Stress Busting Tip #21 - This too shall pass

Hi there, my name's Caroline Cavanagh. I'm an anxiety specialist, and today I'm bringing you tip number 21 of my advent calendar of stress-busting tips. And this one is another one that I have used a lot myself. Let me start off by telling you a little story. It was this time of year, probably a couple of years ago. I was taking one of my children to their school Christmas fair. with a beautifully baked cake sitting nicely in the boot of the car. And on the way into Salisbury, all of the main— there's kind of 3 different routes that you go into— every single one of them was chock-a-block. So what should have been about a 15-minute journey ended up taking about 40 minutes. Mm. I was just about to arrive at the car park, stuck in a traffic jam, and a woman running along the middle of the road Decided to stop and yell at me because I was, you know, blocking where she thought she should have a right to be able to run up, so that was really nice. Uh, get to the car park, brilliant, space, even better, and then went to pay for the car parking and end up putting the wrong amount in the car park and paying for less than I actually needed, so that was a really good start, and then went back to the car and, you guess it, Picked the cake up and dropped it. So as I was then walking from the car park up to the, the school with this slightly gritty, very broken chocolate cake, this is when I used that tip because my stress levels were absolutely through the roof. And I kept saying to myself, this too shall pass, this too shall pass. And by the time I'd walked the 400 meters or so into the school fair, I was able to hand over this slightly gritty cake We had a bit of a smile on my face and a huge amount of apologies, and we all just laughed about it because the stress levels had come down. Because with very, very few exceptions, nothing that's intangible will last forever, and that includes your stress. And so by repeating this, it works a little bit like mantras. And so, you know, whether you understand a little bit about Buddhism or some of the mantras that perhaps in yogic lives, When you say something repeatedly, your brain doesn't go, well, that's not real. It just absorbs it. And the more you say it, the more it creates a belief. And so by repeating, this too shall pass, it means that there is going to be an end to what you're feeling at the time. So a lot of the tips that I've shared with you so far are all about preventing stress, but sometimes a bit like on that particular day, the stress just gets up there and you need something to then just bring you down. I've shared 3 what I've called my emergency first aid tips. They're brilliant. And this is kind of like somewhere between that emergency and being able to use some of the more kind of everyday tools. And I've used it a number of times, and it's just simply, this too shall pass, this too shall pass, because it will. The stress around Christmas, by the time it gets to the 26th, will have passed. COVID at some point will be in the history books. Not quite sure when, but it's not going to go on forever. And again, even with the stresses of Christmas or stresses around COVID that you may be experiencing, when it all gets too much, just a little this too shall pass, this too shall pass will help just take you down a gear or two from those high stress levels. So very simple tip for today, and we've got 3 more to share with you before we've gone through all 24. And as I've said with all the other videos that I've done, anyone that's kind enough to share these videos, my intention behind them is To help people have more tools. We are living in such a stressful time at the moment, not just around Christmas, but obviously this whole year. And who knows, for a lot of people since the announcement on Saturday again, it's gone up another couple of gears. So using all of these tools can help you manage your stress at these times, and the more people that have them, hopefully, hopefully the more people these tips will help. So please do share the posts. Like my Facebook page if you haven't done already. That would be massively appreciated because again, it helps Facebook send this to more different— more people. And anyone that does that like or shares a video, I'm gonna put the name in a hat and draw a number of names after Christmas to— Hi there! At least your mum gets to see his grandson. That's fantastic. I'm so pleased for that lovely lady. Yes, everyone that shares it, I am going to pick names out of a hat and we'll offer those people the opportunity to work with me one-to-one And that's my way of thanking you for helping me to help others too. So I will leave that with you for now. 3 more, as I say, that are coming to you before Christmas. All of these and an extra 6— there's 30 tips that are available in a freely downloadable ebook that you can get on my website, which is very simply carolinecavanagh.co.uk. Go to the resources page and download that with my absolute pleasure. And I will be back tomorrow, probably something around the similar time, late afternoon, to share tip number 22. However, bye for now, and I wish you, if you're watching this live, a wonderful evening. If you're watching it on replay, have a wonderful whatever time of the day it is. Bye-bye.