Controlling Stress with Action
“It’s the terror of knowing what the world is about
Watching some good friends screaming
’Let me out’
Pray tomorrow gets me higher, high
Pressure on people, people on streets
Turned away from it all like a blind man
Sat on a fence but it don’t work… Under Pressure”
Aaaand, just as I thought things were beginning to lighten up on my new home front, a few new storms appeared on my horizon.
I know you’ve all experienced bumps in your road that cause a nervous “GASP” as you hit a cliff or something else ahead that you didn’t ever see coming… In my case those moments cause my whole body and brain to freeze up like a vibrating and hyperactive but immobile Energizer Bunny. I literally pull into my deepest childhood self and have no idea what to do. My brain becomes a livewire trying desperately to find protection and help. It’s completely debilitating, because neither flight nor fight works. And neither does telling myself to “relax”.
Ironically, my blood pressure doesn’t rise in those moments, instead I get dizzy, and sometimes even lose my vision and feeling on my left side. But that may be because my cortisol no longer knows what to do, having lost half its supply with my right adrenal gland in 2016. And my brain has managed a few wars too. So, I literally “Seize”.
But before you feel sorry for me, please don’t. If I’ve learned anything in my lifetime it’s that being a “victim” really doesn’t suit me. Even when the power is seemingly taken away from me like the wind in my sails. Being a victim isn’t productive. And very rarely is there a savior like my friends Hector and Tracy who is actually present and has the power to step in for the “rescue”.
Ask any survivor of anything even remotely debilitating what they do, and most likely they’ll say something like “I pivot” or “I organize” or “I give myself a job to do”. The reason for this is that many survivors are not physical fighters. They’re mental fighters. Stressors produce a different type of response: energy with no outward physical direction. So instead, the energy reverses back inwards. Which is not helpful, since it just adds up to more pressure.
And for many of these survivors it is early childhood trauma that brings them back into the state of over-energized misdirected automatic responses. Like Road Rage, but in reverse.
But like me, those survivors have likely found a way to release the pressure and stress productively. Some might use exercise, lists, cleaning, making calls. The real key is finding something to do that shifts the energy outward and into something you value and feels additive to your life, possibly even with someone else. As I did earlier today and throughout this week. I made phone calls, and I answered my own outstanding questions. And let the stress go with every action, answer, and conversation.
So, if you are struggling with pressure and stress that cause you to “seize” or stop functioning, I hope you can remember the words of David Bowie. Please don’t just “sit on the fence”, because, I promise you, that will only make the stress and pressure worse.
Holly Lynch is a 20+ year communications veteran and life-long social impact advocate and strategist who has helped individuals, educational leaders, and companies tackle the toughest challenges in their worlds.
Having survived countless life setbacks and two rounds with terminal cancer, while seeing the country-wide collapse of the systems and safety nets for the most vulnerable in and outside our communities, she is now shifting her life and career trajectories to focus on coaching those facing down fundamental shifts and transitions as they try to navigate and rebuild their lives, institutions and businesses during these unprecedented times.