The Impact of Stress and Fear and How they manifest Physically, Mentally, and Spiritually

By Destiny McLaren · Shared with Public I would like to preface by saying I learned these lessons the hard way, unable to even entertain the idea of, much less understand how fear affected my thinking, how my body was reacting to it, the effects of outside stimulation, or what I could do to change my way of thinking and repair the damage. It took a series of traumatic events that left me feeling overwhelmed, burnt out, and overstimulated in very way, before I was even open to looking at what the causes of the issues really were. It came down to fear and my misunderstanding about it. Turns out, I was snapping at people and stressed out over situations usually outside of my control, things I was wrong about, or the always fun...excuses I was making that were weighing heavily on me but I was too proud to admit were my fault.

I had been living in fear for as long as I could remember and had reached my breaking point.

Fortunately, with grown children moving away I was finally forced to focus on me and had nothing left to distract me, and eventually refection on this forced me to face my demons!! By that point, I was well passed the point of no return and was an emotional wreck, and I hadn't even hit menopausal yet! Desperation leads us to the realization that we have hit rock bottom. Only then are most people open to less conventional ways to deal with our problems, especially since we to get pretty creative on the way down, but at some point we get sick of the realization that what we thought was the bottom wasn't...only then are we REALLY willing to open seek out and try some 'out-of-the-box ideas. It's for you that are there that I have written this. For everyone else, feel free to read on...but we'll still be here for you later too!

Many know this pain, the inconsolable feeling of isolation, and inability to recognize or appreciate the good things that are happening in our life...especially during times when they are few and far between. When pointed out by others, these 'encouraging' words can feel like a condescending cop-out of an excuse for them not understanding, empathizing, or even just listening...trust me, I get it. Communication and how we interact with each other in itself a huge component too, but that's for another post. Like myself, I know most people need hard facts and a good explanation to make complex concepts like this make sense, so that's what we will focus on here.

Let's start with the scientific side of how fear affects us and why. It starts simply, by reacting to a negative situation...this can include just about anything that causes you a lot of stress.

Here's what happens internally:

-Thoughts and emotions move through us as electrical impulses. -Strong emotions and stressful situations intensify these electrical impulses.

-As with all impulses, (though patterns,) the body recognizes them and knows how to react.

-Flooded with these impulses, the Amygdala part of your brain alerts the Hypothalamus.

-The Hypothalamus goes into action, acting like a commander that sends out hormones

-Like receiving orders from a commander, hormones essentially tell the body what to do.

-'Your heart rate increases, and blood starts pumping, you feel the effects and extra energy.

-The hormones sent throughout the body to prepare for anything, this is 'Action Potential'.

-This process gives us the strength to move faster, think with more clarity, and other things.

-When this action potential is utilized and released from the body, a euphoric feeling follows.

-This is also experienced during and after intense physical activity, like working out!

Because it's the same electric signature for all stressful situations, the body cannot tell the difference and reacts the same whether the stressful event was almost getting in a car accident, , you can't relax because you are bombarded by notifications, when finding out you don't have enough to pay for rent, or when someone yells at you. The only real difference is how long your action potential will last. Over time, repeated events deplete the body's ability to regenerate and recuperate from these events....not to mention the sugars released in order to facilitate in this.

This works divinely after a great workout or when used to run from things trying to eat you, when these thoughts and feelings are released, but those pesky negative thought patterns tend to get stored by most people experiencing ongoing issues with anxiety, depression, stress, and trauma. But if these hormones, and the action potential created by them, are ignored and stored not only does the problem compound pre-existing issues, but if we aren't burning off that extra glucose, it's also just extra sugar that inactive people especially don't need!

While the effects of Acute Stress Disorder, but some scientists believe this may even explain less well-known conditions, such as 'Autoimmune Disorders' and other conditions given a generic label for something they have not yet been able to explain. Other examples of this include the various digestive issues we are accepting as 'normal', despite not having a rational explanation for their root causes. Most recently, some have turned to Eastern Medicine to better understand what our ancestors understood.

While our pride, interest, and funding have kept us from reaching this point sooner, many ancient teachings have proven how well so many things were understood long ago. It's hard to ignore the more organic forms of healing that have become mainstream in recent years. Some insurance companies are even covering Reiki healing work, calling it 'complimentary' treatment. Regardless of personal beliefs, the results and data are hard to ignore, especially when patients (especially wealthy ones that can afford experimental study and treatments) are desperate to find answers and options.

