If you often find yourself struggling with the stresses of finances, health, career, relationships, self-image, or family, then this humor-filled volume is just what you need. With simple, practical tips for attaining the peace you crave—the peace that passes all understanding you'll discover healing, refreshment, and revitalization for your spirit, body, and mind.
If you often find yourself struggling with the stresses of finances, health, career, relationships, self-image, or family, then this humor-filled volume is just what you need. With simple, practical tips for attaining the peace you crave—the peace that passes all understanding you'll discover healing, refreshment, and revitalization for your spirit, body, and mind.
Too Blessed to Be Stressed: Inspiration for Climbing Out of Life's Stress-Pool
Too Blessed to Be Stressed: Inspiration for Climbing Out of Life's Stress-Pool
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Overview
If you often find yourself struggling with the stresses of finances, health, career, relationships, self-image, or family, then this humor-filled volume is just what you need. With simple, practical tips for attaining the peace you crave—the peace that passes all understanding you'll discover healing, refreshment, and revitalization for your spirit, body, and mind.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781545905654 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | christianaudio.com |
| Publication date: | 06/30/2018 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
| Product dimensions: | 6.38(w) x 5.44(h) x 0.56(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Too Blessed to be Stressed
Inspirational for Climbing Out of Life's Stress-Pool
By Debora M. Coty
Barbour Publishing, Inc.
Copyright © 2011 Debora M. CotyAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-61626-346-1
CHAPTER 1
Superwoman Has Left the Building
—Health Awareness—
The Lord said, "I will go with you and give you peace."
Exodus 33:14 CEV
Kick back a moment and take this revealing true–or–false stress test for women:
[] T [] F I am frequently grumpy and I don't know why.
[] T [] F I used to enjoy cooking, but now it's only a necessary chore.
[] T [] F I don't feel appreciated for all the tasks that I do.
[] T [] F I'm embarrassed if caught relaxing or being "unproductive."
[] T [] F The volume in my voice increases to make my point!
[] T [] F I feel like I live in my car.
[] T [] F I can't remember the last time I laughed till I cried.
[] T [] F A "free" day is exhausting because I must complete all my home duties.
[] T [] F I tend to eat when feeling tense or overwhelmed.
[] T [] F I feel like I'm constantly on the defensive.
[] T [] F I often have unexplained headaches or stomachaches.
[] T [] F My to-do lists have footnotes.
Now count the answers that you marked "true" and check out your status:
4–6: Yellow Alert! You are at risk of becoming stressed out.
7–9: Orange Alert! Look out, girlfriend, you're at toxic stress levels.
10–12: Red Alert!!! You are a bonified Stress Mess and need immediate help!
Surprised? I certainly was when I took the test.
But we really shouldn't be stunned if we're tuned in to ourselves. Stress overload symptoms don't appear overnight. When our computers begin to freeze up, we recognize that it's time to turn off and reboot. When the warning light shines on the car dashboard, we wouldn't dream of ignoring it. When the bathroom scale pointer begins to spin like a fan, we know it's time to ditch the brownies.
If we ignore the signs, stress will eventually take a toll on our bodies.
We women tend to internalize stress. We take confrontation and subtle discord very personally. Heated words and even mild disagreements often sink into our innards, depositing a sense of unsettledness and anxiety. When we can't find an outlet for our pent-up frustration, we sometimes resort to self-destructive behavior. We eat too much. We smoke. We drink. We abuse our bodies. We may even isolate ourselves.
We're only deceiving ourselves if we think our loved ones don't notice the external signs of our inner distress—fussing, fuming, and fatigue. I call them the Three Fs. We may not even realize how far we've sunk in the stress-pool until those who care about us point it out, usually by evidence of the Three Fs: outward fussing, inward fuming, and chronic fatigue.
I knew it was time to address my stress issues when my growl grew louder than the dog's, and my fam tactfully suggested I get a rabies shot.
But listen, it's what we don't see, the below-the-surface stress symptoms, that are the scariest. Cortisol, a hormone our bodies release in the grip of stress, contributes to out-of-control feelings of helplessness and hopelessness. Studies confirm that over time, stress increases blood pressure, contributes to migraines and tension headaches, and results in the plaque that leads to coronary artery and heart disease. Chronic stress has been found to increase cardiovascular risk by up to 50 percent! Not to mention documented ties to ulcers, asthma, insomnia, strokes, cancer, obesity, depression, anxiety attacks, colds, flu, and alcoholism.
