Maybe it was a message from your boss, in interaction with a colleague, or simply one more thing added to an already busy day. On another occasion you may have handled the exact same situation without much difficulty at all, yet this time it suddenly felt like too much.

Experiences like this often confuse people because the reaction can feel disproportionate to what is actually happening. We start wondering why we are reacting this way, why we cannot seem to think clearly or why everything suddenly feels heavier than it should.

Sometimes we don’t even notice it happening at all. We become so mentally involved in the situation, the thoughts and the feelings surrounding it, that everything simply starts feeling like too much. Often the response is to push harder, keep going and try to force ourselves through it, while quietly carrying the feeling that we should be coping better than we are.

But if you observe your own experience carefully enough, you start noticing something important. The exact same situation can feel completely different depending on the state your mind and nervous system were already in before it happened.

Psychiatrist Dan Siegel described this through the idea of the “Window of Tolerance”, the range in which the nervous system is regulated enough for us to think clearly, respond effectively and remain present with what is happening rather than becoming consumed by it.

Inside that window there is more psychological space available. Thoughts still appear, emotions still arise and pressure still exists, but there is enough capacity in the system for perspective, flexibility and choice to remain accessible. Outside that window the mind becomes louder, reactions become faster and even relatively minor problems can begin feeling unusually personal, urgent or emotionally overwhelming.

What narrows the window is often not the single event we blame in the moment, but the accumulation that has been building quietly underneath the surface.

Poor sleep gradually reduces resilience. Constant mental engagement keeps the nervous system activated. Background worry, emotional tension, overstimulation, sustained responsibility without proper recovery and the endless habit of mentally revisiting problems all slowly add load to the system.

It’s similar to trying to run too many applications on a computer at the same time. At first everything still appears functional, but the processing capacity gradually becomes stretched thinner and thinner in the background until eventually something small causes the entire system to slow down or freeze. Most people focus only on the final moment the system struggles, while rarely noticing the enormous amount already running underneath it.

This is one reason why thinking itself can become such an important part of stress. The mind keeps reopening loops, replaying conversations, predicting outcomes and trying to mentally solve situations that cannot yet be solved. Even while sitting still, the body can remain subtly prepared for threat because the mind never fully steps out of the struggle.

Then one more email arrives, one more inconvenience appears or one more interaction feels difficult and suddenly the reaction seems far bigger than the situation itself would appear to justify.

Usually it’s not about that single moment at all. It’s about everything the system has already been carrying before the moment arrived.

This is where awareness becomes incredibly useful. Instead of immediately believing something has gone terribly wrong, or telling yourself you should be handling things better, simply notice what is happening. Notice that your system has had a lot running in the background. Notice the thoughts, the tension and the feelings that are there without trying to immediately fix or judge them. That’s often enough.

Because the moment you stop fighting the fact that stress is happening, a little more space starts to open up around the experience. And from that space, things often begin settling far more naturally than when the mind is trying to force its way back into control.

In many situations it feels like stress is coming from what is happening around you. The meeting, the deadline, the conversation that didn’t go the way you expected, the email that never came. It all feels very real and very justified.

The situation still matters. Some situations are genuinely difficult. But alongside that, something else is happening.

There is what actually happened, and then there is everything your mind adds on top of it.
Most of the stress sits in that second layer.

Someone didn’t call you. That’s the situation.
Then the thoughts start. “Why didn’t they call me?” “They should have called.” “They don’t respect me!” “This always happens.” Before long you are no longer with the simple fact they didn’t call. You’re in a whole world your mind has created around it.

That is where the Interference Window comes in.

It is a way of seeing the gap between reality and everything that gets layered on top of it. The thoughts, the emotions, the assumptions, the judgement. That layer is what drives a lot of the stress we experience day to day.

It’s like a layer running alongside reality. The situation happens, and at the same time your mind is interpreting it, adding meaning, predicting what comes next.

Most people spend a lot of time in that space without realising it.

Thoughts appear all the time, which is what your brain is designed to do. It’s wired to look for danger signals, scanning for risk, trying to protect you, predicting what might happen next. It goes back to our primal origins, and can be helpful in certain situations, but it can also create a lot of unnecessary noise when it’s not needed.

That noise is interference. Not because something is wrong, but because the mind is doing what it’s designed to do.

It pulls attention away from what is actually happening and into a version of events that may or may not be accurate. It can create tension in the body, emotion in the system, and a sense of urgency. From there, your reactions tend to follow and things can soon get out of control.

A useful way to step away from this interference is simply to start noticing what’s happening in your mind.

Notice you are having thoughts, and the story that is forming in your mind. A simple technique used in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy is to name the thoughts or feeling your experiencing by saying to yourself: “I’m having the thought that they don’t respect me.” “I’m noticing frustration” or “I’m feeling anxious.”

That small shift creates a bit of space between you and your thoughts.

The situation still exists, and there are still thoughts and emotions. But now there is also an awareness of them, and more room to choose how to respond.

The meeting is still happening. The deadline is still there. The person still said what they said. Now though, when you have noticed the thought, the added layer of commentary in the mind can begin to soften. It doesn’t have the same control over you, or give you the unhelpful sense of urgency that you need to do something with the thought as if it’s the most important thing in the world. It’s not.

With practice, this becomes easier to recognise. Thoughts still come and go, and they tend to have less pull. Attention can return more easily to what is happening around you. Conversations with people feel clearer, and decisions can feel more grounded. There is more capacity to stay with the situation in front of you, rather than being carried away by what the mind is doing with it.

Over time it becomes less about trying to change or control thoughts, and more about seeing them as part of the experience rather than the whole experience, which opens up a different way of moving through situations, especially the ones that would normally create stress.

Just a thought: Today, pick one small moment and notice the story your mind is creating.

What are the actual facts here?
What is my mind adding on top?

You don’t need to change anything. Just notice it.

That awareness alone can begin to loosen the grip of the story.

It’s a great muscle to build so that when you are really struggling, overwhelmed or stuck, you are able to step back and notice the thoughts your mind is creating. That awareness can be all you need to relieve your self from the stress of the situation (which is often the story, not the situation itself).

More at The Interference Window

It’s been a while since I wrote here, and it’s great to be back!

I’ve been developing the Interference Window, a simple way to see how our thoughts create stress and affect performance.

