Do you feel it? Is the stomach acid collecting at your core telling you that your stress level has just advanced from a “code yellow” to a “code orange?” Are you at a “code red?” How is maintaining that Positive Mental Attitude working for you - really? As I find stress rising again in my own life, the question of how to manage it “well” and to preserve a Positive Mental Attitude has been on my mind. I’m no guru on this subject. When I pose the question, it’s because I invite any wisdom that you might have to offer to me and to others. Please feel free to leave comments and I’ll share them. At 46 years old, I’m certainly no stranger to stress, but at this stage, I’d like to live through any new experience of it better than I have in the past. I don’t like stress. I wouldn’t say that I “invite” it into my life, but some people might think so; those who question why I seem to struggle with conforming to their idea of a “normal” life. Even though I dislike rising stress as much as anyone else, and would love to avoid it, it’s here nonetheless. So, I can’t help but see it as an opportunity to test whatever growth I “think” I’ve achieved at this point in life, and as a chance to emerge wiser-still on the other side of any new, “hand-to-hand” combat with it. Perhaps I’ve grown numb enough to consider any current stress I’m facing to be just another challenge to rise to; one that will ultimately pass as others have. That said, I do recognize that the source of my stress may differ greatly from yours. I don’t know how I might approach the subject given something so significant as the loss of a spouse or child for example. I don’t know if I’d have as much to say if I or my child was facing a terminal illness. As I said, I’m no guru. I’m just trying to establish a few new guide-rails for myself this time, and to write about the experience of it. Maybe you’ll gain something from that endeavor. Maybe you’ll completely disagree and think I'm foolish. Feel free to let me know either way.

Speaking of foolishness, I think I’ve fancied myself as a bit of an escape artist in the past. I’ve narrowly averted disaster multiple times, and given myself credit for it. I took personal pride in unlikely fortunate outcomes, but I’ve grown less inclined to take such credit. Bound-up in a box with chains - hanging upside down over hot lava - I’ve experienced plenty of panic - reacting to it in a manner not so becoming an artist of any acclaim - but I was happy to accept the applause afterward for my performance and good fortune. Sure, I’ve exercised some ingenuity and tried to think “outside the box,” but there has always been a magical key to my survival, supplied just at the right time to remove the chains and restore to me fullness of life once more. I didn’t supply these keys, although past efforts and encounters with other souls have always seemed to manifest and deliver these keys into my possession at the time of greatest need. This master key has seemed to rise like Excalibur from the lake of myth. Looking back, if it had been up to my ingenuity and timing, I would have fumbled the master key to my survival and dropped it out-of-reach, into the void, every time. No, the master key has always come when it was supposed to come, and I sense now that it has a power beyond ensuring mere survival. Today, I’m not so keen on taking credit for the effect of it, especially as I wait at the water’s edge once more with expectation. Soon, I plan to write a 6-part series on why I say all of this, but for now, I’m just going to stick to this topic of “stress” and the hope that good habits can be preserved under the weight of it.

“Escape” is actually a very good word to contemplate on the topic of stress. It’s a word whose meaning has shifted for me as I’ve examined how I’ve dealt with stress in the past; and how I’m tempted to deal with it today. As my Faith has grown in the invisible, I’ve become less concerned with escaping the circumstances that cause my stress, and more aware of the unhealthy ways that I’ve chosen to “escape” stress itself. We all have our “escapes,” and I’ve begun to see how prior coping methods that I once found innocent, controllable, and justifiable were actually no help to me at all, but rather contributed to the very stress that I sought to escape. For example, concern was recently raised about my increasing tolerance for alcohol. Where I might have been defensive in the past, a chance disclosure by a friend about his struggles with alcohol led me to step back and to consider the consequences of adopting destructive behavior at such a critical moment in my own life. Almost immediately, I began to correlate sleepless nights of worry to the day-drinking I had justified as “taking the edge off” to “preserve my focus” or to - funny enough - “claim rest.” Cutting out alcohol entirely not only helped with reclaiming a good night’s rest, but it also reduced headaches and weight gain. I also then came to consider the risk and the irony of dulling my wits with antiseptic, when those wits are essential to preserving my reputation as a problem solver - one capable of overcoming, among other things, issues that cause stress. Was my alcohol intake controllable? Ultimately, “yes,” since I stopped immediately, but it was an eye opener for me. A warning. I began thinking about other coping behaviors I’ve historically displayed, and I soon drew similar conclusions about them. There are so many tempting “escapes” that are really anything but escapes. It’s interesting that society accepts, if not outright encourages, a lot of these escapes. Examples may be day-drinking, overeating, overspending, abusing over-the-counter meds, over-caffeinating, smoking, vaping, swiping with excessive screen time, browsing adult content, gambling, and so on. Considering that stress is often felt most when the stakes are at their highest, the risk posed by any one or a combination of these “lies” might well be more terrifying than the origin of the stress that tempted their use to begin with. These worldly answers for dealing with stress seem somehow orchestrated in malice against me - intended to see me fail and fall into despair. Is there any question why we see so many broken people out there? They’re “us” further down any of these slippery slopes.

