How do I deal with stress (Monday Men's Meme post)

In this post, I'm going to try and give my own answer to the 'Monday Mens Meme' question on the families again blog. The question asked this week is: How you do deal with stress? It further asks if there's a really good way, a biblical or medical way to deal with stress. I'm going to try and deal with each one of those separately. I must preface this with the statement that I am defining stress as those situations that cause significant amounts of stress. There are lots of little stresses in life, and if I recall correctly, we need those things to be there for us to be healthy. So I'm not including those.

Personally, there are two primary methods I deal with stress. It depends on the situation. The first is what I would use for non-emergency types of stress. I tend to focus inward and try to work my way through the situation (essentially 'internalize' what's going on). I know, it's not good for me, but I just haven't been good at anything else, and it has helped me get through some situations. For those emergency situations, I just generally tend to flip out/freak out and pace or speak harshly to anyone who dares to enter my overly extended version of my 'personal space'. Again, I know it's not good but that's what I've developed to cope with those particular situations.

I wish I could point to a really good way to deal with stress, but I must confess that thinking about it offhand I can't. There are the biblical and medical methods mentioned below, but I think you have to be willing to commit to those and do them. If not, they can add to the stress instead of relieving it.

I have sat here and tried to think about what would be a biblical way to deal with stress. Many people I'm sure would say that the biblical method would be to 'lay your burdens down before Christ'. This may be good advice, but it is something that is very difficult to use in practice, as I wouldn't believe that I was laying the burdens before Christ, and I would feel that they weren't going away. Also, I think I would be tempted to say I'm laying the burdens before Christ, but really just using it as an excuse to not deal with the stressful situation.

Medically speaking (not that I'm a doctor, nor do I play one on TV), if I recall, there are relaxation techniques available to help people deal with stress in their lives. Also, for those situations where the stress is particularly great, use of a counselor may be a good method for dealing with stress. Again, you have to be willing to commit and believe in those things for them to work.

Well, those are just my off the cuff and unresearched thoughts on the topic. Feel free to let me know what you think.

Does anyone know what normal is anymore?

Sometimes I wonder if I've moved into a world where the normal rules don't apply. I could say more about that, but I won't. I'll just relay some thoughts about the BP Oil spill.

I was listening to a conversation the other day revolving around the BP oil disaster, how long it's been going on (it's really been almost two months since it first occurred?) but there were two main points that stood out to me:

1) You haven't really heard anything from the environmentalists about this. Not that long ago, if there was a hint of an oil spill anywhere, environmental activists would have been out in force demanding the oil companies pay. I don't know about you, but I haven't heard much of anything. Oh there was some noise and whimpering and whining at first, but it's pretty much died out. Maybe they're just waiting for the final damage assessment before they 'lower the boom', but that's just the cynical skeptic in me.

2) These people were actually talking about physical harm being done to executives, on the order of 'showing on TV these executives being punched in the face, etc.' To me, it spoke back to the days of the Roman Forum and the gladiators. I guess we really are not that far removed from those days of 'unsophisticated' violence. How much of a push would we as a society need to want to see killing and death (real killing I mean) on television?

One other thing I've noticed about this disaster: has anyone noticed you don't hear stories about oil and gas prices rising to outrageous levels? We saw it with Katrina, and while this may not have the same potential, I would have thought the cost would have gone up at least a little. Petroleum being a scarce commodity and a significant amount being lost. I will admit I've been distracted and not scouring the news to search or research, but with some things you don't have to search very hard.

I guess I am saying 'a pox on both their houses'

I know, I've been fairly silent on blogging on issues for a while. It's been difficult to try and balance all the necessary things that life seems to require, and find time to do things that I like, but aren't 'necessary'. That said, quite a bit has happened in the world since I last posted. Health care reform passed (whether we wanted it or not), the world continues to prove it's not a safe place, and those who are supposed to be doing 'the people's work' aren't. Yeah, I guess at this point I throw up my hands, say nasty words at both the major political parties (to include phrases like the title) and say in essence 'I don't trust a single thing you say.'

It's really difficult to try and stay calm and involved in the process, when there's daily evidence that this country has created a professional class of politicians whose sole purpose in life is to work at some level of government (by election or political appointment). It's rather irritating when those who are supposed to ensure the best interests of the country are served have absolutely no clue of the effects of their votes/decisions. Then they act surprised when something bad happens (and most sane people saw it coming well before the vote was taken).

And looking at political parties, all their interested in is their own well being or maintaining/gaining power. Not what will help the nation/state/city, or the people living there. And as far as rhetoric goes, it's devolved to the point of schoolyard fights/name calling, and that passes for intelligent discourse these days. Those who are running the parties seem to think it's better to teach everyone to hate/distrust those who don't believe in the same things they do, instead of how to articulate your perspective in hopes of persuading others to agree/join the cause.

At this point, my perspective on the future is rather grim. We seem to be at the point of splitting the country apart, but over what? It's not as if there's truly one defining issue that's polarizing people, just differences of opinion. So if both sides start truly fighting each other, do we have any idea as to what the result will be if either side wins? In the past, when there were issues to be discussed, people more or less understood what would happen if the other side won. Now? Doesn't matter who wins, we're going down the same road.

I guess the reason I chose the title is: from this point on, I am not going to believe what either political party says, and take care of myself. I would rather both political parties 'implode' and people start doing things on the basis of what's best rather than what will bring the most power to themselves. I know, this kind of sounds like a 'goodbye cruel world' type of post. But really, when you look around and see what's happening, the best thing may be to tell the professional politicians off and look to yourself and your family to take care of what needs to be taken care of.