This week I’ve been looking at my relationship with stress. The trigger for this state of affairs is that I’m currently living in a beautiful area and it’s caused me some stress. How can that be possible?

The continuum of stress is eustress→stress→distress and there is an optimal point where stress is actually a positive thing leading to positive results.

Eustress is when things are easy and cause little concern; they are within our coping mechanisms. Distress, on the other hand, is perceived as being something we cannot handle and causes anxiety. Taken to the extremes either state may lead to decreased performance physical illness/mental fatigue/emotional depletion.

Stress, I’ve come to realize is something altogether different to what I’ve always thought it was.

When I first moved to the city the pace of it all stressed me. I am now able to navigate city living, the limited space, the hurried pace, racing the clock for the next appointment, the next train or the traffic. Living in the city no longer stresses me – I handle it easily now.

Slowing down in this beautiful place been a bit of a culture shock. The almost 24 hr lifestyle of the city does not live here and things were not quite as I’d planned. They were causing me stress. The nearly 2 hrs travel each way meant early starts, late finishes, and isolation from my usual world. It’s taken me some creative planning to fit in what I do with where I am and to stretch out of my comfort zone to find ways that work. My stress is gone.

Without stress, I would not have grown, or adapted, or gained new skills or created a new life, several new lives, in fact. What once stressed me I now handle with ease and confidence.

Rather than get distressed about stress, it’s time to change the meaning I’ve made around stress. My reframe is surprisingly simple and the negative connotation around stress has transformed. Getting off the eustress→stress→distress continuum requires another level of thinking and here it is:

Without stress, I would not have stretched myself. Turning stress into stretch gives me permission to think outside my usual perspective, to seek creative solutions, to play with new ideas and to try new options.

Trapped in a paradigm that no longer works for you? Contact me to find out how working with a life coach can help you shift into ways that do.