Although our lives are not the same and what we are facing personally can vary a great deal from day-to-day, these are the stressors that we all end up facing at one point or another.
1. Financial I think this is a huge one for many, if not most people as some point in their lives. For a number of people money worries, or money woes take up a great deal of thought energy. This is draining. Our society doesn’t help us deal with this one very well because it is very materialistically focused. You have to make a plan to deal with money whether you have none or a lot to get it out of your major worry zone. Understand as well that it isn’t just those struggling to get enough money, those who have some or a lot have their own worries about money that keep them awake at night.
2. Work/Career How does the old saying go? Something like if it were fun we’d call it a vacation? Work is a huge part of our life. For some it defines who they are. It creates so many levels of stress in our lives from time issues, bad bosses, advancement, wondering if you’ll be laid off, retire or keep going or just simply figuring out what you want to DO with your life. Interesting that our financial worries are often closely tied to this one isn’t it?
3. Family You gotta love ‘em right? Sure, but they can drive you nutty. It’s not always negative things like divorce or family feuds either. Happy occasions like a wedding or birth are very stressful on everyone as they make adjustments.
4. Personal Relationships We all want to love and feel loved. We all want to feel trust in someone. It doesn’t matter if it is a friendship, spouse, dating or even work related; relationships can bring about a great deal of stress as we navigate them. We have to balance the other things in our lives (like time, money and family obligations..go figure) and learn to ask for what we need.
5. Control We may also face personal concerns such as a court date, broken car, big life changes (good or bad) and more. We may be facing habits we want to break. All of these types of things boil down to having a feeling of control in our lives. We, as humans, crave some semblance of this feeling that we get to decide what happens with our time, money and what we do throughout the day. Without the feeling that we have some say over where life takes us, we are greatly stressed.
Although stress isn’t always the big horrible monster we like to think of it as (hey, it IS what motivates us a lot of the time), we do have to strive for a balance. Unhealthy stress will make your emotions a mess, cause illnesses and make it harder to heal. Yuck..identify it; pay attention and make a plan to reduce your unhealthy stressors.
[...] first of all that this post wasn’t my planned post for today. I was on a kick all about stress and stress busting. All good things to talk about these [...]