Are You Stressed? S.T.O.P

I was writing a book a year or so ago called the "Dream Coach". As a life coach and I wanted to give people a guide to living a healthy and positive life. That book is now my blog at www.crazy8freedom.com. In the book, I was writing about stress and how stress destroys our ability to make a rational, fact based decision versus a fast, reactionary, emotionally driven decision in a stressful situation. To many times in a stressful moment we make our decisions based on emotion and not on fact or reason. Why? Our brain instantly triggers our fight or flees response. The brain and body are all revved up ready to move fast. This is our DNA; our heart rate increase, our eyes widen, our muscles tense up, our body is flooded with cortisol and adrenaline. This bodily change has been with humans from the beginning of our history.  We needed this ability to move fast in our early history to avoid becoming lunch to a large predator. Today our body responds in the same way except today's predator is traffic, personal conflicts with people and Life in general.  
The truth is for me and perhaps even you we want to believe that we have control of our life. The sad fact is we do not have full control of our external stress filled world.  If we actually had the control we think we do than nothing bad would ever happen to us.  We could simply control everything to our benefit. Unfortunately, this is not how life works. We can only react to an impending event or, to a situation that has already come our way that is stressful. However, here is some good news for you.

When you find yourself losing control of your "believed" personal power in a situation that is stressing, and freaking you out... Remember to 
S.T.O.P. Every time you see a STOP sign remind yourself to do this. Here is what STOP is, I hope it helps you. 

S= Silence, take a moment to breath and calm down.

T= Time, take the time you need and think (control your emotions)

O= Opportunities/ Options, after you have reflected and taken some time, you will discover your best opportunities/ options to handle the stressful situation.

P= Power. After the S.T.O the POWER and control is back in your hands. Now you can make that rational choice and this is power/control.

So my friends remember when you’re stressed out just S.T.O.P. 

Live BOLD Dreams!

Christopher Mahan

Life Coach 

Email me at chrismahan@crazy8freedom.org

Co-Founder Crazy 8 Freedom,Inc.

www.crazy8freedom.org 

"Healing Hearts, Transforming Lives, Changing Attitudes"