Stress Ball

There are days when, for no apparent reason, I start to worry about seemingly everything. Were I more observant of my thoughts, perhaps I would be able to identify the initial impetus for the snowball, but most times I catch on half way down the hill. What I have gotten better about is what to do when I do catch on.

In the past…ok, and sometimes nowadays…I used to allow the worries to accumulate until I became I huge ball of stress, unable to sleep and certain my life sucked and the world would surely end. Somehow this last conclusion would come to me as I lay abed, in the dark and completely awake. Not fun. However, invariably enough with the sun came a softening and a better understanding and I’d be able to act in some productive fashion to make my life a smidge more bearable. A whole lot of unneeded emotional turmoil. Not fun.

My worries can mostly be related back to not being in control. Of my love life, of my career, of my health, of my family and friends, of the world. Seeing as 90 percent of life is not within our control, it’s easy to imagine how big this ball of stress and anxiety can get given time and inattention. The immediate thought is to problem solve. I need to make this better. How can I do that? What resources do I need? Is it possible? Good questions, but all ways of grasping at control. And in the middle of the night, it may provide comfort to think I might be able to wrangle it in, but isn’t exactly healthy to stew over…or lose sleep over. 

So what I’ve been working on is surrendering. Whenever I catch myself anywhere along the stress train is to take a page out of AA’s Twelve Steps and just surrender my will to a higher power. Accept that this is the way it is right now and lean on the universe to show me a path. Acceptance isn’t saying that I like the way things are or I shouldn’t take action to make life better. It just means I acknowledge and internalize that I am where I am. That I may not be able to change on my own timeline and I am open to what comes. I’m open to life’s challenges, good and bad. And that I will be there for myself, no matter what. Apart from that, this type of acceptance lifts the weight from my shoulders and has a juicy quality to it. Like floating on water. Weightless and buoyant. So much better than the grasping and struggling.