stress, detachment and being important

Earlier this year I talked about my life in terms of roller coaster rides. I had a lot of big stressful things going on that needed to be resolved. A variety of tracks to keep my focus on. In the past month, many of them have completed and I'm getting off the coaster. And my stress is declining.

It's always a challenge coming off of stress. I generally have no problem dealing with an increasing stress load: corporate job, family, divorce, various house drama, new business, etc. The stress builds to a point where my body copes the same way with any additional stress. The strange part for me is always returning to "everyday normal life". Well, as everyday and normal that my life can be as I try to live it by the seat of my pants. Coming down off of stress is difficult, because I've been dealing with such a high level that when it subsides, I feel like something is missing. And it is.

I first noticed this working in the tech industry. There's always the insane work crazy hours before a push, build, QA drop, release, launch, event, etc. Followed  by the lax work days and vacation following. I found that I would feel so important in the pre-launch moments, when I was super busy and the stress increased. I had to be there to solve the problems. I was the one who got the *product, event, etc* out. And when that time was over, I didn't feel that important, because I was not needed at the same pressure level. When I noticed this pattern, I didn't really like it, so I decided to break it.

First I realized that even if I wasn't there, things would get done. I, personally, was not vital to the solution. Yes, I solved the problem, maybe better, maybe worst, maybe faster, maybe slower, but my fellow humans have resources as well and they would have solved the solution someway. This observation gave me the ability to detach myself from my work.

Next I noticed that as certain stressful situations were in decrease others were in increase - like a law of conservation of stress. And that it took a lot of effort and awareness to actively manage the stress load and generally decrease it.

When I was detached from the stress it didn't matter how much drama was going on. Alternately,  there is a breaking/turning point, when the stress no longer has meaning and a forced detachment ensues.

Which lead me to try, why not utilize detachment at any time in the stress cycle? (I would suggest detachment a fabulous exercise for any time.) Being detached offers freedom from many things. Reaction, judgments, feeling important. Of course I'm not always detached - and being detached is often a difficult practice for me with my passion and energy for life. But as a former colleague would say to me, "Why would you want to be perfect? The moment you reach perfection, the next movement is away from perfection. You want to always be approaching perfection."

That's good advise to remember.

Being detached has a "dark" side as well. Detaching too much from your world, your life, your personality remove a vital anchor point. But I'll talk about that in another post at a later time. And there's a technique that allows the zipping between a fully engaged yet detached way of life.

Comments

[Chad]

I need a certain amount of stress to survive, it seems. If there is no stress, I feel like I'm not taking good enough care of things. If you can manage to find a level of 'detachment' as you say that leads to being relaxed and completely responsible at the same time please let me know!!! :)