The Ignorance of Stress

“Stress is an ignorant state. It believes that everything is an emergency. Nothing is that important. Just lie down.” – Writer Natalie Goldberg

This quote holds meaning all year round, but we find it to be particularly true during the holiday season.

While there certainly are some things in life that are truly stressful, the reality is that most of the circumstances that leave us feeling stressed and frazzled are far from life-changing.

During the holidays, we often find ourselves feeling stressed and overwhelmed more than usual

Many of these stresses come from the notion that we “should” be doing certain things.

We feel that we “should” keep certain social engagements that we really have no interest in keeping. We worry that we will not have time to engage in traditions that we feel we “should” take part in, even if they no longer are enjoyable or meaningful to us.

This season, we hope that you will find a way to lower your stress level – to remove yourself from this ignorant state where everything that happens tends to feel like an emergency, even when it most certainly is not.

The thing that matters most, arguably, is your health and happiness. And being in a constant state of false emergency does nothing to maintain either of these.

Breathe deeply.

Lie down, if necessary.

And above all, enjoy the coming days – whatever that looks like for you.