I’m Not Feeling at all Flustered and Stressed — You’re Stressed!
Yeah, that’s a lie. I’m feeling flustered and stressed. But what comes next is on me.
Let’s talk about the great big elephant in the room. Feeling stressed.
Virtually everyone deals with stress from time to time. Deadlines, pressures to do things from within and without, expectations, and many other things can be stressors in our lives.
Even when you seek to carve your own path in life — it is not stress-free.
I don’t care who they are — nobody lives a completely stress-free life. Mostly stress-free, being less-stressed, and rare bouts with stressors I believe in. But stress-free? Not possible.
In many instances, we are told stress is good. And it can be. A little pressure can be the driving force for getting shit done. That pressure can be a kick-in-the-ass to make you move.
Whatever it looks like, good or bad — stress should not be ignored, denied, avoided, or otherwise dismissed. Because all of these do nothing but push stressors into the background — where they can be fed quietly and grow deep, deep roots.
Denying being stressed or displacing the stressors doesn’t address them. And if we don’t address the stress, we don’t work with, deal with, alleviate, or make use of it.
The first step is recognition and acknowledgment
It’s all too easy to pretend. I’m not feeling flustered and stressed — you’re flustered and stressed! Projection might seem funny — but the truth is that it is just as impotent as throwing around blame.
Like most things we experience in life — accountability is a key to working with them. Recognizing and acknowledging your life experiences — in the ways that they belong to you — is how you can work with them, alter them, change them, or whatnot.
If I don’t recognize or acknowledge what is stressing me out — I can’t work with it. That’s part of why it’s an elephant in the room — hard to ignore a giant like that right there in front of you.
It won’t go away if I turn away from it, close my eyes and pretend it’s not there. But if I recognize and acknowledge it — now I can lead it out of…
