Practical Solutions to Everyday Problems

Neil A. Fiore

• Publisher: G&D Media
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781722526368
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: Personal Success

By applying the exercises and novel perspective of Practical Solutions readers will be set free of erroneous concepts, feelings, and beliefs about themselves that may be keeping them from experiencing the full joy of their unique version of Life.

Part I
Practical Solutions

Anxiety

Anxiety is often confused with stress, but they are very different. You evoke anxiety when you think about an event in the imaginary past or future and your body tries to get there, leaving you stuck with energy you can’t use now. Stress is a survival response that provides adrenalin and other corticosteroids to prepare you for fight or flight when there’s a threat to your physical safety.

Practical solution.

Bring your mind into the present; be mindful of your breathing and your physical feelings. Wake up all your senses in this moment—the sounds, smells, and sensations. There is no anxiety when your mind is in the present with your body.

Exercise.

Notice what’s around you and complete these statements:

Now I’m aware of this sound.

Now I’m aware of this sensation.

Now I’m aware of this smell.

Now I’m aware of this view/image.

This exercise will help you connect to your body, to the earth, the building, the floor, the chair. Accept the support of the laws of nature. Notice how you feel connected to a larger system of support. You are no longer struggling as if alone. This is the power of mindfulness and of Ram Dass’s famous instruction: be here now. You’ll become more fully alive in this moment—the only moment there is. Bring your time traveling mind back from the imaginary past and future into the real present with your body.

Imagery.

Imagine that your body is trying to follow your mind through a wall into the future problem. But it can’t get into an imaginary time. Think of anxiety as stuck energy that cannot be used now. There is only now! The past and the future are imaginary. Your body is grounded in the only time that is real: the present.

When you bring your awareness back into the present, your energy is unstuck and can be used effectively. You are free of the paralysis caused by anxiety’s stuck energy.

Ask yourself: “What can I do now? What can I do now to prepare for that imagined future problem?” Use the unstuck energy of released anxiety to motivate yourself to plan and problem-solve.

Thinking about a future problem can be helpful only when you start a plan in the present. You can only achieve your future goal by starting now, in the present.

Putting it to use.

When you start to feel anxious, notice the time frame (usually future or past) that you’re imagining. Bring your mind into the present sensations of your body, grounding yourself into the chair, the floor, the earth, or the playing field. Exhale images of the past or future and float down into the present and the support of the laws of nature.

Hot tip.

Inhale, hold your breath, tense your muscles for five seconds, then exhale and release muscle tension. As your body floats down into the present, bring your mind into your body’s present sensations, out of the imaginary past or future. Your mind is now with your body in the present, where you can take positive action to prepare for any real or imagined future problem.

Stress

Practical solution.

Make yourself safe with you. Stress is a survival response triggered by signals of danger—an earthquake, a tornado, a gunshot—that is, real threats to your life. If you’re physically safe in your office and you experience a stress response because of an email, text, or a telephone call, it is your thinking and self-talk that have evoked the survival response. Your mind interpreted those relatively mild events as a serious threat to your safety and peace. Decide if you really need an adrenaline-fueled survival response to cope with a criticism, rejection, or a poor evaluation.

When you decide it’s safe to exhale and release muscle tension, you shut off the stress/survival alarm. Remarkably, your reptilian (fight-or-flight) reaction will shut off when your higher, human brain gives the all clear signal—for example, “This is only a 3.0 earthquake; it’s safe to return to a normal level of alertness. We’re safe. I don’t need the stress of fight-or-flight response.”

Imagery.

Imagine how you will make yourself feel today: happy, stressed, anxious, sad? Unless you’re in a situation of life-threatening danger—in which the stress/survival response is appropriate—your experience of stress is coming from threatening yourself with messages such as: “I will make you feel miserable and worthless if this happens and I don’t get what I want.” To lower stress, stop threatening yourself. Guarantee your safety regardless of what happens or what others say. Know that you will not abandon yourself if something negative happens; promise that you will not give up on your unique version of life.

When you experience a stress response, notice if it’s triggered by an external event or what you’re saying to yourself. If no one is shooting at you and there are no natural disasters occurring, you most likely are threatening yourself. Something as common as “I have to finish all this work” can trigger a stress response by suggesting that something awful will happen if you fail to complete everything on time. Have to implies that you don’t want to; they’re making you do something against your will; you should rebel. It also implies a threat, as in, “You have to, or else I will punish you with something dreadful.”

