They say that the only two certainties in life are death and taxes. If I may be so bold, I’d like to add stress to that list. Regardless of wealth, gender, or race you will experience stress in life. Moving, losing a job, starting a new job, the birth of a baby, the death of a family member are just a few of the major family stressors experienced by most families. These stressors have also been compounded in the last year with the major stressor of a global pandemic as recorded in the Harris Poll conducted in February of 2021.
A representative sample of the US population reports that their stress has increased in a variety of categories in relation to the pandemic. Not only are people dealing with the expected stressors of life as mentioned previously, but they are more anxious to seek out health care, stressed about potential job loss and financial troubles, and experiencing weight gain (Harris Poll, 2021). People are struggling to cope with their stress in healthy ways. I know I have been, and it manifests in our relationships.
If I may, I would like to share a bit of my recent experience on the topic of relationship stress and what my husband and I have done to resolve it. In the past few months, my husband and I both quit our jobs, packed up our life, and moved to Texas for his graduate school. We were lucky enough to buy a home in Texas but as we know all too well, home ownership comes at a great price. In a matter of weeks, we found ourselves with a significantly reduced savings account and I found myself jobless and co-owner of a home in serious need of cleaning and repairs. We were stressed.
For a while, I ran full-tilt into DIY home renovating with my excess of spare time. My projects were incredibly rewarding and I was really enjoying myself. That was until we ran out of our allotted project money. No project money, no more projects. That was about two weeks ago and I started to sweat. The stress of my continued joblessness despite my countless applications was taking its toll on me and on my marriage.
A Different Way of Looking at Stress
Enter, the ABC-X model developed by Reuben Hill (Hill, 1949; Hill 1971; Peterson et al., 2013). While grasping for something to help myself personally and my marriage as a whole, I remembered the ABC-X model for family stress and decided to use the model to help me in my stressful situation. Let’s walk through it.
A represents the event or situation causing the stress, the stressor (Boss et al., 2002; Peterson et al., 2013; Paragamet et al., 2013). In my case, my whole situation of joblessness and no more projects to distract me from my predicament are my A. B represents the resources available to the family experiencing the stress (Peterson et al., 2013). For many, resources can include family, friends, education, or coping strategies. Really anything that helps and acts as a buffer to the stressor (A) is a resource (B).
This is where I began to apply the model; I took a step back and asked myself, “What resources do I have?” I took more time applying for even more jobs and, because I am religious, I began praying daily for help to find a job that would hire me. I also reached out to my husband and told him about some of the feelings of inadequacy and frustration that I was feeling because of my perceived lack of contribution. Viewing my husband as a resource rather than a person I was actively disappointing helped lessen the stress on our marriage because I became less avoidant and fearful of judgement around him.
C represents the family’s perception of the stressor (Peterson et al., 2013). If the family’s perception of the stressor is that it is insurmountable or unmanageable, then the family will likely crack under the pressure. If the family views the stressor as a growth opportunity or a short period of trial, then the family will ultimately strengthen. It was at that moment that I also realized that I had been viewing this period of joblessness and never ending and I had been catastrophizing the whole situation in my own head. If I remain jobless, we will never financially recover from buying this home and we will never have savings again and so on. I needed to change my perspective (C) in order to reduce my stress and change the outcome of it all on my relationship.
That brings us to X, which represents the level of stress (Peterson et al., 2013). The stressor (A), the available resources (B), and the perception of the situation (C) all affect the level or severity of stress (X) felt by the family. In my situation, I was feeling very stressed and like my husband was judging or blaming me for my joblessness despite my efforts. However, when I drew upon my resources, including my husband, and changed my perspective, my level of stress and the stress on our relationship decreased substantially.
Though not guaranteed to work in every situation, this simplistic view of the ABC-X model could help you or your family cope with stress as it did mine. Start by identifying the stressor (A) and your available resources (B) both within and outside of the relationship. Then examine your perspective (C) of the situation; is it accurate or realistic? From there, draw upon your available resources and work to change faulty or pessimistic perspectives. As you do so, you should feel a lowered level of stress in your life and relationship.
