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As Fran drives to work this morning, the traffic is unusually bad and Fran is running late. She parks the car and starts dashing into the office.
Feeling the stress start to rise, she thinks, “What can I do to get rid of this stress? I know; I’ll sing.”
She seems to be rushing most of her life, and that can really add a lot of stress. But a friend suggested that singing while you rush seems to release some of the stress. So, Fran begins to sing under her breath her favorite chorus. “He is Lord, He is Lord, He is risen from the dead and He is Lord.” By the time she has sung it twice, she’s in the door and amazingly, her shoulders have relaxed and some of the stress has gone away.
About ten o’clock Fran stops for a cup of tea. She sits back to relax, but in the process hits her elbow and spills tea all the way down her blouse.
“Oh, good grief, my good silk blouse. Oh, no,” Fran fusses as she tries to repair the damage.
She hears herself thinking, “It’s just a blouse.”
“What do you mean, it’s just a blouse?” she says out loud. “I’ll probably have to take this to the cleaners to get the stain out. Do you know what they charge to clean a silk blouse? It’s ridiculous,” Fran replies.
Her friend Louise walks in about this time, and realizes what has happened. “You know, Fran, I was listening to a message on the radio last night and he said when something you own causes you stress, give it away. So, if you want to get rid of that blouse, I’ll be glad to take it off your hands.”
At first Fran is puzzled at Louise, then she looks at her and they both begin to laugh. “That’s really a good thing to remember, Louise. I’m going to remember that. If you can’t enjoy it, get rid of it.”
“Yeah,” Louise continues, “he said if you’re not careful, you won’t own things, they will own you.”
“I guess I do get stressed out over things that are of my own doing, don’t I?” Fran remarks. “A lot of our stress is self-imposed, isn’t it, Louise?”
“You’re right, Fran,” Louise replies. “Certainly there’s a lot of stress in life that is unavoidable. But if we got rid of the self-inflicted stress, we might be able to deal with the other stress better.”
“And this blouse is one of those self-inflicted stresses, huh? So I should get rid of it?” Fran asks.
“Well, get rid of it or change your attitude toward it, I guess,” Louise adds.
On the way home, Fran thinks about some of the problems at the office and as she does, the shoulders get tighter and tighter and the knots grow in her stomach. She’s coming up on the river she crosses each day on her way home.
“You know what,” she says, “I’m going to dump all these work problems in this river. I don’t need to take them home with me. That’s self-inflicted stress. Yep, here you go,” she says as she approaches the bridge, “all you troubles are in the river for tonight. I’ll deal with you next week.”
She giggles as she says it, feeling rather foolish, but it does seem to help. Her shoulders relax and a smile breaks out on her face.
Where can you dump your self-inflicted stress? Think about it – maybe, like Fran, you need to find a good dumping ground for your work troubles on the way home each day.