Let's Talk About Stress

Let’s talk about STRESS.

All of us are constantly under some level of stress. The Cleveland Clinic defines stress as, “…a natural human reaction that happens to everyone.” https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/11874-stress They even suggest that stress can be a positive thing. Stress can help our body adjust to new situations, keeps us alert, motivated and ready to avoid danger. How we handle stress, however, can affect our relationship, especially if we handle stress differently from each other.

Avoiding the Subject

Karen: Like many Americans, Scott and I are experiencing stress around the election. And it does not seem likely that this stress will just go away after the polls close. Watching the news, reading social media, perusing poll results, or entering into fruitless conversations is highly stressful for me. I can actually feel my body tense up when I do these things. I become short and edgy with Scott and with others. It creates negative energy that keeps me from being able to focus on that which needs my full attention.

Simply avoiding the topic all together seems to be best for my emotional health. I voted and now must accept that everyone else’s vote is outside my area of influence. This really does help me breathe and retain some peace.

Talking it Out

Scott: I, on the other hand, want to talk about all the latest election news stories. It helps me get it off my chest and relieves some of the stress this election is causing me. When I start to talk about it, though, Karen’s response is: “I just can’t talk about this. It makes me too anxious.” Clearly Karen and I have very different ways of dealing with this particular stress.

So now what? It is not easy, but I am finding that the best thing I can do is to simply stop talking about it. This keeps Karen’s anxiety level from rising and it forces me to begin to think about something else. I am surprised to see that this is ultimately helping me to be more at peace. It may not be the best for me in the immediate moment, but it is best for me in the long run, and it is especially good for our relationship. We are more relaxed, smile more, and enjoy the little things more when we are not letting this stress control our moods.

The two of us have found that most of the time talking things out is best for us, especially when we need to make a decision about something. But there are times when avoiding a subject–especially those things that feed negative energy–is best for us. One thing that always seems to work for us, however, is to pray the Serenity Prayer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iRPITm-tsM This helps both of us to accept what we cannot change, have courage to change what we can change, as we ask for the wisdom to know the difference.

We expect we will be praying this prayer quite a bit in the next week. We hope you will join us.