If all human beings have something in common, it is our search for well-being. We want to experience well-being, feel connected, get to know each other and grow. However, time and time again we encounter the same difficulty: stress, an unpleasant experience that leads us to discomfort.
We live in times of stress. Never before have we experienced stress like we do today, and the number of people who feel stress or that it is even their biggest condition within the consultation is growing more and more. We feel stress from work, from coexistence difficulties, from conflicts in relationships, or from our fast-paced and chaotic way of life. Also, increasingly, due to health problems.
However… Do we live with more and more stress because our way of life is stressful, or because we do not know how to manage that stress?
Our way of life is undoubtedly unnatural: rush, difficulties, lack of free time, globalized and consumerist world, more and more sleep and nutritional problems, etc. What can we do with all this?
Stress is a psychological experience. It’s an unpleasant feeling flows according to how we interpret, manage and relate to what happens outside.
It is also an emotional experience. In this article we are going to delve into what stress is, what causes you to feel it too frequently, intensely and for a long time, and above all, how you can manage what happens from your own personal change so that stress decreases and you can finally achieve your goal: to live in well-being (both with yourself, with your relationships, personal or sentimental, and at work).
My name is Rubén Camacho, psychologist and Human Empowerment coach, and for 11 years I have been accompanying people in processes of personal change. Stress has grown especially since 2020, although this trend was already felt before. Let’s delve deeper into your stress and how to resolve it from the direct experience we have in consultation. Let’s go for it.
Understanding stress
We usually think that we were happier in our childhood because we did not feel stress. In reality, stress is felt throughout our lives. Babies experience stress due to hunger, lack of attention or lack of hygiene. Children also feel stress when waking up, the first days of school or the heat. Stress is an unpleasant sensation that helps us anticipate an external event that may be dangerous. Feeling hungry is also stress, and it helps us eat. What then makes stress negative?
Stress is negative when it is too intense, frequent and long-lasting, and above all, when it does not help us anticipate a dangerous situation or one that implies a shortage or difficulty, but rather it sensitizes us to situations with too much intensity and we react with fear, insecurity or anger.
Stress is the result of three factors.
1. External factors
Stressful external stimuli are weather conditions, noise, if other people’s behavior is especially invasive or aggressive**, disorganized routines or routines that do not allow you to focus on your well-being, etc. These factors are always there and we cannot do anything to change them.
2. Internal factors
The way you feel, how you interpret situations, how you communicate and relate to others and what happens; that is to say, the state you are in. Human beings are subjective beings, who live according to a system of beliefs, interpretations, points of view and a way of managing their emotions. Also, your way of managing stress is part of this factor.
3. Relationship factor
The way in which these two previous factors meet, How they relate.
Working on internal factors
The only factor you can work with is your internal factors, as well as make decisions that lead you to relate to the external in such a way that its consequences are alleviated.
There is a modern and serious error that makes our stress management difficult. This is a very common phenomenon in social networks, as is blaming any other type of external stimulus as the cause of all the problems (when we talk about “toxic people” and other concepts that are far from scientific evidence and that only They help us focus on the external and blame it instead of looking for our own solutions).
The solution is the opposite: not in blaming or looking for causes, but in focusing on solutions. What would have to change in you for stress to decrease? How can you interpret and manage what you feel so that it is not so intense? How do you manage feelings such as anxiety, anguish, insecurity or worry?
Let’s see step by step how to work on a change process to reduce stress. Leaving this chaotic world and starting to build another will be the next step!
Making stress small
We cannot change the world, but we can change what we do in it. Stress is positive if it helps you relate, not if it limits you from doing so or intensifies the seriousness of situations. What we do in a change process to reduce stress, step by step, is the following.
First of all, We analyze what the stressors are for you, but above all how you manage them. How do you interpret what you feel? How do you manage it? (through your behaviors) How do you live your relationships? (if from insecure patterns, with fear, demands, expectations, etc.). Do you generate emotional autonomy, or does your well-being depend too much on others and what happens?
When faced with a similar situation, two people can handle it in a totally different way. A change in you and what happens to you is not possible by changing the world, but by changing your way of understanding and managing it.
In this first step we must also take into account What other experiences do you live that may be limiting you?: frequent anxiety, difficulties with certain emotions such as fear, guilt, insecurity or anger (which are exhausting and stressful when we do not manage them functionally), sleep problems, eating, etc.
In a second step we begin to discover How do you communicate with these experiences? how you relate to others, how you anticipate events and how you plan them, with the aim of introducing small changes that help you manage it in a more functional way and reduce stress.
In a third step we design together a concrete and specific action plan for you, to help you find the necessary changes (in yourself) that reduce stress. Very common changes are: learning to set limits, manage certain limiting emotions, make assertive decisions, plan and organize to reduce stress, and above all, build routines that help you generate security, well-being, and make you avoid stressful situations or experiences. .
As you apply your action plan we reach a fourth part: work with all parts of your personality, so that it is a totally complete and profound process. We work with your self-esteem, your belief system, your communication, your relationships, also with your values. The important thing about a change process is that it is practical (so that you achieve results and feel better from the beginning) but also deep (so that you discover more about yourself than you now believe and it will serve you forever).
Finally, It is about living the process in a constant way (not only with eventual sessions) but also flexible, so that the process is an aid to relieve your stress and not just another stressful event (sometimes, reducing an entire process to sessions makes it more rigid and generates more stress due to problems with times and schedules). In my case, I like to accompany you constantly (every day, for any needs you have) but also flexible, so that you can adapt it to your daily life and needs.
The goal is not for you to find well-being (well-being is not an object that can be sought or found) but that you build it with your own change and actions. You achieve it through a process that also helps you in a stable way, since the learning stays with you forever.
Concluding…
If you want to achieve it, remember that at Human Empowerment you can schedule a first session with me (from anywhere in the world) so that we can delve deeper into your problem, find a definitive solution and above all see how I can accompany you so that you achieve it 100%.
I send you lots of encouragement, enthusiasm and patience. All change is possible if it occurs in us.
