impRAWvise 

When stress tears you down to pieces what do you do? You take a f**king break, that’s what you do. This post today is unfiltered, raw and from the heart. I have always felt misjudged and like people don’t understand me when it comes to mental health challenges and related topics, but, by bringing this into conversation in a professional environment and undergoing medical investigations, I did get to a point of understanding and accepting myself better, and with more ease and grace. I also got to a point of understanding that some of my reactions are just coping mechanisms, some of them very functional, some of them perhaps dysfunctional, but as I learned in therapy, that is also ok, we are all a work in progress and from a health and wellness perspective, no one is actually expected to perform or do well all of the time. Therefore its ok to make mistakes, to learn from mistakes, and even when it comes to dysfunctional ways of dealing with life’s challenges, when we just allow ourselves to look deeply into ourselves and see, understand what we are going through and how we have conditioned ourselves from past experiences to react to certain triggers, then it all makes sense. Bringing consciousness and kindness to a situation and most importantly to ourselves, is the best way to make progress, to heal from past trauma or traumatic experiences and ultimately to learn to do better as we move forward with our beautiful and amazing lives.

I have been going through a very stressful time at work lately, and even though I do not write about this on my blog on a regular basis, because it is related to the stress topic, I have decided today to share my own experience on this matter, of course its a sensitive subject, and therefore an imperfect post, not that perfection would be required, but, just read it as it is, let the info soak in and see if it inspires you, perhaps, to do a little check in with yourself as well, and perhaps even become more aware of your own stress regulating mechanisms and coping responses. When our bodies and minds get really triggered and when the stress factors are persistent over a sustained period of time, it becomes harder and harder to regulate our response to stressors in a functional way. And that is a biological and physiological normal reaction of our body-mind systems. We are not built for extreme stress over an extended period of time, the best response that our bodies can give is the one that includes an acute stress, that eventually resolves itself in a moderate amount of time, but when the stress is prolonged, then we start to truly experience its toll, not only on our overall wellbeing ( affecting our mood and emotional regulation ) and health, but especially, and most probably it might take a toll on our mental health as well as our physical health. And when the balance point is tipped too hard, it feels really hard to get back into a state of balance and flow and a functional emotional regulation.

Because I have been going through anxiety, panic attacks as well as being challenged with an eating disorder for many years of my life, my baseline for experiencing stress, uncertainty, unknown and unpredictable things, in general, is very low. I get stressed pretty easily, because I conditioned myself to “protect myself” as “you might never know what’s out there to get you”, and therefore, when there is a cumulative experience of stimuli that perform as stressors for myself, it gets really hard to emotionally regulate myself and I start to experience a somatic effect as well, be it in the realm of digestive issues, like gastritis episodes, or be it on the mental side of this story, such as a sense of loosing my interest for life in general, questioning my existence’s purpose, and building up to the point of asking myself if it is really worth it to even continue to live anymore. I know, this is a sensitive topic, but because I have been in a medical set up, I did get diagnosed at first with an eating disorder, many years ago, then with stress adjustment disorder, and then with anxiety and panic attacks, I have been medicated for almost 2 years, and I have been in therapy, now I can speak freely on these topics, although they might still be stigmatised in some environments and / or cultures, I did make it my life’s mission, to which I am very dedicated, to do my best, share my own story in order to bring my own humble contribution to the destigmatisation of mental illnesses and struggles, and encourage honest, open conversations on those topics, as well as access to suport and medical intervention whenever it would be considered necessary.

I am personally far from perfect, and the only purpose of me sharing my own mental struggles and challenges ( mostly in the form of eating disorders in the past, thankfully I have successfully overcame this, so it is a successful story, but one has to keep in mind that eating disorders create a specific sensitivity in time to these matters and one can relapse at any time, especially during prolonged stress, but for now its all under control and then from anxiety which has been a life partner for me, but I am learning to live with it, by simply acknowledging my window of tolerance, building resilience and taking responsibility and accountability for my own progress as it builds up gradually but surely, in time ), therefore what I am sharing here is just my own story and my own vision on this matter. Acknowledging that we do have access to resources that can help us better manage and take care of ourselves during stressful times can be very helpful, but I do strongly believe, and that has been proven to be of a significant importance is that when we become overwhelmed with stress and other challenges, when we see that we are rapidly progressing towards a mental breakdown or a burnout, so to speak, when we notice that its getting harder and harder to cope in a functional way, or to even regulate our emotions, then its just time to take a break. Take time off work, off the stressing factors, be it a situation, or a person, or environment, and so on and so forth. It’s time to take a step back, and reassess. In my case, as work was getting extremely stressful and I noticed that it got harder and harder for me to cope with it, I took the time off to put myself back together.

Some might interpret this as running from a challenging situation and could emphasise that its important to hang in there until its all sorted out, and I did as well try out this version of the story in the past, but unfortunately it didn’t really do me any good. It only escalated the conflictual situation, drained me of resources and just put a toll on my overall health. Therefore, I learned to pause when it all seems to go to pieces, and yes it might just be a subjective interpretation of mine, but the stories that we tell ourselves are the ones that bring sense and meaning into our lives after all, therefore, what works best for me, is to take a break, distance myself from the challenging or conflictual situation, in this case taking time off work and just focusing on myself and on recharging myself and my resources. How do I do that? I just get to the things and practices that give meaning and purpose to my life, even writing about this matter, as an act of supporting conversations in an open and honest way on the mental health topics and health topics in general, is something that helps me integrate and process what I am going though as well as it brings meaning into my day to day life, being able to share and encourage others to bring a little bit of awareness, compassion and consciousness into their day to day lives is something that I truly love and like to practice. Other things that help me rebalance and get back in touch with myself include physical activities like yoga, stretching, pilates, walks in nature, as well as other activities that help me cognitively make a switch, like reading inspirational and motivational books, or some nice fiction and especially journalling as a practice can be helpful too.

There is no one size fits all when it comes to managing and dealing with stressful situations in life. There are of course some general good practices and recommendations that tend to work for most people, but ultimately its a trial and error process of exploring yourself and your own consciousness when you are undergoing stressful times, in order to test and find what works best for you as a unique and amazing individual. Sometimes it does take a while until it all makes sense, or until we find what really works for us as individuals in order to better cope with stress and manage stressful situations, but taking time and space for ourselves to just tap into that inner guidance that is available for us at all times, becoming aware of our own healing mechanisms is always worth it, as it does help us heal in the long run and better manage challenging situations and our lives in general. Getting in touch with our emotions and understanding ourselves, be it as a personal practice, or in a profesional environment can be and it gets, for sure, challenging as well sometimes, but as we know better, we can then do better, and as we understand ourselves, our conditioning and our overall functioning, we can take better care of ourselves and create meaning and purpose, bring a sense of joy, harmony and simply be at ease with the waves and tears of life, overcome challenges, and bring ourselves closer to that place where we belong to, living life to its fullest as our true selves and in connection with our truth, always, at all times.