The main causes of stress are probably some form of self-hatred or self-criticism coming from within yourself.

Calling up the stress response to deal with dangers that are not happening now is similar to pulling a fire alarm for a fire that happened twenty years ago or to fearing a fire that may happen next year. It would be unfair to the fire department and a misuse of its time and energy to ask firefighters to respond to such an alarm, just as it’s unfair to demand that your body continually respond to threats of danger from events that cannot be tackled now.

Putting it to use.

Use a Richter earthquake or a hurricane scale of 0 to 10 to rate your stress level. Ratings of 1 to 4 indicate that you are relatively safe; ratings of 5 to 7 are dangerous and require the use of your stress energy for fight or flight; ratings of 8 to 10 indicate a major disaster that could be deadly. Most daily stressors are in the lower ranges and can be dismissed in 5 to 30 seconds by exhaling and deciding if it’s safe to continue with your daily tasks. The higher stressors of 8 to 10 are rare in most areas of the world and are generally beyond your control. Even so, you can lower stress and worry by promising that you will not turn against yourself even if the worst happens. (See page 123, “Fear of Death: Knowing What You’ll Say to Yourself.”)

Hot tip.

If you’ve experienced trauma or extreme danger in the past, as with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a split-second stress reaction can be triggered by events similar to what caused the original trauma. Lowering the intensity of this form of stress may take repeated experiences of safety. While PTSD is beyond the scope of this book, several therapies have been proven to be effective in reducing symptoms and the frequency of occurrence. Check with your local hospitals, university counseling centers, and county psychological associations for a list of therapists who work with PTSD clients.

Remember, stress is a survival response that prepares you to run for safety, to fight for your life, or go into a freeze state similar to coma in order to conserve energy. In some cases, your mind will ask you if this current situation is similar to what happened in the past, calling for an adrenaline-fueled stress response. It’s up to you, from your higher brain, to decide the level of danger and how you choose to act. Each time you take command of your reactions and choose how to act, you strengthen your leadership role and the neural pathways that communicate between the lower, fight-or-flight reptilian brain and your higher, human, prefrontal cortex executive functions. Overriding lower brain reactions strengthens your leadership over your life.

Procrastination*

Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.

—VIKTOR E. FRANKL, Man’s Search for Meaning

Warning Signs of Procrastination

You speak in “have tos” and “shoulds.” Life feels like a series of obligations.

Your perception of time is unrealistic—you’re often late or rushed.

You’re vague about your goals, vision, and values. You lack effective leadership.

You feel stressed, frustrated, depressed.

You’re afraid of making a mistake; you have low self-worth.

You’re waiting to feel confident, decisive, and motivated, and you need to know everything before you take action.

Practical solution.

Shift from the procrastinator’s language of inner conflict (“I have to finish all this boring work, but I don’t want to”) to the producer’s (“I am choosing to show up and start”). You don’t have to want to start a task; as a human being you have a brain with a leadership executive function that enables you to choose surgery, complete a difficult training, or to start doing your income tax. You don’t have to wait for some part of you to want to. You’re the leader in your life, making the tough choices. Use your higher brain functions as our ancestors did: to override the lower, animal brain fear of fire.

Imagery.

Imagine four scenes.

SCENE 1. Your task is to walk a board that’s 30 feet long, 1 foot wide, and 4 inches thick. You have all of the physical, mental, and emotional ability to do the job. You walk the board with no problem.

SCENE 2. The board is now 100 feet above ground, suspended between two buildings. Your task—to walk the board—and your ability remain the same.

What are you feeling and thinking as you contemplate starting the task now? Let’s assume that you experience fear of making a mistake that could lead to serious injury or possibly death from falling 100 feet. Your fear is natural, given how you view the task and the consequences of making a mistake.

Yet we’ve seen you walk the board when it was on the ground. We know you can do it. We’re wondering what’s stopping you now. Are you procrastinating? Do you have a fear of failure? Are you worried about not doing the task perfectly?

SCENE 3. While stuck 100 feet above ground on a board 1 foot wide, you naturally delay for several minutes as thoughts of self-criticism, shame, and fear run through your awareness. We, the onlookers, don’t know your fears, nor do ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• To the Reader
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Objectives
• Five Signs That You Can Benefit from This Book
• Part I: Practical Solutions
• Part II: Beyond Practical Solutions: Digging Deeper
• Bibliography