And those crying jags when you're frazzled? Not coincidence. Stress lowers estrogen production, which can trigger emotional outbursts. You know, without our hormones we're bubbling volcanoes waiting to erupt.
Am I describing you? If so, please allow me to speak as your new BFF: honey, put on your big-girl panties and face facts. You are not superwoman with nerves of steel. Or guts either. Stress is kryptonite, and it's out to rip off your cape and reduce you to a pile of quivering, ineffective mush.
Okay, that's the bad news. How about some good news? Take a deep breath. Close your eyes. Exhale slowly. There. You've just taken the first step in stress reduction. There are plenty of simple but effective techniques for boosting our body's stress resilience:
* Add yourself to your daily to-do list. Schedule fifteen minutes twice a day to revive, regroup, and regenerate. Remove yourself from the stress source, even if it means just stepping outside for a few minutes. (I walk laps around the parking lot at work or swing on a hammock in the backyard at home.) Air out your brain. Sing along to your favorite CD. Read an inspirational novel or a magazine. Whatever helps you chill. And don't take no for an answer when other activities try to crowd you out. You're important!
* Take laugh breaks. Lighten up, sister! "The joy of the LORD is your strength" (Nehemiah 8:10 NIV)! Some say Christians should be sober and serious and silent as the grave, but I say Jesus came out of the grave and that's the best reason in the world to celebrate!
* Relax your knotted muscles with five-minute stress-busters throughout the day. Stop thinking. Get physical! Stretch, bend, roll those tense shoulders (more great relaxation stretches in chapter 29), chase the dog—get that reinvigorating blood flowing through your body tissues as your wasted mind takes a break. Crank up the praise music while you do housework: line dance while vacuuming, swing dance while cooking, boogie with the grocery cart in the frozen food aisle. Movement causes your brain to secrete beta-endorphin, which helps calm and de-stress you. You'll need that for the checkout line.
* Immerse your weariness. Try a Jacuzzi, if available, a bubble bath up to your chin, dipping in a cool spring, or floating in a relaxing pool. Even just standing in the shower, away from the world, can help wash away exhaustion and rejuvenate gasping body tissues (including brain cells). Feel the moment and focus on the water's refreshing sensory input to your skin; allow it to spread buoyancy to your spirit.
* Repetitive redundancy. No, this is not the name of a new rock group. It's what you should do to take your frantic self down a notch: Crochet, do needlepoint, play piano scales, rock out (we're talking about a rocking chair here, not retro Joan Jett) to soothing sounds like chirping birds or a babbling fountain (get a table model for your porch or den—I love mine, except for the fact that listening to all that running water makes me flee to the bathroom). You need a calm, repetitive, manual task that takes minimal brain power. Chopping firewood doesn't count.
* Ask for help! Delegate responsibilities and chores. Hire help if you can afford it. If you can't, beg. I have a wonderful, organizationally gifted girlfriend who wades in once a month to keep my house from turning into a nuclear waste site (love you, Teresa!). The rest of the time, chores are divided between family members. If everyone does their part, no one is left exhausted. Give up perfectionism. Ain't nobody perfect but Jesus, and you're
* not Him. Let a few things go. Tomorrow, release a few more. In time those tasks will quit nagging at you, and you'll literally feel the stress rocks in your stomach disintegrate into dust.
So when those stress overload signs start popping up and the red cape threatens to sprout over our blue tights, um ... I mean, jeans, let's do ourselves a favor and remind each other that we don't have to perpetuate the myth of superwoman. She's left the building and lost the key!
Half our life is spent trying to find Something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save.
Will Rogers
Let's Decom-Stress
1. Which questions on the stress test rated your strongest "true"? Do you ever demonstrate the Three Fs to your family? When and why?
2. So what can you do about it? Which stress resilience technique will you implement and in what specific way? (You don't have to stick with the suggestions I've made. Creatively tailor a technique to your unique situation.)
CHAPTER 2Martha on Steroids
—Setting Priorities—
Let all things be done decently and in order.
1 Corinthians 14:40 KJV
Are you a filer or a piler? Do you file things away in their proper places and organize your home in delightful Martha Stewart fashion? Or do you leave little piles all over like shrines to the clutter god, which eventually turn into lurching Stonehenge precipices that threaten to avalanche and bury your living room?
I tend to be a little of both. You'll rarely find crumbs beside my toaster; just don't look underneath. A pair of dust bunnies may dance in the dining room, but whole squads play hockey with the roaches beneath the beds. Cat hair tumbleweeds aren't usually rolling down the hallway; just don't sit on the couch wearing black pants. A few grimy corners may grace the tub, but you'll never be privy to them. Hey, that's what shower curtains are for.
