Hi %%FIRST_NAME%%,
Welcome to day two of your 7 Day De-Stress Course.
Today I’m sharing with you 3 magic questions that can instantly cut your stress levels.
Here’s a link to listen to the second part of your audio course.
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[audio:https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/destress-audio-course/part-two.mp3]Part Two Audio MP3
When you have had a chance to experiment with these, how about popping by the special discussion area in the Soul-Sized Living forum, to share how you got on – and get answers to any questions you may have?
3 Magic Questions To Instantly Cut Your Stress Levels
And just in case you’d like a positive affirmation for this stage of the audio course, how about:
I know the questions to ask myself, to cut my stress levels, right now.
Enjoy!
Part three will be with you tomorrow – to give you a chance to play with today’s techniques.
Namaste,
&nbps;
Transcript
3 Magic Questions To Instantly Cut Your Stress Levels
This one is a real fundamental NLP technique Neuro-linguistic programming is something I have been a trainer in for over a decade. I call it “practical psychology” or the “user manual for your brain”.
One of the problems we have when we get stressed is that we tell ourselves stories about it. Those stories go round and round in our heads. And if we’re like every body else on the planet, we embellish those stories. They get little nuances added. We add in some ‘what ifs’ that – over the space of a day – are no longer ‘what ifs’; they feel quite real. The more we tell the story, the more real it feels.
The problem with the story is that it triggers exactly the same chemical reactions in the body as if the event were actually happening. So we might have had a stressful event at 9 o’clock this morning, but if we tell that story all day, we perpetuate that physiological and emotional stress for an entire day. It’s pretty clever.
One way to stop that cycle is stop the story going around in your head. It is almost like there is a stressed-out cheerleader in there, keeping you on the super stressed merry-go-round.
So I’ve got a question for you and I would like you to write down your answer if possible, with pen and paper, not typing it onto your computer. The reason we write it down is it helps press the pause button on that story.
What specifically is the problem?
When we tell the story, we’re generalising. And we use things like ‘always’ and ‘never’, which might not be the case at all:
“He always does that!
“She never gets it right!”
What specifically is the problem? Right here; right now.
I invite you to press pause right now and write down your answers to that question.
So, what specifically was the problem? And when you know what the problem was, it helps you get out of the drama and be clear about the issue.
Then there is a magic question I want to share with you today which I use so often with myself and my mentoring clients – and in my seminars:
What do I want instead?
This helps you see that there might be a light at the end of the tunnel. What do I want instead? It helps you move away from focusing on the problem and to start looking at solutions. And, more importantly, it allows the solutions to come to you. The more you tell yourself a story about the problem, the less likely you are to spot the solutions.
And finally, there’s a third question:
Which single baby step could I take right now to move towards what I want instead?
By breaking it down into tiny chunks, the overwhelm just disappears.
“Which single step could I take right now?” It’s vital that you take that step today, before you go to bed tonight. It doesn’t matter what it is. It really doesn’t matter how small it is. What matters is getting started, because then the momentum can keep you moving. You overcome the inertia, you get the momentum moving and you can go to bed knowing you’ve made a start, rather than waking up dreading that you have to.
So, the three questions, in recap:
- What specifically is the problem?
- What do I want instead?
- Which single baby step could I take right now or at least today to move towards what I want instead?
I hope you found that helpful today; I will be back next time with technique number three.