On Sunday I drove back from Industry City, after running errands and circling for parking with the rest of the misers out shopping on a rainy holiday weekend. Industry City is a historic warehouse development complex built in the 1900s and is now home to furniture outlet stores like West Elm, and tech and media offices with industrial loft design, charming cobbled streets, and old railroad tracks both that are terrible for your tires.
I headed to the ABC Carpet outlet to return an area rug that my boyfriend and I bought the day prior. We shuffled in and out of stores, rehashing the same conversation as a poor employee flipped over rugs for us to stare at and wonder if we were supposed to like any or if we were missing the point. Either way, we couldn’t allow ourselves to leave without a rug... we came all this way (20 minutes), we left our street parking, we told ourselves we’d leave with a rug…
So we did. AJ hauled the plastic-wrapped rolled rug up four flights while I lagged behind with the lighter, but still pretty heavy carpet pad. We dropped it down, poured two glasses of water, and pulled the couch out. We unraveled the “transitional” gray rug and sat on our heather gray couch observing its patterns that felt elegant in fluorescent lighting and felt increasingly dismal in the living room as the rain poured gray dim light through the windows. Feeling gray ourselves, I hunched over disheartened and AJ got up and laid down in the bed knowing his fate of hauling it back down the stairs into the car to return it the next day. But furnishing an apartment is supposed to be fun? That’s how I ended up in the car hobbling over historic train tracks and charming cobblestone streets and reaching for my first Brene Brown podcast addressing burnout and stress.
In March I wrote a tea on “overwhelm.” I didn’t plan it, and as it unfolded I wasn’t sure of the point or the timing. Since then, I've spoken to several friends, acquaintances, and family members on their own version of overwhelm. I used overwhelm as a safe word, an umbrella term for overall stress and anxiety. I didn’t want to define each, comment on their individual roles and how they impact each other. There are more qualified people to speak on it. What I meant to convey in that story was that it is helpful to objectify feelings of overwhelm and that if felt within healthy levels, overwhelm or anxiety can stimulate action for positive personal transformation. These feelings, little messengers sent to remind us that something is off, need space and time to reflect on.
However, in my own life, and I suspect generally, we deal with these emotions daily, and a “change of perspective” while stoic, isn’t always enough to address stress or other emotions at the level we need. There is a societal pressure that comes with “dealing,” and I admit my own way of addressing it is tinted slightly in rose.
I recommend listening to Brene Brown’s talk to twins, Drs. Emily and Amelia Nagoski, about their discoveries on stress and emotion in their book Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle. The Nagoskis study how emotions inhabit our body and the cultural implications of allowing stress (or another emotion) to run its course instead of always heeding to “I’m fine.” We’ve come so far in uncovering what prolonged stress does to health, however, there’s more to this story. Their research outlines a physiological reason for my personified Mr. Escapism from the Tea back in March. Flight or Fight or Freeze. All ways our primordial bodies handle stress. Mines flight, with a dabble in freeze while sprinkling in a defensive fight here or there. What’s yours?
Emotions are a cycle. They have a beginning, middle, and end. They are neurological events in that they affect not only our mind but our body’s intelligence- our entire central nervous system. Emotions are involuntary and impact our entire body all the time. Exhaustion happens when we get stuck in an emotional cycle. Emotional exhaustion is one of three causes of burnout and is the most strongly linked to impacting our health, relationships, and work (Nagoski, Host, 2020).
It feels affirming to hear that emotions are science, but their discovery of how chronic stress builds shook me. According to the Nagoskis’, a stressor- work, kids, or internal examples like body criticism or trauma history - activates the stress response. Stress is the chemical concoction the body releases. Our mind deals with stressors, our body deals with stress. So even if the stressor ends or leaves, your body hasn’t necessarily finished releasing it. Meaning that speech you prepped for and crushed or that tough conversation you had with a friend, your body doesn’t necessarily know when or if that event is over unless you’ve completed the cycle.
The research rings similar to a stress bank. If you are working on a long-term project or dealing with an ongoing family stressor, each DAY you need to release the stress in order to take it on again the following. If you don’t give the resources your body needs to complete the cycle, stress will continue to accumulate. The same goes for any other emotional build-up. So this saying, “fill up your cup,” is a crucial daily habit. That makes stress management, or even emotion management, the most important thing you can do every day for yourself and for those around you. It feels like everyone’s been preaching it, but their findings on emotion and accumulation hit differently as if for the first time I’m realizing the implications of not prioritizing a daily reset.
Your body speaks its own language. Its psychological change is dependent on behavior, not an environment change. So if the stressor leaves (project done, move finished, relationship over), you still have to deal with the stress or any emotion that’s stored. Seven behaviors to complete the stress cycle are- movement, breathwork, positive social interaction, affection (a 20-second warm hug), laughter (deep belly real shoulder-shaking laugh), a good cry, and creative expression (taking what’s inside you outside you into whatever creation) (Nagoski, Host, 2020).
The global wellness industry tops 4 trillion. It’s gargantuan. Growing twice as fast as the global economy, the industry feeds us boutique workouts, personalized-everything-care, mushrooms instead of coffee, and athleisure as an aesthetic. We’ve gone bananas, and while some of the industry is incredibly helpful some of it is excessive and surface. As with anything, find what works for you. One element that infuses all these ways to release stress and pent-up emotion, and will actually improve your wellbeing is something that you cannot easily buy, and this is your TIME. The research confirms repeatedly that these practices are just as important to whatever you consider being your other roles or jobs. A creative outlet is just as important as your 9-5, meditation in the morning is just as important as hanging with your kids, and a 20 min walk or workout is just as if not more important than that last email. Your health and the well-being of the people you surround yourself with depends on it.
One ‘stressor’ will just be filled by another. We, humans, love some stressors! We love plans, and projects, and travel, and living in spaces that need decorating. Humans are meant to expand, try new things, and take risks. It doesn’t mean we stop doing these things, it means we change our relationship to how they affect us, and most importantly that we prioritize time to release the day so we can show up consistently the next. Heck, exploring a creative outlet felt so good I shifted my career. It felt so good, that I turned my destresser into a stressor, something I need to show up regularly for, something bigger than just journaling after a long day. Now my way of releasing stress shifts into other modes. I’m sure workout instructors explore other avenues than movement. The point is there shouldn’t be any shame around the time you take or what works for you, especially if you are moving through larger change. If meditation isn’t your thing, maybe it’s spin class, if sweating isn’t your thing, maybe it’s drawing or picking up an instrument. With the way we live now, I think we need more than one outlet. We have a plethora of emotions. Just because sweating releases your stress, what releases your fears or grief? What brings up joy?
I guess I express and uncover to ultimately contradict myself. If you’re getting overwhelmed or stressed regularly, a shift in perspective (bringing it to Tea) or saying affirmations just isn’t enough. Meet yourself where you are at, take routine breaks, legitimate ones, and encourage your friends and family to do so too.
Listen here for the podcast on Spotify. It’s an episode that was first released in October 2020. I recommend it.
Happy Pride Month!!
Xx
Colleen