As alternative healing becomes more acceptable, science is finally catching up to these ancient concepts, ABOUT FREAKIN TIME! For this reason, in recent years (like REALLY recent) some scientists have even attributed this energy potential loss and subsequent storage as one of a few major issues causing cancer. Our diet and physical habits, play a huge role as well...but it's often intertwined and a result of the belief that we are helpless, worthless, not accepted, and somehow irrevocably 'broken' that actually keeps us from further exploring or understanding this.

Born with a congenital condition known as a 'Growth Hormone Deficiency, I have extensive issues caused by hormones. Basically, just as with the ones used to tell our bodies what to do for survival, there are ones specifically used to initiate and regulate growth and all of the processes related to every stage of growth and development that occur throughout our lives. They initiate menses in adolescence, and facilitate with pregnancy, labor, as well as the subsequent healing and production of milk afterwards...something I learned the hard way.

Nobody knew what to tell me, because this rare condition wasn't well understood until the last decade. Growing up in the 80's, all I knew was that I needed to figure out a way to cope with the most annoying part of being blind in my right eye which was that without a focal point it rested in what I lovingly referred to as 'the right field'! Basically, it looked wayyy too far to the right and made a lot of growing up in America an even greater challenge than it already was for people that were born 'normal' looking!

If that weren't enough, labor was unexplored territory for me and my medical team! All things considered, it went pretty well...aside from almost dying and not being able to make milk after the initial 'letdown' right after having my one and only baby. I am so thankful I got to experience pregnancy, even if ended with an emergency cesarian. At only 4ft 11 and 115lbs when I got pregnant, we loke in my family that it was what I got for reproducing with a Viking. While the fact that she was over 9lbs at birth would indeed make it difficult for most, my body was never going to be able to deliver a baby, but certainly not that size!

The experience not only taught me how thankful I am to even be able to do things most people take for granted, like motherhood...but that I will always be my best advocate. I did not have a network of people to help me nor the means to pay anyone to help me figure it out. As a result, my reality was always different because I knew I couldn't rely on anyone but me. I had already refused to live my life defined by my limitations or in fear of the unknown issues they might present.

That sounds so empowering, right? Unfortunately, the combination of these created the perfect storm of stubborn pride that, like the infinite other reasons people have for avoiding their pain, came from a place of fear that took me way too long to recognize and overcome. Why don't we

demand better of and for ourselves? Why do we settle for answers and resolutions from a system well-established to be broken many years ago? Why do we allow profit and greed to dictate our quality of life?

This would also require its own post to fully explain, but ultimately can all be traced back to a lack of knowledge, fear, and by extension how process our emotions. Combined, these are ruining our bodies and keeping us from having healthy relationships. It's taking every bit of discipline I have learned not to share my colorful thoughts on fear and how badly is has impacted us. My hope is that these words resonate with someone, that this information is shared with others, and that we can all one day break this cycle of inflicting pain on ourselves and others, rather than facing our fears, recognizing them, processing them, and using the resulting knowledge to heal our past trauma...then eventually helping others to do so as well.

We are only afraid because we have been misled for so long that we can't even tell the difference between what is fake and what is real anymore...this lack of information doesn't have to take the form of bitterness and skepticism though. Rising above fear addresses that too! If we give fear the finger, instead of risking the relationships of people that we disagree with, are all honest about the fact we are ANGRY because we are AFRAID and find resolutions by EMPOWERING OURSELVES WITH KNOWLEDGE rather than BLAMING OTHERS, feeding into DRAMA, we could find common ground...even when still disagree. Always having to be right is just another form of fear, don't let it FUCK with your head anymore.

I gain nothing from sharing this but took time to anyway, in the hopes that it may empower you to learn more about these and other truths for yourselves. Yes, truth forces us to take a long hard look at things we would rather forget, but until we can learn to do this we won't let that energy go, take action, and thus have sentenced ourselves to suffer as a victim of it.

I'm going to add more posts and some reference links for those who want to recognize and better understand fear, negative and harmful thought-patterns and the corresponding ailments (YES YOU CAN!) that we have been lied to about and accepted as 'normal'.

They aren't...but only you can override that programming. Next, we'll discuss ways of coping with and avoiding the stress we can all learn to manage in a more healthy and productive way!