Stress is Relative

Limited options in the pre-dawn hours when you’re jet lagged and starving in a new city. Our first day in Santa Barbara. 🤪

Eleven years ago yesterday, my family and I moved from Paris to Santa Barbara.

While that sounds like a dream, can you believe it was more stressful than what I’m going through now?!?!

Yep, finding out I have some mysterious mass consuming the vertebrae in my neck and waiting to hear if I need a massive surgery that may alter my quality of life and/or to go through chemotherapy and radiation actually feels more manageable. 🤷‍♀️

I did think I’d reached a new upper limit of stress when my dad unexpectedly died the day after I was released from the hospital because it added a layer of emotional overwhelm on top of my physical pain and bewilderment from this sudden diagnosis.

But my dad’s passing taught me that I am now quite competent in using energetic tools to process emotional pain.

To be clear, this doesn’t mean I didn’t spontaneously cry all the time those first few weeks.

Processing emotions just means you move through them as opposed to them growing heavier and more intense if you resist them.

Survival Mode is the Ultimate Stressor

Our family remembers the move to Santa Barbara viscerally because it was not only the height of tourist season, but also the Monday after a huge annual tradition here — FIESTA!!

…Which means all hotels were booked solid!

To top it off, we had no working cell phones, no valid CA driver’s licenses, not even a car!

But those were the easier challenges to overcome.

Harder was that every day we needed to search around on our one laptop for somewhere to sleep for the night (not an easy thing with three young kids and several large suitcases in tow) because we could only find a night here and a night there at random spots — oooh, we stayed at some questionable places out of desperation. 🙀

In addition to our daily hunt for nightly lodging and procuring food for five hungry, jet-lagged, and confused people from this sudden life change, we also needed to find long-term housing in a city where we didn’t have any friends or family to give us tips on neighborhoods, schools, freeway commute patterns, etc.

We were completely in the dark.

We also needed to enroll the kids in school which would start in a couple of weeks.

Unfortunately, every school’s third grade was already waitlisted and we had not one, but TWO third graders, and no school would take them both. 🤦‍♀️

This experience was literally one of the most stressful of my life!

And that is saying a LOT given I’d already overcome years of infertility trying to get these amazing kids, survived cancer while completing grad school, and moved internationally three times in two years.

Reflecting Back to Propel Us Forward

Several years later, a debris flow devastated our neighborhood including our home and cars. I was lamenting to a good friend about how stressful it was trying to find a place to rent for our family while our house was unlivable.

She knew our SB move story and she reflected back to me a different, more powerful truth:

Susan, you moved to Santa Barbara with absolutely nothing but some clothes in your suitcase, during the height of tourist season with nowhere to live and not knowing a soul. Now you can get groceries and gas without getting lost, your kids are enrolled in school, and you have friends who love you.

Moving across town will be so much easier this time!

Wow! Wow! Wow!

Her reframe magically lifted a huge weight off my shoulders and I could breathe more easily.

She was right!

Of course, surviving a natural disaster that killed 23 of our friends and neighbors was extremely stressful and we were experiencing PSTD, but still, if we focused just on the immediate need of finding housing, this time we had so much going for us that we didn’t have those first unbearably stressful weeks and months when we’d first moved here.

What is the point of this story?

Well, it’s that our move to Santa Barbara, despite clearly being divinely guided, was one of those top 1-3 most difficult experiences of my life — emotionally, physically, and dare I say spiritually.

As is often the case when we are in survival mode, the only energetic tool I could muster at that time was my ability to ground — my lifeline!

So, while I am currently going through a lot, I now have a greater command over my energetic tools and am actively using all of them to help me stay present, calm, and neutral. For example, I know that no matter what the pathology report reveals, I will be able to handle it at that time.

Having command over my attention in the time-space continuum also helps me stay present and patient.

Of course, I’d love to have some answers sooner rather than later as anyone would, but my energetic tools help me trust in divine timing.

Powerful stuff, my friends!

Yes, my body has been in extreme pain, but I am figuring that out with different meds. And I’m going through an incredible inner journey of growth, understanding, and awareness and this has been a wild, yet richly rewarding ride!

What Can You Learn?

So what are the lessons I hope you come away with?

If you are currently facing a test in your own life, try reflecting on the challenges you've already overcome.

Remind yourself how you didn’t know how things would turn out, you only kept taking one step at a time.

Hopefully, you’ll feel some relief that your current situation is more tenable now.

Perhaps you’ll be inspired to lean into your own energetic tools to support your new level of growth this time around with even greater grace, ease, and peace.🕊️

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