More on that soon, but first I want to shine a light on the role our minds plays in creating stories.

Consider this:

Your manager gave you some feedback recently. It was given professionally, and with positive intent, and most of it was positive. Yes, one part wasn’t, but the overwhelming message was that you did a good job. The trouble is that days later you’re still thinking about that one part.

Your mind added extra stories to it too, so now you’re worried that other people are thinking the same thing, and your job may not be safe. All the positive comments are a distant memory, all you can think about is that one negative piece of feedback.

If it had happened to a friend or family member, you know exactly what you’d be saying to them: “Ignore everything positive your manager had to say as they were probably lying, just take the one aspect that sounded a bit negative, and build as many stories as you can to make yourself feel as bad as possible”. Clearly (or at least hopefully) you wouldn’t say that. So why does your mind start adding all these thoughts?

The good news is that it’s not just you. Psychologists call it ‘negativity bias’, because our brains are wired to pay more attention to negative experiences than positive ones. It’s ironically a design feature that’s meant to help you, by noticing things that are a threat and then directing your body’s resources to it. The trouble is that in today’s world, most of us aren’t likely to be experiencing life or death situations, but our brains haven’t caught up with that, and still treat the situation like a predator.

You might be familiar with these sorts of stories “That comment means they don’t rate me”, “I’m not as good as I thought I was”, “ I better start looking for another job” “Why me?” . Or your stories might go in a different direction “I’m sick of being told off”, “They can stick their job if they don’t value me”. It’s not the feedback that’s the issue. It’s what your mind adds to it.

That’s where the interference comes from.

That’s what’s causing you far more stress than the situation itself.

Now contemplate this story. A child comes home from school after getting feedback from their teacher. “ I can’t stop thinking about what the teacher said. It was only one comment about my handwriting needs to be neater, but on the way home it made me so mad that now I feel sick.” The parent reassured their child that it would be ok, that they’d help them get better, and that the teacher was known for having very high expectations. Nothing made a difference, and at dinner time the child was still noticeably distressed. So the parent handed the child the glass of water from the table, and asked them to hold it out with a straight arm for as long as they could. After about 10 seconds the child started to wince, and soon their arm began to shudder. After a while, the child couldn’t hold it any longer and put it down on the table with a thud.

“What was the point of that?” the child replied frustratedly. The parent responded calmly, “the glass hasn’t changed, it weighed the same after 30 seconds as it did at the start, but for you it felt a hundred times heavier by the end, didn’t it? “Yeah I guess so”, the child conceded. “That glass of water is just like the feedback your teacher gave you today. The longer you hold onto it, the more pain it’s causing you. You can choose to put it down at any time, but there’s going to be a point when it feels too heavy.”

It’s the same with the feedback - the longer you hold onto your thoughts and stories about what the teacher said, the harder it’s going to be.

So next time this happens, see if you can notice these thoughts creeping in. Then ask yourself, are you responding to the feedback you received, or the stories that your mind has constructed around it? Just noticing this difference can reduce the grip that these thoughts have on you, and the power it has over your day. You don’t have to fix anything, or try and feel more positive, you just need to see it for what it is.

If this resonates, put down the glass of water and take a look at interferencewindow.com to see how thoughts are having an impact on you, and what can be done about it.

When we feel we have to go along with a situation that's in contrast, or even conflict, with what we think should be happening, we can get stressed. Take this example of a groundbreaking experiment by Solomon Asch in the 1950s which demonstrates it beautifully.

The group were asked to respond to a series of very easy questions about the length of a straight line. Everyone apart from the one person being assessed were actors, who were all instructed to give the same wrong answer. Despite knowing that the answer they were giving was incorrect, the subject continued to hear the others give the wrong answer time and time again, and also gave the incorrect answer when asked.

This caused stress and frustration because the reality they were experiencing was in conflict with what they thought was how things ‘should’ be.

This experiment has been replicated lots of times over the years, with consistent results showing this ‘groupthink’.

1. Thinking

People in the test got visibly stressed and frustrated by the situation and their thoughts amplified the stress.

When we think things should be a certain way, and they're not, we will invariably get stressed. In this example, the situation doesn't need to be stressful. The others in the group were giving wrong answers and the subject knew it because the questions & answers were so simple. The trouble was that they let thoughts creep in, double guessing, judging, triggering peer-pressure - all of which can add to stress.

2. Unthinking

You can reduce stress by first being aware of the situation and then accepting it, without judgement. By literally accepting what is happening - whether you like it or not - the frustration will dissolve.

3.Syncing

It doesn't matter if you're right or wrong, if you want to reduce stress, accept the situation as it is - in that moment. That doesn’t mean you can’t take action if want to change what's happening in a future moment. But resisting what is actually happening now is futile, and is just going to cause more stress.

This might sound like you're giving in to the situation but it actually takes more strength to accept something when every thought is telling you it ‘should be’ another way.

You can check out Asch's experiment on the Stresslessness YouTube channel.

An example of this from early in my career, was when someone in the team resigned and their manager reacted very angrily. He was furious about how unprofessional it was for her to leave, and got extremely defensive. All she had really done was take an offer to work at a different organisation, but the manager had let his mind and emotions get out of control and taken it as a personal attack on him. He didn't realise this was about her decision to progress her career, and instead viewed it only through the lens of his world view - as if somehow her career decision was based on how it would impact him. 

In Don Miguel Ruiz's bestseller ‘The 4 Agreements’ he explains how when people say or do things, they are expressing their own reality, not yours. By not taking things personally, you avoid being affected by others' opinions and behaviors, which are reflections of their own experiences, which have nothing to do with you. Ruiz suggests that when you take things personally, you become vulnerable to unnecessary suffering and stress.

1.Thinking

When something happens that we see as unacceptable, we would ideally have a rational response. But before we can process things in this way, our mind bypasses the Amygdala (which is what helps our thoughts process rationally), and we react. It may be anger, for others they retract completely, and someone else might seem calm but then the negative emotions come out in other ways.

And when the physiological response to the stress of the situation kick in - such as fight or flight hormones like adrenaline & cortisol - things escalate.

Our mind reacts to the drama, we come up with stories in our head, which adds to the stress.

2. Unthinking

As it's usually the thoughts about the situation ( not the situation itself) that cause the issue, we may not even realise that it's happening.

We take things personally when we see things only from our perspective, failing to realise that it's not about us at all most of the time.

