Passive stress

Recent studies increasingly link the onset of disease not just to stress, but to a particular kind of stress: one that leaves no room for reaction. Research in which the natural fight-or-flight response in animals was inhibited by immobilising them has shown the instinctively obvious, that passive exposure to stress significantly weakens the immune system.

Passive stress exposure, is the inability (or prohibition) of the organism to activate its natural, instinctive way of expressing that stress: to scream, run, fight, etc. This suppression means that the body wants to react, but it is locked in and cannot.

In fact, we too often live trapped in an identity, an invisible cage that we once chose and now confines us. Worlds (work, home, reactions, choices) that do not express our truth imprison us in a daily immobility. The body experiences this often subconscious stress and silently wears out. It needs space to somehow process and express its discomfort - but it has been confined (and often addicted) to an invisible repression. This daily, silent surrender causes a tremendous amount of deterioration not just physically but emotionally, mentally, etc. The physical and emotional freedom to react is a matter of biological survival as well as existential necessity...

Even more profoundly, the Soul itself, locked in its dark cave, experiences a confinement within matter. That indestructible voice within us that wants to express itself and be heard is covered with so much noise and suffers silently in the world and the pain of bipolar. Is this not also an indication, if not of illness, at least of a lack of health? Is this what the ancient sages speak of when they recite in their prayers ‘'Lead me from death to immortality’'?

Perhaps health is not just the absence of disease, but the ability of the body to respond authentically to what it is experiencing. When we cannot cry out, run, mourn, express ourselves, not only is our physical response to stress limited, but our inner flow is frozen. Life becomes trapped in the identity we once chose to belong to, and now, we wear it like a skin that doesn't change. The resulting deterioration is holistic. And perhaps, ultimately, the true cure is not to eliminate stress, but to restore the ability to be true within it. To be able to move, to change, to live...