How to choose not to create your own Sabre Tooth Tiger!
Stress is a funny thing isn’t it? Years ago, I was told that our stress response goes way back to when we were cavemen and had to deal with sabre tooth tigers, it’s where our fight or flight response comes from, we either fight the saber tooth tiger or we run like hell and the rush of adrenaline helps us do that.
But we don’t have sabre tooth tigers any more, so perhaps then we shouldn’t get stressed like we do, but we do don’t we? Stress is apparently all around us so much so that it is one of the main causes of ill health in our modern society; and this time of year can be very stressful.
On Sunday I was coming home from Glasgow after three days of intensive training, I caught the 5.30pm train to get my connecting train to Edinburgh which left at 7pm. All was going swimmingly and I got my connection with ease, we were cruising past Berwick and between there and Newcastle the train stopped. I don’t know where we were because it was dark. We sat there for about half an hour before we were told there was electrical fault with the train and at Newcastle we’d have to get off and get another train.
As you can imagine this was an incredibly stressful situation, people were pacing, huffing and puffing, there was swearing, even threats to the conductor, what was happening? No-one knew and everybody was upset about it! It was like there was a sabre tooth tiger right there in that train but there was nowhere to run but sure enough everyone was fighting it!
I have to admit initially I got the rise of adrenaline too, the thought of my kids waiting for me (in fact eventually they gave up!) as the connecting train was even later and we arrived in York a little after 11pm.ÿ It was frustrating and stressful. But then I asked myself well was it? It was only frustrating and stressful because that is what I was telling myself, certainly I wasn’t expecting it, it didn’t accord with my plans, which was disappointing, but I was only feeling stressed and frustrated because that is how I chose to feel. In fact none of the shouting, the screaming, the swearing or even the threats (none of those were me by the way!) changed that situation one little bit. It only affected those that chose to tell themselves that is what it was and none of it made them feel better.
So I then chose to feel good, I chose to feel relaxed, because that’s how I wanted to feel, why would I want to feel stressed?ÿ I chose to tell myself a different story, the story that whilst I wasn’t expecting this to happen, actually there was nothing I could do about. Engaging in playing the blame game, demanding an explanation and an immediate resolution, changed absolutely nothing except making me feel emotionally yukky; and I didn’t want to feel like that.ÿÿ So I sat back, enjoyed the tea that I had been brought and enjoyed more of the really good book that I had really wanted to read more of.
Often clients express with astoundment, ‘but Andrea, it’s not that simple, that’s not real life!’ But it really is, our experience is what we decide we want it to be, my experience on Sunday was as real as the person next to me, the only difference is that I chose not to create a sabre tooth tiger that wasn’t there in the first place!
Andrea Morrison is author of The Feel Good Factor in 30 days and is a Personal Coach & Speaker (andreamorrison.co.uk) specialising in building a more confident, balanced & motivated YOU! see Andrea along with our other recommended suppliers
