Archives for posts with tag: stress management
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Stress Management in Difficult Times

March 26, 2026 //
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Too much stress, too many of the days, and it’s too common as problems go, for too many people. What to do about it? I’m just one person, and I’m not a credentialed expert of any kind (there is help out there, I promise you), but I’m here, and I’m working on my own shit, and I care, generally, and I’m not selling something or harvesting your data. Just a person willing to share.

[No AI is used in writing or editing this blog. This is human content for human readers.]

When I’m too stressed, too often, I reach into a metaphorical “bag of tricks” learned over years of managing stress, and years of therapy. I consider the source of my stress (often purely subjective internally manufactured stress) and choose my path.

  • Taking a proper break in a stressful moment, and really stepping away from it to focus on something else is often enough to reduce momentary stress.
  • Reframing the stressful circumstances, and giving myself better understanding of the complexities, and greater perspective is often helpful.
  • Checking my assumptions is very useful; it’s easy to be very wrong about what I think I know. Sometimes stressful circumstances are fueled solely by my own erroneous thinking.
  • Practicing non-attachment, refusing to be wounded by one outcome or another can let me get beyond the source of my stress to an understanding of circumstances that doesn’t cause me so much stress.
  • Meditation – practiced reliably and consistently – helps me build and maintain resilience. Even practiced unreliably, or only as a response to extreme stress, it still functions as a means of creating healthy emotional distance between me and my stress.
  • Evaluating the elements of my circumstances that are driving my stress and identifying (and letting go of) those elements wholly outside my control allows me to put my attention where it can do some good.
  • Saying “no”, setting clear boundaries and acknowledging my limits without guilt, shame, or discomfort (it takes practice) is incredibly useful. It’s too easy to overcommit and create a quagmire of stress over conflicting priorities and missed deadlines. “Can’t say no…” is either a self-imposed illusion, or the product of an abusive relationship (whether personal or professional is not relevant). “No” is a complete sentence, although it may be worthwhile to be more courteous, now and then, depending on the circumstances.
  • When the stress I feel has its roots in wanting more, different, better, or sooner, I find practicing sufficiency a useful tool. Resetting my expectations regarding what I really need vs what I think I want can be a source of real relief. Patience and gratitude help with that.
  • Facing anger with gratitude is almost a super power, and similarly, facing stress with recognition that “this too shall pass”, gives me cognitive freedom to look beyond my stress, through the lens of impermanence

I’m not a perfect person. I guess that is sort of the point. I keep practicing. The journey is the destination. Sometimes I have to begin again, sometimes beginning again is simply a joyful next moment arriving precisely on time. My results vary. I’ve built up a pretty useful toolkit for managing stress over the years, and these tools really work (when I really use them). It’s enough.

Yesterday was hard. The morning got off to a difficult start, but my Traveling Partner and I moved past the moment, and enjoyed a lovely day together. In the afternoon my mood was a little low; emotional storms use up a lot of energy and resilience, and can be quite fatiguing. I know that, though, and didn’t make it a thing. Instead I made healthy salads, my beloved got the crispy romaine and iceberg lettuce he enjoys, I got the dark leafy greens with the nutritional density I need to bounce back from a bad moment. We enjoyed them together.

It’s a stressful world. I hope you find something here to make it a little easier. (If I’ve overlooked a great way to manage stress, please share in the comments!)

I sit at the side of the trail I’m walking, writing and reflecting on life. It’s a cold morning. 1°C. I’m glad I wore a heavy sweater and a warm fleece over that. I watch daybreak become dawn. It will soon be time to begin again.

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Categories Allegories, anger, Anxiety, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Practices, Relationships, solo hiking, Spring, The Art of Being, War and News of War, Words

Tumbling Through the Strange

December 28, 2025 //
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Weird dreams last night, surreal and strange, filled with conversations with long gone friends, and with my Dad (deceased, for many years now). It all seemed very real at the time. I woke feeling disoriented and somehow misplaced.

The drive to the trailhead was quiet and uneventful. No traffic at all, this morning, which is eerie enough on its own, but with the freezing stillness of winter and the fog, it was very spooky. The world looked as if it was being rendered immediately in front of me as I approached, and erased behind me. The morning is dark and cold, properly wintry, frost sparkling under street lights, and the temperature only 30°F (about -1°C?). Nothing looks icy, just frosty, but the highway feels different around the curves and on the bridges and overpasses. I take my time and drive with care. There is no rush. It’s Sunday.

