Stress is wanting something to be the way it isn't.
Eckhart Tolle

Feeling Stressed?

I pushed myself again yesterday.  I have got to stop doing that. 

Missed hours from my class  this term due to weather, and my own crazy idea that I have to do things a certain way have led me to this point where I could easily be overwhelmed by the amount of marking, replanning and revising the course at the last minute.  My mind is full with thoughts about how I am going to squeeze all remainder of course requirements in and still have everything done, marked and with grades in the computer by Friday at five.  At the same time I start another course I have never taught before on Tuesday and I am not ready for that. 

This all when I am feeling completely exhausted physically with a head that keeps spacing out on me. (And not the nice intentional kind of spacing out that leads to more awareness lol...I am referring to the foggy brain -missing large chunks of mental capacity type of spaciness that comes with fatigue and dizziness from what I assume is a low cardiac output).  This could overwhelm me.  The question is will I allow it to? 

How does one get overwhelmed by experiences like these? 

By resisting them ...by resisting what is. 

When we find ourselves tensing up when we confront a life situation, pushing harder against the stream, fighting to keep going despite the body's cry for rest and care and dealing with more adversity and things seemingly going wrong all around us ...we are resisting what is happening right now.  

In my mind I am saying things like: "Oh My God!  How am I going to get this all done...I am going to kill myself.  Why did there have to be so many missed classes on my day.? Why did I make this course so project based? I am going over my hours...but I need to keep going.  I am making myself sicker and for what? I can't be sick now.  I can't deal with that now.  I have to do this to keep my job.  I need to keep my job.  I want to keep my job. Why is this happening?  It is so unfair!" 

This is what I am allowing into my moment.

Every thought is an energy that  fights against what is going on right now.  All my energy is going into fighting and it does not change one thing.  I will still have a deadline Friday.  I will still have the marking to do and the marks to get in. My body will feel the way it does.

These things, however,  are not the real problem in this one moment. It is simply in the mental resisting of what is happening right now that I have a problem. Our resistance is the problem.

 How do we not become overwhelmed and get past this problem focus then?  

We need to allow and accept this moment for all it is regardless of what we find in it... the event, the emotional, mental or physical experience, the behaviour of another etc ... before we can flow through it or it can flow through us. We need to allow the moment to be what it is. 

We need to be aware and honest.  In this moment I really don't feel well...my head is spinning;  my vision is threatening to get blurry(words are sometimes leaping up and down  from the line) ...I feel so weak and tired...the left side of my neck is squeezing.  That is my physical reality in this moment.  My physical symptoms are intensified by my working harder than my body wants me to. So I take the time to write it down here to  confirm my acceptance of what is going on.  I could deny it like I have been doing for the last week or so (denying is resisting) or I could admit to it.  By writing it out here I am in a sense choosing to  accept it. My truth is...I am not where I want to be physically right now  and my pushing myself at work is not "getting me past it" ...it is making it worse...

Resistance of what is ...is making it worse, creating a problem where a problem does not have to be.

Truth is...there is a lot to do before Friday...that is true.  But I can only do one  task at a time, and live in one moment at a time.  That is my reality. That is the reality for all mankind.  Friday at 5 will come regardless of how much tension and stress I put in from here until then.  I cannot change that or control that. I can choose a different way of being though. 

 I can choose peace other than this and peace is the sweet feeling one gets when they surrender to what is.  I can surrender. I can just allow my body to do what it needs to do; Life to give me what it needs to give me; things to happen around me as they need to happen. 

I can drop the resistance and get into that quiet, inward space I wrote about previously.  From there, I can  observe it all as part of something so much greater than me.  I can learn to say and mean it: "What is...is; what will be...will be."

It is all so very good.