Calming and Peaceful Insights for Stressed Nurses and Caregivers

Calming Capsule # 12 Living on Purpose

The purpose of life is a life of purpose.

You can call it Dharma or your life’s vision, when you resolve to be part of the solution instead of the problem, you are on purpose.

So many people say" I don't know what I'm doing." Or they say " What is my goals"? When you get quiet and go inside yourself, you will find  what really makes you feel good. This is your purpose. Allowing is the difficult part.

Calming Capsule #11 Silence

Silence is one of the hardest arguments to refute.

Gandhi used this concept while seeking freedom for his country.

You can do this when dealing with your teenagers or spouse. Perhaps the sheer shock of the silence will resolve the issue.

Silence is not giving in. You allow yourself precious time to think and later respond to the experience.Take some time today to think of other ways you can use silence to bring calmness into your life.

Relaxed People can be Super Achievers

Let go of the idea that gentle, relaxed people can’t be super achievers!

From where I am, in the present moment, I have noticed one of the major reasons so many people choose to remain hurried, frightened, competitive, stressed and continuing to live life in crisis mode, their fear that if they were to become more peaceful, relaxed and calm, they would suddenly achieving their goals. They would become lazy and apathetic.

I am here to tell you to put this fear out of your mind completely, by realizing that the total opposite is true. Fearful, stressed, frantic , anxious thinking takes an enormous amount of living energy and drains the precious creativity, motivation and imagination from your life.

You see when you are stressed, fearful, or frantic, you literally paralyze yourself from using your ultimate gifts, your greatest potential, not to mention pleasures and enjoyments. Any success that you might have is very short lived and is despite your fear, not because of it!

I challenge myself to seek out the very relaxed, peaceful and calm people, and surround myself with them. They are my friends, mentors and business associates. Some of these people are martial arts masters, life coaches, CEO’s of companies, both women and men. All of them are gratefully fulfilled in that they do and very proficient and profitable in their gifts and skills and talents.

You too have the ability to be calm yet passionate and purpose driven. A much more pleasing live awaits yu when you do!

Stressful Multitasking- It is Better to do One Thing at a Time.

I was driving to work the other day on the freeway, the traffic was the usual Monday morning stop and go. Granted you had the time to say change the channel on your radio or slip in a different CD to listen to perhaps, but multitask, I don’t think so!!

Well, just because I drive a standard six speed car, which means I have a lot of clutch and shifting action going on, I usually can enjoy a sip or two of coffee from my travel mug, and change the radio channels.

On this particular morning I noticed a man in the lane next to me, he was shaving and talking on his cell phone at the same time as driving, yes, and probably steering with his knees.

“Perfect” I thought a great topic for an up coming blog, about the stress of our frenzied society. I was just a little bit concerned because he just shifted the phone to the other side and started the shave the other side of his face. At least he was not looking in the mirror. I did focus my thoughts on my own driving and hoped he had a good safe day.

My point of this story is that not planning your time and trying to do more than one thing at a time during some rather special focusing moments, can be stressful for yourself and for others around you.

Labor Day Holiday- Give Yourself a Holiday by Self-Nurturing, Laboring is Stressful.

We normally celebrate Labor Day to recognize those who labor and work all year. Which of course is our holiday to rest, relax and self-nurture. We tend to fill the day with family events, picnics and end of summer activities. Where is the self-nurturing? You could say, being with family and friends is nurturing, this is true but are you relaxed or are you actively caring for others?

Self-nurturing is getting away by yourself. Take that walk in the woods, alone with the dog. Sitting  under the tree with a favorite book to read. Enjoy nature, that is part of nurturing your self, you can stop and smell the flowers, touch the grass and the leaves. Self-nurturing makes you feel good. You deserve this self-nurturing, labor free holiday.

The Need to Fix or Weatherproof People Only Adds to Your Stress

As women, nurses, and nurtures we tend to want to fix everyone. Patient’s who’s lives are broken by disease and illness. Family and friends, we see who’s lives are less than perfect we want to fix. And of course ourselves, each new wrinkle, extra pound or unqualified fact that led to a wrong decision. We want to fix and make perfect.

The concept of weatherproofing as it applies to a calm and more peaceful lifestyle of course is a metaphor, to explain one of our stressful ungrateful tendencies.

So lets think about this, just as we can weatherproof a home for winter or summer, by looking for cracks , leaks and obvious imperfections’, we also weatherproof our relationships , even our lives.

