Why it’s called ‘stress management’ not stress avoidance.
At some point in our lives, we all feel that overwhelming sense of doom. That knot in your throat, tightness in your tummy or inability to speak or even move. Stress can be an unbelievably unpleasant emotion that can cause serious damage when unchecked or misunderstood. But that doesn’t mean that it is inherently bad and certainly does not mean that it should or can be avoided.
What actually is stress?
Stress is a fundamental emotion that we require in our everyday lives to ensure we get things done and ultimately survive. Stress is the name for the feeling we experience when the body is flooded with hormones due to a perceived or actual threat. This heightened alertness, often called the fight-or-flight response, helps us to confront or evade danger. However in today’s society there are hundreds of real or imagined situations that can cause our stress levels to spark up. Our increased exposure to stress stimulants begs that we take more time to understand stress and learn how to compassionately manage it in ourselves.
This does not mean that stress is bad. Stress can be an incredibly effective motivator in the correct quantity with a healthy approach. It can help us complete a deadline, perform better when it matters, and work more efficiently. It is a necessary part of life to ensure we are keeping on track.
I still don’t like it, why can’t I avoid it?
Sometimes we can lose vision of who we are and expect things from ourselves that are unrealistic. Human exceptionalism has permeated throughout society and is often indistinguishable from human existence. That is to say, the idea that humans are inherently superior to other forms of life is not seen as a concept but as a given. Emotions, since they are incontrollable and on the surface, seemingly illogical, can sometimes be seen as inferior to intellect. Intellect being the quality that humanity prides it’s exceptionalism on. Therefore, we can sometimes struggle to accept difficult states of mind and emotions, particularly when it starts to affect our bodies — the part of ourselves we naturally assume unquestionable control of.
Emotions are part of the human package. And our reactions to arising emotions dictate our experience.
This is a two tiered experience.
- Avoiding unpleasant emotions, such as stress, does not make it go away.
As tempting as it may be to avoid or suppress unwanted emotions in order to maintain a controlled exterior, if one does not appropriately respect and surrender to a difficult feeling arising it can cultivate in other ways, usually outside of our awareness. For example, someone may unkindly lash out to the people they love because they fear and avoid a deeper sense of loneliness or sadness. Furthermore, the body holds on to our emotions and can force us to listen to the deeper experience we have so actively tried to avoid. This can include illness, burnout or other physical sensations such as muscle aching, heart palpitations, headaches, digestive issues including vomiting, sleep problems, dizziness and fainting.
2. Our thoughts and beliefs in relation to our difficult feelings can greatly worsen our experience.
Unfortunately, we live in a society that does not necessarily honour openness to the breadth of human experience. I.e the whole range of human emotion. This signalling teaches us from a very young age that it is unacceptable, weak or somehow not ok to feel certain emotions. As if certain emotions reflect your character or personality and as such we tend to hide away from them, and therefore our true selves. This conditioning can bring on a harsh inner critic that judges us for feeling a certain way. This may materialise as thoughts such as ‘I shouldn’t feel like this’, ‘I am weak for feeling like this’, ‘No one can know I feel like this otherwise something bad will happen’ etc. This creates a self-exacerbating cycle of resistance, avoidance, self loathing that in most cases makes a mountain out of a molehill.
So what to do about it?
This argument is based on two principles: ‘resistance is the root cause of psychological suffering’ and ‘all that arises, by its nature surely passes.’
‘What to do about it’ is a tricky contradiction because the path to living aligned with our inner selves and ultimately living a more peaceful, accepting life includes doing less. Less in the form of mental gymnastics and judgement.
By allowing ourselves some space and cultivating awareness, we can slowly find patterns in our habitual thinking in relation to our emotions as discussed in point 2. We can start to hear our inner critic and highlight beliefs that were founded usually as self protection during our childhood. E.g we were taught it is inherently not ok to be a certain way, or it was unsafe to be a certain way. Awareness of these beliefs and habitual critical thinking removes its power. Helping us to accept unwanted feelings. Furthermore, with awareness we can notice judgements that make certain emotions either wanted or unwanted. For example, ‘I don’t want this, I don’t like it.’ By noticing our judgements we can recognise our resistance to an emotion and that in itself also reduces its power and we can start to closer align with what is present.
Fundamentally, one is trying to fully experience the sensation/emotion that arises without judgement and within space cultivated from awareness. Safe in the knowledge that all that arises, by its nature surely passes.
But how do I cultivate awareness? What is it?
Awareness is the space between thoughts and feelings that is ever present. With meditation we are practicing being in that space and gently learning to recognise items that arise: thoughts, feelings, sensations. With practice, we learn to identify the items arising but also observe that their nature is impermanent. They are ever changing and moulding into something else or dissipating entirely. Therefore we can be confident in the knowledge that this too shall pass making it easier to fully accept difficult experiences.
With time it is possible to sit with difficult experience with an inquisitive, curious awareness. Asking gently, why has this arisen? Is there a message in this feeling?
With this investigative approach we are further reducing resistance because we are sitting with it because we know it is ok to experience and we want to understand ourselves better — rather than putting up with it because we want it to go away quicker!
With patience, consistency and self compassion, daily meditation practice can help us maintain awareness in our daily lives — this is often named mindfulness.
Its been so long — how do I connect with how I really feel?
Feelings usually have a place in the body they can be felt from, this is usually in the torso. If you are struggling to connect with yourself you can try this.
Meditate for a few minutes, lightly focusing on the breath to steady the mind. When you feel the mind has stilled slightly (it might not want to, if not then try another time) start to bring your focus to the area around your heart. You may feel a tightness in that area.
Gently keep your awareness on any sensation you feel in that area and spend some time getting to know the feeling. It may bring up an emotional response. If you can find a word that closely names the sensation, e.g grief, betrayal, loneliness, overwhelm, your body will have a physical release.
This is the beginning steps of a technique called body focusing. More information can be found here: https://zenmoments.org/focusing/
How can I integrate this with my daily life?
Modern life can be demanding, hectic and filled to the brim with tempting distractions. All of this can easily make us feel imbalanced and we can lose touch with ourselves, allowing us to get overwhelmed with difficult emotions such as stress. But by building some self investment time into our schedule we can bolster our resilience and physical immunity.
For me this includes:
- Daily meditation practice.
- Sufficient alone time to slow down the racing mind and connect with the body. (Yoga practice also helps to keep us in tune with the body as well as practicing being in discomfort.)
- Removing distractions that pull on our awareness: limiting smart phones, social media, internet, YouTube, Netflix etc. Allowing time to be with ourselves and get to know ourselves better. Suggestions instead: go for a walk, have a cup of tea in the sun etc.
- Practice self compassion. Using mantra’s such as ‘its ok and normal to feel like this’ and practicing Metta meditation. More on metta can be found here: https://www.healthline.com/health/metta-meditation#benefits
In summary…
Feelings demand to be felt. Meaning that if we don’t take the time to accept and feel emotions, such as stress, it will take the time itself in the form of illness, burnout or breakdown. With some understanding and awareness we can start to navigate difficult experiences with composure, trust and confidence. In time this prepares us to investigate difficult feelings and the beliefs surrounding them, such that we can understand our pitfalls and slowly learn to manoeuvre around them with self love and awareness.
https://www.existinghuman.com/
Resources:
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/145855
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/11874-stress
https://www.healthline.com/health/metta-meditation#benefits
https://zenmoments.org/focusing/
Dhamma teachings from Laura and Alan, Gaia House.