We cannot always remove stressors in our lives, but we can learn how to cope effectively and positively. Stressors do not have to crush us, they can instead strengthen us. It is a fact that fire burns wood but tempers, or hardens, steel. In a world of fire, are you made of wood or steel?
Practice using the ABC-X model in one of your relationships this week! Where are you currently experiencing stress? Identify the stressor, your resources for dealing with it, and your perception of the situation, and then evaluate how that impacts your stress level.
References
Boss, P., Bryant, C. M., & Mancini, J. A. (2002). Family Stress Management: A contextual approach (2nd ed.). SAGE.
Hill, R. (1949). Families under stress. Harper.
Hill, R. (1971). Families under stress; adjustment to the crises of war separation and reunion. Greenwood Press.
Pargament, K. I., Exline, J. J., Jones, J. W., Shafranske, E. P., & Walsh, F. (2013). In Apa Handbook of Psychology, Religion, and spirituality. essay, American Psychological Association.
Peterson, G. W., Bush, K. R., & Lavee, Y. (2013). In Handbook of marriage and the family. essay, Springer.
Emma Smith is from San Diego, California. Emma recently graduated from Brigham Young University with a degree in Family Life and an emphasis in social work. She met her best friend and husband Dallin at BYU her first semester home from her mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She enjoys horseback riding, swimming, reading, painting, and anything outdoors. In everything she does, she has one goal: to help others.
It started with a thought: I should write my story. And so I wrote my story. I started with one defining moment, then another. When the milestones were recorded, I started filling in more details and emotions. I took some things out. I edited it.
And when it finally felt complete, I felt a relief—a freedom—I never knew I needed.
I have since published my story as a paperback book, but the feelings of relief and freedom came even before that point. I could have kept my story private and still benefited substantially from writing it.
There is no one right way to write your story. You can use a journal, an app, or a planner. You can write once a day, once a week, once a month, or once ever. Regardless of the format or schedule you choose for writing, journaling offers noteworthy benefits, including a reduction of stress and a healthy way to manage anxiety and depression. Research by psychologist and researcher Dr. James Pennebaker suggests that journaling can even alleviate physical symptoms of conditions such as asthma and rheumatoid arthritis by acting as a stress management tool.
According to an article by Harvard Medical School, in at least one study by Pennebaker, he
“…asked 46 healthy college students to write about either personally traumatic life events or trivial topics for 15 minutes on four consecutive days. For six months following the experiment, students who wrote about traumatic events visited the campus health center less often, and used a pain reliever less frequently, than those who wrote about inconsequential matters.” (Harvard, 2020)
To demonstrate the immediate benefits that journaling can offer, researchers at the University of Chicago “found that anxious test-takers who wrote briefly about their thoughts and feelings before taking an important exam earned better grades than those who did not.”
How can you put this to the test? In your next stressful moment, I invite you to pause and take a few minutes to write about the situation and how you are feeling. Does your stress level increase, remain steady, or decrease? Did the exercise help you find additional solutions or insight into the situation?
Here are some other creative ways to start journaling:
Create a private Instagram just for family photos and captions. If you want a physical copy, you can subscribe to a service like Chatbooks, which will automatically send you a book of your Instagram photos after every 60 posts.
Download the Day One app to start keeping a journal on your phone. The app is free, though you can subscribe if you want to keep more than one journal on the app.
Start gathering your family members’ stories first. Interview any living grandparents or great-grandparents. Interview your parents. Interview siblings. Not only will you create a beautiful record for your family, you may find yourself inspired as you begin writing your own stories.
I am not great at traditional journaling, but I recently found several notebooks and planners where I have kept notes and records over the past several years of my life. These, along with my Instagram page and other digital platforms, have offered an non-traditional but natural way for me to keep a journal of sorts.
