It seems these days that so many health practitioners from diverse modalities are citing stress as the major component in disease. We have just experienced massive stress in the Pacific Northwest from a snow and ice storm. Throughout all time entire civilizations have disappeared when some crucial variable changes. Today we have crucial variables in our energy systems. Having the power out for an extended period of time would bring our current version of civilization down. I believe on some primitive level of knowing, we know just how vulnerable a population can be. We remember Hurricane Katrina and many memories go much further back.
I think that disruptions like the one we recently experienced break the everyday trance like state we live in. When the power is out and people are trapped in their homes, fear and stress are a common response. If people were more prepared this wouldn’t be as much of an issue, however it would still have impact. From talking with people since the storm there seems to be a great desire to not consider how bad something like this could become — back to the prior trance state. Or as some would say, no point in dwelling on the past.
When a major event takes place, for example, the great depression, there is usually a shift in the thinking of the population. My parents because of being in the group experiencing the great depression, were forever changed in the way they conserved everything. They did without, saved money, and tended to be more prepared mentally and physically to deal with such stresses.
Currently our group experience of the change in the fortunes and the nature of America will have long lasting effects on most of us. In many ways we are learning what our parents knew. We are also experiencing a “mini-shift” in our consciousness from the storm.
So, stress is a very difficult thing to live with. In ancient times, stress was not as continuous as it is now. I mean, if a big storm was approaching we would not have days of broadcasts filling people with fear and anxiety, the storm would come and we would deal with it in the present, the now.
We are immersed in stressful lives. We are bombarded by the media. Something made me open Bruce Lipton’s book The Biology of Belief last night and he wrote: “We live in a “Get Set” [on your mark, get set, go] world and an increasing body of research suggests that our hyper-vigilant lifestyle is severely impacting the health of our bodies, our daily lives (particularly the media) are constantly activating [this stress] priming our bodies for action…. Almost every major illness that people acquire has been linked to chronic stress.”
Stress, fight or flight, strong emotions, fear masked as anger, hurt, fear of pain or loss; what are we to do about it? Back to one of my favorite book titles again, Your Body Believes Every Word You Say, it also believes what you think and remember consciously and unconsciously. You become what you think, you become what you say, as ever is your mind the creator of all aspects of your reality. (consider psychosomatic possibilities)
And, as much as I focus on our minds and important causal agents in our lives there is something else to consider. Sometimes stress, fear and anxiety are coming from physiological conditions already created by our thoughts and actions. Choices can result in injured bodies. Diet can lead to imbalances. The functioning, health, and balance of the nervous system and the endocrine glands is another important area.
Stress is a very big subject area.