Inspired NOT Stressed

One of the most eye-opening discoveries in my graduate school counseling preparation was that everything is stressful and has been assigned a point value by Holmes and Rahe  on their stress scale. Even events people regarded as positives in life carry degrees of stress based on the amount of adaptation a person has to do in their life routine to adjust to the event. They connected the measure of stress to a likelihood of physical ailment based on the number of “points” accumulated in a year’s time.

Since the mid-sixties when Holmes and Rahe’s research was published, stress has become the catch-all boogey-man for any type of inconvenience we have (such as performance expectations at work). It becomes the reason for mistakes and the low-quality work. These interpretations of Holmes and Rahe’s work completely misrepresent what they believed about stress: it is necessary for life. Our reactions to the stressor are where the harm lies. Some current research reminds us of that understanding.

WATCH: Turns Out, We May Have Gotten the Science of Stress Completely Wrong | TEDTalks:

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McGonigal cites a study that reported on the effects of the view of stress and health consequences, not the stressor itself. They re-discovered that our response to stress determines the likelihood of illness and even death. Holmes and Rahe assigned the points on their scale based on the general reaction people have to the event - not the event itself. That is why the birth of a child merited fewer points than the death of a loved one. Likewise, a promotion at work scores lower than losing a job. We generally experience less disruption to life with the first examples than the second.

Since discovering the work of Holmes and Rahe in graduate school, I have considered situations differently. I work in a stressful field - education. The challenges differ from school to school and some of them are entrenched and cultural. As long as they are challenges, I have the power to seek and implement solutions that may make them less challenging. When I call them stressors, I have given up seeking solutions.

I am glad that some are beginning to reframe the conversation around stress. For so many years so much misinformation spread so widely that if the number of times a lie was repeated changed it to the truth, then stress would be the villain. Replacing the false understanding of stress with a correct one faces an uphill battle at the start, but I believe it will be readily received: the old news about stress was a tale of weakness, but the new understanding is one of power! Shifting the conversation to our response to stress rather than the stress itself puts control over it within our grasp: we control how we react. We control the effects of stress.

We control our lives. There is no longer a reason to use stress as an excuse.

Seasons of Life

I am tired of people dying.

Fourteen deaths of people I knew well in the space of a year has taken its toll on me.

I do not want to be around anyone right now.

I am tired of living in many different stages of grief simultaneously.

Of course I am certain that most of those I know who died were much less ready to die than I was to grieve their deaths.

The flood of frustration at how much grief has driven my emotions the last year spilled over upon receiving word recently that a wonderful former co-worker had reached the final hours of her life after a lengthy battle with cancer. She, like another co-worker who died this year, was much too young.

I have never been one to display grief. I am comfortable enough with life and death that I found being with people as they took their last breath a beautiful and holy experience.  My year working for a hospice was a great experience as I learned that dying was not an unbearable experience; rather it was a very full time spent completing life. After being in the presence of people in their last hours, I do not fear death and I have long demonstrated a quick recovery from grief at any loss.

It took me a year to realize it, but since the death of a childhood friend’s father last year, I have been in grief though I fought hard to deny it. I have shaped myself as the caregiver not the caregiven. I finally mentioned it to a co-worker who also has a mental health background and her response was, “ You need a week away from people.” I laughed because that is exactly what I planned to do over spring break until I hurt my back. I did spend three days on my back recovering from the injury, but it was not the kind of isolation I needed to have to process the grief issues I was contemplating.

Since hiding from people for  a week is not really an option, I am seeking some other ways to deal with it.  The nature of my job, especially this time of year, requires more than a 40-hour week - and as it is nearing the end of the school year, the workload increases even more.

I have to accept the realization that I have entered a season of my life in which I will face the death of many of the “adults” I knew growing up. I cannot change that, but I can change to a more healthy response to the grief that is coming. Each of the fourteen people who died in the last year, influenced me and many others around me. There is not one thing I can do to work through the grief, but there is something I can do in respect of their influence. I just have to spend the time deciding what to do for each.

Generations

My last living grandparent died March 25, 2013 at the age of 97. Some friends and co-workers were extending their condolences until the heard the “97” part. I have to give them some freedom to feel that way. There are very few people I know who are 46 (like me) and who still have living grandparents. Most of my friends of a like age have lost one of both parents.Indeed, I recognized how blessed I have been to have my grandparents as long as I had them all. Rather than being bogged down in grief, I celebrate the family connections I have.

     After learning the news of my grandmother’s death, I paused to say a little prayer and then went on with my day.

In all honesty, I was never as close to this set of grandparents growing up as I was to my other set of grandparents who lived down the road from me. I saw them every couple of summers when we went to Minnesota on vacation. I only ever saw my paternal grandparents a handful of times. Still, as I went through the day, grandma’s death weighed on my mind much more than I expected it would.

Today as I was cleaning some things off the desk in my home office, I came across the last letter I received from her. One of my fondest memories of her was the certainty that I would receive a birthday and Christmas card from her with a letter updating me on everything that was going on in her life.  For a person over 90, she stayed busy. The last time I saw her, she and I spent time cleaning out an aunt’s flower bed as the spring plants were getting ready to sprout.

Because I saw my paternal grandmother so rarely growing up, I am not mourning her in the same way I mourned my maternal grandparents. My grief this time is focused on the passing of a generation. She was the last grandparent I (and many of my cousins) had. The elder status has moved down to my parents’ generation, and will, in time move down to mine. It is the progression of ages.

One reason I am thinking so much about the idea of generations in the family is that there are cousins who live (or at least were raised) in Minnesota whom I have never met. They were born after I made my last visit in 1985. Visits with my relatives since then have either occurred when they passed through Austin or when I made my way up to Wichita. How will the hierarchy work in the coming generations? That I do not know many of my cousins is not unusual among my friends. Like me, because the family lives so far apart, there are relatives they have never seen.

I always wonder when I am traveling whether or not I am randomly passing by a unknown cousin. I have run into old college acquaintances in airports; I suppose a cousin would be just as likely. The cousins I have never seen are much harder to recognize.

With luck, I will be attending a conference in Minneapolis in the next few months and will have the chance to connect with some of those cousins I have not seen since the mid-80’s. (or ever). Perhaps through those contacts, the next generations can remain connected - at least somewhat as what has always been a very large family continues to grow.