How have you benefited from journaling in your life? We’d love to hear from you this week on Instagram @healthyhumansproject!
Choose one way to start recording your story this week!
References
Alt, D., & Raichel, N. (2020). Reflective journaling and metacognitive awareness: Insights from a longitudinal study in higher education. Reflective Practice, 21(2), 145–158. https://doi-org.erl.lib.byu.edu/10.1080/14623943.2020.1716708
Allie Barnes graduated from Brigham Young University with a Bachelor of Science in Family Studies, earned a certificate in Substance Use Disorder Counseling from Utah Valley University, and studied writing throughout her undergraduate career. In every professional role she’s filled since then, her focus remains the same: People.
You are not alone. We are living in unprecedented times, and that tends to stress us out. A lot of the outlets that we may normally use to cope with our stress have been restricted or taken away and that makes it harder to maintain fluctuating levels of stress.
Let’s talk about some ways you can better manage your stress, because, as a professor of mine would so lovingly remind me, “stress management is life management.”
Prioritize
When we’re stressed, it can be really hard to figure out what we need to do and how to accomplish it. What things absolutely have to get done and what things can wait? There is a wide variety of resources out there to help answer this question, such as the Covey Quadrant Method, the prioritized to-do list, Productivity Boot Camp, etc. My personal favorite is the sticky note method, which essentially gives you a visual representation of what you’ve accomplished.
The sticky note method goes like this (Wheeler, 2019):
Get a pad of sticky notes
Write down what you need to get done, one task per sticky note
Make sure that when you write the task you are specific. For example, “spend 30 minutes trimming the bushes” instead of “yard work”
Once you have the tasks you need to get done written out, take the sticky notes and put them somewhere you can see them in order from most important to least important
When you finish a task, take the sticky note off and throw it away
If you don’t finish all of the tasks by the end of the day, that’s okay! Rarely do we finish everything we intend to accomplish all in one sitting. Leave the sticky notes up and then keep working on them the next day.
We have talked a lot about self-care here at the Healthy Humans Project, and that’s because it is so important! Being stressed out all the time often leaves us feeling like we don’t have the time or energy to take care of ourselves, but it’s absolutely vital that we do. It may seem more important to get those dishes done or disinfect the high-touch services for the third time this week, but this will ultimately leave you feeling tired and even more exhausted than before. Make the time each day to take care of yourself. That doesn’t mean you have to take three hours for self-care! Your self-care is going to look different depending on your current level of stress, and on your needs for that day (Gordon, 2019). One day it may be taking 20 minutes to watch an episode of your favorite show, doing a face mask, or even taking a nap. Other days you’ll have more time to take that bubble bath or watch that movie on your watch list. What matters is that you are taking the time to take care of yourself.
Exercise
Exercise is one of the best forms of stress relief. The type of exercise you choose doesn’t really matter, what matters that you move your body on a daily basis. Find what makes you feel good! Moving your body can mean dancing in the kitchen to blasting music, going for a run, doing a workout video from YouTube, or going to the gym (if, you know, that’s an option). Exercise has many benefits for stress. When you exercise your body naturally releases endorphins (sometimes known as a runner’s high), which makes you feel happier. When you exercise consistently it can boost your mood and help with mild depression and anxiety (Exercise and Stress, 2018).
Additionally, exercise is great for helping ease the body’s response to stress. Our bodies have two major nervous systems that govern a wide variety of physiological responses, known as the parasympathetic and the sympathetic nervous systems. The parasympathetic system is commonly referred to as the “rest and digest” system, and the sympathetic as the fight, flight or freeze response. When we are stressed, our body triggers the sympathetic nervous system, causing muscle tension, a racing heart, and adrenaline release throughout the body to prepare for fight, flight or freeze. As we exercise, our body is able to use this stress response to actually benefit our body by building muscle and strengthening our cardiovascular system. It also helps to regulate our body’s stress response. Check out this video here, and this one here if you would like to learn more.
