It is now the most talked about and many are trying to understand what it is. I am talking about STRESS! At the root, stress is a natural part of living from which there is no escape. Some people try to numb themselves by thinking they can avoid stress.
The fight or flight mechanism is triggered by the Amygdala and either a person reacts to the stressful situation or tries to escape from it. There is nothing wrong with avoiding painful and traumatic events. It is much needed to keep us from getting burned out. But if escape and avoiding becomes a habitual way of dealing with stress then the stress increases, in fact, it multiplies.
There is no magic pill for stress as everyone has a fair share of stress. Managing 9 to 5 jobs, travelling to work in maddening traffic, managing chores, relationships at work with the boss and peers and with the spouse and older children at home all add up to the stress.
One cannot escape from dealing with the problems or run away from them, they don’t just go away. What goes away when we tune out of our problems or run away from them is our power to grow, to change and heal. Facing our problems is the only way to get past the problems.
When you are running away from the problems in life, you are avoiding facing the people the lessons that are needed to be learnt in that situation and keep forcing them away by walking away from life experiences.
But when you face them, the lessons you have to learn are brought to light, wisdom is accessed by mobilising inner resources to face our problems artfully, training, practise, and a lot of first-hand experience in all sorts of life problems are required to develop such skills so that they work for you, when you need them.