Showing posts with label pressure. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pressure. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 13, 2019

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


 

Ruining a Dinner Party - micro-blog from Desteni Universe




Here I am cooking... or should I say 'ruining' dinner! As I was experiencing mostly one disaster after another.

New kitchen and kitchen appliances, new ingredients, new climate, air, water... everything is different here than when I am cooking in South Africa. Things were not working out the way I was used to as I was making my usual butter chicken, naan and paneer, yet there was a lot of pressure coming at me to cook a meal for a group of guests, not to the waste money spent on ingredients by things not working out, and to make something fabulous!

What happened was that I burnt the sauce even though I was cooking it a lowest level on the stove top. My cheese simply did not separate into curds and whey, but became a thick cream, my bread did not rise half as much as I am used to - all while using the same steps and measurements I always do!

I thought to myself, 'well this is a disaster', and was told by someone "if you fuck it up I'll kill you" lol! Half jokingly, yet at the same time not.

The interesting thing was that I felt totally fine about the whole thing: as things were not working out, I was feeling a bit bad, yes, but not stressed, not worried, not guilty... what existed in me was more along the lines of: I've done my best so we'll have to make do with whatever happens!

And it's funny because I remember walking this point of 'ruining a meal' at the farm - There is actual real consequence to it, with the resources wasted when resources are limited, and then people also depending on and planning their work etc around a certain meal time - and so I would stress every week on my cooking day to the point where I would get knots in my back... and it seems so silly now how I would project people being angry and disappointed and not liking my food, and it would trigger a whole spiral of reaction within me.

And so I worked on the point every week until it eventually became about practical skill development only (with of course enjoyment, expression, experimenting etc), where I let go of the expectations and projections and worked instead from a more grounded and present stance.

And this is what I did today, quite naturally as I was cooking this meal that was not working out. And it was a pleasant surprise to see my hard self-work pay off, because I used to get myself worked up into quite a state when preparing for guests to arrive in my home.

In this scenario, I saved the sauce by changing pots and not stirring up the burnt part, we made an experiment out of the overly creamy cheese, by breading and frying it into balls which were quite yummie, and the naan was much thicker and heavier than I'm used to, but everyone seemed to love it, and loved the butter chicken too! There were people that didn't show up as well, so a smaller group than expected, lots of left overs to take home, and a very calm, relaxed chef that could laugh at the earlier threats and expectations!

This EQAFE recording assisted me most in working with my anxiety. I listened to it years ago, and still apply the information today. This is one recording, but it is part of a series on anxiety which I'd highly recommend for anyone whose anxiety tends to get in the way of things they should normally enjoy:


Deconstructing your anxiety - Atlanteans' Support - Part 85


"This interview provides support on how to find the source of your anxiety and deconstruct it from your life."