Sleep
Stress can impact our ability to sleep, which is problematic because we also need sleep to help combat stress! While we sleep, our bodies do maintenance to repair and heal our bodies, as well as helping with memory consolidation (Stress and Sleep, 2013). When we are stressed, we often don’t get enough sleep, leaving us tired or even more stressed (anyone else stress how much sleep they aren’t getting??). Most often, stress leaves us unable to get high-quality sleep, which then affects our mood and our ability to cope with life.
We need to make sure that we are getting at least 8 hours of sleep at night regardless of age (kids, babies and teens are in the group that needs more than that). Thankfully, there are some things we can do to help us sleep better. First, establish a routine around bedtime. For example, take a shower, brush your teeth, read for 30 minutes, and then go to sleep. Sticking to a routine signals to the body that it is time to go to sleep. Second, turn off electronics two hours before bedtime. Blue light is notoriously known for interfering with the ability to sleep. Or, if you have to use a device, switch it to night mode where it turns down how much blue light your screen emits. Third, save the bed for sleeping and sex with your partner. The less we do in bed, the more the brain will associate it with sleeping, making it easier to actually get sleep. (How to Sleep Better, 2020)
Mindfulness—Breathing
Mindfulness and its various practices have endless benefits. But I want to talk specifically about breathing because it’s one of the most underrated stress management techniques. As we all know, we have to breathe in order to survive. But our breathing has a greater effect on our bodies than we sometimes realize. Our breathing has the ability to help calm the sympathetic nervous system (remember that fight, flight, freeze response?) by lowering our heart rate, relaxing our muscles, and helping us get back to our thinking brain.
Here is an easy breathing technique you can try, taught by LMFT Tammy Hill:
Close your eyes and sit comfortably
Inhale for three counts
Hold at the top for three counts
Exhale for three counts
Repeat as needed
Connect
“We are neurobiologically hardwired for connection with other people. In the absence of connection, love, and belonging, there is always suffering.”– Brené Brown, Netflix Special The Call to Courage
We are hardwired for connection, and that connection helps us to deal with our stress. We need other people to talk to, to vent to, to support, and to support us. Being around others and interacting with others helps to ease the stress of everyday life. When we feel we have people we can turn to, or know that we have people supporting us, we can get through difficult times because we know we are loved regardless of our personal successes or failures. While it may not be possible to connect with people in person right now, we can video chat, text, call, write letters, etc. to keep connected with others.
For me personally, it has been so hard to not have in-person interaction with people outside of my spouse. Yes, I have been able to video chat and text, but it’s not the same as sitting down with friends at a restaurant or participating in in-person church services. It feels isolating to sit behind a screen and not be able to give someone a hug or be there for them when it feels like everything is falling apart for them or to be able to celebrate a graduation or marriage. Just know that if you are struggling too, you are not alone.
Gratitude
Sometimes in the mounds of stress, it’s easy to forget that there is more to life than just getting our to-do list done. Being grateful doesn’t take a lot of time,. It can simply be saying, “Today I am grateful to be alive,” or “I’m grateful that I got out of bed today.” It can be sitting down at the end of the day and writing down three things you’re grateful for in a journal. These few moments may seem insignificant, but they can literally re-wire our brains. Research has found that people who keep a gratitude journal see a decline in perceived stress in as little as two weeks, meaning that when we are grateful we see things more as they truly are rather than just what we are stressed about (UC Davis Health, 2015). As we look for things to be grateful for, our perspective shifts and it makes it easier to cope with our day-to-day lives. So, right now, pause to write down three things you’re grateful for, send a text saying thank you to someone, and remember that life won’t always be like this!
