Don’t Let the Main Causes of Stress in Your
Life Get You Down… Change Your
BELIEFS, Change Your REALITY!
What are the main causes of stress in your life? Have you ever explored them? If you haven’t, it’s OK because I’ve got your covered.
In case you haven’t noticed yet, I have a beautiful and powerful vision of you beating stress and taking control of your health and your life forever.
It is genuinely important to me for you to be able to say, “Yes, I love my life; I have finally conquered the main causes of stress in my life and I am never going back to my old stressed-out way of living!”
Your children are also incredibly important to me and I want to give you a crystal clear image of your children’s lives in the future as well, with all their main causes of stress fully conquered. I can envision your children growing up to be healthy, happy, self-motivated and successful, living out all their amazing dreams each and every day.
There is still one more thing I want for you… I want you to enjoy the journey and have a lot of fun while you are learning to eliminate the main causes of stress in your life.
This One Thing Will Make or
Break Your Wellness Efforts
If you have looked at my website, then you will know that I have tried to offer many strategies for conquering the main causes of stress in life. Many of these have worked for my family and I know they can work for your family as well.
Things like learning EFT as the ultimate solution for releasing repressed emotion, understanding the importance of regular exercise and discovering and addressing the main causes of stress in YOUR life.
I stand by everything on my site 100%, but there is something else you need to know; something so critical, it can actually make or break your attempts to eliminate the main causes of stress in your life. In fact, this one thing is so vital that left unchecked, it can totally cripple your wellness efforts forever.
I am talking about your belief system. I’m talking about your worldview. Understanding the main causes of stress in your life is all about your beliefs and your world view.
Now, before I dive into the three things that you have to BELIEVE to achieve and maintain total wellness, we need to splash about first in some psychology and history.
Time for a Little Psychology…!
First up is psychology! Did you know that belief CAN’T be taught?
Belief is an internal process. It can’t be turned on and off at will. Human beings don’t just decide one day to believe something or not. The beliefs of young children, of course, can be shaped and molded over time, but once your beliefs are set, they’re almost always set for life. This may seem a little simplistic, but your beliefs are a very powerful part of your reality. That’s why it’s often very difficult to get out from under the pressure of the main causes of stress in your life.
Battle Hymns are Not Enough!
Now on to history… would you agree that how you are raised sets the stage for your future?
To explain what I mean, I want to talk about a book that has gotten a lot of hype in the media in the last few years. In 2011, a woman named Amy Chua wrote a book called Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, which describes her parenting journey using traditional Chinese methods. This book made many people very angry and Mrs. Chua received considerable backlash, including death threats. I think it is safe to say that her parenting style may be one of the main causes of stress in her children’s lives.
However, Mrs. Chua, the author, swears that her children are just fine and regardless of how people feel about her tiger mother practices, she claims her heart was in the right place and her children have achieved a great deal of success, which was the goal all along. She seems to believe the main causes of stress in her children’s lives are not caused by her parenting methods. I guess she believes that the ends justify the means… but do they? I wonder…!
Prosperity Can Never Last for 3 Generations
In one part of her book, she discusses an old Chinese saying, “Prosperity can never last for three generations.” She goes on to describe three generations of her own family and she surmises that most Chinese immigrant families had similar experiences. I have summarized her quote below:
The first generation, her immigrant parents, were the hardest working. The main causes of stress in their lives included economic issues as well as challenges with isolation. Having arrived in America, almost penniless, they worked nonstop for success and dedicated all the family’s resources to their children for their future success. They were strict and frugal; classic tiger parents or authoritarian parents.
The second generation was American born (the author’s generation). Typically high achieving, they were also hard-working, but not quite as strict or frugal; they were still tiger parents; however.
The third generation, the current one, were born into the American, upper-middle-class. They have far less work ethic, they’re not as strict, nor are they very frugal. Mrs. Chua claims this does not bode well for this generation’s future and any prosperity gained to that point will now be lost moving forward.
To say the least, it’s an interesting way of viewing child rearing, but is it the best way? I am sure you can imagine that someone raised by a tiger parent would have a very specific world view, and in the case of the book’s author, her world view led her to being a tiger parent herself and even to boasting about it in her book. Had she taken the time to explore the main causes of stress in her own life, having been parented by tiger parents, she may have viewed her own parenting responsibilities through a different lens.
Again, I ask, “Did she get the best results and would it have been possible to make prosperity last more than three generations had she handled things differently.
If the ends justify the means and you can get the same or better ends with different, gentler means, then perhaps it would be wise to change your beliefs. Again, it is hard to address the main causes of stress in life if beliefs are too firmly set in stone.
Better Ways than Tiger Parenting
So now that we have taken a look at one parenting model, I want you to take a moment to consider your own upbringing. It’s time to examine the main causes of stress in your life and determine where these originated.
