stress

by

I Can Predict Stress In Others

There are times when stress can be very predictable: when you are moving into the last phase of a project and experiencing a time crunch, or when there is a lot on the line and there’s no margin for error.

… Or when you are going to a Christmas gathering with family. 

Family times when I was young were never stressful, but I do remember that my mom especially would show signs of stress at some points. 

Now, as an adult, I understand the stress that is involved in family Christmas gatherings. And sometimes that stress makes everything a little more taxing on our emotions. 

For instance, each Christmas we do a trip up to Ottawa and a trip down to Toronto to cover both sides of our family.

Though we have to travel, we also have some responsibilities in the preparation of the events. 

For the trip to Ottawa, I, apparently, had to bring my computer for a game. Lil, well, she just had to buy some presents, wrap them, make a salad and cook one main dish for the meal.

For my role, I needed to plug the charger into my computer to be sure the battery was at 100% and I had to cut out of hockey early to make sure I was home in time to leave. 

Now this is an aside, but it seems that every time we get extra ice time, I have some commitment preventing me from staying as long as I’d like. 

This was the case this morning. I stayed longer than I should have and was all prepared for a lecture on tardiness and that we should have already left.

That didn’t happen because Lil was busy putting the final touches on the salad and bemoaning the fact that she burnt the meatballs.

She had me taste one to see if they were really burnt and, yes, they were. Apparently she had forgotten to turn the slow cooker off at midnight.

So a discussion took place about what we could do. There was one opinion of, “Hey, sometimes you get burnt meat balls; no big deal!” 

But Lil didn’t want to bring inferior food. 

So, at the last minute, I headed to the grocery store to buy more meatballs while Lily made more sauce. The plan was to start cooking the new batch in the slow cooker at home and then continue the cooking process in the slow cooker in the vehicle on our drive to Ottawa.

Saturday mornings are usually pretty quiet and calm around here, but this morning we had two extra bodies with our kids home for Christmas and, of course, we had the stress of getting up to Ottawa with food for family Christmas dinner.

I thought once we were in the car some of the stress would be gone … but there were road conditions, the speed of the driver, and who was in control of the music.

… All those variables have the potential of raising the stress in the vehicle.

And all this stress is caused by expectations – what certain people expect, and what they think others will expect. It is compounded when other people in the family don’t live up to expectations or they don’t help others meet their expectations.

… Our two hour drive gave us time to refocus on relating to one another rather than the expectations we each had had.

Here’s the thing:  We can be stressed with God if we feel we are not meeting His expectations. We could even be stressed thinking that God is not helping us meet our expectations. But if you simply stop thinking about His expectations and start to thinking about His love for you, that will influence your actions, responses and thoughts … and remove your stress.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What has you stressed lately? Leave your comments below.

by

Stress Can Be Good Or Bad

There is a certain amount of stress that’s good for you.

If we didn’t have any stress in our lives we probably wouldn’t get anything done. We would resort to saying, “Oh maybe I’ll do that tomorrow” … and tomorrow would never come.

If there was no stress, we would procrastinate … and some of us would procrastinate more.

Stress keeps us on our toes; it moves and motivates us, makes us feel responsible, and gets us to the deadline. 

These are all good things; we need a little stress in our lives. When stress builds up in us too much, however, it’s not good.

This last week I went golfing with my family. We hardly ever golf together because some of us hardly ever golf.

My son, Mike, and I golf the most, and Lily golfs with me when we’re on vacation. Karlie hasn’t golfed in two years.

Mike had a week of vacation and thought it would be nice to get a game in with the family. We looked at a couple of courses that would be within driving distance for all of us.

We ended up choosing a course that would be better suited for Mike and I and not Lily and Karlie. We got a really good deal on it so we booked it. 

Shortly after the arrangements had been made, Lily told me not to get all stressed, because that would impact the rest of the family. 

I have to tell you, I tried not to stress about it. I even prayed about it. 

Back when I was learning to golf, I felt pressure to keep up, to not hold up other golfers, whether I was golfing with them or they were in the group behind me. 

So knowing that this course was a little long for my wife and daughter, and knowing we were playing early in the morning, by the time I got to the course I was already tense.

