stress management technique #4: let it go

Let me first say that as a general rule, I don’t believe in letting anything go.  When I say this, I am not just speaking about tasks on your to-do list.  I mean everything.  The people who know me best will tell you I let nothing go.  I am a ruthless grudge holder; my mind is like a steel trap of records of all those things most people let go, but I won’t. 

I thought about writing “can’t” there instead of “won’t,” and perhaps the MaryBeth from 2011 might have.  The new stress-less MaryBeth from 2012 knows better.  “The only things that are impossible are those we believe to be, so never deem something as such,” my fifth grade teacher always used to say.  That is the approach I resolved myself to take, when it was suggested to me that I try this new stress management technique.  Just let it go.  It sounds simple, but for me it’s been incredibly difficult.

It becomes apparent some days that I am simply not going to be able to stay on schedule.  Things run late, they take longer than expected, and time flies.  Tasks that should have been completed end up rolling over to the next day.  No matter how hard or fast I work, I just can’t get everything done.  It happens, and I hate it when it does.  This kind of day stays with me for the whole week afterward.  I remain silently frustrated, wishing I could have been more productive, believing if I’d worked a little faster I could have gotten everything done.

Just let it go.  It sounds simple.  It’s immensely hard.  We spend so much time reflecting on the past, frustrated or angered by what has happened, that we are unable to live in the present.  We devote so much energy and time to harping on past events, energy that could be channeled more productively to the work we are doing here and now.  I’ll say it again – I’m a grudge-holder, but 2012 MaryBeth is beginning to learn the value of just letting things go.

All this being said, I am not one to forgive and forget so to speak.  With every thing deserving of being let go there is a lesson to be learned.  Did I fail to do everything on my to-do list today, because I spent too much time on a single project?  Or, was it because I was unfocused and unorganized?  How can I prepare better for the next busy day?  Asking these questions is important to improving as scheduler.  It is instrumental in optimizing your productiveness.  Asking too many of these questions, however, borders on obsessiveness.  Finding the balance, as always, is the key.

This technique is still new to me, as most of the techniques I post about here are.  I’m still working on constructively criticizing myself, while learning not to harp on these sorts of things.  I personally feel it is one of the best stress management techniques I have tried, and I hope that this week you will try it, as well.

Click here for your two minutes of procrastination.

sublimation

Defense mechanisms – we all use them.  Most of the time we don’t realize it.  I’m sure if you really think about it, you’ll see you use them quite often.  I know I do.  Whether it is intellectualization (I use this one all the time) or just plain denial, we are avoiding stress all the time through these little tricks.

As I posted last week, some defense mechanisms are bad.  Avoiding work so much that you end up not having enough time to finish a project only causes more stress than attacking the project head on would have.  And reaction formation, well, that stuff almost always has a negative outcome (unless, you like looking like a hypocrite).  Defense mechanisms, however, are an important part of our psyche.  They help us to deal with stress, and if we can understand which ones work best for us, we can learn to better deal with our stress.

That brings me to sublimation.  Sublimation, the defense mechanism Neo-Freudians argue is the “healthiest” of them all, is the channelling of the id’s desires into tasks or work that is socially accepted and considered productive.  The example my professors at John Jay love to give to explain this is the man who has violent desires to cut up human bodies.  He uses these desires to fuel his study of the body, becomes a surgeon, and end up saving lives.  He has learned to channel his id’s desires into  job that society deems not only acceptable, but prestigious.  Without sublimation, however, he might otherwise have become a murderer or serial killer.

Of course, most examples of sublimation aren’t as extreme as this one.  Take, for example, the nervous cleaner.  The anxiety a person is feeling is channeled into busy work (cleaning) that diminishes the nervousness that might otherwise have led to a panic attack.  The outcome of this nervous cleaning is also considered positive, because cleaning is socially desirable.  Or, think of the athlete who is fueled by the anger associated with naysayers.  Every time someone tells the athlete he or she is inadequate, he or she turns those feelings of frustration into positive energy that keeps him or her motivated.

Since I have been monitoring which defense mechanisms I use most, I have noticed that sublimation underlines most of the things that I do.  Sure, I am a nervous cleaner (and baker, too actually), but my use of sublimation runs much deeper than that.  I am deeply affected by the suffering of others.  Having been fortunate enough to be born into a middle class family, to have had the opportunity to attend college, and to live rather comfortably is often a major source of guilt for me.  Seeing others who have not been afforded such an easy live often makes me feel like I am somehow responsible for the inequality or that I is my fault that it continues to exist.  This is a real source of underlying stress for me, one that leaks over into most aspects of my day-to-day.  Sublimation, I have realized, is my go-to defense mechanism for dealing with this guilt.  I sign up for classes on human rights.  I work for organizations with missions for social good.  I pour myself into volunteer work.  I try by best to help others in any way that I can.  All of these actions are more socially acceptable outlets for my stress than wallowing in my owe self-pity or screaming out in rage at the systemic inequality created by out society’s institutions.

Sublimation – sure if you have to use it, it probably means you’re dealing with rather serious stress, but who isn’t?  Of all the ways to deal with your stress, it’s probably (psychologists say) the best and most productive way.  I find that it works better than denial or projection, so try it.  Channel that stress into positive tasks and projects.  Use it to motivate and drive you.  When your stress (and for me, guilt) isn’t going anywhere, you might as well use it for something good.

 

Here is just 5 seconds of procrastination, because classes start back up this week, and we should all be getting ready for that.

stress management: pt. two

While the psychological community may have ostracized him of late, Freud’s work on defense mechanisms remains generally accepted.  Why?  Because we all use them.  Repression, reaction formation, intellectualization – we all employ them once in a while to deal with stressful situations.  As I continue to evaluate what stresses me out and how to better deal with that stress, I can coming to realize that the defense mechanisms I use most are denial and sublimation. 

