Stress

As I sat at the computer, on my Twitter page ready to send off my first tweet of the day, the word “stress” came to me – in my face if you will – and the following flowed from my fingers and exactly met the “140 character maximum” requirement of Twitter.  I therefore claim copyright to the following – come on, laugh with me – like any human “owns” or “creates” anything in and of his/her own accord!

We create stress, yes we author it, when we embrace the negative and stop the flow of life giving energy. It’s like putting up a stop sign!

The following definitions are found in the dictionary:

? noun: the relative prominence of a syllable or musical note (especially with regard to stress or pitch) (“He put the stress on the wrong syllable”)
? noun: (physics) force that produces strain on a physical body (“The intensity of stress is expressed in units of force divided by units of area”)
? noun: difficulty that causes worry or emotional tension (“She endured the stresses and strains of life”)
? noun: special emphasis attached to something (“The stress was more on accuracy than on speed”)
? noun: (psychology) a state of mental or emotional strain or suspense (“Stress is a vasoconstrictor”)
? verb: put stress on; utter with an accent
? verb: to stress, single out as important
? verb: test the limits of

Of all things, what hit me right between the eyes as I read through the above listed definitions was the fact that we, or at least I, have labelled stress, all stress, as a bad thing!  Holy cow!  It’s not all bad and the reference to the musical instrument is wonderful, wonderful, especially given a recent vision of musical notes coursing through the veins of my body.  Stress can be good – like all things that exist there is a good and a bad; and I suppose, as well, like all things that we consume, perhaps the, “everything in moderation” principle can be applied.  For instance, thinking of my own life, when I am under a deadline to get a project done for work, I am stressed.  Think about your body, how you hold it; your breathing.  Even now as I write these words, I found myself holding my breath, tensing my shoulders and thinking negative thoughts like, “What if…..” – Damn those “what if’s”; they so take you out of the moment.  Instead of the projectile into tomorrow (the due date) and playing prescripted home movies of how, “I’ve missed something, or miscalculated, or forget….”; you know what I mean.  I’m not the only one who has found herself in those shoes!

Now, let’s take that “stress”, you know, the deadline fast approaching, and simply acknowledge, “I have a deadline.”  That’s a fact.  Now build on it with a positive action plan, step-by-step design of what you need to do to accomplish and complete within the allocated timeline, and then just start knocking ‘em off, one at a time.  Take the big picture and break it down into bite size morsels, easy to accomplish as individual – but overwhelming if looked at in their entirety.

The same thing can be said about a relationship situation; you know, a dispute with a spouse or child.  Instead of playing those futuristic home movies, or playing the rewind button and going over and over and over and over and over…again and again and again and again (get the picture) the incident from yesterday that caused the quandry you now find yourself in – accept that it happened and sit down, and if you must treat it as a business plan, do so – and draw up a schedule, step by step, on how you are going to handle it.  Bite size morsels, much easier to digest than the whole pie of disaster in one mouthful!

In all of these situations you must acknowledge that without a doubt your physical body is blocked, stopped.  It’s like coming to a stop sign at a cross road and you’re frozen and unable to proceed through the intersection – in case you don’t have the right-of-way.  And so you sit there, hands and fingers clenched to the steering wheel; the gas is barely flowing through the fuel line and if you don’t move soon your sure the car is just going to sputter and stop dead on the spot.  We do the same things to our bodies.  I hold my breath, clench my hands, tense my neck, grit my teeth, curl my toes, scrunch my face.  Goodness….it’s amazing that I’m still alive after one of those episodes, having almost entirely stopped the flow of blood and energy through my body.  Like the roots of an old tree I photographed, I am knotted and narled…and very brittle.  There’s no give, no sway and with one good wind, I will indeed break for be completely toppled over.

Now, tell me.  Who did that to me?  Was it you and your nasty remark to or about me; was it my employer with impossible deadlines; was it my daughters who won’t speak with me; was it my parents or brother for passing away without my permission?  ABSOLUTELY NOT.  They did those things – BUT I SELF-IMPOSED AND CONSTRUCTED THE STRESS ALL BY MYSELF, ONE ROADBLOCK, ONE STOP SIGN AT A TIME.

If I am stressed – I did it; not you, not circumstances.  I am responsible for being stressed – and damn it, I don’t like it, I don’t want it…and I commit to stop embracing STRESS when I make it HARMFUL to me, to you and to the world!