The Past May Have Shaped Us, But We Have the Power to Change

a post by Oñi Adda for the Tiny Buddha blog

“If you want to fly, you have to give up the things that weigh you down.” ~Toni Morrison   

Our very first relationship is the one we develop with ourselves. However, even that one is shaped by outside forces.

You may or may not believe that we choose our family. Regardless of your position regarding how your soul made it to your parents’ household, the truth is that the environment we are born into determines a great deal of the rest of our lives. This is especially true about the way we relate with ourselves and others.

We learn by observing and experiencing the dynamics in our home. Our brains absorb the discourses. The judgments passed over us and the stories told about us become a part of our personality. The words we hear from the voices around us become embedded into our inner voice.

We end up with a creation from the hands of Dr. Frankenstein: a patched up combination of voices that we later adopt as our own. That voice plays a huge role in how we develop a relationship with ourselves and, therefore, with those around us.

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If You're Stressed at Work, Don't Blame Your Employer, Says Study

via Big Think by Orion Jones

Should you feel stressed at work, a new study published in the scientific journal Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes suggests that environmental factors at your place of business are not necessarily what is causing your constricted feelings. Led by Timothy Judge, professor of management at the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business, the research followed some 600 twins and concluded that genetic factors are about four times as important as shared environmental circumstances when it comes to personality, stress and health.

One of Judge’s most important conclusions is that stress levels, as reported by individual employees, are not objective measurements of how demanding a particular job is. When asking ourselves if our job is too stressful, we must also ask whether our disposition tends toward being stressed. “The battle of nature vs. nurture shows that even at work, nature wins. Changing a job to free yourself of stress is probably not going to do the trick unless you appreciate your own predispositions toward stress.”

Up to a point, how you feel at work is a reflection of how you deal with responsibility, says Judge.

Read it at Science Daily