tiistai 18. joulukuuta 2012

Days 87-88: Stressed and sick – sick with stress – stressing myself to death


17-18122012

Yesterday I faced an interesting and reoccurring point of stress. I have been sick for a while – first ten days with an injured leg, then a few days with a flu – and because of that I haven't been exercising for a while. It has been bugging me because I like exercising and fear that I will get out of shape, which I will and already have, but it's no biggie because when I get healthy again and can simply start exercising again – but this hasn't been of much comfort because the fear is so overriding.

So I faced a moment where I compared myself to another concerning exercise, reacted with fear and anxiety, tried to deal with it but half-assed the point and let it slip and continued with my work. I had a long list of tasks for the day and kept working on them and even got most of them done. I had saved three of the biggest tasks for the last and kept on postponing them with other more urgent stuff, such as sending letters and cooking food for myself. When I was finally at a point where I could've started on one of those bigger tasks I was already anxious. I tried starting one but felt uncomfortable. I tried another and faced obstacles that needed to be fixed before I could get on with the actual work, and all the while I was solving the obstacles I was accumulating a pain into my shoulders that I didn't stop to notice. When I was finally done with the obstacles and could've started with the actual task ahead, the pain was so bad I had to collapse on the floor to breathe. I was within a painful stress loop that had accumulated into tension in my shoulders, tension into pain and this resulting into a migraine. I was so stuck with the thought “I have to get these tasks done” that I didn't stop to notice my body was screaming for me to stop. With the anxiety driving me from the start I did not stop until I was physically unable to no longer move. At this point I had already been working for the entire day while still being sick, but I thought that I could use my last three waking hours for work as well, never considering rest to be an option. I had had a small pause in the afternoon and the dinner break – why would I need more?

So after the migraine had been triggered I took painkillers, laid down for half an hour and just told myself to breathe. I faced furious resistance to just lay still: “But I have to do this and this and this.” I told myself that I am sick, I need rest, I don't have to do anything at all, just let it all go and breathe. So I told myself the only thing I'm allowed to do is breathe and then stuck to it – and after half an hour this seemed to do the trick, as I little by little let go of the resistance and allowed myself to relax.

What I found as I looked into the reasons for my anxiety was that I fear that sickness will not be seen as a valid reason to rest / have a break, and that my state of sickness will be diminished. This correlates rather well with the point of glorifying sickness I wrote about earlier. I can trace this back to theatre where we have always been told that “absence is allowed only if you're giving birth”, and that has pretty much been followed by most of us. The stress to finish a play in time is sometimes huge, especially when schedules are tight and rehearsals are useless if even one actor is missing, so I have numerous times been on stage while seriously ill. Shows cannot be cancelled because of money, so often there's an actor performing for an audience while sick, one way or another.

Another example that has convinced me to work even while sick is my father who rarely had a sick leave even when he was actually sick – again, because of money and/or honor. Only when he had a migraine would he stop and rest, because that's when his body simply refused to co-operate anymore. It's different now that he's older and no longer has a family of six to support, but when he was younger he pushed himself to absolute limits, and as a child I watched him with simultaneous worry and admiration. “He's in pain... but he's such a hero! But he's in pain!” Then buying all the crap about the beauty of suffering and glorifying his behavior.

So a key element in all of this seems to be comparison. In theatre one cannot rest because no one else does. All are pressured equally. While I work I work to not lose – to what? - to my “ideal”, to what I perceive others to be and “demand” of me. Projecting my self-image of “less” through others. What happened yesterday was the result of a point of comparison that wasn't dealt with. So it's like I perceive myself to be constantly running to “not lose”, as if there were some other contestants – which there aren't. In reality I'm running with myself – the running track is empty – and what I'm running in is the hamster wheel of never-ending stress.

What I have been refusing to see is that stress is a disorder in itself, as it is by no means a sustainable state of being for the body. I have justified stress as a natural part of working because I have mistaken stress to be a sign of efficiency. I now realize stress is the mind's interference with physical actions which only creates tension, and that real efficiency is to be found in a relaxed state of being, in economic movement as I flow through time/space undisturbed. I see that the human body has it's limits and is quick to show them if I simply stop and listen. Identifying mind-set “limits” is a whole other subject that needs to be considered along with identifying my physical limits. All in all, I cannot continue like this, or I will end up killing myself with stress.



I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to unfairly compare my actions committed while I am sick to actions of those who are physically healthy.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to bully myself with unfair comparison to push myself towards an ideal.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to abuse myself with unrealistic goals concerning what I need to get done during one day.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not consider the state of my physical health when and as I plan my work for the day, and to not be flexible about my plans when it turns out I cannot complete everything I had planned.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself, when and as I have been sick, to remember what I have been able to do while healthy and compare the past to the present, causing myself to feel “less than” what I was in the past, not taking into consideration that the past actions I am selectively remembering were all committed when I was physically healthy, and that it is not valid to compare the actions of the healthy to those of the sick.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that while sick what I need to consider first and foremost is the state of my physical health, as the sickness itself is a sign that my beingness as a whole is out of balance and needs support to bring itself into stability.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to consider the goals and images I've created in my mind over the state of my physical health, not realizing that if I ignore my physical for long enough I will die as a result and that all that was in the mind is irrelevant because the mind will not follow me after death but Life will; I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize my body is the vessel within and into Life as long as I am within this physical reality, and that it should thus be primarily looked after.

