Stress Levels

"Stress is an ignorant state. It believes that everything is an emergency. Nothing is that important. Just lie down."
--Natalie Goldberg

Ironically enough, I had to re-type the above quote four times before the bold command obeyed. Meanwhile, I was thinking, "You stupid computer!! Why aren't you working?!" And then I realized I was consumed by the ignorance of stress... once again.

My dad will be the first to agree that I have issues with control, which lead to issues of stress and anxiety when I'm at my worst. In college, he called me up to tell me a joke:

Knock knock.
Who's there?
Control Freak.
Cont--
Control Freak who??

Yes, hilarious, Dad.

But in the past four years, I have dealt with my stress in very different ways: playing the piano, crying, eating, watching television, ceramics, talking with friends. Many different ways in handling the repercussions, but never hitting the root of the problem.

And now, as I type, I am dealing with yet another repercussion of my stress. It seems I physically hold my stress in the muscles just behind my shoulder blades. And it seems that life has been just a bit too stressful lately because I have acquired a tight mass at the top of my right shoulder blade which makes any movement of my arm and neck very painful. I went to the doctor on Tuesday, and she said, "Well, you're just a ball of stress!"

I wonder why?

Maybe it's because I'm leaving in June. Leaving Los Angeles, not to mention the community I have spent the past year and a half trying to immerse myself into. I'm looking forward to traveling after I save up some money, but that also means that I will not have the securities of a community as I do now. I will be emotionally homeless.

Maybe it's because I have seen so many flaws in myself lately and have desperately staged a coup over them, trying to perfect myself. The patience and grace that are required to lead such a transition have not, as of yet, come into my grasp. I am grappling with too many flaws and not enough encouragement.

Or maybe it's because of the work I do, the complete surrender I experience when working in the garden, the all-encompassing worry I carry for each person I talk to, and then the heartache I feel when I see pain in one of my friends.

Maybe those are some reasons for the pain in my shoulder.

What is so difficult about all of this is that, unlike Natalie Goldberg's suggestion, I think they all are emergencies. I think all of my problems must be solved immediately for my own sanity, and they must be solved (most importantly) my way.

But in the Catholic Worker lifestyle, and in the peace movement, there is an understanding that the work we do is not for us and we cannot enter this work expecting to see results in our lifetimes. We do the work because it is the right thing to do, because Jesus did this work and because we care for the future of our world. There is an accepted slowness to our projects. While the need peace in foreign countries and even in our hometowns may seem immediate, the reining power of peace as a worldwide phenonenon takes time.

When I compare my own stresses to the problems of the world, and in turn compare my own sense of urgency to the snail-paced spread of global peace, I am humbled. If the world can hold on for peace, and therefore struggle with the discomforts in the meantime, then I can hold on through my own discomforts, as well. So, I will be grateful for my time in Los Angeles and the community in which I have experienced so much love and formation; I will continue to try to see myself through the loving eyes of God; and I will take deep breaths at the kitchen. And one day, I will fully understand the ignorance of stress.