Were your parents authoritative tiger parents? Perhaps, they were passive, jellyfish parents who were more interested in being your friend than providing the parenting you needed. Maybe they were neglectful, inattentive parents, like ostriches who keep their head in the sand or maybe they were authoritative, dolphin parents who provided just the right balance of parenting.
Then I want you to consider how you are raising your own children. What type of parent were you or are you? Do you understand the main causes of stress, in all its forms, and how it can dramatically and even traumatically affect your children and their future?
But, why choose tiger parenting? Proponents of this parenting method seeks to open the doors of the upper echelons of high-paying career fields, but that’s as far as it seems to get. Once inside the gate, tiger parenting shows its true stripes. Many kids raised by tiger parents do not have what it takes to become real leaders in their professions because they lack emotional intelligence, stress hardiness and resilience. Dr. Shimi Kang (2014) describes some young people when they enter the world of work as krispies (burnt out with no personality) or teacups (so fragile, they seem to be breakable). It seems, tiger parents only have a plan that addresses the first 25-30 years. After that, the tiger cub is on his or her own, so to speak. The tiger parenting choices made while the child was young now begin to work against the child in adulthood as the main causes of stress are proven to be exacerbated by the tiger upbringing.
There is a growing body of research, which demonstrates that it is more than possible to control stress to get even better results than can be attained through tiger parenting. Nowadays it’s possible to have amazing and sustainable results by design, without resorting to destructive parenting models.
What Do You Feel You Deserve…
Health or Chronic Disease?
And it all comes down to what you believe you deserve about yourself and your future and what you believe about your children. The example above about prosperity lasting only three generations is one example of a belief pattern, but yours could be so much different. You could decide to believe that health, happiness, self-motivation and success are the birthright of every generation, not just three. You can decide your children will not fall victim to any of the main causes of stress.
But why do we have to change what we believe? Why has change in this area become necessary? What happened to mess up the past? Why can’t we just be happy with how things have always been done?
Well… it’s because the world has changed and it continues to change; things are not simple anymore. As a result, our list of needs has expanded; our definition of prosperity has been altered; we are not just looking for financial and career excellence anymore; now, we also want AND NEED health and happiness.
Did you know that 75% of the population in the USA already has one serious chronic degenerative disease and 50% of the US population has two or more chronic diseases? The data from the Centers for Disease Control in the US and Canada is compelling. Did you know that one in three non-Hispanic, Caucasian children born in the year 2000 will go on to develop Type II Diabetes at some point in their lives. If the children are of non-Caucasian or Hispanic descent, the number rises to one out of every two. Of course, medical research has shown that Diabetes results from the main causes of stress being left unattended for long periods and it leads to many other life-threatening health challenges such as heart disease and blindness.
WOW…right? So the question seems to be, “What is the point of achieving financial prosperity in three generations if no one has their health to enjoy it? And I don’t know about you, but when I am sick, I don’t feel very happy.
The 3 Beliefs You Must Have to Conquer Stress and Take Back Control of Your Life Forever!
Belief #1: I believe that my children and I deserve to be healthy, happy, self-motivated and successful on our own terms. Life is about far more than just financial and career prosperity. We don’t have to fall victim to the main causes of stress.
Belief #2: I believe that stress is a scientific or medical problem and not just an emotional problem. As such, I am not stuck with stress in my life. I can learn how to use scientific and medical knowledge to control stress and leverage it in my life to get the outcomes I want for family. Not all stress is bad and I can use stress to the benefit of my family.
Belief #3: I believe that I am not at the mercy of society’s expectations or me or assumptions about me. No matter what has happened in my past, I can choose my future to be the way I want it to be and I can do the same for my children.
Whew… how did that feel? Chances are that at least one of these beliefs… and maybe all 3… felt like a big effort for you to even read, let alone internalize.
Maybe it felt like too much… too ridiculous to even consider. Maybe it seemed silly to think about getting more from your life than what you‘ve had all along. Maybe you said, “I’d like to believe those things, but I don’t know if I can break out of patterns and attitudes I’ve held my whole life. Maybe where I’m at is good enough and I’ll just keep doing what I’ve been doing so far. Who am I to think I can conquer any of the main causes of stress in my life?”
Maybe you felt a little skeptical. “Yeah, down the road, I’ll believe those things, if things work out well…”
Maybe you and your family have been victimized by the main causes of stress for so long; maybe you have been unwell for so long; maybe you have been compromising your hopes and dreams for so long, that you just don’t feel there is anything that can be done about it and you feel quite hopeless. “I wish I believed those things—I used to believe them. It would be nice to believe that something as simple as just changing my world view could give me the future I want.”
Understanding the Three Beliefs
Let’s examine each belief a little more
closely to see what’s important.
- You Deserve to Have It All – Using Science to Leverage Stress to Get It All! The biology of your body (your physiology) is designed to get you everything you want in life—health, happiness, self-motivation and success. You have a carefully balanced set of hormones produced by your Endocrine system and you can decide which ones are used and when they are used. By being proactive instead of reactive in your life, you can make stress work for you instead of against you. The sad reality is that stress is the only thing stopping you from getting what you want for yourself and your children.
