Are you the source of your own stress?

Not to blame or shame! We may have greater agency to manage our internal stress rather than external stress

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We all have stress to deal with in our modern, busy lives and sometimes I wonder about the source of stress - whether it’s internally or externally driven.

The source of stress is no matter when it comes to the physiology of stress -  it’s all the same.

And so, my invitation is to consider where does your stress come from. External stress we may have no control over and it’s a case of damage limitation sometimes.

Internal stress however may be driven by comparisonitis, by raising our expectations for ourselves, by pushing ourselves, driving ourselves. It may come from that infernal inner critic that is constantly berating ourselves - we do have agency over this kind of stress.

And regardless of source stress has the same physiology. Broadly speaking it raises our cortisol levels which creates a condition within of stress physiology.

Physically, it can cause tension, pain and aches

Mentally it can cause overthinking and catastrophisation

Emotionally it can lead to us to feeling overwhelmed, upset, distressed with ourselves.

And in truth, there’s no escape from that internal stress until we start to consider this source of stress and take ourselves by the hands and support ourselves as we would a little child and start to tend to that internal environment.

Is that internal environment conducive to a happy, calm, contented, stress-free life or are we actually the source of our own stresses?

My invitation is to consider this, because to have a stress-free life, although it's impossible on the whole with external stresses, we can certainly create that agency and start to reparent ourselves. Notice where the source of stress is coming from and contain and manage that level of stress that is occurring within, to support ourselves to have this better life within.

We spend most of our time in this internal world and so we’re behoven really to support ourselves and to ensure that that internal world is a beautiful place to reside.