When life happens to a small business owner: Strategies to Cope

It is extremely challenging to run a business and it's made even more challenging when life strikes three people who contract to you all in the span of a few days.

Three of the people who contract to my business found themselves with life changing issues before them causing one to have to move and take herself right out of the equation.  Juggling and rebalancing workloads still hasn't fully taken place, and I have been struggling under the work load, although as I review and ditch stuff, it is getting more manageable again.

Then add a surgery into the mix and a personal life where in I have had 6 friends die, and 3 children of friends commit suicide. It's been a rough 9 weeks.

Then there are all of the political minefields that cause so much emotional upheaval.
It's tough now a days trying to figure out the truth.

Depending on what media outlet you listen to, depending on your personal values, ideals and politics, there are a lot of issues that are driving a lot of people, myself included, around the bend.

I am struggling emotionally. And the struggle is very real.

While I understand that nothing in life is certain except death, taxes and change, I am not a terribly happy woman with a lot of the changes I see. Our veterans are told that they ask too much when they ask for the supports they need to survive and thrive, and yet, we welcome all sorts of people into our country ILLEGALLY and because there is no well thought out plan to deal with the sheer volumes of people we are opening our borders to, well there is financial burden and hardship placed on the provinces.  Quebec billed the federal government for $146 M to deal with illegal border crossings, Ontario $200 M.

We bail out the media industry with $585 million dollars over 5 years, but we can't give our veterans the care they deserve.  In just these three issues the feds have spent 1 billion dollars.

Here in Alberta our oil patch is land locked but instead of building refineries and selling our own gas, we are flogging the dead horse of pipeline and rail cars. It disgusts me frankly.

The world wide political scene is like watching a bad B movie that you can't get away from.
I have been working at refocusing myself in an attempt to reduce the stress I feel.

Here are a few of the things I am doing:

Meditation: I had gotten away from doing that, I am unclear as to why, but I find it calms my mind.

Doing this again, is helping at least for a while every day.

Exercise: I am doing light work outs up to twice a day.  The minute I feel the electrical charges building up in my body, you know the ones, those prickly little beggars that make you feel uptight, anxious and angry....I get on my whole body massager and crack out the 5 pound weights for ten minutes.  Often I plug in the earphones and listen to ten minutes of positive affirmations.

I am taking vitamins B & D, and amino acids L-Theanine and L-Tyrosine for mood.

Sleep: I have been going to bed at 7:30-8:00 PM every night. Getting up around 4:00-4:30 AM.

Eating: I have been working at eliminating sugar from my diet - that's been tough, but I am down significantly and that seems to help. I am also working at losing weight, from having quit smoking.
I had gained about 60 pounds, and am down by 35 or so. I plateaued for a bit, but finally I seem to be loosing a little again and if nothing else I am toning up nicely.

Socializing: It's not something I have ever had a lot of time to do, but I am having to trim what little I have been doing down to all but none. I go out for lunch with select people who I know don't stress me out by talking about things that are upsetting.

Ditching/Changing social media: There's the big one for me.

I used to love debating politics and political view points, but that was back in the day, about 10 years ago, before everyone forgot how to speak civilly to each other.

I was part of the debate team in high school and we were taught how not to take anything personally. but back then, no one called you a mindless minion or a stupid F'in C%$& for your opinions or ideals. I find that it's hard to take comments like that as anything but personal, but I am working on it.

Still, I don't want to associate with people who are going to treat others that way and so, I have blocked so many people in the last while that it became exhausting and I decided for my own mental health to just opt out for a while.

That break did me good.

The unintended but positive consequences of blocking so many who are hurtful in their dialogue?
I find is that my newsfeeds are filling up with funny videos of animals doing quirky things and that change has been welcome. I am learning to laugh a little again!

I am on LinkedIn a lot more these days and am enjoying a far more divergent group of people and topics.

So tell me, how do you manage the stress of life and being in business?

On Monday I will be writing on the topic of reducing the stress during the Holiday Season - Thanksgiving, through to New years Eve....
AND we have the MOST AMAZING gift guide going and I will unveil it on Monday too!

Until then, if you are blessed to live in a warm climate where you can ride a motorcycle, please remember to ride like everyone around you is blind and can not see you , and put a few extra miles on for please.

