Socrates: " Beware the barrenness of a busy life"

From 500 BC come words of such wisdom for today. Socrates, the great Greek philosopher, is suggesting something very important for us. Why would a busy life be barren? Because we don't stop to smell the roses, we are rarely present for ouselves or for each other -- fully. "What doth it profit a man if he gain the world and lose his own soul." Same kind of thing. It is so hard to stop, to slow down, but the price of not doing that -- or of not finding a peaceful way to be busy! -- is very high.

How to reduce stress at work!

Over the years I have collected many methods of reducing and managing stress as I have worked on that for myself in so many different contexts. Studies by the American Medical Association have also shown the negative effects of stress on health. They say stress is a factor in more than 75 percent of all illness and disease today. Stress is a complex subject and the roots of stress in your life must be dealt with by long term life and habit changes. However,there are lots of things you can do to manage stress during your day and at work. The first question is: are you willing to make the commitment to try? Most often stress kind of just runs over us and we give in to it. It takes willpower to intervene: to stop and say No, and do a technique to stop yourself before you need the cigarette, chocolate bar, drink, or just fly off the handle and get angry at someone.

At work, what do you feel are the main daily causes of stress?
Too much to do too little time? Unrealistic deadlines? Procrastination?
Long meetings? Difficult people,irate customers, bosses? Constant interruptions?
Yes, there is all of that in your day to day work. Then there is what you are carrying about your life, your relationship, your health, your finances, your fears for the future. What's great to remember is just this: we always have a choice.

Long Term help for stress includes: exercise, diet, nutrition, cognitive therapies, relaxation, yoga, coming of addictions, better sleep, time management, prioritizing,
stuck thought patterns. But what underlies our sense of stress is very often the fundamental fact that we have not clarified or are not living by our most important values and finding ways to work at what is most fulfilling for us. Many people have not taken the time to question themselves on what those really are: this causes an unconscious, ever present kind of stress.

Are you ignoring your spiritual self? compromising your integrity? Are you following your heart? Ignoring your dreams? Those are big questions, but here are a few short term interventions for managing daily stress.

1) When you feel overloaded, too much to do, can’t think straight, take a walk around and just listen to sounds. How many different ones can you hear? This will calm you and take your mind out of its churning, stressful thoughts. As a young actress, I did a tour with the matinee idol Don Ameche (remember him in the movie about Alexander Graham Bell?). He was a wonderful guy, but he had an Italian temper. We never saw it! When he felt himself getting angry in rehearsal, he would excuse himself and take a walk. Precisely two minutes. When he returned he was courteous and pleasant, anger gone.

2.Doing some deep breathing helps. First of all, just put your attention on your breath; then take three deep inhales and exhales, slowly and full. You can also count four breathing in deeply; hold it for four counts, and breathe out on a count of 8.

3. Get up and stretch. Our bodies get all knarlled up when we sit, no wonder we can't think straight!

4. Donna Eden has a wonderful book for women, "Energy Medicine." Here is one of her tips for adrenal fatique, which has been called the stress syndrome of the 21st century. Walnut size glands on top of kidneys…produce 150 hormones that influence every major psychological process in you body including adrenaline and cortisol. To stop flight or fight syndrome, put your fingers on forehead and thumbs on your temples..hold firmly but without pressure for a minute or two;or place palm of one hand on your forehead and palm of the other hand on the back of your head, just above your neck.

5. The biggie: Be here now. Just pay attention to what is right around you, what your body feels like; use all your senses to be fully present. While you do that, you cannot at the same time be allowing your thoughts to run up your tension. The more you can switch into that kind of mindful presence, the better your day is going to be.

6. Generation Y is teaching us about new ways to work. They don't want to be so serious all the time. So sometimes, how about being playful, wacky, humorous, creative? Remember the old movie Zorba the Greek and "the whole catastrophe" He danced!!

7. Do a "random Act of kindness" for someone...you have surely heard about that.
Just do some little thing for somebody, anybody. The deal is you have to do it secretly without letting them know it was you! Taking the attention off yourself and your problems is truly a gift to you, and you might make somebody else's day too!

You can't do it at the office, but note the photo of the lady by the river above: being by water, observing water, listening to water sounds -- ahhh! what a help that is!

For How to Manage Stress at Work sessions, or Life Coaching to discover your values and purpose, contact me. I offer a free discovery session! Caite Mathis,
at caitemaya@yahoo.com.

Peace is always with us

Yesterday afternoon I heard the Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh on KUNR radio. I met in the early 80's when he first came to this country, and loved him because he said when you meditate you can have a slight smile -- and there I was sitting with a bunch of very serious looking Buddhists who didn't quite like that at the time! He always called any children in the audience to come down front and sit next to him. Now he is 75. He is a Vietnamese monk who has written several books on "being peace" and hugely influenced the Buddhist community, as well as offering the gift of inner peace to many who otherwise would not have tried anything Buddhist. He was one of the key people in the Buddhist resistance in the Vietnam War before, they kicked him out of his country. He has a monastery in Vermont, Maple Forest; and a community in France called Plum Village. He spoke yesterday of "deep listening", and how valuable it is to listen deeply to another, without judgment. Such listening can create an opening. He said we need to find peace in ourselves first before we can find it with another. "If you fail with yourself, how can you succeed with another person?" Good question! He went through hellish experiences during the Vietnamese War, yet he says "peace is always with us to some extent." That's true. In meditation it is always there, waiting; even if you can't necessarily stay with that awareness.

Creativity and Feminine Power

“You have a song in your heart to be sung and you have a dance to be danced, but the dance is invisible, and the song—even you have not heard it yet. It is deep down hidden in the innermost core of your being; it has to be brought to the surface, it has to be expressed…There is a purpose behind you. The whole intends to do something through you.” --Osho, “Creativity: Unleasing the Forces Within"

Osho was perhaps a questionable guru for a lot of reasons, but I like his book on creativity. This quote is particularly pertinent to a phenomenal happening on the internet: free teleclasses with www.femininepower.com. Check it out. (That photo is of a mural in downtown Reno)

The Feminine Power site was created by Claire Zammit and Kathryn Woodward-Thomas, who are offering a remarkable 7 week course called The Three Keys to Feminine Power and it has everything to do with creativity in women and the full power potential women have, which has been snuffed and surpressed in varying degrees for about 5,000 years. No, we're still not all the way out of that. They tell how so many women today feel an inarticulate restlessness to do something big but at the same time have old feelings of being not enough: limiting self concepts such as "I am alone, I am unconnected, I don't matter." They have discovered a method for freeing us from these limiting beliefs and helping women become who they most truly are. The first free call introducing their ideas had 10,000 women on it. They were supposed to have another free call today, but had to postpone it because 19,000 women had signed up! They are working with the teleseminar technology to allow this many callers on the line and have rescheduled for Wednesday the 9th. You can still sign up!