In a couple of weeks the Winter Olympics will take place in Vancouver, BC.  Athletes from all over the world have come to compete for the coveted “Gold” medallion; showing that they are the best in the world at their sport. 

Having the Olympics in my own back yard (I live in Mission, just one hour east of Vancouver), started me thinking about the times I’ve gone for my own “Gold” and the number of times that I’ve failed.  I’ve tried a number of different businesses: home party plans; network marketing, commodity trading, various sales jobs, management positions, etc.  Also, I’m a registered nurse by profession and still work part time as a nurse. 

I worked very hard at some of those businesses and spent a lot of money I didn’t have, trying to make them successful.  So why weren’t they?  There are many reasons: some good, some bad.  Read the rest of this entry »

Which is the Greater Miracle: Birth or Growth?

On December 18th, I had the privilege of attending the birth of my sixth grandchild and helping to care for him for the first few days of his life.

 I think there are few things more soul-filling than to have a new baby sleep on your shoulder; to lightly touch his velvety skin with your cheek and smell that fleeting new baby smell.

As I held that beautiful baby in my arms, I thought of the six babies that I had given birth to; three of whom are parents themselves now.  People talk about the miracle of birth and I agree; but to me, growth is just as great a miracle.  To think that a newborn, helpless babe can grow up to one day create a child of their own is truly stunning!

But birth and physical growth is a natural event.  We didn’t have anything to do with our birth and until we’re old enough to start making choices that could interfere with the process, we don’t have much control over our physical growth either.

However, we have 100% total control over our personal growth.  This is the time of year when people make, and usually break, New Year’s Resolutions.  You know the ones I’m talking about.  This is the year that I lose weight, get out of debt, start that business, take that holiday, etc. However, statistics show that 90% of New Year’s Resolutions are broken before February 1st.

Why is that?  There are lots of reasons given but through my own experiences and the many years of research I’ve done on this subject, I think it boils down to one answer.  The goal is outside of the person’s belief system about themselves. 

We each have a belief system about who and what we are, and we have to be true to it – even if it is negative and harmful (which it usually is). Our belief systems were installed, usually by our families, and were well established before we even went to school. 

As a stress relief coach, I’ve found that the majority of negative belief systems involve having no value as yourself – only in what you do, being responsible to meet other people’s needs and being a failure, not deserving of good things.

This conditioning is subconscious (below the conscious mind level), so we are not aware that it’s there.  However, until you change that conditioning and remove these negative emotional blocks, you will never be able to grow.

The exciting news is that you can change your belief systems.  You can break the negative emotional blocks that are keeping you from being, doing or having what you want in your life.  The most powerful tool I’ve found to accomplish this, is Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT). 

I was a motivational course junkie for over 30 years.  I took dozens of self improvement courses.  I was taught by some of the motivational giants: Bob Proctor, Brian Tracey, Steven Covey.  I did the Firewalk with Tony Robbins!  I had all the knowledge about how to improve my life but nothing changed.  Why?  Because I had negative emotional blocks inside, that I didn’t even know were there, that I had to be true to.  They would not allow me to apply the information so that I could make the desired transformation.

Through EFT, I learned about these limiting belief systems.  More important, I learned how to break them.  Most important of all, I did break them!  I am finally free to be who I was always meant to be!  I can’t begin to tell you what a difference that has made in the way I feel about myself and in my life.

So, if you are sick and tired of the same old, same old, there is a way out.  You can start again.  Not only can you start growing again, you can actually experience a rebirth – only this time, you will control the process.  Are you ready? 

For information on how to break negative emotional conditioning, contact Sheryl Stanton at www.SherylStanton.com, by email: stressrelief@shaw.ca or by phone: (604) 302-6374.

Pregnant woman

My daughter, Shelayne, is expecting her second child and is five days past her due date. 

I understand how frustrating that is.  I was pregnant six times and my first two children were both three weeks overdue.  I thought I would go crazy!  Now, they won’t let you go longer than two weeks before they will induce the baby.

But, in the meantime, you just have to wait. 

I feel guilty even complaining about waiting myself, but my life is also on hold.    I promised that I would come for a week after the baby was born to look after her two year old son and help with the meals and housework so that she could rest.  She has no family or close friends to help her.

