March 15, 2017
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Looking at Stress
Everything is a life or death event
Ten year old boys pretend to fight wars
And tree houses are refuges
Where girls are not allowed in
Work has not yet arrived
And age is unknown
Feign mortal wounds
Preparing
To face
DeathToday I'm giving a presentation on coping with stress. Work has been very stressful. We are all feeling the effects. In the past I was fairly confident that I had a good grasp of stress management. I was able to handle the stress with grace most of the time. There were times when stress overtook me but I had lots of good caring people around me and I survived it. And here we are in the middle of what has to be the most intensely stressful period of my work life and I am stressed and distressed. I will be giving the presentation to a group that is barely holding it together. I will discuss coping strategies that include exercise to release natural endorphins, connecting to people, connecting to nature, and meditation and relaxation techniques. I'll talk about turning off the negative internal dialogue, aroma therapy, scream therapy, and laughter as the best medicine. I will lead them in a physical exercise, a meditation, and demonstrate scream therapy. And I'll do it all in under 30 minutes. Yes I'm crazy.
Which brings me to the Winter Scavenger Hunt 2017 poem using prompts #11 - write about a tree house and #13 - write about death. This poem is a Reverse Etheree consisting of 10 lines with a diminishing syllable count. The first line starts with 10 syllables and the last line is a single syllable. Just a note about why this poem is paired with this post. As children we learn all about rejection, exclusion, fair play, and favoritism. We practice (play) and develop coping strategies for the stresses in life. I think that the people who learned from play are better able to handle difficulties as adults.
Comments (7)
That sounds like a busy 30 minutes -- I hope that it works well. I wish I could be a fly on the wall to hear your presentation! I think the stresses being imposed upon us in the national scene are making everything worse -- the uncertainties have been terrible.
It is very stressful all over the place! It went well and I received lots of positive feedback (and of course a couple of negative comments). I'd post my talk but the thing that made it work was being interactive and that just doesn't come across in a strictly written form...
I would just ditch everything else and spend 30 minutes practicing scream therapy. Nobody would forget that training session!
Hahahahahahaha!! I did demonstrate the use of the stress towel. The question that was posed was "Have you really used it?" to which I applied in the affirmative along with a strangulation of the towel followed by beating it on the table and then folding it to muffle a scream. There were some "deer in the headlight" expressions and I explained that was how I stayed so calm. hehe!
I think play is good for the mind and soul. It would be interesting to see a scream therapy session.
Hehe! I agree that even as adults we need to have "playtime" It is true about all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy... As for scream therapy I don't think it is very interesting to watch but loads of fun to do!
Gee I learned to play as a kid, don't think it has any effect now on the stress that has entered my life in abundance. I've decided the hands shaking are the direct or indirect result of stress now. It's a shame it took a couple days in hospital and lots of tests to prove it to me.
I'm still laughing at saintvi response.