We can learn to unthink about the way we respond and reduce our stress levels.

In the example above, the person resigning was doing it for their own reasons, not to spite their manager. But that's not how the manager saw it, or how it felt.

We can learn to unthink and shift the view from how it affect us to instead consider that it may be nothing to do with us at all. We can detach from these thoughts and not take these things so personally.

We can do this by taking a few deep breaths or literally removing ourselves from the situation in that moment. Then ask the question ‘is this a reflection of their experiences and not a commentary about me?’ Just by recognising we are having these thoughts is a helpful step towards detaching from these emotions and not taking things personally.

You can use some of these methods of staying out of your head here.

3. Aligning

Rather than resisting the situation and fighting against the reality of what is actually happening, accept the situation. You may not like the fact that they resigned but they did. It may be because of your managerial style, but it may be to do with their own career based decisions.

The facts here are:

• They resigned.

That's it. Their decision. They didn't do anything to you. Accept the situation for what it is, not how you think it should be.

When we don't take things so personally, things become a lot less stressful. It can take practice to make the shift, but it can make a big difference.

I used to manage a small business called Sliding Doors, that for several years supported people to find new roles, especially after redundancy. I would regularly see first-hand the personal impact when someone was told that they would be losing their job. This would have the obvious financial implications, but what caught most people off guard was the impact it had on a much deeper level - their identity. 

An example where I saw this on a large scale, was when I worked with a newspaper giant during the closure of their printing operations, where literally everyone at the site was no longer needed as a result of the digital revolution. People who had been printers all their life wrestled with the change that was suddenly thrust upon them.

“What am I going to be if I’m not a printer?” someone asked me. In addition to not being able to see themselves doing another job, there was a different question they were also asking themselves, which was ‘Who am I going to be if I’m not a printer?’.

1. Thinking 

For over 30 years, they’d thought of themselves as a printer. Working through the night to meet a high pressure deadline of getting the papers out by 3am, so everyone in the country could get the news before breakfast. It was more than a job, it was their identity. When they met people at a BBQ they would tell people they were a printer, and had interesting stories about ‘holding the front page’ on September 11, and how in the early days they knew what was happening in the world before everyone else. So when this was taken away from them, it was more than just the job, it rocked the foundations of their whole identity. 

My role in this wasn’t just to help them realise that they had transferable skills like working under pressure, attention to detail, and leading teams. I also needed to help many of them manage the loss of their identity as a printer. 

It’s also the same scenario for educators, when faced with thinking that they were losing their identity as the local teacher. C-Suite executives can find it just as tough when they think they’re not going to have the same respect from their title that they are perceived to have from those around them.

In each example, individuals are so closely identified with their role, that when it’s taken away, there’s pain and worry around who they would be now, if they weren’t a printer / teacher / accountant / CEO / support worker.

The mind gets us so closely identified with our role at work, that when that role is taken away, we question who we really are. There’s nothing wrong with being proud about the work we do, but it can have negative implications if we identify ourselves too closely with it.

2. Unthinking

To be able to detach from this identification we can unthink the way we perceive the roles we have. Shifting the perspective can make a big difference:

Instead of telling yourself  ‘I am a printer’, you can say ‘I am someone who prints”. 

It’s a subtle but very important difference. Rather than being defined by being a teacher - you think of yourself as someone who teaches. This still paints the picture of the work you do, and potentially who you are, and what you value. But you’re not so closely identified with the name of the role, and if it were taken away from you it wouldn’t be an issue.

If your role defines you, it’s not in your control - so when someone takes that job away - or you retire, or take parental leave - it can feel like you’ve lost your identity, who you are. This lack of control can add an extra level of stress. In some situations you’ll feel less of a person, or even grieve the ‘printer’ that was. 

3. Aligning

Thinking of yourself as someone who prints ( or teaches/plays/analyses/cooks/practices law/cleans) - means that the real you is not the printer, you are the person that prints. Not only is this liberating to people who can shift their perspective, it also helps them see that there are many more options for them. 

When an entire industry of printers ceases to exist, it’s very hard to move forward in a positive way. But by aligning yourself with what’s happening, and by accepting that printing newspapers isn’t a viable career any more, it’s easier to stay calm without stressing. It’s from there you can realise that there are jobs out there for people who have your skills (working under pressure / attention to detail/managing people). Otherwise, if you see yourself defined only as being a printer that no-one needs, the impact can be very damaging.

Have a think about how often you say or do things that define you as your role. There’s nothing wrong about seeing yourself as the noun (construction worker/electrician/singer etc) but sooner or later you will no longer have that role - and then you’ll have to experience life without that identity. It’s better to see yourself as someone who does these things (builds/wires houses/sings/parents), which you can enjoy doing, relate to and even be respected for - but you’re not tied to it as part of your identity. 

So next time someone asks you about your job - tell them what you do, rather than what role you have.

Better still, tell them why you do it - that’s far more interesting anyway. 

This was my first go on a VR game in an arcade, and I'll never forget it. I was instantly taken into another world that only existed in my mind, but one which my body was responding to as if it was real. 

That's the magic of a VR headset, and the power of our imagination.  Mark Zuckerberg has invested $50Bn into it,  with a vision that people will literally be living in the Metaverse within a decade. 

Whether that gamble will pay off remains to be seen, but it's a very real example of how we can live in our heads, with no connection to what's happening around us.

1. Thinking 

When you’re living in your head, focusing solely on your thoughts about a situation, you're creating your own reality of how you think things ‘should’ be. Your boss should have realised that your idea was worth backing. It stresses you out, because in your head that's how things should be, and you literally believe that there's something wrong with the world (because your actual reality isn't like that). 

You keep re-living it, going over and over things in your head, buying into the drama of it all - blaming your team mate/ manager/yourself. You may be in a meeting now but your mind is somewhere else. You're consumed by thoughts. 

It's like you're living with a VR headset on. 

It's almost impossible to talk to someone when they're playing VR (ask my kids), and it's the same when we're continuously paying attention to our thoughts about a situation, instead of what's actually happening around us. 

2. Unthinking

First you have to realise you have a VR headset on. That can be done by being aware when you're getting stressed. 

Then, you need to remove the VR headset. Once you've realised you're living in your virtual world, you need to get back into the real one around you. You can do this by taking a couple of deep breaths and really feeling your lungs inflate and relax. Then look at your hand. Not analysing it, or thinking about it - just observing it. 

