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Relief from Stress

Social Psychologist & Personal Advisor

Stressed Out! . . .
Are you a Victim or Volunteer?

When tough times directly press upon you, . . . you may indeed be a Victim. But after aggravating events pass into the past, there is a point of transition, a moment when you are at choice to "get over it," and "get on with it." After this point of transition, . . . ironically, all further stress is self-made—you actually create optional and unecessary stress. The principle in play is this:

"That which you perceive as real, is real in its consequences."
- W.I. Thomas 

Due to a mis-perception of "what is happening" in your world, you create consequential stress of mind and emotion that doesn't need to be created — it's unecessary and optional.

"It's not what you don't know that makes you a fool;
but what you "think" you know, . . . that ain't so!
- Mark Twain  

Here is the truth about STRESS that so many fail to understand: Stress is a "response" that is chosen by you — but it's NOT chosen in the moment that it appears.

Instead, stress is a response that flows from you . . . due to your disposition; a disposition you've been shaping through a history of prior choices. The cumulative effect of this history is that YOU possess a personal propensity to "become stressed" when pressed by certain aggravating events.

In my book, Changing Your Stripes, I call this propensity . . . your "P.Q." — Provoke-ability Quotient.

Finding the BEST solutions to Stress, and how to lower your P.Q. comes from asking the BEST questions. This is the way I say it in my book "Changing Your Stripes."

When your premise is poor, it's hard to acquire the prize. When you begin wrong, you will most likely end wrong. Asking unsound questions leads to second-class solutions; it'a like climbing a ladder that is leaning against the wrong wall, it lead to progress . . . that ain't progress at all (Changing Your Stripes, 2nd Edition, page, 157).

My book details the principles that will bring about genuine and lasting change from your core — a change in your fundamental disposition from the heart, so you will no longer choose the self-defeating irony of "volunteering for stress."

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Changing Your Stripes

Social Psychologist & Personal Advisor