Have you ever felt like no matter how hard you ‘try’ to reduce the stress and anxiety in your life, it just seems to get the better of you?

Do you know what I mean here? You try and sort your problems out, but it’s like the more that you try and think about things, the more confusing (and stressful) things get for you. It feels like your days are plagued by stress and you are quite frankly, sick of it.

You feel yourself going round and round in circles, and it feels like friends and family are no help to you… they may even be causing your problems! You just want a little clarity, and a break from all of the stress and worry.

I can remember sitting with a friend, we were on holiday, and we were just lounging round by the pool, lovely hot day, beer in hand (hey even us therapists need some me time!), and he was talking about his stress and how great it was to be away from it all…

Now I try not to do the whole therapist thing with my friends, as a) I don’t want to take my work into my personal life, but b) it crosses a boundary, and so I tend not to go there, but I started to ask what was going on for him, and he started to tell me…

I won’t go into what was said, as that part is personal.. but I do remember that we had a collection of coins, just sitting on the table. You know how it is, when you’ve been to the bar, and you just toss them down and start chatting. Anyway, I looked at these coins and started to play around with them…. I asked him to imagine that one of the coins was him, and the rest were everyone else and everything else around him.

Of course, to begin with he sort of scoffed at it .. ‘You’re not gonna do your therapist routine on me are you?’ he said, smiling. I wasn’t quite sure where I was going with things.. but within just a few minutes, I’d got him looking at things much clearer. He thanked me by buying me a beer 🙂

So, now it’s time for you to try this… you ready? It really will help you reduce your stress and anxiety when it feels like things have got on top of you. Okay so here goes, back into therapist mode..

Stop what you’re doing, dig deep in your pockets (or raid your piggy bank!) and find any loose change that you have floating around in there…

Then, I want you to sit yourself down at a table, relax, and place the change out in front of you. Then take a look at it. What do you see?

‘Is this a trick question, or has he finally lost the plot??’

Yes, i get what you are thinking…

All you see is loose change isn’t it…. a few coins…. nothing that you would refer to as life changing.

But what if I told you that over the next few minutes, by turning those coins into people, or situations in your life, and moving them around a bit, things could totally change for you…..

Try my super quick stress relieving tip, all you need is some loose change.

 

Actually, I tell you what, let’s just dive right in, and do it. You ready for that? Get your coins, sit down and then do the following:

• Put the coins out on the table in front of you.
• Put one coin in the centre, this coin represents YOU
• Put the other coins around you, these coins represent people and situations that are causing stress or anxiety for you.
• Then sit and just look at them for a moment. How do they make you feel?
• Think about the order of things – look at who or what is causing the most stress for you
• Move the coins around a little. How do you feel when you start to shift things?
• Next, place the coins in a position where you would ideally like them to be.
• How do you feel now?

This exercise is super easy to do, but my clients often tell me that it can create really big inner changes for them. Peace of mind being the main one. It works so well because…

 

Sometimes you just need to look at things objectively…

What this exercise does, is it objectifies the people and situations in your life that are getting an emotional response from you. In other words, you are able to sit back and take a long hard look at things, without going off on a tangent and focusing on one particular person, or one particular situation. You are then in a much better situation to think about what is an issue for you and what you could possibly do about it.

The main thing to do when doing this short exercise, is to just loosen up a little…. don’t try and overthink  things too much, just go with it, focus on how you feel, notice any physical changes in your body for example, such as a tightening in your chest or feeling a knot in your stomach, rather than think in your head about how something is affecting you.

This really is simple to do but it is so effective because it allows you to get some perspective, it helps you get things clear in your head, and sometimes, a little clarity is all that we need, so that we can see the wood for the trees again and feel in a position to start to move things forwards.

As always, let me know how you get on with it, I love to receive your feedback

Until the next time,

Christopher.