3. Syncing - getting  back into the real world

Finally see if you can feel the inside of your hand, the blood moving through, and the energy inside it. You can do it with your arm, foot, leg, stomach. It changes the focus off the mind and into your body, giving a different perspective. It'll help you come back into your actual reality. As if you've taken off your VR headset. 

Practise it a few times in different situations, and you'll soon feel a bit more calm, and little less stressed. 

See how often you find yourself lost in virtual thoughts today.  And then see if you can come back to the real world. 

1. Thinking

"I used to race 100m, 200m and 400m and was able to block out all negative thoughts completely and focus solely on the race for that short time. But when you're on your own for 90 minutes, it's impossible to shut thoughts out completely, and it's only a matter of time before a negative thought creeps in, especially in high pressure events." 

2. Unthinking

"So I'm just aware of these thoughts and I don't respond to them during the race, which makes it easier to come back to my plans and what I need to focus on."

We always have a choice whether to respond to thoughts we have, but first we need to be aware of them. Whether you're in an Olympic race or a meeting at work, there are opportunities to become aware of the thoughts we are having. We don't need to do anything with most of them, so today see if you can catch your self when a thought comes in and just be aware of it - try not to respond or react to it, just notice it's there.

3. Syncing

Another great tip Jemima has is that she does not attach all her big goals to her identity. "It's a careful balance of wanting it and believing in yourself that it's possible, but simultaneously not attaching all your well-being and happiness to that outcome, because ultimately there are so many uncontrollable factors".

Acknowledging that we can't control our environment, no matter how much we train/practice/try, is an essential step to aligning with what's happening, rather than resisting or trying to control everything. 

To balance the identity of her athletic achievements, Jemima has other important projects that are aligned with her values, including ‘Play On’, which helps girls stay engaged in sport. You can find out more about this awesome initiative here, and learn about the importance of not getting too attached to outcomes.

 What a legend. Congratulations Jemima! 🏅

1. Thinking

Imagine you're sitting in a queue of cars waiting for a parking space at a really important event that's about to start. It can get stressful pretty quickly. Maybe you start to criticise the organisers for not allocating enough space. Or you blame yourself for not leaving earlier, or your kids/partner/friend because somehow their actions 2 hours ago led to you being in this situation (whether they did or not!).

Stress hormones get released in response to the mind's reaction and the feelings that accompany them make you feel even worse. Although the hormones are designed to help keep you safe (fight/flight etc ) they don't actually help here at all, and tensions heighten. You're now more likely to get into an accident or have an argument, which could ruin your whole event experience much more than being a few minutes late.

Obviously none of these reactions help improve the situation, but we still listen to the mind that gets stressed or angry or worried. We know it doesn't make it more likely to find a parking space, if anything it's risking you being later. But because the occasion is important we somehow justify these reactions, rather than learning to find a less stressful alternative.

To use the Drop the Banana 🍌 analogy, you hold onto the belief that somehow there should be a parking space for you, or that you should have left more time, and you hold on to that thought - even though deep down you know that no matter how much you stress about it, it's not going to make it happen. If you drop the banana (stop blaming others/ yourself/ the world ), you'll be more likely to spot a parking space, than you are if you're distracted by your thoughts.

2. Unthinking

The mind likes to think it's more important than it is, so you buy into all the drama. It's these thoughts about the situation that cause the stress, not the situation itself. You can unthink your way out (and drop the banana) by first becoming aware that you're caught in the drama of thoughts. It's hard to do in the moment when it's highly stressful but you can practice doing it in less incendiary moments, like waiting for a coffee, a bus or even when someone is late to your meeting.

3. Syncing

Next, to drop the thoughts and disconnect from the drama in your mind:

• Focus as much as you can on what's literally happening in front of you.

• Breathe in & out slowly for a few breaths.

• When the next unhelpful thought comes in, don't engage with it, just focus as acutely as you can on what you're actually doing right now.

Waiting in highly charged situations is not ideal to practice being less stressed. Standing in line for a coffee/bus can be a much better time to learn how to drop the banana, and accept the situation, rather than fighting it.

In The Psychology of Waiting, Dr Kate Sweeney studied this and found that you can use the time spent waiting to be a benefit. Rather than getting angry or worried, she says there's the opportunity to use this time to get into more alignment and even use extended waiting periods to do things that will get you into a state of flow (more on flow here).

Try it out next time you are looking for an elusive parking space, or waiting on line for something. Focus more on what's happening around you, and be aware of your breathing. This will help you get out of your head.

The more you can practice being calm in situations where your mind would typically get you sucked into drama, the better your chances of being less stressed when you're in more challenging circumstances.

1. Thinking (Something to think about):

The left hemisphere of the brain is responsible for the processing of information, memories, future ideas and creating order in your world. It’s here that worry originates from thoughts related to potential future scenarios, that may or may not happen.

If the part of the Amygdala in the left hemisphere detects something that appears dangerous, it can trigger an emotional response to prepare you for the danger. The left hemisphere processes the information it gathers and analyses it against things that it’s learnt, or experienced in the past, and creates the expectation of what you feel a situation should look like.

For example, if you’ve asked a colleague to prepare a report, your left brain may generate an expectation that it should be presented in a certain way - with clear coloured graphs for example. So when you’re given the report with no graphs, the right side of your brain experiences what’s happening in the present moment and registers that the report has been written solely with text and contains no graphs. The right brain doesn’t judge whether this is good or bad, it just experiences the current situation.

The left brain, however, is all about judgement and will come crashing in when the information hits the thalamus which usually directs it to the cortex for rational processes, it realises the expectation doesn’t match the reality and sends the data straight to the Amygdala in the left hemisphere. As Daniel Golemen described in his book Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ, your Amygdala gets hijacked and rational thoughts are ignored.

So the amygdala kicks in and fires off stress hormones to help you deal with the threat that something isn’t right. So if you’ve got to present this report to your boss in an hour, you may get triggered with an angry response where you react instantly to the situation, or maybe fear of being humiliated. The left brain goes into overdrive, and can create more stress through unhelpful thoughts (eg. what if I get fired because of this? How will I keep a roof over my head and feed the family? etc etc)

2. Unthinking (something to stop thinking about)

Whether you like it or not, the situation with the report isn't what you expected. The report doesn’t have graphs, and your expectation was that it should have. This difference between the expectation of your left brain, and the reality of the situation that your right brain is experiencing, is what can cause the stress. It’s what fires off the stories in the left brain, that trigger emotions that result in physiological responses.

