Scott Sonnon
06-02-2004, 03:32 PM
Having a Bad Day?
Have you ever spoken to someone who is highly explosive, “bound up” or “tightly wound” or “tied in knots?” You won’t get through all of that armor likely without some serious psychological skills. Catch him or her on the tail end of returning from a long but not too long vacation and you find a different person altogether.
Have you ever had a very stressful day, causing you to scrunch your shoulders up, bunch your neck, clench your jaw and grind your teeth? We all have... when we lack vigilance to our tension.
Remember how easily you snapped at people like an angry dog on a leash? Maybe you rationalized your explosion it by saying the person deserved it. Maybe you felt entitled to feel however you damn well please. Maybe you felt that you do too much and work too hard for anyone to question your emotional expression.
Even worse are the times when you encounter someone else just as tense or in other words "on edge." You both argue and begin escalating more furious and more furious... maybe you both even say irreparably damaging things to each other.
Maybe you feel like a "different person" when stressed out like this. Maybe you feel like you can't believe it was actually "you" who said or did the things you did.
The bad news is that you have work to do to release that tension which predisposes you to heightened emotional instability.
The good news is that you are not that person. It's just the tension talking. That superfluous stress-induced tension isn't you, doesn't define you. Even though you are completely accountable for your actions and behavior REGARDLESS of your stress, you can disidentify with it, by understanding it... and making the choice moment-by-moment to be vigilant and discharge tension as you begin to store it.
Yes, you can counter-act tension as it comes, but moreover there is a way to prevent the storage of tension DESPITE challenging events. In other words, you can learn physical skills to better manage POTENTIALLY stressful situations - which lessen the severity of the stress' impact.
Exercise Reinforces Stored Tension
Have you ever gone to the gym after a very stressful day and pumped some iron, ran on the treadmill, or participated in a aerobics class, only to come home and STILL feel stressed out?
Sure, sometimes we can "get all that stress out" by working hard, but it's not because we RELEASE the tension through that exercise. It's because we are FATIGUING our muscles so that they are too tired to be tense. Now you should ask the question, what happens when your muscles recover and are no longer tired! You guessed it, the stress is STILL there.
The name of conventional fitness is tension. Some people call it "tone" - how much tension you can store in your muscles. The more tone you are, the more "fit" you are - is a general definition of conventional fitness.
The problem is that muscles only know on or off. They only know tension, and can't differentiate between "types" of tension. In other words, if you're fleeing for your life, or running furiously on the treadmill, your muscles contract similarly. Even worse still, if you compound the two, the stress chemicals released in your system will associate the activity with the fearful events you encounter. This is another topic, though.
You see, if you don't learn the skills to remove the stressful (superfluous) tension, you only compound the stress.
The Release
Do you remember what it felt like when you let that tension go? Remember how good it felt, how relaxed with everything "good in the world?" You probably felt badly about your earlier snappy explosion.
Well, you're that person. That incredibly relaxed feeling you get from a long (but not too long) vacation on the beach is who you are SUPPOSED to be all the time.
However, there are specific skills you need to learn to release tension of the past – especially that tension deeply embedded. When you identify the skill which targets a chain of tension within you, you’re likely to get angry, frustrated, feel hopeless, ashamed even nauseous as you attempt to release it. Drink water, because you’re about to go through a serious detox releasing all of those stored chemicals. And expect to be irritable and pugnacious if someone seems to “push your buttons” (an old saying which refers to the specific trigger points of tension.)
The important point here is that the tension isn’t you. It’s an echo of a past event which you still literally carry even though the event is gone. Your muscles tense to CARRY the weight of the issue… and with every ‘heavier and heavier’ event you encounter, you’re likely to snap. You can let go of that illusionary baggage. You can release the tension and become the relaxed, powerful, happy person you occasional when centered.
If you find yourself being snappy (say at a loved one or at your coach :wink: ), don’t get frustrated when you see the sign. Just exhale, smirk, chuckle and give your body a full shake out. Forgive yourself because it wasn’t you… it was just the tension talking.
