Are we stressed............or are we scared?

I've been thinking about stress a lot lately.  My own, stress that the folks I love deal with, our general level of stress in the world around us.  It's not fun, but it's been part of my latest spiritual growth spurt and my soul would NOT LET IT GO.  Fine.  It's fine.  

I realized something yesterday, and it hit me so hard I had to get back on here on this blog for the first time in months and write about it.  

When we say "I'm stressed", what do we really mean?  Do we mean we're important because we have responsibilities at work or home?  Does it validate us?  Aren't all grownups stressed?  (Hint:  The vast majority of us are.)  Since we are all stressed, doesn't that mean it's socially acceptable?  Is "stressed" the new "busy"?  Remember how we all automatically said we were busy when someone asked how we were, and then all of a sudden it wasn't cool to be busy anymore?  Don't get me wrong, I'm ok with that.  Multi-tasking is a myth, campers.  I give the handout below to every one of my students, and most of my inner circle.  It hangs in my office, to remind me how much smarter it is to do things with purpose and intention.  You're welcome.  

www.energymuse.com

Stress, according to Cleveland Clinic, is "the body's reaction to any change that requires an adjustment or response. The body reacts to these changes with physical, mental, and emotional responses. Stress is a normal part of life. You can experience stress from your environment, your body, and your thoughts. Even positive life changes such as a promotion, a mortgage, or the birth of a child produce stress."

The article goes on to talk about stress that can be positive, such as having the adrenaline push you need to pull an all nighter and finish a project, or the extreme case of adrenaline rush you get when lives are in danger.  That's the fight or flight response.  Our bodies are designed to go into fight or flight ONLY when there is imminent danger, for no more than a few minutes at a time.......but an interesting thing has happened over the years.  

We go into fight or flight over non-life threatening issues.  Some are still important, like whether our job is at risk or we'll get a job if we're unemployed.  Some absolutely aren't important, like whether our kid gets into the right school or we live in the right neighborhood or we're living a better life than our ex-spouse or former friend that we're pushing ourselves to one-up.  This sets us up for (thanks again, Cleveland Clinic) stress that continues without relief that leads to a condition called distress – a negative stress reaction. Distress can disturb the body's internal balance or equilibrium, leading to physical symptoms such as headaches, an upset stomach, elevated blood pressure, chest pain, sexual dysfunction, and problems sleeping. Emotional problems can also result from distress. These problems include depression, panic attacks, or other forms of anxiety and worry. Research suggests that stress also can bring on or worsen certain symptoms or diseases. Stress is linked to 6 of the leading causes of death: heart disease, cancer, lung ailments, accidents, cirrhosis of the liver, and suicide.

Stress sucks, but I'd go one step further.  Are we stressed, or do we not want to admit that we're scared?

Merrian-Webster's definition of scared is "thrown into or being in a state of fear, fright, or panic."  

I present this to you:  If we are stressed, we are scared.  Only it's not acceptable for adults, most especially males, to admit to being scared.  Scared means immature, not able to handle your shit, weak.  Heellllll, no.  


Smithsonian Magazine published a great article on fear, both the fun, campy Halloween variety and the truly debilitating, intense kind that changes you in a bad way.  They explain that "For example, the amygdala activates whenever we see a human face with an emotion. This reaction is more pronounced with anger and fear. A threat stimulus, such as the sight of a predator, triggers a fear response in the amygdala, which activates areas involved in preparation for motor functions involved in fight or flight. It also triggers release of stress hormones and sympathetic nervous system.

This leads to bodily changes that prepare us to be more efficient in a danger: The brain becomes hyperalert, pupils dilate, the bronchi dilate and breathing accelerates. Heart rate and blood pressure rise. Blood flow and stream of glucose to the skeletal muscles increase. Organs not vital in survival such as the gastrointestinal system slow down."

See any similarities here?  Adults aren't given the luxury of expressing fear, so we start to deny it.  We're just stressed.  Everyone's stressed.  No big deal.  

Only it is.  

Would it liberate you to be able to walk into your boss's office or your mother's kitchen and look at them and say "I am scared because you may be disappointed in me when this is over.  You may fire me or cut me out of your life.  When this is over I may have solidified my place in the hierarchy as the slacker who never can quite get it done."  

