Ok, you are someone who has a lot to be thankful for.
You take a birds eye-view of your life and you feel blessed. You have a great career and a full lifestyle at home. Your career is looking up. Your weekends are booked, back to back. Yet, you feel squeezed. In the small hours of the night, your fears, stress, your-incomplete-list, your body aches come to haunt you. Your day ends, as usual, chasing your deadlines. You fall asleep, and then you start to wake up in the wee hours, thinking about your daily list. Night time, is the time to replenish your body, not the time to be productive with your work. Your body and its wellbeing are as essential to your success, as your skill sets. When everything you dreamed of is coming true, why is it that you feel burnt out and depleted? Is this not the reality and life you always dreamt of? The one you have – right now, shaping up every single day, working hard to make it come true?
The real question to ponder on is : why is your current reality not of happiness and spaciousness? Of a deep sense of thriving? We as dream-chasers forget a very simple truth. We are humans, not machines. In balance we thrive, in imbalance we wilt. Growth and balance are not inimical to each other. On the other hand, the more balanced you are, the more you can grow in the direction you want. Balance is simply good little habits that you carry with you, where-ever you go. Just like our daily survival habits. Such as of brushing our teeth first thing in the morning, and coffee breaks. Similarly we have to feed the ‘thrive’ zone with daily little habits, that continuously build up a buffer. Without this balance inducing habits built into our lifestyle, it will be very hard to produce a zen zone that you can fall back on.
The most important concept to understand is what is stress? Stress comes in many forms, emotional, physical, thoughts or behaviour. A little bit of stress puts the mind and body in an alert mode, ready to deal with the situation at hand. Everyone experiences it from time to time, however it is its escalation and inability to revert back, that concerns people suffering from its debilitating effects. Stress layered upon stress, without a break, sneaks upon you like a thief.
Stress, or rather unrelenting stress, expresses itself in many ways: illness, frustration, and irritability, disturbed sleep, worry, or anxiety. Stress is often expressed as anxiety that is constantly holding the person in a heightened state. That means that you are experiencing palpitations, shortness of breath, restlessness, indigestion, nausea, or emotional outbursts. Instead of engaging with life, anxiety grabs you. With your morning steam, you run your errands, with caffeine thrown in, you shift gears into a high octave. Your fuel tank is running low. There is no rest, no rejuvenation to empower you.
