Is it really killing you?

I see it, day in and day out. Women who are overwhelmed, overworked, over-stressed, and underappreciated. With so many things hanging over our heads these days, it's no wonder we can some times feel like "It's killing us."

But is it really?

As a coach in Neuro-Linguistic Programming, when I work with my clients, I take what they are saying LITERALLY. So, sometimes, like in the case of a client saying "it's killing me," it may sound extreme, but I take them seriously. You see...

Your language is a command to consciousness itself.
 
If I ask you to create a picture of your dream life, and you say you can't "see" it. In NLP, I take it as, you LITERALLY cannot make a picture of your dream life in your head. You don't see the snapshot of that vacay photograph of you sipping a latte across from your lover while working on your laptop after some damn good lovemaking. You can't see it. 

If I ask if you understand the concept, and you don't, I haven't given you enough logical evidence to help you gain a better sense about whatever we're working on.

When you say, "It's killing me," I believe that you are buried under so much stress, that it actually is.

Now, does this mean you'll fall down dead in the next instant, probably now (reject that, by the way). What it does mean is that certain bodily functions have started to generate dis-ease, and if the stress doesn't stop, it will drown you in it.

But, first you have to understand what negative emotions, especially the agitating ones - anger, fear, rage, anxiety - do to your body.

Your digestion is controlled by your enteric nervous system, a system compose of hundreds of millions of nerves that communicate with your central nervous system. (And you already know that you've got neurotransmitters on every single cell in your body.)

So, when those "fight or flight" responses - fear or anxiety - or those negative emotions - anger and rage - kick in (because you're pissed that you have to fight or flight. I mean who wants to be in that sitch), your central nervous system shuts down blood flow. 

NO.1 - Bye, Bye Digestion
That's why when you're stressed and the blood flow gets shut down, it effects the contractions, the peristalsis, of your digestive muscles, and decreases the secretions needed for digestion. It takes a lot of energy to digest your food. And who needs to digest when you're about to be some sabertooth's lunch?

NO.2 - Hello, Inflammation
Stress can cause inflammation of the gastrointestinal system, making you more susceptible to infection.

NO.3 - Spastastic
Your esophagus can go into spasms when stressed.

NO.4 - Drop Some Acid
Stress also can increase the acid in your stomach causing indigestion. Yuck!

NO.5 - Mmm, Tasty, Tasty Acid
That same acid secretes onto your skin so you don't taste very good to that sabertooth tiger. (And, no, that Sabertooth is not a metaphor for your ex.)

NO.6 - Tough Blood
Stress also can cause your blood flow to coagulate. Because when you're stressed about being chased by Mr. Sabertooth, Nature designed us so that our blood would clot so that hopefully we won't bleed out. This is good if you're being malled by a tiger, not so good if you're losing it over a deadline.

NO. 7 - Running on Fumes
That's because when you're stressed, your immune system goes to the back burner. Who cares if you're going to get cancer if you're about to get eaten by a tiger, right?

Now this is all well and good if we lived 30,000 and were actually getting chased by Mr. Sabertooth years ago.

Not so good, when you're just overworking yourself, driving from client to client, thinking about that bevy of 200 emails waiting for you to answer during the 10 minutes you have before your next appointment. 

So is it really killing you? Maybe.

But the bigger question is, how long are you going to tolerate it?