Did you throw up a little in your mouth when you read that?  If not, good for you!  If so, then imagine saying it while knowing 110% that this person will not judge you.  Ever.  They will support you.  Your boss will ask you what you need to be successful.  Your mom will fold you into her arms and tell you that she loves you no matter what.  

Here's something I know.  I know that if the material things I've worked hard for over the last few years went away tomorrow, my tribe (online and IRL) and my sweet man would still love me.  I know because I've sat with them and cried and spewed my verbal diarrhea of all my fears on them and they didn't walk away.  They didn't judge.  At the end of the day, the things I could "lose" are all just that, just things.  I would find a way to do this thing I love so much, and I would continue to do it.  I can't lose that.  The stuff only defines me if I let it.  Even the job, the passion, only defines me if I let it.  If a year from now I'm working for someone else or driving for Lyft or delivering groceries or WHAT THE HELL EVER, I'll still be me.  

When you take something to the next level and you put yourself out there in vulnerability, your inner negative script will still run through your head, no matter how successful you become.   Brene' Brown talks regularly about her struggles to remain vulnerable.  When she chose to be in the arena and stop playing small in the world, her inner script got louder and louder.  I hope she hears that script less and less now.  I generally do, but the last year has pushed me to take my vulnerability to a whole new level, and man oh man, those scripts went on overdrive.  I'm ok with that.  Every day I let myself feel the fear, I get stronger.  Those inner voices get softer.  

It's also a huge comfort to me to remember this.  

www.humansinspace.org

Perspective, am I right?  

Oh, and that arena I mentioned earlier?  This is what I'm talking about.  

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat." - Theodore Roosevelt

Read it again.  There's so much good stuff in there.  

We must do our part to create a corner of the world where people can come and be wholly, honestly, unabashedly vulnerable.  No judgment, no eye rolling, no inner dialogue congratulating yourself that you have it together better than that person.  I set these standards because I have done them all.  When we know better, we do better.  Step into the arena, my friends.  I'm cheering you on.  

Get out there and spend some time dragging your human meat suit around to spread some love and happiness!  

I don't think I have garlic in my soul, but...........

I admittedly get a little cranky around the holidays some years.

Maybe not quite this bad, but close.

I get frustrated with all the people who venture into town from the countryside and act as though the mall has moved or they don't do this exact same thing every year.  They cut over multiple lanes of traffic, they drive dangerously slow because they somehow think A: the exit to the mall has moved, or B: if they miss it there's absolutely no way they can take the next exit and turn around.  If they miss the exit, they are bound for the next county and are destined to shop for holiday gifts at a run down convenience store that offers only big jewelry and a collection of bongs.  Go home, outliers, and order off Amazon.  Let the rest of us just get to work in one piece, for the love of God.  Add construction on I-565, and fuggedaboudit.  You might as well pull over and choose your favorite three podcasts and just wait it out.

I also believe, as I know many of my friends and readers do, that the holidays are entirely too much about outdoing other gift givers in our circle.  Those "whoever dies with the most toys wins" people do evoke my empathy.  I was that girl, for a long time.  If we had nice stuff and looked good,  then everything was ok, right?  Right?  RIGHT?!?!?!?!?!?!  For me it was a holdover from my childhood, when my parents were obsessed with what house we lived in (a sign of my father's ability to be a good provider, something his father was never able to sustain) and how we were dressed on Sunday morning (a sign to my mother that we had "arrived", whatever that meant).  They were both raised in poor households, my maternal grandmother a single widow with a child at 25 and my father a victim of his father's raging alcoholism.   I get it.

I present, for your perusal, three photos from my childhood.  Let's break this down from my mother's perspective.

Why oh why was my hair falling down and messed up?  And why did I push the sleeves up so the lacy goodness wasn't showing?  I'm going to go out on a limb and say because I had anywhere from five minutes to an hour after my mother got me ready before we had to go to the portrait studio.  I was not that girl that would sit pristinely on the couch counting the number of trees on the landscape of our velour sofa.  I was a tomboy.  I was also hot natured.

