Let me explain something to you before I get into this concept. Several years ago I began working on a system of self-improvement, which was a combination of philosophy and martial arts. Yeah, that’s right. That’s because I realized we attack ourselves far often than other people do. So how can we defend against an asshole like that? Enter what I came to call Loricism.
For now, think of Loricism (the name is based off the Latin word for armor, if you must know) as this new kind of martial arts. As with any martial art, you learn techniques and you learn drills and all sorts of other shit. You practice it on each other, blah blah blah. What I’m going to show you today is one of those drills, which I call shedding.
Shedding is a strategy for eliminating stress and anxiety. I think a lot of people are overstressed because of two things: they take on too much shit, and they don’t know how to let go of shit. Stress is one of the number one reasons people die early. Life is going to be chock full of stressors, no matter what we do, so the trick is to learn to deal with stress in an effective way so we can get a handle on it.
Suffering is not holding you, you are holding suffering. — Buddha
One of the biggest things I see with regards to people who are stressed out all the time is that they think they have no control over it. They are reactive instead of proactive. They are like a pinball in a machine, being tossed around by everything that comes their way. They are overly sensitive to every stimulus, and they react to it. Sometimes people like this are described as being high-strung. They are wound up so tight that they are about to snap at any moment.
To deal with stress effectively and with a vengeance, I like to use the Pareto Principle. It simply states that 80 percent of the results come from 20 percent of our efforts. Internalizing this principle will help you focus on the 20 percent that matters the most, and it will help you get rid of the majority of the parts that are a waste of time. In other words, 80 percent of the shit we fuss over is a waste of time. Imagine, just for a moment, that you could get rid of 80 percent of the things that cause you distress. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?
This concept means that 80 percent of the things we concern ourselves with don’t matter. We can cut them out. So 80 percent of the things that stress you out can be let go. They’re probably small things. All the things that annoy you can be allowed to pass. Don’t react to them. Ignore them. Don’t allow other people and minor situations to rent space in your head. Think about everything that gets on your nerves. Why does it matter to you? Is it really that big a deal? When people wear annoying clothes, or listen to music you hate, when someone drives like an asshole, when something happens to you that’s beyond your control, consider not reacting to it. Pay no mind. These are things we sometimes react to automatically. But by cultivating awareness of your own reactions, you can choose not to respond! Think of these things as self-induced stress or anxiety. Why cause yourself more anguish if you don’t even have to?
You can choose not to respond.
If you find yourself agonizing over something coming up in the future, but you can’t address it in this moment, don’t waste time thinking about it. Worrying won’t change the outcome, it only makes your life worse. Deal with the issue later, only when you have to. The philosopher Seneca once said, “A man who suffers before it is necessary, suffers more than is necessary.” Don’t cause yourself extra anguish by overthinking things. This is where most people experience trouble.
Think of yourself as carrying a backpack, and each thing that stresses you out adds more weight to that backpack. Every time you react to something, you are essentially placing more weight onto yourself. If you don’t learn to discard some of that weight, what will happen after a while is you’ll have a breakdown. The weight of life will be too much to handle all at once. Panic attacks are another example of the side effects of this, and these things can happen unexpectedly, all of a sudden, and at a time when it doesn’t even make sense to be happening.
A man who suffers before it is necessary, suffers more than is necessary.
—Seneca
So how about this shedding?
The key, then, is to learn to unburden yourself. Shed the burdens. You can do this in two ways: learn to let go of a lot of the little things weighing you down. Getting worked up over things that don’t matter have no benefit, it only makes everything else worse. So take a lot of the issues you are dealing with and prioritize them. Focus only on what matters most right now and let the rest go.
Remove rocks from your backpack.
The second, and most beneficial thing you can do for yourself, then, is to learn to disengage from these stressors before you start carrying them around with you.
Put less rocks into your backpack.
Have you ever found yourself angry or upset at something someone else did and realized later on that you’ve been stewing over it all day? Or longer? Why carry that stuff around with you? Did it distract you from all the other things you should have been focusing on? Your work? Your relationships? Your responsibilities? What did that do for you? Chances are it made it so everything else in your life suffered.
You can choose not to carry that stuff with you. Realize that the things other people do are beyond your control. People sometimes say and do things that upset us, but what if you didn’t have to be upset at all? Practice recognizing when you’re spending too long thinking about something, and let it go. Relinquish it.
If you practice these two things, your life will be exponentially more pleasant. You will find yourself more at ease, more often. Life will weigh on you less and less, and you’ll have more energy to deal with the things that actually matter. If you can cut out the things that add stress to your life, you will soon see that your life is more peaceful. You are able to be more present in the moment, and you can enjoy things more than ever before. Your thoughts are in your control, so don’t ruin an otherwise good time by thinking about things you can deal with later on.
Lastly, you can limit your stress by taking care of your responsibilities. Don’t avoid these things until later, tackle them as you go. It is less stress to do the dishes you don’t feel like doing now than it is to let them keep piling up in the sink. That’s a decent metaphor for this, isn’t it? Keeping things tidy as you go is a lot less stressful than waiting until the house gets to be a garbage dump. And it actually takes a lot more effort to clean if you let it get out of control, and it looms, and you look at it and see how shitty it’s going to be to deal with and so you put it off and it keeps getting worse until you can’t put it off any longer.
Tidy your stress as you go. Shed.
-Janden
What are your thoughts on this? Help me out by liking, sharing, and commenting below!
The Ghost of Sterling Road is here! Grab the October issue of SPKTR on Amazon or get them all delivered automatically through my club.
FREE GIVEAWAY, three books here: https://books.bookfunnel.com/jandenhale
Follow me on social media:
.