The parking lot at the nature park is empty. No surprise there, I suppose; there aren’t many people who enjoy a walk in this cold so early in the morning. Same with me. I’m not here, now, preparing to walk because I have a fondness for walking in the dark on a freezing winter morning! It just happens that I wake quite early, and this is the timing that has developed over years of practice. I wake and begin my day with a walk, generally. Exceptions are rare. What I do enjoy greatly, even on a freezing morning (and  much of the point of this practice is about this characteristic), is the solitude. Time alone with my thoughts is precious.

Before dawn, with a longer exposure; the picture is not the reality.

A hint of daybreak coming is evident in a subtle change in visibility. The sky seems faintly lighter, the silhouettes of the trees darker and more clearly outlined against the sky. Details of my surroundings are becoming clearer. In the cold, I won’t be inclined to stop for long at my halfway point, and I won’t want to write with stiff cold hands. I take my time with it now, before I step out onto the trail.

My head aches. My tinnitus is loud. My arthritis is griefing me. My sinuses are congested with the lingering effects of having been ill. I could go on; being human can be messy, annoying, uncomfortable, and unpleasant. None of that shit is “the important stuff”, is it? Just distractions and obstacles on the path, right? Human. If I give in and let all the mundanities of pain and aging and illness command my attention completely, it tends to diminish the joy and beauty and wonder that are also very much part of this experience. Which has more value – watching daybreak unfold into a new day, or being vexed by pain? Where we focus our attention has a lot to do with the quality of our experience in a given moment. I sit with that thought as I watch the sky slowly change from night to day, content to enjoy this moment as it is.

I sigh quietly, thinking about 2025. It’s nearly over. There’s a whole new year queued up, ready for whatever we make of it. I have no “resolutions” or grand plans. I do have practices, and hopes for the future, and a handful of intentions I’d like to make good on. There are always verbs involved. My results reliably vary; this is a very human experience. I will do, and fail, and learn from my failures, and begin again. Sure, I’ll likely also succeed many times, and celebrate those successes, but I’m not likely to learn as much from them. (I hope to be appropriately grateful for the circumstances that are pleasant and comfortable. I hope to be gracious about help, and sufficiently self-aware to understand that I’m not “getting there” alone.)

We become what we practice. Choose wisely.

Dawn comes. Fog clings in the low places, obscuring the marsh trail and the meadow. It’s a bit warmer (35°F, now, about 1.5°C I think). Better for walking. I wrap my scarf around my neck, and pull my knit hat on. I look down the trail, feeling fortunate for this quiet solitary moment. It’s time to begin, again.

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Categories Allegories, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, health, Healthy Living, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Oregon Trails, pain, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, solo hiking, The Art of Being, Uncategorized, winter, women, Words

Soothe Me

December 5, 2025 //
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I’m sipping my coffee slowly, after realizing I sat down and started my work day without taking time for me, at all. This is strange behavior (for me), and likely a byproduct of lingering background stress, which seems mostly pretty pointless, and perhaps a bit ridiculous.

It’s a very human experience to be mired in stress that is “inherited” (as from another person’s stress) or “opted-into” (as with becoming stressed by choices to read or consume specific media known to cause stress, and possibly little else), or even illusory (or delusional, as with hand-crafted personalized internal nonsense that just isn’t “real” in any practical sense). Then, of course, there’s all the real stress that may be simmering in the background of an individual human experience…commuting…cost of living…lack of means or resources…some momentary hardship or disaster…the risk of any of these being imminent… Although there are definitely practices that can effectively reduce stress (a lot), feeling stress is part of the human experience. It’s pretty non-negotiable. Sooner or later, a human primate experiences stress. I breathe, exhale, and relax. I sign out of my work tools, and “look away” for a few minutes of self-reflection, meditation, and self-care.

