How to Relieve Stress by “Acting as If”
Right now I am in Los Angeles with my sister and her family. Yesterday we picked her two kids up from school and played a game. We pretended that everything was amazingly, over the top exciting. We put extra enthusiasm in everything we said.
The goal was to make the kids understand that sometimes pretending you are happy and excited about life can start to make you believe it.
“Hey kids, how was school today?”
“It was Grrreat!”
“What did you learn?”
“We learned about thunderstorms and cold fronts! It was incredible!”
“Wow! That is exciting!”
By the end of it, we were all laughing because it was obviously so ridiculous. But my sister was really trying to get the point across that faking emotions can make you start to believe them. One of my nephews can be a little moody, and she is trying to help him find stress relievers and encourage positive thinking.
How to Relieve Stress by “Acting as if”
“Behaving as if” is actually a popular therapeutic technique, and one of the proven stress relievers. Many therapists encourage their clients to start behaving as if the beliefs they really want to have are already true.
The law of attraction says that whatever we believe about our selves, our lives and our future is what we will get. If we want our situation and our life to change or transform, then we have to take control and start acting as if it is already happening.
Imagine that you want to be happy, but everyday you wake up thinking about how unhappy you are. You go over all the reasons that life isn’t going your way and how difficult everything is. You are really just perpetuating your unhappiness.
Now imagine that one day you woke up and pretended that life is amazing. You started thinking about all the great things you could do and how fun life is. You probably still didn’t believe any of it, but you carried on pretending.
After a while, your body might start to think…”hey, maybe we aren’t that stressed after all.” Soon the body will begin to make subtle physiological changes to match your new pretend way of thinking.
As your body feels less stressed, your mind may begin to believe your “faked” emotions.
This scenario may seem very simplistic. But is does work.
Stress is one of the greatest causes of aging and disease. But with a little make believe, you can begin to act as if you are stress free and positively dealing with anything that comes your way. Pretending may be one of the most powerful stress relievers to transform your attitude and life.
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