Anti-Stress TIPS for a Stressed-Out World

Most of us start a new year with renewed goals and hope for the future. Have you noticed that there seems to be a greater number of unexpected events in the last few years.  Often these are of a greater magnitude and have the ability to shock us. The things that look the most disturbing often are a catalyst for learning, finding new directions and expanding what we know of ourselves and our world.  The end result brings unexpected gifts and makes “a silk purse out of a sow’s ear” (not to denigrate the swine of the world).

So, here we are in the new year, 2010.  We have seen natural disaster in Haiti beyond the scope of anything we have known. Our economy, including jobs, home, and health care, is up for grabs.  Time itself seems to disappear and we cannot accomplish what we used to be able to do. All this flies in the face of needing to meet high demands and feeling that we never can get it all done.  Time is so fluid right now that we can’t predict what we will accomplish.

On the National front, we are seeing the best and worst of behavior in our leaders and celebrities.  Not a day goes by without shocking behavior, pronouncements and revelations, challenging our core values, our sense of fairness, and the social rules that our culture has depended upon to make society work.

Is it any wonder that 97% of Americans are experiencing stress, according to a recent poll? All of the public unraveling and suffering on top of our personal life challenges adds to the level of stress we are experiencing. So what can we do? How do we deal with this level of stress? How do we survive and thrive?

In the Brilliance business, not a day goes by that we don’t experience extreme gratitude for the Brilliance Formula, for the answers it provides, and for the opportunities we have to live from our hearts, even in the worst circumstances.  We have found the essential keys to understand and eliminate stress. We have the anti-stress elixir!

First we must understand that we are born with natural Brilliance and innate wisdom that constantly offer the insights and understanding to resolve any difficulty we may experience. Knowing this is the first step to close the door on stress.  We have a formula that brings together all the skills and tools needed to activate our Brilliance and move us through these unprecedented times.

Second, to manage or eliminate stress, you need to know that stress comes from your thinking and we can bypass these stressful thoughts by activating our Brilliance. We all have a collection of beliefs, thought patterns and habits of thinking that we’ve been conditioned to use when we face problems.  When we activate our Brilliance we can shift out of the old patterns and into new answers and solutions. Because we have this innate core of Brilliance, we always have the right solutions for any situation we face.

We have written two books that detail the Anti-Stress Formula. Activate Your Brilliance contains a thorough explanation of Brilliance, how thought works, and the essential components needed to lock out stress and create brilliant lives. Let’s face it, the Brilliance Formula is not being taught in the public sector. Most of us don’t even know we have Brilliance and can access it.  This is a new concept and as such requires a thorough exploration. It means letting go of old beliefs and moving into your authentic power and the possibilities you so much desire but have given up on. It takes study and practice, but there is nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Our e-book, Stop Stress Now, focuses on anti-stress techniques.  It provides a collection of strategies for conquering stress in everyday situations. Both of these books are available on our website.

The Brilliance Formula—the anti-stress solution—goes beyond any current stress remedy.  It gives us a new framework for solving our problems, resolving our differences, and creating our dreams. What are you waiting for?

How to Make the Brilliance Connection to Avoid Holiday Stress

The I-Ching says, “Before the beginning of great brilliance, there must be chaos.” Do you find the feeling of chaos seems more pertinent during the holidays?

At this time of year, we tend to get overwhelmed. There are lists upon lists for gifts, school concerts and sports events, activities, holiday gatherings, and food to make, bake or buy. It’s hard to keep these lists straight and easy to find yourself recopying and reorganizing every list.

Then there are the events of the world around us. All of us seem to have less money to spend, more worries about our jobs or the jobs of our families and friends, and concerns about the safety issues and wars that are threatening or already occurring.

How do we maintain our heart connection and gain a sense of hope in this season of love and new beginnings, in the midst of the seeming chaos of this moment? It is important to remember that we are all in this together. It is essential to remember that we are all connected to a greater wisdom that is available to us in every minute.

By ignoring our mental chatter (try it) and banishing the negative voices around us (find the good that exists in each situation), we can focus our attention on the wisdom and Brilliance that all of us possess.  We can make this choice, in every moment, every day. The more we are tuned into the thoughts from our natural Brilliance the more our actions will reflect Universal wisdom and lead to new and better beginnings.

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To Stop Stress Stay in the Present Moment

For much of the past year we have been focused on creating both a  free “Stop Stress Now” email course and our new e-book, Stop Stress Guide: The Brilliance Formula in Action – plus the marketing tools needed to promote them. All this attention on stress has reminded us that an easy way to eliminate stress is to stay focused in the present moment.

There are tricks to mastering this process. The only real moment is this moment.  Anytime our focus shifts to the past or to the future we have left “real” time. There is a tendency when looking at the past to remember difficult times and then to project more of the same into the future. This is prescription for stress.