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I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not properly face the fear of getting out of shape and then half-ass the point as I noticed it's there, not realizing that everything that I do not properly face will bear consequences as it accumulates while ignored.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear I will get out of shape because I would then “lose” to others, this indicating that my starting point for exercising is to “win”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want to “win” by exercising and becoming “better” than what I have been in the past, wanting to “shake off” my past and be someone new.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe I want to “win” others as I exercise, when in reality all I want to “win” is my past self.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear my past self who used to be out of shape.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize the only way the past will ever influence this moment is through my own acceptance and allowance.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to assign my past self (which is actually just an image) a negative value, and assign my present “self” (self-image) a positive value, not realizing that when and as I assign something a value I no longer experience that something as what it is but as portrayed in the mind, and that actually neither my “past self” or “present self” exist.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe there is a “past self” I can become “by accident”, not realizing that even though it is possible to loop back and forth from one extreme to another, I will only manifest similar qualities to that whom I was in the past by accepting and allowing the same patterns to execute themselves again.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that the reason I fear becoming my “past self” again is because I haven't fully faced the reasons why I became that whom I was in the past.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not trust myself to have understood the points I have already walked and to be able to stand within and as myself as I face challenges concerning those points while I still go through the dimensions I haven't yet faced.

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I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to ignore the anxiety caused by a half-assed point and let it quietly accumulate, ignoring the signs of the anxiety in my body as tension, nausea, exhaustion and pain.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not stop the anxiety with the justification that “I had a lot of things to do”, not realizing the extent of the harm I am causing myself by not stopping.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize the importance of actually stopping.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to ignore the state of my physical to such an extent that I made myself more sick than I already was.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe I “have to do these tasks”, not realizing that there is nothing I should compromise myself for.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe my thoughts about “getting stuff done”, “doing a good job”, “working hard” etc, not realizing that all of these originate from fear.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to push myself to work because of the fear of not being enough, this manifesting as thoughts such as “I have to get this done”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want to be enough for my friends.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want to be enough for my colleagues.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want to be enough for my family.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want to be enough for the people I pass by on the streets.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to desire acceptance and fear not being accepted and act upon this desire/fear in a way that damages me and compromises my well-being.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to resist rest because I have been anxious to “get stuff done”.

--

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that sickness is not a valid reason to rest because I was told so at theatre by a person I had accepted as an authority.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not question this belief that sickness is not a valid reason to be absent from theatre and believe it is my “duty” to be there even when I am sick in order to finish a play – not realizing that our schedules are driven by the need to survive and ensure we get enough profit.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that to finish a play is more important than the well-being of those who create the play, seeing the play as something “more” than the people who create it, not realizing that if one of us were to die because of self-compromise there would be no play.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe it is “noble” to suffer for art.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that the motivation behind finishing a play on time is money, because the whole point with scheduled shows is to promise there will be a show on a specific time and then ensure an audience (money bringers) for that show – not that this is done from the starting point of greed, but from the need to survive.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to compromise my health by coming to rehearsal while seriously ill and thus worsening my condition as I was pressured to do so and believed there would be some kind of compensation (karma) for my sacrifice.

--

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to mistake stress to be a sign of efficiency, not realizing that even though stress might narrow down my focus in such a way that allows me to focus on the things I am doing without disturbance, in the long run stress will only eat me away as bits of my very flesh as indicated by the signs of physical exhaustion/pain/tension, and thus isn't real efficiency.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that actual efficiency is to be found in movement, where all that one comes across while working is faced as they are and dealt with as is needed, like a dance of “rolling with the punches”, accepting the impulses and moving with them – instead of pushing through the “punches” and obstacles with no other purpose than to blindly achieve a “goal”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that actual efficiency has nothing to do with pushing, forcing or demanding.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not consider efficiency as living within each and every moment, missing no breath in between.



I commit myself, if necessary to map out my plans for a day / week / month of working, to do this in a flexible way, where there is room to shorten and lengthen activities and also reserve time for resting.

I commit myself to look at my planned activities / tasks more realistically by taking into consideration how much time an activity / task will take, where it will be done and what the time for commuting will be, and also what kind of an activity / task it is in terms of possible recovery time.

When and as I get sick, I commit myself to set my physical health at primary importance by canceling activities that can be rearranged, taking a sick leave if necessary, resting enough, nourishing my body enough and getting a healthy dose of oxygen and light exercise.

I commit myself to stabilize myself HERE by practicing breathing in order to grow more aware of my physical body and the state of its health.

I commit myself to stop stress when and as it occurs and investigate its origins, as I now see, realize and understand stress is never valid, excusable or justifiable.

I commit myself to stop my anxiety when and as it occurs and investigate its origins, as I now see, realize and understand that when ignored it will bear consequences which are completely on my responsibility.

I commit myself to investigate the concept of efficiency.

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