A phone visit with relatives on Easter Day resulted in my being aware that there was a temporary stress epidemic in my family.  Yikes!  To hear that five adults ages 39 to 65 all concur that they were stressed-out was an eye-opener.  One of those is a woman over fifty who appears on the surface to always have things “under control.”  She’s passionately connected to a large extended family, has a full-time job and has recently lost a sister and brother to chronic disease.  As we talked on a range of subjects, it became clear to me once again that stress comes from multiple sources and that control can be something that complicates the situation or provides a vantage point.

What can we really control?  As much as we would like to, we cannot control others’ behavior whether they are our children, co-workers or bosses.  Yes, we can negotiate with them and certainly when children are younger we might be able to influence them more easily for a period of time.  Ultimately, we have limited control even over young children.  This can be a sobering fact, even something that we try to deny.  However, accepting this limitation can give us the power to make life enhancing changes.

When I decide that I am the starting point for managing any stress I experience, I can begin to determine what I can and am willing to do to reduce the stress.  

For example, when I woke Sunday morning saying to myself, “Yikes, you have really overloaded yourself with preparing this dinner for friends at the last minute,” I began to smile.   Yes, it felt very real in that moment! And the question I asked myself was, “What can I change to reduce the stress that I am experiencing?  For me it was deciding to simplify the original plan.  The outcome, four people had a simple, delicious dinner, they got to know each other and enjoy themselves, and the hostess had a great time. 

Where can you decide to reduce some of the stress in your life?

What can you control?