Blog, Interrupted: Stewardship Under Stress

It’s been two weeks or so since my last blog post … a pretty big lapse considering my goal of two posts per week. So for anyone who has missed seeing new content, please accept my apology.

To be honest, the disruption in blog frequency has paralleled a big disruption in my commitment to healthy eating and active living … all of which just sort of collapsed under the weight of a big disruption in my life.

I’ve alluded to my recent struggles in a few vague references and that’s about it. I don’t intend to be coy. I simply don’t have the words or the perspective to share right now. But in the interest of authenticity, I also want to be real about what I write here. Life doesn’t just stop when things get difficult. More to the point of this post, regardless of what life brings into our path, we all face disruptions and distractions and challenges and struggles.

If we let them derail our focus on stewarding our own health, we’re doing ourselves a disservice. But I find that when I’m stressed, self-care is the first thing to go.

I ignore meditation in favor of overthinking. I put off exercise so I can sit paralyzed by my own anxiety. I constantly battle the temptation to use food to feed my weakness instead of fueling my strength. I use self-pity as an excuse to do a poor job taking care of myself when I need it most.

And here’s what I know from experience about doing that:

• I feel like crap. There’s some truth, at least metaphorically, to the old maxim “you are what you eat.” When I eat junk food, I feel bad. I suffer from inflammation and allergies. I feel sluggish, heavy, and just sort of gross. Junk food doesn’t provide quality nourishment, and as a result my body isn’t adequately fueled to get through the day, especially when it’s under stress.
• Being too sedentary during the day leaves me riddled with tension and battling aches and pains resulting from too much sitting instead of a healthy amount of motion. So I add physical pain to my mental anxiety.
• Dwelling on things only adds to my stress, taking an additional and unnecessary toll on my body, mind and spirit.
• The more I continue these destructive patterns, the more compelled I seem to be to continue them in the future.

In short, my default patterns for dealing with stress in my life make everything worse. “Giving myself a break” from self-care isn’t much of a kindness.

Why do I do this to myself?

Honestly, I wish I knew. My best guess is that it’s habit. This is the response I’ve been practicing for a lot of years of being unhealthy. And even though I’ve made some progress in cultivating healthy habits, they’ve not been successfully pressure-tested in a high-stress environment.

Instead of applying effort and energy to adapting a new approach in times of stress, I default to old patterns because they’re easier and more familiar.

But that doesn’t mean they’re better.

My own experience and results clearly show me the flaw in my pattern. But how to change it?

I’m facing this inflection point right now, today. I need answers and strategies to put to work in the here and now. And I wish I had the tried-and-true method for success to extract from my own life. I don’t, though, or I wouldn’t be in this place.

What I can do, though, is draw parts and pieces that have worked well and try to do a better job of applying them. So for the next 30 days, I’m committing to do six basic things every day in the interest of taking good care of myself while I’m navigating a particularly stressful period in my life.

Here’s what I know to be true about effectively coping with stress (some of them you can read about in the Bible, and some of them come from sound science and past experience. I think there’s room for both.)

• Seek Him first. Isaiah 30:15 says “In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.” This reminds me to stop fighting so hard and just rest in the Lord above and beyond everything else.
• Stress takes a physical toll on the body, so I need to keep my body strong and nourished to cope with stress well. That means staying hydrated and getting good fuel — protein, healthy fat, fiber.
• Exercise helps us process stress-related energy and tension. A lot of stress shows up as worry and anxiety about things we can’t really do anything to resolve in the moment. But exercise gives us an outlet for stress-related “buzz.” That’s my layperson’s description — medical experts can put a finer point on it. I just know it works.
• As an introvert, I need space and solitude to recharge. When life is demanding more of me than usual, I need to consciously create space. That means minimizing social commitments for awhile where it makes sense to do so. I want to be careful to distinguish this from isolating oneself. Isolation is closing down communication, shutting off crucial relationships and interpersonal human connection. That’s not usually healthy. Maintaining connection with those closest to us is important and something we shouldn’t ignore. That said, introverted people find large groups of people to be a drain on energy, even if we love all the people and have a good time. So in stressful seasons, dialing back extraneous social obligations can be one way to conserve resources. When I’m stressed, for example, my circle gets smaller and I tend to want to spend time with people one at a time instead of in groups. An extrovert might opt for the exact opposite, seeking time to be with friends as a source of drawing energy. Many introverts are wired differently. It’s a matter of energy conservation, not social isolation. I’m not sure if Jesus was introverted or extroverted, but we see many examples in His life where He took time to get away for prayer and solitude.
• The only way out is through. By that, I mean that although the temptation to numb our feelings or compartmentalize or repress things during times of stress is very compelling, it is almost never productive or helpful. Repressing and numbing simply kicks the can down the road, delaying healing and solutions. Difficulties must be faced, processed and dealt with before we can truly move forward in freedom. The only way out of a difficult season is to move through it, step by step, day by day. In Luke 22, Jesus admonishes the disciples about this. He demonstrates by example that prayer is a powerful way to process stress — that night in the Garden of Gethsemane was arguably one of the most stressful in the human life of Christ. He sweat great drops of blood as He prayed. But he didn’t attempt to sleep through it like the disciples. In verse 45, Luke writes, “And when he rose from prayer, he came to the disciples and found them sleeping for sorrow, and he said to them, ‘Why are you sleeping? Rise and pray that you may not enter into temptation.'” That phrase “sleeping for sorrow” is translated elsewhere as “sleeping from grief.” The Greek word translated “for” in this phrase is apo, meaning “off, that is away, denoting separation or departure.” In other words, the disciples were trying to sleep through their suffering and grief. Jesus tells them not to do that. He tells them to rise and pray their way through it instead. Because numbing doesn’t work. It leads to temptation. The only way out is through.
• Keep it simple. It’s not the time for new things or audacious goals.

In light of all this, I’m starting with affirmative steps instead of prohibitions, because frankly I find it’s easier to go do something than to surround myself with no’s all the time. Even Jesus seemed to relay this truth in the way He always taught not only what not to do, but what to do instead. So based on what I know about me, what I know about stress, and what experience has taught me about what not to do, here’s my commitment:

Six Daily Steps For Stewardship Under Stress

1. Seek God for help. Every day. Read my Bible every morning.
2. Keep a journal, including a prayer journal. Write in it every day about what I’m experiencing and learning in the struggle. (I find writing my prayer journal helps me stay focused. My thoughts tend to drift otherwise.)
3. Stay hydrated. Drink 5 big glasses of water every day (I have a 20-oz glass expressly for this purpose).
4. Say no to food that makes me sick. You could argue this is a prohibition and not an affirmation, but I think it’s a matter of perspective. Making good choices is a positive step. Recognizing eating as a series of conscious choices is also important. Saying no reinforces my authority over my food choices and recognizes that I am accountable and empowered to make good ones.
5. Get 30 minutes of exercise every day. It doesn’t matter what kind. Just get up and go for half an hour every day.
6. Make space for myself. Be intentional about fellowship.

In the Bible, seven is the number of completion and perfection. I thought about looking for a seventh item to add to my list to round things out. But in hindsight, I think it’s better with six. That leaves room for my open admission that I’m not perfect and neither is this list. It’s an acknowledgement that I can’t get through this alone. I hope, though, it can be a good starting point and a reminder of the fundamentals of physical and emotional stewardship during a tumultuous time when it’s easy for me to forget those basic things.

Here goes nothing. I’ll keep you posted.