Shelayne lives twelve hours away in Fort St. James in northern BC and I live on the Coast, about an hour east of Vancouver.  I have to book a flight to Prince George and then her husband has to drive for two hours to come and get me.  I have no intention of driving in the snow up there. 

I also have to book the time off work, but I can’t do anything until she has the baby.  I am working as a nurse over Christmas too, so I have to be back before Chrismas.

I’d been complaining and fretting about something I couldn’t do anything about – and in the process was not getting done what I needed to do.  I had basically put my life on hold.

On Sunday, I realized what I was doing.  I remembered an old saying: “when the time for action arrives, the time for preparation has past.”  I had lists in my mind of what I needed to do before I went up to my daughter but I had done none of them.

I got busy.  I wrapped all the gifts that had been bought, finished decorating the house, bought the few remaining gifts, worked on the Christmas Eve Party and Christmas dinner menu with my older daughter and brought up the suitcases and started to pack.  Just getting busy, doing what I could, took a lot of the pressure off.

Then I had a good look at the calendar, thought about it and decided to be pro-active.  If I was going to stay for a week and still be back home to work at Christmas, I would have to leave in the next couple of days.  I checked the flights options, chose one and called my daughter to confirm that her husband could pick me up and booked the last flight available.

So, I am leaving early Wednesday morning.  Shelayne will be six days overdue then.  Hopefully she will have her baby in the next couple of days.  Again, I can’t do anything about that, but I have done everything I can do on my side – and now, I will leave it up to God.

There are so many things in life that we have no control over, that we just have to wait for.  But the one thing we do have control over is ourselves and what we do about what is happening – or not happening – in our lives.  We can choose to sit and stress or we can choose to stagnate and do nothing, or we can choose to do everything within our power to improve the situation.

If you are feeling stuck, there is a powerful tool that can make a huge difference in your life.  For more information, go to: Easy Stress Free Me!

I have always liked snails.  I love the colors and shapes of their shells.  The other day when I was walking along the dyke by the Fraser River in Mission, BC there were dozens of snails along the path. 

As I looked at them, I realized an interesting thing.  The snails inside their shells probably thought they were  hidden away and safe.  But they were going nowhere and not only that, they were in danger of  being stepped on and killed!  The snails who had the courage to come out of their shells were moving – off the path and towards the grass.  In the grass, they would be safer and they would also have access to food.

I thought of how much we could learn from the snails.  How many of us are stuck in our “safe” routine, doing the same thing we’ve been doing for years?  We may not be happy or fulfilled but we are safe.  But are we really?  Someone once said that if you stay stuck in a rut, it becomes your grave.  We have to have the courage to leave our shell, stick our neck out and move.

I heard a minister say that the saddest thing about a funeral was not the death of the body.  It was the death of all the dreams.  Is there something that you have always wanted to do?  Are you doing anything about it?  You might not be able to do the whole thing, but are you doing anything to fulfill that dream? 

If you’re not, what kind of a snail are you?

I went for a walk along the dyke a few days ago and I saw the plant (pictured above on the left) lying on the ground.  I stopped and picked it up (pictured above on the right). 

But I knew that it would fall down the next time the wind blew.  Why was that?  The plant was too top heavy and the roots were not strong enough or deep enough to keep it up. 

I thought how often that plant represents our own lives.  Too many of us have weak roots.  Our early childhood conditioning and/or negative things that have happened in our past do not give us the strength we need to withstand the problems and challenges that are part of everyday life. 

When the wind blows (problems arise) in our life, we are not strong enough to withstand them and we fall.  This can show up in many ways: any kind of addiction, including overeating (the drug of choice for many people), depression, anxiety, fears and phobias, self-defeating behaviors and attitudes.

Unlike this plant though, there is something we can do to strengthen our roots and rebuild our lives the way we want them to be.  The first thing we have to do is realize that we are responsible for the quality of our lives.  This is incredibly powerful because it means that we have the power to change what we don’t like. 

The most powerful tool I’ve ever found for digging out and eliminating the weak, damaged roots from the past and replacing them with strong, healthy roots that will support and sustain our growth is Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT). 

