"Stress"

The body is a stress processing machine. If it does not have a way to expend this stress it will manifest as disease. I have found this to be true of my own embodied experience. At various times in my life my body has essentially broken down when I needed it to be working most effectively. The culminated example of this being my qualifying exams. I had studied for months, struggled to prepare adequately, but desperately tried to memorize a significant thread of feminist syllabi. More like the whole quilt, the multi-layers. I remember sitting on the train the night before my exam. Talking to another grad. Clutching to my bike as I exited the station in Philly, it was dark and cold, and then I started shaking and aching and coughing, then hacking and a fever. But I still had to take my exam, and I can't believe I was able to write even as much as I did. But they failed me. That first time, they and my bod and thus my mind failed me. I had reached my capacity for processing stress. My body collapsed. It is happening again, I believe. But it is nothing to be alarmed about. I understand the origin of the stress. I fear that it is permanent, that I will never get over this feeling. That the stress is insurmountable. But that isn't true. I have been moving through in shock, and the dancing, and chatting, and advocating, all of that was in super-fly mode. Now my body is registering the impact,showing the blow. But if I can manage to write, to read, to take a bath, and drink some almond milk, and maybe exercise, and even drinking a cup of tea or playing with a puzzle, those are ways for the body to process stress--by relaxing, enjoying. , even exerting. "Stress" is such a loaded term, but it is the most descriptive I have found for communicating the nexus of emotions, pressure, survival, and labor. It is life and its effects. It causes pain and pushes us to exultation. But often it is destructive, it eats away because we hold it in, we appease it through multiple forms of self-medication,, we indulge it with food beyond nutrition or pleasure. It is hungry and tired. And slowly eats away at the self. BREATHE a rather good idea. The best way to move the stress through. Sometimes in the morning I remind myself to take several deep breaths. It feels good and I need to do it more often. There are lots of explanations for where my body is at right now. Maybe my stomach is in knots because of the dressing on my salad at lunch today. Maybe my cheek is splotchy from the face paint I wore in the performance. Maybe my backaches only from sitting at a desk. But I know the origin and it is actually a mixture of these with another layer and another. It is the whole experience not a sectioned compartment of my life. It is circumstance, and choice and anatomy and physiological functioning and social construction, and spiritual interaction. We call it "stress" but it is really just life, and finding ways to establish balance is crucial and often difficult. When systems are disrupted significantly recreating simultaneity and sustainability is seemingly impossible. But when processed through active participation in the recognition of challenges real growth can occur and stress becomes peace.