Finally, when we are stressed, one of the most important things we can do is to remember to have compassion for ourselves. Often, we won’t get everything done that we would like to, and that’s okay! Some days we won’t get anything done because stress, mental health etc. require us to step back and take a do-nothing day to take care of ourselves. When those days and moments come, it’s imperative that we have compassion for ourselves. It’s okay to step back and say, “I’m struggling right now and so are others. I can be mindful of my emotions and acknowledge them without being consumed by them. I can be kind and understanding to myself regardless of whether I got everything done that I would have liked.” Self-compassion is a powerful principle! If you’d like to learn more about it, I would recommend checking this Ted Talk by self-compassion researcher Kristin Neff.
Don’t let your stress get the best of you. Take things a day at a time, don’t give up, and be kind to yourself. We’re all figuring this out, and we’ll make it through together!
Anasteece Smith is a Utah native who is now living it up as a Texas girl. She is the oldest of seven children and married her sweetheart in 2018 who happened to have her same last name. She graduated from Brigham Young University with a Bachelor of Science in Family Life. In her free time, Anasteece likes to read, paint, swim, hike, camp, hammock, and do graphic design. She is passionate about mental health, healthy sexuality, family resilience, feminism, religion, and research on shame, vulnerability, and perfectionism.
Tension and faint smoke filled the air as my roommates and I hunched over our kitchen table, overwhelmed with homework. Midterms were coming up, and we had been too preoccupied with studying to hear the oven buzz on our chicken nuggets. Abruptly, my roommate slammed her pen onto the table.
“I am too stressed,” she huffed. “I am going outside to cry. I’m setting my alarm, and I’ll be back in three minutes because SELF-CARE.” As I watched her leave and took the burning nuggets from the oven, a thought crossed my mind: “Why would she practice self-care by crying? Isn’t self-care supposed to make people happy?”
Your version of self-care might look similar to mine: a giant bowl of rich chocolate ice cream and a Disney movie night. I have heard my friends use massages, pedicures, and shopping sprees as other examples of self-care. I have also seen my friends shrug and say, “You know, self-care” as they dive into a massive plate of nachos or level up in the latest smartphone video game.
I have found myself wondering: Is this truly self-care? When did self-care become synonymous with self-indulgence? If self-care is defined as “taking action to preserve or improve one’s own health” (as the Oxford dictionary states) we might re-examine whether our “self-care” choices are leading to better health or whether they might just be an attempt to make ourselves happy right now.
Photo by Drew Coffman on Unsplash
While the occasional bowl of ice cream and movie night can be part of a long-term strategy, it’s probably not our best “go-to” if used too often. Rather, self-care should stem from making choices relevant to long-term health and happiness, not simply short-term gratification.
Especially when stressed, we need to feed our body with sleep, fuel, and fulfillment, even if our immediate emotional response to a rough day is to forget all healthy practices in exchange for yummy treats and lazy pastimes. Chances are that mindless screen-scrolling, spending money, or indulging on junk food won’t quite do the trick in terms of replenishing our bodies or building our health. In fact, a Harvard study shows that regular physical activity and a healthy diet are factors that help add more than 10 years to your life (Li et al., 2018)!
Here are some simple ideas to cope with stressful situations that are healthier for the body and mind.
Photo by Brooke Cagle on Unsplash
Care for Your Body
The way you care for your body will have direct effects on your health and happiness. Here are a few ideas of practices you might try to better care for yourself physically.
Watch what you eat. Although there is no single dietarypattern that will benefit everyone, our bodies do react to what we put inside them. Sugar can increase our energy levels but it burns out fast, which won’t be helpful if you’re looking ahead at a long day. Feeling stress during the day can drain your energy levels.
If you feel low on energy, you might want to add more nutritious fruits and veggies to your diet to stay full and fueled. Try buying a few fruits vegetables at the store, cut or divide them up, and distribute them into bags or containers that are perfect for grabbing at a moment’s notice. Experiment with healthy food options and recipes. Prepare a few healthy snack options. Listen to your body react to the food you put inside it and adjust accordingly.
