PRETEND WITH ME for a moment, OK? Imagine that everyone who lives with you has gone out of town for the weekend. It’s Saturday night, and you have just spent the whole evening watching movies and eating popcorn. You go to bed exhausted and plan to sleep uninterrupted until at least 9:00 a.m. You fall asleep like a little baby and are catching some major REM sleep until…you wake up to the sound of a lamp crashing to the floor in the living room. What goes through your mind as you spring straight up and sit wide-awake in bed?
What would you tell yourself in this situation?
When I propose this story to my counseling clients, most say the first thing that would run through their minds is something along these lines: “Oh, my gosh. There is someone in this house!” When I ask how they would feel in this situation, most clients say they would be scared or, to use a sophisticated, clinical term, freaked-out. When I ask what they would do, most mention something about finding a weapon to protect themselves or calling 911. (Occasionally, I get the brave client who assures me that he would run like a wild man into the living room determined to “pull a Rambo” on any would-be intruder.)
This illustration summarizes the typical response my clients give to this situation.
Now we are going to take this same scenario and change your perspective a little bit. You are still home alone at 3:00 a.m., and you still wake up to the sound of a lamp crashing off an end table in the living room. But let’s say you have a new puppy, Sir Winston, in the house. Sir Winston is a wild dog, and he’s been jumping up on that end table in the living room for days now. In fact, you’ve had to stop that lamp from falling off the table a hundred times. Now what goes through your mind?
What would you tell yourself in this situation now that Sir Winston is in the picture?
When I confront my clients with the Sir Winston contingency, many say their thoughts would be dramatically different. Now they say they might tell themselves something like this: “That crazy dog. I should introduce him to the neighbor’s doghouse.” When asked what they would be feeling when this thought goes through their minds, they usually say they would be annoyed or irritated. When asked what they would do in this situation, most say they would roll over and go back to bed. The following illustration summarizes my clients’ typical response in both scenarios.
It’s interesting, isn’t it? The situation didn’t change: in both instances you wake up to the sound of a lamp crashing off the table. But the way you think about the situation drastically affects the way you feel and what you do. When you think somebody is in the house, you feel scared, and that feeling drives your behavior. You call 911 or perhaps run into the living room in a Rambo-like fit of rage. But when you think the crazy dog knocked the lamp off the table, you feel annoyed, and that feeling drives your behavior. You roll over and go back to sleep.
You may find this little illustration amusing, but it demonstrates a powerful concept that is essential to your ability to manage stress: thoughts lead to feelings, and feelings lead to behavior. No matter what situation, environment, or relationship you encounter in life, the way you think about it will drive your feelings, and your feelings will drive your behavior.
If you think back to the reading from Day One, you’ll understand why this concept is so key for living a less-stressed life. Remember, stress is the body’s response to situations that we perceive and interpret as dangerous, overwhelming, or “impossible.” The key words here are perceive and interpret. Just like in the scenario of the lamp crashing to the floor in the middle of the night, the thoughts you have about a situation will determine whether or not it is perceived as stressful. Stress is really all about the perspective you take on a situation; it is created by what you tell yourself the situation means.
Let me give you another example of how your thoughts help create and sustain your stress. Your boss walks into your office and says, “You’re fired!” Is this situation stressful? Well, it depends on how you think about what just happened. Suppose you think something like this: “Oh, my. What am I going to do? I love this job, and I need the money so badly.”
That thought will lead to some pretty stressed and anxious feelings. And those emotions probably will lead to some directed behavior, perhaps going to the Internet to look for new positions, running to your boss’s office to grovel at his feet, or immediately filling your briefcase with as many office supplies as possible.
I know what some of you might be thinking, “This situation is inherently stressful. Regardless of how you think about it, getting fired is stressful.” I would agree with that belief for the most part, but not entirely. Let’s change the thoughts associated with this situation. Your boss still walks in and says you are fired. But let’s say this time you sit down at your desk and say to yourself, “God must have something else in store for me. I know He’ll see me and my family through this. Thankfully, I can draw unemployment while He leads me to another job that I enjoy.” You’re feeling significantly less stressed with these thoughts, aren’t you? You might even feel a sense of anticipation. Your behavior might be drastically different as well. Rather than running to your boss’s office to beg for your job back, you might start thinking of some of the things you’d always wanted to do but lacked time for because of your demanding job.
