Friday 2 November 2012

Day 98: Stress Management


Today I experienced quite a bit of stress. I recently entered my exam period and I've had to change/adapt my schedule to be more strict to make sure that I still get to everything.

Two exams have passed now and I had to put some things aside so I could focus on the last two exams, which were quite close to one another -- and now that they were over I wanted to catch up on things.

Yesterday after my exam I experienced myself 'crashing down' -- where it felt like I had been holding myself together for the last period of time in order to just get everything done and get these exams over with -- and now that they were done I just kind of 'collapsed' and crashed.

Then today I woke up with a headache, and saw that lots of things needed to be done in the house and that I had tasks to catch up with. Upon waking up with the headache and seeing all the things that I had to be done I went into a mode of 'Oh no, I'm never going to be able to finish everything today'. Also with the new birdie that we're taking care of, she's not yet eating by herself and so she's dependent on us feeding her. Gian works outside a lot and then I take care of the bird while I am inside the house / in our room. The bird is hungry almost all the time and will scream/cry for food almost every 15 minutes -- and will also scream just for the sake of screaming as this is something these type of birds like to do.

So then today I was having my headache, and I was sitting infront of my pc catching up on things and I couldn't concentrate very well because of the headache, the parrots were playing quite loudly and the birdie was screaming/crying the whole time and then the drivers from my screen started to act out, causing the document that I was busy working on to shift from side to side the whole time, which made it difficult to read and was throwing me off focus -- all in all, the pressure was building up inside me as I was having to tend to a variety of points and I felt like I was going to explode.

So then I stopped, because I saw I'd been here before, especially in terms of reacting to loud noises and screaming and just told myself to breathe. Then while we were busy doing horses I made sure to pay attention to my breathing and just being here with the movements of my body and not allow myself to go into my mind where I'd go and think/worry about all the points which were still lined up for the day.

I then went into a form of anxiety but sorted that out pretty soon and then just felt my whole body vibrating, feeling lots of accumulated energy being released -- and then my headache went away just like that (but would later also come back if I wasn't breathing lol).

So then later in the evening I was looking at this experience and I thought it had to do with not being able to cope/deal with my schedule -- but I saw that there was something 'off' about this interpretation so I decided to lay out some Osho cards to get some additional perspective.

It was quite interesting as I layed the cards specifically in terms of the point of stress I experienced today, and it's always cool to see how completely specific a card lay-out can be -- as the card in the seventh position of the 'celtic cross' (which is the general format I use to lay cards) had the 'Stress' card in position -- and the 7th position specifically represents the point of 'who you are' or 'how you experience yourself' within the issue you are facing -- so yup, quite specific.

I imagined that the reading would give some additional perspective on how to deal with my schedule -- but then as I was looking at the formation and the cards I could see I got the point wrong all along. The point had never been my schedule, my schedule was quite cool -- there's a lot of points in a day that require addressing but there is also sufficient time to address them and so far I've gotten to most of the things I have to and want to do which I am quite satisfied with. The only thing that basically bothers me is my experience of myself within my schedule -- which is the point of 'stressful' where I interpret my schedule to be hectic while it isn't all that bad.

The 9th card in the formation is supposed to represent the one's denials/desires in relation to the issue -- and the 10th card the key/outcome. For the 9th card I had the 'possibilities' card and for the 10th one I had 'the dream'.

As I saw the cards and the general layout of the formation and the cards within it, it was clear in one moment what was actually going on: it was not so much my actual schedule that was the problem, but it was the point of 'choice' (=possibilities card) with which I was fucking myself over with. Where I see what needs to be done and what I have to do -- but instead of moving myself to simply take on point by point, starting with one, taking it to completion and moving on to the next -- I would look at all the points that were layed for the rest of the day and kind of go "Pfft, look at all these things I still need to do, I'm not really feeling up to it" and start working on them within a disgruntled state of mind, kind of nagging myself a long as I go through all the points/tasks.

So what I wasn't considering within this point as the experience of stress within the context of my schedule -- was that such an experience/attitude could only exist if I was participating in 'choice' as 'all the other things I would rather be doing than what's lined up in my schedule' where I had accepted and allowed myself to assign a negative value/charge to the things I still had to do and a positive charge/value to the things I wanted to do (the point of want being 'the dream' card -- where I dream/look at what I'd rather be doing).

So within that, a friction was generated between these points as the negative of what was lined up and the positive as what I would be 'missing out' on.

It's quite interesting, there's actually an economic term for this: "opportunity cost" where the cost of something is not just the monetary factor of something but the also the personal/subjective value one has assigned to 'the next best thing one could have been doing with their money'. Where if translated to my situation, I was while working and doing my tasks, constantly experiencing the point of 'opportunity cost' as a form of 'sacrifice' where I was 'giving up' on things in order to be able to move through what required to be done. Where what I am doing and what I want to be doing results into friction because of its polarized nature which manifested into an experience of stress, which I wrongfully blamed on the design/structure/layout of my schedule and 'not having enough time' -- instead of looking at 'who I am' within my schedule -- and sorting that out.

Self Forgiveness and Self Corrective Statements to Follow...


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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Cool Leila! Thanks for sharing this!