Are Other People (or their behavior) Causing Your Stress?

Do other people cause your stress? Or maybe it is other people’s choices or behavior? You are not alone!

I put together this video with three questions to ask yourself to reduce the impact of other people, their behavior – or choices on your stress level.

3 questions to reduce stress caused by other people’s behavior:

• What if this is the best they can do? Whew, this is a tough one!! I can sit in my arrogance of rightness and truly believe my way is the right way. This belief causes intense judgement and usually a healthy (or really quite unhealthy) dose of anger. But what if you take a breath and consider that maybe this is the best decision they can make right now? Even if it doesn’t seem right to you, can you let go of your rightness and give them a bit of space and grace?
• What if there is something I don’t understand? We all bring different life experiences, beliefs, world views, and family histories to any situation. What if there is something about their experience that doesn’t fit your view of the world?
• What if it isn’t about me? Other people’s choices and behavior can feel very personal. It can feel like they are consciously deciding to hurt you – or even choosing not to consider your feelings or wellbeing. But what if you aren’t even part of their consideration? The burden of hard feelings can chill relationships – and the truly sad part is when family rifts are created when one person feels alienated by behavior that had nothing at all to do with how the other feels about them. We all make choices for ourselves – and truthfully, we don’t spend tons of time thinking about how it will impact each of the people in our lives. Maybe, just maybe – we should give each other the grace of believing our decisions are not meant to be hurtful, unkind, or selfish.

I hope these questions are useful in reducing stress caused by other people.

One note: I’m not advocating against drawing boundaries for yourself or accepting behavior that causes you anxiety or makes you feel unsafe. I’ll be bringing in a friend to talk about drawing those kind of boundaries soon!

Take a breath – ask yourself some questions, and don’t allow the stress of things you can’t avoid impact your health or quality of life.

As always, I wish you low stress and great success!