Try saying that five times fast 
The other day, a sister I’ll call Salma (just because it sounds good in a tongue twister) came to meet me, practically in tears. “The stress,” she cried, “will completely ruin my entire life! I am a failure as a mom, I am a failure at work. I get no support from my husband. You’d think he’d at least be sympathetic to my situation, but I know that he’s thinking that I’m a failure as a wife too!”
And in those few sentences, Salma effortlessly demonstrated for our dear readers precisely what’s wrong with her thinking patterns in relation to her stress.
Stress happens when something comes up that we aren’t sure that we’ll have what it takes to handle. A sticky situation at work, a toddler who refuses to eat her vegetables, and what seems to be a never-ending balancing act between roles are ’some things’ that most women can relate to. Salma has good company.
We’ve discussed “don’t believe everything you think!” before and how it’s not enough to just replace negative thoughts with positive ones, so today let’s take it a step further by applying the lesson to stressful thinking patterns.
Indeed, we can change how stress gets to us and takes away our ability to focus on what matters and on what can move us forward so as not to succumb to despair and self-loathing.
The first step is to recognize what ’stress thought’ trap we’re falling into.
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Doomsday Thoughts
When Salma screamed that her ‘life was ruined,’ it may have been an exaggeration or an expression that she mindlessly brought out for effect, but the fact remains that there are those who do think in such ‘extreme outcome’ ways – and that is not a stress reducing way to think.
She needs to ask the question: is my life really ruined?
Have you ever had a doomsday thought? As a reference point, if it happens again, what question will you ask?
Quality Assurance or Bust Thoughts
This one is about us placing unrealistic standards of what we suppose we should be in order to measure up to whatever we want to measure up to. So, for Salma, she had the notion that unless she could get her toddler to eat 5 servings of vegetables everyday, she would be a failure of a mother.
Of course when you put it to her that way, she’d laugh. And that’s good, because it means that she’s realizing that she can question her definition of what ‘quality assurance’ means, and thus her ability to measure up. And honestly, where would you find a toddler who eats all his vegetables everyday?
When you are able to loosen up on yourself within the context of your thoughts in this way, you’re able to loosen the hold that the stress has on you.
Ingrate Thoughts
In this kind of thought process, we focus on the negative side of a stressful situation and disregard any positives. I spoke to Salma and after asking some simple questions learned that in fact she had a mother who lovingly looked after her son while she was at work and her husband was known to take him out for some ‘daddy and me time’ most weekends. When she began to count her blessings, she could clearly begin to see that looking at the glass half full was a way better place to be in when it comes to stressful thinking.
‘Little Miss Know it All” Thoughts
That is so very true, especially the last point. I was having a conversation with my mom about school, and we were only able to let it all out when we both just said what we meant! From there, we were able to think of a solution. Now its time to put the solution to action, and for that, I can read The Queen of Sheba Wins the Battle of the Bulge for even more motivation!
I wish you all the best student!
And I love how you can get what you’re needing right here, alhamdullilah!
One stop inspiration
Just what I needed to hear! =)