I'd like to share about a funny pattern I'm studying this week in my life. It connects back to something my meditation teacher Brenda Morgan said at the retreat I went to in August, that humans have an "addiction" to stress and tension.
As crazy as it sounds, that really resonated with me. I've been trying
to study this in my life, and I'm noticing how my tendency is to
actually make a stressful choice rather than an enjoyable one. Weird, huh?
Here's an example. This past week I needed to deal with a car issue. On
Monday of this past week, I needed to use about 1/3 tank of gas in my
car so we could try one way of correcting the problem, in hopes of passing DEQ before my registration expired on Friday. My first reaction was to worry and obsess over the most efficient way to accomplish this... I considered just leaving
it running in my driveway all day while I checked off chores on my to-do
list at home, driving a few hours straight out and back on the highway,
even trying to find a neighbor who might know how to siphon it out, and
so on, until it occurred to me -- hey, I could do something fun, a
little outing! The weird part was how much resistance I felt to doing
this. The worry part of me wasn't very interested in having fun. Somehow
having fun didn't seem right when I had this stressful problem to fix.
But the weather was beautiful, and I had made a commitment to working
with this pattern, so my dog and I jumped in the car and drove out into
the Columbia River Gorge, through gorgeous thick evergreen
forest, to a beautiful viewpoint I'd never been to before at the top of Larch Mountain. It was
wonderful!
By the time I got back and picked up my kids from school, I was pretty
worn out, though. I was hoping to get to the mechanic and put in the
fuel additive yet that afternoon, as I was concerned about passing my car inspection in
time. And I wasn't even sure this was going to work yet! My "hurry
get-it-done!" side was all about heading out right then before the
mechanic closed up for the night. But I sat down in a chair, put my feet
up for 10 minutes, and let myself relax before I made the choice. I
could feel it wasn't right to push myself. I decided to wait until the
next day.
And you know what? It all worked out perfectly. AND I was able to relax,
take care of myself and have fun in the process.
So why did I fight this? My brain just wanted to obsess and worry about
it, quick try this, try that, what if, what if, push push push. It
wanted to do that way more than it seemed to want to take a beautiful
drive in the mountains, or put my feet up for 10 minutes and relax even
though the problem wasn't fixed yet. But boy did I feel so much better
making the choice to enjoy myself, take care of myself... What a crazy
addiction!
I am beginning to see how I constantly have a choice of how to relate to
my daily issues -- and even just the flow of my day -- that is either
stressful, or is a conscious choice to create or participate in
something that helps me enjoy my life. And to trust that, no matter how
much I feel that drive to keep pushing and solve it, fix it, get it
done, that the real solution actually lies in opting out of that
program, and choosing to love myself and my life instead.
I'd love to hear if anyone else has noticed this strange stress
addiction in their own lives, and any ways you've found that help you
make a happier choice instead!