- Stress is a Scientific or Medical Problem and Goes Far beyond Just Emotional Problems! Now that we know the main causes of stress can be controlled by controlling the stress hormones in the body, it is important to recognize that for most of us, our bodies are well out of balance. Most body systems have two or more hormones that must be in balance in order for us to be healthy. Take the Pancreas, for example, responsible for processing sugar and carbohydrates among other tasks. When your Pancreas is in balance, all is great with the world, but when it gets out balance, lookout! Metabolic syndrome, obesity, heart disease, blindness and at least a dozen brain diseases are the prizes you get from a damaged Pancreas, resulting from not managing the main causes of stress in your life.
- I am not at the Mercy of Society’s Expectations of Me. I Can and Will Decide My Own Future! Of course, in changing this belief, you may have to step outside of what is considered normal and even acceptable by society because conquering the main causes of stress for life means you will have to go above and beyond what is normally done to deal with stress.
9 Societal Beliefs Forcing You to be
Victimized by the Main Causes of Stress!
- The field of medicine is still diagnosis and treatment oriented, not prevention oriented.
- Schools teach children to follow rules and not question anything. Students are trained to be workers, not leaders. They lack critical thinking skills.
- Schools still heavily promote cognitive learning (IQ) rather than emotional intelligence (EQ). A high IQ gets you started in a great career, but EQ keeps stress low.
- Society is constantly searching for ways to label or tag kids with one medical or mental disorder or another (ADHD, Asperger’s, etc.). Every label can be erased with good stress management and by understanding the main causes of stress.
- Corporations (drug companies) still have far too much control over what is taught in medical school. One statistic showed that less than 6% of doctors have training in nutritional medicine.
- Many insurance companies including the government medical plans, usually reimburse only for drugs, not nutritional supplements, herbs and alternative treatments.
- The economic climate forces families to have both parents working rather than keeping one at home. In this scenario, the main causes of stress run rampant and the repressed emotions of children prevent stress hardiness/resilience from being developed.
- Society still believes for the most part that stress is an emotional problem only. It’s not, it’s a scientific or medical problem. People need therapists; but they medical specialists to teach them how to re-balance their hormones even more.
- Leaders of corporations still believe that rigid work environments produce the best profitability. Many people can become better workers when they are offered flexibility in their work schedule and environment, because stress will be lower and they will be far healthier as a result.
The Consequences of Not Having the 3 Beliefs
OK, so now you have a pretty good understanding of what these three beliefs are all about. I am sure you have guessed by now that there are some things that can happen in your life if you don’t have these beliefs.
- If you don’t believe that you deserve to have it all—health, happiness, self-motivation AND success, then you will most likely keep up the status quo in your life and you won’t learn how to manage your main causes of stress. Maybe you have your health, but not financial and career success. Maybe you have financial or career success, but you are not happy. Maybe you are self-motivated, but you have lost your health so you don’t get much momentum when you put in effort. Maybe you have none of these things and you are barely surviving. You need to back that train up right away. The only way to get it all is to believe you deserve it all.
- If you don’t believe stress to be a scientific or medical problem rather than just an emotional problem, then you will only be solving one of five problems. Any gains you make in dealing with emotional stress will be sabotaged by the other main causes of stress. All of the main fields of stress cause your body to create free radicals in massive amounts. Free radicals cause oxidative stress and oxidative stress causes disease. You have to hit the ground running and work on all of the main causes of stress equally, so you can rebalance the Endocrine System in your body.
- If you believe you are at the mercy of society’s expectations of you and your family, then you will feel trapped in your situation. Years ago, the company, Nike Shoes, had an advertising slogan, “Question Everything!” You must do this all the time. Every medical report you hear about in the news or on social media has an opposite medical report somewhere else. You must find it, read it and digest the knowledge. Every label someone tries to give to your child can be explained in many different ways. For example, the symptoms of ADHD can be explained in 60 different ways. You must educate yourself and question everything all the time. Don’t look for labels and don’t accept labels; think for yourself instead, so you can make the best decisions for yourself and your family.
As I said at the beginning, changing beliefs is not simple and only you can do it. All I can do is tell you that you have the choice to believe something else and then I can back it up with my own story and other examples of how people changed their beliefs and became able to conquer the main causes of stress in their lives, but you don’t have to believe me. Just take a look at your own life and the lives of your children. Are you getting the results you want? Are you and your kids set up well for the future?
I want that for you, from the bottom of my heart.
I would love to hear your experiences in the comments below. Have you taken steps to change your circumstances before? What successes did you have? What else do you want to change? Keep moving forward and know that you are not alone in trying to navigate the main causes of stress.
Don’t forget to sign up for my FREE weekly 2-Minute De-Stress-A-Gram and you will also get my FREE resource guide called
“Jill’s Top 5 Tools for Conquering Stress 4 Life.”