With high stress comes a higher responsibility to break from the comfort zone.
Illustration for a Stressed Girl | (Leonardo.AI,2024)
As mentioned in the previous articles, there are many techniques for overcoming stress.
Also, we dived deep into the first ten techniques in each specific article. This article will be about the eleventh technique, being flexible. You can check the first ten techniques articles here:
Being Flexible
1. Being Water
2. Being Formless
3. ERP
Being water
Have you ever wondered why expert martial artists’ bodies move freely? Well, there is a conception that appears in lots of martial arts but more in two specific forms: Shaolin and Ninjitsu. It is the water matter. Some of us have seen it in lots of fighting movies or animations, but it appears clearly in “The Avatar: The Air Bender” cartoon movie.
Those who are practicing in fighting dojo know the form of water very well, which is that they shall shape themselves according to the enemy’s posture and state. It’s like you are seeing yourself in a mirror, which is your opponent.
Illustration for a Boy Controlling The Formation of The Sea | (Leonardo.AI,2024)
Stress is like the opponent you need to study, understand, and behave according to what it looks like in the mirror. This includes the rigidity of the stress condition, how you speak to it and yourself, and how you see it.
Being Formless
Like, the great Bruce Lee once said:
“Empty your mind.
Be formless, shapeless, like water.
You put water into a cup; it becomes the cup.
You put water into a bottle; it becomes the bottle.
You put it into a teapot; it becomes the teapot.
Now water can flow, or it can crash.
Be water, my friend.”
Being Formless is a skill every human being should have, starting from being an ordinary person who negotiates with someone while buying normal things and ending with presidents of any infrastructure.
Illustration for a Boy Controlling The Formation of The Water | (Leonardo.AI,2024)
The only way to do that is by stepping out of two things: your thinking pattern and your comfort zone. Our thinking and the urge to think are what hold us back. The reason for that is our brains do not differentiate between real and illusion. Yet we think we are right, despite anyone’s opinion who says otherwise. By forming ourselves with no boundaries or thinking, we have guaranteed that any thoughts that will trigger your stress will come to an end.
ERP
Exposure Response Prevention is an effective technique that is used for treating stress and anxiety specifically. It’s like feeling your feelings itself, being water and formless all at the same time.
Illustration for a Girl’s Imagination Come True | (Leonardo.AI,2024)
You first expose yourself to the stress by imagining it, and do nothing while imagining except feeling the pain, your body, and how the pain passes through every part of your body. That’s how response prevention is done. You prevent the interference of your mind and thinking from entering the repeated thinking pattern by feeling and focusing on your body.
Conclusion
Our minds and bodies love to remain in the same place always and it aches when we step out of our comfort zone. It becomes a necessary skill to train our mind and body to gradually and always change. Train to change your mindset, body, and comfort zone, and stay safe till we meet again in the next article, my fellow warrior friends.
Illustration for a Happy Girl | (Leonardo.AI,2024)
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