Cultivating Stress Resilience

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“Most of us spend our time seeking happiness and security without acknowledging the underlying purpose of our search. Each of us is looking for a path back to the present: We are trying to find good enough reasons to be satisfied now. How we pay attention to the present moment largely determines the character of our experience and, therefore, the quality of our lives. Mystics and contemplatives have made this claim for ages – but a growing body of scientific research now bears it out.”

Sam Harris

How will you meet THIS present moment?

In Full Catastrophe Living, Jon Kabat-Zinn writes, “It is not the potential stressor itself but how you perceive it and then how you handle it that will determine whether or not it will lead to stress…. [I]n and of itself, stress is neither good nor bad; it’s just the way things are.”

With mindfulness, we meet emotions and stressors as they arise, and choose to live in wise relationship with them.

Let me share with you the fable of how shoes were invented, as summarized in Jon Kabat-Zinn’s Coming to Our Senses. According to legend, there once was a princess who loved to walk through the forests and fields of her kingdom. One day, walking barefoot through the trees, she stubbed her toe on a protruding root. She yelled and cried in pain, and demanded that her father’s ministers immediately get to work coating the entire kingdom in soft leather, so that no one will ever again need to experience the pain of a stubbed toe.

The king’s exchequer, being ever mindful of the budget, decided that, instead, he would commission someone to make foot protectors out of the same soft leather. Instead of attempting to control the entire environment of the kingdom, people could simply prevent stubbed toes at the immediate point of impact.

This is what we must do with stress: MEET IT AT THE POINT OF IMPACT. It’s what we’re doing in the SIBAM practice, and it’s how we’ve been cultivating our awareness throughout this course. What is happening RIGHT NOW? Drop the story, drop the attachment to “It’s always going to be this way!”, drop the projecting into the future of ALL the disasters that are “surely” going to come.

A helpful question to ask is, WHAT IS NEEDED OF ME RIGHT NOW?

I think I ask myself this question about 10 times a day! I can get so overwhelmed with my to-do list and with kids’ activities and on and on…. so I’ll simply pause and ask, “What is needed of me RIGHT NOW?” If my son is crying because he just spilled his cereal on his shirt and on the floor, about a million thoughts enter my head: “I need to clean up the milk! He needs to change his shirt! We might miss the bus! Is there enough Cinnamon Toast Crunch left in the box? Is the milk seeping under the chair? WHY IS HE SCREAMING SO LOUDLY???….”

You get the point.

So I ask, what is needed of me RIGHT NOW?

I need to console my son. That becomes my single focus. And really, it takes about 32 seconds. Then he can go change, I can pour new cereal, clean up the mess…. I maintain my focus, I keep calm and morning on…. Bringing gentle awareness to the moment, meeting the stressors at the point of impact, and focusing on one thing at a time has saved me more times than I can count!

Research tells us that all the thinking we do when we’re stressed out isn’t terribly helpful… or even accurate! Daniel Gilbert’s research reveals that we greatly overestimate how negatively a hypothetical future event will impact us, and we greatly underestimate our ability to bounce back from negative events.

Instead, focus on meeting THIS PRESENT MOMENT.

Cultivating Your Stress Resiliency

You’ve already learned a lot about ways to make yourself more resilient in the face of stress. Ultimately, mindfulness widens our lens on the present moment and opens up a whole new world of options for how we respond to events.

I want to share some final words from, of course, Jon Kabat-Zinn, about the characteristics of stress-hardy individuals:

“Stress-hardy individuals are more resilient. They have greater coping resources than other people under similar circumstances because they view life as a challenge, have a strong commitment to experiencing the fullness of life as it unfolds moment by moment, and assume an active role in interfacing with the actuality of what they are facing, with clarity and agency, which is what it means to exert meaningful control…. Strong internal convictions about the comprehensibility, manageability, and meaningfulness of life experiences are powerful internal resources.”

Important takeaways:

• Reframe stressful events into challenges and opportunities. Just for a moment, think of a situation that is really stressing you out right now. Can you reframe it as a challenge?
• Widen your options. We often get trapped into very narrow ways of thinking about a situation. Take a moment to breathe, pause, and consider if there is an option you haven’t even considered. Note especially if you have framed your decision as a “whether or not” (e.g., “I can’t decide whether or not I should quit my job!”) With this type of framing, you aren’t even considering ways to make your current job work (“Do I try to change my hours? Talk to my boss? Apply for an internal move?”) Check your frame and widen your options.
• Find meaning in suffering. Victor Frankl says that suffering ceases to be suffering the moment it finds a meaning. We’ve all had experiences that were excruciating to go through, but with a bit of time and distance, we can see how we were shaped by the event … and maybe even come to appreciate it. If you can’t see the meaning now, can you trust that something important will be learned?
• Find meaning in your every day. It’s easy to get burnt out and lose sight of the big picture. When we see the meaning behind our actions, we imbue them with dignity and purpose. Scrubbing the floor can be drudgery, or it can be a intentional way of caring for your family. YOU get to decide.
• Tell yourself, “Everything is figure-out-able!” This is my favorite line from Marie Forleo, and it’s another phrase I use many times a day. Everything is figure-out-able. You WILL be able to do this. How do I know this? Because you’ve done it before! And if you haven’t — ask for help!
• Accept that stress will happen. Research shows that those who expect stress, and know that it is just a part of life, actually manage their stress better AND show reduced physiological signs of stress.
• Choose the most generous interpretation. So often our stress comes from other people! I don’t have research on this one, but let’s just assume that the vast majority of people are 1) kind, 2) trying their best, and 3) not deliberately attempting to make you miserable. Instead of taking something personally, can you see from another’s perspective? What is the most generous assumption you can make about their behavior?

Ultimately, your stress resiliency is not about having “one perfect plan” for managing all stressors and every emotion; it’s about cultivating presence, awareness, and equanimity so that you can meet this stressor on this day with the most appropriate response right now.

Essential Questions for Stress

Click here to download a one-page printable pdf that you can post in your home or office to remind you of the simple questions to ask yourself when responding to a stressor.