Managing Back To School Stress
Wouldn’t it be nice if Back To School could be stress-free?
Like that Staples commercial that plays the Andy Williams song “The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year” song while talking about Back To School.
But I don’t know anyone who actually thinks this time of year is stress-free. We frantically try to relax for Labour Day only to be thrust into the muck of the first day of school.
Traffic is crazy.
We know sniffles we be spreading soon.
We experience the life transition of the kids growing up and going off to school or starting a new chapter.
Our sense of control over things is tested hard during this season. And it’s through understanding what’s in our control that we can tame our stressors before we see them leave us frazzled and burnt out.
Working on understanding control takes time and constant reminders to ourselves. But by making this shift we can start to lift away from some of the feeling that is holding us back.
The practice that helps to bring clarity and perspective to what we have control over is called the Spheres of Control.
It helps to see visually the dichotomy between what’s in your complete control and what you have no control over. And because life is never just black and white, there’s a gray area too where we have some control.
When the things in our lives that we have no control over or only some control of pile up all at once, like during times of transition, it’s easy to have your thoughts start spiralling while trying too hard to grasp onto what you cannot.
With back-to-school time, we start thinking and worrying about all those things that feel so stressful and make us worry.
So try to name those worries that you don’t have any control over. Capture them on the page so they don’t have free reign over your thoughts. Look at what is in your control and reinforce those things. (Hint: there are only a few things that we can consider under our complete control).
I consider it to be the most Stoic of the skills of stress management to practice. The Stoic philosophers were all about temperance of the mind and finding stillness amidst turmoil. The writings of philosophers like Seneca and Marcus Aurelius made it very clear that the struggles to control our thoughts and worries remain much the same thousands of years after they were capturing their own ideas on paper as Marcus Aurelius reflected himself,
“Your ability to control your thoughts- treat it with respect. It’s all that protects your mind from false perceptions… it’s what makes thoughtfulness possible.”
Our thoughts are one of the few things we can come to have complete control over with practice. And it’s a powerful one because it will lead to being better able to let go of the many things we cannot directly influence.
Like the school bus driver who is late, the start of cold and flu season, and the kids starting a new chapter in their lives.
You can download this Spheres of Control worksheet that includes prompts to explore that will help you to understand what in your life is in your control and what to let go of.
Download the Sphere of Control worksheet.
The second cohort of Stress Management Success will be starting in about a month.
Join the waitlist here so you get notified of when enrolment starts.