Stress may be defined as the inability to be in the
feeling center with whatever is happening, regardless of the nature of the
event; the feeling center is blocked.
The accumulation of suppressed negative energies also
results in stress. If we knew how to dissolve and avoid the buildup of negative
energies, we could avoid stress.
The buildup of suppressed energy can vary over short
or long intervals. Short-term emotional suppression can happen with fears,
sexual impulses, or any feeling that cannot be dissolved immediately. For
example, a person may experience frustration in the workplace and not know
how to release it, and then go home and take it out on the family. The attempt
to release the energy by venting on a neutral party is known as displacement.
Displacement is common, resulting in hurt feelings, miscommunication, and
damaged relationships.
Long-term avoidance of feelings builds a structure
of a quite different and unsuspected magnitude. It can build to the extent
that a person’s whole life is shaped by internal forces of which there
is no conscious knowledge. Conditions that were unresolved in the past have
a way of recurring with new faces or circumstances, and we have the choice
of taking responsibility and experiencing, or avoiding and suppressing once
again.