If you can sit with the situation, and stay in the right brain, where there is no conflict, you’ll be able to remain present and be well placed to move forward and find a solution.

So how do I do that?...

3 .Syncing

There are different ways you can shift out of the spiralling thoughts in the left brain, such as focusing on what’s happening in your current situation right now, and getting in sync with that.

For example, focus on your breathing. Just listening to each of your slow, calm breaths, can break the circle of unhelpful analytical thoughts in the left brain, and keep you in the right brain, of just experiencing what’s happening right now.

Try it in a low risk situation today, and see whether you can feel the shift away from over analysing thoughts, and into a less stressed state of mind. Practise it a few times, and you’ll be able to use it next time something more important comes up.

1. Thinking (something to think about)

   If you see a shadow in the corner of your eye, your reaction will depend on what your mind thinks is there. If you think it’s a dangerous person, you’ll be flooded with stress hormones to prepare you for conflict or escape. Whether there is someone there or not doesn’t cause those stress reactions, it’s what’s in your mind. That may seem obvious, but it’s an important distinction. We think we’re responding to actual events (ie. there IS a person there and I AM in danger) but we’re actually responding to what we THINK is happening. Our reaction would be very useful if somehow we had a physiological response to danger regardless of whether we knew it was happening -  that even if we didn’t see/hear/smell the danger, our spidey-senses caused us to be instantly ready to protect ourselves. But that’s not the case. We depend on our senses to give us information to let us know if we’re in danger, but it’s our mind’s role to make the call on how we respond. 

   Your brain’s limbic system is responsible for managing emotions and it does a great job of it most of the time. You actually have more control over your emotions than you probably realise. I remember as a kid, there was a time when I was being really shouted at for misbehaving (probably with good reason!), and then the phone rang. I didn’t think my parent would answer it, as things were so heated, but to my surprise they picked up the phone and took the call. I remember thinking that whoever was on the other end was going to be in for a nasty shock and the wrath would be directed at them instead of me. What happened next was the exact opposite though. The call was from  someone at their work, and my parent switched emotions instantly to being polite and jovial. After 5 minutes, they were even laughing with the person on the other end of the phone, and it was as if my berating had never happened. I couldn’t believe my luck - now they were in a good mood, and the telling off would be over! But there was another shock in store for me. As soon as they hung up, they immediately switched back to the angry parent mode, and simply carried on where they left off.

   

2. Unthinking (something to stop thinking about):

   We often feel that the way we respond to a situation is completely outside of our control. It isn’t. It’s based on our thoughts, and experiences of how we’ve responded in the past. And as we saw in a previous blog, Dr Jill Bolte Taylor has shown that our physiological emotional responses last for a maximum of 90 seconds. You can bring the emotion back with another thought if you want, but you don’t have to. Not that every emotion should be stopped or ignored, but if you’re feeling stressed, it’s helpful to be aware that your mind is playing more of a role that it necessarily needs to.

   As Noam Shpancer Ph.D stated in The Three Laws of Emotional Mastery, “emotions and thoughts, are mind events, not world events”. In other words, it’s our thoughts about a situation that cause the emotion not the situation itself.

3. Syncing

   You have more power over your thoughts than you think. Next time you find yourself caught in negative emotions, see if you can snap out of it, even for a second -  Imagine you’ve got a call from someone really important and you have to speak to them right now.  Not always easy, and certainly not possible in all situations for the first attempt, but you may be surprised to find that you can stop the thought (and the emotion). 

   It’s worth trying on low impact situations first, like a bad driver cutting in front of you on the way to work. The more you try, the easier it becomes, and the more likely you’ll be able to get in sync with the world around you, and get out of your head.

   (If the monkey in the ‘Drop the Banana’ video had got a call from their boss, they may well have avoided capture!).

The good news is that there is another way.

1. Thinking (something to think about)

   It's your mind that's causing most of these issues, as you tell your self that things shouldn't be this way. This might come in the form of stress, anger, frustration, anxiety or upset. You may even try and force the situation to be the way you think it should be.

   It's your mental resistance that's causing the issue. As Michael A. Singer captures so well in ‘The Surrender Experiment’ we overlay our own set of preferences onto a situation that are based purely on what we want to happen. He says we can't control what is happening right now (because it's happened), but we can control how we respond. We do this by accepting that it's just our conflict of reality versus our expectation that we have the issue with.

   It's up to us whether we buy into that narrative, or just go with the flow of what life is putting in front of us.

2. Unthinking (something to stop thinking about): Stop thinking it should always be the way you expect it to be.

   You can't change the situation in this instant, but you can change how you respond to your expectations of it.

   If your expectation doesn't eventuate, don't hold on to the thought about why it's not happening the way you wanted, and how that makes you feel.

3. Syncing

   Let go for a moment of how it should be, and get in sync with how it actually is. Watch, listen, feel what's happening around you and get out of your head. Maybe someone didn't call you back when they said they would, or someone refused to do what you asked - again. Whatever it was, accept it for now, whether you like it or not.

   A future moment may be different, but for now accept how it is.

   

   If you can do that, stress will start to dissolve.

After that, you’re just triggering another emotional reaction by hanging onto the thought and re-running it in your mind. Unless you learn to drop the thought (drop the banana 🙊🍌) you’ll keep experiencing it.

1. Thinking (something to think about)

Dr Jill Bolte Taylor, is one of the world’s leading neuroanatomists and the first person to have a TED talk that went viral - ‘ a stroke of insight’. She discovered that when we have a stressful emotion and the body releases chemicals such as adrenaline and cortisol, they are flushed out of our blood within 90 seconds. They’re meant to help us in moments of danger, where we get ready to fight or take flight, and after that we return back to a normal state. But if we keep returning to the thought that triggered the stress hormones, we’ll keep pumping our body full of stress hormones.

If you’ve ever remembered something that someone did to you in the past that made you upset, you may well have experienced the same feelings as if you were in that moment again. The mind can’t tell if it’s a real situation or a thought about one, so it just acts to keep you safe.

