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Who's a Twit?
I went and saw Roald Dahl's The Twits last week. My kids seemed to enjoy it, but I found it pretty dark and sinister. I kept being reminded of Fred and Rosemary West. And it was stressful too. Stressful mainly because I wasn't that into it and I tried sending the odd text. The lady next door wasn't having any of it and was reasonably zealous at stopping me. We made friends at the interval only because I summoned up the courage for an apology.
The list goes on...
I digress. I promised to talk about stress and how to deal with it. I've had my fair share of it over the years. Building up a business, marrying a French woman, lots of kids, divorce, being a fan of England's at football and rugby. It all adds up. Over the years I've developed a couple of my own coping techniques...
Just deal with it
Firstly I embrace it. When something is bothering me, I force myself to think about it; to wallow in thoughts and ideas about the very thing that I'm finding stressful. A bit like sadness and pain, you have to process this stuff. And the best way to process it is, well, process it! I typically can't sleep until I've had one completely sleepless night. Might as well get it over with as quickly as possible.
Blacklisted
Most of my angst is about people. People who have behaved badly, unfairly or just plain wrongly. My second technique is a bit darker, but please don't hold it against me. I think it's the injustice of people behaving immorally that gets to me. So what I do now when someone upsets my moral compass is write their name down in the back of my work-book. Once I've written a name down I can stop worrying. They're in the book - revenge will be mine (or something like that).
Every year I change my workbook. I look at the list of names. If I still get all red and flustered when I read the name then it goes into next year's edition. And if I don't, well, I'm happy to un-blacklist them. It all sounds a bit dark and Twittish. It's not a long list, but as my counsellor says, "Progress would be not needing a list at all". Maybe that's one for 2016.
In the meantime feel free to ask whether you're on it.... (cue ghoulish laughter).
Ben Black
