If you’ve read the previous post, you know that putting together a list of the things you’re tolerating in life can result in a daunting list. The first time I did it, my list was close to 200 items. I worked on the little ones first, because getting something done in 10-15 minutes made me feel like I was making progress, not just from the task itself but from the process of crossing out items on my tolerations list. It meant that I was tolerating less in life.

What I wasn’t expecting, though, was that no sooner would I cross off one of the more moderate-sized items, than I’d realize that there were a handful of items that either popped up or I had forgotten about. It meant that although my tolerations list got low, it still existed. I realized that it was a flow—some things off, some things on the list. That ebb and flow, as long as I did a reasonable job of making sure I was taking care of things rather than putting up with them, meant that my overall stress level reduced just enough that I was able to sit back and look at the bigger picture.

Looking at the bigger picture is the key aspect of this exercise. Yes, you’ll feel better about taking care of the little things—the gnats and mosquitos of life, as one of my former counseling clients put it, but you’ll also be creating room in your life to take a more serious, more careful look at the bigger stressors in your world.

What you’ll find is likely to surprise you. You are likely to see that it really isn’t the thing you THINK is making you crazy that is really the cause of stress in your world. Instead, it’s almost always something underlying the surface problem. Bad bosses, delinquent children, poor relationships…there’s always something else fundamental to how the situation got to where it is for you. Knowing that there’s something deeper and that you can find it is life changing, because it opens up new doors and new options for change.