2. Unthinking (something to stop thinking about): We all get stressed and angry. But if you can notice and then let go of the thought that made us feel that way, you can return to a state of stresslessness. You don’t have to keep reliving it. Drop the banana (thought) that’s keeping you in the stressful state.

First, you need to be aware that you’re having these thoughts. Most people go through life not even realising that it’s usually their thoughts about the situation causing the stress, not the situation itself.

3. Syncing

So next time you feel stressed about something at work, or at home, don’t fight it but simply be aware of the fact that you’re feeling stressed or angry. If you can notice you’re having these thoughts, it’s a huge step towards being able to let them go.

When you can unthink (detach from the thoughts), the body will physiologically return to a calm state within 90 seconds.

If the thought pops up again, notice it and then take a deep breath. Don’t beat yourself up about having the thought again, the mind is actually trying to keep you safe but you unless you’re actually being attacked, you don’t need it.

Today, and this week, just try and notice the thoughts you are having, especially when you’re feeling stressed, worried or angry. Become aware of the thoughts, and your reaction to them. You may even notice that you are reliving old thoughts, and they’re triggering emotions. Once you can notice your thoughts, you’ll be able to learn to let go of them.

(there’s more about that at www.stresslessness.me and in previous blogs).

Each week you’ll receive a email which will include :

1. Thinking: Something to think about - an insight, thought or shift in perspective

2. Unthinking: Something to stop thinking about

3. Syncing: An action you can take to get out of your head and into your life.

Here’s today’s:

1. Thinking (something to think about): We spend a lot of the time thinking about how things should be different to how they are, which is causing stress.

This is the ‘reality’ we create in our heads - the way things ‘should’ be.

• I should have been promoted by now

• They should take my idea seriously

• Customers should by what we’re selling

• There be more people registered for my event

We think people should behave in a certain way, and things should happen in the way we want them to. We can create any scenario in our mind, and think it ‘should’ happen, but of course that doesn’t mean that it will.

In the example of the monkey trap, the monkey is holding onto the thought that it ‘should’ be able to have the banana, but the reality is that it can’t have it. No matter how much it fights and pulls, the reality of what should be (having the banana) isn’t going to happen - no matter how much it thinks it should.

So when you don’t get that promotion that you think you should have been given, you’ll probably feel angry/frustrated/stressed. You’ll probably also create a narrative to support your ‘reality’ (why you deserved it more/why your manager has favourites/why you’re always overlooked etc). That may or may not be true, but the reality is you didn’t get the promotion. You’re resisting what’s actually happening right now, by overlaying a different version of reality in your head, which you are personally attached to.

It’s futile to keep resisting it. You’re holding onto the banana because you’ve become personally attached to the reality that your thoughts have created. But that version of reality where you have been promoted doesn’t exist (at least not yet). To keep listening to thoughts of why it should be different is creating resistance against the life you’re actually living in, and causing you stress.

2. Unthinking (something to unthink about): Stop thinking about how things should be, and focus on what’s actually happening right now.

   When you hold on to a reality in your head that doesn’t actually exist in real life you’re likely to feel stressed which your mind interprets as danger, so sends stress hormones around your body. Whether you should or shouldn’t have been promoted is a moot point at this time - the reality is that you weren’t.

   To feel less stressed, you need to stop thinking about how you think things should be, and accept how they actually are.

   Accepting what’s happening now, doesn’t mean you have to like it, or even accept the decision as final.

   You can absolutely take action to remedy the situation, but do it from the present moment that actually exists, and not some imaginary situation in your mind. It’s also going to be easier to talk to your manager if you’re living in the same reality they are, not one you’ve imagined in your head of how things should be.

3. Syncing - taking action to get in sync: To drop the banana you need to align with what’s actually happening.

   The first thing to do is notice you’re having these thoughts around how things should be. Whether you like it or not, the reality is what’s happening around you. You can’t have the banana. Accepting how things are doesn’t mean you have to like it - but stop resisting it, because it’s that resistance which is what’s causing you the stress (not the situation itself).

   No matter how hard you think it should be different, it’s not going to change in that moment. If you can accept that’s the case, and stop thinking about how things should be different, you’ll be able to let go of those thoughts, and new ones will come in that are aligned with how things are. This is far less stressful.

   Bottom line, if you can stop thinking about how things should be, and start from the place of reality of how they actually are, you’ll be able to let the thoughts go, and experience less stress. You’ll also be in a better position to create a future reality that’s more aligned with how you think things should be. But right now, you’re not there.

   This type of acceptance is supported by thousands of peer reviews studies. It’s not a new concept either, we just don’t get taught about it. Around 800 years ago, the philosopher Rumi said:

“The moment you accept the troubles you’ve been given, the door will open”

Action: Today, and this week, see if you can notice the role your mind is playing in creating thoughts around how things should be, that are different to how things actually are at that moment.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this, and how you get on with it. Send me a note at simon@stresslessness.me if you like.

There’s more info on detaching from thoughts at www.stresslessness.me in the Thought Management area.

There’ll be more next week too!

Watch this remarkable 30 second video, and see how it works!

The hole is wide enough for the monkey to put its hand in, but when it grabs the banana or melon seeds, it can’t pull it out.  It could release itself any time, just by letting go of the fruit.  

But it doesn’t. The thought of letting go is too much, and the hunter returns to find the monkey stuck with its hand in the hole. 

A similar thing happens to us when we hold onto unhelpful thoughts. We get stuck. Trapped. Unable to free ourselves and move on with our life. 

Imagine someone knocks off your wing mirror on the way to work. They drive away and leave you feel angry and upset. Ten minutes later they are long gone, maybe even unaware of what happened, but you’re still thinking about what they did to you. You’re still feeling just as angry, actually even more angry now your mind has created even more drama. Depending on how long you hold onto the thought, it could last all day. In a more serious situation where you need to get your car repaired, you may even hold onto the thoughts for days, weeks or even months. 

By then, the situation of the person hitting your car is not what’s causing you stress. It’s your thoughts about the situation. You’re still holding onto the banana.

• ‘Why did they do this to me!?’

• I can’t believe they drove off and left me to pay for everything’

• ‘Things like this shouldn’t happen’

• ‘I would have stopped and made sure everything was ok if it was the other way around!’

• ‘What a ***!!’

Our body reacts to these thoughts as if they are real situations happening to us now.

