by Deniz Sidali, M.A.
Throughout my life, I have experienced a lot of turbulence and dealt with stressful situations. I remember how I would allow myself to get engulfed by these stressors and eventually became an extension of these stressful situations by identifying too heavily with them. Clearly, I made a choice to let these difficult moments define me. But, somewhere along the line, I realized what I was doing and decided I had enough of identifying as a victim of these harsh circumstances. By choosing to rate myself by my stress, I made a choice to blame the universe or fate without accepting responsibility for things within my control. Feeling worried or sorry for myself wasn’t an effective coping strategy but a bad choice. So what I did to overcome stress and worrying excessively was to acknowledge these events without having to like them (unconditional life acceptance). I reduced ruminating and talking about my stress with others who unknowingly reinforced these unhealthy habits with support. I challenged my awfulizing irrational beliefs and looked for ways to view situations in a more positive light.
It takes a lot of energy out of you to constantly worry without letting go or giving yourself a chance to relax. For example, I went for my annual mammogram and they found something. They asked for further tests without giving much feedback as to why. Now the old me would have worried herself into the ground. But the new me said to myself repeatedly, “There is no sense in worrying about something that isn’t a certainty. And even if they do give me bad news, I will accept it without liking it and deal with it.” So I proceeded to shimmy over to the Krups coffee machine in the imagining office and made myself a great cup of coffee, just how I like it – sweet and light. I sipped on the coffee and talked to my mother about important things we had to do. I was present in the moment, fully enjoying my life, my good cup of coffee and my discussion with my mother who is my BFF (best friend forever) that I love to the nth power. She was baffled by my reaction to the news of more impending tests by asking, “Aren’t you worried at all? What if they find something? What if they find something bad…..like the “C” word?” I responded, “Nope. I won’t worry until they tell me something I need to worry about. I am on top of all of my medical appointments and if they do find something like breast cancer, I have minimized it being in a progressive stage by being responsible and practicing proactive medicine. And if I do find out I have cancer mom, I will deal with it just like everyone else deals with it. ” Life is simply too short to worry. And stress takes a toll on your health. So I choose happiness over worry because worrying sucks. Luckily they found only a benign cyst, which most women get sometimes from eating too much chocolate or drinking too much caffeine. So it was kind of ironic I was sipping away on coffee while waiting for the results.
