From 'Super-Acheiver' to 'Frazzled-Mess', the Effects of Stress at Work: micro-blog from Desteni Universe

#EQAFEDISCOVERY

 

I have been working at a job for over 2 months now, and I had been becoming anxious about my performance as I was receiving no feedback, yet I knew I was in a probationary period where they could let me go at a moment's notice.

Finally my boss reached out to me to give me a review. According to her, I was the fastest and most accurate reviewer on the moderating team, and they wanted to give me more hours because I rarely made mistakes and moved quickly through the work. I hadn't received feedback because I was "the least of her concerns", was "the best one on the team" and so on like this to the point where I began to feel embarrassed by the flattery.

These were of course, the words I had always wanted to hear from a boss, or any authority for that matter, and I could hardly believe my eyes as I read them. "The best", "fastest", "most accurate". As I breathed them in and placed myself neatly onto a little pedestal in my mind, I didn't realize that I was setting myself up for a fall.

Now I had something to lose, a reputation to keep, couldn't afford to look like I didn't know what I was doing. Before that, I had been humble, trying my best, asking questions not afraid to show I did not know the answers. Now I was 'the best one' that 'never made mistakes'... I suddenly felt as though

I couldn't live up to my own reputation!

Then things in my life moved around a bit, with money and big decisions to be directed, and all together it triggered a serious 'stress' response in me. I could no longer focus on the work, would forget each piece of information as I moved on to the next, became fidgety and irritable, looking for distractions as I worked, and began displaying all the symptoms that had in my past labelled me as having 'adult ADD' by a psychiatrist.

When I looked back on my life, I noticed this very same pattern: I was the best runner at my level, until I made it to the provincial level and experienced the stress of real competition, and I choked. I was the best soccer player on my team, until I got old enough where soccer all of a sudden become a serious 'school pride' thing, now with pressure to perform, and I became the worst player. I started at my last job with a splash, and got a promotion before my colleagues that had been there for years before me, and ended up by having a breakdown from the stress.

I even developed a fear of survival point, where I hold the belief that I cannot provide for myself in this world with the system the way it is, because as soon as there is stress: I break.

And so begins my journey of finally taking on the point of stress creation in my mind, because I see that if I don't take on this point, this pattern of great falls will continue. I also see that despite my past falls and breaks, I did display a potential to be effective, and that is something worth fighting for.

My journey begins with the Atlanteans "Stress: The History, Origin and Nature". In this recording, the system, design and emotional experience of stress is broken down and explained. Interestingly, it begins in childhood, when our beingnesses, which are comfortable and content, react to the initial seed of unexpected and unexplained fear, for which we are completely unprepared! That 'unpreparedness' and 'unexpectedness' creates a stress response within the beingness, and then of course our physical bodies react as well. We live with this unquestioningly until it develops into an entire personality later in life - one with its own thought patterns, reactions, behaviours and so on, like an entity that takes over! This would explain how I go from a 'super-achiever' to a 'frazzled mess' as soon as my stress response is triggered and takes hold!

I have begun this journey by doing self-forgiveness on the first fears I can remember, and also on my response to those fears. I will listen to the series and apply the practical applications in each recording, and I will dig into this point until I uproot it and find living solutions that I can apply in my life to find that point of long-term consistency and stability that I had been lacking.

Thanks very much, and if you can relate, then enjoy this recording and join me in taking on The Stress System:

Stress: The History, Origin and Nature - Atlanteans - Part 97

 

Day 231 - Learning how to Breathe

It's been less than a month since I've been back on the Desteni Farm. I spent a little under three months here before I went back to Canada for the holidays. I have been fortunate to be able to come here, although a lot of that fortune had to do with myself planning my life accordingly to be able to come here.

When I got here originally, I had highly intense internal experiences which I had become used to over time, where it is only in retrospect that I can see the extent of what I had been carrying around for so many years. With the support of those around me, I was able to work through the intensity, and slowly but surely reduce it.