Around the holidays we can get caught up in our to-do list with everything we have already done and everything we have yet to accomplish. We can be at a party with family or friends and instead of enjoying the moment we get busy with our mental list, thinking, “If I do just these two things tonite before bed, then I’ll be ahead tomorrow.” At the same time we have missed the joy of shared time and conversation with people we really love.

While practicing staying focused in the now, being vigilant about keeping our attention on this moment, we have discovered many benefits.

• We stay relaxed instead of moving into urgency.
• We get to enjoy each moment for its gifts.
• We trust that each moment will bring with it the knowing of what is most important to attend to.

The more we practice being present the less we identify with the outer trappings of our lives and the more we identify with the true presence of ourselves.

During the holiday season the best present we can give ourselves is to be present to each moment.

Negative Judgments Kill Relationships

Ever have those gnarly, negative judgments about others shooting through your mind? Join the human race! When these judgments start to take up more of your time or focus on someone you thought you really loved, it’s time to choose. Do you want to continue judging, or do you want to return to loving and respecting?

Ask yourself this question: Can I let go of judging others in my relationships?

Most of us have a habit of judging others in our relationships. How do we deal with this most common habit and barrier to healthy relationships? First, we need to understand and remember that judgments are just thoughts we have focused on and made real. We judge according to our expectations, losing sight of the fact that we all have separate realities and don’t see things the same.

When we get caught up in judging someone else, we tend to lose sight of the whole person and see only the problem we have identified as theirs. We judge others for the “big” stuff, from not taking out the trash to misplacing the newspaper to being a loudmouth. In our minds they could do better or be better.

We have experienced making judgments, and hundreds of assumptions, because we didn’t take the time to ask questions about what was happening or why someone said something. We all fall prey to the habit of judging others because of how they appear, talk, or where they work or worship.

But in our families, close friendships, or partnerships, we owe those we love or hold dear a better outcome than a fast judgment and the resulting disapproval, cold shoulder, or sermon from the mount. And, why are we on the “mount” anyway? What makes us more qualified to know how others should think, live, or act than they? It’s pretty funny when you think about it. We spend more of our creative energy judging others for being who they are than working on what we can control – our own goals, skills and talents.

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Brilliance Builds Better Relationships

Today we begin a series of articles on the topic of relationships. In good or bad times, our relationships can act like a thermometer in our lives. From hot to cold, the measure of how our relationships are going heats or chills the rest of our lives at the same time.  Relationships are that important.

If you have relationships that include partners, spouses or children at home, know that those relationships can be a source of continuous stress or continuous support. In times of fear about jobs and finances, along with worries about relatives, friends and/or children, we all tend to “work out” our stress at home.  Everyone there starts to feel upset, distressed or worse when stress is high. This isn’t what we need to make it through the hard times.

Let’s take a look at the general adjustments and pressures in our relationships.  First of all, relationships in the home always involve communication. Sometimes our communication habits need some work in order to make decisions and coexist peacefully. When we have children there are even more people to include in the process.

When two people decide to make a home together they bring all their previous patterns with them. Behaviors that are normal to one may seem unreasonable to the other. Many of us have assumed that we will get along without looking at our individual perceptions and differences. This can lead to conflict, heartache and even more stress.

We also bring our expectations, dreams, and desires into our relationships. When things don’t go as we expect them to we react out of surprise, hurt, or disappointment. These feelings are telling us that we are reacting from our old patterns of thinking. Until we’ve learned to shift from what we thought would be, to our Brilliance, we will be immersed in stress.

We can remove the stress from poor communication and learn to accept and/or negotiate our partner’s “crazy” patterns when we communicate from our Brilliance. We can turn hurt and disappointment into commitment and adventure when we see the Brilliance in others and work to share a life that honors “the others” in our relationships, without demanding shared viewpoints, goals and dreams.

Most of our relationship problems come from our conditioned thinking. Once we have learned to follow our natural Brilliance we can avoid the potholes and have a smoother, more loving journey for ourselves and our families.

If you want to learn more about how Brilliance can make good relationships better, and then turn better into best, access more of our articles on Brilliance to get a bigger picture. We will be sharing our views on “judging others” and “anger” in two articles coming soon.  Stay tuned.

Natural Brilliance Stops Stress

Can you imagine what your life would be like without the constant strain and pressure of stress? No matter how many techniques to diminish stress you try, they only give you temporary relief. None of the current approaches deals with the origins of reactive stress and, therefore, none offer a long-term solution.

In discovering our 12 Keys to Brilliance, we gained a unique understanding of stress, its origins, and its nature. As we write this, all of the programs we have reviewed that deal with stress relief lack the ability to change our relationship with stress forever.

Solutions to stress have to come from the inside out. Each of us has a core of natural Brilliance. When we understand our Brilliance and learn that this Brilliance is always available to use in every moment, we gain the power to stop stress once and for all.

