The Resilient You. Bouncing Back and Winning the Stress Game

By Dee Woolridge

Resilience- the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties. It’s a mental, emotional and physical toughness. Without it we break down quickly and recovery slowly, if at all.
Everyone feels pressured these days. We push through long hours and deadlines at work. We rush home, get by on little sleep and unhealthy food. There’s always so much that needs to be done and this puts pressure on us. The pressure becomes stress which accounts for 80 percent of all illnesses, either directly or indirectly. Stress, unchecked, can cause anxiety and even panic attacks that takes a toll on our health and our checkbooks to the tune of $46.6 billion annually in the United States.

You can’t eliminate stress entirely. It’s part of life. You can however, manage it. It’s how we react to stress and our level of resiliency that makes the difference. Coping techniques found in this book will help you control stress and bounce back quickly to help you maintain your health and happiness.
I have worked with people suffering from anxiety disorders caused by stress for years, as well as watched my daughter suffer through debilitating panic attacks. I’ve successfully learned ways to cope with stress and anxiety to help my clients, my family, and myself.

This book is a combination of my own experiences and advice from experts. It will provide you with tools to use when you’re in stressful situations. The intention is to help you feel more balanced and in control of your emotions – to help you become more resilient and live a comfortable and anxiety-free life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dee Woolridge
• Release date: Jun 4, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463222836

Dee Woolridge

Dee Woolridge is the founder of The Heart Centered Institute, LLC where teaching is focused on new thought, personal growth, and transformation. A natural intuitive and people person, she has spent over 28 years in public service to her country and community as a Navy public affairs officer, both active duty and Reserve. Her private sector practice as a hypnotherapist, spiritual counselor, life coach, and energy healer originated over 25 years ago with the premature birth of her daughter diagnosed with autism. She studied meditation, energy therapy, spirituality, hypnotherapy, acupuncture, nutrition and other modalities to aid in the healing process of her family. Her work with Spirit Guides has been instrumental in her navigation through life. A post cancer thriver, she shares her story of healing when she speaks around the country on topics such as Spirit Guide connection, forgiveness, and breaking negative patterns. “Learning to tap into the energy to hear my guides saved my life. It made my life easier. I’m inspired by their Divine presence each day and I’m honored to teach others how to tap into to their own guidance.”

Book preview

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

OTHER BOOKS by DEE WOOLRIDGE

INTRODUCTION

WHY ARE YOU SO STRESSED OUT?

BLOCKING BEHAVIORS THAT KEEP STRESS ALIVE

IS IT STRESS OR ANXIETY?

DID YOU KNOW? – TAKE THE QUIZ

PANIC ATTACKS

DEALING WITH PANIC ATTACKS

THE FIVE STEPS OF A.W.A.R.E.

CALM YOURSELF WITH VISUALIZATION

USING MUSIC TO RELIEVE STRESS AND ANXIETY

SELF-HYPNOSIS FOR STRESS RELIEF

READ-ALOUD ANTI-ANXIETY SELF-HYPNOSIS SCRIPT

RELAXING AT WORK

MANAGING EVERYDAY STRESSORS

TAKE YOUR POWER BACK

TAKE A BREAK

BECOME A BETTER MANAGER OF YOUR TIME

IS A ‘MUST BE SEEN AS’ PERSONA CAUSING YOU STRESS?

BUILDING RESILIENCY BY BEING YOUR OWN BEST FRIEND

HOW TO EXPECT THE BEST

WHAT’S SELF LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT?

STAYING BALANCED IN A CHANGING WORLD

STAYING RESILIENT DURING THE HOLIDAYS

30 TIPS TO MAINTAINING BALANCE AND RESILIENCE

CONCLUSION

RESOURCES

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

INTRODUCTION

EVERYONE FEELS PRESSURED these days. We push through long hours and deadlines at work. We rush home, get by on little sleep and unhealthy food. We do ‘in traffic' phone calls while at the cable company straightening out our bills, and ‘standing in the checkout’ calls with our friends. There’s always so much that needs to be done.

Stress and anxiety have become part of our lives, and in ways we may not have expected. A friend once told me that social media caused her stress because she compared her life to everyone else’s. Even seemingly small acts are now complicated.

How do we deal with these negativities?

Most people don’t. Stress is allowed to run free, disregarded, accepted, wreaking havoc on our bodies, minds, relationships, careers – our lives. Eventually, we lose our balance and resiliency, and the stress smolders into anxiety, panic, or worse.

The statistics on stress-related disorders are staggering. One in every eight Americans between the age of 18 and 54 suffers from an anxiety disorder. This adds up to over 19 million people! Research conducted by the National Institute of Mental Health has shown that anxiety disorders are the most common mental illness, surpassing even depression.

