What do you ‘spill’ under stress?

Posted by Karen Degen on 30th October 2018

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Confession time.  Don’t judge me too harshly, but I love those reality shows like The Batchelor or Married at First Sight. One reason is that I get to see how people cope with their emotions, and how they react with words, in very challenging and stressful situations.  They don’t always show themselves in a good light and I watch, wondering whether I would be able to be the person I want to be in a similar situation.  I hope I would.  Today I came across something online that really summed up how we react during stress. I loved it and hope you do too:

You are holding a cup of coffee when someone comes along and bumps into you or shakes your arm, making you spill your coffee everywhere.

Why did you spill the coffee?

“Well because someone bumped into me, of course!”

Wrong answer.

You spilled the coffee because there was coffee in your cup.

Had there been tea in the cup, you would have spilled tea.

*Whatever is inside the cup, is what will spill out.*

Therefore, when life comes along and shakes you (which WILL happen), whatever is inside you will come out. It’s easy to fake it, until you get rattled.

*So we have to ask ourselves… “what’s in my cup?”

When life gets tough, what spills over?

Joy, gratefulness, peace and humility?

Or anger, bitterness, harsh words and reactions?

You choose!

Today let’s work towards filling our cups with gratitude, forgiveness, joy, words of affirmation; and kindness, gentleness and love for others.

P.S I help people to be who they want to be.  To be full of good thoughts, beliefs and emotions, so that is what they ‘spill’ when times get rough.