Dear Patient, Recently I was talking with a patient about stress. About how it never really leaves us. Sometimes it’s front and center, demanding our full attention, while other times it hides in the shadows. But it’s always there. One stressor goes away, and a new one pops up to take its place.
This makes me think of something I’ve heard from top athletes and musicians. They say things like “if I don’t have the nerves going I know I won’t perform well.” Where I feel the opposite, they are able to harness that energy and welcome it.
This reminds me of what Nietzsche wrote about the abyss: stare into it, it stares back at you. Stress is like the abyss and it's part of us. It's always been with us. In fact, we wouldn't be who we are without it. I imagine "stress" (the abyss) to be like the 12th House in astrology: becoming one with all that is. Mystics, prisoners, institutionalized, hospitalized or oppressed. Stress offers us a choice: serve or suffer with self-transcedence and surrender to a higher power; dreams, fantasies, imagination, illusion and disillusion; the House of self-undoing, isolation and retreat; conditions prior to birth and karma..... and there's nothing more stressful than being born!
This makes me think of something I’ve heard from top athletes and musicians. They say things like “if I don’t have the nerves going I know I won’t perform well.” Where I feel the opposite, they are able to harness that energy and welcome it.
This reminds me of what Nietzsche wrote about the abyss: stare into it, it stares back at you. Stress is like the abyss and it's part of us. It's always been with us. In fact, we wouldn't be who we are without it. I imagine "stress" (the abyss) to be like the 12th House in astrology: becoming one with all that is. Mystics, prisoners, institutionalized, hospitalized or oppressed. Stress offers us a choice: serve or suffer with self-transcedence and surrender to a higher power; dreams, fantasies, imagination, illusion and disillusion; the House of self-undoing, isolation and retreat; conditions prior to birth and karma..... and there's nothing more stressful than being born!
This reminded me of The Guest House, a Coleman Barks version of a poem by Rumi
The Guest House
(By Jalaluddin Rumi, English version by Coleman Barks)
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice.
meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.
Be grateful for whatever comes.
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.