How we create stress by ourselves - 3 'P's Formula

In a research by a Psychologist, he revealed three 'P's which we used to disturb ourselves. 

Personalising:

Some of us take things personally. For example, a wife said to her husband, "The air conditioner is not working, have it fixed. Her husband got anger and shouted at her saying, "Do you mean that I don't take care of things properly ?".

Such people are hypersensitive to others comments. They pick on what others say and construct an unproductive meaning of self based on what is said to them.

Permanent:  

This is about seeing negative things and creating a permanent scare in life. Some people feel that one failure will have a permanent impact in their life. Someone not getting selected in an interview perhaps believes everything is lost.

Though ancient wisdom says "This too shall pass", we seem to cling onto unfortunate experience in life and lose our inner peace.

Pervasive:

The third P is believing that any negative impact in life is pervasive. A client once told, "My girl friend has left me. My boss has passed me up for promotion, I have lost money in market. Bad luck follows me all the time." 

The individual is connecting every unfavorable outcome in life to reach a conclusion.

To break this cycle, the first step is to gain peace is the self awarness on how we use these three 'P's to diturb ourselves. The second step is to learn how to deal with it. If we find ourselves personalising, stop. Look for facts in the situation and see how you can make it better.

If we find ourselves viewing any incident as having permanent impact on life, then narrate that experience to close friend on how it started, progressed and ended or how you would like to end it. This will show that there is an ending and beginning to every event in life.

This new beginning can instill hope and faith in us. If we find ourselves seeing negative things as pervasive and affecting our inner peace, take a deep breath and exhale though your mouth. As you exhale say "There is a new moment". This will cut across the continuum of difficulty and enlighten you.

Courtesy - Our sincere thanks to dear Lakshman sir for directing us to publish this post.