Again, I’m no expert, but it seems to me that a lot of stress results from losing some sense of security, or from the perceived threat of losing security in one form or another. Security is perhaps an inadequate word. It has its own connotations. By security, I really mean something - anything - that seemed available in a comfortable supply before, but now seems to be uncomfortably limited. This could be a loss of income and material provision. It could be the loss of love and companionship. Maybe it’s a loss of confidence, beauty, or stature. Maybe it’s a loss of health and vitality. Or perhaps we could just say that we feel stress with any loss of “control” over something that we felt was totally within our control before. Stress is a consequence of our human condition, isn’t it? We live out a strange, dual existence every day, don’t we? In one sense, we feel somehow immortal and capable of controlling the matter around us. And yet, in another sense, we’re faced with things beyond our control. They float around us at high speed like menacing meteors, threatening an impact. Limitations have a gravity all of their own; gravity that tugs at the pit of our stomach when they cross our orbit. Their vibrations seem to resonate uncontrollably within us like a tuning fork - raising an acute awareness of our own innate, human limitations. Suddenly, we’re no longer gods. We respond with questions like “why this” and “why now.” The gravity of these foreign invaders can eject us out of our own comfortable place in space and time, and send us hurdling into a colder, darker universe. When we come face-to-face with needing something that is now, or will be soon, in limited supply, or absent entirely, we experience stress. So how do we deal with the fear of “losing control?”

As I was considering the irony of how our temptations to escape daily stress often lead us right to it, it struck me that perhaps the reverse is also true. If stress itself is merely a temptation to fear loss or to see only what is visibly lacking, then perhaps “gratitude” for what has been provided is an antidote. Can I turn fear and frustration for what “isn’t” into gratitude for what “is?” Am I really thankful for “my daily bread?” Can I say, it is sufficient “today” for everything that seems to be in limited supply - be it rest, money, time, companionship, health, productivity? Is it possible to turn a temptation to see my glass half empty, into thankfulness for a glass half full? Can I run to “gratitude” instead of running to “despair?” I contemplated this idea with a smile, as if it was some great discovery, unknown to the ages until the universe chose me to reveal it to. Of course the idea isn’t new and I’m no philosopher king. But, “here,” I said, “is a new guide-rail for dealing with my stress - a new and exciting tool to use!” I almost got away with what seemed to be a quick and easy fix - a simple behavioral change, and one that I could exercise and perfect. But I quickly lost my smile and enthusiasm for it. The notion felt incomplete, and that bothered me. I thought about this for a while and it occurred to me that seeing my daily bread as sufficient for my needs alone is not enough. It has to be viewed as sufficient only to be given away to others in expectation of being multiplied by Faith. Yeah, that's a “saintly” kind of Faith, isn’t it? I’ll be working on that one, and I’ll let you know how it goes... When you consider the people who tend to inspire us the most, isn’t it always those who choose to see their limited portion as sufficient to be given away in unlimited supply to others? We then tend to celebrate the enormous impact of what was an unlikely outcome, don’t we?

In the end, it could be said that “stress is the enemy of good habits.” Good habits often break down under stressful circumstances unless there is a strong belief that those circumstances will be overcome triumphantly - even if there is little “visible” reason to think so. This “strong belief” is “Faith” - real Faith - acted out. Faith is not a word that should be limited to represent any single religious confession or divide us into group identities. It isn’t “limited” at all. That is the point. That is its power. Just as stress is the enemy of good habits, fear is the enemy or rather the opposite of the Faith needed to press on. Faith calls the master key from the invisible realm, but we are mortal. We lack strength. Gratitude may put us on a pathway to Faith, but staying on that path requires strength that we often lack. Yet, even here we find people acknowledging their own weakness without hesitation, while demonstrating a capacity to overcome stress and to avoid falling back into their bad habits. And why? Because these people - from all walks of life - have developed the Faith that they can rely on the strength of their Creator, held accountable in community with other like-minds.