Lately, I’ve been pretty chronically feeling (and responding to) stress day-to-day, more than I had been, for awhile. Some of it is cultural; I’m responding to what so many of us are responding to, because it’s part of our shared experience of watching American democracy struggle. Pretty terrifying shit, and I guess being stressed about it, at least somewhat, is “rational stress”, but it isn’t helpful to become mired in it, or to let it consume my precious mortal lifetime. Then there’s the “work stress”, but that is also pretty routine ordinary shit; I’m new in the role, and still feel a sense that I need to “prove myself” – but this is self-inflicted stress, and I could safely less this go… by letting it go. lol There is an act of willful self-care and discipline involved in releasing that kind of stress. The way out is through, and taking time for self-reflection, and for practices like “taking in the good” are going to be useful for this. The stress sourcing from “home stuff” is a strange stress smoothie of unrelated things: increasing costs, reduced resources, a vague unsettled feeling of job insecurity (a byproduct of being laid off a couple of times after relatively short time in various roles), things I’m behind on but really want to get done, and something I hadn’t anticipated at all – some stress around the changes in my Traveling Partner’s abilities, as his healing progresses. As stressed as I was trying to provide full-time caregiving while also working full-time, I had expected it to dissipate when that caregiving was no longer a massive day-to-day nearly continuous requirement. It hasn’t. Quite the contrary, I’m potentially a bit more stressed working to stay up-to-date with his changing capabilities and needs. I can’t assume his abilities or needs are the same as yesterday. It pushes me out of “auto-pilot”. I can’t really build a routine based on expectations of his needs. Things change and shift with each day, and I’m doing my best, but feel (often) as though I’m just a step behind on everything, all the time. Being fully present is a good thing, and healthy relationships need that presence and connection to thrive. Being fully present is also more work. I sometimes find myself overwhelmed by how much I’m trying to keep track of.

I’m not bitching, I’m simply taking a moment to examine where “all this stress” is coming from – so I can more effectively address any portion of it, at all. It adds up. I sit with my thoughts and my coffee, reflecting on life, love, work, and being human.

I give myself over to a moment of gratitude. There is so much right in my life, giving too much of my attention to the things that may be less than ideal seems wasteful and foolhardy (and a serious bummer).

I look at my hands when I feel my fingertips gently pass over a snagged cuticle, feeling the rough edge of it. The sensation distracts me. I stop myself from pulling at it. This, too, requires presence and discipline. The condition of my fingertips tells the tale of my background stress and general emotional wellness. I set myself a challenge; just for today, don’t pick at my fingertips at all. Just one day. I can do that, right? I think it over, and wonder if I really can. Brain damage and nervous tics and things of that sort don’t work the way a “bad habit” does, but the same “rules” often apply; we become what we practice. If I can practice not fucking biting my nails and tearing up my cuticles, it’s quite likely the behavior may be extinguished… eventually. I may need to replace the physical experience (the actions of the behavior itself) with something else that satisfies the signals reaching (or not reaching) my brain. I think about that, too. I’ve been having some success with a “worry stone”, when watching videos. I’ll keep practicing.

I hear a short bit of a song in my head. Again. It’s been there for days, now. It occurs to me that it may be percolating up from within, a message from me to myself to put attention on reducing my stress before it becomes a problem with serious consequences. I’ve been trying to figure out what song it is for days, because the only thing I hear in my head is the refrain, “Soothe me, Baby, soothe me. Soothe me with your kindness…” Sam and Dave. Finally figured it out. Yeah, it’s a funny little stress response, and not the first time song lyrics “speak to me” in some direct meaningful way.

Tis the season, isn’t it? Are you managing your stress sufficiently well? Have you identified where it may be coming from, in order to more easily deal with it? Are you running from it instead, and hoping for the best? Are you choosing to numb yourself with intoxicants, instead of dealing with it at all? Are you hoping it will go away if you ignore it? Have you started a meditation practice to help you manage your stress – or abandoned one because you feel you have no time for it? I’m of the opinion that life should not (ideally) feel like a hamster wheel. I prefer life to feel like a walk on a well-maintained path, myself, but that isn’t always the experience I have. I chuckle to myself; reality does not care a bit about my opinions, and never has.

I breathe, exhale, and relax. It’s time to begin. Again. I’ll start by managing my stress with gratitude, self-care, and a plan.

