How do you handle stress?

November 9th, 2009 by admin

“Give your stress wings and let it fly away.” ~ Carin Hartness

When I told a friend the story below he said to me that I should make a blog post about it. He told me that many people go through what I went through and could use information on how to deal with it. Here is that story.

I travel and perform. I do a first person narration on the life of Jim Beckwourth, a black mountain man in the 1800s. I was scheduled to perform in a story telling festival in a city which was about 150 miles from my home. I have been to that city before, although it had been some time in the past.

I thought I could remember how to get there so did not look it up on the map. It was a fairly easy route to drive. Well, somehow I turned off the direct road and ended going around the city and coming in from the opposite side. The way I ended up going did not have signs with directions to this city as the other more direct route did.

Without the signs I was not sure I was going the right way so I stopped several times to get directions. I was going through some really small towns and the directions were a little strange at times. Like the farmer who told me to go up the road about 12 miles and there was a road off to the right that would take me in the right direction. He told me that if I came to an abandoned bar I had gone to far. Well, I passed the bar and turned around.

I finally got to where I was going. I had allowed myself several hours before I was to perform so I would have time to check into the place they have arranged for me to spend the night and have something to eat. I was booked into a bed and breakfast and when I got there there was no one to check me in. I waited for sometime then decided that I would go check in with the people who were sponsoring my performance.

When I got to there office, after driving around town several times looking for it, a lady was coming out the door and locking up. She told me to go to the performance space and someone would be there. When I got there I walked all around the building looking for a way in. There was no one there.

My stress level had been raising since I made the wrong turn and was was continuing to climb. I had wasted so much time that I didn’t have time to eat. I took a deep breath and decided to go back to the bed and breakfast and see if I could check in. When I got back there someone was there.

I checked in and when to my room. By this time it was almost an hour before I was scheduled to perform. I had to calm down so I did a set of Qigong some breathing and sat quietly for a while. It calmed me down.

Then I went back to the performance space and there was someone there. My performance was a success and the audience enjoyed it.

I could have allowed the stress to completely ruin the evening and my performance. By using the stress relieving techniques I did helped me center myself and release the stress.

Many of us experience stress causing situations daily. You can control them with the proper techniques. It is with this in mind that this week we will talk about stress and some of the things we can do to control it.

TODAY’S TIP: Learn and practice stress control everyday, even on days when you don’t feel stressed. With practice it becomes habit.

Were you stressed today?