Blog 7 - Relationship Stress

It Depends …

Third Answer to Stress – Relationships 1

In my environment, I can feel cold or hot. The sun comes up and goes down in much the same way every day. The heart pumps blood and the lungs breath in the same way they did yesterday. In my body, I can feel shortness of breath or see a cut bleed. These things are real and clear because the body and the environment have specific rules each follows. Relationships are different.

When I meet a person for the first time, what is the specific feeling (like the heat of the sun) that will tell me if this new person will like me, support me, protect me, and respect my limits? Questions whirl in relationships: Does he/she love me? Who gets custody of the dog if we separate? If my co-worker’s gossip about others, what are they saying about me? Can I always call my best friend?

The questions about how relationships operate are too many to answer in a blog. But what is the feeling(s) that answers the questions above?

It depends ...

Relationships operate in your life today based, in part, from how parents behaved toward you as a child. Did they care for you, physically and emotionally, in a way that made you feel valued, special? Did they keep you safe, physically and emotionally, in a way that made you feel protected and secure from harm? If I feel trust in these areas (trust that I was physically and emotionally cared for and safe), I know what it feels like and can apply that feeling to new relationships. In other words, I have a specific feeling about relationships I can apply to new people I meet.

I want to make this clear. Environmental care, shelter and clothing, is one need. Physical care, food and band aids, are another. A parent can provide these without ever providing emotional care or emotional safety. Creating a feeling that I am a critically important person to another person and knowing that I am safe from outside harm because of another person is essential to believing I can engage people, locate the caring and safe ones, while avoiding the uncaring and dangerous ones. When I do not know how to recognize the people who will care and keep me safe from the ones who will take advantage and abuse me, stress in relationships is exaggerated. Stress is reduced or eliminated when I can trust my judgement about who will care and protect.

It depends …

Blog 6 - Environment Stress

It Depends …

Second installment – Environment

 Environmental stress is a global, ever-present event. Any place and the things in it, can produce stress, and depending on one’s viewpoint, can relieve it. A farmer waiting to bring in his crop, a young pilot waiting for his first flying lesson, a golfer waiting to tee off in a tournament, an adolescent taking the free throw for the final shot of the game, a commuter stuck in traffic, or a fly fisher person approaching a new stream.

Every scenario is an environment with potential stress. Remember I said potential. Feelings may range from crippling stress to no stress. The farmer may have everything under control and look forward to the labor or fear a coming storm announced on the news ten minutes ago.

The environment operates without our intervention. We have no control over a tornado, a hurricane, or drought. The environment does not care about puny mortals. Operating in its own way and at its own pace, environments hold no compassion raising up as quickly as striking down. If that is the case, how can environments reduce stress?

When a person goes to his man-cave or her she-shed environment, what happens? A sense of calm pervades his or her being. The person is in a place surrounded by things he or she appreciates and enjoys. The same can be true on a golf course, flying a plane, shooting the final basket, or standing in a stream. How the person chooses to perceive his or her surroundings produces positive or negative feeling.

Years ago, my family owned a small trailer on Lake Lanier. As I came down the gravel road, layers of stress would drop off. After I got the key, I would flip a small lock to position it to open. It made a click-clack sound that was the cue for me to fully relax. As I write this now, the feeling of calm comes back because I am picturing the event in my mind and enjoying it.

Environments can cause stress or produce great calm. Find an environment where you feel relaxed. Practice breathing in it to enhance its serenity. Produce a mind set that engenders calm and own it. Let it be your place, your calm. Relax and enjoy. Create a personal way to remember your experience.

It depends …

 P.S. It is possible to rewrite negative environmental narratives to reduce their impact on emotions and eliminate past stressors that we carry and may not even remember.

Blog 5

The First Answer

 Stress is an unspecified event or action. Your boss calls you to his or her office; a close friend dies without warning; a beloved pet gets hit by a car; or your partner leaves you. Small or big events that are unexpected/sudden create stress. Stress comes from not being able to ‘make sense’ of what is happening around you. 

Stress forms into a pattern that people believe they can control, called coping. Coping is fine short-term, but long term it wears a person out (and maybe the people around them).

Wilderness rescue, EMT, police, military combat are examples, or simply, working in a toxic office atmosphere, where the people scream, backstab, or demean each other. When you feel that you cannot afford to quit, the stress is crippling.

