Where is this stress coming from and what can we do about
it? The first thing to realize is that stress is not caused by anyone or anything. Stress comes from inside of us. One way to explain it is that we feel stressed when we stop welcoming life as it comes to us, and begin to stiffen, resist, and brace against what is hap- pening around us. An event in our outside world triggers some- thing inside, and suddenly we feel helpless and fearful. In other words, we get our “buttons pushed.” When we were very young, probably between two and four
years old, we all had to come to terms with three fundamental issues of human life: having power/control over our environment; gaining esteem/affection from our caregivers and friends; and security/survival in a world that is at times dangerous. We all developed strategies for keeping ourselves safe in each of these areas, although one of them was likely to be more prominent or consistently problematic for us. These strategies become “hidden agendas” to the extent that we are not conscious of their pres- ence. Operating just below the level of our awareness, they begin to “run the show” of our inner lives. Unless or until they are brought to consciousness, they continue to hold us captive after we become adults. Thomas Keating, Benedictine monk, author, and teacher, calls them “emotional programs for happi- ness.”
Although the programs themselves are unconscious, what
we are conscious of is that we have strong feelings about things we like and don’t like, things we want to happen, and things that seem catastrophic to us, or in other words, attachments and aversions. Attachments relate to what we believe that we must have to be safe, comfortable, and happy. They can be actual “’things” such as a new car but they just as often show up as ideas such as “everyone in the family must get along,” or values such as “being on time.” On the other hand, aversions are events, things, or people that “push your buttons.” For example, if I identify with a power/control program, then I might have an at- tachment to being in charge and have an aversion to following the ideas or plans of others. If I identify with a security/survival program then I might find that I tend to be extremely vigilant about safety issues of various kinds such as theft prevention, protection of assets, or cleanliness, and have an aversion to trust- ing others or relaxing and going with the flow. If I identify with an affection/esteem program, then I might find myself going out of my way to please others, and be averse to setting boundaries or doing anything that might result in making others upset with me.
Holiday time, with its richness in social interactions, is often
a time when everyone is more likely to have some of their buttons pushed and automatically launch these emotional programs for happiness. A sure sign that this is occurring for me is when I begin to feel stressful and painful emotions. A distressing emotion affects all levels of our being at once—we have negative thoughts, bodily tensions, and changes in our energy levels. If we do not bring the emotion to consciousness, the physiology of primitive body responses takes over, and we find ourselves running our old familiar emotional programs—saying and doing the same old things that don’t work and experiencing the habitual ener- getic consequences—being so revved up we can’t sleep, being so exhausted we can’t move, getting a headache, upset stomach, having trouble breathing, catching a cold, or having a flare up of back pain, neck pain, or joint pain. Here is an example of how an automatic emotional response works:
Natural Triad Magazine
by Sandy Seeber, LPC You are having a perfectly good day,
busy, but on task, and getting things done. The phone rings. Your friend on the line men- tions what a nice time she had at a party last night. You know the hostess well, and you weren’t invited. You feel a sinking sensation in your chest, and a tightening in your stomach. Pretending to listen, your inner chatter begins. “Why didn’t she invite me? Have I done something to offend her? Did I say something wrong? What is wrong with me anyway? I always seem to screw things up. I can’t remember the last time someone invited me out. Everyone else but me is having a good time. And, after all I’ve done for her, and now this is the way she treats me!” Suddenly, your energy drops. You don’t feel like talking anymore. You tell your friend that you have to go now, and hang up. You don’t feel like finishing your to-do list either. Instead you sit down and go over and over the situation in your mind, feeling worse each time. In the grand scheme of things, the event described above is
a small happening. Actually, nothing has happened except in your own inner world! Yet little events like this one can easily put a damper on a whole day, or even a couple of days. Unless they are brought to consciousness, emotions such as the ones coming up around this trigger incident, run a pre-programmed course that make us unhappy. In the incident described above, the program for esteem/affection got triggered. This program continually scans the environment for possible losses of the af- fection or esteem of others. It interpreted this situation as a rejec-
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