Boiling frog syndrome: how warm is your water?
The boiling frog analogy recently caught my attention. If you throw a frog in boiling water, it will immediately jump out. But if you place the frog in a pot with cold water and slowly heat the water, it will get adjusted to the raising temperature. To an extent that it will unresistingly die in boiling water. Not even attempting to jump out!
Do you know if your water is warm at all?
Or let me re-frame the question, how do you acknowledge that you are stressed? Specially when it seems all under control.
Currently we live in uncertain times, the COVID-19 lock down is certainly a global crisis, how do you feel individually about it? Long before we know, we are already juggling with work from home and house chores for the family. In fact, that’s the easiest way to distract ourselves from grief or pain. Although this may be once in a lifetime situation, we do face crisis in our lives more often than we acknowledge it. Being rejected, loss of job, death of closed ones, break up, being under-appreciated by colleagues and boss, sick spouse, dealing with social taboos like depression or LGBT, abusive parents, etc. It’s easier to ignore these events and put up with the strong mask (I have been champion at this) but hey, you just learnt about the boiling frog syndrome. The unexpressed pain might suddenly blow up into burn outs, physical diseases or even as simple as lethargy or lack of involvement in life. Hence it is very important to be able to see and acknowledge blocked energy or stress within us.
How to identify if you are stressed? Although symptoms and ability to cope up with stress differs from person to person, below are some subtle and some evident symptoms to watch on yourself:
Lack of focus
Irritation, anger or sadness from simple small events (as minute as one single sentence has the potential to blow up your patience)
Constant physical fatigue
Chronic lack of energy to think rationally
Sleeping disorders (like difficulty falling asleep or often nightmares or difficulty waking up)
Socializing becomes a big burden than fun
Getting reminded of the same scene (that hurt you) over and over again
Uncontrolled eating or drinking
Unable to maintain hygiene or clean home
Constant time pressure feeling
Unable to show compassion or understanding
Being abusive
Feeling overwhelmed
Tensed neck and shoulders
Being ‘conscious’ that you are stressed is half battle won. And as I mentioned, stress is blocked energy, so releasing that energy is the best way to get rid of it, avoiding the tension will only build the block deeper.
One of the best (and underestimated) ways to express that blocked energy is physical movement. Stepping up my exercise routine helped me tremendously to be resilient in current crisis times. I hope you are taking care of your water temperatures too!
