Resolution - Intro

Stress is experiential and very personal. Only the person experiencing it knows the discomfort of stress. Time, place, situation and capability, all could trigger a stress reaction in us. A situation that stresses one need not stress others, even those genetically related. Also, that which stresses us at any point in time, need not stress us at other times.

Example: We all watch movies. Whenever we go with friends or family, each person has a different view on how the movie was, whether he liked it, which his or her favourite character was and why. This is because; the movie impacts each of our svabhava’s differently. This happens in difficult situations also, which is why, the impact of stress on each of us is different, which makes it very personal.

How stress impacts us can be gauged from the impact the stimulus has on the hierarchy of needs as propounded by Abraham Maslow. Safety and security issues generally take priority over social issues.

Example: Assume the following events occur simultaneously; the landlord serves us with an eviction notice, our child has suddenly developed fever, the cooking stove breaks down, our neighbour complains that the dog bit her cat, our favourite dress disappears and finally a wild looking man, obviously on drugs, breaks into the house with a gun and threatens us.

Until the wild looking man is diffused, we will never think of anything else because the man affects our safety and he is completely out of our control. After he leaves, we will try to get the child to the doctor and because the car is required, we will try to fix that. The child is a responsibility, it has no control over its ill-health and potentially affects our feeling of security. Finally, we would try to diffuse the neighbour because it affects our social needs, before leaving for the doctor. Everything else would be tackled later.

When we are confronted with multiple situations, we try to prioritise as mentioned above. Just imagine, if in the above example, the parent was to mix up priorities and start searching for the missing dress. There would be chaos and confusion, if not disaster.

It is the here and now requirement that grabs precedence. Our ability to remain in the present and be able to recognize the priority of reality is key to our ability to manage stress.

The best way to deal with stress is to manage it as the experience unfolds and the stress begins to manifest itself; to take the stimulus, test is against our dharma before responding. Keep an open mind to learning and be sensitive to impact on others.

Once stress is managed in accordance with Dharma - our value system, there is a feeling of peace which enables us to live a better life. Therefore, we need to be able to understand our Dharma and find a way to manage our response to stress without deviating from this value system.

This ability to manage stress as it occurs is called Situational Awareness.

Situational Awareness may be defined as the degree of accuracy by which one’s perception of his current environment mirrors reality

Situational Awareness manifests itself as perceptions. Perceptions are images of reality that get generated by Guna and these differ from reality. This is called Awareness Gap. Therefore, the quality of Situational Awareness is determined by our Guna balance and manifests itself as our svabhava.

Factors that affect Situational Awareness

Situational Awareness drives the ability of our svabhava to meet the needs of any situation; on the speed with which we process information from our environment, face it off against our dharma, determine a reaction, evaluate the response in terms of risks and benefits, and act on it. Svabhava conditioning is therefore the key to heightened SA.

Some factors that affect SA are:

• Will: The drive to affect the outcome in our favour.

• Genetic: Inherent situation handling tools that we are born with.

• Conditioning – Environmental, culture, school background, home, etc., determines our ability to handle various situations in the right manner.

• Classification: By nature, some situations are more difficult to manage than others.

Example: The death of a close relative is more difficult to handle than an argument at a traffic signal. A natural calamity like war is more difficult to handle than temporary discomfort like missing a meal or not eating your favourite dish.

• Health: The current state of Physical, Intellectual and Emotional being determines our reactions in any situation.

• Faith: The ability to start an activity without a clear idea of the possible outcome determines the level of stress experienced.

• Self Esteem: This is a very strong source of stress and is driven by factors such as fear of failure, lack of confidence, lack of domain knowledge, lack of environmental support and previous negative experience.