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© 2020 Kebba Buckley Button. World Rights Reserved.
Have you ever noticed any of these stress effects?
- You’re feeling good, but you walk into the office of someone who is stressed out. Then you feel stressed yourself. You picked up secondhand stress.
- You’re feeling stressed, and a relaxed person walks into the room. The person becomes agitated or even aggressive while trying to conduct a small transaction with you. They picked up secondhand stress from you.
- At certain stores, you tend to steer away, because you can never get comfortable there. You feel tense whenever you try to go in. You’re picking up secondhand stress from that store.
- You walk into a meeting with a group you often work well with. Today, everyone looks away and sighs. They are picking up your stress, and that secondhand stress feels bad. They may not consciously realize. You need to.
- Your child is upset after weird happenings at school. That night, you can’t sleep. You got secondhand stress from that sweet child.
- You order dinner at a restaurant where you become aware of an argument in the kitchen. Your dinner tastes fine, but the more of it you eat, the more anxious you feel. The cooks’ energy is stored in the food, and you ate it. You picked up secondhand stress.
- Holding hands with your spouse, who is exhausted from stress, you realize you are getting exhausted, too. Your energy is draining into your spouse, and you now have secondhand stress.
Yes, that’s secondhand stress! Stress is definitely something you can catch from other people, or they can catch from you. And we’re so familiar with it that we don’t even think about it—much.
To understand the crucial importance of unintended sharing of stress, carefully consider the case of my youngest client, “J”, who was 3 weeks old. At 21 days into this life, this beautiful tiny baby was crying and red-faced when I entered the room and was introduced. An Anglo baby, her face was a very dark red, and she appeared to be looking over her right shoulder. Her cries seemed to me to be cries of pain. Long experienced in energy healing, I asked to hold Baby J and began to speak softly to her. I very gently pushed her head and found it firmly stuck, directly over her right shoulder! I knew where the release points were, so I went to work, while pretending to simply hold and talk with Baby J. Her parents were Christian Scientists and would not have approved of any “healing work”.
Holding her in my lap, face up, I positioned both hands under her back, and my fingertips found tiny versions of the knots most stressed adults have, between their shoulder blades. I held certain spots, and Baby J’s head began to come around. The redness in her face began to drain, and she stopped crying. Her mother said, “[O]h, see! She just got stuck that way because she was sleeping that way.” I thought, no, she was sleeping that way because she was stuck that way: those release points get immobilized from fear and frustration. It became clear the parents had been arguing routinely in the hearing of the baby, and she was becoming immobilized with stress. I have prayed for Baby J ever since, and for her parents, who are now divorced.
The importance of secondhand stress? Keep in mind the innocent, manage your own stress as best you can, and do your best not to share stress or collect it from others. Awareness is your greatest weapon.
Just do your best to stay in your best, in Healthy Happy Loving Lifesm! Are you in?
Kebba Buckley Button is a stress management expert and award-winning author who celebrates life. She also has a longtime natural healing practice and is an ordained minister. Among her books are: Discover The Secret Energized You (http://tinyurl.com/b44v3br), Inspirations for Peace Within: Quotes and Images to Uplift and Inspire, and Sacred Meditation: Embracing the Divine. The books are available on Amazon and through Kebba’s office. To email us, kebba@kebba.com .
Books by Kebba Buckley Button
Healthy Happy Loving Life! 