When we get mad, our heart rate, blood pressure and respiration increases. Our mind thinks it’s trying to help us, by getting us ready to fight or protect ourselves. It releases stress hormones including adrenaline and cortisol to fire us up for something that’s not likely to happen. 

This is very similar to what happens to the monkey holding onto the banana. It won’t let go. That’s all that’s needed for freedom. It could be free in a heartbeat, but it refuses to let go.

It’s the same for us when we hold onto unhelpful thoughts. And it happens much more than we realise too - not just for big events. 

So if you get stressed today, see if you can tell whether it’s the thoughts of a situation that’s causing the stress, or the situation itself. 

The good news is that if you learn how to drop the thought (🍌), you can enjoy the freedom from stress too.

More at www.stresslessness.me and in upcoming blogs - stay tuned!

Waiting can be the worst part of the day for a lot of people at a place like that, standing around doing nothing when you should be on breathtaking rides having the time of your life. You’ve already waited to get in, and now you have to wait for the ride. And is that someone pushing in at the front with their mates? How rude!  

For others, waiting is a completely different experience. It’s time where the anticipation builds as the time nears where they’re going to be strapped into a little box and hurled into the air at breakneck speeds. The excitement gets more intense as they get closer to the front of the line, and it all adds to the adrenaline fuelled fun when they finally get their turn.

Some people will hate the waiting so much that it’ll ruin the entire day.

The thing with waiting is that it’s a really good opportunity to practice acceptance.

Whether or not you like being in the queue is irrelevant. You’re in the queue. Whether you ‘should’ be on the ride by now is a judgement call your mind makes. You may think you should be on the ride, but the reality is you’re not. This difference (between what your mind says should be happening, and what is actually happening), causes you stress. You may not be able to choose the situation, or even the thoughts you have about it, but you can choose how you respond to it. Whether you get angry, frustrated or just accept that it’s not how you’d like it to be, is more in your control than your mind often lets you think it is. These are good opportunities to practice the skills of not getting stressed by situations outside your control, and accepting what is happening around you.

Noticing these thoughts is the first big step. Then letting them go, and accepting that although the situation isn’t what you’d hoped for, that it’s ok. (There’s more on the science of acceptance here).

Waiting is what happens between this moment and some future moment. Maybe you’re frustrated because you’re sitting in traffic, and it feels like you’re wasting your time. Again, this ‘waste’ is another judgement call that your mind makes, and is completely subjective. What if your objective for that waiting time is just to not get frustrated? Or to practice noticing your thoughts? 

That said, there’s nothing wrong with using that time to think about an important problem at work you need to solve. Just as long as you do it consciously and don’t let your mind wander off into stress inducing rabbit holes of things you can’t do anything about.

Waiting can feel like time is being wasted, but that’s just your mind making a judgement call on whether or not you should be doing something else.  How you choose to spend that ‘waiting’ time, and what you do with those thoughts during that time is more in your control than you may realise. 

Next time you find yourself waiting for something, try it out. See if you can notice how you are feeling, or observe any thoughts coming into your head that may be creating stress, anxiety or frustration. Maybe use that waiting time to learn how to accept the situation, even if you think something else should be happening. Because it’s not.

And that’s ok.

As children we’re always asked ‘what do you want to be when you grow up?’  

So we work hard at school to get the grades to ‘become something’ - a chef, a teacher, a footballer, a musician, a caregiver.  Then if we're lucky we're able to get somewhere close to a role we like.  I say lucky - it's not necessarily lucky at all. Because if we get too identified with that role, the challenges will often outweigh the benefits. Here's why. 

In the last blog I talked about how easy it is to become personally identified with an object, like your car. We can feel like the car is an extension of who we are, and any status that the car represents is also felt by us. The same thing can happen with the jobs we have, and the roles we play. 

When someone introduces themselves to you at a BBQ or a networking function, it's generally not long before someone asks 'what do you do?' It can become the central point of conversation, as if it’s the most important thing about us. For some there’s a sense of status that people respond to, and this increases the likelihood that we’ll identify closely with the role we have.

These roles are not who we are, but it can feel like they are. The clue is in the name - much like an actor on stage who takes on a role with a set of characteristics - they are not actually that character, and neither are you in your role at work. You can be proud of the role you play, the outcomes you have, and the impact you make. But you don't have to define yourself by something that is ultimately not in your control, as this comes with serious risk.

So it's not surprising that when this role is taken away from us, it can really hurt. Losing your job has financial implications but the personal impact can be even worse.  This is when we really get to see how closely identified we are with our roles.  

I've worked with a lot of people who have had their roles made redundant (and if you ever have to make redundancies, make sure you use that terminology - you are making their role redundant, they are not redundant). Much of my time in this space was during the digital transition of newspapers and what often shocked people most of all was the realisation that they were no longer 'a printer' or 'an editor'. This raised two problematic questions - firstly, if I'm not a printer then who am I? And secondly if no one needs printers any more does anyone need me?  

I helped them see that they were never ‘a printer’, they were someone who prints. A subtle but important difference that we do things, we are not actually these things. This is useful as it means that we can see a future where we use the skills that we have, rather than thinking we don't matter any more, just because we don't have that role.

It's not necessarily easy to disidentify with your role, but it's definitely possible. Start by noticing if you are attached to your role and then you can start to move away from this identification (there’s more on this type of thing at www.stresslessness.me) .

Focus on the skills you have learnt, the outcomes and the difference you make. This might take time and practice too, but it's worth doing. It'll reduce your stress levels now, and is especially useful if you ever lose your job, or retire. 

Instead of asking children what they want to become when they grow up, maybe a better question is ‘what difference do you want to make?, or ‘what skills do you want to learn?’

You're so much more than a role description.

Mine was a second hand Renault 5 with 80,000 miles on the clock. I loved it. I bought it when I started my first graduate role, and I looked forward to the end of the day when I could put the key in the ignition and drive it home. I even gave it a name - Cosmic (don’t judge!).

So when someone scratched it in a car park, I was not happy. In fact it felt painful. I was hurt that someone had done this to my car. It was almost as if I’d been scratched myself. 

The opposite was true when many years later I bought a really nice little sports car. I felt happy - as if somehow buying this car had improved me. That’s the thing with nice stuff, you’re not just buying the object, you’re buying the way it makes you feel, and the status you think it gives you.

