Sources of Stress
Of the many stresses in everyday life, some are very obvious: demands at work, disharmony within relationships, concern about finances, worries about the well-being of relatives and friends, time pressures, and fears about safety. And currently, the stresses associated with COVID. Any of these can cause us to lose our sense of being centered. As if all of this were not enough, we are bombarded daily with minor irritations. Some of these come from physical sources such as bad weather or excessive noise. But most often they arise from interactions with other people: a rude driver or salesperson, a co-worker who is overly talkative or who doesn’t respect your boundaries, an acquaintance who may subtly belittle you or compete with you, a friend who lets you down or tries to take advantage of you. All of these stresses, the large and the small, contribute to an ongoing level of tension that interferes with your peace and well-being.
Attempts at Relief
People try to re-center themselves with a variety of methods but the results are often temporary. The feeling of relief or peace diminishes and the tension returns.
What does it mean to be “centered?” We can describe it as an absence of discomfort, distraction, worry, mental clutter, and mind chatter. You feel at peace yet energized. Your goals are clear and you have the power to choose what you want to think about and do.
Why Can a Centered State Be So Difficult to Achieve and Maintain?
Out of awareness, the mind works very rapidly to process everything that we see, hear, think, or feel. It must match every stimulus with a response, every problem with a solution. A true solution is one that solves a problem completely. If one is cold, going into a warm house is a true solution. Otherwise, the mind matches the problem with a partial solution. If it isn’t possible to go inside, one may walk faster or try to think of an alternate shelter. These are partial solutions because they decrease the discomfort but don’t end it.
Many discomforts end. The cold person who must walk faster to stay warm will eventually find shelter. But there are many discomforts that become chronic. Children whose parents are neglectful, abusive, or unempathic will suffer from ongoing distress. There are no true solutions for these situations because relief is in the hands of the parents, who tend to continue their harmful behavior. These children will use various partial solutions to lessen their distress, such as trying to be very good in order to please their parents, overeating to soothe themselves, turning to other adults for nurturance, becoming stoic, rebelling, or simply becoming depressed. Even children with dedicated, loving parents experience some degree of ongoing discomfort because most parents have at least a few traits that affect their children negatively.
The discomforts and their partial solutions persist into adulthood and cause an ongoing level of tension. An adult may be aware, to some degree, of the sources of this distress. But often the origins have been buried and the coping habits have become second nature.
The habit patterns that originate in early life also are applied to the minor irritations of the present. For example, a woman who tries to please everyone will be unable to protect herself from abuses. She will have difficulty extricating herself from her overly talkative co-worker. She won’t know how to handle the acquaintance who belittles her. She will be helpless to set limits on a friend who takes advantage of her. All of these situations will contribute to her feeling of stress.
Fortunately, There is a Way to Cope with These Stresses
For temporary relief, my complimentary Tool will provide periods of peacefulness and calm. And my online course, Achieving Emotional Comfort, which is available at emotionalcomfort.com, will provide a lasting solution.
