Stress is Not Always a Bad Thing: An Excerpt from ‘Sit Down to Rise Up’

November 17th, 2021

By Shelly Tygielski

Guest Writer for Wake Up World

Have you ever pruned or cut back a tree or a plant, then been shocked at how barren it looks? Only to then watch with amazement as each branch explodes with new life? I used to be reluctant to cut back any plant until someone told me that it is actually good for plants. It goes against everything that we think is “healthy.” How could inflicting such trauma and stress help plants grow and, yes, even thrive?

This is just a simple example of nature’s fight for survival. When we prune the plant or tree, it then puts even greater energy into growing more. Having been hacked to pieces, plants and trees could decide to give in, to just shrivel up and die. But they don’t. The same is true for us. When things get tough, we can choose to give in or to give more, to get bitter or to get better. We can choose to mirror nature and face our problems rather than run from them. We can choose to meet the stressors we are facing and use them to help us expand our capacity for resilience and perhaps even thrive as a result.

One morning while lying on the floor, feeling scared about the future after a troubling medical diagnosis, I thought about the blessings of this curse. I thought about Mary Oliver’s poem “The Uses of Sorrow”: “Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this, too, was a gift.” In my box full of darkness were the fossilized remains of a failed marriage, but I also had my son. My physical body was failing me, but it was also asking me to take note and remember to appreciate my health. My mental condition was frightening me, but it also presented an opportunity for me to step into courage.

My life had been dictated for so long by other people and forces — my parents, my husband, my religion, societal norms — and now I was free to make my own decision. This was my reckoning to choose, and I was consciously going to lean into it. I knew that change is one of the only certain things in our lives, and so I had that choice to make. I wanted to get better, and I knew that required me to give more. I wanted to try and accept this box of darkness and see it as a positive thing, a gift, as much as possible.

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