When we think about stress what comes to mind? For many of us, we think of work and the demands associated with our work. The demand of schedules, deadlines, and production put strain on our minds and our spirits. Perhaps family comes to mind. Many have strained relationships that cause emotional tension and strain. Perhaps there is a personal struggle that only we know about that causes us stress. With these things in mind it is safe to say that life itself produces stress. Probably that thought alone induces stress as you read it. If we are wanting a stress free life, we may be looking for something that doesn’t exist. Life will have stress. Even things that we enjoy can cause stress. So the goal can’t be to rid ourselves of stress but to manage and understand our stress rather than be ruled and overwhelmed by it.
There are a lot of ways that we can talk about stress and how to manage it. It is a mental health issue. It is a physical health issue. It is an emotional issue. It is a spiritual issue. Because stress has so many effects in our lives, there are many ways to address and manage stress in our lives. When stress begins to take a mental or emotional toll, we may see the help of a counselor or therapists to help find coping tools to deal with our stress. When there are physical symptoms that arise from our stress level we may need to seek medical intervention to treat the symptoms. There is no reason to feel ashamed of seeking this type of help when we need it.
There are also spiritual ways to approach our stress, and perhaps gain perspective that will offer longer term relief from our stress.
Over the next few posts we will consider how we can spiritually understand our stress and (more importantly) understand ourselves as we learn to better enjoy the grace and peace of God.
