Let's talk about STRESS

Stress, anxiety and ALL emotions come from thought. Everyone knows it, but how can we use the knowledge practically, to help us navigate through negative emotions more gracefully?

Emotion - you can’t see it, can't hear it, can't touch it. There’s no denying it’s a normal human response to external stimuli, but... there is nothing mandatory about it.

In other words no one has to feel it. There’s no law which says you MUST be stressed when faced with stressful stimuli. I'm sure you can think of someone you know (or at least have seen in the news, a book or movie) who didn't become stressed in a clearly very stressful situation.

But how did they refuse to feel stress? Was it simply that he or she did not feed or engage with unhelpful stressful thoughts? Could it be that simple?

I know, avoiding stress seems impossible these days, when life can appear random and hostile at times. What’s more, sharing and comparing our "impressive" stress levels with friends and neighbors is a national pastime! “You think you’ve had it bad? Wait ‘til you hear what happened to me!” This sharing has a short-term therapeutic effect. We are relieved to "get it off our chest". We find communal and social acceptance in the experience to feel heard or validated, then feel momentarily better for it.

But all complaining does is create more thinking – and therefore more stress – for ourselves. The act of sharing the thought makes it real. Sharing this created, mental story ‘stokes’ it into life. That "stress fire" was happily going out until we put another log on it.

We all do that and we do it innocently and automatically. We do it because we have been programmed to think that way; not just by society, but also by evolution and survival instincts. We remember negative experiences more strongly because there MAY be a survival lesson to learn. We envision terrible future outcomes to prepare, in case the difference between life or death is that preparation. However, times have changed, and living in a fear mindset only creates suffering in this new world where mistakes usually only threaten egos, not the loss of life.

Surveys have determined some of the most common stressful events in one's life. Top among them are moving house, job loss and divorce. The common theme is change. Changing circumstances will often prompt a stress reaction. But if you KNEW that these changes would result in BETTER outcomes than the previous state, would you still find the transition as stressful? I don't think I need to tell you, but the answer is, no.

Under extreme circumstances the body and mind seem to enter a trance-like state that evolution or a God-given spiritual intelligence dictates offers the best chance of our getting out alive. There is no thinking going on. We act. (I prefer to say that Jung's Collective Mind has our back). Then what happens? We come away from the terrible event and we think about it. We wonder what might have happened … And only then do we fall apart with stress and emotions. This story is borne out time and again by people caught up in traumatic, life-threatening events, people held up at gunpoint, survivors of plane crashes, automobile pile-ups, fires and so on.

Remember, stress is only a thought. If you're feeling stressed, take ten deep breaths and - ask yourself - do I like feeling this way? Are thinking these stressful thoughts serving me? Do I really want or need this? And if not (invariably not), go ahead and imagine the best possible future outcome instead of whatever you're currently imagining. Then, take the first small small step toward it.

Stress, anxiety and ALL emotions comes from our thoughts. Everyone knows it, but how can we use the knowledge practically, to help us navigate through negative emotions more gracefully?