Belt Drive Betty,
Editor & Rider

New Year, New Directions, New Challenges

Our world is ever changing and every day that we wake up, it seems that there is something new to learn, do, or assimilate. Challenges abound in this life and facing those challenges is what makes it so rewarding!

I determined last summer after battling with adrenal fatigue for over a year and a half, that somehow I was going to turn things around with my health. The adrenal fatigue was caused by blunt force trauma tumors on my adrenal glands.

I decided that I was going to lose the weight in preparation to quit smoking.

I wanted to have some healthy routines in place to support my goal of feeling better, feeling vibrant and strong again. It had been so long since I had felt strong and I was ready.

I started exercising regularly, nothing too heavy, but I was doing it consistently.  I changed my eating habits and became vigilant in checking labels for the sugar quantity of the foods I was thinking of purchasing. I can’t tell you how much cane sugar is in the food we eat.

Wow what an eye opener.

All the while, I was also taking Ayurveda herbs to break up the tumors on my adrenal glands, support my liver, pancreas and lymph system. I went to a Traditional Chinese Medicine doctor, Dr. Crystal Su of the Grande Prairie Acupuncture and Acupressure Clinic.  All of these things have added a layer of improvement to my health.

I went from a size 14 clothes to size 7-8 over the course of about 20 weeks.

I started getting reasonably toned and lost a lot of that horrible belly fat one gets when they become pre-diabetic. Although I wasn’t pre-diabetic, the adrenal tumors that were causing the fatigue were also causing the weight gain and basically mimicking diabetes.

I spent some time investigating ways to quit smoking, naturally was important to me.  I found out about Imagine Laserworks, through our sister newspaper “The BKC News Bytes” on Vancouver Island.  I checked out the company website only to learn there was an office here in Grande Prairie that serves the north Peace of Alberta and BC.

I phone the Grande Prairie office that is located in Cooperators Center and spoke with the owner, Victoria.  She was ready and waiting for me when I got to her office.

The process was pretty simple. I filled out some forms, answered some questions and learned about addiction and how to help myself in eliminating this addiction from my life. (Imagine Laserworks can help you with all kinds of addictions!)

I was given a package filled with a CD and handouts that I could refer to for support.

Victoria got me up on her table and explained what the sensation of the laser would feel like and it was exactly as she said it would be, a little prickly feeling.  She gave me some dark safety type glasses to protect my eyes and played the same CD that is in the information kit while using the laser on various points.

There is a lot of very good information on nicotine, addiction, and helping yourself deal with the angst of quitting on that CD.

The whole process took about and hour and I was quite amazed, I had walked in there after just putting out a cigarette, I had been smoking since I got up that morning and my appointment wasn’t until 3 in the afternoon.  When I walked out at 4 pm I was a non-smoker and while I have gotten testy at times, I wasn’t nearly as bothered by it as I thought I would be.

I chose to go to the health food store and order the supplements they recommended, in total the extras I needed came to about $70, and again, I am grateful that I did.

The support from Victoria and Gail has been incredible.  I felt I needed a little booster as I was battling the cravings pretty hard on day three. I took them up on the fact that they offer free boosters for the first 8 weeks after your session and intend to keep taking them up on them if I feel the need.

No problem, they fit me right in, within hours!

After a bad news week, I was feeling some huge stress and was again feeling afraid that I would cave in, that was on day 21. They got me in that afternoon and voila…I am at 23 days as a non-smoker. 

23 days, thanks to laser therapy from Imagine Laserworks and the support from Victoria and Gail.

I haven’t replaced food for cigarettes either!

The other thing that amazes me is that I smoked from the time I was 12.

I am 57 in June.  I quit once for 15 months (6 years ago) but needed pharmaceutical help (Champix) to do it and fell off the wagon at Christmas, I was so crushed because I gave into my weakness. Had I known about Laser Therapy then, I think I could have stayed quit back then.

I am grateful to know about them now and very thankful for the professionalism, the information and the support that Imagine Laserworks offers.  I know that if I ever feel weak I can call on them to help me through a rough spot!

Check them out here in Grande Prairie or at their monthly clinics in Dawson Creek.

There are Imagine Laserworks clinics right across Canada so visit: www.imaginelaserworks.com to find an office near you.

Belt Drive Betty,

Editor & Rider