How to Stop Stress Before It Takes Control Of Your Thoughts

By Carol Rickard, LCSW
How to Stop Stress Before It Takes Control Of Your Thoughts

I was in the middle of writing this week’s article when something happened that changed my direction…..

A situation occurred that required some serious stress managing & I felt I needed to share a critical LifeTool I used!

First, let me tell you about the situation:

I did a stress management workshop 3 days ago at the NJALA state conference. It went GREAT! I felt honored to be there with them.

The stress situation came up today, when I went to work on a project & couldn’t find my USB drive. Suddenly, I realized the last time I had it in my hands….at the workshop 3 days ago!

As I felt the blood rush through my head, my 1st thought was, “Oh my God, what am I going to do?”. My 2nd thought was “I can’t believe I did that, how stupid.” Tears started to come to my eyes when I thought about all the work I had on that drive…. presentations, manuscripts, articles, even some pictures. I started to get mad – at myself – for violating my rule of safely traveling with the drives all together in their case & not making a back up.

Then I caught myself.

The ‘old me’ would have just kept on fueling those thoughts & actually making myself physically sick. I used to get ‘stress migraines’.

Instead, I reached for one of the most powerful tools I have – this sentence:
“It could be worse…. (Then you identify the way it could be worse) The more the better!

Here’s what mine were:
“It could be worse, I could have lost all 3 drives.”
“It could be worse, I could have had to start completely from scratch.”

While this tool doesn’t eliminate stress completely – it does help get your brain turned around, heading in a more positive direction, & not fueling the stress!

~ Take Control Of Stress ~

Posted in Stress

About Carol Rickard, LCSW

Carol L. Rickard, LCSW, is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with over 30 years of experience specializing in stress management and wellness program development for healthcare and corporate settings. Known as "America's Workplace Wellbeing Authority" Carol specializes in creating practical, evidence-based training solutions for high-stress professionals. As founder and CEO of WellYOUniversity, LLC, Carol has trained thousands of healthcare workers, corporate teams, and organizational leaders. Her evidence-based approach, called SMARTheory™, transforms complex wellness concepts into immediately actionable tools that work during 12-hour shifts, high-pressure meetings, and real-world crises. A prolific author, Carol has written 25 books on stress and wellness, contributed weekly to Esperanza Magazine, and created "The WELL YOU Show", a nationally syndicated wellness show on Central New Jersey Network. She has been featured expert in national media outlets and speaks regularly at conferences, healthcare systems, and corporate events. Carol's expertise spans keynote presentations, comprehensive training programs, organizational wellness consulting, and crisis response training. Her clients consistently praise her ability to deliver practical strategies that participants can implement immediately, creating lasting change in both professional and personal settings.

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