Stressed out about Stress

Did you know that stress causes weight gain?  Does anything NOT cause weight gain?  Even starving yourself puts your body in starvation mode and causes weight gain.  Are you kidding me?  Oops, this post is about stress, sorry!

Lately I have been incredibly stressed out.  Family stress, condo stress, work stress, money stress.  Sometimes it all hits at once.  Some people drink when stressed, others eat.  Of course there are also  healthy activities that relieve stress like walking, going to the gym or meditation.  I started writing this blog to help relieve stress and it does help to some extent.  Leaving it all on 'paper' is my way of "let go and let God" I guess.  It is my electronic prayer journal.

For me, stress is paralyzing.  It makes everything I do more difficult, and if I am not doing it already, it takes an incredible effort to get started.  I had to prepare for an appointment with my tax accountant the other day and it was way more difficult than usual.  With all the stress I was carrying already, every task seemed insurmountable.  This of course added even more stress.

I have a dance friend who told me that everyone needs a personal haven.  A place they go that takes them away from the stresses of life, the issues with work, the spousal spats.  His is dancing.  He forgets everything outside of the music and dancing, and when he is finished and goes home everything seems a bit less stressful.  Of course this will only work if your significant other is OK with you going away to your haven. 

My husband and I are currently part of a dance team.  We are getting ready to compete with the team and practice was yesterday.  The music started and we began dancing and then.......nothing.  We just stood there!  My husband had a complete loss of memory and I couldn't help him because the stress of just standing there was so overwhelming that it launched me into stress paralysis and I just stood there looking at him like a deer staring at the headlights of a car just before it crashes into them.....  I'm thinking dance won't be my personal haven.

I have decided to go back to Yoga.  I stopped practicing after many years because I always seemed to miss it due to other family or work obligations.  This of course was yet another stressor in my life.  Now it is time to make time for me, I have to.  I need to find  and guard my personal haven.  The difficulty will be to overcome the stress paralysis, go register and then not stress out over having difficulty doing the moves with my hormonally induced full figure, thus negating the entire reason for going in the first place.... my head hurts.