Engage in exercise. You’ve blocked out time in your schedule for physical activity but find yourself dreading it and make excuses to skip it. We know that exercise can improve strength, sleep, and mood. It decreases weight and lowers the risk of various diseases. However, exercise can be a mentally challenging task, especially on the days when we are stressed out. So, find ways to make exercise a natural part of your routine can actually relieve that stress as you accomplish a healthy goal.
Photo by Kike Vega on Unsplash
For example, try doing your favorite exercise first. Research shows that if you begin workouts with your favorite exercises, you will look forward to working out and have a better overall experience (Ruby, Dunn, Perrino, Gillis, & Viel, 2011). Experiment with different exercises. Listen to your body and figure out which exercises you love. Then, plan out a routine that allows for low-energy routines for when you are stressed–plan on a good workout for when you have a little more mental and physical energy.
Stress Relief.You’ve had a hard day, come home from work with some frustrations that really can’t be resolved until tomorrow, but you know you need a little self-care and you do have an hour. Maybe begin by checking in with your body—what hurts? Tense shoulder muscles? Tired feet? Give them a little love. You might try a 10-minute yoga routine when you feel stiff, a stroll around the block to stretch your legs, or engage in a few prolonged toe touches when your backaches. Try soaking your feet in alternating hot and cold water or getting a foot massage to increase blood flow and reduce tension.
Care for Your Mind
Your brain is the powerhouse of the body and can greatly affect your health and happiness. Here are a few tips to care for your mind and add a little calm to your day.
Nap time! Did you know that napping is good for your brain? An Oxford study tested students’ memory after napping, cramming, or taking a mental break (Cousins, Wong, Raghunath, Look, & Chee, 2018). Students who took a complete mental break did not improve their memory for test materials at all. Students who took a nap or crammed for the test remembered a lot more, but a week later, only those who napped still remembered any of the material! Try setting aside some time to wind down and take a few 10-minute naps this week to assess how it affects your body.
Photo by Kinga Cichewicz on Unsplash
Inhale, exhale. If you don’t have time for a nap, at least try some deep breathing. Using deep breathing techniques improves the ability to manage stress in daily life (Perciavalle et al., 2016). Maybe try practicing mindfulness (Teper, Segal, & Inzlicht, 2013). Turn your attention inward until you become aware of your feelings, including negative ones. Next, accept those feelings as they are, even if they hurt. People who practice mindfulness feel more in control because they are aware of what is going on internally and they decide to be okay with that. Try practicing mindfulness and note how it affects your feelings of calm and control.
Cry me a river. Although I originally assumed that my roommate’s bout of tears was crazy, I learned later that she might actually be onto something. According to one investigation, both males and females generally experience a better mood after crying, especially if that crying is done in private (Becht, & Vingerhoets, 2002). Crying in private helps criers avoid self-consciousness or judgment from others and allows them to be authentic and let it out! Next time you feel your eyeballs welling up, try telling yourself that it is okay to cry once in a while. Find a space to be alone, let it leak, and see how the crying makes you feel.
Your body and your mind are incredible tools that serve your needs every day. Do yourself a favor and take care of them! Avoid ‘self-care’ practices that are empty of benefits. Instead, find the practices that will replenish your body and mind. Today, pick out a few habits that you can begin so that tomorrow (and every day after) your body and mind will thank you.
Identify a form of self-care that nourishes, restores, and connects you, and implement that practice into your week.
References
Becht, M. C., & Vingerhoets, A. J. J. M. (2002). Crying and Mood Change: a Cross-Cultural Study. Cognition and
Emotion, 16(1), 87-101.
Cousins, J. N., Wong, K. F., Raghunath, B. L., Look, C., & Chee, M. W. L. (2018, October 29). The long-term memory benefits of a daytime nap compared with cramming. Sleep, 42(1), https://doi.org/10.1093/sleep/zsy207
Li, Y., Pan, A., Wang, D. D., Liu, X., Dhana, K., Franco, O. H., Kaptoge, S., Angelantonio, E. D., Stampfer, M., Willett, W. C., Hu, F. B. (2018, April 30). Impact of healthy lifestyle factors on life expectancies in the US population. Circulation, 138(4).