Stress and anxiety go hand in hand. One of the major symptoms of stress is anxiety. And stress accounts for 80 percent of all illnesses, either directly or indirectly. Anxiety not only takes a toll on our health but on our checkbooks, to the tune of $46.6 billion annually in the United States. Anxiety sufferers see an average of five doctors before being successfully diagnosed.

Those numbers are not surprising to me when about 60 percent of my consultations are for people with stress and anxiety issues. What surprises me is that when I ask what’s going on in their lives, they have no idea. They’re not aware that what they are taking on or agreeing to in their lives is causing their symptoms. There are many cases of childhood trauma resurfacing to cause anxious feelings, always triggered by a present life experience.

Women are affected almost twice as much as men, and it’s the number-one mental health problem for women according to the report Anxiety Disorders: Sex Differences in Prevalence, Degree, and Background, But Gender-Neutral Treatment by Marrie H.J. Bekker, PhD and Jannekevan Mens-Verhulst, PhD. Men are not unaffected, though; anxiety disorders in males are second only to alcohol and drug abuse.

Stress is more dangerous than originally thought. You probably already know that it can raise your blood pressure, increasing the likelihood of a stroke. But recently, it’s been claimed that 90 percent of visits to a primary care physician were because of stress-related disorders. Health Psychology magazine reports that chronic stress can interfere with the normal function of the body's immune system. Studies have also proven that stressed individuals have an increased vulnerability to catching an illness, and are more susceptible to allergic, autoimmune, or cardiovascular diseases. Doctors agree that, during chronic stress, the functions of the body that are nonessential to survival, such as the digestive and immune systems, shut down.

Stress is not only making you unhappy, it’s making you sick. More than that, stress often prompts you to respond in unhealthy ways: by smoking, drinking alcohol, eating poorly, or becoming physically inactive. These damage the body, in addition to the wear and tear of the stress itself.

You can’t eliminate stress. It’s part of life. You can, however, manage it. It’s how we react to it that makes the difference. Coping techniques will help you control stress so that you can maintain your health and happiness.

I have worked with people suffering from anxiety disorders caused by stress for years. I’ve had to deal with my own stressors and anxiety, as well as watch my own daughter suffer through debilitating panic attacks. I had to learn ways to cope with stress and anxiety to help my clients, my family, and myself.

This book is a combination of my own experiences and advice from experts. It will provide you with tools to use when you’re in stressful situations. The intention is to help you feel more balanced and in control of your emotions – to help you become more resilient and live a comfortable and anxiety-free life.

WHY ARE YOU SO STRESSED OUT?

WE’RE LIVING IN very trying and difficult times. Technology and advancements have made things more complicated than the simple lives our ancestors had. Sometimes life can be terribly painful and unfair, it seems. Why do some people manage to get through it more easily than others? Do they care less? Do they have tough skin? Are they insensitive? I believe the reason they manage stress better is because they have a different mindset and better coping tools.

Society as a whole is more stressed. Millions of people are in record levels of debt. Many are losing their jobs, their homes, their health, and sometimes even their sanity. Worry, depression, and anxiety seem to have become a way of life.

It seems like we’ve entered the Age of Anxiety. In fact, Time magazine once proclaimed this in one of their issues. The constant stress and uncertainties of living in the 21st century have certainly taken their toll. The result is that many people are now living in a state of constant fear and worry.

When the 9/11 terrorist attacks happened, stress, fear, and anxiety became magnified. In fact, even now, years later, people report they are still scared every day. They worry that something of that magnitude will happen again. Turn on the news or open up a newspaper and you’re bombarded with disturbing images and stories. You begin to wonder if you’re safe anywhere. The Information Age is providing us access to endless data. Most of what is covered by the media is unsettling and disturbing news.

Working women with children are the most stressed, as you can imagine. The days of the 1950s homemaker are long gone. Many women feel the need to be everything to everyone, and that includes a paycheck earner, housekeeper, mother, cook, taxi, accountant, wife, counselor, lover, daughter, etc. Trying to cram everything in and do it well is a huge stress factor. Women are so busy doing that they don’t make time for themselves, and if they do, they feel guilty. This cycle is a losing one and it’s driving stress levels to an all-time high.

Even children can feel the pressure of stress and anxiety. Children struggle to fit in, be liked, get good grades, excel in sports. They are over-scheduled with activities and live on fast food and little sleep. Teenagers who want to go to college feel pressure to obtain scholarships. They need part-time jobs to earn money for extras that their parents can no longer afford. Add peer pressure into the mix and you have a veritable pressure cooker!

Smart phones, tablets, social media – we are always on the go and always reachable. There’s no downtime in life any more. We’re so busy that we’ve forgotten how to relax and our minds are constantly going over what needs to be done. We feel pressure to do these things because we think we HAVE to, not because we WANT