It's Never About What It's About

​Whenever we feel uncomfortable, disturbing or overwhelming emotions, we tend to have a thought or some image that we attach to what we're feeling.

But it's rare that what we're actually experiencing is as a result of - or is even connected to  those 'additional' pieces of information.

Rarely is it about what it appears to be about.

Our responses to a current event are usually coloured by all our previous responses to what we perceive to have been similar events.

We're experiencing people and events as we are, not as they are.

For example;

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You are at a market and a vendor has something you want to buy. You decide to haggle - you enjoy that. But the vendor refuses to budge on price. You begin to get upset. What you perceive as frustration and anger begin to build up. You feel constriction in your breathing. Muscles and jaw tighten up. Perhaps internal heat is generated and your mouth starts drying up. Perhaps you sense some kind of personal 'threat.'

Doesn't this response seem a little over-reactive in proportion to the event?

These feelings of what you term 'anger,' the adrenaline and cortisone rushes, will take your liver hours to detoxify.

Simply put, your body has initiated a stress response.

Is your existence, in all honesty, really threatened by this event or person?

No, not at all, not in the slightest.

You've been 'triggered.'

Your overwhelming and irrational response is the result of your emotionalising​ the event. A part of you is now labelling and linking this current event to a time or times in your past where you experienced these same emotions.

Your internal 'labelling' is what is causing you the uncomfortable feelings. Usually it's not the actual event.

So what's the easiest thing you can do right now?

Believe it or not, the simplest thing to do in order to prevent your stress spiralling any further is to
B-R-E-A-T-H-E.

3 Steps - Like this:

1. Breathe all the way out - empty everything out of your lungs.
   
2. Breathe in very deeply through your nose and be aware of the breath entering you, imagine you fill up the base of your lungs and all the way down into the soles of your feet.
   
3. Slowly release the breath through your mouth and with it simultaneously relax every muscle from the top of your head and out through the soles of your feet.

Done.

In further posts I'll be explaining what's happened, why it's happened like that, what you did, and why it worked. 

So keep your eyes peeled for those posts. I might even do an audio description to guide you through it at some point.

As it is.

​Craig