One of my secrets to avoiding stress is to focus on relationships and interactions with people, rather than stress-inducing stuff. But what will I do when a relationship is the source of my stress? Oh well, I’ll have to wait and see when it happens, for it certainly will.

Yesterday, day 4 of my journey to escape stress: I started out a bit nervous about the weekend. Oh, I understand my stress at work. But I have a talent for making weekends stressful too. I think it comes from my desire to make the most of my “free” time. There’s irony there, for I end up becoming a prisoner of my weekend free time. I’m driven to fill every minute with checking off items on my to-do list, and that drive breeds stress.

But thanks to my focused effort to escape stress, yesterday was different. The most stressful part of my day was when I read the final chapter in the book The Martian, by Andy Weir – you know, the Matt Damon movie. Except for those tense moments a few miles above Mars, yesterday was pretty stress-free.

And that’s because I followed the same path I was on at work last week. I tried to ignore my to-do list and just focus on each moment. Oh, I still did chores, but they’d lost their power over me. And, I focused on putting all I could into each interaction with other people – for people have more meaning than chores.

But most importantly, my mind kept drifting back to the Spirit of Jesus within me. I found myself thinking about Jesus more frequently than on a typical Saturday. And I think this is because the tingling of approaching stress has become a trigger for me, automatically sending my mind inward, to Jesus. And when I’m with Jesus, there is no stress… only peace.

I just hope I don’t lose hold of this. As I type this, it’s Sunday morning – sometimes my most stressful day of the week. Stay tuned.

 

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