Healthy Stress Mindset

Community Drop In Group 4/8/20
Lindsay Bridges

The Guest House
​
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice.
meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.
Be grateful for whatever comes.
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
— Rumi, translation by Coleman Barks

In this current world situation, I come back to the wisdom of Rumi’s The Guest House often. He is offering this radical wisdom that can be hard at first to take or accept. Consider these lines from the poem:

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.

When I teach with this poem I always stop with that line and ask “why???” Why would we do that? No matter what group I’m with, no matter how strong a first reaction might be of “that’s wrong,” the group always turns to some version of “Treat the guest honorably because it’s already here, therefore it is better to work constructively with it, than be plowed down by it…” When we stop to consider— we know this truth.

But Rumi doesn’t stop there, he goes on to finish with:

Be grateful for whatever comes.
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

This is a profound teaching of how to orient in the face of stress so that our meeting what happens in our lives makes us stronger, clearer, more connected with who we want to be instead of less. If the challenges are already here, how can we use them to be our best strongest, wisest, kindest self?

In a livestream Community gathering a couple of weeks ago, I shared about Antonsky’s work in the 1960’s and 70’s on what allowed a deep resilience among some Holocaust survivors. He pointed to the same kind of wisdom that’s in the Rumi poem— that how we meet our stress makes all the difference.

This is about a kind of well-being that has nothing to do with a life without stress— there is no such thing, stuff happens beyond our control all the time. Rather the key observation is that there is a way to orient ourselves in the winds of our stress that matters, and that has been known and studied for a long time, probably as long as humans have been conscious to the power of choice in our lives.

Monday’s New York Times had a beautiful and powerful re-framing of this old idea in the article, “In Stressful Times, Make Stress Work For You.” Researchers Kari Leibowitz and Alia Crum, among others, have shown that, “We can actually use … stress to improve our health and well-being. Over a decade of research — ours and that of others — suggests that it’s not the type or amount of stress that determines its impact. Instead, it’s our mind-set about stress that matters most.”

This is in direct contrast to so much other research that shows just how toxic stress can be on our well-being. So how can these two divergent views be reconciled? Actually in the same way that Rumi pointed to 1,000 years ago and that Antonsky found in the 60’s and 70’s. It is not so much about the stress levels that we face in our lives, it is about how we face this stress. Crum and Leibowitz call this our “stress mindset,” and write about the power of a healthy stress mindset in the NYTimes article. For example:

“In one study of 30,000 Americans, those who had the highest levels of stress were 43 percent more likely to die only if they also believed that stress was bad for their health. In contrast, those who experienced high stress but didn’t view it as harmful were the least likely to die compared to any other group in the study — including people who experienced very little stress.” And, here is the most helpful piece, the basic wisdom all mindfulness practice has always pointed to:

“We have the power to change our stress mind-sets.”
I love their way of framing how to do this. It is a very practical 3-step process. Not only that, they have gifted everyone with an online open access tool-kit, allowing anyone who wants to explore strengthening their stress mind-set one more powerful means of doing this.

They have used this 3 step tool-kit in many sectors including Navy SEALS, college students and business leaders showing that, while the actual stress level might not change, when people use these skills, they have an “entirely new experience of their stress” that actually allows them to be healthier and more effective in their lives.

So I want to briefly share these 3 steps as they offered them in the NYTimes. (see below for article link and tool-kit link) I highly recommend both. 3 Steps, Alia Crum and Kara Leibowitz:

“Step 1: Acknowledge Your Stress
The first step to making stress work for you is to simply see and acknowledge your stress. Labeling your stress consciously and deliberately moves neural activity from the amygdala — the center of emotion and fear — to the prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for executive control and planning.

In other words, when we take a moment to acknowledge our stress, it moves us from operating from a fearful, reactive place to a position where we can be thoughtful and deliberate… This step is also an opportunity to understand what’s at the heart of your personal stress or anxiety. Are you most worried about getting sick, or are you worried about a vulnerable loved one? Are you most stressed about balancing working from home with family responsibilities, or about losing your job?

Once you determine what’s stressing you specifically, you can also examine your reactions to these stressors. What emotions are you experiencing: frustration, sadness, anger? And what do you notice in your body: Do you feel tightness in your neck and shoulders, or do you have difficulty sleeping?

Step 2: Own Your Stress
The next step is to welcome, or “own,” your stress. Why would we want to welcome stress into our lives, especially during a pandemic? We only stress about things that we care about. By owning our stress, we connect to the positive motivation or personal value behind our stress. If we deny or avoid our stress, we may actually be denying or disconnecting ourselves from the things we value and treasure most.

In order to connect with the values and goals underlying your stress, try completing this sentence about whatever was specifically stressing you out in step one: “I’m stressed about [insert stressor from step one] because I deeply care about …”

Step 3: Use Your Stress
Connecting to the core values behind your stress sets you up for the third and most essential step: using or leveraging stress to achieve your goals and connect more deeply with the things that matter most.

Ask yourself: Are your typical responses in alignment with the values behind your stress? If you’re worried about your family getting sick because you care about their health, is snapping at them for not washing their hands for long enough the best way to protect your family? If you’re worried about the impact of coronavirus on society, is seeking out constant news coverage the best way to help support your community during this time? Think about how you might change your response to this stress to better facilitate your goals and your purpose.

There’s so much happening right now that we can’t control. But — as many people are noticing — there are also unprecedented opportunities amid the fear. Some psychologists argue that true transformative change can occur only during stress or crises. The trick is to channel your coronavirus stress as energy to make the most of this time.

Trying to utilize our stress during this scary time might sound overly optimistic or even unfeasible. But consider the alternative. Failing to embrace our stress only creates more stress. The virus and our response to it are incredibly complex. But later, we will be able to ask ourselves how we each responded to this crisis. Did we live in accordance with our values? Did we make the most of this opportunity to learn and grow personally, to connect with loved ones, and to prepare for the next time we face a crisis?” (Reference below) So take a moment to contemplate these 3 steps for yourself:

Step 1: Acknowledge your stress. Pick one thing, maybe not the biggest, but one that is okay to experiment a bit with. What is it? Where do you feel it in the body? What does it feel like in the body.

Step 2: Own your stress. We stress about things we care about. What do you care about that is underneath this stress, what goals or values? Fill in this sentence for yourself:

“I’m stressed about [insert stressor from step one] because I deeply care about …”

Step 3: Use your stress. What ways are you reacting to this stress and are those reactions in alignment with your values and how you want to be in the world? What possibilities are available to you to use this stress as a motivator to bring your life into deeper alignment with what you care about most?

1. In Stressful Times, Make Stress Work for You

By Kari Leibowitz and Alia Crum
April 1, 2020

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/01/well/mind/coronavirus-stress-management-anxiety-
psychology.html?algo=identity&fellback=false&imp_id=662541712&imp_id=681260785&actio
n=click&module=Science%20%20Technology&pgtype=Homepage

2. 3 Step Tool-kit:
http://sparqtools.org/rethinkingstress/