Stress

We all want to live happy and fulfilling lives - it's a natural part of being human. The question is how do we cope with all the times when happiness seems out of reach and life is just downright difficult?

Our society tends to equate happiness with success, so it can be hard to admit when things are not going as well as we would wish. This is particularly true when we are dealing with stress. Who wants to admit that they are feeling overwhelmed and under pressure, or that sometimes they feel so anxious and worried that they don't know how to get up in the morning?

To try and keep ourselves on track we tend to push ourselves to keep going and act as if everything is fine, even when it is not. However, in order to do that we need to do a lot of pretending - starting with ourselves - and the easiest way to keep up the pretence is to distract ourselves from whatever it is that is causing us all the stress in the first place.

So we go shopping, open a bottle of wine, eat a big meal, or check out facebook - we each have our own particular way of comforting ourselves when we are hurting.


Try recognizing your stress

What if we did the opposite? what if we allowed ourselves to lean into the places where it hurts, where things are uncomfortable? not to lean in so far that we fall into despair but just far enough that we get a clear idea about what is going on.

Then maybe we see that the row we had with our partner only sprung up when it did because we were completely over-tired and stretched. Or the boss we feel is tormenting us is actually completely panicked at the thought of being demoted at the next management overhaul.

In other words, when we try and protect ourselves from stress we can actually make things worse by avoiding taking a clear, realistic look at what is happening and getting stuck on what we think is happening. When we do this we are working from habit, rather than looking at each situation freshly with awareness and compassion.