The most important thing to take from this example is to understand that your thoughts lead to your feelings, and your feelings lead to your behavior. Still not convinced? Let’s consider another example. Your eight-year-old daughter asks to go to McDonald’s for lunch. You kindly explain that she has eaten at McDonald’s five times in the last forty-eight hours, and she needs to eat a healthier lunch. At that point her eight-year-old brain takes over, and she starts a long tirade that ends with, “I hate you!” What are you thinking?
Well, you have at least two options. You may think, “I can’t believe she said that. I’m such a horrible parent. I can never make her happy.” If you engage in that line of thinking, you’re liable to feel inadequate, guilty, and stressed. Who knows what behavior these feelings will provoke? Maybe you will end up taking her to McDonald’s, or perhaps you will hit the steering wheel.
Your other option in this situation is to take a different perspective. You could think, “You know, kids will be kids. She’s just going to have to learn how to handle this kind of frustration.” These thoughts are likely to cause less stressful feelings and may even produce determination and assurance instead. And your behavior? You’ll probably just keep driving and go eat at a place you feel is appropriate.
Are you starting to see the correlation among thoughts, feelings, and behavior a bit more clearly? Again, in this situation, your feeling of stress is not a result of the situation. It is a result of the way you interpret or think about the situation you are in.
One more example just to convince any naysayers out there: let’s say your pastor spontaneously asks you to pray during one of the Sunday morning church services. You could think, “I can’t believe he would do this. I haven’t prepared for this at all. I’m going to sound like an idiot up there.” If you respond this way, your feelings are likely to be at the high end of the stress spectrum. To use a very clinical term to describe this experience, you’d freak out.
Your behavior might be to slip out the back door during the morning announcements. Or you might decide to go ahead and pray, but to do so in a hesitant manner, complete with a cracked voice and timid posture. Another alternative would be to think differently about the situation, something along the lines of, “What an honor to be asked to pray during the service today. I am thrilled to be able to lead the congregation in worship. I’m not prepared, but I’ll just speak from my heart.” This train of thought will most definitely lead to less-stressed emotions—perhaps a settled feeling or maybe even confidence. Your behavior would likely be to step up to the stage confidently and to pray loudly and boldly.
I hope you are getting it now. Thoughts lead to feelings, and feelings lead to behavior. In fact, your thoughts support and sustain your feelings just as scaffolding supports and sustains a building under construction. If you remove the scaffolding, the building will collapse. If you remove the thoughts that support your feelings, your feelings will collapse. So our stress is in us, not “out there.” Our stress is not caused by our situation; it is caused by the way we think about the situations we find ourselves in. In any given circumstance, relationship, or environment we perceive as stressful, our thoughts drive and maintain our stress.
I hope you don’t hear me saying that stress management is simple. It’s not, and there are certain situations that clearly lend themselves to stress-inducing thoughts. That’s why I had you complete the stress assessment. However, many chronically stressed people tend to have stress-inducing thoughts about a variety of situations, relationships, and environments. In short, when stress becomes a lifestyle, you can bet that they have laid down a pattern of engaging stress-inducing thoughts in multiple areas of their lives. This program is going to help you break that unhealthy pattern and learn how to live a less-stressed life.
The point of today’s session is to highlight the relationship among your thoughts, feelings, and behavior. Tomorrow you will spend most of the time learning how to change your thoughts in the moment in order to live a less-stressed life. For now, I want you to concentrate on understanding your own stress-inducing thoughts, feelings, and behavior by listing your top five stress triggers.
ASSIGNMENT
• Complete the Top Five Stress Triggers log.
• Practice passive or active relaxation for ten to twenty minutes.
TOP FIVE STRESS TRIGGERS
This log will help you tease out the kinds of situations you typically perceive as stressful and will highlight the degree to which your thoughts actually support and sustain your stress. Start your log by listing the top five stress-inducing situations you encounter on a consistent basis, with one being the most stressful and five the least stressful. Then try to piece together your thoughts, feelings, and behavior in these situations. If you are unsure about your thoughts, feelings, or behavior in a given situation, do your best to fill in that information the next time you encounter that particular circumstance, environment, or relationship.
