COLUMN: Frantic, Frazzled, and Frustrated

From one busy person to another… what in the world are we doing to ourselves?  I am personally alarmed at how many young people today used the word “stress”.  When I think back, it was never part of our vocab.  As teens, we never used the phrase as often as today to describe school load, relationships, and the family life of teens.  Mostly now when you talk to young people, you ask them how they are doing they will say “Stressed out”  My parents are stressing me, my teacher is too stressful, and this exam stress is bringing me down.  This is how the mentality is even before beginning to deal with the pressures of adult life.  Now don’t get me wrong, I am not saying young people have no stress, by no means, in fact, it must be difficult growing up with all this pressure to be number one, leader of the pack, social media cool, and still rock in your academic life.  Then there is the majority of teens growing up in single-parent households or child-headed homes, not to mention a teen growing up in South Africa where the opportunities seem to be dwindling as the years go by.  Today the methods for coping are vast, in the open, and most times considered cool.

What is clear to me is that the more we evolve as human beings, invent things, progress technically, and do things bigger, better, smarter, sexier, and bolder; the same time, we are devolving in our ability to cope with all of these things which supposed to have made life easier. All this access to information, freedom to have to express ourselves, spoilt for choice, surrounded by life’s pleasures, to live and travel where we want, dress the way we feel, live in beautiful homes even mansions, drive the latest and best cars, afford to be picky about our food -gluten-free this, wheat free that, etc, yet the price is we paying for all this gets higher and all-consuming. And I am not even talking about rands and cents. The silent and stalking constant friend of all this stress-less life is leaving us more stressed, frantic, frazzled, and frustrated than ever before.

I am sure as a reader you know all about the frustrations that come from all the demands that life throws at us, on our time and on our relationships. Sometimes it seems that life gets unorganized and out of control in spite of our best efforts to properly prioritize our activities and manage our time. Many times I get frustrated with how my day is turning out. I find myself mumbling, complaining, and chastising myself inwardly for all that seems to get out of my control. Before long, I have covered it up, pushed it aside, and moved on with the next challenge/problem just to pile on the load without even realizing I am just adding to a ticking time bomb.

As responsible parents and adults, we suppose to manage our lives but way too often life starts to manage us. If you can resonate with this and nod your head in agreement, then,  perhaps just like me, you have come to the realization that it’s time to start taking inventory of what we are doing with our time, money, and talents. Life is a balancing act and if we are not finding that balance, inevitably we will fall, fail and freak out. Something will give and in most cases, the cost is often too high and none of the king’s men would put you together again.

These past few weeks have been one of those of me, that threw me off balance. Life just seemed to be *Lifeing* as my sons would put it. Everything was coming at me and I felt like I was drowning. I was yearning to retreat and spend time where I could download and become a hallowed reed… It was a matter of getting to a point where I had to say *physician heal thyself*. I literally had to get back and press reset before Life reset me. What I gleaned though over time and this time is that I need to be aware of certain patterns that I can continue to complain and grumble over. I have come to the realisation and through my work and development as a professional in this field, nothing will ever change if I myself don’t start to change things.

Change needs to take place. I need to change my patterns, responses, behaviour, and coping mechanisms because clearly something that I was doing was not working. So my first point.  Change. By the very essence of the word, the action is not permanent and not cast in stone. It is ever-moving and evolving and so with us, that’s what we need to do. We need to change the way in which we take on life as we evolve, get older, experience events, and tackle problems. That is the very definition of living. Life happens, it changes and it has to be lived. We need to remember while we living, life is making other plans. And because we are not all-seeing and all-knowing we need to learn techniques on how to manage it and deal appropriately with this thing called “a stressful life”. We need to respond to all the many crises that pound at us, especially when we not looking or when we least expect it. We need to find coping mechanisms that work, that are not harmful or addictive, and that does not cost us more than the stress, to begin with.

