excerpt from Stress Out, show stress who's the boss
Every year I receive several email messages, PowerPoint presentations, videos or poems all created and forwarded over and again. Some of these messages are cute, some incite feelings of love and compassion, and one that seems popular tells you to compare yourself to others. Such as: If you have (certain things in your life), that someone else doesn’t have …. you should be grateful (that you are not them, have more then them, are doing better off than them, etc).
“I had the blues because I had no shoes
until upon the street; I met a man who had no feet.”
~ Anonymous ~
Every time I hear this quote, it sounds to me like an expressing judgment of “I am better than” against the person with no feet. I get the same feeling when I get those emails that tell me I am more blessed than people with illnesses, imprisonment, lack of food, in countries where they are persecuted, and so on. In a society that judges others for having less than, and that success is measured by how much stuff you have, this feels to me like: I am better than you because I have feet (health, food, etc), so I am grateful that I am better than you and I am not you. Yikes!
Dr. Robert A. Emmons, A UC Davis psychologist, conducted a 10 week research in the psychology of gratitude. In one of his studies the participants were asked to list what they were grateful for compared to what they weren’t happy about in their lives. In another study they were asked to list what they were grateful for where thought they were better off than others.
The results showed that those who expressed gratitude without comparing themselves as “better than or better off than someone else” were significantly happier than those making comparisons between themselves and others. It’s difficult to be stressed when you’re grateful and feeling happy.
From another study on self esteem: a dangerous silent damage to your feelings of self worth is created and intensified when you compare yourself to being better off or more successful, or more of anything than someone else. By practicing the habit of comparison when you are feeling happy with yourself or your life, you are establishing the foundation for feelings of lack of self worth when you don’t measure up to any comparison in the future. The inherent problem with this habit is that then takes considerably more effort to repair your feeling of lack which can contribute to stress levels and difficulty in regaining levels of success in chosen areas of your life.
A person who can see their unique qualities, success and strengths without the need to compare themselves to anyone other than themselves are found to be emotionally stronger, and less prone to react in stress, when facing difficult decisions and occurrences.
And since we can only hold one emotion at a time, when we are happy we are not stressed.
YOU are awesome, unique and amazing
“What you are accomplishing
may seem like a drop in the ocean.
But if this drop were not in the ocean,
it would be missed.”
~ Mother Theresa ~
According to a UCLA psychological research study, self-affirmations can be a very good combat against stress. In another scientific study they also found that when their test participants wrote self affirming values, their self-perceptions were positively increased; their ability to succeed at learning increased and many other long term benefits.
So take time today to affirm: YOU are awesome, unique and amazing
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And although having a support group of loving people around you is the number one stress protector, it can also increase your stress. If you use your support group to rehash and repeat the problem, you have no release and instead increase the feelings of helplessness, frustration, anger and stress.