Purposeful Stress
America is under stress. The world is. Its inhabitants are. But everytime I look around, I see the good rising up out of the mud, the lotus clean and vibrant, rising at its proper time.
Good stress is hard to imagine, but we experience it all the time. If you have ever felt in control while doing something that challenged you, pushing yourself, working your edge and living your best experience of it, you felt good stress.
Stress when purposefully used is one of the beautifully challenging things about living. It encourages you. It motivates you to do more, to rise up, or reach out, and be apart of your life. And, after the stress: the class, the conversation, the friction, the dis-ease, you reap more. Good stress when met and embraced brings a good dose of good feeling hormones, happiness, and relaxation.
You are more than your stress, and undoubtedly, knowing how to relieve unwanted stress is necessary. Still, can we observe that which feels unwanted, create a practice of stress to elicit what is wanted? I believe so. We can use the good stress experiences to pay attention, as a catalyst for creation. Stress creates big bangs, babies, castles, and buttons. It is the type of pressure that propels us forward and calls change by name.
If we are honest, we would not change very much if we were not nudged. Yet, we get so upset when we are pushed? You might say, It was unexpected. It was hard, a rough landing or transition. Yes, and more, I agree. But without a tender stretch of a muscle, for example, just to the edge where we play in possibility, the muscle does not get longer, and we do not grow.
Purposeful stress is our ability to create stress on purpose by breathing through sensation. As we breathe slowly and deeply, we take time to acknowledge our triggers and dig into our feelings of deeper experience. We take this time to remember what it feels like to go further into life purposefully and relax into the process.
You can practice this in many ways. Here are some ways I have found most helpful as I listen deeply to my own stress and responses. May they help you to do the same.
Repurpose your Stress
1.The key is the breath! Breathe in through your nose. Concentrate on breathing down into the body. Pulling air easily and slowly down. Feel your belly rise. Exhale, with some force, out through your mouth with a sigh. Feel your shoulders drop down your back. Feel your belly squeeze back toward your spine. Expire all the air. Do that three or more times.
Then, continue breathing down into the body, in through the nose, but out, through the nose as well. Go slowly. There is no rush. Allow the breath to massage and soothe you. Close your eyes. You can count the length of your inhales and exhales. A nice count to begin with is 5-7. Count to five on your inhales and seven on your exhales, in through the nose and out through the nose. You can set a timer, if you like.
If we purposefully create stress and try to explore the sensation without breathing, we only create more stress. The body can become overwhelmed. So we breathe deeper during these moments, not as to expel anything, but to experience it.
2. Think of something stressful and instead of running from it, go towards it. Take time for the sensation from the thought to build up. Fully imagine it. Follow it home and sit down next to it. Now breathe. If it speaks, listen. Don't defend. To repurpose stress, we have to be willing to feel it. It does not go away if you resist it. So breathe into the sensation, allow the breath to flow in and out of the space where you feel the stress, and stay with it like you would a scared friend. Allow her/him to feel. Observe the feeling as within you, but separate from you. Without fighting or fleeing, stay.
3. Use stress to create. Take time to create a list, a picture, a story, a poem, a vision board of all the possible positive outcomes of a particular stressful situation. Place your creation somewhere that you pass everyday. Look at it daily.
Many cells, rivers, bodies, planets have figured out how to assimilate the toxins in their environments, and the strong survive. New technology and brands of people are being created to perform tasks that have never been before. They have figured how to grow a new kind of "skin", a new plan devised for such a time as this. They have recognized their power. They see that being squeezed in the moment may not be easy, but once they are purified, once they go through the pressure, they are better off.
4. Don't run from your stress; it will just be there when you get back. Use affirmations. If you speak kindly, encouragingly, to yourself you will inevitably drop your guard and learn something about your habits and patterns. Seeing those things we do not like about ourselves and making peace with them, allows us to create a new connection to them. But if we scream at ourselves and say nasty things, we are not going to feel better! Tell yourself that you are OK, if you are. (Don't lie to yourself. Use the affirmations that work for YOU.) Maybe say: This is OK. All is well. Love is here now. Love always overcomes. Use an affirmation that has worked for you in the past. Be cautious, still: don't use affirmations to run from the sensation. Feel the sensation and affirm for yourself that it's OK to feel it. Stay. Learn.
5. Practice Yoga! or do some exercise that suits you. Sweating gets rid of toxins. With exerted effort, lengthening or tensing muscle, you aid circulation and digestion, among all the things that yoga and exercise and can induce. Movement is a perfect way to observe the bodymind response to purposeful stress. Do you want to run from the burn or can you breathe through it and stay the course? Take a class where you can commit to a teachers guidance and work through things that come up for an extended period of time several times a week if you can.
When I first came to yoga, it was an escape. It is not just that anymore for me, no. Using stress purposefully, it is much more. It is an opportunity to rearrange and reconfigure the rooms in the house that need attention. It is no longer just a place to play: it is a place to become.
Embrace the process. Once you embrace your vulnerability, your imperfection, mistake, or overwhelm, stress, you can take your power back and do something about it. You can use your stress to your advantage. You can create that which you desire, that which the world needs: your unique connection and reflection. You can be all that felt out of your reach by seeing that nothing beautiful or purposeful comes without some level of pressure, no pearls, no fire, no clean water. Everything must go through a process of refinement. Even you, dear friend. Even me.
