As far as I can tell, feeling stressed at times is a very common feature of the lives of people I encounter. I can’t remember every having talked with someone about stress and the other person not knowing what I was talking about…
Luckily, although few of us might be free of it, it’s not all bad – in fact research shows that the impact of stress is greatly determined by how we view and respond to it (check out the work of Kelly McGonigal on befriending stress, here). But I guess part of that is recognising when it is within our gift to shift gears, or as professor Paul Gilbert calls it: out of the red, into the green. Here he is referring to switching out of the red zone of being in threat mode as soon as it’s not serving us to stay in that system anymore, and relaxing into the green zone of contentment and connection. But… easier said than done at times, right?
A few things can help. Going for a walk is a tried and tested way of bringing our attention back into the present moment and the world around us. It shifts our perspective from being zoomed into the thing that’s stressing us, to zooming out into the vastness of the sky and the immediacy of the ground under our feet. Even a little walk can do wonders at times, and again there’s evidence to back this up! (for example here).
What might make a walk even more powerful, is paying some attention to what’s going on in our mind. Bringing our focus directly to what’s happening here – in your thoughts (what are they like at the moment? Racing, quiet, scattered or focused, jumbled or clear?), in your feelings (what mix of feelings is here? one feeling in the foreground or layers of feelings? clearly recognisable feelings or unnameable ones?), and how is your physical state of being (any tension anywhere? what’s the temperature and levels of energy in your body?). Actually noticing what’s here already, brings a bit of space and perspective to our experience: we observe what’s there rather than being totally immersed and entangled in it.
And then, what a gift it can be when we can meet ourselves right there with some kindness and care, rather than just bracing ourselves against it all in survival mode… And all this doesn’t have to take long – in fact here’s a 9 minute little practice with the potential to support that shift out of the red, into the green. And the even better news is that the more we practice this, the easier it becomes to make that shift…
In the upcoming weekend on mindfulness and stress, we’ll explore several practices that can help find more balance in life. There may well be stressors in our lives that can’t be helped on an individual level, that need structural and maybe systemic change which may be outside of our control. But any internal shift can both help us cope with what’s here, as well as supports us into a better position to make the necessary changes, however long that might take.
So we’ll work deliberately with our attention to direct it in helpful ways, but also explore how we can meet ourselves in the most supportive way: by finding ways to be there for ourselves with care and kind encouragement. Being like a friend to ourselves, rather than making things even more challenging through harsh self-criticism, makes all the difference!