Stress is a tricky and frustrating thing. I don’t pretend to understand the complexity of physical, mental and emotional factors that go into it, so I’m not even going there.

I’m going to recommend a tactic about stress, for reinventers specifically. You can try it and see if it is useful for you, because stress gets in the way of reinvention.

When you feel stressed in your reinvention, try thinking about the stress as an email from your inner guidance.

As soon as it is reasonably possible, answer the email.

The best thing to do when you notice stress is to press the pause button and answer the email, but that is often not possible, and it is usually the last thing we feel like we can do in the moment. Stress typically shows up right in the middle of frenzied action, not during leisure time on your porch.

If you have made a commitment, and it will cause you more stress to press the pause button, complete the action required for the commitment you’ve made, and then tend to it.

However, this is the point where most of us miss getting the value from the email from our inner guidance. As soon as we can breathe again, and the pressure’s a bit off, we forget to do the inner check-in, i.e., to answer the email.

To answer the email, create some space for inner reflection. First, meditate, or play some soothing music, or do a guided visualization that will get you relaxed and in tune with your ‘inner compass’. (This is one reason why it is so great to develop ongoing practices to develop a reliable relationship with your inner guidance; see prior posts in the category ‘Your Compass’ for some tips. If you are practiced in checking in with your inner guidance, it will be a lot easier for you to do it during more stressful times.)

When you feel relaxed, ask some questions in a spirit of openness and curiosity, and listen to your inner guidance. It’s very important (and not always so easy) to let go your expectations and any attachment to (a) what the answers might be, and (b) when they may come. The answers are often surprising and they don’t always come during your quiet time.

Here are two really important questions to ask:
• What do I really want? Try to open the question up to all possibilities; reinventions take many surprising twists and turns, and the stress may be a road sign, telling you to re-check your direction, because you now know more about the territory.
• What feels like it is not a fit with what I want? The important thing here is: feels like. It’s best to get a visceral feeling, which often comes through your gut, on this one. A feeling of stress often shows up when you have committed to an activity or direction that isn’t the best fit for you and what you want. There may be no apparent rational explanation for why it doesn’t fit, it just doesn’t feel right. Again, be open to possible surprises.

A reinvention is a ‘coming home’, and often we discover home by following our guts and hearts, not through what makes sense logically. Stress can be an incredibly useful road sign, to show us that there’s something to tweak.

Of course, stress may also be just an indication that we have too much on our plate. It could be a perspective that we are holding that isn’t serving us. As I said before, I certainly don’t pretend to know all of the infinite causes for stress.

But I do know that in my own reinvention, I learned to pay attention when I felt stressed, because, in the end, it saved me a lot of time and potential heartache. And I learned, over time and with practice, to answer the emails from my inner guidance.

I’m hoping that thinking about stress in this way may help you discover new things along the way of your reinvention.

START HERE:

Action: Answer the email from your inner guidance.

Insight: What is different when I think about it in this way?

Filed under: Your Compass, Survival Tactics on May 4th, 2007