A person cannot live without stress at all — simply because of his human nature. If anything, he will invent it himself. Not consciously, but simply from the inability to build personal boundaries. How do we allow others to complicate our lives and what to do about it? Family psychologist Inna Shifanova answers.
Dostoevsky wrote something along the lines of «even if you fill a person with gingerbread, he will suddenly lead himself into a dead end.» It’s close to the feeling of «I’m alive.»
If life is even, calm, there are no shocks or outbursts of feelings, then it is not clear who I am, what I am. Stress accompanies us always — and not always unpleasant.
The very word «stress» is close to the Russian «shock». And any strong experience can become it: a meeting after a long separation, an unexpected promotion … Probably, many are familiar with the paradoxical feeling — fatigue from too pleasant. Even from happiness, sometimes you want to relax, spend time alone.
If stress accumulates, sooner or later illness will begin. What makes us particularly vulnerable is the lack of secure personal boundaries. We take too much at our own expense, we allow anyone who wants to trample on our territory.
We react sharply to any remark addressed to us — even before we check with logic how fair it is. We begin to doubt our rightness if someone criticizes us or our position.
Many make important decisions based on an unconscious desire to please others.
It often happens that for a long time we do not notice that it is high time to express our needs, and we endure. We hope that the other person will guess what we need. And he does not know about our problem. Or, perhaps, he deliberately manipulates us — but it is we who provide him with such an opportunity.
So many people make life decisions based on an unconscious desire to please others, to do the “right thing”, to be “good”, and only then notice that they went against their own desires and needs.
Our inability to be free inside makes us dependent on everything: politics, husband, wife, boss … If we do not have our own belief system — which we did not borrow from others, but consciously built ourselves — we begin to look for external authorities. But this is an unreliable support. Any authority can fail and disappoint. We are having a hard time with this.
It is much more difficult to unsettle someone who has a core inside, who is aware of his significance and necessity regardless of external assessments, who knows about himself that he is a good person.
Other people’s problems become an additional source of stress. “If a person feels bad, I should at least listen to him.” And we listen, we sympathize, not wondering if we have enough of our own spiritual strength for this.
We do not refuse not because we are ready and want to help, but because we do not know how or we are afraid to refuse our time, attention, sympathy. And this means that fear is behind our consent, and not kindness at all.
Very often women come to me for an appointment who do not believe in their inherent worth. They do their best to prove their usefulness, for example, in the family. This leads to fuss, to a constant need for external evaluations and gratitude from others.
They lack an inner support, a clear sense of where “I” ends and “world” and “others” begin. They are sensitive to changes in the environment and try to match them, experiencing constant stress because of this. I notice how they are afraid to admit to themselves that they may experience “bad” feelings: “I never get angry,” “I forgive everyone.”
Does it seem like it has nothing to do with you? Check if you are trying to answer every phone call? Do you ever feel like you shouldn’t go to bed until you’ve read your mail or watched the news? These are also signs of a lack of personal boundaries.
It is in our power to limit the flow of information, take a «day off» or accustom everyone to call until a certain hour. Divide obligations into those that we ourselves decided to fulfill, and those that someone imposed on us. All this is possible, but it requires deep self-respect.