What Is Stress-Understand Stress On A Deeper Level

Hello and welcome to the podcast Love Yourself and Live Your Life.

This podcast is for you and your personal growth and development.

My name is Jolanda Kollec and I am a mindful empowerment coach.

And with this podcast,

I want to support you on your journey to more self-love and self-acceptance,

Because I really,

Really want you to live a more conscious and fulfilling life.

In this week's podcast episode,

I'm speaking about stress,

How to deal with stress,

Where is stress coming from,

And how you can reduce your stress in your life.

So I hope you are going to enjoy this week's podcast.

Because it sometimes happens to you that you wake up in the morning and the first thought before even opening your eyes is all the tasks,

All the work that is waiting today to be completed.

It did happen to me in the past almost every single day.

I woke up,

I jumped out of bed,

I started preparing breakfast,

I started running around,

Getting my daughter ready,

Getting myself ready while I was preparing breakfast and preparing school lunch for her and having a shower and getting everything done even before the day has properly started.

And I could imagine this happens to you as well.

What it is,

Is that we ourselves put the pressure on us.

And I call it that we have got this five inner drivers inside us.

The first inner driver that many people have is,

I have to be perfect.

The second one is called,

I have to be strong.

Third one is,

I have to hurry up.

The fourth one is,

I have to please others,

I have to please everyone.

And the fifth one is,

I have to try very hard.

And these five inner drivers,

They are the ones that keep pushing us and making the pressure on us and they are the ones that cause the stress in our life.

And all of us,

We know that stress is harmful.

A little bit of stress is fine as long as we have got a good balance in our life.

But many people,

They experience too much stress in their lives.

That stress causes chronic illnesses.

And what I can see,

That more and more children experience stress.

They put so much pressure on themselves or even they think that others put pressure on them.

And you may think as well that stress is mainly generated externally.

So what I mean that other people are stressing us.

But actually,

It has something to do with what you think and what you believe and also how you react to certain situations.

So it's not necessary what we think that others expect from us.

The truth is that it's what we expect from ourselves.

And we put ourselves the pressure on us and on our performances.

And behind all of this,

Behind all this pressure,

Behind all of these thoughts,

There is always a fear.

And that's the fear of not being good enough.

That's the fear of failing and of not being loved and accepted by others,

Which is an absolutely normal fear.

But it's so important to realize this,

That this is all coming from ourselves,

From our mind.

And of course,

If we think these thoughts,

Then we try to do everything,

To do everything as good as possible and please others.

And therefore the five inner drivers,

They come up.

The perfect perfection is the one that is rushing us,

That keeps saying to us that we need to be strong and we need to please others and we have to try to work very,

Very hard.

So it all is caused in our mind.

So I'd like to share with you five points where I go a little bit more for you to look into it.

So the first stress is the external stress.

The external stress is when,

For example,

Your boss expects something from you,

A deadline to finish off some work by the end of the day,

Or you are sitting somewhere in a call center and you suddenly have got several phone calls at the same time and lots of clients are calling you at the same time.

So this is an external stress.

In that situation,

You can then ask yourself,

Can I change it?

What can I do to change it?

And obviously you will probably know that yes,

In this situation,

There was not a lot of choices.

You can really not change a lot.

This is what it is.

The deadline is by this afternoon or the clients are there.

You cannot refuse them.

So in that situation,

It's about your own reaction.

How do you react in that situation?

The very first and most important part is then really to accept what it is and say,

It is fine.

It's okay.

It is what it is.

And I will just focus on it because like this,

You create peace already.

Imagine,

You know,

You have got the deadline and you keep thinking and you could put in and you keep putting more stress and more pressure on you and you keep focusing on all of it now.

And you keep reminding yourself,

I have to do it.

I have to do it.

The deadline is coming.

The deadline is coming.

And that creates more stress and more pressure on you.

But if you know,

I accept it now,

It is what it is,

And you choose to focus,

You manage to do much more in the time than being stressed over and over again.

And then there is the self-created stress and the self-created stress has got something to do with the core beliefs.

And we all have got our own core beliefs.

There is,

For example,

The perfectionism and the fear to fail and the feeling of guilt.

