A few weeks ago I had the privilege of speaking to a group of women in our church at an event. This is a copy of that talk!
So something that has interested me for quite a while now is STRESS.
What is stress? According to the dictionary Stress is a state of mental or emotional strain or tension resulting from adverse or very demanding circumstances.
I looked up some stats, and apparently when asked to rate our stress from 1 to 10, the average answer given is 6. So, it sounds to me like we want to be clear that we’re ok- we have it together… but don’t expect too much out of me because I AM just slightly more stressed than I should be. Women report on average, a 5% higher answer than men. And I’m sure none of you will be surprised that generationally speaking, Millennials report the highest levels of stress.
So, what are we all so stressed about? Beats me. That’s not what I’m here to talk about tonight. The truth is that stress is there in all stages of life, and its real, and it’s probably not going anywhere.
Maybe your 4 year old wakes up 4 times a night. Maybe your baby won’t take a bottle. Maybe you have deadlines at work, or bills to pay, or fundraisers to plan, or harvest meals to bring, and farms to help run. You might be caught up in the kids-are-busy stage of life. Hockey practice and gymnastics, and guitar lessons, and PTA meetings.
No doubt about it. We. Are. Busy.
And we tend to adapt pretty well. I’ve noticed that when you ask someone who appears to be busier than yourself, how they do it, a common answer is “You just do” with a shrug of the shoulders.
Your body starts working on less sleep. You learn what meals you can make in 30 minutes or less that your whole family will eat, and you really start using your head and saving your feet as my mom used to call it. I can do a sweep of my kitchen and living room and get more picked up and cleaned up in 5 minutes than my husband can do in 20.
….I *have* been known to lose important papers in said sweep. Actually, once I lost a cheque for $50 that was in one of our kids’ birthday cards. But that’s neither here nor there…
Ok, back on track. We’re a stressed out bunch, probably because we’re so busy. So, what do we do about it?
Now, I’m not going to, but I imagine that if I asked you all to yell out answers, one of you would inevitably shout out “Self Care!”
Oh… self care.
I have such a love and hate relationship with self care. There have been times in my life where I have actually thought that I simply don’t have time for self care, so can you please stop telling me that I need to fit a bubble bath into my evening?? And than other times where I have very honestly told friends that self care is how I got through some of the roughest parts of post partum depression.
The thing about self care is that it has become very “buzzy” You know, like a buzz word that becomes very popular in the media. So, because it’s talked about so much it has very sneakily become commercialized.
A quick google search on self care will bring up all kinds of ads for bath bombs, chocolates and of course wine. Because you know us women love our wine!
I’m all for treating myself, but I’m not a fan of being fed the idea of what self care is from some corporation. Also, I think sometimes self care end up being things that one might not even expect. Like for me, I feel happy and relaxed when my budget is balanced, so sitting down with a coffee to lay out our budget and maybe make a graph and color in the edges… that sounds like a lovely use of my quiet time. I know. Soooo Type A.
One of the nicest things I ever did for myself was go out for dinner all by myself with a book. A hot meal I didn’t have to cook and no need to talk to anyone. It was glorious!
The other part of self care that I find a little concerning is the escapism of it. The concept that you just need to get through your work week so you can finally get to the weekend and have that break. Or that you work like a dog for 50 weeks to get that glorious vacation. OR, that you get all the way to your kids bedtimes so now you can finally relax… With a phone or a tv in front of your face.
Let me stop right here. I am describing myself. I truly am. I am the one who has a 4 year old that wakes up 4 times a night. I am the one that runs a busy day home and has toddlers pulling at me all day long, always needing something. And so yes, I am the one that used to close my daughter’s door, collapse on the couch and zone out with Facebook, Pinterest and Netflix.
Now don’t get me wrong, and don’t worry. I’m not going to tell you that you can’t relax in the evening. Go ahead. Watch your Netflix, scroll through Facebook. You do you. There is nothing wrong with relaxing. The question is though, is there a difference between relaxing and rest?
