God grant me the courage to change the things that can be changed,
the serenity to accept the things that can’t
and the wisdom to know the difference!
This quote by Reinhold Niebuhr, the 20th century American Theologian is familiar to most of us and is perhaps thought of as a bit of a cliché now. But there is a reason things stick around long enough to become clichés; it is because they have profound truth.
We certainly shouldn't ignore stress as it's responsible for, or involved in, all our dis-ease. Be it that stress-related illness or a deep weariness of the life you are living.
Take a moment to consider what is stressing you right now:
· can you change it?
· can you accept it?
· can you change your attitude towards it?
Ever practical I would also suggest while you are thinking about this you do what I affectionately call 'THE TEDDY BOY SWEEP' (TBS) and if you are over a certain age and remember Teddy Boys you will smile and know exactly why I choose this name. If you don't know what on earth I'm on about,indulge and bear with me. I remember when I presented this in the USA many years ago, I was met with a sea of blank faces .... if you are American, think James Dean and the D.A. instead!
The TBS is profoundly comforting and can help you access your ‘inner sage’, your problem solver, your Wise One Within. It can bring you back to you, provide a clearer perspective, help you get better not bitter.
And it's something we do naturally, instinctively and without thinking. I was going to do a video demonstrating the instructions below BUT Donna Eden does it so well (she calls it the Triple Warmer Smoothie!
The Teddy Boy Sweep
Start by rubbing your hands together vigourously and shaking them off.
Close your eyes and breathing deeply for 10 seconds or so – don’t try and ‘clear your mind’ of the stressor – let the thoughts bubble around in your mind, give them full rein. What you resist will always persist (there we are, another cliché, I wonder how many I can get in this blog?).
Place the fingertips gently over the closed eyelids and move out to the temples. Think of how some people will rest their elbows on the table, cradle their chins in the heels of their hands, palms up the side of their faces and fingertips resting on this area which are on, or at least near to, key calming acupressure points. It's done instinctively.
Take a moment to feel some sort of connection with this area.
Take a deep breath in and as you breathe out trace the hands up the front of the ear, over the top and down behind the ear.
Down the neck to the area where a necklace would naturally fall, pull off firmly along that necklace line.
TIP - Pause on this line; it contains some great acu-points, maybe massage in firmly if it feels good. even extending out and squeezing the top of the trapezius muscle (associated with Kidney/fear).
Apply pressure and pull your hands off the body, exhaling as you do this and imagining anything negative floating out of you on that breath.
Shake your hands off and place them over the heart area for a few seconds, breathing and smiling.
Repeat as many times as necessary until you feel calmer.
Remember to smile, the most basic of all energy exercises that will enhance any technique.
If you like essential oils or essences you could consider rubbing a little lavender oil on your fingertips before doing the TBS or I find the Australian Bush Flower Essence, BLACK EYED SUSAN very useful for dealing with stress, again, just rub a couple of drops on fingertips.
As a species, many of us, irrelevant of culture, automatically do the beginning part of the Teddy Boy Sweep when we feel overwhelmed or stressed in any way.
This technique simply traces part of the Triple Warmer meridian [the one that is most reactive to stress] backwards. Which has the effect of sedating the overwhelmed pathway of energy – taking it out of ‘red alert’, reassuring it that there is no sabre-toothed tiger lurking behind the roses to tear out our entrails, threatening our very survival!
This in turn will:
Instantly reduce and take the edge of the stress reaction. Remember, it’s very often your reaction rather than the stressor itself that is damaging.
Reduce the harmful effect of a Triple Warmer in overwhelm on the Spleen meridian, thus affecting immunity and the ability to metabolise the stress.
You will feel calmer and more able to cope and find your way to a solution or acceptance – it will literally give you the wisdom to know which.
Greatly increase the effectiveness of affirmations. The calmer you are the more easily ‘mini-me’ is reprogrammed. A great all-round affirmation when doing the TBS is: “All is well, I’m safe and protected and all is well”.
It can help reduce fear, or even anger, that may be holding you back.
It helps support the creation of healthy new habits and perspectives rather than the repetition of bad, destructive ones.