Flash forward a few years to what I think is my fourth grade school picture.  Red was my jam, y'all.  I love it to this day.  My mom's response to this one was most likely "why aren't you smiling?  That's not a smile.  Sigh."  I'm guessing there were some teeth missing in the front.  My curls, however, were on point.  My desire to please my mother had become stronger.  Recess on school picture days were no fun.

And this one.  My sophomore year of high school.  Still rocking the red, and now I was sporting THE 1980'S MONOGRAMMED SWEATER.  Ironically, I think this was the attire that would indeed show in all our minds that we had arrived.  The sad thing was my parents had divorced, and my dad kept the house, the main thing that made us viable in my mother's eyes.  We had a smaller home that I loved, but in her mind we had fallen from grace.  It was all downhill from there.  There wasn't enough monogram in the world to save us.

If you find yourself pondering whether you're in this trap, whatever your reason is for striving to meet some goal out there on the horizon so you can prove you're ok, I am here to tell you that you are already there.  Are your children happy?  Do they know you love them and would dive off a cliff to ensure their safety?  Do they have three meals and a house that they're not afraid to be children in?  If you feel lacking in these things, trust me when I tell you that more and bigger stuff isn't the answer.  I have so many crazy smart friends that learned this lesson years before me, and I'm so grateful to see them living and thriving and raising beautiful, smart, independent children with self-confidence and compassion.  That's where it's at, y'all.

So, back to the holidays.  I confess I do love a good Thanksgiving meal with framily.  I have a wonderful Tribe and we make time to spend being thankful for each other while we eat too much food and tell funny stories and enjoy the ease with which we can be together.  It's worth everything to me.  I will also confess to having Shipt deliver the vast majority of my groceries to me, because the grocery store is another place that makes me Scrooge-y beyond measure.  I will tip the Shipt person generously, for theirs is a battle I have no desire to fight.

So, I will deal with this holiday season by smiling when I want to stab someone in the eyeball, ordering almost every gift online, not having the least desire to wrap anything and being thankful for gift bags.  I will listen to the soundtrack to How the Grinch Stole Christmas in my car.  I will watch Christmas Vacation and A Christmas Story and Bad Santa and It's A Wonderful Life.  See what I snuck in there at the end?  I'm not all holiday grouchiness.

I wish, for everyone who reads this, a Thanksgiving abundant with love, enough food to fill the bellies but not commit you to some turkey dish through the end of the year, lots of laughter and a heart that is able to look beyond what we're told is important to what makes our hearts and spirits soar.  If it makes your heart and spirit soar, I encourage you to get all that you can handle.

Peace and blessings,

Gena

Well, hi there!

My goodness, it's been a while!  So long, in fact, that I can't find my original blog.  Well, I found it, I just can't seem to access it.  If an access email crops up one day, I'll go back and revisit it.  If not, so be it.  Onward and upward!

The last few years have brought tremendous growth and change.  I've gotten braver, more vulnerable and hopefully funnier.  God knows we need the laughs. 

My life is insane and awesome and deep and funny and hard sometimes, and that's what I'm going to talk about here.  

I own a  massage school now!  Whaaaaaaaat?  That's what I say some days, 5+ years after it happened.  My students are awesome and amazing and some days they drive me banana sandwich crazy and I'm sure the reverse is also true.  I have a great support staff and we're moving in a good, solid direction for the business.  It's like herding cats some days, and I say this in my head a lot:

I'm looking for a building to purchase, so I can offer more to students and clients.  Selfishly, I also want to write that big ass rent check every month back to myself basically.  Leasing was the right thing to do as I was learning the business, but holy shit, if you knew how much I've paid in rent in five years.......sweet mother.  I'll certainly spend some time updating you on all that as it moves along.  It's so close to being a reality that it hurts.  

I started a t-shirt company.  Much more coming on that, it's in its' infancy, no website or social media yet.  I'm working on it.  If you're a badass with a heart, you'll want one.  Stay tuned.  

I have a lovely, kind and funny boyfriend who I adore.  He's a local news anchor, so that presents some fun challenges and hilarious stories.  He'll probably guest blog from time to time, so be ready to be blown away.  He's an amazing writer.  

I'm working on a young adult fiction novel.  

Let's see........that's about it as far as big life changes.  What's been going on with you?  

Love,

Gena