After that, I began working on other points that had also always been there, but more in the background. And through my self-investigation (as well as constantly seeking support, either directly or indirectly asking and learning from others here), I began to understand and work with those as well. Everything now being a work in progress, a balancing or juggling act of different issues, patterns, habits, personalities and of course, my fundamental human nature that I am working on re-aligning according to the principles I wish to live, sorting out the disease and uncomfortability within me, I reached a point that I hadn't even realized I was struggling with. I realize that for so many years now, I haven't been able to properly breathe.

I am finally looking at my physical body in depth. My posture, how I hold my arms, how I walk, when am I holding tension, am I relaxing ever part of me, my back, my jaw, and even my eyes? And within playing with this relaxed stance and letting go of tension, I realized that I have not been giving myself enough air.

I will almost feel out of breath in moments, and take a deep inhale, not realizing that I had been taking short, shallow breaths for a long while. It had gotten to the point where when I was back at my job, I would stand up from my desk and feel light-headed, and lose my vision for a moment and have to compose myself for a few seconds as I caught my breath. But when I would try to breathe, everything would feel so tight, like there was no space in my body for my lungs to fill with air. It would feel forced and like I couldn't get enough in.

Now, for the first time in a long time, I can take nice, deep, long inhales, filling my lungs completely. All I have to do now is get in to the habit of it and keep remembering, not only to catch my breath, but to breathe more deeply all the time. Breath awareness. - I had forgotten how to breathe.

Note: I am walking a process of self-change using the tools of support offered by www.Desteni.org. I am taking the course called DIP Pro. In this course I learn how to take every day moments and find ways to make myself a better, more understanding and well rounded human being, the kind of human being I would like to see in this world. "Be the change you want to see" is a cool saying, but actually doing it is a bit more confusing because people tend to believe that you can't change human nature. I believe you can, because I have seen myself changing to someone I've always wanted to be. Not there yet, but my motivation is fueled by the proof I have given to myself, which I have documented online every sep of the way, in my blogs and on youtube. DIP Pro requires serious dedication and commitment, it is ot for the faint of heart. If you want to test the waters for yourself, try the Lite version, it's called DIP Lite, and the best part is, it's free! Why? Because Desteni puts individual self-change above profit. Why does DIP Pro cost money? Because it costs money to exist in this world, and takes a dedicated team to run the program. Otherwise it would also be free.
Visit www.Desteni.org

Osho Card Reading of the Day: 'THE MISER' - Day 11 of 21

The issue I am looking for support on today is the feeling of 'rushed' I create within myself. Sometimes I wake up in the experience, while at other times, like today, I can feel it slowly creeping up within me until I can feel it within my entire body.

I took that sensation and held it within me as I drew my card today, and this is the card I drew:

THE MISER

Card Description:

"This woman has created a fortress around herself, and she is clinging to all the possessions she thinks are her treasures. In fact she has accumulated so much stuff with which to adorn herself--including the feathers and furs of living creatures--that she has made herself ugly in the effort. This card challenges us to look at what we are clinging to, and what we feel we possess that is so valuable it needs to be protected by a fortress. It needn't be a big bank balance or a box full of jewels--it could be something as simple as sharing our time with a friend, or taking the risk of expressing our love to another. Like a well that is sealed up and becomes stagnant from disuse, our treasures become tarnished and worthless if we refuse to share them. Whatever you're holding on to, remember that you can't take it with you. Loosen your grip and feel the freedom and expansiveness sharing can bring."

What I can take from this card and it's description is the concept of wanting to have something, and in an attempt to get it or create it, we end up gathering and accumulating something that causes the complete opposite effect of what we were intending.

My understanding here it that it is not about chasing something or 'getting' the thing we are seeking, but rather becoming it and integrating it as a part of Who We Are. So what am I attempting to 'get' or 'gain'?

For me, this is but one more element or dimension to the 'work' point I have been walking for several weeks now. I have opened up the 'avoidance' point, the 'time' point, the 'distraction' point, the 'confronting obstacles' point, the 'rage' point and the 'laziness point' (in a video you can see HERE). All of these points acting like threads that have created one gigantic knot within me, which can only be undone by following one thread at a time. Now I will be looking at the 'rushed' point within the context of THE MISER.

