A few weeks ago, I wrote about the top stressors that turn your life upside down. On the list were changing jobs, moving homes, ending relationships, or any type of major, life-changing loss.

Although these stressors can take a toll on one’s body, heart and mind, there are also daily, insidious stressors that, if we allow them to, can occupy a huge part of our thoughts and hearts, and eventually wreak havoc on the body.

Neurolinguistic programming, or NLP, is a different approach that studies how the mind works. To learn to solve problems, NLP students did not dwell on those who were still dealing with troubles. Instead they focused on people who used to have the problems and have since solved them.

With a unique process called modeling, NLPers systematically deconstructed the mental and behavioral strategies that lead to success, and taught those strategies to those who needed them.

NLP teacher Mike Burandt outlines seven daily stressors that may steal the joy from our daily lives.

First, Burandt talks about the critical voices in our head that Sigmund Freud referred to as the superego, or what is commonly known as the inner critic. “The purpose of the inner critic is to find fault regardless of the circumstances. So, no matter what you do, the inner critic will have a problem,” Burandt explains.

“If you want to try something new, the inner critic will predict failure. If you did well, the inner critic will point out that you could have done better. If you like yourself, it will call you conceited. If you hate yourself, it will tell you it’s because you really are worthless.”

Living with a relentless inner critic is a chronic stressor. To diminish the power it has over you, you need to learn to identify it so that you can silence it. In essence, we need to learn to speak to ourselves with greater kindness, as we would to other people.

Negativity

A second joy stealer is the negative relationships we wittingly or unwittingly attract. “Clinging to stressful, negative relationships is a revolving door for stress and depression. In this case, you have shackled yourself to negativity and empowered another person to pummel you with stress,” Burandt explains.

Relationships where chronic criticism, rejection, non-validation and manipulation exist daily are highly toxic. “Relationships are a two-way street. If you experience any of the above over time in one of your relationships, rest assured you are playing a part and inviting the negativity to continue,” he says.

The art of self-sabotage is another way to invite insidious stress into your daily life. Self-sabotage takes place when you do the opposite of what would make you happy and successful. It’s called getting in your own way.

For example, you know that you have a deadline looming, but instead you spend hours on your social network; or you know that you need to speak up about certain issues you feel very strongly about, but you decide to say nothing.

Burandt says that self-sabotage is perhaps the number one destroyer of success, turning otherwise joyful and mature people into what he describes as powerless, whiny wimps.

A fourth stressor that kills joy is a constant sense of inner conflict. Internal conflict is at the heart of indecisiveness. It keeps you stuck for weeks, maybe months, unable to move forward with anything. Inner conflict is a major energy drainer and expends mental and, more important, emotional energy that can be best used elsewhere.

Lack of proper nutrition and a sedentary lifestyle result in physical imbalance. Burandt explains the breakdown this way: “When you don’t give the brain and body what it needs for fuel, things begin to misfire. Bad food clogs the system and disrupts the delicate balance of blood sugar, hormones, neurotransmitters and more. A body out of balance cannot support a balanced mind. The malaise that results can only be defined as stress.”

The trick

If you find yourself surrounded by these five joy stealers, do not attempt to address them all at the same time. The trick is to work on the issues one at a time. Work on the most difficult one first, and address them according to degree of difficulty.

Usually, based on my experience and those of other people, toxic relationships are the most damaging and yet the most difficult to let go of. However, once you find the courage to release yourself from the shackles of negativity or toxicity, you will immediately experience what many people have described as the “unbearable lightness of being.”

Release yourself and everything else becomes lighter, and life will be easier to deal with. You will find more energy to draw from each day, learn to speak more kindly to yourself, laugh and smile more, and treat yourself with the respect that you truly deserve.

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