Stacking & Chunking

I was given great advice a while back from an unlikely source. A few years ago my Karate instructor (who wasn't known for being deep or thoughtful) took 20 minutes of our lesson to talk about techniques for dealing with stress. Our class was made up of type "A" adults chasingt the dream of achieving blackbelts in a testosterone ladin Kenpo Karate Dojo. This was not the kinder, gentler martial arts environment. This was a 'pop the broken nose back straight' and shake off the concussion kind of Dojo, yet we were all having difficulties balancing work, life, family and our own growth and desires.

He told us about stacking and chunking. Apparently we (probably the 'whiny, no real hardship' we) tend to stack the bad and chunk the good. An example of this is: I woke up in the morning yesterday in Tahoe, with pain, had to deal with my nephews bopping all over my folks condo, we had to clean up, hit the road after Ron finished his conference call, we didn't get out until 11:00 (after me, my brother and sis in law scrubbed clean the place) got stuck in the storm on highway 80 and took 5 hours to get down a normally 2 hour drive down the mountain...blah blah blah. See how I am stacking all of the bad stuff? I am picking apart the stresses of the day and stacking them up like bricks. At the rate I am going, there is going to be a tower of bricks in front of me and the stress of yesterday is going to seem insurmountable and overwhelming...but what if I chunked it? What if I said 'hey, we had a long day yesterday getting home from Tahoe, but we made it' Then, wow...the stress of yesterday melts away...it isn't even a bricks worth.

What do we do with the 'good stuff'? Those days, weekends, even weeks where everything goes great and good things pile upon good things? Do we say 'I woke up in the morning, had the best piece of sourdough bread EVER (Truckee Sourdough Company really does make the best sourdough bread), jumped into my ski clothing, got up to the ski area in time to get the BEST parking spot, got Hannah in ski school (even had the 'report card' from last trip) and she was BUMPED UP to a higher class!!! Then, rented the gear in a smooth and easy transaction and hand my first run of the day that was crisp and powdery and perfect!!! Blah Blah Blah...

This has been a goal of mine for a while and I am in the process of evangalizing this to who ever will listen. If I have enough people chunking the bad and stacking the good, I may even find myself surrounded by relaxed, happy and grateful people and then, hopefully some of that relaxation, positive attitude and good feeling will leach off on me!