And the winner is...

This past weekend millions of viewers watched the pageantry of the Academy Awards to see who would win the coveted Oscar for best performance. These film artists have crafted their skills over many years to pretend to be somebody else. They then spend hours and hours preparing and rehearsing for a specific role. They do this so that we the audience do not see them as an actor or actress but the person they’re pretending to be.

Right now the demands and stresses you’re experiencing on a daily basis may make it seem like you’re playing the role of victim in some horror film or suffering through a melodrama. Your mind races and you can’t seem to focus on the task at hand. You worry, fret, and rebel against the situation that’s causing you distress. Your nerves have been shattered. You can’t sleep. You find yourself sad, frustrated, or angry much of the time and may feel helpless and hopeless. It doesn’t have to be that way.

In recent blogs I have presented information and simple tools, including the Attitude Adjustment Routine and The Breath of Life to help end stress’s stranglehold on your life. But like the actors that win awards, you must ruthlessly use these tools until you take on a new role, “Hero” in the movie, “My Life.” I don’t know how long it will take to become this new character, but I do know that these tools work. You may not be able to change your present situation, but you can do something to change how you respond to it. Your health, productivity, success, happiness, and quality of life depend on it. You can become the quintessential hero in action films instead of a victim of a horror movie.

If you suffer from the ravages of a stressful life you have perfected the role of victim. You may not want to hear that. I know I didn’t when I was told my health problems were related to stress, given the fact that I was in the business of helping people improve their responses to stress. After a little rebelling and resistance I started doing the things that I gave my clients to do, the same things I’ve presented in previous blogs and will offer in future blogs. They aren’t hard to learn to do. It may be difficult to get yourself to do them at first because you don’t want to do them. You may want your situation to improve. The hard truth may be that your situation may not change until you do. I was once asked, “Would you rather be happy or right?” You may be right that you should not find yourself in the situation that causes your suffering and continue to complain about it. That changes nothing. If you want to be happy and stress free you need to change your attitude, exercise, relax, smile, and most of all breathe.

And the winner for best hero in an action film goes to…