Walking away from stress and reclaiming your true self

Discovering your true self:

Let’s do a small exercise to experience your true self

Take a deep breath…Beathe in ..Breathe out….All thoughts are out..mind is clear..

Do this few times…..Now try to feel angry, depressed, anxious, stressed. Are you able to feel any of these emotions without any thoughts..

Take a few deep breaths again and calm your mind.. and without any thoughts..try to gauge your inner state..what is our true state? Bliss, Peace, joy, harmony, love

I hope you got a glimpse of your true self so you can know that some of the emotions you feel when you are under STRESS is not really your TRUE SELF

What is stress?

Our daily life revolves around timelines, deadlines, meeting expectations, at work or managing personal relationships, many a times giving a feeling that things are not in our control thereby leading to stress. Some of the stress we feel might be beneficial and may be the driving force to take certain actions like create and deliver effective sales presentations so you can influence your clients or preparing for a job interview.

However, certain situations where a person feels completely out of control like a long-term relationship falling apart or sudden job loss may cause high levels of anxiety and stress.

When we don’t get a handle on the stress, it may ultimately affect normal functioning in our daily life or affect our job or family life or health.

Stress in pandemic:

The pandemic situation in 2020 and 2021 has exacerbated the stress and has seriously threatened the mental health especially in young adults and teens.

According to the Harris Poll conducted by American Psychological Association(APA), nearly 8 in 10 adults (78%) have said the COVID pandemic is a significant source of stress and by generation Gen Z adults seems to be experiencing the worst mental health conditions compared to other generations. (refer to https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2020/10/stress-mental-health-crisis)

In short, we have a mental crisis at hand which is affecting our younger generation.

I have seen my own teenage daughter go from a normal school going kid to become socially awkward and extremely anxious to meet kids her age in the past 1 year following the pandemic.

What causes stress?

There can be different dimensions of our life that causes stress like stress relating to our work, our family life, our health or loved ones’ health or financial situations.

In general these are the four aspects that usually cause stress:

1. Life changes: We all agree that change is constant. But, some of us feel unequipped to deal with change. Changes can be something that we were expecting like a promotion or a new addition to the family or something totally unpredicted like a traumatic event in the family, a serious health condition, a break-up or divorce or loss of job.

2. Unrealistic expectations: Few of us have had situations where we have had bosses where no matter what you do or how hard you worked has made your box any happy ..You have been eyeing the promotion too long and been toiling without an end in sight. Unreasonable expectations can cause high levels of stress and ultimately result in burn out.

3. Fear or uncertainty: Any perception of a situation or event in our life that causes fear and uncertainty can drive up our stress levels. The pandemic has certainly made us aware of how uncertainty can drive us to feel restless, uncomfortable and feel like we are not in control. Fears about an impending loss of job or facing an health crisis can also cause us to feel stressed.

4. Attitudes: Two people can face the exact same situation but have a very different response to it. This is primarily dependent on the attitude they have in life. Some people may shrug off the difficult situation in their life or consider it as small bumps on road and focus on big picture and move ahead, while others may go through too much mental turmoil and worry themselves to their own detriment.

What happens when we are stressed?

Most of us have experienced situations when we have to give a presentation and our heartbeat speeds up, we feel short of breath, our mouth dries up or we start to sweat, This is the nervous systems’ primary response to an anticipated stressful condition also popularly known as the “fight or flight” response. This type of stress is temporary and our body recovers soon after the situation is over.

But, if the stress stays active for a long time, it can cause more serious physical and/or mental health conditions like the following:

1. Depression

2. Heartburn, ulcers, irritable bowel syndrome

3. Weight gain or loss

4. High blood pressure

5. Heart disease

6. Changes in sex drive

7. Fertility problems

8. Flare-ups of asthma or arthritis

9. Skin problems such as acne, eczema, and psoriasis

Managing your stress will make a real difference to your health.

Stress from the lens of Chakras:

Suppose you have to give a sales presentation at work (throat chakra). This is the most important presentation and this is right before your performance review. You know how important this is for your career growth or your promotion.

But the presentation didn’t turn out as great as you expected..it didn’t go quite as well..your 3rd chakra will take in that information and depending on how you filter the world, you might feel terrible about yourself or you will brush it off…. but if you feel terrible about it, you will pay more attention to how your boss treats you after that and what he says or does not say…and then your mind is trying to make sense of it..and now you think of how your promotion or the next performance review might get affected because of it (ofcourse this is gross simplification). Suddenly you are stressing over it too much that your work is impacted by the stress.This is at the first chakra level.And this stress spills over to other areas of your life. You are angry at your spouse or kids. Your health suffers as a result. Eventually it feels like the carpet is pulled from under you and your entire life is a mess. You don’t know how to handle it any more.

So, as we see here, although the issue might have originated in a higher chakra, it affects our basics or foundations - our health, our work life, our family life and this gives rise to a feeling of instability, insecurity and proverbial carpet being pulled under you. You are shaky in your foundation..

Stress affects our root chakra the most because most of the stresses in our life- work, personal, health, financial all affects our basics or roots. To really reduce stress from a chakra perspective, it is essential that we strengthen our root chakra.

How do I manage stress?

If you are unable to manage and cope up with the stressors in your life and looking for help and would like to reclaim your TRUE SELF, I invite you to book a personal session with me. Learn more here

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