Stress and fight or flight

You know what the hardest things about keeping a blog about things you find that inspire you? Finding the time to write the things down as they happen.
Because if something happens that is inspiring, and you don't write it down RIGHT AWAY, it no longer seems inspiring enough an hour later.....and then the game of "oh, that wasn't inspiring enough for me to write down really anyway" happens and then it never gets written down.

I don't even know if I'm making any sense....but this I do know: I'm awake before my kidlets and I'm reading something inspiring and I'm sitting down to write it down, and it's amazing.

Since August, I've been suffering from infrequent heart palpitations. This is something that came on completely unexpectedly and freaked me out...
Especially when I happened to be at the doctor while they were happening and I ended up being ushered to an EKG, bloodwork and then scheduled for an Echo-cardiogram. Thankfully, my heart has no physical abnormalities, there's nothing technically "wrong" with it. So why am I having this issue?

Stress.

I've made lists in my head and hurried through them too many times. I've put a ton of importance on small things. I've tried to control things I can't control. I've worried about so many little things that I've turned into big things. In short, I've sweated about the small stuff. A lot.

No,
A ton.

And according to the doctors, all of this un-needed stress I have put on myself (which is HIGHLY common in women, the over-achieving-trying-to-please-everyone-at-every-second lot that we are) is taking it's toll. They prescribed me something, I didn't take it. I wanted to see if I could control this without the meds. So I researched. And I came up with things like drinking a glass of grape juice, taking magnesium, lavender essential oil (holy crap, that stuff is amazing) and meditation to name a few. And they've helped. I'm figuring out the triggers, learning how to cope. It may be something I struggle with for a long time, maybe not. Only time (and my ability to de-stress) will tell.

Why am I telling you this? Because I was just reading an article about people who went on a retreat in order to "heal" themselves from whatever ailed them. Some of the people had chronic pain (think fibromyalgia) others were unsure of their path in life, some were stuck in unhealthy patterns etc. The woman with fibromyalgia was highlighted for a minute as she brought up all the conflict in the world in the midst of the calm she was feeling.

The author (Martha Beck) pointed out that this is one reason why the woman has fibromyalgia to begin with: because she is continuously tensed for flight, her system exhausted by stress hormones.

I read that and a HUMONGOUS light when on in my brain.
That's me.
I'm the one who is continuously tensed for flight.
I'm continuously exhausting my body with stress.
My heart knows this and recognizes this...and I think I'd even go so far as to say that I'm in for even bigger health issues if I continue on the path of flight and stress.

She then goes on to tell about how this doesn't happen to animals. Animals are alert, but always have a quiet mindset.

"When danger appears, they notice it immediately. 

When peace is available, they accept it. Always."

Another light bulb moment for me. 

When danger appears (for me "danger" means a situation that I would find reasons to stress over), taking notice is an ok thing to do. But dwelling on it? 

Not ok. 

I'm going to work on this. For reals. 

Cause not only is my body reacting to my frequent stress of anything "dangerous" but I have 

3 perfect little people who look to me to set an example for them.

And I want that example to be of peace, not crazy stress. 

I hope you are having a great day. 

And if you aren't, change it =)

(This post is linked with Parenting BY Dummies for Wordful Wednesday)