Simplistically, weatherproofing means that you are always on the look out for whatever needs to be fixed, repaired or changed in life. We are constantly stress our selves by trying to find the cracks and flaws of life, and either trying to fix them or worse point then out to others. The real stress here is not only does this tendency alienate you from friends, family and others but on a greater scale makes you feel very bad as well. It also makes you dwell on negative stuff and all you do there is attract more negative stuff back to you , adding even more stress.

　

Instead of trying to weatherproof other people or fix them, the calmer, more peaceful way is to enjoy them for their differences or quirks, what possibly attracted your to them in the first place. This gives life variety, relaxed meaning and of course diversity. You see a more relaxed life is never boring.

A New Season to Reduce Stress and Build Calming Memories

As the summer draws to a close and the school season and

the cooler weather is upon us. Instead of enjoying this time

we over book ourselves and stress over not having enough

time.

Time should be our friend not an enemy. Time does seem to

flow slower when we are more relaxed and calmer. So why

do we put ourselves through this? It could be just a habit or

an escape, but most likely it is trying to do too much and

being everything to everyone. Do you see where YOU are

left out of this story? You have the right to control how you

use your time and energies. When you feel like you are

spinning your wheels, you are! So get a GRIP.

Now enjoy the cooler weather and relax with a hot cup of

tea or cocoa and start thinking of building autumn

memories.

As Nurses it is Our Job to Learn to Reduce Our Own Stress Before We Can Help Others

   There are so many questions we need answers to concerning our jobs, the local, state and national healthcare problems, and the costs of the big business of healthcare that we stress out over trying to get the answers from what we read or who we talk to.

 We unfortunately forget to look much closer to home for the coping skills we need. These skills are within you as your supreme nurturer. How do you think you can assimilate so much politics if you, yourself are too stressed out to think wisely? You must redevelop those calming skills you already have on board.

There is a unique problem called nurturers stress.

This type of stress originates because the nurturer absorbs the stresses of others, usually without the nurturer even realizing it. This is not the same thing as over stepping boundaries. When you empathize with someone you naturally absorb their emotions too.

So how to slow down the absorption of this stress, first by recognizing you are doing it and second by releasing and detaching your emotions. This does take practice but is worth the effort.

   Caring all of the time for human beings who are sick or in a condition of decreased health.

Those people you care about are extremely vulnerable to many emotional and physical problems, you as a nurse must combat this stress by reducing stress in your own lives.

How to Use Plants When You are on a Budget to Cultivate a Calm Environment

How to use plants when you are on a budget to cultivate a calm environment

Plants relieve you stress in many different ways. You don’t have to have a full time landscaper in your payroll, to have a peaceful patio or a plant filled relaxed home.

Try this low cost or no cost idea: Usually plants can be purchased at a very low cost, in most cases under $5.00. The best places to look for plants is your local home center. They will have plants that are right for your area’s climate and will give you ideas on how to nurture your plants.

One of the best way I get a supply of house plants is from friends. When I visit a friend’s home I usually go home with a cutting or a few stems from their plants to root and repot.

Plants are low maintenance or no maintenance at all: When your on a budget maintenance of any thing can be a problem. Your plants don’t have to stress you or your wallet. The plants you get from the home center will come with watering instructions and sunlight tips. For the ones you inherit from your friends, just as for their advise.

Plants can help you in cultivating a calm environment: Use your own imagination when it comes to where to put your plants. If you feel you need more calming in your living room, then make a few plants a part of the décor. Patio plants are usually the most effective for both beauty and their relaxing effects.

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

Avoid Making Decisions When Stressed can Waste your Decision Making Time

When you find yourself being busy for the sake of having something to do, to impress someone or to because you are so stressed that you are burning the candle at both ends and panicking in the middle. You know you are no going to be able to make decisions very well. It goes without saying you don’t make critical decisions when your stressed. But we all do that and we usually have a very bad experience. So how to avoid the bad stuff?

Most decisions that are made with haste will cause you much more stress. You are pressed for time and do not have all the facts to make a wise decision. Well you know you must take some time to be a bit more self disciplined and get most of the facts. Besides when you are more calm you can truly rely on your gut or inside feelings to steer you in the right direction. The key here is calm. No one will condemn you for waiting a bit. The idea of sleeping on it works very well. Besides you will think clearer when you have had time think more calmly on it.

Making quick decisions without beating your self up: When you must make a decision quickly, don’t feel guilty instead feel empowered that you did the right thing, if you need to change your decisions do it slowly over time. Feel confident with your gut feelings. Trust yourself and take a relaxed stand, feel and look empowered, by all means never beat yourself up.

Making important decisions without help: You want to be an independent thinker and make your decisions yourself, but if they effect others you might want to get another opinions . Empowering others to help you in decision making will calm you and you will see other options.