Stress From Within

 Why do we stress ourselves out?  I know I cannot be the only one that does this.  Time and time again I find myself putting way too much pressure on myself.  I feel the need to make everything "perfect".  I find myself needing to "control" everything and "fix" everything for everyone.  It's exhausting.  I don't want to do it anymore.

What I should say is, "I can't do it anymore".  There, I said it.  "I can't."  Wow, those words are difficult to say.  I get choked-up and teary-eyed just saying it to myself.  Why do I put that much pressure on myself?  How do I break that nasty habit?  

I have been like this for as long as I can remember.  I jokingly say that as a child I was an eight year old with an ulcer.  But am I really joking?  Probably not.  

I do use my sense of humor as a protective mechanism.  I use it to make light of a difficult or uncomfortable situation.  I have used it to poke fun of myself for my faults or insecurities.  I did it so that I could laugh at myself instead of noticing that others were laughing at me. Notice I switched to the past tense?  I used to do that.  I don't anymore.  I outgrew that.  I learned to be comfortable with who I am.  That may make others laugh or judge me, but I don't care about that anymore.  Some of that freedom comes with age, some with experience, good and bad.  Now I want, no....I NEED to learn how to stop putting so much pressure on myself. It is stressing me out!  It has for so long.  Way too long.

The thing with stress is that it not only affects us mentally, it affects us physically.  I have lived with chronic pain for so long.  While some of that pain is due to issues from injuries and musculoskeletal problems, a lot of that pain comes from stress.  Stress exacerbates pain and disease.  

Over the years as I have become more and more familiar with the human body and physiology, I have come to learn that stress has a direct impact on how we feel physically as well as mentally, and emotionally.  Stress can cripple us.  Time and time again I have felt firsthand how stress can almost instantly bring me to my knees in pain.  I can go from being fine, feeling great, to suddenly having pain so terrible that I had to ask my husband for help to get up.  I have gotten phone calls that by the time  I hung up, I couldn't turn my head to one side.  I believe that stress has a way of finding our weak spots and settling in.  The body and all of our muscles and tissue have memory and that can be good and bad.  It's good in the sense that we can train our bodies to perform tasks without even thinking about them, but it's bad when our bodies remember and revert back to a state of tension and pain.

How do we get rid of it once it's there?  Healthy ways to deal with it are short-term OTC pain relievers, stretching, massage therapy, ice and heat therapy, or if it is more significant, epidural steroid injections.  We might even turn to unhealthy ways of dealing with pain, such as drinking or drug abuse.  There are lots of ways to go after the pain and let's be honest, when the pain gets so bad, there's almost no end to what we will try to feel better.  But how can we get rid of the pain for good or at least limit the pain we are feeling to the actual pain and not the additional pain brought about by stress?  If I had an easy answer for that I would be a billionaire.  The truth is, there is no easy or quick fix.  There is no one right answer.

The one thing I do know is that we can alter the way we have been thinking and living.  This is no small task.  It takes time and perseverance.  But it can be done.  We stumble along the way but the important part is that we do not give up.  Each and everyday is a new chance to begin again.  That is the beauty of life.  But if we never start, we can never hope to change and feel better.

I decided to take a close look at myself and my behaviors and thoughts, and the processes of getting through my days.  It's not easy to do this. It can be downright scary at times.  But in dissecting what I am doing and how I do it, or why I do the things I do along with the thoughts that come with each of those things I began to see a pattern.  I noticed the increasing pressures of how I thought others would perceive me, if what I did was good enough, or if I was living up to what others were doing or what others were expecting me to be doing.  

The truth is not as may people even notice what we are doing on a daily basis.  They are too busy doing their own thing and probably struggling with a lot of the same issues and insecurities as we are.  They think we are judging them.  See the vicious circle here?  Of course there are the people that are actually watching our every move and criticizing us.  They are most likely doing it to avoid looking at themselves and their own lives.  It's always easier to pick apart someone else rather than looking inward.  

Your power lies within you.  You can choose to not give them any of your precious time, energy, or attention.  And let's be honest if they aren't getting a reaction from you, chances are they will get bored and move on.  Hopefully they stumble into their own self-awareness soon enough.  Again, I know I have the luxury of age and experience in saying this, as I know it can be difficult to not give into these bullies, but trust me; they are not worth it.  Take back the power, YOUR POWER, build your own self-confidence; it will take you to great places!

That all being said I need to get back to the task at hand; looking inward and releasing ourselves from our own internal pressures and expectations. That is truly the hardest part.  We tend to put far more pressure on ourselves than anyone else ever would.  I speak from personal experience.  For example, if I am hosting a party to celebrate a special event I start planning it out months in advance.  I need, yes NEED, to have a clear, thought-out plan to ensure that nothing can go wrong with this event.  I need it to be perfect right down to the last detail.  I will plan out the decorations, I will go over the top.  I will plan out the menu, I will have way too much food.  I will do everything I can possibly think of to make everyone comfortable and happy, and to make this a truly memorable occasion (you know the one we remember for all time and every other event aspires to be as good as this one?).  If it is a holiday I try to keep up every tradition we ever had, and to make sure we carry-on and repeat all of the fun activities so that my kids, and now grandkids can have the exact same wonderful memories as I do. The thing is, it's not feasible to carry-on every tradition and experience.  As much as we would love to, we (I) have to accept that things have changed, people have changed, circumstances have changed.  I can no longer make it all happen, and that is okay.  It took me awhile to figure that out and come to terms with it.  I am not saying I don't still struggle with it, because I do,  But I have opened myself up to allowing new things to happen, new ways of doing things, new ways of celebrating, and it is wonderful too.  We are making our own memories and I love it!

I still have a long way to go in exploring all of my idiosyncrasies, I mean I am 50 years old, that's a lot of time to have gotten set in my ways (good and bad). I have learned to take things one step at a time and that goes for my healing and re-wiring of my behavioral process too.  I am a powerhouse, a force to be reckoned with (some may say a bulldozer- but that's a story for another post),  I am tougher on myself than I am on others, and I am a work in progress.

While I am working on letting things go, giving up control, and learning to just trust that others can handle it, I am also working on being kinder to myself.  That is probably the biggest part of reducing my stress levels.  I need to give myself a break and not beat myself up for things that I cannot control or do.  None of us can do it all.  We all need to ask for and accept help.  Admitting all of that was probably the most difficult part of this process for me.  I still struggle with it, I probably always will, but the mere fact that I am aware of what I am doing now is a huge step.  I can say that since I have given up the notion that I have to fix and control everything , I have already felt better than I have in along time.  

This has been a long process, one that I am not done with.  I still have a lot of work to do but I am taking one day at a time, sometimes hour by hour, or even minute by minute depending on the situation.  The most important part is that I don't give up.  I will not give up on myself.  Each day offers more opportunities for me.  I love that!

I hope that at least some part of this hits home for you and that you too can begin to ease some of the stress in your life by being kinder and gentler with yourself.  It's okay to give yourself a break.  And remember to hold onto your own power.  You are in control of what you allow from yourself and others around you.

** PLEASE NOTE:  Nothing on this blog is meant to be medical advice.  Always seek professional medical and mental health attention for any physical and/or mental health issues and concerns.**