Stress..and ramblings...:)

Dealing with stress is a daily struggle with me.  My body doesn't react well to stressful situations, of course I'm not sure if that is unique to me because of my MS  or because I am a female. :)  Anyway, I noticed this week as I tried to bulldoze my way through receipts, expense reports, etc during my annual tax deliberation that I was feeling the old stress overload happen again.  The tightness in the shoulders, the familiar aches and pains creeping into my body and the pain in my lower back hurting with a vengeance and I began to feel a bit dismayed.  I thought that I was completely over those feelings.  I mean..I finished P90X for goodness sakes!  I should be able to handle anything, right?  I then realized that these aches had nothing to do with my MS, or my current state of nutrition or fitness, it had everything to do with how I was allowing some outside force dictate how I was feeling.  I was feeling stress over something I had no control over.  Can I avoid paying taxes?  I wish, but alas, I can't.  So why let it give me stress?  I put my foot down and told myself in the infamous words of my dear friend Anne Dovel...Stop it!!  Then, when I finished laughing at that comment I realized that stopping a familiar cycle is the hardest habit to break.

We all have cycles we follow.  I fold my bath towels a certain way because that is the way I was taught when I was young.  That is a cycle..a learned behavior.  This can apply to so many aspects of our lives from our fitness regimen, the types of foods we eat,  to yes...how we react to certain situations.  I learned at an early age that tax time was a very stressful time and I have allowed that cycle to cause me undue stress for years by choosing to continue that cycle of thought.  Think about parts of your life that cause some innate reaction either good or bad and you can probably trace it to a certain part of your life that held significance to you.  The big question is whether to keep that cycle going or to make the choice to stop it once and for all.  I do not want my children to view this time of year with even a smidgen of anxiety because of my actions.  So for my sake..my body's sake and my children's future I say in a loud voice ....Stop it!!

Take some time to assess your life.  Do you have "excuses" pop in your head for no apparent reason?  Then take the time to truly assess that thought process and decide if it is something that you want to allow to continue.  You have the power to control how you think..it isn't easy, but it can be done.   How do you choose to think?  Are you a follower, or are you someone who can take charge of your life and your thoughts?  These are the questions I ask myself, and I'm pretty sure I'm leaning towards taking life by the horns and kicking it in the rear!