Sat Nam.
-Courtney
Good stress is hard to imagine, but we experience it all the time. If you have ever felt in control while doing something that challenged you, pushing yourself, working your edge and living your best experience of it, you felt good stress.
Stress when purposefully used is one of the beautifully challenging things about living. It encourages you. It motivates you to do more, to rise up, or reach out, and be apart of your life. And, after the stress: the class, the conversation, the friction, the dis-ease, you reap more. Good stress when met and embraced brings a good dose of good feeling hormones, happiness, and relaxation.
You are more than your stress, and undoubtedly, knowing how to relieve unwanted stress is necessary. Still, can we observe that which feels unwanted, create a practice of stress to elicit what is wanted? I believe so. We can use the good stress experiences to pay attention, as a catalyst for creation. Stress creates big bangs, babies, castles, and buttons. It is the type of pressure that propels us forward and calls change by name.
If we are honest, we would not change very much if we were not nudged. Yet, we get so upset when we are pushed? You might say, It was unexpected. It was hard, a rough landing or transition. Yes, and more, I agree. But without a tender stretch of a muscle, for example, just to the edge where we play in possibility, the muscle does not get longer, and we do not grow.
Purposeful stress is our ability to create stress on purpose by breathing through sensation. As we breathe slowly and deeply, we take time to acknowledge our triggers and dig into our feelings of deeper experience. We take this time to remember what it feels like to go further into life purposefully and relax into the process.
You can practice this in many ways. Here are some ways I have found most helpful as I listen deeply to my own stress and responses. May they help you to do the same.
Repurpose your Stress
1.The key is the breath! Breathe in through your nose. Concentrate on breathing down into the body. Pulling air easily and slowly down. Feel your belly rise. Exhale, with some force, out through your mouth with a sigh. Feel your shoulders drop down your back. Feel your belly squeeze back toward your spine. Expire all the air. Do that three or more times.
Then, continue breathing down into the body, in through the nose, but out, through the nose as well. Go slowly. There is no rush. Allow the breath to massage and soothe you. Close your eyes. You can count the length of your inhales and exhales. A nice count to begin with is 5-7. Count to five on your inhales and seven on your exhales, in through the nose and out through the nose. You can set a timer, if you like.
2. Think of something stressful and instead of running from it, go towards it. Take time for the sensation from the thought to build up. Fully imagine it. Follow it home and sit down next to it. Now breathe. If it speaks, listen. Don't defend. To repurpose stress, we have to be willing to feel it. It does not go away if you resist it. So breathe into the sensation, allow the breath to flow in and out of the space where you feel the stress, and stay with it like you would a scared friend. Allow her/him to feel. Observe the feeling as within you, but separate from you. Without fighting or fleeing, stay.
3. Use stress to create. Take time to create a list, a picture, a story, a poem, a vision board of all the possible positive outcomes of a particular stressful situation. Place your creation somewhere that you pass everyday. Look at it daily.
Many cells, rivers, bodies, planets have figured out how to assimilate the toxins in their environments, and the strong survive. New technology and brands of people are being created to perform tasks that have never been before. They have figured how to grow a new kind of "skin", a new plan devised for such a time as this. They have recognized their power. They see that being squeezed in the moment may not be easy, but once they are purified, once they go through the pressure, they are better off.
4. Don't run from your stress; it will just be there when you get back. Use affirmations. If you speak kindly, encouragingly, to yourself you will inevitably drop your guard and learn something about your habits and patterns. Seeing those things we do not like about ourselves and making peace with them, allows us to create a new connection to them. But if we scream at ourselves and say nasty things, we are not going to feel better! Tell yourself that you are OK, if you are. (Don't lie to yourself. Use the affirmations that work for YOU.) Maybe say: This is OK. All is well. Love is here now. Love always overcomes. Use an affirmation that has worked for you in the past. Be cautious, still: don't use affirmations to run from the sensation. Feel the sensation and affirm for yourself that it's OK to feel it. Stay. Learn.
5. Practice Yoga! or do some exercise that suits you. Sweating gets rid of toxins. With exerted effort, lengthening or tensing muscle, you aid circulation and digestion, among all the things that yoga and exercise and can induce. Movement is a perfect way to observe the bodymind response to purposeful stress. Do you want to run from the burn or can you breathe through it and stay the course? Take a class where you can commit to a teachers guidance and work through things that come up for an extended period of time several times a week if you can.
When I first came to yoga, it was an escape. It is not just that anymore for me, no. Using stress purposefully, it is much more. It is an opportunity to rearrange and reconfigure the rooms in the house that need attention. It is no longer just a place to play: it is a place to become.
Embrace the process. Once you embrace your vulnerability, your imperfection, mistake, or overwhelm, stress, you can take your power back and do something about it. You can use your stress to your advantage. You can create that which you desire, that which the world needs: your unique connection and reflection. You can be all that felt out of your reach by seeing that nothing beautiful or purposeful comes without some level of pressure, no pearls, no fire, no clean water. Everything must go through a process of refinement. Even you, dear friend. Even me.
Sat Nam.
-Courtney
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