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Categories 2024 Election, Allegories, Anxiety, autumn, Brain Injury, breathe, Despair, forgiveness, Free Will, Frustration, gratitude, Healthy Living, inspiration, joy, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, more than a little bit of bitching, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5, War and News of War, women, Words

Once Upon a Time in the Fog

November 14, 2025 //
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I woke to the overhead light above the bed shining in my eyes. My “alarm” went off without waking me, the lights reaching full brightness before I finally woke. This is rare for me. I shook off my grogginess, literally shaking my head, then shimmying my shoulders, trying to shake off the last remaining sleepiness. I dressed and headed for the door. My Traveling Partner was already awake, already drinking coffeee. We exchanged pleasant words, and I kissed him before leaving the house to head up the road to the more distant co-work space. It’ll be more suited to the meetings I’ve got today, and I’m grateful to have the option.

The morning is a mild one, damp with recent rain, and chilly but not cold. The sky is cloudy, with stars peaking through in places. No sign of the northern lights this morning, but I do look. Ordinary enough, and an unremarkable beginning to a new day.

I turn onto the highway, and find myself in thick fog. Visibility is obscured such that even the big pick-ups with fancy extra lights at full brightness are not revealed in the oncoming lane until they are about 50 feet away. Fairly hazardous driving conditions, and I make a point to drive safely, and at a reasonable speed for conditions. Somehow, I still manage to find myself ahead of all the traffic, out in the foggy darkness. The world looked surreal, unformed, and ready to be created by pure will and imagination. I entertained myself with fanciful notions of “making the world”, as I drove through the fog and the darkness.

…So much is obscured by the fog…

I get to the office, get set up and settled in, and the day begins. I sigh to myself. This feels comfortable. I like things routine and familiar. I like things easy. I don’t think these preferences are unusual, but I have also learned that although I am not alone in having these preferences, they are not at all “the only way”. Embracing change has done a lot to free me from the terror (no fooling), anxiety, and stress of enduring other people’s choices, preferences, and chosen paths. One example? I like to get moved into a place, figure out where things go, and then fucking leave them there… for years. I don’t have a personal need to rotate the displayed art, or move the furniture around based on the circumstances, or change how the kitchen is organized. If there’s no clear and obvious need to make a change in my surroundings… I don’t.

I like having a clear mental map of my living space. I like being able to navigate in the dark during the night without stubbing a toe, or banging a shin, on some object I didn’t expect to be where it was. I am adaptable enough – I can get used to such changes with relative ease, and I try not to bitch about changes that really don’t matter. I’m not actually particularly spontaneous or interested in purposefully making changes for the sake of novelty or “just because”… But some people are. Even some people dear to me. We’re each having our own experience. We’re each walking our own path. My household may not be a democracy – but it’s also not an autocracy or a dictatorship. It’s more a… merry band of chaotic anarchists trying to avoid violating personal boundaries and doing what we can to live together harmoniously, with occasional outbreaks of “my house/my way” occuring on occasions of frayed nerves or in stressful times. I mean… that’s my perspective on it. My Traveling Partner and the Anxious Adventurer likely have their own perspective, and surely have their own experience. We’re all doing our best, and trying not to be dicks to each other.

I don’t like change. Yep. I’m one of those people. On the other hand, I recognize that change is. Change doesn’t give a fuck about whether I like it or not. My Traveling Partner has learned to be kind and considerate and to discuss his ideas for switching things up in shared space before acting on them. (I’m pretty sure he’d happily rearrange all the furniture in the house some afternoons just to see how something might look, on a whim, multiple times in a given year, were it not that he truly cares about my mental health.) I’ve learned to be open to discussing how things could be different or better with some change, and to be open to trying things out. It’s been healthy for me, although sometimes stressful. When my beloved got hurt, and change was necessary to accommodate his needs, I made a point to remain open, to adapt, to keep my stress to myself long enough to allow change to have its way with me in the moment, and to accept that change was helpful and necessary. None of that is to say it was easy. There were verbs involved. I had to work at it. I sometimes cried privately over silly things that stressed me out and were of no real consequence. I also survived all of it quite easily. There was a lot to learn there for me. I’m still processing some of it, and now that my beloved is back on his feet, and beginning to make the kind of progress that puts him back to work in the shop, happily puttering and doing projects, and beginning to return to some kind of normal… there is more change. More opportunity to be open. More practicing required to manage my stress and anxiety.

