I think resilience is going to be one of the key things we all develop out of this current experience or era in our lives. It’s going to be a positive that we can look at and give thanks for in the years to come. However, before I get to resilience, I realized I needed to go and take a look again at a book I read a few years back that really transformed my thinking. It just hasn’t always carried through to consistent action.

               Emily and Amelia Nagoski are sisters, and they’ve completed high levels of education in very different fields. Emily is a sex therapist, and Amelia is a music conductor. Together they wrote a book called Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle.  I heard about the book when I was driving long distances to work and back for my interim position, and I started listening to Brene Brown, who interviewed them on her podcast.

               The Nagoskis’ work around the stress cycle interested me deeply. They talk about how we may work to relieve or handle stressors, but we need to also pay attention to the ‘stress juice’, as they call it, simmering around our bodies. When we have stress and negative emotions in our bodies, it releases chemicals, and our body only handles and dissipates those properly when it then experiences something that tells it the stress is over and resolved. Our bodies are wired for responses of fight or flight, and we even freeze as well. So our bodies are looking for us to do one of those things, and the experience of those helps relieve the stress chemicals and pull us back to normal.

               The problem is that today our issues aren’t animals in the forest we can either fight or escape from. We live in a completely different world, and when our emotions flood us, sometimes we don’t fight through to come out the other side in a way that tells our bodies we’re okay. We keep shoving down the feelings, minimizing the issues, and the stress juice takes over because our bodies don’t understand that we’re okay. They’re not just going to take our brain’s word for it.

               That explained so much for me. It explained the buildup of exhaustion, how sometimes my emotions aren’t activating properly or are constantly active, and how some days I just wake up without the resources I normally count on. In those moments, my body has been on overload, and I haven’t paid attention to completing the stress cycle so that my body can rest easy and reset itself. My brain may tell me I’m fine, but my body hasn’t gotten the word!

               The Nagoski sisters recommend several ways that you can reset your body and complete the stress cycle, which tells your body all is well. First is physical activity – get your heart rate up! They say you need 20-60 minutes a day of exercise that makes you breathe deeply – running, walking, dancing, whatever it may be! Physical activity is what tells your body that you’re fine in the BEST possible way.

               There’s more, though. They highlight the value of other actions that can start to bring your body into reset mode, things that you would only do if you’re not in immediate danger. They suggest intentional deep breathing, positive social interactions, laughter – good bouts of laughter like the one I had the other day with Megan on the phone. Affection is another one – LONG kisses or hugs (or more…) – because those convey to your body that you are with someone you trust. Creative expression – arts, music, crafts, etc. is yet one more, engaging with things you enjoy and that activate another part of your brain.

               There’s a lot more to this book, in case you want to read it. I stopped for a while after just this part, because when we have a lot of feelings that are provoked, we need to understand how our body and brain handle stress differently. We have to work with both, not just one or the other, or we won’t feel peace and relief. (I did go back and finish the book – directed mainly towards women, and well worth it!)

               So today, I just want to give you this. Consider how you work through stress, on both sides – body and brain. Part of becoming a more resilient person is understanding how to help your body and mind both find some peace and rest, that elusive reset button. We are bombarded with action, challenge, so much that doesn’t make sense and is designed to exhaust us and convince us that nothing we can do will work. Resilient people find their way past the initial things and into a process that helps them cope and work through whatever comes their way. Understanding your body and how to complete a stress cycle is a big part of the process.

               Wishing you joyful laughter, deep affection, creative expression, and some good physical activity, today and every day!

 

                                                                                          Pastor Kimberly