What You Do and Don’t Stress Over Is Your Choice
Nobody lives stress-free.
Life is crazy. Much of this is by its very nature. Existing in this world, in the body you call your own, is fraught with all kinds of craziness in and of itself. The aging process alone is enough to drive a person mad.
Then there are the people, places, and things – both tangible and intangible – that are part of life but not you. I don’t care where your politics lie, you can’t tell me that what’s happening in the world today is in any way, shape, or form, normal. This is all crazy.
Both from within and without, you’re presented with a sometimes seemingly endless stream of craziness. Then, you’re presented with a myriad of opinions, viewpoints, concepts, ideologies, and so on. Unless you’ve successfully made yourself a hermit, disconnected from it all and living off the grid, this can, will, and does impact you.
The result of the craziness of life is stress. Stress will do all sorts of things to you on every imaginable level. It can hit you mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and even physically. Stress will drive you but also still you. How it impacts you will differ depending on circumstances, happenstance, time, place, space, and numerous factors in and out of your control.
Identifying a given stressor, what it is, why it is, and how it impacts you is important to your overall health, wellness, and wellbeing. Because, ultimately, what you do and don’t stress over is your choice.
The reality of stress
Like it or not, stress is a completely natural part of life. At least in the abstract. How stress manifests is as wildly variable as each of the 8 billion of us living on this planet.
Stress can be physiological, biological, and psychological. It can be internal and external, literal and metaphorical, material and immaterial. According to the World Health Organization,
“Stress can be defined as a state of worry or mental tension caused by a difficult situation. Stress is a natural human response that prompts us to address challenges and threats in our lives. Everyone experiences stress to some degree. The way we respond to stress, however, makes a big difference to our overall well-being.”
That last bit is the key. “The way we respond to stress, however, makes a big difference to our overall well-being.” Part of the challenge with this is that it can and will impact you on every level – mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical. Stress causes depression, anxiety, questions about beliefs and values, and even heart attacks, strokes, and other physical issues.
Because stress is utterly, completely natural and unavoidable, you have no choice but to deal with it. Because when you don’t, it will fuck with you in all sorts of ways. Stress you don’t address will creep into your psyche and do you harm, sometimes even mortal harm.
But you are not without the ability to cope with any given stressor.
What you do and don’t stress over is your choice
The truth is that most of the causes of stress are external. Other people, both near and far, do shit that impacts you and your life. This ranges from the way-removed government officials and agencies to the slightly-less removed bosses, ministers, and police officers to the nearby immediate friends, family, coworkers, and others you interact with regularly.
I find that if I get sucked down the rabbit hole of social media and start to fixate on the ongoing news of this, that, and the other horrible thing various so-called “leaders” are doing, it stresses me out. And other than voting against them, protesting them, boycotting businesses that support them, there’s not a fucking thing I can do about it.
Likewise, stressing out about anything outside of my immediate control, like taxes, the next stupid thing a well-meaning relative might say, or seeing a friend going through a rough patch, also needlessly injures me.
How is it a choice? Because rather than allow myself to get stressed out over the things I can’t control, I can choose instead to shift my focus, where and how to place my energy, and by looking inside myself to understand what is causing me to experience stress and how it manifests in me.
Yes, this takes us to active conscious awareness – i.e., mindfulness. When you pause to look inside yourself and examine what you’re thinking, what and how you’re feeling, what your intentions are, if you’re taking a positive or negative approach to things, and what you are or aren’t doing, you gain clarity.
More than that, you gain insight into what you can and do control. The only thing you really, truly, can and do control. You.
You choose and you decide
We live in a world of incredible, surreal amounts of distraction. Social media is a huge culprit. Then you have email, TV, streaming services, and tons of other things at your fingertips that distract you. Specifically, they distract you from looking within or thinking and feeling entirely of your own accord.
Hence, you find that things you have zero control over are stressing you out. Before you know it, you’re depressed, flustered, and anxious. In time, unchecked, you start to have trouble catching your breath, develop nastier physical symptoms, and stress changes how you live.
You have the power to stop that by choosing what you do and don’t stress over. No, you can’t irradicate and ignore stressors. You can, however, choose what is bothering you and then find ways to deal with it.
Give yourself the grace and the permission to take stock of who, what, where, how, and why you are. Take any necessary break from social media, engaging in discussions of things you can’t do jack shit about, and where you put your focus and attention. It is not selfish in any way, shape, or form, to choose what you do and don’t stress over.
Nobody lives stress-free. But everybody is empowered to choose what they do and don’t stress over. Recognizing and acknowledging this opens numerous paths for you to find more calm, get more centered and balanced, and make your stressors manageable.
What’s causing you stress today, and what, if anything, can you do about it?
This is the six-hundred-ninety-fourth (694) exploration of my Pathwalking philosophy. These weekly essays are my ideas for – and experiences with – applying mindfulness and positivity to walk along a chosen path of life to consciously create reality.
I share this journey as part of my desire to make a difference in this world and empower as many people as I can with conscious reality creation.
Thank you for joining me. Feel free to repost and share this.
The first year of Pathwalking, including expanded ideas, is available here. Check out my author website for the rest of my published fiction and nonfiction works.
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