So, to answer my question, what I am seeking to gain or get is a sense of satisfaction that I have done enough, accomplished enough this day. This feeling comes from having completed many things or tasks, and having complete them well. This, in and of itself, is not a problem or issue if I endeavor to work similar to how nature functions slow and steady, never a rush, yet never wasting a moment.

I have been practicing this point of letting go of time, and instead giving myself the time to do things properly. It seemed counter-intuitive at the time, only to realize that I actually get more done when I let go of that time-pressure. The other internal experience I am having trouble letting go of is the 'rushed' feeling, where I feel I need to hang on to that in order to keep myself in line and move myself. It is as if I do not trust myself to let it go, for fear that I will just sit around all day an do nothing.

The thing is that the 'rushed' experience is uncomfortable, but I hang on to it like the miser, thinking and believing that without it, I will not get what I want. But, like the miser in the card, I realize that holding on to the experience is like  self-sabotage, because within holding on to it and experiencing that constant internal discomfort and my body's reaction to it (soreness, stiffness, lethargy), I find myself escaping in moments throughout the day, where i need to rest and take time off to settle myself.

Now, this too is not 'bad' or detrimental in and of itself, but it is the starting point within which I am doing it that needs to change. Instead of it being an escape from the internal experience I am creating, I can do it from a starting point of creating a balance in my day. Taking a moment to be with myself, re-connect with myself and my body instead of escaping myself and my body and spending that moment in distraction in my mind. It is all about the starting point.

So today, despite all my resistances and the fears coming up within me, I will practice a 'letting go'. In order to kick start this letting go by clearly identifying how I am actually creating it, i will use the tool of self-forgiveness.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create an internal energetic experience of 'rushed' within and as me by thinking about some of the bigger, more involved and time-consuming tasks I have on my agenda, and then imagining myself not getting it done or doing it poorly.

I forgive myself that I have NOT accepted and allowed myself to live the self-trust that I can and will get the task done, because I have done it so many times before already, and I know very well I can do it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to think that if I don't get it done exactly perfectly and exactly on time, that I will feel terrible, because in the past I had accepted and allowed such reactions and have held on to them like a miser, thinking I will bring them up again if it happens again, instead of seeing, realizing and understanding that I can let that pattern go, and create a new way of being where, if I mess up the task or it is late, I am instead gentle with myself, take the lesson and move on.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to realize that i have also in the past been gentle with myself upon my errors, taken the lesson and moved on, where I have changed the way I do things based on these lessons, proving to myself that I can learn and improve, but due to the miser within me, I still stubbornly hold on to the 'negative' and 'bad' experiences.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed subtle undertones of 'rushed' or 'rushing' by not living in awareness of what I am subconsciously creating, not taking my actually reality into consideration, but rather clinging on to the past and therefore re-creating it here, in the present moment, which is actually a brand new fresh moment.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to taint and sabotage my present moment by clinging on to experiences of the past.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to sabotage my learning and self-development by re-hashing and clinging to the accumulated possessions of the past.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear letting go of feeling 'rushed', within the idea, thought, perception or belief that if i do not feel this way, I will not move, instead of seeing/realizing/understanding that I will in fact move better, more efficiently, and create myself more in the moment if I simply allow the moment to be what it is, and move myself within it.

When and as I see that I am going into that 'rushed', 'rushing' experience, I stop, and I breathe. I bring myself back to presence by reminding myself  that I can trust myself to get it done, and there is no punishment waiting for me if I don't, I drop the feeling of rushed, and simply move, knowing that there is no punishment waiting for me at the end, and my goal is only to discover my best potential.

I commit myself let go and move in moments of accumulating 'rush'.

I commit myself to give myself a moment to breathe and slow down when and as I accept and allow myself to exist within and as 'rushed'.

Correction to live today: Curious.

