Many of us tend to confuse caring, or being a good friend, with stressing. And, many of us equate working hard, with wrinkling our brow and looking busy.
For example, if a friend is sick, or having relationship problems, its very common to want to "feel their pain" in order to help.
While noble, this doesn't often work out too well for either party. The sickness just becomes more overwhelming, and the relationship problem simply balloons out of proportion.
Empathy is great, stress is not.
When people in your lives are feeling negative, and looking to you for solutions, what I find is best, is to take the necessary time to understand the situation as fully (and accurately) as possible, to ask probing questions, define absolutes (ie "everyone", "always") and to do your absolute best to understand the root of the issues verses the surface (ie "she yelled at me" vs "the past three weeks our arguments have been escalating due to my lack of involvement"), and then to make a detached-as-possible prognosis.
One of the questions that I very much enjoy asking (silently) to myself, is "what's great about this?" Often times, no matter what the personal challenge, there is an excellent "silver lining" to the situation.
Even a small silver lining such as the person having more free time, or growing as a person due to the challenge can really help change the person's state. If you can be grateful for the challenges in your life, it can very quickly change one's outlook.
The more positive the outlook, the more freely the solutions to the current challenge will arise, as negativity clouds judgment.
The time allocation that I would recommend is approximately 20% of the time understanding and analyzing the problem, and 80% of the time brainstorming and clarifying towards the solution.
Basic manifestation/quantum mechanics states that whatever we focus on, we increase the energy of.
This is very, very true with problems.
If one focuses on the problems in one's life, they seem to expand and balloon, until it seems very natural to be in a state of overwhelm.
Things get exaggerated and absolutes run rampant throughout your sentences. "Everyone hates this!" or "Its all hopeless" become increasingly more likely to hear over, say, "We have two days left to turn this around, what's the best way to do that?"
Nobody who is stressed performs better than when they are not. Many people stress themselves out as a form of "really caring". But the reason these people went to you in the first place, one would assume, is because they want you to help change their emotional state; presumably, to improve it.
You will do them no good if you require more cheering up by the end of the conversation than they do!
Sensei's Challenge:
Find a challenge, either in your own life, or someone else's, and ask yourself: "What's great about this?" as well as "what's funny about this?"
If you receive no immediate answers, you can always come back with "Okay, nothing is funny about this, but, if there was... what would it be?"
Giving yourself the freedom to be playful with your oh-so-serious life situation frees up your creative energy, and allows you to allocate the proper problem solving (instead of problem-magnifying) sections of your brain.
So have fun with your problems. After all, "some day you'll look back upon this and laugh", right? So why wait for "some day"?
ps if you're stressed... take martial arts :-D
Sensei Ono, Shinka Martial Arts
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