishment, not at all. From my experiences these ‘plot twists’ have always worked better for me than anything I could have tried to dream up for myself. It’s like a slipway to your destiny. When we try to control everything, we can be very shortsighted. The universe is trying to work with you to get you what you want quicker than you could ever attempt. So when we seem to hit a bump in the road, it could be a detour to a better situation even if it may not look that way at first. Sometimes it takes years to see the outcome of one of these ‘twists’.
Rhyme — this is when you end with a sound that corresponds to another. Huh? Oh come on…I had to work rhyme into reason! But seriously, we can write the scripts of our lives to some extent. If you encounter a plot twist and you feel things are unraveling at the seams, write your own ending! Use the curve ball to add an interesting turn in your life. In other words, from this moment on, get down on paper how you want to see this specific ‘scene’ turn out. Then inject the outcome with feeling, like it’s already on DVD. Rewind and replay this episode in your mind knowing that the conclusion is something you really want and can feel.
Playfulness — seeing you’re already in a play, you may as well be playful! Or, in other words, find the humor in your plot twist. There’s always something to laugh about, it may as well be our pickles as much as our pleasures. Nothing kills a bad mood more than laughing. When you can do this you can be lighthearted. When you’re lighthearted it’s easier to find the up in the down. There’s nothing wrong with being down for a while but at some point, one must make the effort to get back up — humor is always going to be your greatest ally.

Have I lost the plot completely? Gone round the twist? You’ll have to wait for the sequel!

Cherie Roe Dirksen is a self-empowerment author, multi-media artist and musician from South Africa.

Cherie posts a new article on CLN every Thursday. To view her articles, click HERE.

This article (Plot Twist! 3 Things You Desperately Need to Know About Game Changes) was originally written for and published by Conscious Life News and is published here under a Creative Commons license with attribution to the author Cherie Roe Dirksen and ConsciousLifeNews.com. It may be re-posted freely with proper attribution, author bio, and this Copyright/Creative Commons statement.

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