Stress

Stress is a fact of life, but whether it enriches or depletes our life experience is far from fact.  It has been my experience in the few cultures I've lived in (which has been all western cultures), that we have a negative view or perception of stress.  However, biological laws imply stress as a potential positive, especially if it doesn't kill us.

Take a single cell in your body, any cell: with out any stress this tiny cell would atrophy.  The boundaries of the cell, its cell wall, which differentiates it from other cells, would lose a sense of purpose with out stress and eventually it would disintegrate.  On the flip side, that very same cell, if pressed or stressed overtly, would break from excessive force or pressure.  So, too little stress and the atrophies, but too much stress and the cell breaks...but just enough stress, eustress (as I learned its called in my exercise psychology class) and the cell maintains its sense of self and continues on with its business/purpose in the body.  Using our cells as a fractal and metaphor for our larger selves, I see this as a beautiful analogue for looking at stress and discerning eustress (good stress) from distress (bad stress).  Like the cells in our body, we as human beings feed and grow from a certain amount of healthy stress.  When the boundaries of ourselves are pressed into something that challenges us (physically, mentally, relationally and/or spiritually) we have an opportunity to experience ourselves and refocus our purpose and potential.  Take the example of lightness.  If we were a light, and were only ever surrounded by light, how would we ever know what it means to be light, or what the purpose of light is?  However, take a light and put it in the depths of a shadow or dark cave and you most certainly get a sense of what the purpose of a light is, what it means to be lightness.  An important point here is not to consider light more valuable or more useful than darkness.  These polar opposites provide a creative opportunity, similar to how a male and female can create new life.  From polarity comes synthesis: something new, something unexpected results from the marrying of opposites. 

Perhaps if we decided to look at stress as an opportunity, we could further enable ourselves to enjoy the process of creative chance.  Healthy stress (which really is any kind that we manage to survive, sometimes with a collective effort) provides an experience of discovery, or rediscovery. When we have the chance to press into an opposition, something new and unexpected might come of it.  Surviving stress grows new inner strengths, it opens our eyes to new ways of looking at the world, it expands our mental, physical, relational and spiritual horizons.  If our view was previously narrow (which relatively speaking it always is compared to after we come up against opposition), then after an experience of stress we can enjoy the view with a widened lens; taking in more of the bigger picture.

Anyhow, I have personally found that changing my point of reference on stress has allowed me to feel less burdened by it, and instead facilitated by such experiences.  With out a doubt, there are still many situations where I feel overwhelmed by the force of opposition, where I have a flickering feeling uncertainty regarding my ability to meet the force and find my ground...and that's where practicing tadasana (mountain pose) and remembering to exhale slowly keeps me in check and hopefully balance....at least most of the time;-)