Simple Answer to your Difficult
Stress Management Problems

You know you have a stress management problem if you can't sleep very well, you worry constantly and may even get diarrhea. Those are my symptoms of stress and worry. I have had this diarrhea problem brought on by stress and worry my entire life. It's not fun or exciting or something that goes away. It is there whenever I am facing something that causes me stress.

Last week though I finally tried a stress management method that actually worked.

I had to go to court. I had a 10:15 a.m. court appointment to try to convince the judge to allow me to stop paying child support to my ex-wife because both children now live with me full-time. My son has been with me for nearly a year and my daughter nearly 6 months.

They just could not stand to live with their mother anymore. She is just a very difficult person to be with for any length of time.

It is a heart breaking situation when a child's mother cannot get herself together enough to care for her own children with the love, kindness and respect every child needs.

So I have been getting by with money for a year. But 2 kids take a lot of money to care for properly. There is more food. More stuff to buy. More household expenses. More clothes. More laundry to do. All that requires money and lots of it.

I asked my wife to help me help the kids. I even begged her to give me some money to care for them. She refused.

This is my money that goes directly from my paycheck to the County and then they send it to her. There is no way for me to do anything about it except go to court to try to get some relief.

I tried working with my ex-wife earlier. I filled out the forms and tried to get her to just agree to taking less money. I did not want to hire an attorney and go back to court. But she would not do that.

So I hired my divorce attorney to handle it for me.

Last week was the court date.

I did not sleep the night before. I have been tossing and turning the last few weeks. I have been eating more junk food also. I have been basically medicating myself with sugar to try to get through this.

There is no way the kids want to go back and live with her. The house they were in has been foreclosed and my ex-wife now shares a place with a male roommate. There is no place there for the kids.

Plus, they resent being with her for too long. They just cannot deal with here chaos and drama very much. They are used to my peaceful, relaxed way of living. They enjoy being with me. I do not shower them with gifts and luxury living. I cannot afford that at this time. I shop the sales and we get by as best we can. But I love them unconditionally. There is no real pressure from me except for occasional encouragement to keep the apartment picked up, to get their homework done and to call me when they are out to keep me informed as to their whereabouts.

I treat them as respectfully as possible and they seem to thrive on this. They could not go back and live with the smothering way of their mother.

It seems like my case is a slam dunk for me. The kids are with me. They do not want to live with their mother. The house that required enormous amounts of money to pay for is no more. There is no real reason why I should have been worried about getting the child support eliminated.

But I was.

I was filled with stress about it. My stress management method up to now was just to scrape by as best I could and give my ex-wife huge amounts of money for no reason.

I need my own money to take care of myself and the kids. It seems like a simple concept.

I arrived at the courthouse 45 minutes before my appointment. I did not want to go in then. That would be too early. So I drove around the neighborhood for 5 minutes. Then I pulled into the parking lot. The lot closest to the building had a 90 minute maximum time. What if it takes longer and they give me a ticket or tow my car? I left. I drove to the outlying parking lot.

My mind was reeling. I was filled with stress. It was still 35 minutes to my appointment. I could feel my bowels churning. I was afraid I was going to have to go right then.

I pulled out a wad of papers I had in my coat pocket to try to read a little bit.

It was a thick wad of papers that I had printed off the internet a year ago and was only carrying them because it was in my winter coat pocket from last winter.

I opened the paper up randomly and read about the best stress management technique I have ever known about.

The method is to write, physically, with pen or pencil and paper, what you want to happen. Write out a script of what you want your life to be.

So I did.

Here is the stress management method that saved my morning and gave me back my life:

I scribbled these sentences on the back of one of the pages I was reading.

I went to court today. Everything went smoothly. The judge found for me. I will soon have all my money coming to me. My ex-wife was nice and not a problem.

Within a few weeks my paycheck will be changed. This change will give me tremendous freedom for the future. I am not locked into anything anymore. My ex-wife is on her own and I am on my own.

Those few sentences gave me a complete calm. I walked into the courthouse, went smoothly through the security checks, found a mens room, urinated, the urge for a dramatic, messy, diarrhea episode had passed, found the room where my case was. My attorney saw me, came out. We both went in and sat down and listened to the case before mine.

I just calmly sat there. It was an eerie feeling thinking that in a few minutes I would soon be free of the enormous financial burden I have been under for nearly 5 years.

My ex-wife did not even show up. The judged found in my favor. Not only was the child support completely eliminated, the maintenance was eliminated. I do not have to pay her anything.

The judge went out of her way to process the paperwork to make sure I did not have anymore money taken out of my check as soon as possible. She said that she does not want their system to be a slow problem for me.

I was of course, elated, gratified, but more importantly, amazed at the stress management technique I stumbled on.

Write out your life. Write out your desired outcomes. Write our your lists. Write out your immediate desired outcomes as well as medium range and long range goals. Never be too lazy, or too worried, or too stressed to write. Never think that this stress management method will not work. It works and it is simple and free.

Picking up a pen and paper or typing into your computer will calm you. Write, write and write. This is your life we are talking about. Writing it out the way you want is not only fun, it is rewarding because it works, it my be the best stress management method I have ever learned.

Finding ways to relieve your stress is vitally important to the quality of your life. If the method I described does not work for you, look elsewhere. Here are some more resources: Stress Management.org

and About Balance and Control.

Whatever you do, find ways to manage stress. This is your life we are talking about. Nothing is as important to you as your life, your happiness and your lack of stress. Do it. Find ways. Learn.

You need to do whatever it takes to minimize the stress in your life. Read, study and learn from others.

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