A Letter from our Bible Study Teacher, Josh Wise I’ve been thinking a lot about stress lately. I don’t know, there’s just something about living through these “unprecedented times” while also working, going to seminary, and trying to show up in my relationships that takes it out of me. It can be a lot. I’ve started noticing patterns in how I handle stress. When I get stressed, I go into denial about it and I procrastinate. And then I’m stressed even more because now I’m behind because I procrastinated. And the cycle repeats, again, and again, until I’m stressed out crabby human being.
When I find myself caught up in this stress rinse cycle, one of the things I find most helpful is just simply noticing; noticing that stress cycle when I get caught up in it. I don’t push myself to interrupt it or break that cycle right away. I can do that later. It’s enough to just notice it and not deny or run from it. Just sit with it, at least to start. From there I can begin to unpack that stress and find more helpful ways of handling it rather than just ignoring it. But it all starts, for me anyways, with the sitting and noticing.
Do you have patterns like this? In what ways do you find yourself responding to stress? Are any more helpful than others? I encourage you to find your own ways of sitting and noticing.