Why? Because I have always had a curiosity within me where I find a fascination within things. This curiosity comes about when I am relaxed and fully engaged in the thing. I would like to take this curiosity and apply it towards myself and my process.

Cure-I-A-City

I cure my city.

My city being, the highways and by-ways, the inner building and bricks I have used to create myself which was not done in awareness or to my best benefit, where it feels like manyy different parts rushing in different directions, which creates a dis-ease within me. The 'Cure' to this dis-ease is within entering into this city and having a good look around, exploring each business, each individual building and all the personalities that populate this city, understand them and how they work, and offer a solution so that they instead begin to wok as one toward attaining my utmost potential.

How I will live this word today will be to observe myself within how I work and discover what comes up within me, but not to judge it, react to it or go into it, rather just observe it with an objective curiosity, see whether it is what is best, and if not, to then find a solution for it.

This is how I turn an internal city of many parts going this way and that, bustling and rushing each to their own end, causing me to want to go into a million different directions, creating dis-ease within me, and finding a 'cure' by creating a city of equality, where each piece has the same goal of working together to create the best whole.

Continuing with THE DREAM - Osho Card Reading: Day 10 of 21

Continuing from my last blog... THE DREAM

Osho Card:

Looking at the point:

"What I can see when I bring the point up in me, is that there are certain parts of the work that I am doing that i have labelled as 'work' in terms of it not being exciting or fun or 'positive'. I will have a project with a final goal, and a lot of the work involved in getting there IS fun and enjoyable to me. But then there is 'the other stuff'. The research, the learning, the coursework, the 'serious stuff' that I have to go through to get to my final goal. And sometimes I don't know how to go about a certain step, in which case I go into a helplessness that I identified in my last blog, and that helplessness creates frustration and in this case avoidance and distraction."

I held this understanding with me today while I worked, and I observed myself as I went through this point. What I realized was that the pressing issue is when I don't completely understand where I'm heading, the goal is not clear, and the steps are not clear.

What I found was that, when I identified the issue, I was able to focus and hone my attention on the problem, instead of feeling 'all over the place' and directionless, which, when left undirected, leads to overwhelm and an underlying helplessness. When I could focus and hone my attention, things became more clear. I still did not see the final outcome, but I identified the right questions to ask, and I set out to ask them.

Another obstacle I could identify was that initial push it takes to get started on a task that I know will be long, in my case research. With research, you don't really know what you are looking for till you find it, and even then, it can be like finding puzzle pieces scattered about, and not having a map for how they fit together. I realize I have to become comfortable with this 'unknowing'.

Lastly, I had to address the question of time. I had given myself certain deadlines, and with them I felt the pressure, which was causing me to feel a bit of a squeeze as I was still trying to identify the obstacles I was facing. The feeling was that I didn't have TIME for obstacles, that I needed to KNOW RIGHT NOW what to do, and for this reason, I didn't want to invest the time into myself basically, to find out what was going on with me and how to walk through it.

So, what I did was drop the idea of a deadline. This seems counter-intuitive, but the thing is that holding this deadline above myself was actually causing me to move more slowly. When I dropped it, I felt lighter, and even more ready to get to work.

So, these are my findings today as I walk my quest to improve myself, change myself from limiting patterns and habits I have been living out up till now. No matter how big or small, they need to be addressed in terms of being identified, corrected and then lived out in real time.

Thanks for reading!

Daily Osho Card Reading: 'THE DREAM' - Day 9 of 21

Today the intention I held within me as I pulled an Osho card for self-support was to help me identify what is the problem I face when I sit in front of my computer to work, and I become tense, easily distracted and participate in shifty focus, where I am drawn away from the task I set out to do, and do many other cool, yet un-planned things instead or additionally. This draws out the task at hand, and causes inefficiency in my work, as well as reactions towards not getting the things done as I had planned.

