20 Feb There’s No Such Thing as Greener Grass

Here at VitaStrength, our mission for health and wellness is all-encompassing.  Yes, we know everyone obviously wants to look good – hot, even.  And it’s also no secret that we all want to live better, too.  But part of living better includes feeling better and proper stress management, which takes being as proactive about our emotional health and wellness as we are about supplements and fitness.

So on that note, we’d like to let you in on a secret:

There is no such thing as greener grass – and you’re stressing yourself out looking for it.

Yes, it’s true.  Our lives are all stripes on this lawn.  And no one’s life is better than yours, because …

You’re not the only one desperately wishing their life was different.

It is a stressful, frustrating feeling more common than you think.  Maybe your Valentine’s Day was one final letdown, and now you’re reevaluating a once promising relationship.  Or maybe you’re struggling to pay your bills and find yourself sinking into debt.  You may lack direction, or you may feel hopelessly overweight.  And if you’re like some of us in the VitaStrength family, you might even be dreading a milestone birthday like it’s the apocalypse and are already preparing yourself for life after whatever-age death.

But what do all these seemingly unrelated things have in common?

Perception.

Or more precisely, the stress that results from our perceptions and interferes with our emotional health and wellness.  Left unchecked, the resulting stress can actually do more damage than our situations themselves by raising our blood pressure, causing unwanted weight gain or hair loss, prompting skin and digestive problems, and interfering with sleep.  It’s obvious all of this would make stress management even more difficult, but it would also make your situation feel 10 times worse.

So then, how do you manage stress?

How do you mange turning an unfulfilled 30 or 40 while longing to be an optimistic, carefree 23?  How do you manage the pain of losing a relationship you’ve nurtured for more years than you were single?  How, amidst seeming impossibility, do you begin to let go of a “greener grass” mentality?

You change your perceptions, and commit to yourself.

This includes:

• Letting go of the expectation that something that has already happened should’ve happened differently, so that you can

• Focus on what you can control (or could’ve controlled) about the situation, and actively plan to fix those things, while also

• Allowing yourself to be less than perfect, and to admit your imperfect, overwhelmed feelings to yourself.

Stress management is only possible when you are fully willing to recognize and accept your situation for what it is, and adjust your perceptions accordingly. This is not to say your problems aren’t worth concern – it’s just to say you and your emotional well-being are worth far more.

So remember, there is no such thing as greener grass – don’t stress yourself out looking for it.

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