Stress

Stress.

It can mean different things to everyone. To Merriam-Webster's dictionary the word has five different meanings and subcategories under the first meaning. The one I wanted to talk about though is the first one, under d: "a state resulting from a stress; especially one of bodily or mental tension resulting from factors that tend to alter an existent equilibrium (example: job-related stress)". 

We've all experienced it in some way or another, but it's how we deal with the pressure that separates us as individuals. You could be the one person of envy in a group who deals with stress superbly, somehow thriving under pressure and leaving us all in awe of how you do it... or you could be like me and feel like you're slowly breaking inside and you'll maybe snap at a certain point but you're unsure of when you'll get there. Of course I am joking in that previous sentence but there is still some truth to what I just said.

Stress gets to me. While I've never been diagnosed with anxiety or depression (the latter I firmly believe I have experienced but that's a story for another day) when stress reaches a peak for me, I tend to bottle up my emotions until I feel I'm on the verge of a panic attack. It's not a good habit. I know quite a few healthy ways to deal with it of course, it's just when I approach the peak I tend to lose motivation to go above and beyond in taking care of my mental health. I don't know if it's exhaustion or some weird psychological thing, but when I get really stressed out I really do tend to neglect my own mental health telling myself over and over again, "I can deal with it, I'll be fine," or even "I'll do that tomorrow". Procrastinating when I know I'll never do it later.

While I can say I thankfully haven't experienced many mental breaks in my life or even had the unfortunate case of suffering from panic attacks, avoiding stress can become a problem in life for anybody if one doesn't find a 'healthy' way of dealing with it. 

It wasn't until recently in my life I fully realized the weight of that statement, how badly I needed to find a new way of dealing with my stress.

As many of you probably know or have heard by now, I recently got a new part-time job and as everybody understands, new jobs can be a very stressful change to go through. And I'm the type of person to where any change in general can easily induce stress for me. I'm not saying that change in my life is always unwelcome, it's just big change in general can be very difficult for me to deal with. SO as you can imagine, getting a new job, my first job at that, was a very stressful experience for me at first. Can I say that I managed that stress well? Oh, well yeah... I'm fine... It's fine...

Really and truly, if the new job had been the only change in my life at that point, I think the stress wouldn't have been as big of a deal for me. But with just graduating High School, and preparing to move out and live in a dorm for my first year of college, two very big changes and pretty stressful events all on their own, I'd say it's safe to say that amped up the stress for me. 

And because of the amount of time the new job has been taking up I unfortunately have found it all too easy to procrastinate dealing with the other change occurring in my life. It wasn't until my Mom asked me in the car last week if I wanted to find some boxes to help make the moving process easier that it finally clicked for me. I finally had that, "holy crap I'm moving out from the family that I've lived with my entire life" moment. Thankfully, during a break, I confided in one of my coworkers about the change and stress I was experiencing and found that simply talking to someone about it, someone who had gone through a similar change, actually really aided my suffering mental psyche.

Unfortunately the event that really struck me and made me realize I needed to find a new strategy for dealing with my mental health couldn't come soon enough.

A few weeks ago I had the wonderful opportunity to go to Peru for my senior trip with my Mom, something I'll definitely be talking about in another blog post, and when I got back I found I was more balanced and at peace than ever. I was loving my new state of mind, even when I had to go to work immediately. Seeing the world really does effect you in a really positive way, so I can't encourage travel enough.

But then I had a fight with a significant person in my life and my whole balanced chill zen persona came crumbling down. It made me realize how much I'd loved that peace and positive state of made I'd had vs the 'back to normal' psyche I seemed to be at again. I wanted that back. I realized sometimes when I'm stressed one of my other very bad habits or unhealthy ways I dealt with it was by lashing out at the people I care most about, and I realized how badly I need to change the ways I deal with stress. 

It really occurred to me the ways I had been dealing with all these changes all summer long had not been and simply was not a good p.o.a. for my mental health. Because of my stress and unhealthy ways of dealing with it, I had been missing out on my summer by avoiding the stress. I'd really say it hasn't truly occurred to me til now, as I'm writing this, how badly I need to deal with the changes that have been and are occurring in my life. So that's what I plan on doing starting today. Finding new ways of dealing with my stress and the changes happening to me. 

Maybe meditation's my healing patch, or maybe I could try a cleanse. I don't know. What's important is that I find what works for me when it comes to dealing with stress and my mental health and you do too.

I hope you guys have a wonderful stress-free rest of your day, and that we all can achieve the level of care-free-ness that chill Emily had. That's what I'm calling the me that came back from Peru. Seriously, I was I was on cloud nine. I was legit a master of zen when I came back. Hence, Chill Emily.

"If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change." - Dr. Wayne Dyer