One thing I am finding is that staying focused is a challenge in today’s society. Many urgent demands scream at us every day. The question is, why are we having such of a hard time with stress? Could it be that we are trying to do too much and be everything to everyone? Is anybody lifting their hands yet? The thing is that we are spending too much time doing things that leave us feeling unfulfilled. This causes much confusion and frustration. I do believe the creators’ plan for our lives was not that we felt unfulfilled and defeated or else this beautiful life and each day will be a waste of living.

We have inevitably invented the “hurry up spirit’ which has become so prevalent today.  While we think we are great at accomplishing so much in one day, we forget that all we do is add to the all-consuming pressure we are all feeling.  We choose to ignore all that comes with stressful living.  I find so many people telling me that their days are going by in a blur, but as long as we accomplish and conquer the day we feel satisfied and in a false mindset of contentment and fulfillment.  Many of us have the sense that our lives are out of control, maybe even on a collision course and speeding to crash out on one of the ‘Life’s Lifeing” tests. But with all this out-of-control living what do we do about it? All this we don’t like but we don’t seem to want to change or look at ways to change course.

What I have learnt is that; whatever your spiritual center is, whatever your soul sources for peace and upliftment of spirit is, your true north, your God, find that. Tap into that. You need to start there and start spending or adding this factor to your everyday life and not just excuse it away because everything else is too important, too urgent. We find ourselves doing urgent things and ignoring the important stuff. We must remember we cannot single-handedly do everything that needs to be done ourselves.  We cannot meet every need. We can only successfully do our part. I urge you to really make sure you are spending time doing things that are important to your spirit and soul. There will always also be people that will feel your time is best serving everyone else. We can always help a friend in need, we can seek answers from others, and God on how to meet these needs. However,  try not to fall into the trap of feeling obligated. The tyranny of the *should*  and *ought* keeps many of us weighed down by things that we shouldn’t even be carrying. Try spending time doing what is really important to your spiritual and emotional life, mental health and soul, not what is important to everyone else.

It takes time to get rid of the things in your life that are not priorities even if you have to make some radical changes, do whatever it takes to align yourself back to your purpose. We should always be open to change. To change plans should a friend need help, this way you already choosing a better option than beating yourself up about fleeting things of this world. This is your spirit leading you. I call it the happy spray of affirming you are on the right path to beating frazzled, frantic, and frustrated.

So.if your life is frazzled frantic and frustrated because your life is out of control, it is time to make for some changes! I have learned that worry, anxiety, and fretting literally have no positive effect on our lives. They never bring a solution to problems and they prevent our growth.  The cares and anxieties of the world and the distractions of this age, the pleasure, delights,  false glamour and deceitfulness of riches, the craving and passionate desire for other things creep in, choke and suffocate our lives. It all becomes fruitless, and a costly waste of your health and well-being. With our minds constantly on ourselves, our problems, and our personal needs for glorification, we become ineffective and powerless.

When our minds are totally fretting and worrying about everything and about nothing, we are deceived into thinking we can handle this alone.  We were not built to handle problems alone. In the workplace it’s our leadership and teams that should help carry the load with us depending on your position. At home we must and should be able to depend on our spouses, family, and friends. It is important that you can share your challenges and together find solutions. In the long run, everyone will be happy and content and much more equipped to take on the stress when it arrives. Learning to deal with stress does not happen overnight. It’s a process because there are no two problems and stressors that are the same, but the tools are the same. Once you start using them you will start to enjoy life again and those breakthroughs you waiting for. That clearer mindset, that freer soul and spirit will release you to tackle all that comes your way.

We all are dealing with the challenges of living in today’s busy world, everyone chasing dreams of wealth and fame, accolades and accomplishments, praise and glory. So with all this, we become too familiar with stress. We all deal with a variety of stressors in our lives but the looming stresses of strife, hunger, war, unrest, poverty, and violence in our homes and workplaces, schools, and communities all leave us taking this on and we find ourselves getting an angrier and more disillusioned. This especially if you have children and where there seems to have no end to the bad news and things out of our control.