Have you ever spoken to someone who is highly explosive, “bound up” or “tightly wound” or “tied in knots?” You won’t get through all of that armor likely without some serious psychological skills. Catch him or her on the tail end of returning from a long but not too long vacation and you find a different person altogether.
Have you ever had a very stressful day, causing you to scrunch your shoulders up, bunch your neck, clench your jaw and grind your teeth? We all have... when we lack vigilance to our tension.
Remember how easily you snapped at people like an angry dog on a leash? Maybe you rationalized your explosion it by saying the person deserved it. Maybe you felt entitled to feel however you damn well please. Maybe you felt that you do too much and work too hard for anyone to question your emotional expression.
Even worse are the times when you encounter someone else just as tense or in other words "on edge." You both argue and begin escalating more furious and more furious... maybe you both even say irreparably damaging things to each other.
Maybe you feel like a "different person" when stressed out like this. Maybe you feel like you can't believe it was actually "you" who said or did the things you did.
The bad news is that you have work to do to release that tension which predisposes you to heightened emotional instability.
The good news is that you are not that person. It's just the tension talking. That superfluous stress-induced tension isn't you, doesn't define you. Even though you are completely accountable for your actions and behavior REGARDLESS of your stress, you can disidentify with it, by understanding it... and making the choice moment-by-moment to be vigilant and discharge tension as you begin to store it.
Yes, you can counter-act tension as it comes, but moreover there is a way to prevent the storage of tension DESPITE challenging events. In other words, you can learn physical skills to better manage POTENTIALLY stressful situations - which lessen the severity of the stress' impact.
Exercise Reinforces Stored Tension
Have you ever gone to the gym after a very stressful day and pumped some iron, ran on the treadmill, or participated in a aerobics class, only to come home and STILL feel stressed out?
Sure, sometimes we can "get all that stress out" by working hard, but it's not because we RELEASE the tension through that exercise. It's because we are FATIGUING our muscles so that they are too tired to be tense. Now you should ask the question, what happens when your muscles recover and are no longer tired! You guessed it, the stress is STILL there.
The name of conventional fitness is tension. Some people call it "tone" - how much tension you can store in your muscles. The more tone you are, the more "fit" you are - is a general definition of conventional fitness.
The problem is that muscles only know on or off. They only know tension, and can't differentiate between "types" of tension. In other words, if you're fleeing for your life, or running furiously on the treadmill, your muscles contract similarly. Even worse still, if you compound the two, the stress chemicals released in your system will associate the activity with the fearful events you encounter. This is another topic, though.
You see, if you don't learn the skills to remove the stressful (superfluous) tension, you only compound the stress.
The Release
Do you remember what it felt like when you let that tension go? Remember how good it felt, how relaxed with everything "good in the world?" You probably felt badly about your earlier snappy explosion.
Well, you're that person. That incredibly relaxed feeling you get from a long (but not too long) vacation on the beach is who you are SUPPOSED to be all the time.
However, there are specific skills you need to learn to release tension of the past – especially that tension deeply embedded. When you identify the skill which targets a chain of tension within you, you’re likely to get angry, frustrated, feel hopeless, ashamed even nauseous as you attempt to release it. Drink water, because you’re about to go through a serious detox releasing all of those stored chemicals. And expect to be irritable and pugnacious if someone seems to “push your buttons” (an old saying which refers to the specific trigger points of tension.)
The important point here is that the tension isn’t you. It’s an echo of a past event which you still literally carry even though the event is gone. Your muscles tense to CARRY the weight of the issue… and with every ‘heavier and heavier’ event you encounter, you’re likely to snap. You can let go of that illusionary baggage. You can release the tension and become the relaxed, powerful, happy person you occasional when centered.
If you find yourself being snappy (say at a loved one or at your coach :wink: ), don’t get frustrated when you see the sign. Just exhale, smirk, chuckle and give your body a full shake out. Forgive yourself because it wasn’t you… it was just the tension talking.