Contents
Stress is becoming a new pandemic, it takes over millions. Due to the coronavirus, we are isolated from each other. We cannot keep our personal space and are forced to build our personal boundaries more rigidly. But within each of us there are hidden possibilities that can help overcome stress. How to use them?
Against the backdrop of what is happening in the world, we also have personal crises – the loss of a loved one, divorce, job loss and other problems. All these situations do not lead to harmonious functioning and personal development. Life energy flows away like an hourglass. How to learn not only to save your resource, but also to increase it? Not only to survive, but also to fully use the time of your life?
Each person has six resource channels. And the model that I will offer to describe them, I borrowed from Israeli colleagues and use in my practice.
Multidimensional model of internal stability BASIC Ph describes the resource channels we use to overcome life’s challenges of effective communication. In this abbreviation, each letter has its own meaning: Belief – philosophy of life, beliefs and values, Aeffect – feeling Social – Society, Imagication – imagination, creativity, Cignition – thought, consciousness, Physiology – physiology.
To describe and remember these channels, in Russian we use the word Feeling. Let’s talk about the “helpers” encrypted in this word.
1. H – feelings, emotions
Manifestation and expression
In our culture, it is customary to divide emotions into “bad” and “good”. We can easily attribute anger, anger, fear, irritation, envy, greed to the former, and love, care, gratitude to the latter. And what to do with pity, self-satisfaction, anxiety, guilt or shame?
What experiences do we consider right or permitted, and which are not?
It takes a lot of energy to fight emotions with a minus sign. We do not notice how we lose it. Even if we are aware of what is happening, this process can be difficult to handle. “I can’t be angry at my mother, child, loved one, sick relative… (the list goes on). I can’t, but I’m angry! I’m doing it!”
Experts advise accepting feelings – but how to do it in practice? And does it help when those same emotions are tearing us apart!? Can we influence emotions? Whether I reveal a terrible secret or not, I will say that we cannot. Only our own reaction to their manifestation is subject to us.
Allowing your feelings to be, accepting them is not an easy task. And sometimes a lifetime is not enough to deal with it.
2. U – mind, logic, cognition
Separate foreground and background. Determining what is primary and what is secondary
When we translate the problem into the rank of tasks, it has a solution. To clarify the situation, it is important to answer some questions yourself.
For example:
- Is what I know about the situation true?
- Is this true for me or is there someone else’s truth?
- What are my predictions and assumptions?
- How can I check the accuracy of this information?
- What do I not know and cannot know?
- What is my level of control?
- What can I do in this situation?
- What can I not do?
- What knowledge, skills and abilities may I need to solve this problem?
- Do I need help or advice from other people?
- Where is my point of support in this situation?
There may be many questions. When we understand the conditions of the problem, the solution becomes logical and definite.
3. B – faith, meaning
If I know the “why”, then I will find a way, “how”. The famous psychologist Viktor Frankl survived the horrors of the concentration camps because he remained true to himself, his convictions and beliefs. If we know why we need to do something or overcome something, then we have a second wind, strength and energy appear.
We create meanings ourselves, based on our personal experience. It is easier and easier for someone to live by the code. It can be the code of the builder of communism, the code of thieves, religious philosophy. All this is the foundation of faith. A deeply religious person sees his path. And to accept everything that is found on it, from the point of view of the philosophy of the code, it is simple and understandable for him.
Faith is a powerful resource. The main thing is to determine this path. There is a category of people who put service to others at the forefront, and this becomes their guiding star. After all, when someone needs us, when our help is in demand, life is filled with new colors.
4. C – family, close people, friends, society
Support and help from those around you
The first and probably most important thing to learn is to ask for support and help. Why is it important? Because only the person himself knows exactly how to support him. “If you love, you will guess” is a deep delusion. The other will not guess. Alas, millions of people live in this illusion. It ruins marriages and relationships.
We don’t know how to ask and live within our own limits: “it’s a shame…”, “what will they think of me”, “what will I look like…”. Someone once told us that asking is the lot of the weak, and we took a “vow of silence.” But until people learn to voice their desires and experiences, the world will fall into the abyss of incomprehension.
There is nothing more damaging to a relationship than deceived expectations. But we form them from our own ideas. So we live in the end not with a real person, but with our own expectations from him. We are offended by them, because of them we are upset, we quarrel. And just need to see a living, real person next to us.
Based on our own expectations, we strive to give our love to another and very often do not think about whether he is ready to accept so much. We violate our internal balance of “give and take”. And we do not understand how much and to whom we are ready to give and how we can cope with what they give us.
5. T – body
Here we include not only physical education and sports, but also bodily practices that help when working with the psyche, and medication, because it is part of our interaction with the body.
Health – physical, mental – is the basis of our personality. Each of us makes plans for the future, lives with expectations and knows well how everything collapses when illness comes.
But for some reason we forget that at birth we receive only one single body, which often endures such sufferings that you would not wish on your enemy. But the most important enemies for him are ourselves. We eat more than we need, and not what is good for us. We use alcohol and drugs. We do not take care of our body, as if it is someone else’s task. But in fact, it is ours.
My Israeli colleagues talked about the fact that the Lord gives the soul, and the body is a vessel where the soul is stored. And everyone’s personal responsibility is to take care of this vessel. Remember this.
With all the busyness and fatigue, look for a time and place for exercise, breathing practices. Watch your sleep and nutrition – and the body will respond to you in return. Do not neglect the appeal to specialists. It can be doctors, psychologists, trainers, masseurs – all those who will help take care of your body.
6. In – imagination or self-expression in creativity.
Managing your condition through art, creativity, humor
A person does not in vain invent a hobby for himself. Someone sings, draws, cross-stitches, collects stamps or vintage cars. Our imagination has more to do with pleasure. Someone likes to sit in silence while fishing, someone likes to go to a new exhibition, and someone likes to enjoy their collection.
Nobody can control your imagination. This is only your ocean of possibilities. But how difficult it is to find something that is really interesting! And if you succeeded, then this is already luck, because you have an inexhaustible source of inspiration.
***
Each of us has 6 possible sources of strength and support in difficult periods of life. At the same time, as a rule, a person uses only 2-3 leading channels, based on his typology. Understanding ourselves, our resources, gives us the opportunity to constructively survive loss, trauma, and other stressful situations.