“In times of stress, the best thing we can do for each other is to listen with our ears and our hearts and to be assured that our questions are just as important as our answers.”
― Fred Rogers, The World According to Mister Rogers: Important Things to Remember
I do not speak Italian, let me just be clear about that as the title of this sounds so eloquent that I must say, it does not sound like me.
That being said, isn’t that a beautiful way of saying ‘in times of stress’? I myself have been experiencing stress for as long as I can remember, I am not sure why, I did not have a stressful childhood but then again who knows what little B felt was stressful. Currently my shoulders feel tight, my face feels tired, I feel unmotivated and unable to make certain moves and or decisions and I feel like I just have too much to do over so many areas of my life. Floating disconcertingly on waves I made decades ago when I had no idea how rough the waters would become, how sad loss would feel and how lost I can and or could feel in a crowded room with peoples eyes screaming at me, mouths silenced somehow and arms grabbing and pulling me in more directions than I can count. Sometimes the monstrous humans are blindfolded, I guess that’s better, then they cannot see how they affect me, I definitely do not have a poker face.
Once thing I love about myself is my ability to engage strangers in thought provoking discussions. I booked massages for my fiance and I last weekend, a little new year’s treat. I both recommend and do not recommend a massage when you feel you are completely stressed out beyond belief. While it was rather painful at times I haven’t slept better since. Also this young gent had much to say about my tension ridden body; the most impactful item of discussion is that each day we start with a pitcher of water and we have cups that we need to fill. A cup for family, work, relationships, friendships. I thought so many things as we discussed this topic (yes I realize you are suppose to relax while receiving a massage, I struggle with this) one thing I felt was that I definitely try to fill all my cups each day and this may very well be why I struggle. It also seems that I have cups within cups.
I will say I felt that connecting with him did alleviate some of my stress. It is, generally speaking, healthy to understand that while you may think you are completely alone in a feeling, thought, place and or time in your life the fact is that you most definitely are not. In 2018 the Unites State population was over 300 million….so yea, you are not alone.
My coworker has a BS in atmospheric sciences and meteorology (yea I know, she’s amazing) and I described my feelings lately and described myself, in a way I felt she would completely understand, as though I was watching myself like a co pilot flying a plan with no flight plans, somehow I have not crashed and she said ‘oh yea, I am completely operating on drift down procedure’. As she described this to me I knew that I was not alone, sadly we both have a very similar role on the account, it’s a miracle we get anything done 😉
https://www.skybrary.aero/index.php/Drift_Down_Procedure
The saga continues as I take a deep breath, relax my shoulders, and try to recite one good thing…we really should be thankful and by ‘we’ I mean anyone reading this. For what you feel to be failure, loss, turmoil is nothing compared to what someone else may be going through. I tell myself this as I write you and also this…..”be easy to love, hard to break and impossible to forget” – JMStorm
-B