Just like I helped that plant to stand again (even if only for a short time), I can help you strengthen your roots and rebuilt your life the way you want it to be.  There is always hope!

Unrelieved stress can definitely cause absenteeism or lateness.  It’s harder to get up and get going in the morning if you haven’t slept well the night before.  Or if you’ve had too much to drink or taken drugs to reduce your stress. 

Also work starts to lose its meaning the more stressed you get.  It is easy to develop a “Who Cares” attitude.

This short quotation was taken from an article called “Mental Health Facts” in the Vancouver Sun newspaper in 2007 ( I forgot to write down the date of the article).

The source is Mental Health Works: an initiative of the Canadian Mental Health Association, Ontario.

“Employees of three major American companies who displayed chronic symptoms of depression were twice as likely to miss work due to health reasons and seven times as likely to report missed workdays at the time of the follow-up survey.”

Another way that unrelieved stress can hurt your productivity is that it can increase your chances of having an accident.

The more physically or emotionally exhausted a person is, the less attention they pay to their surroundings.  This inattention and preoccupation makes them far more likely to have an accident.

With prolonged stress, your body tries to save your life by pulling the blood from the large muscles and diverting it to your liver and kidneys in an effort to break down the extra stress hormones.   When this happens, there is less blood in your arms and legs.  This can lead to greater clumsiness.  You drop things or you can trip, stumble and fall.

Although the following example isn’t related to stress, (I don’t think), it does show how a decreased blood supply could lead to greater clumsiness and an increased danger of injury.  Two of my sons were almost eleven pounds when they were born.  When I was pregnant with them, every time I stood up, the blood supply to my right leg would be cut off.  Within seconds my leg would go numb. 

As well, if I did not change position, the nerves to my leg were affected and the feeling would leave my leg.  I could hit it and feel nothing – just like hitting a board.  It was almost as if my leg was paralyzed.  I had to be so careful when this happened because if I tried to walk, I would fall.  I had no control over that leg.

There is another way that stress can make a person more accident prone.  Remember that the body can’t tell the difference between physical danger and emotional stress.  It responds the same way – by preparing your body to fight or run away to save your life.  With increased stress, the body dumps extra glucose into the blood stream to give you the energy to fight or run away.  To assist this process, it also dumps more insulin into the bloodstream. 

If a stressed person skips breakfast, which is very common, the extra insulin can cause hypoglycemia or low blood sugar.  This can make you feel weak and dizzy because your brain isn’t getting enough nutrition.  If you have ever felt weak and dizzy, you can see how easy it would be have an accident.

In previous blogs, we’ve briefly mentioned how unrelieved stress hurts your body and your emotions.  My purpose in writing these is not to go into great detail but just to make you aware of the many ways that stress does negatively affect us.  Some topics we will revisit in much greater detail.

For the next couple of blogs, I want to show how unrelieved stress can hurt your productivity.  Productivity basically means how much you are able to get done in a day.

Not all stress is bad and in many cases, some stress can get us to do more.  For example, I always find that I get more done if I have a deadline or time that the project needs to be done.  If there is no deadline, there is no stress and no real incentive to do the work.  That is why I will often give myself deadlines to complete a book or project.

However, when you get overstressed or have a lot of stress for a long time, your body’s energy is being used up just trying to combat all of the toxic stress hormones in your system.  Stress can be physically, mentally and emotionally exhausting.  Your ability to concentrate and focus decreases.

In that situation, it is very common to find that the amount of work that gets done is less.  To make matters worse, the work that is done is usually of poorer quality too.

There was a time in my life when I was so stressed that my mind shut down.  I had five small children, all born within six years.  One was seriously handicapped.  My husband didn’t have a job so we had no money to live on.   I thought I was functioning well but obviously I was not.

I remember sitting at the kitchen table one day and suddenly I blanked out.  I have no idea how long it was for.  I think only a few minutes.   When I became aware again, I didn’t know what time it was, what day it was, what month it was or even what year it was.  It was one of the most frightening moments of my life.  I had to phone a friend and ask them.

That is an extreme example and thankfully, it was very short.  I never experienced that again.  But how many of us will go through the day and looking back, realized that we have accomplished nothing?  When we try to account for our time we really can’t.  This could very well be a symptom of having unrelieved stress.