Shifting From Stressful To Peaceful

Our society has become so fast paced with the rise of technology. On the one hand it has been great in creating ease of communication as you can reach someone in a multitude of ways. On the other hand it has been overwhelming for some who now have to keep up with all the means of communication. The easier people can reach us, the more ways we have to respond. Now instead of sitting back at our desk with a pen dipped in ink in one hand and a crisp sheet of paper in the other, we have a telephone head piece attached to one ear and a cell phone to the other, our eyes on the email inbox and our hands rifling paper through the fax machine – all at once! Instead of creating ease, we’ve created chaos. And it’s not just in the amount of multitasking we now have to do, but it's in the speed in which we have to do it in order to keep up with it all. Sure we’re able to do more, produce more, and achieve more in shorter and shorter amounts of time, but at what cost? The cost of our sanity, our peacefulness, our relationships and most importantly, our health! Some would say that we are letting technology run us instead of the other way around. That’s exactly what’s happening in the end. We’ve become so externally focused that we’ve lost our sense of power emanating from within. We’ve let everything else become more important and urgent than ourselves. Then we blame it all on “stress” as if something out of our control has descended upon us.

Stress is simply the body’s reaction to things. Stress isn’t a thing we have such as an illness (although being continually stressed can lead to developing or triggering many illnesses), or something outside of ourselves like a brick hitting us in the head (although it can sure feel like that), or even a milieu of circumstances mounting up in front of us (though this can trigger a stress reaction in a nanosecond). Stress is more of a state or mode we go into as we deal with people, things and circumstances that may be uncomfortable, pressuring or overwhelming. When we talk about being stressed out or suffering from stress, what we really mean is that our reactions to life have gone out of sync; off kilter; out of balance.

In the old days (the real old days of cave men), a stress reaction of fight or flight was necessary to survive. Nowadays that same reaction kills people. What once worked and was coded into our DNA, is now unnecessary in most situations. It’s time for a change. We are living in a new paradigm and we must adapt or go under (literally, 6 ft). We know deep inside that taking time to breath, relax and refocus is what is required to effectively handle most pressures, deadlines and minor crisis. Yet it is often the last thing we do, instead caving in to the chattering and fearful mind which tells us that if we stop for any amount of time, even to breath, we will fall behind, crumble and die. It is the old Neanderthal brain at work here moving us into the fight or flight response. We’ve added another response though in present times: freeze. Rather than jumping up from our desk with our fists swinging in the air whenever our boss places unrealistic demands on us, or bolting from the room screaming "run for your life", we become immobilized, shut down, and basically brain dead. It often feels like a haze has washed over the brain, interfering with important synapses responsible for basic commands and decisions, such as how to say "no", what task to do first, and what item to order from the menu.

As you can see, and probably have experienced, this third option of freeze is no more effective than the first two; fight or flight. Freezing may keep us from getting fired or escorted to the nearest psychiatric ward, but not for long. Stuffing feelings inside while your body is ticking like a time bomb takes its toll. Sure it helps to exercise regularly, eat well, get a good night’s rest and find time to play on the weekend, but these don’t stop the initial reactions and chain of neural, chemical and hormonal events from starting up in the first place. Instead of fully enjoying and getting the most out of these healthy activities, they are used as buffers to bandage the negative effects of stress. Imagine how good it would feel to exercise, eat, sleep and play if you felt great to start with instead of dragging your withered body to the gym, tiredly pulling a meal together, feeling like a zombie when your head hits the pillow and playing ‘who’s got the biggest the crows feet under their eyes’ with your friends on the weekend.

So how do we change our basic instinctual mechanics from fight, flight or freeze to peaceful, calm and energized? By transcending our usual mental, emotional and physiological reactions and operating from a higher level of awareness and response. We can approach it from any or all levels of our being: physical, mental, emotional and spiritual. When we do this we bring in three important principles: acceptance, ease and amusement. By accepting the situation or person we stop resisting it and we relax, which helps us move from struggle and effort into ease. When we are in a state of ease we open our minds and access our creativity, ideas and solutions. By finding our amusement, we stop taking life so seriously and lighten up, which shifts us out of feeling shut down or hopeless, and then our energy, productivity, and enjoyment soars.

The trick is learning how to automatically respond with acceptance, ease and amusement instead of our usual stress responses. This means detaching from our judgments, unrealistic thinking patterns and dysfunctional behaviours. It basically involves taking the wheel of control from our egos and putting it back into the hands of ourselves; our true selves, authentic selves, spiritual selves, higher selves, evolved selves, or whatever you want to call that timeless, eternal and powerful core essence that we are.

As we each practice operating from the essence of our true being, we pause before we speak, respond instead of react, and make decisions based on the big picture instead of the small demand or crisis in front of us. The key ingredient to living from our center and responding to life from a place of acceptance, ease and amusement is being conscious in the moment; bringing ourselves back to the here and now as we go throughout our day. We can do this by being aware of ourselves and our environment at all times. It may be noticing what we are feeling physically as we do our daily tasks, or tuning into our body's emotions as we speak and listen to others. We may pause to feel the breath move in and out of our lungs. We might catch ourselves moving into a typical stress reaction, have a laugh at our expense and then choose a new healthier way to proceed. All of these present time awareness's move us into the now and into operating from our true peaceful self.

When you create inner peace in your life and respond to life’s circumstances with acceptance, ease and amusement you feel more energized, inspired and enthusiastic about all of your day’s activities. You rise above the speed of technology!