Step One: Understanding the Problem | Four Steps Back From Stress
This website covers the topic of stress biology, and of how this can take us away from our creativeness.
Just to summarise briefly, the trouble stems from four key “stress forces”: compulsive desire, anger, fear
and gloom. These seed misleading stories into our sense of reality, not least those concerned with who we are in our own self-identity. Equally, compulsive desire
and pride keep us chasing feverishly after false ideals, with nightmarish fear
and shame yapping at our heels. As if this were not enough of an ordeal, all of this happens at the level of our unconscious, meaning that even when it’s holding us to ransom and stealing our peace, stress grants us no right of appeal.
This is a general description, but stress affects us each uniquely. Likewise, our winning of freedom from stress never follows the same “journey”. None of us suffers the four “stress forces”
equally; nor is there an even apportioning of the afflictions to which they lead. Besides jealousy, pride and shame, other examples are: self-pity, where into our identity is etched a whole story of our always having the raw end of the deal; and morbid regret, where we beat ourselves up over past mistakes, to the point of giving up on ourselves (these two states being a reflection of anger, as is directed outwardly, and inwardly, respectively).
Meanwhile, circumstances vary hugely. Fear, for example, might make us dread particular “fear objects” like snakes or spiders, or it might make failure seem so unbearable a prospect that we daren’t take chances or go on adventures. Likewise, gloom
or anger
might surface only in the presence of certain triggers. Or our focus on a particular “desire object” might become an all-consuming, compulsive desire-fuelled obsession or addiction.
In the same way, we might find that stress skews our personality out of all recognition, and again this can relate to context. Therefore, we might be dominant in our family and match the Prima Donna persona exactly, even as we play a lowly Cinderella when amongst the stars of high society. But that’s not to say that stress can’t shape our personality more permanently, as when we’re beset by one of fear’s
little gifts, like a nervous disposition. Or, thanks to being caught in anger’s
tempest, we might have a pretty incendiary temper tantrum tendency.
The minute that we look at stress’s ability to rob us of our peace of mind, and ruin and mislead... that’s when we’re ready to roll up our sleeves, and resolve to put ourselves - as in our real
self - back in the driving seat.