the stress factor

a lot of times in life we can find a major stress factor taking over; whether it be school, friends, people in general, sports, church, or anything really. sometimes stress is what pushes us; kind of like a pressure situation to do our best at a hard contest or something where we are expected to come through. other times stress can be a negative factor in everyday life. stress can lead to anxiety, panic, sickness, and it can even make us go crazy to the point of causing us to rethink our life altogether. lets face it- stress isn’t fun. unless stress just really motivates you, or helps you do well (must be nice), stress really causes some speed bumps in your everyday life- including your faith. when we become faced with stress, we often resort to other things in our life to distract us. be honest, every time you get stressed what is the first thing you do? sometimes our answer varies depending on the situation.

one of the things people resort to is //self pity//

self pity involves crying, or reflecting/pondering over your life, or choices that you’ve made leading up to this point. you often give up on yourself, or make yourself feel worthless and incapable of doing the simplest things. which leads to a cure to get out of the self pity “funk”: do the simple things.

when you feel overwhelmed with everything going on, start small. take a break from whatever is stressing you out. if it’s a person, make some space. if it’s a project, do something else to get your mind off of it and you. a good idea is to do something productive that doesn’t involve a ton of thought. color a picture, put together an easy puzzle, play a board game. do something that separates you and that thing to get your mind off yourself as an individual. choose something that doesn’t involve tv, or your phone. keep yourself away from social media to allow yourself a break. once you’ve completed one of the small goals, it builds your self esteem. you have proof of a personal victory that you shouldn’t beat yourself up for. work your way slowly back to whatever it is you needed time from.

another thing people resort to when they are stressed is //anxiety//

anxiety is a special case because someone can get stressed because of anxiety or their stress can lead to it. anxiety often makes us think of every possible thing that could go wrong, feeds our fears to make them bigger, or causes us to hyperventilate because we are too overwhelmed to face reality. anxiety comes from overthinking everything fearing the future outcome. the cure? face it.

one of the best ways to cure fear or anxiety is to face the situation. conquer it. once again it’s all about self confidence, usually the very thing we fear holds us back from revealing our full potential and full self. sometimes when meeting someone new we hold back our whole self because we’re too afraid to be the real us for fear they won’t like it. so rip off the band aid. be CONFIDENT. God is going to protect you when you step out of the box to do something bold for Him. obviously there are some things we get anxiety over that we can’t exactly “face” or “conquer”. that’s where sharing our problems helps us to feel better about the situation. when we tell someone else about what we’re going through we feel a little relief. we aren’t carrying the world’s problems only on our shoulders now. often letting go, and sharing our problems helps us to relax. telling our problems to God is the ultimate best thing we can do. another solution to anxiety is to R E L A X.... & C H I L L. take a breather. you worry too much, soooo take a break, let all your stress disappear. take a bath/shower, write, play an instrument. if sports help you relax go work out.

another thing people resort to when they are stressed is //shut down mode//

shut down mode can mean two different things. 1). when we become too overwhelmed with stress we give up on ourselves and feel we don’t want to do anything. we become literally “stressed out”. 2). we give up on ourselves to the state of “i can’t do this anymore”, which is often due to very overwhelming experiences. this person will feel a very quick, immediate need to be completely out of the situation; often to the point of death with a mindset of ending their life as the “only way out”. number one however, can be just as hardcore. in many instances the person may drop out of many things until they almost have no life left. they give up on everything and decide to live the rest of their life with the same dropout mentality. however just like everything else, there is a way out that doesn’t involve death.

ways to keep yourself from going into shut down mode include: surrounding yourself around people you can rely on to keep you in check; finding something that makes you happy and to keep doing that “thing”; and/or maintaining a good relationship in God. when you have God in your life you have a reason to live. without Him life is nothing, it has no purpose. keep yourself involved in life, enjoy it!! don’t overwhelm yourself with extra things but do enough to create a mission field or era you can thrive in.

everyone is different. the devil loves to use stress as a means for confusion and turmoil. sometimes the best thing to do in a situation is to remove whatever is stressing you from your life. another idea is to learn more about the thing your stressing over, or even stress itself; the more you know the less you can feel empowered.

overall stress can be a big deal. it can cause us to miss key moments in life because it likes to take up so much of us. yet really focusing on the life God has given you is so much better and more fulfilling than worrying about things that are worthless in the end of eternity. Solomon says in Ecclesiastes 2:17 “So I came to hate life because everything done here under the sun is so troubling. Everything is meaningless—like chasing the wind.” ‭‭in the end, the only thing that will remain is God and those who chose to believe in Him. don’t cling to things you can’t control because ultimately, God holds it all in His wonderful hands. HE should be the thing that you surrender everything to...we can’t control anything. so stop stressing and give it all to the one who holds it all... “Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you.” ‭‭1 Peter‬ ‭5:7‬