© Roz Van Meter, 2002, 2009

Stress isn’t what happens to you. Stress is how you respond or react to the loads you’re toting, and that is largely dependent on your thoughts and self-talk. A huge suspension bridge stands for decades, while millions of cars,
pickups, boat trailers, RVs, even tanks rumble across its strong back. Then an earthquake hits, stress cracks appear in the superstructure of the bridge, and it twists wildly and even collapses in places.

The vehicles weren’t the stress. They were just stressors which the bridge finally couldn’t handle, along with the earthquake that was the last straw that broke the camel’s back.

You tote a lot of stressors, too. How can you keep your superstructure sound, so that even unexpected forces don’t bring you down?

The first and most obvious answer is, lighten your load. I want to give you my favorite perception-altering stress-busting tip.

THE BIG DEAL SCALE

Think of a scale from 1 to 10. And a 10 is Nuclear Holocaust.  What, then, is a 1? Nothing, because you wouldn’t ask yourself  “How big a deal is this, anyway?” if it were a 1. It wouldn’t move the needle.

There are a few other 10′s, of course, such as the death of a loved one. But most things we let stress us out are really 3s that’s we turn into heavyweight 8s by our perception.  If the driver ahead of me dawdles and causes me to miss the green light.  So What? So I’ll be a minute and a half later arriving at my destination than I’d calculated. So What? But maybe I’ll miss my flight and have to take a later one. So What?

I have watched CEOs, highly successful entrepreneurs, women business owners, working mothers, professionals of all kinds reduce their stress by a good 40% by just employing the Big Deal Scale.

Stressbusting Part Two: Slow The Ball Down

I’d hoped by now to have learned who said it, but I haven’t. Maybe you know and can tell me.  Anyway, some 1904s-era batting whiz was asked by a reporter, “How is it that you have such a high batting average?”

And the baseball player answered, “I slow the ball down.”

“No, really, your fans would love to know. How do you do it?”

“I slow the ball down.”  And his teammate catcher said, “It’s true. I’ve seen it.  He slows the ball down.”  I’ve thought a lot about it since I first heard the story, how one man’s intense focus can so get him in The Zone that his teammate catches and shares the hallucination.

I can picture it. The pitcher nods, winds himself up, and rockets the ball toward the batter, who slows the ball down by creating a tunnel of perception that contains only the ball and himself. He has a sense of all the time in the world to swing into the exact space where the ball will be, and then crack! send it right out of the park.

Try it. By breathing slowly and deeply, releasing muscle tension and anxiety about outcome, you can move almost in slow motion, gracefully connecting with whatever you have in front of you. You can release your Hurry-Up, that demon of our runaway times, and move or think with ease and graceful elegance. You will respond thoughtfully, rather than react. You will be at choice about where you meet the ball and what direction you want it to go.

As a practice exercise, try talking more s-l-o-w-l-y than you usually do. Notice how happy your mind is to be included, instead of having your mouth blurt out something your thoughtful mind would not have said, or would have said better.

Remember your Pause Button, and use it to  Slow. The. Ball. Down.

And maybe a perfect exercise would be to start with your lovemaking. When you pay that kind of attention to your lover’s body and your own sensations, performance anxiety hasn’t got a chance.

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