We have all experienced stress. We know we don't like the way it feels. We know we wish whatever triggered it would
go away or hadn't happened in the first place.
Stress is just plain yucky, right? Well, here's something that might surprise you: you are actually attracted to stress. It sounds insane, doesn't it? But it's true. When humans first showed up on the planet, we had
nothing: no immunity, no weapons, no natural armor. Human skin is pretty easily pierced. And we walked the land with beasts who
thought we looked yummy. Because we were so vulnerable, we had to be constantly
on guard. We had to scan the horizon
incessantly looking for anything that might be a threat to our continued
well-being. We didn't know what it might
be. We didn't know where it might come
from. We had no idea what chance we had
against it. Since you developed this instinct first thing, it
became a part of you. At the deepest
part of your subconscious mind, you're still scanning the horizon all day every
day for whatever might be a threat to you, certain that something bad is out there. Pretty stressful, right? Ergo, when you know what it is you're stressed about,
there's actually some relief in that. You
still know you don't like the feeling of stress. You still wish whatever triggered the stress
hadn't happened or that it would go away.
But at least you know that you survived it. It didn't kill you, which is what your
subconscious mind was most afraid of it doing. Now that you know this annoying little tidbit, begin
to become aware of how much more attention you give to negative things than
positive things. Good things are fine,
and you're glad they happen. But you rarely
spend as much emotional time on them as you do with the negative things. Becoming aware of this fact on a conscious level
changes the whole experience of stress.
The triggering of stress is a subconscious, automatic experience over
which you have no control. Acknowledging
how it developed and that you're more likely to focus on the negative than the
positive makes it conscious and puts you back in control. You can decide from that position how you
want to handle it and find the relief you seek. |