Awareness really is a key key ingredient in knowing thyself through life’s sojourn. We realise why we are, and if we hit the jackpot, who we are. Your toddler screams because you couldn’t give him that attention at the key moment. All you hear though is oh gosh that screeching sound is simply the mist horrible thing that could happen to you that day, so what do you do? You scream back or recoil or send your toddler to “detention”. Ermmmmmm what do you next? Maybe day to yourself oh gosh can’t wait for those toddler years to be over, or you might think hang on a minute, I just shouted at my toddler for expressing his call to mama and he tried getting that a few times, wow I have got to give it to him, what patience he possesses. Why then do we lose the plot and not have this gap before the tornado?
Instead of shooting one back out whether that be to your toddler, life situations people pets whatever, ask yourself, whether that reaction is indeed necessary or is a tad too over the top? So, did that event call for such a reaction? More than likely not. It’s simply a situation that triggered our survival instinct. If that toddler is shouted at or we become their source of fear as opposed to safety, lose them we will, apart from inculcating a sense of “the world is not a safe place and neither are those that give us love and therefore all those that show love might surprise us by hurting us too – and woohoo it’s what will come right back at us.”!
With an expanding level of awareness one hopes to extend the gap so that our stress response remains in check. We spare our torrents and hailstorms for when there really is a dangerous situation. Luckily, we live in civilised society most of the time!
When we do have our stress response actively engaged and don’t disengage in time, we might sit on chronic stress that makes us jittery and on edge. We won’t have space for life anymore. Running from one task to another. We are not designed to place such humongous pressure onto our nervous system. It is no wonder that most of us are so desensitised that to know we are under pressure and mentally strained is a far cry. Take away the caffeine, the feel good “doings”, and all else you have done to wrap yourself up good in bandaid, then you can really appreciate the nudity of your stress response, this means total vulnerability.
If you are already aware, any negative stress will eventually fall away and a new paradigm will take its place. You will have taught your brain a new way of responding to stress. Simply put, you have found your happy place again, except you didn’t use any distraction or bandages, instead you acknowledged the reaction, identified the root, integrated it and provided a new template!
And that’s our homeostatic place!!
Blessings
Mama Kee xx