hearing or healing: did I get that right?
The line distinguishing stress and overwhelm can be easily crossed. And so when stress goes unmanaged at extreme levels, it eventually leads to overwhelm and at its worst–burnout and anxiety. Cue longer days and less sleep. Moodiness and emotional dysregulation. Negativity and aggression. I’ve found that stress also has an impact on your capacity to…hear.
Research shows that when you experience stress, you will experience both physiological and psychological reactions. This is the intersection between mind, body, and spirit. Regardless of how well your body can physically regulate and respond to stress, how you react to stress depends less so on your body’s ability and more so on your mind’s perception of whether or not you're able to deal with the situation.
Negative thoughts are a telltale sign of stress building. The undercurrent of stress buds impatience, narrowmindedness, and a collection of offenses. It’s like all capacity for being able to process and assess the situation with eyes of love have faded into the distance.
Once you start to enter into a negative thought loop, I’ve found that you’re not only thinking negatively, you’re then more susceptible to begin listening in a negative way. How you respond to stress is the result of a complex, nuanced knot of long-held narratives, belief systems, and ideologies that have shaped your experiences and ultimately– how you may come to view yourself.
Someone’s well intentioned compliment may unintentionally come off as a slap in the face if it happens to hit on a core insecurity or wound more deeply rooted in trauma. A friend sharing an experience could get taken as a personal jab if there’s a difference in lifestyle and values. Someone else’s dreams could seem like a threat when you’re not going after your own. The list goes on.
The Spirit reminded me that this is the difference between listening and hearing. That there’s one distinct letter delineates the difference between whether we’re hearing with an open heart or merely listening from a heart that is bleeding and still healing.
In 1 Corinthians 13:4-7, Apostle Paul advises, “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”
A younger version of me could only see this verse as a cheesy line from “A Walk to Remember” or overused in wedding vows. And yet, as I follow Christ more deeply and work with others more intimately, I can now see this as a verse that can support us making sense of moments + experiences that I would otherwise be overcome by. It puts that movie and those couples in a whole new light. There are things I can accept and yet not understand. The love that bridges the gap in between sustains the vulnerability, intimacy, and connection.
Lately, I’ve been praying for God to show me His heart rather than to show me mine. If I were to only see my own, I truly believe I would hit a wall over and over again. In times where it’s harder than most to hear God’s word, what I really need to hear is that God will be there to see this through. God’s heart allows me to be a source of encouragement. God’s heart allows me to let go of my pride, forgive to forget, and apologize in moments of wrongdoing. God’s heart allows me to see the hurt rather than feel the pain.
In using His definition of love, I can find healing and begin to hear again. Rather than expecting goodness and love in the way I desire, I can begin to learn how another needs + craves that goodness and love. I can use God’s love to take over the moments where I may be tempted to stoop to a lower place.
In situations where stress is attempting to take the driver’s seat, this is an indicator that it is pivotal to take a moment of stillness and give yourself the space to meet yourself with grace. It’s an opportunity to pause and give your mind and body the chance to reconnect. In stillness, you find the Spirit within.
There’s a lot out there that takes a condemning and fixing approach and I firmly believe that Jesus wanted anything but that. In doing this work, I have found that it’s more about the space and less about the solutions…because He will make the path. Every. Single. Time. It’s why we take a co-creative approach that is rooted in self empowerment. God is in each one of us and we’re committed to supporting our clients in remembering that they can already do it for themselves. We’re simply facilitating a space for figuring out which ways will sustain the transformation.
A supportive practice we facilitate for our clients is a process of reflection that encourages stillness to assess those moments that are hard to make sense of. We ask our clients to take a step back and jot down, articulate, and share the experience as a narrative. In doing so, we co-create a process for which we can determine how to reclaim a sense of balance over the experience. When a situation pulls you out of alignment, the key to harnessing balance again is to place that same narrative in a neutral observation mode that gets them seeing with God’s love again. In taking a step back and sitting with the narrative in stillness, clients can see where interpretations based on past experiences, inherited beliefs, and traumatic memory may be built into their initial reactions. By doing this work, we can work together to unpack this + rewire new responses for deep transformation.
If you’re ready to hear goodness with an open heart, you can schedule a 1:1 complimentary consultation here.
Kim Yamasaki is a Christian wellness coach who supports her clients in cultivating space + stillness in the mind, body, and Spirit through collaborative processes of co-creation. She provides services that create space _ stillness for deeper connection: spiritual wellness coaching for burnout, home organizing, and yoga. Her methods are affirming, grounding, and nurturing – all interlaced with playful creativity. She is a native Angeleno with Japanese and Chinese roots.
This article was originally published for the “selah space” newsletter, reclaiming abundance’s care package for go-getters. “Selah space” offers content to support readers looking to break the cycle of stress + burnout by living, loving, and learning deeply to be their most calm, confident, and complete selves. In the Bible, selah means “to pause or to reflect.” It appears most heavily in the Book of Psalms and Habakkuk as musical notations at the end of verses to draw attention back to what was previously expressed.
References:
Cameron, J., & Bryan, M. A. (1992). Week 1: Recovering a Sense of Safety. In The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity. G. P. Putnam’s Sons.
Transformation Church. (2022, August 7). Forget What You Heard // What I’m Hearing Here (Part 1) // Charles Metcalf [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yk6_w6YkAp0
Transformation Church. (2022, August 21). The Silent Setup // What I’m Hearing Here (Part 3) // Amberly Bell [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zr85eMeBjDA
Simpson, W. R. (2016). Holy Listening with Breath, Body, and the Spirit. Upper Room Books.
Yamasaki, K. (2022). 3.3 On Forgiveness (Interpreting v. Observing). burnout to Breakthrough.
Brown, B. (2022). Chapter 1: Places We Go When Things Are Uncertain or Too Much. In Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience. National Geographic Books.
Brown, B. (2022). Introduction. In Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience. National Geographic Books.