So, how is it going with the Time & Stress challenge? Have you applied the three types of stressors to your stresses to see how you can create an action plan?
I'm curious: how has your level of fear been since our fear circle? Has the VOJ come roaring back? Or have you found a lightening of the fear? Or did you have some other experience?
Please share with the group what you have found with the live-with, "Just Do It"!
After evaluating my stress list most of them fall under first category. I realize, handful of these stress were merely byproduct of procrastination and my habit of biting off more stuff than I can chew. I still need to make final action plan to allocate sufficient time to resolve some of these issues but knowing that their resolution requires just few hours of commitment, gave me immediate alleviation.
United States is in the mids of an economic recession and its impact is being seen in the entire world, be it emerging countries or developed nations. Every industry is impacted by the global slowdown. Over a million jobs have been lost in 2008 alone and as such job security is the most common stress observed among people these days. Even retired people are distressed that a good portion of their money has been wiped away from their IRA. With no insight to the end of this global economic crisis, my only hope is the darkest hour is just before the dawn…
The "don't think about it" idea for dealing with stress has been key. I am in the final interviewing phase and one of 2 final candidates for the opportunity I talked about in class. I have been through 3 interviews and my voj has been creeping in quite a bit beating me up for ways that I did or didn't answer questions! It's reassuring to be able to recognize and quiet the voj, and channel my energy elsewhere.
2 other concepts have been very helpful for me. I like the story of the zen master and cup of tea. I can not only learn from this myself, but help others understand too. I also enjoy being able to quiet my regrets and worries by realizing they are past and future, and just focus on the present.
For someone living in the past and worrying about the future, this live-with has been difficult but necessary for me. I have been practicing the "emptying the mind" concept, which actually is working. It is very relaxing, I will try to do that often.
I have had a "to do list" for some time now that I have been procrastinating and finally I just took a deep breath and crossed off many small and big, nagging tasks. I felt so much better afterwards; A sense of accomplishment, feeling light, at ease, less anxious and almost joyful. Kind of strange to get so strong positive emotions, just for getting things done.
I have also been thinking of a few of my haunting fears and worries and I have tried to look at them from a wider perspective, which has helped me to categorize them and the thoughts I have about them and that is making me more sensible and in charge of them -- they seem smaller.
This live-with was a powerful experience. If you complete a task with your inner source you will find fulfillment. That is how I felt. If I can check things on my to-do list I feel not only better but I feel like living THE HERE AND NOW. Nothing is waiting.... Some great people have used a very inspiring sentence after they have completed their mission, project, task etc.: "I did what I needed to do". I guess this says it all.
This week I had an interesting experience I would like to share with you. Usually during weekends we (myself and my wife) talk to out families back in India. And one of them asked us what our plans are for this weekend and I told him that we have no plans and just want to relax. Hearing this my wife told me that we have a lot of things to do today given that we had been travelling for the past 10 days. I was reminded of this lesson at that time and told her not to get stressed by thinking about how much needs to be done. We will take it as it comes. And on that day, we just did one by one and even though we were tired at the end of it all but we felt we got some things done..without getting stressed about it.
I think this tool is closely related to one live-with we had earlier about just doing one task at a time. I think multi-tasking is a result of worrying about some tasks that you have to do in future.
please let me know any comments/thoughts you have on this.
It is encouraging to see so many people posting their live-with experiences. For me, the stress mainly come from chores and project deadlines. My procrastination with chores often led to more chores being piled up and then more stress. When I finally just went ahead and did it, it will be tiring but I will feel good about it.
For project deadlines, I tend to be thorough on the design phase and leaving implementation phase a bit time-tight. I wonder if this corresponds to the "clarity" type, or if I spent too much time "clarifying" the design. When I went on to the implementation phase, I usually find my efficiency becomes higher, able to accomplish a lot more in the same amount of time. I am at the end of design phase in my current project (after weeks of clarification, or is it procrastination :), so I will go ahead and see how much I can accomplish today.
My fear mainly comes from personal life, e.g., making the right choice, doing the right thing, etc. It results in me often thinking about what I did wrong in the past, and become anxious that I may make mistakes in the future. From this class, I have realized that if there is uncertainty, I should seek out clarity, e.g., talking to the person in question, rather than just thinking over the past and future repeatedly. I finally did a bit of that the past weekend, but I still need to do a lot more.
I have thought about the fear circle many times this week. It was a profound experience for me. I invest a lot of energy in acting as if I have it all together. I guess I thought that by not saying my fears out loud I didn't give them power over me. Well, that theory was blown away last Monday.
I realize now that many of the things cluttering my emotional world are the things that I don't say out loud. Instead they become a tickertape that runs on an endless loop in my brain. So, this week I tried to diffuse the power of my worries by saying them out loud. Having my amazing fear circle there to witness would have been ideal, but I think even without an audience it helped a great deal.
Setting aside my worry time has been one of the most liberating experiences in a while. So worries coming at the wrong hour need to come back later. During the worry time I tried to deal with my worries and found out that only 50%of them were real worries. The rest were just disturbing bulk thoughts.
