Stress is the inability to tell the difference between what is happening and what you think is happening.
Victor Davich
We find it easier to characterize stress by its symptoms rather than what it actually is or what causes it. This is what makes it difficult for the medical industry to deal with it. It’s not caused by a lack of Zoloft.
We use all sorts of language to express how we feel when we’re stressed, including cliché, metaphor and simile.
I’m flat out like a lizard drinking.
I’m under the pump
I’m over stretched
I’m up to my neck in alligators
I can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel
I’ve got steam coming out my ears.
I feel like I’ve got a big weight hanging over my head.
I’m busting my boiler. I’m feeling the pressure, the force, the strain, the tension.
Robert Hooke’s theory of elasticity provides us with an appropriate reference point.
According to Hooke’s Law, elasticity is, ‘ … the property of a material that allows it to resume its original size and shape after having been compressed or stretched by an external force – that is, unless it’s stretched beyond its elastic limit.’
Stress is the mental condition where you feel stretched close to your elastic limit. You’ll hear people say, ‘I’ve reached my breaking point.’ If they’ve gone past the breaking point they’ll say, ‘I’ve snapped.’
Physical objects have different capacities to deal with ‘the stretch’. We call this resilience. Some things and some people are more resilient than others, having the capacity to take considerably more pressure before the elastic limit is reached.
Normally, physical objects become permanently deformed when they exceed their elastic limit. This is not so with humans, except on the rarest of occasions. It’s often the case that after a bout of stress, people find themselves stretched for the better. They learn from the experience. They change, assume a new ‘shape’.
If you look at a particular area of your life you’ll be aware of ups and downs, but they’re ups and downs that are pretty much normal and don’t cause much stress.
Life gets unbearable stressful when stress bears down on multiple fronts for long periods of time. It’s at that point that you run the risk of falling into the black hole.
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Like most things you won’t know what it is until you’ve seen it – or done it. To give you a taste of what’s in the How to Manage Stress series of ebooks I want to give you a copy of the first book, ‘Stress What is It?’ Just click on the cover of the book above and it’s yours to download for free, gratis, with my compliments, no strings attached. Simply check out as normal but at zero cost
