- Why caring for your emotional state ahead of time keeps you well ahead of the game, the same way you already do for your portfolio and your health
- What life feels like when stress and old tension get addressed in a targeted way on an ongoing basis, instead of only in a crisis
- How decisions, relationships, and ordinary days feel when you carry less weight into them
Prevention Beyond the Usual Areas
Those operating at a high level practice prevention in nearly every area of life except one, because it is the one that was never taught. You keep an eye on your portfolio regularly so that nothing goes wrong. You probably see a doctor to maintain your health instead of waiting for a problem. You keep governance documents current and hold regular reviews with your advisors.
Emotional state tends to get a different standard, and stress usually gets looked at when it reaches a boiling point or when a family member pushes you, often without realizing that emotional tension can lead to physical tension in the body. Sure, a vacation will relax you, but it rarely reaches the stress being held.
As an expert in your field, to stay in peak performance you likely already see a coach or a therapist on a schedule because it keeps you balanced and gives you great feedback. Still, certain situations or people can cause strong feelings that take energy and distract from enjoying your day. That kind of tension can require something different for fast resolution.
Emotional Maintenance Before a Crisis
Emotional maintenance is simpler than most of us were taught, because there are now ways to clear tension as it accumulates, instead of waiting for a crisis, so that many problems can be looked at as reasonable and not overwhelming. Challenges still arrive, but they can seem dramatically clearer instead of pressurized.
Happiness and stress are more in our control than we realize. One woman who had experienced panic attacks while driving for many years sent a message three weeks after her sessions to say that her husband had pointed out she hadn’t had a panic attack since. Life felt normal again, and after so many years, it simply wasn’t on her mind at all.
We are taught that life just happens to us and then we react to it. That is only partly true, and the way you experience life is also far more in your control than most people realize. Painful feelings tend to arrive because of things that happen to us, while good feelings come from the inside: we generate them. Both can change. We can let go of the painful feelings, and we can learn to readily generate the good ones. With this understanding, we don’t have to carry pain for months or years. Early research is beginning to look at what happens in the body when emotional tension releases, which is a subject for a future article.
What Changes When Stress Does Not Accumulate
When stress does not have time to accumulate in the background, less energy goes toward managing it and keeping it together. The drain is open, so it flows out instead of building. Without the pressure, more attention is available for everything else: decisions, conversations, presence with family, creative thinking. The feeling of a good day comes from carrying less excess weight into each new day.
What an Ordinary Day Can Feel Like
Here is what it can look like on an ordinary Tuesday. A call that would once have stayed with you through dinner and into tomorrow ends, and you notice a stressful feeling passes as quickly as it came up, or it never appeared at all because you were observing the situation clearly instead of feeling it on a deep level. A conversation with someone close to you carries less of an edge, because the old reactions have no handhold. The day is what ordinary should be to you. It has a lightness with more room to breathe in it, and together they can make life feel more open and like something to look forward to.
Preparing Internally for a Big Day
Executives, founders, and athletes preparing for a big day, whether an important meeting, a competition, or a game, can use this same approach. First, go through any basic situations that may cause concern or a feeling of emotional tension. Then go through the things that could possibly go wrong, one scenario at a time, and clear the tension or internal pressure that each one carries.
When the charge is no longer there, there is room to work on the upside: finding the feelings attached to the best possible outcome, the ones that lead into a flow state, and setting them in motion. No matter our level of excellence in life, we are still human and have human processes. This is one of the ways to be one step ahead: you set things up internally beforehand, so the day meets a serene and observing mind, and your mind recognizes the subconscious cues it is being shown.
This works for anyone, whether they compete professionally or have a huge deal on the table, because every day of life is meant to be appreciated and lived as fully as we can. So why do so many of us allow background processes that make us question ourselves, make our hearts race with concern, and cost us our deep sleep?
The Weight We Learn to Carry
One woman recorded a video about the guilt she carried from moving away from her mother. After a single session, she said that no matter what her mother expresses to her, the guilt is no longer there. It’s now her mother being her mother, and it doesn’t make her feel guilty anymore. She almost can’t figure out where the shift took place. Holding onto guilt is heavy.
We think it’s normal, but from my experience, it is something we were trained to do as children. We do it well. What is clear to me is that the mind and body use energy very efficiently. Once pain that holds our attention has a way out, the system is glad to let it go and put that attention to better use.
Staying Ahead of the Breaking Point
Many people used to look for ways to shift states and emotions when they were at a breaking point, because something finally forced the issue. It could have been their psychiatrist or cardiologist or a close friend. That is still a perfectly good way for it to happen. Now, as mindset changes, many choose to begin this approach before things reach that point.
Staying ahead of tension buildup is a process for those who know how valuable their time is. With less pressure to release comes a much longer stretch of clear-minded days, decisions, and conversations that never gather the weight in the first place.
Relief Now or Ease Over Time
If you are feeling like you are in a stress holding pattern right now, the relief when you let it go is likely to be significant, because there is a high to low pressure system in place. If you are in a calmer place and choose to stay ahead of things, you won’t have a dramatic moment of release, but you will spend far more of your time in the ease itself. Both paths are valid. Whether you stay ahead of stress or let it build first, you get there either way, and the difference is the experience along the way.
Giving Emotional State Ongoing Attention
You would not wait for a health crisis to see a doctor, or a legal crisis to review your documents. So here is the question. What would it mean to give your emotional state the same ongoing attention you give everything else you are responsible for, and how would it benefit you, your family, and your time here?