Housework is something nobody notices until you ignore it. Then everybody becomes your mother: Do you live in a barn? I don't remember an indoor blizzard! I forget—what color is this carpet?
So I'm not Martha Stewart. Or even the biblical Martha who zipped around cleaning, cooking, and organizing when the Son of God came to visit (see Luke 10:38–42). But isn't that a good thing? Didn't Jesus rebuke Martha for her preoccupation as a human do-ing rather than a human be-ing?
I'm neat, but not immaculate. Orderly, but not obsessed. Clean enough for health, dirty enough for happiness. And I'm not alone.
"Clean enough" seems to be the new mantra sweeping our bustlingly busy country as women find little time for once-sacred housekeeping duties. I understand that an average of 26.5 hours per week was spent housecleaning in 1965 compared to 17 hours today. The latter is roughly 2.4 hours per day.
In Coty math (read: not reproducible), that means we're picking up something every 12 minutes!
Four decades ago the scouring, of course, would have been performed mostly by women, the majority of whom didn't work outside the home and considered their sparkling terrazzo a reflection of personal worth. Thankfully, menfolk do more these days. The Council on Contemporary Families reports that the masculine contribution to household duties has doubled in the past fifty years, and help with child care has tripled.
I can't complain there. The Good Lord blessed me with a 50-50 husband. Well, since writing began devouring my spare time, his share has burgeoned to more like 75 percent. Hey, I'm not vain. I'll admit he's a much better scrubber than me. I'm a lick-and-a-promise gal, but he's into minute details, and since he took over, my gleaming pot bottoms double as NASA solar reflectors. Our polka-dot carpet turned out to be tan. There's actually a face behind all the toothpaste flicks on the bathroom mirror.
I don't even refer to the kitchen sink as "The Promised Land" anymore. On a trip to Israel, we learned that excavation down through layers of previous civilizations' left-behind refuse reveals interesting facets of history. Hey, I could do the same thing with the food layers coating my sink. Want to know how many potatoes I peeled for Easter dinner in 2006?
Look, it's not my fault. Who can withstand the relentless forces of spontaneous degeneration, one of the biggest stressors of domesticated life? Never heard of that infamous Coty near-fact of science? Took me years of dedicated observation and study to discover the reason my house looks like it does. Please, let me enlighten you.
The theory of spontaneous degeneration declares that when left in an unnaturally clean state, matter will spontaneously atrophy into indiscriminant disarray.
You, too, have witnessed the ravages of spontaneous degeneration: an hour after you triumphantly finish slaving over a clean house, mold begins sprouting on shiny faucets, green slime oozes from the vegetable crisper, tiny hairs creep up from the drain and imbed themselves in the bathroom sink, and dust bunnies proliferate for a closet reunion.
Black dirt erupts like lava from the carpet nap, clothing magically appears on every piece of sit-able furniture, dirty panties peek from behind hampers just in time for the dog to proudly present them to dinner guests. And most mysterious of all, pairs of clean wet socks innocently entering the dryer become tragically widowed as their mates are magically transported to the parallel universe of the Pogo People, who hop around on one foot wearing Junior's sports high-tops.
Housekeeping is a perpetual lesson in futility. Cleaning an occupied house is like combing your hair in a hurricane.
The way I see it, I'm actually being thoughtful by ignoring my mop and dust rag. I'm eliminating the sinful temptation for friends who might fall short in comparison. In fact, they've learned to appreciate my dust decor and even occasionally leave cute little DON'T EAT HERE messages finger-etched on the coffee table.
I try to clean up, but sometimes my efforts backfire. Like the south Florida woman who accidentally rammed an alligator with her car. Seriously. She dutifully cleaned up the road but crashed into a parked car when the possum-playing gator began thrashing around in her backseat. The poor dear was charged with a felony: possession of an alligator. (We can't count votes down here, but we're sure on top of illegal reptiles!)
So when we're tempted to forsake our devotional moments, family time, or prayer walks to toothbrush the grout, disinfect the toilets, or scrub the baseboards like Martha on steroids, let's remember Jesus' words to His beloved spiritual sister: "Martha, dear Martha, you're fussing far too much and getting yourself worked up over nothing" (Luke 10:41 MSG).
Only one thing is truly of eternal importance: Papa God. And He created dirt.
