Attendees at a recent
gathering of men and women who are members of a special interest group sparked
an animated discussion surrounding a handout quiz measuring personal Stress
Index. Some people preferred to complete the questionnaire at home while others
scrambled for pen or pencil promptly.
Everyone knows somebody,
possibly themselves, who is laboring under an intense pressure where relief or
solution is neither immediate or within the foreseeable future. It may be illness
and prescribed treatment, it may be financial, or any number of other
possibilities.
Poet John Donne’s famous “No
Man is an Island” excerpt from Meditation XVII applies to each and every one of
us. A too singular effort to resolve
personal issues can render anyone to deep feelings of isolation or “aloneness”
– yearning desperately to find a way to resolution.
Common expressions such as
“thinking outside the box” are not easy to put into place when you’re boxed in
to circumstances not of your own making – an example might be as caregiver of
child or children, spouse, or parent. The journey is along and the road
unforgiving. There is no visible “light at the end of the tunnel” and the
burden is weighty. The options are few and the sense of obligation irrefutable.
One woman I know doesn’t want to be crammed “into the box” – feeling
apprehensive that she will be suffocated and lose her own identity – respite
is, for this lady and most others, a dream.
Regardless of the source your
stressors stem from, click on the link and find out what your Stress Index
score is. If the light goes on for you a good move is to seek some
participation that removes you to collaborating and benefitting from the
fellowship others in similar situations can gift to you; and you to them!
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