I was definitely not relaxed. 

Even before we teed off, I was concerned about how quickly the next group would catch up to us and if we would be holding them up. … and I felt this even though there was no group behind us! 

All I can say is my game didn’t get off to a fantastic start … and it was all downhill from there. 

I could not get myself to relax and simply enjoy some time with my family. I was tense and hit more bad shots in that game than I’ve hit all season long so far. 

I kept looking back for the group behind us. I felt responsible to watch where everyone’s shot ended up. I constantly kept telling Lily and Karlie what they might be doing wrong when they hit bad shots. 

The crazy thing was they all got better as the round went on but I got worse. And that group behind us never did catch up and have to wait for us.

Here’s the thing: We are told in scripture to give our burdens to the Lord … but stress is a difficult burden to let go of when you’re in the middle of it. So first stop and recognize the stress, what it is, where it’s coming from, and how it’s affecting you. Then tell the Lord you want to give Him that stress. Third, focus, embrace, enjoy, immerse yourself in the task at hand. Doing that will shift your emotions and allow you to let go of the stress. 

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: How has stress got the best of you? Leave your comments below.

by

Maybe I Didn’t Think I Had Enough Stress

Could I have added more stress to my life? I don’t know what I was thinking; I’m just glad I got through it. Stress is something we all live with, but there are times when stress is higher than at other times.

I’ve even heard that a little stress is good for you. Stress keeps you alert, motivated; it keeps the blood pumping.

Without a little stress we would probably all be sloths, sitting – rather, lying – around with no cares, no urgency, no get up and go.

When I was a teen I had no stress in the summers. I would sleep until 11 a.m. and then stay up late at night.

My dad used to call that “living the life of Riley”, and though I never met Riley, and didn’t have any idea what he did, it sure sounded like he had a pretty good life.

At the time, it sounded like my dad wished he had a little of that life.

Now I always have a little stress in my life. I always have something to do, and if I don’t, I put a little stress on myself to find something that I need to be doing.

But this past Saturday I put too much stress on my life.  

It was game 5 in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs. My team, the Toronto Maple Leafs, were down 3 games to 1 in the series. 

They were facing elimination and playing in Boston, which has so far in this series proved to be a near impossible place in which to win.

To be honest, I didn’t have much hope for my Leafers going into the game. 

But just the same, I was a little stressed that they would leave the playoffs so quickly after having such a great year. 

I was also preaching the next morning. I’m very used to that so no bad stress there – just a little good stress having my sermon in the back of my mind.

That should have been enough stress for one night. I should have been happy that I was showing no signs of slothfulness on a Saturday night.

But for some crazy reason I decided to add more stress to the evening … I decided to start doing my income tax.

I’m not sure why but maybe I thought that it would provide a distraction from the stress that was being generated in me by the game.

Everyone has to do taxes but you don’t have to do them when you’re stressed out to begin with. But that’s exactly what I did.

It was a rollercoaster of a night. Tension was high because the Leafs weren’t making it easy, especially with all the penalties they took in the second period. 

All the while I was gathering my information, making calculations and demanding that Lily find me certain documents and receipts. 

It was a brutal night, but the Leafs won which reduced my stress level significantly. And though I didn’t finish my taxes, I got to a winning stage with them as well.

Now I need a day of being a sloth so I can recuperate.

Here’s the thing: We put even more stress on ourselves whenever we don’t seek God in times of stress. Even if it’s a little, if we will take it to Him rather than go it alone, God can ease our burden, leaving us with just the right amount of stress to keep us moving forward.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: How do you deal with stress in your life? Leave your comments below.

by

The Stress Of Keeping People Waiting

It’s never nice to keep people waiting. There are some people you should never keep waiting, like the human resources person who’s going to interview you for a job.

waiting

When someone is left waiting, it says they don’t matter, or they are unimportant, or you don’t care.

… My wife keeps me waiting almost every time we go out together, but somehow that doesn’t seem to bother her very much because she keeps on doing it. But that’s another blog.

There are times when I panic when it looks like I’m not going to make an appointment on time. I usually feel this way when I’m in the car, rushing to make it to my destination so that I don’t keep the person waiting. I might have my foot heavy on the gas but I just can’t get there fast enough.