My second favorite household chore is ironing. My first being hitting my head on the top bunk bed until I faint.
Erma Bombeck
Let's Decom-Stress
1. Take a moment and read the story of Mary and Martha in Luke 10:38–42. With which sister can you most identify? Why?
2. How do you think the stress levels differ for a Martha, who rushes about cleaning and cooking to perfection, and a Mary, who makes time to sit at the feet of Jesus and soak in His presence?
3. Rearrange the following priorities in order of importance to you: "me" time, family, faith, work, achieving success, appearance, relationships, schedules. On which three do you spend the most time?
4. Which are of eternal value? Do you feel the need to make any changes in your priorities?
CHAPTER 3Can I Hear Me Now?
—Self-Talk—
If our minds are ruled by our desires, we will die. But if our minds are ruled by the Spirit, we will have life and peace.
Romans 8:6 CEV
"I just cannot learn this new system."
"That's impossible!"
"There's no way I'll ever get along with her."
Have you ever spouted loaded statements like these birthed from frustration? If you're like me, they're typical of your speech during a single day. Sometimes a single hour. But what impact does this type of self-talk really have when we make such sweeping, absolute declarations?
My tennis coach, Pete, used to stop cold in the middle of a drill when he sensed my negative attitude beginning to rear its ugly head. It was probably my primal scream and the way I slammed my racket into the net that tipped him off.
"I can't make this shot!" I'd seethe through gritted teeth after the tenth straight drop shot into the net. "Just forget it! I. Am. Not. Able. I won't keep wasting time on something that will never happen."
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Too Blessed to be Stressed by Debora M. Coty. Copyright © 2011 Debora M. Coty. Excerpted by permission of Barbour Publishing, Inc..
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Section 1 Time Management
Pressure Creates Both Diamonds and Volcanoes 9
1 Superwoman Has Left the Building (Health Awareness) 10
2 Martha on Steroids (Setting Priorities) 16
3 Can I Hear Me Now? (Self-Talk) 21
4 Shoving the Envelope (Finding Balance) 26
5 Papa God, Mama Earth (Discovering a Deeper Shade of Green) 30
6 All Stressed Up and Nowhere to Break Down (Coping with Loss) 35
7 Calendar Constipation (Simplify) 41
8 As You Wish (Intentional Submission) 47
9 Gray: The New Blond (Worry)52
10 Striving for a Low-Strife Life (Family Organization) 57
Section 2 Develop a Sense of Humor
Defeating the Joy-Sucking Dully-Funks 63
11 The Back Forty: Years, Not Acres (Becoming a Packing Granny) 64
12 The Ever-Laughing Life (Humor in the Trenches) 69
13 Chocolate Makes My Jeans Shrink (Food Choices) 73
14 Cobwebs in My Mop Bucket (Managing Messiness) 78
15 Humility Becomes You (Pride) 82
16 Smiles to Go Before I Sleep (Sleep Deprivation) 86
17 Things My Mother Never Told Me (Menopause) 91
18 You Can Run but You Can't Hide (God's Mercy) 97
19 Cheesecake: Not Just for Breakfast Anymore (Nutrition) 102
20 Girls Just Need to Have Fun (Stress Relief) 106
Section 3 Cultivate Relationships
No Woman Is an Island (But She Can Dream!) 113
21 Romancing the Drone (Romance) 114
22 Nuts in the Batter (Dealing with Difficult People) 119
23 Family Heir-Loons (Creating Legacy) 124
24 Latitude for Gratitude (Living Gratefully) 129
25 Chic Chat (Nurturing Girlfriends) 134
26 Ah, Sweet Sistah-Hood! (Siblings) 139
27 Teddies to Toasters (Marital Intimacy) 144
28 Pacifiers to Puberty (Mothering) 149
29 Minding My Earth Suit (Physical Maintenance) 154
30 Heart Matters (Finding Peace) 160
Section 4 Focus on Faith
Marinating in Faith Produces the Choicest Priority Cuts 165
31 Darth Wader (Resisting Temptation) 166
32 Luther's Legacy (Unconditional Love) 172
33 Dead Last (Courage) 177
34 Kneels on Wheels (Prayer) 182
35 Everyday Miracles (God's Sovereignty) 187
36 Lost and Found (Faith) 192
37 Feed the Fever (Worship) 198
38 Taking the Plunge (Trust) 202
39 Crossing Home Plate (Life after Life) 207
40 Keep the Faith, Baby (Dependence on God) 213
Acknowledgments 219
Visit with the Author 221