How to Manage Stress? It’s All About Perspective

Easter and Passover have come and gone, but do you know about the many other holidays in April?  Aside from National Cheeseball Day on the 17th and Look Alike Day on the 20th (dress like the person you admire; I pick Prince!!), April 16th happened to be National Stress Awareness Day.  Are you kidding me??  Started by the Health Resource Network in 1992 (whoa, the year in which my daughter was born…how did they know that parenting was a major stressor in my life???), it is touted as an opportunity to recognize and learn about the stress in your life AND to do something about it (not a coincidence that it comes just before the day that taxes are due to the IRS.)

Well, this is just too blog-olicious!  My mind spins back to the first time I heard my guru’s unique definition of stress.  “Stress is RESISTANCE.”  Resistance??  Hmm, let me consider that one.  Resistance……you mean when a colleague disagrees with my plans going forward and I look like I am calm but inside I am hating the entire scenario and fantasizing about ripping someone’s head off??  You mean when my daughter does NOT fold her clothes neatly but piles them on the floor of her bedroom and I am totally undone because that is NOT the way I would do it (and I am SURE she will be a slob for the rest of her life)??  Like when I wrestle with the “what if’s” as I try to orchestrate tomorrow and the next day and the next even though it is still TODAY??  Hmmmmm…..

It all starts with expectations. For much of my life, feeling irritated and annoyed really meant I expected everyone to think and act like I do.  If results did not turn out in my favor and on my side, I felt a sense of defeat and loss mixed with anger.  “Hey, I’m a smart gal; why doesn’t everyone else agree with me??” (especially that guy I married.)  I wasn’t getting what I thought I wanted and deserved.  Me (right) against you (wrong.)  Sometimes my expectations were totally personal and internal, trying to foresee the future so I could “cover all the bases” in my efforts to take care of every possible outcome (perfectionism disguised as “being the responsible one.”)

Through my mindfulness meditation practice, I better understand how “stress as resistance” affects my life.  Resistance equals push-pull, energy invested in future outcome and the anxiety that comes with it.  When stress begins to creep into my body (headache, shallow breathing, tight shoulders) in any number of situations or I become aware of uneven emotions, I stop and ask myself, “Where is the resistance?”  It is always there, hidden in expectations of myself and/or others that are of the future and simply not real.  While this might imply that I should give up the ghost and only aim for the bottom of the expectation barrel, I have learned to allow high expectations, but WITHOUT GETTING ATTACHED TO THEM.  Voila, no resistance.  Do the work that is in front of me that points in the direction I want to go, then LET IT GO and see what happens!  (And, by the way, what happens has so far been something I can always manage.)

So, with National Stress Day this month, I am reminded of the succinct lesson that dispels a lot of my resistance:  Listen (to myself, to the person with whom I am interacting), Accept (whatever the message is), then Let It Go (do not be attached to the results.)  That being said,  I think it’s time to go look for my Prince attire and my celebratory cheeseball.  Happy April! Kathy B.