I’m not in control and I could screeeeeeam !!!

I’m sure like me you’ve had days when everything seemed to be stressful.  I recently had one such day and within the course of 4 hours had gone from being  a calm, rational person to a torrent of exasperation and frustration.

A banking ‘glitch’ resulted in none of my standing orders being paid on time and no payments being allowed into the account.  Despite numerous telephone calls the issue just seemed to be escalating into something resembling a bad dream!  Before long my tone of voice had changed to one of impatient bluntness, my head sunk into my hands in despair as yet again I was passed from one person to another – why was this happening to me?  Why was all this so difficult? Why now? Why today? Why ME?

Stress, unforeseen challenges and glitches are a fact of life and even the advent of technology, whilst having made life quicker, cannot shield us from stress and frustration.

As my silent screams turned to exhausted tears of frustration I became aware that I had been feeling tired, even slightly overwhelmed, for several days before this incident with my bank account.

If I were honest with myself this incident had just been the cherry on the cake.  Had I not been so tired, had I not been feeling overwhelmed then I might have navigated my way through this particular challenge with a greater sense of ease and less frustration; I might have been able to remind myself that it wasn’t the end of the world and that it would all get sorted in the end  AND  I would have reminded myself that unfortunately I was not in control!!

When we can’t control a situation there is no point in trying to do so, all we can do is accept that fact.  In so doing we can calm ourselves down.   And the fact is that there is so much that we can’t control …. APART  from ourselves and how we choose to look after ourselves.   By taking time to get enough sleep, by resisting the urge to over-promise and over-extend ourselves we are better able to deal with the stress that life throws at all of us from time to time.

Control what you can control and accept what you can’t control !