Perciavalle, V., Blandini, M., Fecarotta, P., Buscemi, A., Corrado, D. D., Bertolo, L., Fichera, F., & Coco, M. (2016, Dec 19). The role of deep breathing on stress. Neurological Science, 38(3), 451-458. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10072-016-2790-8
Rachael Porter is from Saratoga Springs, Utah. Rachael is currently a Family Life major with a minor in gerontology at BYU. She is the oldest of four kids and is married to her best friend Matt. She works as a TA for online family life classes at BYU. Rachael looks forward to graduating in December 2020 and having children afterward. She enjoys ice cream, traveling, friends, hiking, camping, plants, and movie nights.
One day last fall, I was hanging out with a friend all day. We were driving around running errands and by the end of the day we were at HIS house in Salt Lake City but with MY car. HIS car was 40 minutes south at MY house in Provo. The plan was to drive back to my house together and he would drive his car home from there.
Forty minutes later we pulled into my driveway and he suddenly realized that he had left his car keys at his house—forty minutes north, where we had just come from.
Photo from pexels.com
“Dang it!” he said, as his head dropped back against the headrest. He was silent for a moment then said, “Just give me 10 seconds.” During those 10 seconds, he groaned and expressed anger and frustration—the most frustrated I had ever seen him. Then with an exhale he said, “Okay, let’s head back up.”
We turned up the music, took a detour to pick up desserts and sodas, and made the most of our trip back to Salt Lake City. And then, back down to Provo.
What was supposed to take 40 minutes took close to two hours, but we made the most of it. That night ended up being one of my favorite memories with him.
This friend of mine had been through some really hard things in his life and, as a result, had learned how to keep things in perspective. That included recognizing what things didn’t really matter in the long run, and knowing how to process them and move forward quickly. I’ve thought a lot since then about how to develop such skills, and here is what I’ve come up with:
Give a Fudge About Less
Go From “Reacting” to “Responding”
Account for the People Factor
Give a Fudge About Less
“The key to a good life is not giving a [fudge]* about more; it’s giving a [fudge] about less, giving a [fudge] about only what is true and immediate and important.” – Mark Manson, p. 5
*Sorry, Mark Manson— I edited your quote for this family-friendly audience.
I have to remind myself almost daily that most things really don’t matter in the grand scheme of things. Those car keys from the story earlier? Yes, it was frustrating, and it was perfectly healthy to get out that initial frustration. However, having to drive back home for a forgotten item really didn’t matter.
Photo by Syed Hussaini on Unsplash
Think about your week so far. Can you think of a moment when you reacted poorly to a stressful situation? Notice your shoulders right now—are they high up by your ears, or rolled back and relaxed? Some stress is very understandable and valid, but I would guess that even the heaviest stressors aren’t worth holding onto like we (or I) often do.
We can approach stressful situations in a healthier way by moving from an impulsive reaction to a mindful response.
Go From “Reacting” to “Responding”
“It is normal to react and respond to our environment,” says Melody Beattie, author of Codependent No More. “Reacting is part of life. It’s part of interacting, and it’s part of being alive and human. But we allow ourselves to get so upset, and so distracted. Little things, big things—anything—have the power to throw us off the track. And the way we respond after we react is frequently not in our best interests.”
This is where I’d pause and suggest that “reacting” and “responding” are two different things. I view “reacting” as that initial charge of emotions that Beattie is describing—becoming upset and distracted, focusing solely on that frustration. I view “responding” as what Beattie gets to in Step 4 below: handling the situation from a peaceful state of mind.
