PAPERmaking! FROM THE PUBLISHERS OF PAPER TECHNOLOGY Volume 3, Number 2, 2017
Here are the 4 main steps that Petrie and Roger advise us to take: 1. Wake up: Most of us spend the majority of our time preoccupied or daydreaming about the past or future, never really plugged into the very moment we are experiencing now. It’s how we can drive to work and forget how we got there or lock the front door at night for the fifth time without realizing it. It’s a habit that breeds rumination, and it’s pretty much inevitable. The key is to snap out of it as quickly as possible by getting out of our heads and back into our bodies. So clap your hands, stand up, or stretch. If you’re in a meeting, bounce your foot up and down, focus on the colours in the room, listen to the nearest sounds — anything to get you back into the present moment. 2. Control your attention: It seems logical to say, “Why worry about things I can’t do anything about?” But many of us worry about these things anyway. One thing we actually can control is our attention. We can practice consciously putting our attention where want it to be and leaving it there. Petrie likes to draw a circle and then put things he can control inside of it and things he can’t control outside of it as a reminder of where his priorities should be. 3. Detach: This is the ability to keep things in perspective. Look at the current challenge or situation that is causing rumination. Compare it to other things you have experienced over the years. Most of us, hopefully, will not have a reference point as bracing as Nick’s long battle with cancer. But tough challenges come to all of us. How does the current one compare? How much will it matter 12 months from now? 4. Let go: This doesn’t mean doing nothing or letting go of responsibilities. It does mean releasing the negative emotions, or rumination, that have ensnared us. That’s not easy to do of course. Still, we can practice acknowledging situations for what they are, reflecting on what we’ve learned from them, and doing something about it if we can. Beyond that, we do not want to remain focused on them. These steps take some time to master, but I’ve been working on them myself and seeing real progress, as have many leaders who have employed them over the past 30 years. And there’s no better proof of their power than the inspirational story of Nick Petrie himself.
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Article 11 – Stress Management
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