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When something positive and  enjoyable becomes the source of major stress

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Are you making this mistake too?

It just sneaked up on me. I did not see it coming and then BANG!

I'll tell you more in a second.

But first, I want to raise the roof with a mighty shout. StressTherapist.net is back in action on-line. I'll be giving you a sneak preview to what we have in store for you in a sec.

First a mighty big thank you to all of you- "Our Fans," for your patience and for still staying with us this long.

So what was the BANG I just mentioned about?

Have you heard of the story of the Boiling Frog?

Well, over the last 6 years, I have spent a huge percentage of my time helping others understand how to experience a breakthrough in their personal emotional struggles.

Whilst it wasn't easy to do, I loved every moment of it.

 But as I was teaching people how to bring more balance into their lives so as to avoid toxic stress, little did I realize that the same balance I was enabling other's to achieve was slipping slowly out of my hand in my personal life.

Seriously, all It felt like was, I will just do this next thing, help this next person, write this next article, give this next presentation, and support this next charity and right through those 6 years one thing led to another.

But what was the Impact of all this?

You see, toxic stress never announces that it’s coming. You just start to see its result on you and in your life much like the experience of the boiling frog.

There is a native tribe in Africa who eats a certain type of frog. This frog is very sweet, however, it is also deadly poisonous. 

The tribe found out that if the frog knew it was in danger, it would release poison into its blood stream as a way of deterring predators from eating it.

So what did this tribe do?

They learnt that if the frog was placed in a cold pot of water and boiled ever so slowly, it would not realise it was in danger until it was dead. Then it would remain edible.

Yeah I know sounds really cruel...

But I share this story because, stress does not care who you are. Even if you have mastered how to manage stress better, it can still sneak up on you, so it pays to be mindful of it.

And that’t just what happened to me.

As I was doing all of this good helping others, I didn't realize that stress was sneaking up on me.  I was biting a hole in the family income. I was not spending that much money I thought, and really this is for a noble cause.

It sort of escaped me that I was not spending as much time as I had always intended to spend with my kids.

Not spending as much time as I should have been spending with my wife.

Not spending as much time I should have been spending maintaining bits and pieces around the house.

I was on a worthy mission, making people’s lives better so I believed all these omissions were a necessary sacrifice.

Well, worthy or not, the impact of the stress still hit me and my family really hard, and it almost tore my family apart.

 Isn't it strange how we tend to justify things like this to ourselves? 

We justify why we are not able to keep things in balance in our lives.  We justify why we don’t have time to do the necessary things we need to do in order learn to cope with our circumstances better.

I call this tendency the “Positive Stress Sucking Problem.”

You see, even if what you are doing is positive, and it is a great help to important people in your life; it can still cause you a huge amount of emotional problems if you don’t actively keep things in balance.

 Here are a few common statement I hear form people around this issue.

They say things like…

I have to go to work to make sure my kids don’t suffer... But we end up neglecting those same kids and other important relationships in our lives working too much.

Or people say,

I have to do the chores. I can’t afford the luxury of taking time out for myself, so we end up neglecting our self-care.

I've got to do this.... I've got to do that... and the list goes on.

So what’s the big lesson here?

You can get so busy, doing what you love, but if you don’t keep a check on keeping things balanced in your life, doing what you love could wreak havoc for you and for those around you.

Regardless of who you are what you are doing, whether enjoyable or not, and regardless of how much knowledge you have about managing stress or copping better emotionally, you can still get caught in the snares of toxic stress.

So as I realised that stress had impacted me and my family heavily, this contributed to my decision to take a year off the on-line part of StressTherapist.net.

Honestly though, this made me feel guilty. I kept on thinking of all the people that were relying on me. Couldn't stop thinking of all the people who have told me that the articles I send them as well as the on-line seminars I ran regularly was a life line for them.

But alas, the on-line part of Stress therapist.net had grown way too big for me to manage on my own and the demand on my time had sky-rocketed over the years.

So why am I sharing all this with you. I am hoping that you can learn from my experience and not make the same mistake of not looking after yourself whilst looking after others.

Here are two of 8 the things I now do to ensure that this does not happen again. I will be letting you know about the other 6 things in due course.

So far, these two coping strategies have worked wonders for me, so they might just work for you too.  I do these two things because when you love doing something, time can run away from you.

  1. Occasionally cross check things with other people: I now occasionally cross check things with two people I trust. They are very good at highlighting when I need a break from this work.

    (Note: It is important not to cross check things with people all the time for reasons we will be touching on in some of the articles we have coming.)

  2. Delegate tasks to others as much as it is possible: I decided to bring those two people on board as part of the new StressTherapist.net and everything is now working very well. I will be introducing you to them later on. Trust me, you’ll love them too.

Some people might think it is a sign of weakness to require the support of others. However, I believe it is actually a sign of strength to be able to assess your situation and adjust to what is necessary in your life at any given moment.

For me it meant getting help. There was no way I was going to let StressTherapist.net die away. I believe our work of supporting others is just too important.

Now to wrap up, let me give you a quick preview what the new team has been working on for you.

We have spent the whole of 2015 researching and interviewing hundreds of people. We have spent all that time testing out stress management concepts.

We have pulled out all our skill to test and test all the information and the materials we will be sharing with you.

And the result has been that we have been able to help many more people to recover or cope better emotionally through their various life difficulties.

We will be taking you through a series of article and videos which have been carefully engineered to help you understand essential concepts for coping better emotionally.

We will be recommencing our on-line seminars, but in a different format.

And then, in a few months time, in addition to our current website we will be opening enrolment for our premium membership* website, with specially prepared step-by-step articles, plus videos on how to cope better emotionally, but more on that later.

 I will keep you informed as we unravel all the exciting stuff we have coming soon.

Next, you will be receiving a special e-mail from me highlighting an important mindset for learning to cope emotionally.

In fact, because of this mindset, one guy had an intense argument with me even though all I was trying to do was help him. This mindset will blind you and make you miss out on any sort of experiences that will help you go in the right direction in your effort to learning to cope emotionally.

So if you have not signed up yet to receive email updates from us, just fill in the form below to sign up, and I will be in touch with you soon.

*Charges apply
Written by Adewale Ademuyiwa
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