Garret Gillespie

I’ve been reading The Power of Full Engagement by Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz and they struck me with a new attitude about stress. Instead of reiterating the common convention of suggesting ways to remove stress from our lives, the authors make the point that true growth comes through balancing stress and recovery. This point hit me pretty strongly.

How often do you hear yourself or someone close to you express how stressed out they are? It seems like we’re constantly trying to figure out ways to remove the stress from our lives. Life just keeps moving faster and faster and the competition to survive just gets tougher. Even in medicine, it seems as though the diagnosis for everything from the common cold to a heart attack is too much stress in your life. The drive to escape the stresses in our lives compels far too many to find their escape through harmful means. Amidst all the excitement and the seeking of escape from the stresses of daily life, have you ever taken the time to consider the benefits you can reap from those stresses?

Physical development, strength training and weight loss all depend on one’s ability to push the physical body beyond the status quo to a point outside the current comfort zone. In order to increase the load bearing capacity of a muscle, that muscle must be strained beyond what it can comfortably handle. This stress actually damages the muscle. In self-defense and in preparation for possible future stresses, the muscle repairs the microscopic tears that occurred and adds additional muscle fibers. This is the process of muscular development. Pretty common knowledge amongst the body building community.

Have you ever considered how we go about developing ourselves emotionally, intellectually and spiritually?

The same way.

Seriously.

At the same time our society is in the midst of the biggest physical health boom in the history of mankind, we are simultaneously creating a boom in the business of escaping stress. But what if we could find a way to make that stress work for our good. This is the point made in The Power of Full Engagement. Through developing healthy habits and positive rituals in our lives we can harness the growth opportunities hidden within the stress we create in our own lives.

And let’s be honest, very little of the stress in our lives comes solely from outside influences. In most cases the stress we deal with is a direct result of the choices we make.

Just like constant strain on a muscle will eventually tear it beyond repair, constant stress in other aspects of our lives can cause damage that requires significant time and care to repair. The key in physical development is to stress a muscle to its limit, hold it there for an appropriate time and then let it recover. The same is true in our intellectual, emotional and spiritual lives. In order to achieve growth and increase in any area of life, we must push ourselves to a limit, hold at that limit for an appropriate time and then provide time for recovery. How far you need to push yourself in any area, and how long you need to hold that limit depends on where you are and where you want to go.

Constantly seeking escape from all of the stress in your life is a recipe for disappointment and atrophy. Too much unrelenting stress is a recipe for frustration, discouragement and burnout. But developing a program of balancing periods of stress and recovery in the physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual aspects of our lives provides opportunity for growth beyond our imaginations.

Check out The Power of Full Engagement and manage the stress in your life instead of trying to escape it.

I woke up from an incredible dream this morning. As is the case with most of my dreams, the overall course of it was scattered and filled with me searching around for something and never being able to find it, but right at the end, just before I woke up I had the coolest experience.

I found myself sitting in a school classroom; one of those old elementary school classrooms with the desks that aren’t made to fit adults. I was in the midst of a big gathering of people. Adults and children that my mind suddenly decided were Native American. There were no feathered headdresses or drums or even very traditional clothing, it just suddenly made sense that they were Native American. I realized I was a guest at a ceremony culminating several days of celebration for the passing of three boys from youth to manhood. There was no fanfare, just the gathering and the final act of the celebration. As I watched, a young tribal leader stood in front of the classroom and described that he would now give the young men a container into which they would place symbols of the strengths they felt they could give to the tribe now that they were adults. After they placed their symbols into the container or pouch, they were to pass it to the next until all three had placed their symbols into the pouch and the last one would give it back to the leader. The first youth acted embarrassed and only put one symbol into the pouch before passing it on to the next. The next two boys were larger, stronger, and more confident than the first and they placed several items into the pouch before passing it back to the leader.

When the leader received the pouch he moved back to the front of the group and proceeded to remove the symbols from the pouch. Somehow he was able to identify who put what symbols in the pouch and began describing what each symbol represented. As he began, most of the symbols he pulled from the pouch belonged to the second and third boys, given the fact that they had put so many in compared to the first boy. The first symbol the leader pulled from the pouch represented physical strength and had been placed in the pouch by the third and largest of the boys. The boy was pleased with the leader’s description of the power the symbol represented and he received several congratulatory slaps on the back from friends and family, but the congratulations and laughter died quickly as the leader finished his description of the symbolism and called for another member of the tribe join him at the front of the room. A giant of a man with a grave expression on his face lumbered to the front of the room and turned to face the group. The room got immediately quiet and the leader reached into the pouch again and removed a second symbol. This symbol had been placed into the pouch by the second boy and represented speed. There were more congratulations for the second boy albeit more subdued than the first, and, not surprisingly, when the leader finished his description of the symbolism he called another member of the tribe forward. This time a slight, sinewy man stepped with long strides to the front of the group and with the same grave expression turned to face the group. This same process continued as the leader slowly emptied the pouch of the symbols that had been placed in it. Each symbol representing a strength that each boy felt confident he possessed above any other; wisdom, faith, kindness, etc. each one being followed by the leader calling forward a member of the tribe that inarguably possessed a greater amount of that quality or strength.

The last symbol pulled from the pouch finally belonged to the first young man that had acted so shy about what his contribution to the tribe would be. This final symbol, the leader described, represented the ability to learn. As the leader finished, the group waited for him to call forward another member of the tribe, but he just finished and was quiet.

After a moment’s pause, the leader began to explain that for all of the preceding gifts, strengths or qualities, there could be someone found that exceeded what you possessed at any point in your life. But there was none among them that could be called forward as the greatest learner. He said the greatest strength anyone could offer their tribe is a willingness to be teachable; the humility to believe you can always learn something or be strengthened by those around you.

I woke up right after that and pondered what I had seen for most of the day. It is a powerful reminder that the acknowledgement that you possess weaknesses can be considered strength. And not just any strength, but the greatest strength you can offer to those around you.

It reminds me of the old proverb about the reason we were given two ears and only one mouth, so we would listen twice as much as we speak. It’s also important to remember that the least among us can be, and often is, the greatest among us.