hope over fear
Stress.
The last couple of weeks have been stressful for various reasons.
It genuinely felt like I was being mentally yanked from side to side in an underground windowless storage room just wide enough for the edges of my shoulders to meet the walls.
And I knew it.
I knew I was stressed. Unlike many other stressful moments, I was fully aware of what was going on in real-time, and for the first time, I actually admitted and voiced it out while it was going on.
Despite my stress, I forced myself to keep ticking tasks off my to-do lists. The more stressed I got, the more I drowned myself in work. A part of me hoped that the thought and sight of tangible, visible progress on some front would ease the tensions in my mind. But it never did, and I only got more stressed.
This continued until I had a random conversation with my mother about fear. And that’s when it hit me.
Everything I had felt up until that point had its root in fear. I was scared of many unforeseen things that I could neither predict nor control, things that technically had nothing to do with me.
Fear.
It was the root of my stress. If I got rid of the root, nothing else would remain.
Better yet, if I turned that fear into something more beneficial and productive, like motivation or inspiration, the physical and mental expression of that feeling would go from stress to enthusiasm. I would be more energetic and zestful.
So I did that. I redefined my fears.
I decided to think of every scenario I was anxious about as a reason to be better and optimistic. I focused on the things I could actually control and chose to control them as best I could.
The result is a much more relaxed version of myself, who couldn’t care less about the rejections, shortcomings, miscalculations, prejudice, underestimations, delayed responses, and unruly mannerisms. Instead of being afraid of these things happening, I acknowledged them.
This reminded me of the need for perspective. Stress often makes things seem more complicated than they are. Then, we blow things out of proportion.
At any rate, my stress has subsided now, and I’m more present and mindful.
So, there’s my encouragement to you. If there’s something that keeps you up at night and instills fear n you, redefine that situation and think of it as a learning experience, an opportunity, or even better, motivation. Think of it as hope.
Substitute fear for hope and see what wonders that might do for you.
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