Life is beautiful, but it can also be pretty stressful and unpredictable. One minute things are going just fine and the next you’re faced with an unplanned for, unpleasant situation. Let’s say you’re at the grocery store after a long workday. You’re finally unloading your items onto the conveyor belt after waiting in line for 10 minutes, when suddenly the cashier tells you, “I need to close this line. Please go to another register.” You can’t believe what you’ve just heard. Suddenly your body kicks into stress mode: your heart starts pounding, your mind starts racing, and you tense up from head to toe. You feel agitated, frustrated, disappointed, angry, and anxious all at once. So what happens next?
When unanticipated stressful events occur, a number of pretty predictable things happen inside of us. Just like in the grocery store scenario I depicted, a number of emotions arise; the mind gets flooded with thoughts; and the body gets activated, preparing to fight or flee. These things occur automatically when we experience some stressor in the environment, because we’re wired to do what we need to do to survive. But what happens when the stressor isn’t threatening our survival? What happens when it’s just an annoyance, a disruption, or a temporary inconvenience?
In most cases, immediate reactions to non-life-threatening stressful events are unhelpful and wind up causing more stress than the initial event. Let’s say, for example, that when the cashier tells you the checkout line is closed, you blow up at her, cussing loudly while slamming your items back in the cart. Reacting this way might draw negative attention from the people around you and cause you to damage some of the food items you intended to purchase—both of which get you more stressed and more agitated than you started out.
But not all hope is lost. You see, reacting to stressful events isn’t the only option we have. Unlike other living creatures—and even unlike our less evolved ancestors—we have the capacity to respond to situations thoughtfully, rather than just reacting based on instinct or impulse. To do this, however, takes practice. It’s important to remember that you can’t control the thoughts that enter your mind or the emotions that rise up within you when you experience some stressful event. What you can control is what you do next.
Practicing meditation and other relaxation techniques helps to prepare us to be responsive rather than reactive. They train us to be aware of when we’ve been triggered to react so that we can take the hit, take a breath, and take a minute to decide how to respond. Responding mindfully to events, rather than simply reacting, allows us to take command of our experience in the present moment. And it certainly makes grocery shopping a lot more pleasant.
