BEING AGITATED IS SO AGITATING – Why Me?

Posted on 12th July 2011 in EXPLORING OURSELVES, ONE DAN'S OPINION

We all become agitated from time to time. In fact, I become agitated everyday for one reason or another.

Oftentimes its small inconveniences which irritate us, while other times it’s something more serious. One thing I know is that I become agitated much less often than I used to. Maybe it’s a sign of getting older, maturation, or possibly something more has happened?

Are there any tricks or skills we can use in order to reduce agitation?

For me it has been rooted in the following:

Avoidance. Once we become aware of the people, places, things and thoughts which agitate us we can choose to avoid them. Avoidance is a good first strategy but doesn’t always work as agitation will eventually surface because we can’t avoid everything which annoys us forever. Chance meetings and automatic thoughts are a couple of reasons why avoidance will not work by itself. Click here to read more.. »

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COPING WITH STRESS

Posted on 3rd June 2011 in CHANGE, EXPLORING OURSELVES, ONE DAN'S OPINION

Now and again we see advertisements or read articles about how to cope with stress. If you do “such and such” you’ll manage stress more effectively or if you do “this and that” you’ll cope better.

What is stress anyways? Where does it come from? And why is it that a situation can be stressful for one person, and not another?

Let’s consider the following for a minute. For instance, if my girlfriend were to be on the way to an important meeting she needed to be on time for and happened to get a flat tire she would experience a large amount of stress.

She would perceive the situation to be very demanding; on a scale of 1-10 (1 being low stress and 10 as very high) she’d likely be a 7 or 8. Furthermore, her perception of her own ability to cope with the flat tire would also be stressful as she doesn’t have the knowledge or skills of how to quickly change the tire herself and still be on time for her meeting.

Although she is an excellent problem solver and would be able to call for help or utilize AAA, these options would likely take more time than she has to make it to her meeting on time, thus stressing her out about her perception of how to cope with a flat tire at a level of 7 or 8 again. Click here to read more.. »

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