When Pressure Becomes Stress: Finding Hope in Difficult Times

On Wednesday of the week of Thanksgiving, I was outside at our compost pile and heard a single shot, followed by a ricochet behind our house, shortly after which many sirens sounded.

I wondered what it was, too late for a hunter, and not multiple shots like the shooting range. The next day, Thanksgiving, neighbors told me it was a person who had taken their own life about 300 yards behind our home. It felt so personal because I heard the actual shot that ended his life.

The Holiday Season and Mental Health

During the holidays, suicide, anxiety, and depression reach their highest levels of the year. Anxiety seems to be an epidemic in our society. A book I recently read describes the relationship between pressure and stress well:

Understanding the Stress Equation

I find it interesting how people handle and perceive stress differently. For most of us, stress results when we feel the pressures of the situation exceed our ability to cope. There are three variables in this definition:

1. The feeling of our abilities (efficacy)

2. Our experience in dealing with it (resilience)

3. The demands of the situation

All three of these factors can influence the level of anxiety or stress we have to handle. Ironically, two different people can face the same situation, and one will feel anxious while the other will not be uncomfortable at all.

1. Efficacy of Our Abilities

It would seem that those who experience shame, poor self-esteem, or an external locus of control would struggle in appropriately evaluating their own ability to handle pressures.

Shame is often the result of feeling inadequate in themselves. When something goes wrong, they immediately assume they are the reason it went wrong and always find reasons for their failure. They just don't measure up.

Poor self-esteem is the feeling that one is not worthy of what they encounter in life. They simply don't measure up to the needed expectations.

External locus of control is when a person views the control of what happens to them being external, and they simply can't do anything about it.

These three factors express in different ways what would cause some people to feel they don't have the capacity to handle pressures. Each of these factors is subjective and feeling-based, not necessarily based upon reality.

As Christians, we, like Paul in Philippians 4:13, can say: "I can do all this through him who gives me strength."

Paul isn't saying he can jump over tall buildings. He's specifically talking about handling things that may come his way: "I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want" (Philippians 4:12).

Paul reminds us that God's Spirit residing in us can give us the ability to handle pressures that would lead to stress that would overwhelm us on our own.

2. Resilience for Handling Stress

The second factor is our resilience in handling stress. Resilience is built, just as it sounds, through many and varied experiences in life. Our physical resilience is built through repeatedly stretching and strengthening our muscles. Our emotional, mental, and spiritual resilience works the same way.

In 2 Corinthians 1:3-4, Paul writes: "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God."

In other words, as God works in us through stressful times, we develop a resilience that strengthens us to handle them. This, in turn, allows us to coach or comfort others who are going through similar pressures in order to increase their resilience.

Let me suggest from this passage that part of God's way of developing our own capacity for handling stress is by coaching or comforting others through what we have already experienced. Anyone who has taught others knows, you don't fully know something until you can coach another person in these same skills.

3. Demands of the Situation

The third factor is our perception of the external pressures we are facing. As these demands are perceived as exceeding what we were designed or have developed to handle, pressure transitions to stress.

The good news we have as people of faith is what 1 Corinthians 10:13 promises us: we will never face pressures that we won't be able to handle if and as we trust in the Spirit residing in us to give us His presence and power to handle it.

All three of these factors are related and they are initially learned in our early life. As followers of Christ, we do handle the pressures and stress around us differently than those without hope for two reasons, 1) the Spirit's power and presence in our lives and 2) we are part of a community of others who care for us. We must cultivate both and intentionally look for ways to cultivate them in the lives of those around us during this season.