I read an email forwarded on to me today, with some interesting thoughts on stress. Here are a couple of paragraphs:

“Some people consider crawling along in traffic an opportunity to listen to their favorite music or relax and do their best thinking. For others, traffic is a nightmare that will ruin their entire day. For some, a late appointment is a stressful experience, for others, living in a third-world country without running water is a joyful one. Adversity or opportunity? It depends on your perspective.

It is not your circumstances that are to blame for the issues in your life. Rather, it is your response to those issues that is the problem. [If you can] control your response to life’s issues they lead to powerful results. Your response is always a choice. Whether you know it or not, either you make the right choice, or the wrong one is made for you.

Successful people and great leaders do one thing differently than most people during times of challenge. They think for themselves and choose powerful states of being instead of sinking into the prevailing negative default state of their circumstances and the people around them.”

This is a very powerful way of reframing our reactions to stress. I do this … sometimes! And it really can defuse situations. I plan to practice more

(from Sonia Ricotti http://leadoutloud.ca/)