I would like to share a very interesting experience with you that I mentioned in class yesterday. Where I work we are going through a reorg and due to the reorg I have a new boss. I met with him and I was very stressed about what this meeting was going to be like and fearful about whether I would meet his expectations.
I got past my fears and I decided to just go forward and get it over. In the meeting after the first 10 minutes he said trust was important, and that if I crossed him I was done!!
This immediately brought the VOJ racing back and all the stress with it. At this point I shut down and just sat in the meeting nodding my head in agreement and offered none of the ideas I had for our new team.
After last nights class I decided to give it another try. I would seek more clarity from him about my role in the organization and what he expects from me going forward.
If there is anything positive that I learned from him is that this is the one example on how to fail as a leader and how not to act. This doesn't foster any open dialogue or foster inovation.
Interesting to hear your story. I missed some of it because I was a few minutes late for that class, so it is good to hear the complete story.
I think the phrase "trust is important" in itself is fine, and usually to be expected. What is wrong is his interpretation and attitude. Also, in my opinion, it is ok to have strict rules, but such rules has to be applied universally for fairness. Would your boss accept that if he crossed you then he would be done? If so, at least he is a brave leader if not a compassionate one. Hope this generates some laughter and relieves some stress.
It seems that it may not be productive to confront your boss head-on given his attitude. Maybe you could show some friendly gesture, extend an olive branch, throw him a bone :), see how he reacts when dealing with daily tasks and real problems. If he simply doesn't show any appreciation of other people, then he probably doesn't deserve anything more than an abiding but emotionless response from his direct reports. I hope his Essence is not hidden too deep by his ego :).
It is interesting to read how people understand and uses this week topic. Personally is one of the things that come to my mind the ability to focus and prioritize problem. I went through the test “spectrum of stress” and I found it quite useful. It was interesting to see how I prioritized the importance of my “stress.” The method might be a little contradictory. I know that one of my strength is to stay focus, on the most crucial in stressful situations, however the Ray say; “do the thing that is in your mind.” I don’t think that he encounter people’s ability to focus in stressful situation. Is it me who got it wrong? Now and then I think Ray is giving me a hard time taking his book serious. Sometimes the book become very “stay positive, - live healthy,- improve your life” –like. He also talks about tarot cards, and how they can be used. I think that the general ideas of the chapter is interesting, but sometimes it just get “to far out” and I lose interest. What do you think?
13 comments:
So, how is it going with the Time & Stress challenge? Have you applied the three types of stressors to your stresses to see how you can create an action plan?
I'm curious: how has your level of fear been since our fear circle? Has the VOJ come roaring back? Or have you found a lightening of the fear? Or did you have some other experience?
Please share with the group what you have found with the live-with, "Just Do It"!
After evaluating my stress list most of them fall under first category. I realize, handful of these stress were merely byproduct of procrastination and my habit of biting off more stuff than I can chew. I still need to make final action plan to allocate sufficient time to resolve some of these issues but knowing that their resolution requires just few hours of commitment, gave me immediate alleviation.
United States is in the mids of an economic recession and its impact is being seen in the entire world, be it emerging countries or developed nations. Every industry is impacted by the global slowdown. Over a million jobs have been lost in 2008 alone and as such job security is the most common stress observed among people these days. Even retired people are distressed that a good portion of their money has been wiped away from their IRA. With no insight to the end of this global economic crisis, my only hope is the darkest hour is just before the dawn…
The "don't think about it" idea for dealing with stress has been key. I am in the final interviewing phase and one of 2 final candidates for the opportunity I talked about in class. I have been through 3 interviews and my voj has been creeping in quite a bit beating me up for ways that I did or didn't answer questions! It's reassuring to be able to recognize and quiet the voj, and channel my energy elsewhere.
2 other concepts have been very helpful for me. I like the story of the zen master and cup of tea. I can not only learn from this myself, but help others understand too. I also enjoy being able to quiet my regrets and worries by realizing they are past and future, and just focus on the present.
For someone living in the past and worrying about the future, this live-with has been difficult but necessary for me.
I have been practicing the "emptying the mind" concept, which actually is working. It is very relaxing, I will try to do that often.
I have had a "to do list" for some time now that I have been procrastinating and finally I just took a deep breath and crossed off many small and big, nagging tasks. I felt so much better afterwards; A sense of accomplishment, feeling light, at ease, less anxious and almost joyful. Kind of strange to get so strong positive emotions, just for getting things done.
I have also been thinking of a few of my haunting fears and worries and I have tried to look at them from a wider perspective, which has helped me to categorize them and the thoughts I have about them and that is making me more sensible and in charge of them -- they seem smaller.
This live-with was a powerful experience. If you complete a task with your inner source you will find fulfillment. That is how I felt. If I can check things on my to-do list I feel not only better but I feel like living THE HERE AND NOW. Nothing is waiting.... Some great people have used a very inspiring sentence after they have completed their mission, project, task etc.: "I did what I needed to do". I guess this says it all.
