It happens to us all at times. But why does something bother us one time and not the next? Stress.
Some of that stress you know about. You are 'under' a lot of stress, perhaps with deadlines at work or school. The news is disturbing, or the neighbors are keeping you up at night. Illness, be it short term like a cold or more serious like the flu. What do all these things have in common? They use our personal resources. Our energy.
You've heard or said this... "I just can't think about that now." Or, "I just can't deal with that right now." What's going to make it more "do-able" later? Resources. This is a complex issue to understand and explain but here's the analogy I use.
You're walking down the hall at work with your coffee cup in hand. Someone intersects you and asks, "Can you take this piece of paper down to Carla's desk? "Of course" you say. It's just down at the end of the hall.
Now imagine this scenario. You are walking down the hall with your cup of coffee. You are also carrying a big box, and it's a bit awkward. And balanced on the box is a delicate piece of sculpture, and you're walking very carefully to make sure everything is safe and you don't spill your coffee. Some wise cracker keeps making sudden jabs at you to see if they can startle you into dropping your load, and you realize that this is all much heavier than you thought it was and your arms are shaking a bit. Now, that same person walks up to you and asks "Can you take this piece of paper down to Carla's desk?" What do you think your response would be this time?
You say in some level of exasperation (and politeness), "Uh, NO! Can't you see I'm loaded up here! What's the matter with you. Take it to Carla yourself!"
Right?
In the first scenario you have plenty of resources to carry the piece of paper. In the second you do not.
But what are those resources? They are essentially your feelings. You feel you have time, you feel strong enough, you feel capable. And stress happens when you are asked to use time you do not feel you have. When you are asked to use strength you do not feel you have. You are asked to do something of which you don't feel capable.
It boils down to our feelings. And in the end, stress does not come from outside of ourselves, it arises within us in response to a life stimulus.
Next time: the stress you are (consciously) unaware of