Card pulled: THE DREAM

Description:

"Some enchanted evening you're going to meet your soulmate, the perfect person who will meet all your needs and fulfill all your dreams. Right? Wrong! This fantasy that songwriters and poets are so fond of perpetuating has its roots in memories of the womb, where we were so secure and "at one" with our mothers; it's no wonder we have hankered to return to that place all our lives. But, to put it quite brutally, it is a childish dream. And it's amazing we hang on to it so stubbornly in the face of reality. Nobody, whether it's your current mate or some dreamed-of partner in the future, has any obligation to deliver your happiness on a platter--nor could they even if they wanted to. Real love comes not from trying to solve our neediness by depending on another, but by developing our own inner richness and maturity. Then we have so much love to give that we naturally draw lovers towards us."

This card's description reminds me of a quote from Bernard Poolman, that "work is love made visible".

I pulled this card in relation to 'work'. And surprisingly, the card is quite appropriate in what it mentions and neglects to mention.

I think what the card neglects to mention is the work it takes to "develop our own inner richness and maturity". It takes experience, meaning, actually walking through challenges, falling and getting up again, pushing self through resistances to get to the other side of them in order to develop these things, and seeing through commitments to actually know from living experience what that entails.

It is challenging, but I personally have mostly experienced fulfillment after having overcome a challenge.

 But in reading the description, I am also led to wonder: have I developed a romantic relationship with some potential work out there that I am waiting for to fulfill and complete me?  Where I will love the work so much that it will easily flow, never posing a challenge, never a resistance, never bringing forth a part of me that I will have to face and overcome?

This is the point that comes up when I apply this card in my life in relation to the support I had asked regarding my difficulty while working.

I have set myself up and walked a process where i am in the exact position I have always wanted to be. I absolutely love it and am so incredibly grateful to be here. But yes, I am still facing the same challenges that I was facing back at all the jobs I had labelled as 'meaningless to me', jobs that were not what I was passionate about, or were not what I wanted to be doing with my time. So, obviously it was never the job, it has always been me that is/was the 'problem'. Which is cool, because it means I am also the solution, and if I am the solution, then I can apply myself in any and all work that I do, as this too shall pass, and there is no saying what will come next or where I may end up at this point in my life.

What I can see when I bring the point up in me, is that there are certain parts of the work that I am doing that i have labelled as 'work' in terms of it not being exciting or fun or 'positive'. I will have a project with a final goal, and a lot of the work involved in getting there IS fun and enjoyable to me. But then there is 'the other stuff'. The research, the learning, the coursework, the 'serious stuff' that I have to go through to get to my final goal. And sometimes I don't know how to go about a certain step, in which case I go into a helplessness that I identified in my last blog, and that helplessness creates frustration and in this case avoidance and distraction.

This is cool to see as it is another dimension opening up about a point that I had just opened up yesterday. The thing about facing such points is that they are multi-dimensional in this way, and too often we will open up only one, maybe two dimensions of a point, never really getting the full picture of how it is playing out in our lives.

So, here I can see I have a romantic expectation of the job I am doing, an expectation that is unrealistic and thus, the starting point of the work is already problematic in that it will create consequences in my work when that expectation is not met. The correction here is to drop that starting point - to let go of any and all conscious or subconscious beliefs that such  perfect, easy and flowing work will come naturally, and end up making me feel fulfilled and complete automatically.

This does not mean I will accept and allow working to be a laborious struggle. It simply means I still need to re-define what work is to me, and look at who I am within it.

This brings up the point of the way I handle the more difficult or challenging, yet necessary steps towards my goals. I have come to program myself to see this scenario as a laborious struggle. These include the obstacles I face that I must figure out as I go, not already knowing how to handle them. These are unlike the obstacles I have faced many times and are now easier to see my way through, as I had already paved the way for myself.

Paving the way for oneself does not mean creating a life of paved roads, one that you can easily coast through till the end. That would mean only always sticking to what you know, what you have already done, and that is limiting. Paving the way means making space for oneself to expand - meaning, once you have one road paved, it becomes easier, so the time and effort you had put into paving it is now freed up to start another, new road. This way, there is no coasting, there is only constant expansion.

 I will continue in my next blog!