If you are showing up for your life in ways you don’t like, bear in mind the role that stress plays before you become overly harsh and critical with yourself.
Too often, we don’t even realize that we are stressed. We become so used to it, we are numb to it. It can feel normal, but it’s not.
It’s like a default – we know on an unconscious, non-verbal level how to accommodate situations, environments, and relationship dynamics that are not natural or healthy. We may learn to meet the bar, rise to the occasion, to make things work, all the while failing to recognize on a BODY level the impact of that, of going outside of ourselves and even denying our feelings and experience as if it’s not important or not real, because often it’s not even an option to factor our feelings into the equation. We work to make things work in ways that are detrimental, and we don’t realize when we are out of our center. Sometimes being in our center isn’t even an option.
So, no wonder the stress. Think about the years and years of being this way, so automatic. No wonder the feeling on edge, the numbing out, the feeling like you can’t bring yourself to do the things that you know are good for you, or to stop doing the things you know aren’t.
Instead of doubling down on yourself and focusing on a behavior, learn to look instead to yourself. Find a way back to connecting with your body in a way that feels manageable, and find pockets and moments of rest, ease, peace. See if there is some way you might bring some more grace and understanding to ways that you may be hurting or needing care. Over time you can repattern your stress management style to one that includes more consciousness and choice.