I’m not sure if this will resonate with you, but for me it seems like when I relax, it’s just like a pause button. I hit the pause button many times throughout the day- The kids all run outside to play? Aaah, perfect. I’ll sit down with a cup of coffee and a book or my phone and PAUSE. They run back in and I’m back on. I think we’d all agree that pausing a busy day is a good and healthy thing to do. Pausing our bodies and minds for a few minutes is often necessary for survival when you’re running after little ones, or when you’re jumping from work to picking up kids, to making dinner. Or when you’re running a full day of errands caring for yourself, your grown kids and grandkids.
There is more to us than just our physical self, isn’t there? If we neglect our mental and spiritual state, we’ll be in pretty big trouble.
Did you know that you can actually teach yourself to relax? Our brains are fascinating things. When something happens in our life repeatedly, and we react the same way repeatedly, the synapses in our brain create neuro pathways.
Let’s say our dog runs in the house with muddy paws. We know it creates a lot of work to clean up. We feel mad. The stress hormone, cortisol is released, we feel our heart beat faster, our face feels flush, we might even yell at the dog. After a few dozen times, this physiological response is almost instant.
Sometimes the pathways were created a long time ago, and our response doesn’t always make sense to us.
Maybe you grew up with an angry Mom who was quick to yell and slam doors when she was mad, and now when your boss calls you down to her office, you immediately start sweating, and your heart starts to beat faster. The physiological response doesn’t necessarily match the situation, but because of previous pathways that were made, and that fact that our brain perceives this as a similar threat, it happens anyways.
Now, did you know that we can intentionally make new pathways? It is actually possible to teach yourself to self regulate your emotions, and to have a positive reaction to things, rather than negative. Not easy, but possible.
When I was pregnant with our son Elliott, my midwife told me that one of the hardest things to learn was to intentionally relax your body. I had no idea what she was talking about, and I didn’t think much of it until the birth of our daughter a few years later. During her pregnancy I spent a lot of time in the bath. And each time I was in the bath I listened to the same 3-4 songs. It wasn’t really intentional, it was just a new album that I was really enjoying, and it became my “bath music” I would sink into the tub and turn on the first song, and immediately feel relaxed. Now fast forward to her labour and delivery. I had her at home, (because I’m a bit of a hippy), and so of course I had a giant pool of hot water, and I got into it, and almost without thinking I turned on this album… and again, without even thinking about it, I became incredibly relaxed.
I didn’t really realize it until I was reflecting on her birth after the fact, but I had unknowingly taught myself to self regulate. It was like Pavlov’s dogs, except instead of a bell causing the dogs to salivate, the music caused my physiological response of all my muscles relaxing and my mind feeling clear. I felt 100% relaxed and in control.
Her birth was in fact, amazing. Very short labour and she came out in one push. Now this story gets even more interesting…
It was so amazing that when I thought about how calm and in control I felt during her birth, it made me feel calm and in control. And so when I started to experience post partum anxiety and I had trouble sleeping, I would lay in bed and recount her birth, step by step, minute by minute to calm myself down.
It became my parachute.
See, anxiety is like climbing a steep cliff. You get higher and higher and each time you look down you realize it’s going to be a treacherous journey down. You feel more and more anxious as you go up, but you don’t see any other way other than up because going down looks so scary and dangerous. A friend once told me that the goal is to find a parachute. A safe way down. For some people it is thinking of a time when they were their happiest, or when they felt a strong sense of safety. For me it was feeling calm and in control, because anxiety for me is feeling out of control.
I find it fascinating that you can train yourself to calm down. Our mind is a powerful thing.
You know, there really is so much that we can do to calm down our busy stressful lives. We can take some things off our plates. We can practice self care. We can learn how to self regulate our emotional responses. We can gain control.
It sounds like a lot of doing though, doesn’t it? It sounds like a lot of effort in and of ourselves. And I don’t know about you, but I have been in a place where a lot of what I’ve talked about tonight would actually feel like too much.
