As
part of my colitis self-experimentation program I've been studying
several techniques for reducing my ambient stress level and for
discharging higher levels of stress when they arise. My aerobic
exercise, posture, stretching/physiotherapy, breathing improvement and
other stress
management activities seem to be helping, and my yoga classes
start next week, but I know I need to do more, so I've been trying a
variety of meditation and mind-body awareness exercises, including
those suggested by David
Abram and Feith Stuart, Kabat-Zinn's concentration and mindfulness
exercises, Nick Smith's hourglass
meditation, an NLP-inspired technique suggested by Mariella Rebora, and
the 'intentional' meditation and emotional release exercises from Indigo
Ocean's book.
These techniques and exercises have a lot in common: Their purpose is
to get you to focus your attention on and to connect with your body,
your senses, your emotions, your unconscious behaviours,
and/or your being-apart-of-nature. They enable you to better understand
the why and how of your emotional reactions and your subconscious physical reactions,
and through that understanding to take some conscious control over
those reactions -- moderating and discharging them.
This is particularly difficult for me. I find it difficult to
concentrate on one thing, or for very long on anything, and I'm very
uncoordinated (e.g. I know very well conceptually how to
swim, to dance, and to play a musical instrument, but my body just
doesn't seem to be able to act on that understanding). And just as
different methods of learning to swim, dance, or anything else work for
different people, there's no one right way to learn to meditate. I
haven't found that any of the above techniques work especially well for
me, though they all have very strong adherents who swear they work for
them. So I can't recommend any particular method for managing
stress. But I have learned a few things from practicing these methods,
and perhaps my learnings may be of value to others who are challenged
trying to mitigate, moderate or discharge the stress in their lives:
- How my Stress Manifests Itself: I've learned that,
while my memories and imaginings of positive events are highly visual
and tactile, my memories and imaginings of stressful events are
non-sensory, and manifest themselves viscerally and somatically -- when I
recall/imagine them, my shoulders and neck stiffen, my stomach tightens
and roils, my breathing constricts, and my arms, legs and chest tense.
So my reaction is adrenal (at least it was until the steroid I was
prescribed for my colitis shut down my adrenal function). That is, it
is initially instinctive (perhaps the amygdala-centred fight/flight instinct), automatic, rather than emotional.
- What Really Stresses Me Most: I've learned that the
stressers in my life that preoccupy my conscious mind
(e.g. money, personal relationships, my disease, and my proclivity to
procrastinate) are in fact not what stresses me most. What stresses me
most (manifested by the strongest visceral/emotional reaction when I focus my
attention on it) is my grief
for Gaia. Judging from reader response to my writings on
this, I don't think I'm alone. Biophilia is natural. And, just my luck,
while the stressers that preoccupy my conscious mind are mostly
temporary and transient, my grief for Gaia is chronic. It never goes
away. Our bodies are not well-equipped to cope with chronic stress --
it isn't
natural.
- The Accompanying Emotions: I've learned that the
emotions that accompany this stress, and which reinforce the
instinctive reaction to it, are Anguish, Grief, Helplessness, and
Self-Hatred (for my inaction to remedy it). Just imagining a single
animal's life imprisoned in a factory farm sets off this negative
symphony of raw, purple, festering feelings.
- Human Behaviours That Set It Off: I've learned that
seven behaviours of other people (and sometimes my own behaviour) provoke an
immediate and strong stress overreaction
in me: ignorance, stupidity (i.e. not thinking properly -- not thinking
logically, critically, or creatively, or just not thinking),
dishonesty, insensitivity, unfairness (yes, this betrays my liberal
worldview), unreasonableness, and abuse of power. I believe the reason
these behaviours cause me to overreact is that I associate them with
the causes of my grief for Gaia, so my feelings of helplessness and
powerlessness about that grief are 'turned' on the person behaving
badly (whether that be a corporate criminal, a politician, a co-worker,
a neighbour, or even someone I love). It's as if I am searching for
someone to blame for what is causing my grief, and when I see this
behaviour I blame them. "It's that
kind of behaviour that is destroying our world and causing
so much suffering."
- Knowing It's an Inappropriate/Overreaction Doesn't
Stop Me Having It: I've learned that knowing what's 'going on' when I
get stressed, and knowing rationally that it is an overreaction, and that it is
unhealthy and futile, is not sufficient to allow me to control and
discharge that reaction. And just having the intention
to stop over-reacting viscerally and emotionally to both situational
behaviours and chronic provokers of stress, is not enough either. Maybe
I'm getting ahead of myself: Perhaps now that I'm at least aware of my
unhealthy and futile stress reaction, and have the intention to do
something to manage it, to 'reprogram' my responses, either by
preventing/mitigating them before they occur or discharging them
quickly when they do, I will learn to
do so with time and practice. I hope so.
I haven't had a lot of success trying to manage autonomic behaviours in
past. My bad habits and fidgets have withstood fifty years of attempts
to change them, and my recent process of reminding myself to check my
posture, breathing etc. is not yet producing any permanent changes
either. But I'm not giving up. We do what we must, and, with the
euphoria of the adrenal-suppressant drugs ending as I taper off them, I
must find ways to manage stress better.
Does
any of this resonate with you? Am I the only one whose stress is caused
mainly by things that are not immediate, local and personal to their
life? Am I the only one who can't seem to Let-Self-Change easily? And
am I the only one that feels that the line at the end of the Beatles'
Abbey Road -- "Boy, you're going to carry that weight, carry that
weight a long time" -- was written just for them?
|
MADE IN CANADA
trust your
instincts 
