SCIENCE.STRESS.SPIRIT: A Story about The Ancient of Hormones
There’s a hungry tiger in there.
I have been tracking her for days, and I am sure she is tracking me too. She just had cubs, is hungry and keeping her wits about her. I am hunting to feed my family, hungry and an expert of the forest. My survival skills are sharp and attuned. They have to be, my life depends on it.
As I watch the tiger, my breath is still, but engaged.
TOTAL SILENCE
My blood does not make a sound externally though I hear it pumping hard, sending vital resource to my limbs, preparing me for the flight of my life. My digestion and the rumblings of my belly are silent. All the vital life force energy needed to keep my body alive are flooding with cortisol and adrenaline, my best internal support system to get out of this alive.
I need these hormonal buoys. Calling on every inherent tool, my body is in total survival mode.
<<<Fast forward>>>
Many thousands of years later, I wake up late for an important meeting. I fumble around and find my alarm beeping under the bed, I overslept by 45 minutes. Oh no!!! My heart begins to race, so many things to do to prepare. So I run around jamming the things I need in my satchel, slam a cup of coffee, grab a sugary muffin-y thing from the grocery and head out the door. On the way, I am stressed out of my mind. My body is flooded with adrenaline and cortisol. This is the biggest day of the month, how can I be late? My job, my income, my life depends on it.
Waiting at the stop light I happened to notice myself.
Total silence.
I am holding my breath. Staring out in front of me and willing the light to change because it feels like everything depends on it. I cannot feel my body but I do grab my phone to check the time. And with a split second change of the traffic light the car behind lays on the horn which makes me jump out of the skin I have totally forgotten about. Right, my body is here too.
By the time I arrive to said meeting my body feels weird, wired, kind of euphoric even and it is go time. I need my system online to help me get through this important morning ahead, but there is nothing but an old coffee pot, a computer and 3 day old take out in the fridge of the office. Further, my system is maxed out as I understand I have been functioning under this umbrella stress of a life far too long. My body doesn’t rebound from these moments in the way it used too and I feel exhausted and overwhelmed most of the time. Stress comes over me even when I think about going to the grocery store, opening my phone or doing simple tasks.
Something has to change….
OK OK OK…take a breath. I may have (??) exaggerated but I hope these snippets help illustrate our deep, inherent, wise and ancient functions and how modern life repeats it, only in a different way.
Our body has an intuitive response to survive. They will do whatever it takes to stay alive including flooding our system with reactive stress hormones to help with what it perceives as a threat so that we can get THE HELL out of there. Our mind/body complex now does not know that the threat response is based off a very ancient and wise system we are hard wired in. So most of the time we get overwhelmed, anxious and feel what is “perceived” as a need for survival to kick into place, we create a response to do just that!
But during times of hormonal transitions and shifts (menarche, child birth, menopause or really we could say any big life transition: marriage, divorce, losing a job, retirement, political catastrophe, environmental bottom out, a social and civic revolution etc..) we may experience some or even a lot of that same response which saved and rooted us into existence and evolution.
The body is wise and will do what it takes to maintain survival even at the expense of oneself. So what to do about it? It is seemingly simple though not at all easy..but the science of ancient and time tested medicine says, we must adjust.
Adjust to the scurry and the hurry
Adjust the chaos of the mind to the pace of the body
Adjust to what we are experiencing
Make a change.
This type of change may happen in many ways. It may look like a combination of things and depending on many factors could include prescriptions from your trusted and educated medical provider. But here’s the kicker. If your mind, body & spirit hold a belief that the stress of life is so overwhelming and engulfing that is swallows you whole but some how that patch or that pill will solve IT ALL forever, you may be in for disappointment and possibly greater ill-health.
And what about belief?
Belief as in…
My insides match my outsides
I am aware of the direction my feet are pointing
I believe in the life I participate in
Belief is a foundational alley in our overall health. Checking in with belief, having a good conversation with belief is worth every bit of time, care and attention. Belief could absolutely compel a change and could open the doors to deeper healing. I have seen it for myself and others too. Belief lives in the ancient parts of us, listening, seeing, observing, recording over time. For some belief gets real strong and forceful and for others belief is quiet and internal. Regardless, belief holds powerful positions within and without us.
Also, I think of belief to be holding hands with faith. The hand hold between them is strong and soft, honest and sincere. They help each other up the steep hill and they support one another when the other falls down. Tending to belief and faith is like directly talking to the parts of us who know before we see, feel before it happens, understand before we learn.
The unseen that is felt.
Spirit.
Spirit is the place of deep knowing. A place where belief and faith arrive. Spirit is essential on the journey of deepening our connections within and in my experience a place to lean into when times feel transitional, unknown and different. Spirit shows up and fills in the places where there is no firm path ahead. Spirit is the place that grows wisdom, deep understanding and sets the table for belief and faith to dine.
There is no quick fix for anything of importance, no matter what. I know this to be true. But growing seeds that raise connections, compassion, resilience and love weave together to help support growing belief. And from that the most beautiful of woven baskets to share from.
The more I go, the more I learn. The more I learn, the more I want to share. The more I share, the more my belief/my faith grows stronger. The more my faith grows stronger, the more I can show up for myself. The more I show up for myself, the more I can sustainably show up for others.
Would you do me the honor and the favor of forwarding this article to someone you might think would want to hear it? Because this is a revolution. I can and often do spend most of my time in study and practice talking about and sharing how we change a conversation in the health care system. One that is about body autonomy, understanding your aging process, understanding what you are taking and why… advocating for yourself, really. It is so important but it is getting swallowed by the 16.9 billion dollar capitalist march to the tune of “take this pill, resist your age, you can do everything no matter what” you get my drift “song”.
I need your help. Because community is key when we are looking to make a change. And community is the piece I believe in most. With community I can continue to work and spread messages, along with others that include real and time tested science and practice that are life changing. Without community, I am swallowed up, an easy gulp, by this massive machine.
Sincerely,
Danielle