SPIRIT        LODGE   LIBRARY Healing Page 83

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Stress Busting
By Silver Eagle Dream Dancer

If I were to ask you what ‘stress’ was for you, would you know the answer? Many people don’t
even know what stresses them on a daily basis. For some, it’s traffic. For others, it’s a jerk at
work. For yet others, no cream for their coffee is legitimate ground for a major stress out. Do you
even recognize what stress is in your life... both small and large? So we start there, learning to
recognize when you’re under stress. To do that, we must have a common understanding of what I
mean when I say stress.

Simply put, stress is anything that disturbs the flow of your harmony; harmony being a place
within where you feel content, fulfilled and aligned with your connection with Creator. If we can
use the analogy of an orchestra, of which we are all playing instruments in symphony - the
disharmony of an instrument/note out of tune or rhythm with the grand song would be
considered stress.(non-healthy stress) From this analogy it’s also much easier to see how stress
would affect everyone around you and affect the harmony of the grand song; the grand song
being life, in which we all participate as well as contribute to. Bear in mind that the grand song is
constantly being recreated as it’s being played. This creates a natural stress that requires all
musicians to readjust to maintain harmony, rhythm and balance in the grand song. (healthy stress)

Our bodies are based on a supply and demand loop. We perceive or experience stress, our bodies
meet the demand by creating what is needed to cope with the demand. The common
physiological effects of stress are: increased fight or flight hormonal response, headaches,
muscle tension leading to fatigue, shorter breathing, altered heartbeat (faster), loss of energy and
interest, emotional irritability, and depression. Stress, left unchallenged can lead to diseases that,
in part, are fed everyday by the overload on the physical body and supporting emotional structure.

The energy matrix of stress itself can be confusing. While it would appear that stress robs you of
energy, what it really does is divert your personal energy into a different stream of awareness.
The more stress, the greater amount is diverted into that stream. Just as your body creates
hormones to cope with the imbalance, your energy systems create a flow to cope with the
imbalance and keep it from spreading to other places in your energy systems; sort of a stress
quarantine. So the key to ‘healing’ all of that is to address the stress then challenge it!
I’ll tackle non-healthy stress first by using an example of a common stress - having enough time
in the day. Let’s say that you get a good nights’ sleep and that wicked alarm screams you awake
in the morning. Pretty much the same every morning. First thoughts maybe along the line of: "I
don’t want to get up... running through the list of all the things that need doing that day...
something coming up that you’d rather not deal with or confront.. there’s never enough time."
Nevertheless, you slap off the alarm and drag yourself to meet your day. You’re already under
stress and you’re not even out of bed! As the day wears on, your muscles will remain tense,
breathing shallow, and mood irritable. You’re informed by past experience that you’ve never had
the time to do the things you wanted or needed to get done. You begin to feel the crunch and the
weight. Already your energy is being diverted, supported by that past experience. What’s happening?

Simply put, you’re limiting yourself in every way conceivable. The core stress to address - self
limitation. Here is where we get into the nuts and bolts of retraining yourself.

1) Breathe. It’s a simple thing. We all know how to do it. Breath is life. If you take just a few
moments to breathe with purpose it can make a huge difference in how you feel. You can breathe
out stress itself and I’ll offer that method at the end of the article.

2) Challenge the perceived limitation. How do you know you don’t have enough time? The day
hasn’t happened yet. Just because it’s been that way before doesn’t guarantee it will be that way now.

3) Inject the element of the unlimited. This is where you involve Spirit in your quest to
understand what you’ve discovered about stress. Ask for help and most importantly, be open to
receiving it. Stress has a way of closing off that which we think of as unlimited. By simply
opening that energy up - you are already changing the flow and healing begins.

4) Realize why you’ve limited yourself. Be it of habit, lack of confidence, or self-victimization...
realize why you created it and you can more effectively keep it from happening again. Don’t
worry if you don’t get this the first time you challenge your limitations. This, like all other
things, takes practice.

5) Congratulate yourself on the step forward. You earned it and are better for it.

Breathing exercise:
First, you want to purposely tense your body... as tense as you can. In effect, you’re retraining
that response. This is not a one-time thing but must be practiced to become habit. So, tense
everything. Breathe in deeply (on purpose) - then release your breath. Maintain the tension for
three cycles of breath. When you cycle your breath the third time, begin to consciously release
some tension on the exhale. Do not re-tense your body but do maintain the new level of tension
created by each successive cycle of breath. This amounts to a gradual release of the tension you
created. By the ninth cycle, you should’ve released all tension.

To release specific tensions, you first need to have it in mind and allow your body to respond
naturally to it. Recall to mind a specific stress, allow your body to react and then purposefully
hold the tension. Once you’re aware of it, begin the breathing cycles until the tension is gone.
Repeat the exercise until your body is no longer responding with tension to the targeted
thought/stress. In this way, you retrain your physical in how to respond to the stress. I used this
method to get rid of my fear of spiders.

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