It’s all part of the marketing that we are invited to feel when we buy a new car. You love looking at it in the drive, and when people compliment it, the feeling is as if they are complimenting you. The car is by extension, a piece of you. 

This seems great, but what happens when your neighbour buys an even nicer car and you peer out of your bedroom window and see them parked next to each other? Somehow your car doesn’t feel as nice any more. And without realising it, you feel a little less than you did before. Nothing about your car changed, but your perception of it did, and it probably had an effect on how you feel yourself. 

The same thing happened when my car got scratched. I didn’t feel as good as I did before it was damaged.

We identify with things, and when something happens to it, we feel the effects personally. When this is positive we feel good, and likely don’t even give it a second thought. But when something negative happens, it can affect how we feel about ourselves because we identify so closely with it. 

Clearly the car getting scratched doesn't physically hurt us, but imagine someone intentionally running a key down your car and scratching it. How does that feel?

It’s important to be aware that these are just thoughts about how we perceive what’s happened. Often we don’t even realise it, and just accept that the feeling is part of who we are. It isn’t.

We don’t have to identify with things like this. It’s not just cars, it could be anything - a new jacket, the latest iPhone or a Swiftie getting tickets to the Eras tour. It doesn’t stop there - you can identify with your job so much that if people diminish your profession, you feel diminished yourself. I’ll talk more about that next time. 

The problem with identifying with things so closely is that we can get stressed when something happens to it. Yes, it’s annoying if there’s an ugly scratch down the side of your car, but it turns out that your thoughts about the scratch are more of an issue than the scratch itself. The scratch probably needs fixing, but it’s your thoughts about how the scrape makes you feel that does the real damage.

It wouldn’t be unusual for you to have thoughts like ‘why did they do that to me?” But they didn’t do it to you. It happened to your car. 

Being able to notice your thoughts when you identify with something like this is a great way to reduce stress. Then you’ve got a chance to let these thoughts go. 

The scratch will be there either way, it’s just that this way you’ll not have unhelpful thoughts causing you additional stress. 

It happened to me this weekend while I was on a run. Initially I was enjoying the peace of the parklands, but it wasn’t long before I realised I was thinking about some random issues. I was replaying past situations in my head, and unconsciously thinking about what I might need to do in the future. The trouble was, the issues and solutions were largely hypothetical - and there was nothing I could do about any of it at that moment.

Sometimes it can be helpful for me to think about challenges when I’m away from the situation itself. But it’s only really beneficial if I do it consciously, and in an intentional way. Otherwise, if it’s just thoughts that creep in when I’m not expecting them, they effectively become a series of unsolicited distractions, one after another. 

So on my run, as soon as I noticed this had happened, I caught myself and stopped the thought spiral. I didn’t want to be thinking about these challenges that might or might not exist in the future, so instead I focused on what was happening around me in the park. Instantly I was snapped out of my unhelpful thoughts and was aware of the trees blowing and the birds flying around me. I could hear the sounds of the birds chirping to each other which was suddenly really crisp and clear. It was as if I’d just turned on 8D audio on in my head!

Moments before, when I was lost in the endless thoughts running around my head, I couldn’t hear a thing, my mind was enveloped in the drama of imaginary events that weren’t even happening. 

The mind can get so distracted by these sorts of thoughts that it can shut off your senses, so it doesn’t take in any of the surrounding sounds, sights and smells. Instead your mind focuses on your thoughts. It thinks you need to put all your concentration into your mind - and stressful thoughts trick the brain into thinking it may need to react to them. The thing is, most of the time you don’t need these thoughts at all, they’re simply that - thoughts. 

So as soon as you catch yourself lost in thoughts about things that aren’t important right now, you can come back to what’s happening right now. How? Start by noticing the thoughts, and then letting them go by shifting your attention to what’s happening around you.

It’s a nice experience if you’re on a run in a park and can enjoy the stresslessness that comes with it. It can be even more beneficial when you’re with your children, someone at work, with friends or family. To them you may appear like you’re listening to them, but if you’re lost in thought you’re not taking in what’s happening, or what they have to say. (Some people spend their entire lives in their minds, completely unaware of it).

Next time you feel your mind wandering off about things that aren’t relevant or helpful right now, see if you can notice your thoughts. If you can, you’ve taken the first step into a world of stresslessness, where you can let these thoughts go, and not engage with the stress that comes from the drama of living in your mind all the time.

Photo by Nik on Unsplash

It’s hard enough to solve a problem in your head, but imagine trying to solve a continuous loop of potential problems that might, or might not eventuate.

That can be what it feels like when your mind starts to worry. It can wander off, thinking about a situation that may or may not happen, and try to consider all the different possible scenarios and outcomes. An additional challenge can be that you might not even notice it’s happening, and the worrying thoughts just take over.  

There are two issues here. Firstly, it’s virtually impossible to solve so many problems in your head all at once. But also, as they're all imaginary scenarios you can't actually do anything about them anyway. 

If you don’t realise that they’re thoughts spiralling in your mind, you can quickly get consumed by them. They can feel very real - even though they're just in your head. 

The trouble is that research shows the we can treat a perceived threat in our mind in the same way we react to an actual threat. So, in an effort to try and help you address the danger that the mind thinks is a risk, it can trigger the fight or flight response.  This can send cortisol and other stress hormones into your blood, and suddenly the body is responding physiologically - the heart pumps more, and your breathing becomes more rapid. The focus shifts your worrisome thought from the mind to the body, and it now seems like an even more real threat. This physiological response can validate the mind’s initial concerns and then you’re faced with a challenge that feels much more real than it should.

To deal with this sort of situation, a first step can be to try and notice that you’re having the thoughts about possible scenarios that may or may not happen. From being able to notice and even name your thoughts (eg. I’m having the thought that I’m not going to be able to finish my report on time, and I’ll get fired), you can learn to distance yourself from them. This helps to get some perspective to see what are thoughts and what is actually happening in the real world. This approach has been proved by Acceptance and Commitment Therapy research for over 30 years.

There’s very little benefit in thinking about a seemingly infinite list of possible scenarios to possible problems, it just gets exhausting and distracts you from the real life that’s happening all around you. So as you can’t act on things that haven’t even happened, instead turn your focus on what’s happening now.

It’s likely to feel less stressful, and will reduce the likelihood of stress hormones being released to get you ready for a threat that isn’t even there.