Some people like to maintain a high level of stress to force themselves to focus and overcome. Some people prefer to avoid all stress and conflict. Since stress is akin to emotion, what you do about stress is critical to being healthy. The key is to convert unspecified areas of your life into specifics and let the rest of it go (I will talk about permission to let it go in another blog).

Three options exist to let stress go. “Slip out the back Jack.” No, that’s a Paul Simon song.

Biology, relationships, or environment are ways to decrease (or increase) stress. I want to discuss them one at a time over the next three blogs.

Biology comes first. Stress is a biological reaction. Biology responds based on our environment and relationships, but also because of what you tell it to do.  A simple way to think about it is “Your brain is in your head, but your mind can go anywhere.” Did you ever daydream?

To begin, the simplest mind technique is breathing. When people become stressed, they shorten breathing or hold their breath. Taking eight deep breaths relaxes your biology.

Many people have many ways to do this, but the one that I find effective is: Breathe in through your nose to a count of four. Fill your lungs all the way to your tummy (diaphragm). Exhale for a count of four through your nose. Deep breath in. Deep breath out. Eight times. Watch yourself that you do the full eight breaths. People tend to cut short the last few.

Other biological releases are meditation, reading, massage, exercise, running, walking, or pacing. (Ever notice how, when you get upset, you wear a hole along the same place in the carpet.)

So it depends … the more you practice biological stress reduction the faster it works for you.

Blog 4

“Emotions won’t kill you. What you do about them might.” Dr. John Mauldin

Unreleased feelings, emotions produce stress. Stress operates along a range of low to high. Feelings get released when we resolve the issue causing it. I don’t mean emotions won’t go away when you pick a fight with your partner, get drunk, or take a long run. All strenuous actions reduce stress temporarily. But the problem returns along with the emotional stress.

What causes change is learning how to maintain a moderate stress level.

“Wait a minute! I want to get all my stress off my back.”

Unfortunately, no stress produces limited problem solving. No stress and I feel as if I have no problem. High stress and I feel my stress is going to kill me. I can’t think, reason, or resolve anything. If someone wants change, learn a process for maintaining moderate stress.

P.S. Jeannie read this entry and said aren’t you going to tell them how to do it?

It depends …

Psychology & Emotions

It Depends Blog #3

 Fear, sadness, shame, anger. Emotions move people, motivate them to act …do something. But wait a minute, psychology says emotions are simple biochemical impulses that rise, peak, and release, intended to notify us of internal and external happenings.

Can a writer someone create a connection between the places, people, and emotions strong enough that a reader can feel it? Of course! But how?

Emotions are biochemical responses. If you want to be thoroughly confused, there is a link below where two scientists discuss what emotions are.* 

Most people have felt all the feelings above at some time in life. A writer describes an emotional picture and maintains an emotional tone that others have shared, a racing heart, fear in the throat, or red-hot anger. The character’s feeling connects the reader and drives the individual to wonder what the character will do with the emotions. Plot twists prolong the emotion. Resolution, in unique ways, pushes a reader deeper into the book.

Doesn’t always work. It depends …

*https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7749626/

I am more comfortable writing about Psychology than applying it to writing. Henceforth (great word), I will be writing about Psychology.

Wonderful Words, Thought I'd Share

My email contained a wonderful note about The Orb. I thought I would share it.

Dr John,

I finished The Orb this morning and it was a beautiful story with a very moving ending. I’m not usually a fantasy reader but I really enjoyed the book. The way you developed the characters along with their metamorphosis was truly wonderful. I see a budding Stephen King here!

And also a Trilogy.

Take care,

Larry Long

Thank you for your kind words Larry.

Psychology in What Happens

It Depends #2

Hi Folks,

Psychology is a key element in creative writing. Any happening happens somewhere. The location an author chooses, described with enough detail, becomes a place the reader can see and, if done very well, felt. Location description sets an atmosphere and becomes an event within itself. For example, a dark night can be a night with stars, deep shadows, and moon, or inky black like the inside of a cave, or have a soft comforting breeze blowing. Like the mood of a person affects their thinking, the mood and description of a place creates and sharpens perceptions and interactions, setting the stage for what is to come.

John

Writing & Psychology

It Depends Blog #1

I was a psychologist for 40 years. I love to help people with problems, love to teach, and love to learn. With all the different people and problems out there, what therapy I used depended on the person. For me, therapy is like writing.

The Orb is my first trek into fiction. To describe the original thought required “seeing” an image, of how events happened and what the characters thought about when it happened like understanding a person’s problem. My picture had to make sense to a reader in the way I packaged it. Learning how to do this was great fun.