When you’re busy (and who isn’t busy?) it’s easy to get stressed out. And it’s a natural thing to look at all of the tasks out there that are keeping you so busy as a way to get a better handle on stress.
The common mistake many people make, though, is not realizing that there’s another kind of “Doing” going on. That’s your internal doing – your thoughts, self-talk, feelings, and emotions, that are also running through your mind and body all day long.
The truth is, you’re “doing” thoughts and feelings throughout the day. It’s more common for people to think of this as thoughts and feelings happening to me, or coming at me. It can be a turning point in stress management to realize just how much energy is going into the internal doing.
In reality, lots and lots of autopilot internal doing prevents us from living as fully human BEINGS.
That requires a little attention to the internal doing. And perhaps getting more comfortable with the notion that you have much, much more real control over how you feel, over your internal state in both your mind and your physical body, than you may have known.
We’re not very good at teaching that in modern, western society – and increasingly, all over the world. Distraction is more the name of the game. Or the app.
Nothing against apps or games. It’s just that I notice and hear over and over how some people, especially busy people, often live for the moment when they can distract themselves at the end of a long day. Others distract themselves hundreds of times throughout the day too. Both groups often wonder why they feel drained and tired so much. Both groups often find that restlessness, anxiety, and stress creep in at the oddest times, and get harder and harder to push away.
That’s because we’re not wired for so much internal doing without noticing what we’re… doing. A little more good attention inward – just a little bit of noticing what exactly we’re already doing internally – can make a huge difference in stress management. And then there are so many ways to make a small, leveraged change within ourselves, that can bring us to a whole new level of calm and real control. And then it becomes easier to make the smaller shifts our outside worlds for stress relief.
It can be a completely different experience to return just a little more often to our essence as a human BEING.
How’s your inner doing going? What’s already working for you? What internal habits could get a little attention, and perhaps a little upgrade?