They are all being created by thoughts like,

For example,

I have to please everyone.

I have to be really fast.

I cannot do any mistakes.

I have to do everything correct.

I have to be perfect.

I have to be the best in everything.

And of course,

This kind of beliefs and thoughts,

They lead to stress.

And the only person who creates this stress is you.

There is no other person externally.

It is all happening in your mind.

It is all your own thoughts and beliefs.

So realize that it starts with you and realize that you don't have to put yourself on a stressor.

I found this so helpful by writing it down.

What do I really have to do?

Can it wait?

Can it not wait?

Because if you see for one person,

Stress is not stress for someone else.

So it is all individually what happens in your own mind.

So pay some attention,

Practice mindfulness and observe your thoughts,

Observe your mind.

What is going on in there?

And then ask yourself,

Does it really need to do?

And allow yourself not to put so much pressure.

It may be even helpful to create,

Instead of having the inner driver,

To have an inner allower,

A figure inside your mind that allows you to take a break,

That allows you to take things a little bit easier with more lightness and not to have to be always strong and always to do everything right and always to do everything by yourself.

The next thing is learn to say no.

Because how often we want to do too much,

We want to help other people too much,

We want to support family and friends.

We say yes to others and no to ourselves.

And I'm not saying that it's wrong to help others and support others because that's absolutely important but it's also so important to look after yourself and your well-being.

Because if you are not well enough,

In the future you won't be able to help others.

So take the priority first of all and check how am I feeling.

Am I feeling good enough?

Am I relaxed enough?

Do I really have the time to help someone else?

Or maybe I should say no to this person today and instead look after me and tomorrow I'm feeling better and I'm able to help someone again.

So check it out for yourself and learn to stand up for yourself and to say no.

And then time management.

Time management can be a big problem if you don't have a good time management.

If you don't plan properly.

Because you then end up putting all this pressure on you.

If you plan too many things in one day,

Then of course you cannot finish everything off and that puts stress and pressure on you.

So a good planning is vital.

It is so important if you don't want to experience stress.

Take a piece of paper,

Write down,

Make a plan for a day or for the next few days and become aware,

Become consciously aware what it is exactly that you really have to do and then fill the gaps with either breaks or with things that you can fit in.

But allow yourself to make this time plan for a good time management.

And the last thing is check your own time,

Your relaxation and make sure that you have got a good balance with relaxation.

Because too often we put priority on all these external things and facts and we don't take enough time for us to relax.

And as I said,

Stress is absolutely fine as long as we find time to relax.

As long as we have got a good balance,

A good stress relaxation balance.

And you can check out for yourself what is the best for you to relax.

Is it maybe to do some sport,

To go jogging or maybe you are more a walker and you like to spend time in nature.

You like to practice meditation.

So all these things that can be so helpful and beneficial to relax and to clear the mind from stress.

So as you see now,

Even if we think that stress is generated externally,

Most of the time it is generated in our minds.

We create the stress through our beliefs and to how we react to certain situations.

So take some time,

You can take a piece of paper,

Ask yourself some questions,

Observe yourself.

How do I react?

What do I think?

Be mindful and you will be able to change so much by first of all becoming consciously aware that it all starts with you.

So I hope that this week's podcast has really helped you to realize what you can do and that it all starts with you.

So I hope it helps you to reduce your stress levels.

I hope this podcast helps you to become calmer and more happier and start living this life with more joy and lightness rather than with carrying this heavy stressful bag on your shoulders.

And if you enjoyed this week's podcast then I would so much love to hear from you,

To hear your thoughts and maybe if you would leave me a positive comment I would much appreciate it.

And if you want to start every single day in a positive,

Quiet and relaxing way then why don't you join the Sunrise Club.

The Sunrise Club is a club I'm running with a group of people every single morning from Monday till Friday at 6.

30 am.

We meet together live,

We meditate,

We practice gratitude,

We listen to some positive after summations and all of this helps me and us to start the day in a quiet,

Calm,

Relaxing way rather than in a stressing way.

And that makes such a huge,

Huge difference to the day but as well to our well-being.

So if you want to join you find all this information on my website and then I'd love to see you.

So take care of yourself,

Loads of love,

Your Jolantin!