Balance in the midst of Stress

As the excitement of the Olympic games continues in Vancouver, with spring-like conditions, other areas of the world are experiencing devastating weather.

The Portuguese island of Madeira is one such place with flooding and mudslides, creating disaster.

A Canadian tall ship sank off the coast of Brazil last week after experiencing rough seas caused by a 'microburst'.

Numerous high school students, who were learning to sail, were aboard, and miraculously they all survived, being quickly rescued from life rafts by the Brazilians.

I would certainly hope that these 42 youth would have received some critical incident stress debriefing, in order to help them avert later post traumatic stress which could affect the remainder of their lives.

As stress is a topic I will be exploring in my next break-up article, and in light of what has been reported in the news recently, I would like to mention it here as well.

In the past few weeks there have been some very stressful occurrences perpetrated by people, not weather.

I wrote about one such event in my blog post article entitled 'Betrayal', regarding the colonel wing commander in the Canadian military who was charged with unspeakable crimes.

Another critical incident which occurred last week was caused by an individual who commited suicide in Austin, Texas when he flew his small plane into an IRS building. Thank God the loss of life wasn't as disastrous as it could have been.

This man reportedly set his home on fire with his wife and a child inside, before carrying out the act he planned to do, as evidenced in an online letter.

When individuals carry out acts of terror affecting so many lives, it leaves a question mark regarding any signs others might have missed, that could have prevented such horror, and perhaps helped the persons involved to alleviate their own mental anguish.

However, feeling guilt for being unable to forsee or assist those involved is also destructive for the ones closest to the situation.

There are countless examples of stressful events occurring everyday, some of which hit home closer than others. All can become overwhelming if I dwell on them.

In fact, several years ago numerous stressors in my own personal life caused havoc for me when I did not deal with them as they occurred, but rather tried to be 'strong' and carry on in spite of them.

The burden eventually weighed me down and wore me down to the point of illness. Recovery has been ongoing and very successful until the setback of my mother's death.

Now I am starting to get back to the point where I was before she died, and need to practise daily stress management to move forward.

Sometimes I just have to turn off the news, and turn my focus to positive, nurturing and uplifting activities, creating them in my own life, and observing them in the lives of others.

Once again balance is key, as well as an attitude of gratitude, to help me to not only continue, but to 'enjoy the ride' on my journey.