I am most definitely not alone in stress department. One doesn’t have to be insanely busy to experience the tensions of modern life. Even though stress is most obvious in a work-a-day world… where deadlines and demands are the common denominator… it lives in the simplest of every day events and thoughts. It is about whether we can do this or whether that is going to happen. It is about watching the news or listening to people hate upon each other because, it would seem, that is the only way for the world to communicate these days. It is about whether something can be afforded… or thinking too much of the future. It is about wondering if you are able to live up to a potential or the more than often incorrect feeling that you are going to be discovered as a fraud. It is about moving to a new place while leaving familiarity behind. It is about starting a new routine or not knowing what your routine is going to be. It is about loss. It is about too much gain. It is about overwhelm… it is about not enough. Stress is potentially in everything and lives everywhere….

Including the paragraph above…. because I don’t know about you but it certainly stressed ME out.

There was time in my life that I dreaded stress. I thought it represented a “period” of time and that there were certain indicators or triggers that started the process. Naively I would suspect that when I wasn’t too busy at work or feeling the anxieties of one thing or another … that meant I was not stressed.

Then I learned.

Stress is emotional. Stress is hereditary. Stress is about personality and pre-disposition. Stress IS. I have been stressed out on holiday, while sleeping, getting massages and during sex (whoops… too much information?) Stress is something that has been a piece of who I am for as long as I can remember. Not until I realized it, however, did I discover that it isn’t going away… so I had to befriend it and put it to work for me… and not against me. I needed to capitalize on the positives of stress (What? There are positives?) and make sure that the benefits took over and started to outweigh the negatives.

Keeping this in mind I also learned by taming or (dare I say) controlling my stress I was able to start becoming LESS stressed out. At first I wondered if that would be possible… or if I would be the one that would find myself in a stressful way as I tried to create the habits of making the evident and malleable tensions that color my personality work for me. Idiosyncratic, eh? Getting stressed out about dealing with stress sounds like being in a rush in traffic so you can get to yoga. It doesn’t tend to work together. But we all know that habits have to be created in a series of repetitive actions and the period of creation is often uncomfortable and almost counterproductive.

Definitely frustrating.

But once a soul realizes that there is power in anything you put your mind to you can take the world around you and use it. Today I see the flaws that surround me… and I understand them. They are perfect… and they are imperfect. They are a bit of what I don’t want to be and a bit of either who I am or who I have been. Removing the judgment allows me to concentrate on the positives that are involved in the simplest and most complex pieces of my daily experience.

You have no idea how hard it is to recognize the stresses in driving a car in Los Angeles traffic and stop yourself from letting it matter. That habit involves a constant reminder that you do not “need” to be anywhere any quicker and that the people who are doing all these ill-fitted and inane moves all around you are blips on the radar in the grand scheme of who you are or who you would intend to be. Stop. Breathe. Keep driving with a smile. It is amazing how much that smile will work. It often turns into a laugh…. and before you know it you are at your destination… with less stress than you would ever have expected.

In my world I have never quite been a victim… but without knowing it we can allow ourselves to be victimized by the stresses and the more “powerful” personalities in the world around us. That isn’t necessary and to combat one does not have to become louder or more obnoxious than the next guy. Instead you must use what is in your life to your best benefit. All of it. The place you live, the weather of the day, the mood of the people around you, your job, your education, your desire to learn, your need to rest and relax. All of it should be seized in order to maximize the potential of the adrenalin within it.

Stress as a motivator.

Everything is potential if you want it to be so.

Be Happy. Be Well. Be.

Fear is incapacitating. It drives the car. It makes the decisions. It chooses the fates. It is so very easy for me to know how things are going to turn out because of experiences I have already had. If it happened before it is bound to happen again, right? History repeats? What’s the point of doing something if I know how it is going to turn out and Buddha knows it is not going to turn out well.

Does anybody know how hard that is on an intelligent thinker? It’s mind-boggling that I am able to put thoughts together rationally or complete sentences on some days much less work through the myriad of problems, jobs, challenges, fire-drills and flash floods that the world tends to gift me with. Tied up in a bow none the less…. handed to me with a smile and a knowing malevolence. Give it to Mikey, he’ll eat it.

But then… isn’t that what life is all about? Working our way through the maze? Some days I can navigate that puppy without a hitch. Left then right, then right and right again, left and back, up around the corner and WHAM… I have found my way through and to the other side of all the many things that I am here to accomplish.

Other days I am lost. I carry the shovel and find myself unconsciously digging until there is a hole that I am looking up from dazed and confused as to how the hell I got there in the first place. Funny thing about those holes, however. Look carefully. In every hole that I have ever gotten myself into there was a means to pull myself up. A ladder, some steps, a rope…. a means of obvious and easy escape from a trap that I have undoubtedly built for myself.

So… one might ask… why continue to dig the holes? Hell if I know. I suppose that is why I write these blogs… here is where I find my answers (outside of my journals where I can write about you without you knowing.) It is a known fact that we mere humans can talk ourselves into things and just as easily talk ourselves out of them. I do my schizophrenia much better in written form.

I am a very well adjusted man. I am a thinker. I am smart and I am aware. My human side is built on emotion and experience. I have had many of each. I live in my world sympathizing and empathizing. I abhor injustice but I cannot find myself too embroiled in the anger that is necessary for that side of the human spirit. Perhaps that will be my next glorious step on the path. I do know that when I find myself in fear in places that I have been in fear before there is a reason. It means that I am creating it and it may be time to move myself to different pastures… stop in the path and take that right or left into a new avenue.

Change.

But, then I ask myself. If I change… what will happen to this. Where will that be? How will I be able to that? Who is going to…? So I stop and I decide, instead, that I will plot out the path step by step and decide what the answers will be… even if I am not all that happy with what they may be. Sound familiar? Fear: False evidence appearing real. It stops me from growing and changing. It stunts my moments and stalls my happiness. It isn’t something I would suggest and it is something that we all experience whether we want to admit it or not. Can I stop it? I wouldn’t dream of it. Some of the fear I have experienced has provided me with the most cathartic and amazing breakthroughs in my life.

Right now I am about due for another one.

But fear isn’t how I will get there. Letting GO of the fear is. I am tired of many things to the point of fearing they will not end. By fearing this I am holding on to the results because I am trying desperately to figure out the way that I can manipulate and push them into the model of clay that I see fit for what I would “presume” my best answer.

Historically the best results come from heaving the heavy sigh…. and letting go of the results. Let the chips fall where they may. I walk through my day with the best intention and the promise to be and do my best. The results will happen but they will not be mine to choose. But the process is illuminating and free of the fear that causes the problems in the first place. The brush is already clearing on the path. Somewhere up ahead I will see the turn. I am packed and ready to go… I travel light. Breathing… breathing… sighhhhhhh…

Be Happy. Be Well. Be.