Beattie continues to share the internal chaos that can result—and become the norm—when we live in a constant state of “reacting”: “When we react we forfeit our personal, God-given power to think, feel, and behave in our best interests. We allow others to determine when we will be happy; when we will be peaceful; when we will be upset; and what we will say, do, think, and feel. We forfeit our right to feel peaceful at the whim of our environments. We are like a wisp of paper in a thunderstorm, blown about by every wind” (p. 66).
Photo from pexels.com
Beattie’s recommendations?
Learn to recognize when you’re reacting to a stressor.
Calm down.
Analyze what really happened.
Decide how to best handle the situation from this more peaceful state.
Handling the situation in a healthy, peaceful manner may mean letting things go that don’t really matter, apologizing, offering forgiveness, or remedying the situation in another way. In the car key situation, it meant processing and letting go of frustration, then making the best of the change of plans.
(Beattie expounds on these recommendations on pages 70-72 of her book Codependent No More).
How many things feel so heavy but don’t really need to? How many things will really matter 10 years from now? Using these steps to process situations will help you move from reacting to responding, and help you develop a more realistic perspective of the situations you encounter.
Account for the People Factor
Car keys are one thing, but oftentimes situations involving people we love can be much more tricky—and frustrating and painful—to get over. It’s not just feeling strong feelings about car keys—it’s feeling strong feelings about someone we care about.
The solution is in the problem: If we care about someone, we can choose to treat them in that way. This includes giving them the benefit of the doubt, forgiving more freely, and serving without thought of return. It still may not be easy, but it is a perspective worth applying. Remembering the care we feel toward someone not only heals that relationship, but develops the quality and character of our hearts.
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Dr. C. Terry Warner, co-founder of the Arbinger Institute, expounds on this principle: “By seeing others suspiciously, accusingly, or fearfully, we become suspicious, accusing, or fearful ourselves. By no longer seeing them with care, delight, and generosity, we ourselves cease to be caring, delighted, and generous. The kind of people we are cannot be separated from how we interpret the world around us…. Who we are is how we are in relation to others” (p. 41).
While many conflicts occur with the people we care about the most, we also experience conflicts with people who we may really not care about at all. In that case, I’d note that we each are still responsible for how we act and feel toward others. As Warner said, “By no longer seeing [ANYONE] with care, delight, and generosity, we ourselves cease to be caring, delighted, and generous.” It isn’t easy to feel that level of care toward everyone, but it is definitely a worthy goal to work toward.
While you’re in the middle of processing whatever situation you are in the middle of, just don’t forget the most important factor: people.Conclusion
It can be incredibly difficult to keep a realistic perspective in the middle of a stressful situation—to change from reacting to mindfully responding to a situation, and to put less energy toward things that really don’t matter. It’s a habit that I’m continually working on improving. So, let’s improve together.
I leave you with another of my favorite quotes, one that says it all so well:
“Some things matter, most things don’t. A few things last, but most things won’t.” – Neill F. Marriott
This week, we’re breaking a habit! Instead of “reacting” impulsively to difficult situations, practice pausing and “responding.” Print out this free download for some reminders to post around your home or workspace, or create your own reminder. (Free download photos by Gary Barnes; designed by the author).
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Allie Barnes graduated from Brigham Young University with a Bachelor of Science in Family Studies, earned a certificate in Substance Use Disorder Counseling from Utah Valley University, and studied writing throughout her undergraduate career. In every professional role she’s filled since then, her focus remains the same: People.
Practice using the ABC-X model in one of your relationships this week! Where are you currently experiencing stress? Identify the stressor, your resources for dealing with it, and your perception of the situation, and then evaluate how that impacts your stress level.
Emma Smith
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Rachael Porter is from Saratoga Springs, Utah. Rachael is currently a Family Life major with a minor in gerontology at BYU. She is the oldest of four kids and is married to her best friend Matt. She works as a TA for online family life classes at BYU. Rachael looks forward to graduating in December 2020 and having children afterward. She enjoys ice cream, traveling, friends, hiking, camping, plants, and movie nights.
