StresssssSSSS

Why talk about something that makes us so uneasy, so off center and so panicked? What can I tell others about something they, no doubt, are feeling, have felt or fear feeling on such deep emotional levels? Well, for one, it is shared, and something shared by all of us deserves to be shared through words.

Stress exists for a reason. Biologists, psychologists and probably some other *ists I am forgetting can all agree that stress is a natural reaction to external stimuli or environments. It is most likely the reason we are sitting here today, typing away on our computers, building ever greater tools and technologies, populating the planet to such an extent that if the Earth could feel stress it most certainly would. If early humans never felt that spike of fear when they walked across the plain and caught a glimpse of a predator's ears perked motionless just above the tall grass, would that human live long enough to plop out another replica?

In the early days stress helped us adapt; It helped us survive. As things got complex, as they always seem to do, stress helped us not just avoid the lion, it also helped us adapt to a whole new array of dangers and pitfalls. However, what helps us can also hurt us. Even though stress can give you the kick in the ass you need to find a solution to a complex problem, like say finishing school over the dread of a stagnant or unfulfilled vocational life, it can also disarm and hinder you.

Stress can occur from and for a variety of reasons. I am choosing to examine three causes- two external and one internal.

Sudden Impact. This form of stress is relatively easy to describe because it hits us like a gunshot (perhaps sometimes it is a gunshot). You move along in your day with the same small worries and pleasures when suddenly you get broadsided by some terrible event- a car accident, a termination or a call from a close relative with cancer or some other terrible disease. In these circumstances the stress is sudden and overwhelming. You are forced to comprehend and adjust, even though it can be nearly impossible. While the emotional burden can be heavier than a glacier, you can at least link the stress you are feeling with a 'thing'. This can help with rationalizing or compartmentalizing your feelings, but not always.

Snowball. Here, we have a variety of stress that builds over time, whether we are cognizant of it or not. There are common idioms for this- taking too much on your plate, juggling too many balls or holding up too much weight. Responsibilities are tacked on, bit by bit, and the stress is there in a more muted tone allowing us to adapt and thrive, until it becomes a blaring siren and even simple tasks become tribulations. It can be difficult to identify the trigger, but, most certainly, we know when our every nerve is on edge. Once escalated, this kind of stress is dangerous because one can feel like there is no turning back. This weight can provoke a deeper level of existential nightmares in the dark shapes of distress, panic and despair.

    

The Internal Shift. Sometimes it is not our environments that change, sometimes it is us. Life can continue as it has for a long time. You may have started on this road with purpose, direction or passion. These positive highlights begin to bend to complacency or comfort. Before long you are drifting, no longer tethered to your core. You begin to fantasize about new realities, but something in you feels too embedded to uproot. Stress then whips around like a typhoon. Change feels impossible and the road before you begins to represent a direct path to a senseless void.

Regardless of the stress pressing down, a person will consciously or unconsciously engage in moments of escape. Some methods can be positive, such as exercise, hobbies or nurturing behaviors. More often than not these escapes can take a turn to faster acting remedies with negative associations- alcohol, drugs, abuse or worse. Either escape does not solve the source of the stress, because it is just that- an escape.

Time to close this thread down the way I prefer- positively abstracted and shining.

Going back to the original reason we feel stressed in the first place, it is makes us adapters and survivors. If you can take this stress, with all its sleepless nights and dark spirals, and see it as a warning flag, then you can begin to understand that something is out of balance in your life. It may be a struggle to restore order, but it helps to understand that Life-out-of-Balance is a common thing, for we often live in a World-out-of-Balance. I have for some time believed that the core to happiness is not an overflowing of the things we seek with our greedy little egos, but rather a tempered and stabilized balance of the things that make us content and the things that shed unease. Be careful however, for our rapidly industrialized world can make us loose this focus, tipping that scale ever farther in the wrong direction.