And that is why I am so thankful that I know Jesus. I don’t just know OF him, but I know who He is, and what it is He is offering, and friends, I’m here to tell you that He wants us to have REST.
He wants us to have so much more than the counterfeit concept of relaxing and self care that we’ve been fed by media and society. How do you feel after you’ve watched 2 or 3 more episodes of the show you’re currently binge watching? Have all your days stresses disappeared? Do you feel less anxious? Less overwhelmed? The funny thing about a pause button is that when you press play again, you’re right where you left off.
True rest doesn’t leave you where you were. True rest give you peace. It lets you know that you might not be in control, but thats ok, because the God of the Universe whom has all your best interests in mind is the one steering the ship.
I think that true rest can only be found when we can give God the control. If you’ve spent any amount of time in a church or around Christian friends, I’m sure you’ve heard this before. But…. what does this even mean? How does someone “give it to God” like you always hear about?
This has been a journey for me- one that I’m still on. I didn’t grow up following Jesus, and once I did finally get to know Him, I was a pretty independent woman who was well established in my own thoughts of how things should go.
I was stubborn. That’s what I’m trying to say. Soooo stubborn, and so sure that I had it all figured out.
So trusting that someone else had a better path for my life didn't come naturally. I think my problem wasn’t just with trusting God, but also with trusting what everyone had to say about Him. I would listen to sermons and to friends tell me how much easier life was when I gave all parts of my life to Him. Not just Sunday mornings, but all of my worries and stresses. It sounded nice, but also too good to be true. And I was just supposed to take their word for it? So I think I just realized that I would have to figure it out for myself, and the best way to do that was to spend some quality time with God.
Over the years this has looked different in different seasons of life. When I first became a Christian I read a lot of books about God- I loved to hear other people’s stories about encounters they’ve had with Him. There was a time when we had no kids that I would wake up early before work to read my bible and journal. There have been times that I have felt closest to God simply by listening to worship music and praying. Lately I have had a renewed thirst for reading my bible, but the thought of waking up early was just… terrible. Remember the 4 year old that wakes up 4 times a night?
Thankfully the Lord, in his kindness gave me the idea to use the pocket of time right after my kids go to bed, before Chris and I sit down together to watch a show together. What used to happen is I would leave Audrey’s room, and Chris would leave Elliott’s room, and we would both sit on our phones for approximately 30-40 minutes just totally zoned out. It was the ultimate pause button. Then finally one of us would pull ourselves out of the fog and say “Hi! Want to hang out now?”
I realized this was a complete waste of time. It was lost time, really. I can promise you that nothing new had happened on Facebook or Instagram that I desperately needed to catch up on, and whatever funny meme or gif that I scrolled through would be there the next time I picked up my phone.
So for a while now I have had a new routine. I close Audrey’s door, and I sit down at the kitchen table with my bible and I read. Sometimes I journal a little - just jot down my thoughts on what I think God might be saying to me. Sometimes I just read a few chapters and that’s it. Either way, I am spending time with God, getting to know Him better through his word.
It’s only 20 or 30 minutes out of my day, but it feels like a breathe of fresh air when you’ve been stuck in a stale room for days.
I talked about brain pathways and muscle memory before, but what if our hearts had a muscle memory too? If we can start small, and let ourselves trust God in a few seemingly unimportant decisions or scenarios where we need His guidance, I think we can start to create a muscle memory where unconsciously we will automatically respond with trust in Him for the big things too.
When an athlete trains over and over at practice they might feel like it’s pointless to throw that same pass the same way over and over. Why do they need to run that drill for the hundredth time? It’s because one day they’ll be in the big game. And all the pressure will be on. Everything will count on that pass, and if they’ve practiced enough, it will be muscle memory. Their arm will move perfectly with just the right amount of force, and they will throw the ball perfectly, without even thinking about it.
Trusting God with all your worries and stress doesn’t happen overnight. But when we can flex our prayer muscle and ask Him to help us, even with the small stuff, it will become second nature, and we will know that we can trust Him with the big stuff too.
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