I remember in my early years of being married I would get angry with everything. Especially if my marriage was not going according to my parent’s blueprint of a 60-year marriage recipe I envisioned for our marriage. Should tension erupt and a fight ensued I would become angry and stay like that for days. Somethings up to a week or two at a time. Being angry made me productive and sharp. I was focused and I worked at everything, one everything. I had the energy to juggle the boys, their school lives, my community responsibilities, my staff, and my clients with ease. But then as the days continued, my anger would subside and it was as if someone has pulled the plug and drained me of all that energy. I became fooled by what fueled that energy. As long as I was angry, and cut off from my hurt I plowed everything I felt into every other activity around me. And I loved the results of people praising my work and rewarding me for my success.  When I was angry and stressed like that, from home and love fights over raising kids, navigating a blended family, money, and work hours we both were putting in, it all started coming through in the cracks and I started to get sick. I had headaches all the time, back trouble, irritable bowel, stomach aches, and tension in my neck and shoulders. The doctors concluded it was stress and I was angry again(my default mode) because they were not understanding. I was sick, ill, and not stressed. It took me a while to learn how stress can play a major part in your health and quality of life and the expensive cost to my personal life and family.

I was already managing a stressful marriage,  but to that I added when I cleaned the house and anyone messed it up I would get so mad.  I wanted a perfectly clean house but what I got in return was a perfectly stressed-out husband and children. I had a beautiful house to look at but not to live in. At work, I would work from the time I got there, to make sure everyone liked me and then make up that time by working through the night. Forgetting my responsibility at home to my children and husband. I brought the frazzle on and I did it very well. However I never really took notice that the more and more we fought in our marriage the more and more driven I became, and just like that I was intoxicated with the false illusion that stress was good for me. It cost me my marriage to realise there are good stressors and bad stressors. Life’s problems are not resolved by burying my head in the sand and covering up the issues with more stressful ones. The cost was to my relationship, my family, and my health. Much like that addiction situation. A change had to be made.

I had to learn how to chill, listen, talk, share, and change,  to have a less fearful and stressful life to have a happier fulfilling one, In all areas, my role as wife, mom, and business women I had to learn how to take time to meditate,  pray, play and focus on change to be able to manage my money, business, relationships, and decision-making. See, I had to learn life is fluid and moving, evolving and changing, so I have to change behaviour to succeed in my relationships and career . I needed to work with the mindset that change is not all bad and growth and quality of life more important. The answer is the perspective on this life and how I see it and that’s what I have to keep telling myself.

We can start with the small things that are in our immediate power to change, like getting enough rest, eating properly, spending time with family and friends, with your God, spending time in meditation, and learning how to enjoy solitude, take walks, read a book, listen to music, watch a movie, spend time with a friend, go out socially and choose to spend quiet time with yourself. These are a few ways we can start by getting our lives in order. These are a few things I needed to start making habits and start changing in order to transform, renew, reset, and de-stress. I would love to hear your list of how you could start changing your life to get a handle on the pressures and demands of stressful moments that come at us. I do however encourage you to get help and aim at setting your life in order and conquering the battlefield of the mind and spirit.

This stress that no one spoke about to us as children is now something we must learn, be open to, and be willing to implement the tools for coping in this changing world.  You see life has changed for us. We living in a time where children are already been made aware of stressors, learning coping mechanisms, and told and taught how to manage their stressful lives of school demands, fitting in, peer pressure, home life, and future planning.  And while this all seems so weird to us, I think they are onto something, recognizing depression, stress, and anxiety and feeling free to express the feeling of stress in their lives. I do believe though we need to be more conscious of their coping mechanisms. Even though for us as adults to say we are stressed seems like a failure and a weakness, maybe just maybe our teens are onto something. Mental wellness is not taboo and hopefully, we get a handle on our scandal before we are too frantic to cope, too frazzled to care, and too frustrated to listen.