Defense mechanisms are not necessarily bad.  They, by definition, are ways we deal with stress. There are, however, certain mechanisms that are healthier than others - ones that we are better off employing if we want to live less stressful lives.  For example, Freud proposed (and Neo-Freudians typically agree) that sublimation is the healthiest defense mechanism we have identified.  Luckily for me, I employ this once daily.  More on that next week, when we examine ways to transform stress into a positive.

Tonight I want to look at denial.  It’s something we all do (if you think about it, denial is at the crux of procrastination, in fact).  When a stressful time is coming up on our calendar or when a big project comes along, we try for some period of time (and length of this period differs for everyone) to put the stressor out of our mind.  Sometimes this is necessary, because of more pressing issues.  It helps us stay focused and prevents unnecessary multi-tasking.  Other times it can lead to procrastination, which just means more stress down the road. 

Denial is funny in that way.  Like other defense mechanisms, its got its pros and cons.  Since identifying that I often employ denial (even just slightly) to deal with stress, I have been critical of how and when I use it.  Being able to recognize situations in which it is not a useful response is a skill that will help me avoid those situations when employing denial will only increase my stress.

Being able to monitor your use of defense mechanisms goes back to my post last week about knowing yourself.  Knowing when you are using a stress-coping exercise in a good way is important.  Knowing when you are using a mechanism in a bad way, however, more helpful in de-stressing your life.  This week take note of how you deal with stress.  Analyze what works and what doesn’t.  Identify situations in which you can use certain techniques and situations in which using those same techniques might be a bad idea. 

Click here for your two minutes of procrastination.

stress management pt. one

I have come to the conclusion that life is always going to be stressful.  In the past, I would always think to myself, “The craziness will die down in a few weeks,” or, “Once the semester is done, I’ll have time to breathe.”  I was wrong.  It’s just the nature of being busy that once one stressful task ends and your schedule opens up, another stressful task naturally takes its place.  I am never not busy.  I’m starting to accept that.

This realization makes stress management ever more important for me.  If am always going to have a packed schedule (and it’s just the case that I am), I better just stop resisting it and figure out how to deal with it in a healthy way. 

The winter intercession (a time that I promised myself way back in October would be stress-free) has proven to be even crazier than the fall semester.  Balancing forty-five hours of work a week (spread out over three jobs) along with my Watson Fellowship responsibilities is hard enough.  Add on top of that the research I am conducting for my honors thesis, which is in itself a full-time job, and you can begin to understand why my day planner cannot accommodate all the things I need to schedule.  My New Year’s resolution to stress less has truly been put to the test, and it is only the 10th of January.

This week, even though it has been one of my busiest yet, I worked on a new stress management technique.  I’ve posted before about knowing yourself (click here to read all about it) and how it can make scheduling easier.  This is a similar technique.  Know yourself.  Know what stresses you out most, and be proactive in preventing these situations from arising.

For instance, my biggest pet peeve is running late.  I hate being late or even thinking I am going to be.  I literally stress this more than anything else.  So to combat my stress, I am going to take precautionary measures.  I am going to try to schedule small fifteen-minute buffers between tasks (when I can) to allow for running overtime.  I am also going to schedule “spill-over” time, time during the week that I can use to tackle tasks I planned to finish but could not.  Both of these precautions will allow me to be late without really stressing it.  I can just tell myself, “You have time to finish this later.”

Knowing what stresses you out is important, if you are going to be able to eliminate that stress.  Learning how to minimizing the stress in my life is something I plan to work on this year.  However, sometimes stressful situations arise that cannot be avoided.  Next week we’ll tackle how to handle these situations!

Click here for your two minutes of procrastination.

it’s not about scheduling

When I signed on to my WordPress account tonight, I was initially shocked to see a sudden surge in the number of people who viewed my blog since January 1st.  Then, the thought occurred to me that I shouldn’t attribute those readers to my skills as a blogger.  They are more likely a function of New Years resolutions to get organized.

If you are expecting a post on how to get organized for 2012, I’m sorry but I will have to disappoint.  Perhaps, my post from January 1st, 2011 might help you (check it out by clicking here).  Or, you could click here to see all my posts on new scheduling techniques.  Nope, this post will not address how to keep a day planner (but check that out by clicking here) or how to organize a messy cork board (but here’s a post that will).  This one is going to go in a bit of a different direction.

Due in large part to some soul-searching and critical evaluation I have been doing of late, my posts (I know) have been less about scheduling techniques and more about stress management.  Sure these are not the same thing, but they are certainly related.  The more balls you have to juggle, the more anxiety you will have about dropping one.  Keeping with this new theme, my resolution this year is to better deal with my stress.  I want to maintain all my responsibilities (and my crazy schedule), while learning to enjoy life instead of constantly feeling anxious about it.

Aer go, this post is the first in my quest to stress less.  How do we manage all our responsibilities, while still finding time to do the things that make us happy.  And, how do we deal with the anxiety of making sure everything gets done on time?  These are the questions I am asking myself now, and I plan to share my journey through posts here. 

Think about it.  Wouldn’t it be a terrible thing to turn around twenty years from now with regrets, thinking we were too busy to enjoy what is supposed to be the greatest time of our lives?  A schedule is just our way of organizing the things we have to do so that we have time for the things we want to do.  Those things we want to do are the ones that really matter.  In the end, life isn’t about scheduling.  It should be about enjoying.

So, why not embark with me on a journey to happiness through better time management, stress management, and life management skills?  I’m sure we will visit new scheduling techniques along the way.  I promise we will visit ways to deal with anxiety.  And, I hope we will find a way to enjoy our busy lives.

 Click here for your two minutes of procrastination.