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The Real Solution to Stress and Lack of Sleep

Sleeping well? Or, is the stress in your life waking you up, continuing to plague those wee hours of the morning? Imagine life 100 years ago. Yes, there were difficult times and life was not as easy as it is today with the conveniences of indoor plumbing and super-kitchens. But, life was not as hectic or rushed for most people.  Quite simply, there just weren’t as many things to think about.

Today we can watch the late news and the 24-hour news channels, or a late-night tear ‘em up movie. Some of us get connected to family and friends with late-night phone calls and can’t get to sleep because our minds are processing the conversations again. It’s hard to assess the real risk these news or life events we focus on 24/7 pose in our lives. But the side effects from lack of sleep are well-documented.

So, what is the real solution?

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Stress Relief for a Good Night’s Sleep

In today’s world, there are a million things that could keep you from sleeping soundly. Perhaps you’ve been hearing about the latest pesticide that causes cancer. Maybe you have heard that the lettuce from Argentina or some other country is contaminated.  Or, you could be thinking about someone in your family and what can be done to change or set things right again.

All of these thoughts can go whirling around your head, time and again, night after night, with new reports replacing the old ones. Bedtime musing may be helpful once in a while, but when it persists and you don’t get a good amount of that deep sleep, life generally becomes more difficult.  You may wonder how you can go back to sleeping well.

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Live Stress Free in the Power of Now

Have you noticed how caught up we are about our future plans? High school students are anxious about what they’ll do when they graduate and college students often are consumed worrying about what their next steps will be after college. The prevalent pattern for all of us regardless of age is to be focused on preparing for the future, tomorrow, next year, retirement and on and on. We are as much preoccupied with the future as we are with the past.

There is a whole lot of programming out there about future planning. We learn to set our goals and to plan the steps. We learn to visualize and see the end result. What is often forgotten in this process is that we can’t see the bigger picture at all times. In fact the human mind/brain system can only discern a small portion of all that is available. It’s that 80/20 rule where we are conscious of only 20% of what is.

No matter how much planning we’ve done we can’t get too attached to our plans because there may be steps we couldn’t see that will take us far beyond the outcome we had envisioned.

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Bringing Back the Brilliance that Stress Took Away From You

The following is a new Press Release introducing natural stress relief.

Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States of America, June 27, 2009 – Vivian Hildebrandt and Lynne Hoft share the things you must know about stress.

Vivian and Lynne have been lifelong educators and business partners for 10 years. Vivian has worked as a counselor and prevention specialist, helping stressed people by showing them their unlimited inner resources and how to effectively use them. Lynne is a licensed teacher and administrator. She is a certified trainer and has developed exceptional educational programs and curriculum. Over time, Lynne’s research created the foundation for the Brilliance programs of today. Together, in their company Back to Brilliance, they help people overcome and deal with stress and depression.

The fusion of their expertise resulted in the creation of the Brilliance Formula. The Brilliance Formula became the very foundation of their work. This formula is an easy and effective way to achieve natural stress relief and to help anyone live a happier life. Back to Brilliance meets the needs of people of all ages in their search for personal and professional growth.

Back to Brilliance programs are based on the realities that people face today. It is undeniable that with the fast-paced life that most people have, stress has become an every-day thing. This stress may be related to personal, financial or work-related events. Stress can adversely affect you and everything in your life. Although stress may seem unavoidable, Vivian and Lynne are here to assure you that it can be controlled and eventually eliminated.

Vivian and Lynne recommend that you should first examine what is actually causing your stress. Observing yourself and everything around you sets the stage for moving into a stress-free way of living.

The first step is to take control. You, of all people, are in the best position to choose the solution that will answer your stress-related problems. When you focus on the things that are advantageous to you, the solutions for your life instead of the problems, you can begin to eliminate your stress immediately.

The second step is to find the Brilliance in you. Every person has natural Brilliance within. Many people may not see it at first, but with a little analysis and experimentation, this step can be easily achieved. Brilliance helps you get rid of the habits of thinking and activities that are not beneficial to you. Emotions that are negative won’t provide any stress reduction and can quickly be eliminated by moving back into your Brilliance. Stress management becomes easy when you understand and practice these two steps.

Stick with natural stress relief. Prescription pills and other medications may make you grow dependent on them. It is best to choose healthy methods that really work to control and eliminate stress and the anxiety and worry it brings to our lives.

Contact Box:

Vivian Hildebrandt and Lynne Hoft will tell you more about stress and stress management. Back to Brilliance will bring back the Brilliance in you.

Vivian Hildebrandt and Lynne Hoft
Back to Brilliance
612-825-3618
www.backtobrilliance.com
vivian@usfamily.com
lynne@backtobrilliance.com