It’s not a nice feeling.

The other day I had that feeling in church. We had set up a Skype video chat to take place during our service with a missionary couple in Spain.

There were a few technical things to consider, like getting the video chat from the computer to the big screen in the sanctuary, and getting the sound to go through the church sound system.

Since all that was taken care of, I thought all I had to do was make the call. That’s when the trouble started. My Skype program wouldn’t connect online! I had a few minutes during a song to make the call but I started to panic when it couldn’t connect.

I was really feeling the pressure to get the call going. The silence in the sanctuary raised my blood pressure, and all at the same time I was trying to think of what to do to get the call to go through and what I needed to say to the congregation.

I knew I was keeping my congregation waiting but I was also aware that I was keeping the couple on the other end of the scheduled Skype call waiting too. And they had no idea what was happening on our end.

We quickly went to a commercial break … not really … I wished we could have gone to a commercial. Instead we took up the offering and sang a song.

That gave me time to reset the modem and router, and we took one last stab at it. It wasn’t immediate but after a little fiddling and some assistance, we got the call to work.

The stress, pressure, and panic left me immediately … I don’t think that was good for my heart.

They say that playing hockey is hard on the heart because you get your heart rate up really high and then you go and sit on a bench and your heart rate drops like a rock.

Well, I think that’s what happened to me. My heart rate and everything else in me was racing … until I saw that video on the screen.

… And it was all over keeping people waiting. It’s not nice to keep them waiting, and when we do, we often feel pressured.

Here’s the thing: God wants to meet with us each day, but we keep Him waiting when we don’t make our appointment. Maybe we don’t feel the pressure, or don’t have the panic, but God is waiting. I’m not saying we should feel guilty when we don’t make that meeting with Him. Our meeting can take a different form at a different time. What I am saying is the same importance you would place on not keeping others waiting is the the same importance we should place on meeting with God daily.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: Have you ever felt pressured or panicked when keeping someone waiting? Leave your comment below.

by

How To Get Things Done

I really dislike times when my mind is bombarded with thoughts of things I need to do or act on. It unearths a stress in me like a volcano stoking up to explode.

iStock_000010078705Small-to-do-list

It happens often when I’m getting close to some kind of event or deadline – a time like, let’s say, vacation time, which is coming up very soon for me.

I have a ton of things that are flying through my mind, things I need to get moving on. Some things I wouldn’t have to do if I wasn’t going away. But because I am, and there is a deadline, they get piled onto the list.

It’s only 7:30 in the morning as I am writing this piece, but my mind is whirling with about 10 things I need to be putting some time into today. Now that’s on top of the things I have already scheduled to do today!

If I was to attempt to do all the things on my list, I’m looking at about a 26 hour day. Unfortunately, the guy who invented the clock never made one with more than 24 hours.

And the God who created the world set the earth on a rotation that gives us that same 24 pattern for day and night.

Unless the earth gets slammed hard by meteor or something, I think I’m stuck with the same number of hours in a day that we’ve always had. And that thought isn’t helping my stress; nor is it reducing the number of things I have to spend time on.

Something that helps me when I get like this is an exercise I do to deal individually with each project, to-do item or action, and then break it down.

You have to think of each item individually because, when you stay focussed on all the things you have to do, it is just too overwhelming. The pile of work looks massive; you can’t see your way to the end.

So I list each one. I first single them out. Then I break each one down into bite-sized morsels because each to-do or job can be massive. I break them down into small parts that I can do at one time.

I try not to look at the whole project after that, just the next little bite I need to take to get me closer to eating the whole thing.

Here’s the thing:  We sometimes get asked to pray for many things. But what happens is, when we go to pray, we get overwhelmed with all the requests before us, let alone the things we regularly pray for and our own personal needs. It looks like too massive a list and it’s hard to remember them all.

First, don’t try to remember them all; write them down so you can see each request. Then determine how long the request will remain on your list and pray one detail regarding each request for each day it’s on your list.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: How do you pray through the mountain of requests that come to you? I really like to hear from you, so leave a comment below.