I often watch TedTalks on youtube. They have some very inspirational, motivational, and sometimes mind-blowing speakers.
There was a speaker named Kelly McGonigal who was speaking about "making stress your friend" so naturally, it caught my attention. I know that many people avoid the word "stress" because they automatically perceive it as having a singular meaning associated with bad stuff which usually blows up in our faces.
But, the true meaning of "stress" includes anything that results in you getting stronger. I've had clients so afraid of "stressing" their bodies out, that they would dig in their heels, defending their "need/preference" to stay in their "safe/comfort" zone while doing physical activities, instead of "challenging" their selves by facing & doing something here-to-for that's perceived as "difficult."
That's the point! Our bodies actually get weaker, (yep, get weaker! ...they don't even "stay the same!") if we continue to do the "same thing," over and over (ie: the same workout). Our minds, same thing, get weaker, if we don't "stress" them by trying things we perceive as challenging, outside of our comfort zone. Lifting 10lbs instead of 8lbs is "stress." Walking for 20 minutes instead of 15 is "stress." Reading a difficult book, to the end. Communicating with the niece you avoid because she screams and sticks gum in your hair and you end up leaving with a migraine.
"Stress" also includes when we're having a panic attack. We usually kick into default mode, and identify the panic attack itself as "bad stress" we must somehow avoid. But the truth is bigger, and better. The panic is a conduit, an experience, magnified by our perception of it being "bigger and badder" than us. It's "stress" that, like any other, when we go through it, are willing to extend ourselves beyond our established comfort zone, (which for some of us may mean trying new, unfamiliar challenging things we may find foreign, like breathing exercises which actually powerfully change and modify our physiology,....with changes in hormones, changes in our blood, our breathing, and biggest of all, what our brain gets out of it)....
Getting through "stress" and emerging on the other side is how stress makes us stronger....not weaker. We're not weak because we have anxiety and fear. We're stronger because we DO have those things, and stronger still when we're willing to accept "stress" as another word for "challenge," and when we're willing to learn how to manage the "process."
Even learning how to manage conversing with difficult in-laws without letting them make you nuts....changing your tactics to retain your sanity,....yes, that too is "stress" that you've learned to overcome. The "cure" isn't trying to over focus on how to "avoid stress," under some assumption by doing so, we'll be better for it. The "cure" is outsmarting the "stress" with NEW coping mechanisms we may have been resistant to trying!
The best news is that we can choose to start small, selecting "stress" situations that are manageable, making small, incremental advances, and it WILL increase your ability to manage other TYPES of stress. That's the coolest part. Your body, on a cellular level, can't differentiate the "stress" of anxiety trying to make a single shopping trip, and the "stress" of working out harder at the gym, or the "stress" of being nice to the screaming child in line at the grocery store.... To your body, "stress is stress." The more "smaller fish stresses" you tackle in the big pond, you'll find the "big fish stress" becoming easier to reel in! It'll sneak up on you.
Still on the journey,...
Merrida
EDIT: My apologies to Peter and Mods for the ultra-long post. I found this so exciting that it overwhelmed me with good feelings and the need to share.
Post Edited (Merrida) : 9/7/2013 4:17:06 PM (GMT-6)