New Year, New Stress, New Resolution

How are your New Year’s resolutions going? Not to brag but, it’s been years since I failed at my New Year’s resolutions. Yes it’s true. But only because I don’t make any resolutions. I work hard to keep promises I make, whether to others or to myself. Resolutions were just pressure I didn’t and don’t need.

This year, however, the resolution found me. The resolution that found me was “respect the stress”.

Recently there have been some significant changes in my life. Changes bringing good things and bringing significant new responsibilities. Even good changes bring stress. It wasn’t an unexpected change, other than the abrupt December timing. That’s all I’m going to say about this change.

For much of my life I had one of two responses to stress. The first was, “I’m not stressed. I’m fine. I’m fine. I’M FINE!”. Until, of course I wasn’t fine. Over time I progressed to “Yes it’s stressful but I can handle it. I’m fine. I’m fine. I’M FINE!”. Until of course I wasn’t fine. Ever so slowly I learned some good coping skills and I can manage stressful situations better.

This time, while I do faithfully attend to what I know works to help me manage stress, I’m thinking about it differently. There’s a difference between managing and respecting. Perhaps the distinction is mostly semantics. But I think it’s a helpful semantic shift.

For me respecting the stress allows for better understanding and management. It acknowledges that stress can show up in unexpected, even odd places. Respecting the stress reminds me to think holistically about stress, which includes remembering my “regular” stress. That’s what respect the stress means for me. Respect it no matter what the cause or its familiarity. Don’t ignore some stress because it’s “old” stress and not the “new” stress. Because it all adds up.

Here’s what this looks like for me, right now. You may (or may not) have noticed that I paused the twice weekly blog posts. It was too much. My schedule was disrupted and finding time to think and write was and continues to be difficult. I didn’t stop completely because that would have been another kind of stress. But I gave myself more time and space.

Christmas is always its own special kind of stress for me. So this year no Christmas tree or decorations. No cookies, no special dinner. Christmas presents were ordered after Christmas. Adding the old, regular, seasonal stresses of Christmas to the new realities would have been too much. So I let it go. ( And I’m just a little bit proud of myself for doing so.)

I did go to a Christmas concert and Christmas Eve worship. Those were not stress adding but stress relieving. My child and their spouse invited me to share a Christmas dinner of Chinese food- because I didn’t have any other meal planned. Since I was close to the restaurant, I went to pick up the food they ordered. I wasn’t at home, but I knew roughly how to get to the restaurant. But it was dark, and Christmas and things were just generally not normal. So I used Google maps to get around, simply because it required less thinking, less focus. It just helped lower my stress about things a little bit.

I respected all the stress, the regular Christmas stress, the new life situation stress, the unfamiliar trip to the unfamiliar restaurant stress. I didn’t tell myself that I “should” be able to drive to a new place without help. I respected that it might be slightly more difficult right now , and I don’t need any more “slightly difficult”. So I made adjustments.

Respecting the stress, means I will try to notice possible stresses ahead of time, like I did that night. I’ll be trying to not play stress management catch up after the fact. I’ll try not to be so busy managing that I don’t notice my rising stress levels. I’ll try to be attentive, and recognize and respect the stress in my life. Not avoiding it. Not pretending it doesn’t exist. And also not over dramatizing it. Rather respecting it for what it actually is.

My New Year’s resolution has found me. Time will tell how I do.