Anyone else stressed out?
Stress can make you lose your hair. It can make you gain weight. It can even kill you.
Even with all of this “time” on our hands to “slow” down, 2020 is quickly becoming one of the most stressful years in recent history…and it isn’t even halfway over! Do you realize that in the US we have an election cycle to live through soon? (insert OMG emoji here)
Do you feel like crawling under a rock?
Hiding away? Escaping to come far, exotic place where there are no governor’s orders and no threat of being yelled at for getting to close when trying to pass someone in the grocery store?
Well, too bad! Those places aren’t open right now, anyway. Which leaves us with the novel idea of learning to deal with our stress. Fun.
If you’ve been paying attention the last few years, you might have heard the word “triggered” or the term “trigger warning”. Especially if you have someone in college. If you are triggered it means you have been stressed by an outside force to relive an inner trauma. Real or unreal. ‘Trigger warning’ is used to let people know that some upcoming speech or movie or activity might bring up something that might cause some to relieve inner trauma. At least that’s the idea of the words.
What it’s really come to mean is that some outside force causes you stress and so you must do everything you can to quiet the outside force so that you don’t experience stress. The problem is, if you never experience stress, you will feel as though you’re imploding the moment that true stress comes. In my opinion.
Running is the lazy way
I will say it all day, every day: humans are lazy. And the laziest way to deal with stress is to run away from it. In this time of history we not only like to run away from it, but we like to blame everyone else for DARING to trigger our stress.
Here’s the reality: you must learn to deal with stress and you must learn to deal with real triggers. If you have past trauma in which some real triggers can make your life feel like it is falling apart, you must deal with that trauma in order to live a full life. Life is full of stress. There is no way to live your own life without ever bringing up something stressful to another person in this world because there is no way for you to understand every single person in this world.
Same goes for people in this world not being able to spend their whole life on eggshells around you. To live a free life, able to deal with stress and the things that humans will throw at you, you must be able to face stress head on.
How?
Journal.
Talk to someone.
Therapy.
Exercise.
Repeating out loud what the stress it and owning that it is affecting you.
Have a cry.
Take a bath.
Listen to music.
Tell those you love around you that you are stressed and to please have compassion on you.
We can all grow in this area. You might be surprised how being vulnerable in telling those around you that you are stressed, how they might be able to help or might be willing to open up the next time they are stressed.
The last thing this world needs is people unable to handle the hard things life throws their way. We aren’t built to hold those things inside. It’s why stress kills us. So let’s stop going down the lazy path that ends in destruction and start going on the harder path that leads to healing, restoration and a fuller life.