What Have You Survived?

I am a sucker for a good song. So when the lyrics to Kelly Clarkson's song, "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger" pour out of my speakers, I sing along. I love that song. But sadly, it is not true. What doesn't kill you, doesn't kill you. That's all we can say about that.

However, if we survive, we have a chance to rise again. What makes us stronger is not surviving, it is learning how to recover from a near death experience. Riding the adrenalin of survival is like a roller coaster with no end in sight and inevitable motion sickness.

Give this some thought and consider - what have you survived?

Safety From Stressors

Stressors, whether external or internal, are the things in our life that activate a stress response in our body because our body interprets them as threats. After two hurricanes collectively wiped out over 30 trees in our yard, causing a lot of expensive damage both times, Pete and I view trees as stressors when the wind blows or storms arise. We don't choose this. We read The Giving Tree to our children! We understand that trees are lovely things that provide shade, love one another, and help oxygenate our environment. We KNOW this but our bodies KNOW other things - like how scary it is to hear them crashing around us in the middle of a dark night with no light source to help us see what's happening.

Stress is what happens in our bodies when we encounter one of these threats. It's part of our survival system. Epinephrine takes charge and sends blood rushing to our muscles in case we have to fight or flee. Glucocorticoids provide us energy to persevere. Our muscles tense, our sensitivity to pain diminishes, our body becomes fully alert; we focus on the threat and forego all distractions. We forget that we are mammals but fortunately our body remembers. We have a body that helps us fight for survival.

The only way to complete this stress cycle is to fall victim to the stressor or survive. But this cycle is only completed if the conclusion makes sense. Here is an important key piece of information: we must do something that informs our body that the threat has been removed. We need a signal that indicates we are safe.

Do you have any chronic stressors that you cope with but have not found a way to find safety from?