It was this morning that I realized that some of my anxiety is due to my Traveling Partner’s increasingly rapid improvements, and the return of more and more of his capabilities. I’m relieved, yes, definitely. I’m grateful and encouraged. I’m delighted. I’m proud of him. I’m also having to deal with the anxiety that I experience in the face of specific kinds of change. He’s now able to reconsider some of the accommodations we’d made when he was most disabled… and to consider others that would be better for him now. He’s also able to just go ahead and do most of it himself, and some of my anxiety is part of letting go of more and more of the caregiving. I don’t get why that would cause me stress, but there it is; some of my anxiety is coming from this gradual resetting (again) of shared expectations of ability, capability, and limitations. New boundaries. New needs. Differences. I feel unsettled in spite of how much I wanted to see this day come.

Human primates are weird.

I breathe, exhale, and relax. It’s a new day. It’s a new beginning. We’re each having our own experience. We’re each walking our own path. Some people like to step on all the cracks on a sidewalk, other people hop over them, still others think any such foolishness is unnecessary and a waste of time. Humans being human. I smile to myself, grateful to see my beloved making progress. I set down some of my baggage, and feel lighter for having done so. It’s time to begin again.

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Categories Allegories, Anxiety, autumn, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, health, Healthy Living, joy, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, The Art of Being, The Big 5

Perspective(s)

September 28, 2025 //
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The clear night sky sprinkled with stars has given way to pink streaks of clouds across a pale blue sky. I sit at my halfway point on this trail watching the sun rise.

Each sunrise is the promise of a new day.

My anxiety commandeered my dreams at some point during the night. My Traveling Partner somehow breeched the fragile boundary between reality and dreams, calling me back from The Nightmare City with a question. I don’t remember the question, and I’m not sure whether he actually woke me (or, if he did, why). I got up briefly to pee and went back to sleep. I woke gently, without anxiety, and the morning has been pleasant and otherwise routine.

The morning felt quite mild, initially, but as I sit on a favorite fence rail, I begin to feel the autumn chill. I’m grateful for this sweater, and the fleece I threw on over it at the last minute, as I got out of the car in the darkness. I sit enjoying the sunrise, and the sky turns from pink stripes to streaks of thin white clouds and blue skies. It’s a lovely morning. I’m taking my time with it.

My Traveling Partner pings me a good morning greeting and asks about my plans. He’s enjoying his morning, too. I mention an errand I plan to take care of before I return home – having completely forgotten it no longer needs to be done. He gently reminds me. I laugh heartily, out loud – it’s the sort of thing that could frustrate me to tears under some circumstances. This morning it’s harmless, inconsequential, and amusing, and I consider the difference in perspective that allows it to be funny, this time.

I breathe, exhale, and relax. It’s been a lovely weekend, filled with loving moments and good fortune, and these stand out from the moments of stress that also occurred. It’s nice to feel so positive, and to have developed an outlook on life that allows me to bounce back from stress so much more easily than any younger version of me knew how to do. If I could, I’d go back in time and share what I have learned with that younger me. Instead, I share that here, with you.

…We become what we practice…

A small sparkling highlight this weekend was stopping for groceries yesterday morning; the Checker returned my keys to me! I’d misplaced them days ago, and hadn’t found them. I had resigned myself to the likelihood that they were lost. She had carefully held on to them, waiting to see me again on an upcoming weekend. Having them returned to me gives me a feeling of hope that probably exceeds the moment, and I’m okay with that. Feeling hopeful is far better than feeling that everything is pointless or futile.

Such a small thing.

There’s an entire new day ahead. It’s a Sunday, and most of the day will be housework and chores and getting ready for a new week – and I’ll be doing things from a hopeful perspective, and spending time in the company of my Traveling Partner. Sounds like a good way to spend time.

I look down the trail. Several small groups of people approach, some distance away on the other side of the meadow. I get to my feet – it’s time to begin again.

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Categories Allegories, Anxiety, autumn, Brain Injury, breathe, Free Will, gratitude, Healthy Living, joy, Love, meditation, Metaphors, Mindfulness, Moments, Oregon Trails, Perspective, Post Traumatic Stress, Practices, Relationships, solo hiking, The Art of Being, War and News of War
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