DeSTRESS: Perception is Everything

Okay, these thoughts were moving around so much in my head that I literally couldnt sleep last night. I cant get this topic off my mind and I keep feeling inspired to expand this topic further.

But, like I always say..I wont know if you dont read it :)

So, to return to this concept of the Holy Spirit being in our bodies (which is really what started this whole thought process, truth be told) - I have been struck with something as I blend it with this push towards decreasing stress in my life.

IF my body is a temple of the HS, then just like God is going to use my body to do His will ...will He not use my body through the symptoms of stress to show me the areas of my life I need to focus on or redirect my focus from?

I think so ..which makes me look even closer to what is causing it.

So often, my stress is linked with feelings of my not being what I want to be; as a mom, wife, daughter, etc. Stress is born from a part of spirit, then mind, then body that reacts to my not performing the way I want to.

While I certainly dont think that every thought of inadequacy is from the Spirit (hardly), I have been considering that what I have been labeling as stress is sometimes a prompting for the Spirit for improvement and focus in an area.

I wonder if when the Spirit prompts us to focus, by posing the question to our hearts .."shouldnt you be ...." we need not to be reacting for want of less stress, but for want of pleasing the God we claim to serve. Because its ALL about Him and our relationship with Him! ..right?

This same Spirit/God wouldnt want that to develop into a feeling of inadequacy and guilt! No, but a call to action.

A call to focus on those things we know we need to make priorities.

So, to add to my stress strategies, I must ask myself if my feeling of "stress" is a call to focus.

For instance...I feel stressed when I spend large amounts of time on the internet, when my schedule is overwhelmed, when I have spent too much time away from home in a week, when I havent called my mom/sisters in a while, when I dont have the "time" to serve the church ..etc.

My stress strategies can apply to all those...but my motivation and perception of why I feel that way can drastically move me to greater action in those areas.

Not only do I stop spending so much time on the internet to reduce stress..I carry it a step further and ask, is the Spirit prompting me to focus on something else right now?

If I am SO focused on the house that my kids presence and their simply being "kids" is stressing me, then maybe my focus needs to switch to them instead of the house.

If I am so overwhelmed with my schedule that I dont have time for the areas of passion I think God wants me to focus on, or on the priorities that I know God would have me place on my life..then maybe that is a call to my spirit to change that schedule.

So, we apply our stress strategies ..and we ask that God show us FIRST why we are feeling this way. Is it a call to focus differently?

I dont know that every time we feel stressed that God is calling us to better things...but it could be considered more often in order to line up that list of things to get better at if we look at it through His eyes.