This week I had an interesting experience I would like to share with you. Usually during weekends we (myself and my wife) talk to out families back in India. And one of them asked us what our plans are for this weekend and I told him that we have no plans and just want to relax. Hearing this my wife told me that we have a lot of things to do today given that we had been travelling for the past 10 days. I was reminded of this lesson at that time and told her not to get stressed by thinking about how much needs to be done. We will take it as it comes. And on that day, we just did one by one and even though we were tired at the end of it all but we felt we got some things done..without getting stressed about it.
I think this tool is closely related to one live-with we had earlier about just doing one task at a time. I think multi-tasking is a result of worrying about some tasks that you have to do in future.
please let me know any comments/thoughts you have on this.
It is encouraging to see so many people posting their live-with experiences. For me, the stress mainly come from chores and project deadlines. My procrastination with chores often led to more chores being piled up and then more stress. When I finally just went ahead and did it, it will be tiring but I will feel good about it.
For project deadlines, I tend to be thorough on the design phase and leaving implementation phase a bit time-tight. I wonder if this corresponds to the "clarity" type, or if I spent too much time "clarifying" the design. When I went on to the implementation phase, I usually find my efficiency becomes higher, able to accomplish a lot more in the same amount of time. I am at the end of design phase in my current project (after weeks of clarification, or is it procrastination :), so I will go ahead and see how much I can accomplish today.
My fear mainly comes from personal life, e.g., making the right choice, doing the right thing, etc. It results in me often thinking about what I did wrong in the past, and become anxious that I may make mistakes in the future. From this class, I have realized that if there is uncertainty, I should seek out clarity, e.g., talking to the person in question, rather than just thinking over the past and future repeatedly. I finally did a bit of that the past weekend, but I still need to do a lot more.
-Wenyu
I have thought about the fear circle many times this week. It was a profound experience for me. I invest a lot of energy in acting as if I have it all together. I guess I thought that by not saying my fears out loud I didn't give them power over me. Well, that theory was blown away last Monday.
I realize now that many of the things cluttering my emotional world are the things that I don't say out loud. Instead they become a tickertape that runs on an endless loop in my brain. So, this week I tried to diffuse the power of my worries by saying them out loud. Having my amazing fear circle there to witness would have been ideal, but I think even without an audience it helped a great deal.
Setting aside my worry time has been one of the most liberating experiences in a while. So worries coming at the wrong hour need to come back later. During the worry time I tried to deal with my worries and found out that only 50%of them were real worries. The rest were just disturbing bulk thoughts.
I would like to share a very interesting experience with you that I mentioned in class yesterday. Where I work we are going through a reorg and due to the reorg I have a new boss. I met with him and I was very stressed about what this meeting was going to be like and fearful about whether I would meet his expectations.
I got past my fears and I decided to just go forward and get it over. In the meeting after the first 10 minutes he said trust was important, and that if I crossed him I was done!!
This immediately brought the VOJ racing back and all the stress with it. At this point I shut down and just sat in the meeting nodding my head in agreement and offered none of the ideas I had for our new team.
After last nights class I decided to give it another try. I would seek more clarity from him about my role in the organization and what he expects from me going forward.
If there is anything positive that I learned from him is that this is the one example on how to fail as a leader and how not to act. This doesn't foster any open dialogue or foster inovation.
Maria,
Interesting to hear your story. I missed some of it because I was a few minutes late for that class, so it is good to hear the complete story.
I think the phrase "trust is important" in itself is fine, and usually to be expected. What is wrong is his interpretation and attitude. Also, in my opinion, it is ok to have strict rules, but such rules has to be applied universally for fairness. Would your boss accept that if he crossed you then he would be done? If so, at least he is a brave leader if not a compassionate one. Hope this generates some laughter and relieves some stress.
It seems that it may not be productive to confront your boss head-on given his attitude. Maybe you could show some friendly gesture, extend an olive branch, throw him a bone :), see how he reacts when dealing with daily tasks and real problems. If he simply doesn't show any appreciation of other people, then he probably doesn't deserve anything more than an abiding but emotionless response from his direct reports. I hope his Essence is not hidden too deep by his ego :).
Good luck in facing the unknown!
-Wenyu
It is interesting to read how people understand and uses this week topic. Personally is one of the things that come to my mind the ability to focus and prioritize problem. I went through the test “spectrum of stress” and I found it quite useful. It was interesting to see how I prioritized the importance of my “stress.”
The method might be a little contradictory. I know that one of my strength is to stay focus, on the most crucial in stressful situations, however the Ray say; “do the thing that is in your mind.” I don’t think that he encounter people’s ability to focus in stressful situation. Is it me who got it wrong?
Now and then I think Ray is giving me a hard time taking his book serious. Sometimes the book become very “stay positive, - live healthy,- improve your life” –like. He also talks about tarot cards, and how they can be used. I think that the general ideas of the chapter is interesting, but sometimes it just get “to far out” and I lose interest. What do you think?
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