Beaker - stress sucks but you don't have to
Yoga Leaks
Beaker, the multi-personality super hero.There was a time he had no control.
Life had him by the short and orange.
His mind tossed from one worry to the next
while his hand-filled, felt body thrashed
on the stormy waves of life’s cruel indifference.
And we laughed.
We laughed at his hopelessness.
We were monsters.
Now he’s back.
And his transformation will have us begging, How?
How did Beaker become the face of Serenity Now, the world organisation for Muppet wellness and spiritual development? -- A story for another time, maybe.
What Beaker wants you to know is how to get out from under your rock of stress. It ruins everything - bodies, relationships... your s.o.u.l.
“Stress made me feel like there was a giant hand controlling me from the inside; one that seemed to enjoy watching me suffer. So - Meep! - sadistic!”
So many giant hands of stress; so little time. Some find it hard to feel like they can even live their life, and so turn to a life of posting pointless selfies, or for inspiration, follow what ever Miley Cyrus is doing today. In time, regret creeps in; which is, you know, regretful. (sigh)
Stress because we don’t honour who we are
You decided at the last minute to make a pinhata for your nephew's birthday. Every thing you touched seemed to kill itself: the paper mache, balloon, paint... Your heart beat so hard it hurt. Copious stress-sweat poured over your newly-dry 'pinhata'. It was the final straw. No pinhata was going to show up at your nephew's party. Nor would you, since you were, by then, afflicted by a serious bout of sudden-onset Tourettes Syndrome.
Your sister arrived and fast followed the clues to your pinhata treasure of sorts, now in pieces, half-eaten by the dog. Ten minutes later she's returned with a pinhata from the freaking pinhata store (That's what it's called: Freaking Pinhata Store). She's downstairs at the moment, blindfolding your very happy nephew who loves his pinhata and misses his you, his Uncle F&#k Sh*t Dave.
All of us are wired differently. If we knew ourselves better, and honored the way we worked, a few small changes can make the world feel infinately more agreeable.
This Jung Typology test is a fun place to get acquainted with yourself. Try it here.
Healthy people feel less stress
...than if they were unhealthy. Take up a sport, go running, practice yoga or tai chi in the park. Exercise increases endorphin production. It's presence in your system will convincingly tell you in a very manly, assuring way, everything's going to be alright.
Eat clean. Stress happens when you eat un-natural food. The Bizarro World of food is upon us. Tumors and cancer are S.O.S signs made out of cheeto dust.
Call it a red flag if your food comes out of a packet. Make time to cook whole foods. Jamie Oliver’s 15 minute meals are wholesome and fast, not to mention super educational if you don't know which part of the saucepan is the handle. Consider taking a cleanse. Want to know a secret? It's how Beaker dislodged The Great Hand.
Real food is medicine.
Freaking Mind Control
The mind is unbelievably powerful. It can drive you to insanity, and also to enlightenment. When you make it work for you, and not against you, your dreams are yours but for the asking.
Can you, for example, stop your stressful thoughts and rest peacefully for ten minutes? Can you stop eating when you just start to feel satisfied? Can you get off the couch and meditate or go for a run? Can you not read the rest of this article? You're only human.
Meditation is like 50 Shades of Grey for mind control. Probably. I haven't read it. There are countless other ways to assert authority over your mind if you don't fancy Christian Grey (or Yogananda, what ever) telling you to sit down and focus on one place in the darkness of your forehead. Exercise, for example. Try running and worrying at the same time; it’s impossible.
The engine of your mind is will power. If we undermine our will power, we weaken the mind. Don’t set yourself up to fail. When you resolve to make a change, move heaven and earth to stick with it, lest your will power loose it’s brawn.
The secret of success lies in taking baby steps. Make resolutions that you know are within your capability today. Eventually the bigger ones will feel similarly easy when your engine is built up by prior successes.
Tomorrow I shall wake up 5 minutes earlier.
or
Tomorrow I shall meditate for 5 minutes.
or
Today I shall watch only one episode of Monkey, for example.
Emotions
Essentially we are all made up of the same stuff of emotions. Beaker: fear. Humans: full spectrum. In our early years we're taught if it's okay or not to feel and communicate them. Family, culture, and unresolved issues that we came in with shape our emotional body. It turns something that is, at it's core, simple, into a soup so complicated, we look to decipher it's ingredients by reading Freud, a cocaine-addicted psychiatrist, among others. I what my father?
Beaker suggests that it's time to stop idolising stress. "It's really not that great."
Split the emotional universe into two camps - the positive and the negative (I was going to say the good and the eeeevil, but that's, you know, juvenile). You can imagine that if you spend a lot of time in the negative camp, where fear, rejection, worry, anger, and jealousy live, you're probably not going to relax and feel good about life.
Bodytalk, Byron Katie and meditation are three therapies or practices which glean strong results in cutting those dark emotions that bind.
Passion and Sunshine
I challenge you to sit on a beach for two hours and feel as stressed as you did before you arrived. Sunshine brings serotonin out to play, which basically makes you feel sunny through and through. It also strengthens bones, improves your immune system... it's benefits are many.
What do you find yourself daydreaming about: Fitness? Community service? Learning? Creating? World Peace? Beaker likes world peace.
Passion blossoms from doing what you love. Passion is the anti-christ to stress. Beaker found his passion the day he was blown up by a nuclear reaction-gone-wrong. The same day he realised that he could be a super hero despite having multi-personality disorder (many costumes are better than one).
Can you make one change in your life to curb your stress?
The secret
Y
ou know the Tao saying:
Thoughts lead to words
Words lead to action
Action leads habits
Habits to character...
Stress can live on every rung of this ladder.
Make changes on each of these rungs and watch out for the higher ones: They have this habit of bighting the ass of the lower ones when you're not watching.
Reader Comments (8)
Well Thaat's inspiriing!
I'm so pleased to find Beaker has evolved into a fine, handless muppet. I also find great pleasure in dressing up and playing multiple super heroes. It's more common than you think.
I find that most of the time I'm sitting in the negative camp of emotions (which would be a good name for summer camp), I'm there out of habit. Like a cage with the door left open, I only had to realise I could leave any time.
Christian Grey or Yogananda: my inner meditation voice sounds more like a very tired oscar the grouch. Gotta fire him and hire someone with determination and clarity! I know, the swedish chef!
SOS Made of Cheeto Dust. Bahahahahaa! It is indeed.
My dog gets tourettes syndrome after he sees a squirrel in a park, poor guy. Stress can totally break a person. Or dog. Love your article Pres.
Hello dear Presidentess
Thank you for your wonderful contribution to this topic, and all the topics that you so interestingly cover. Your humour and energy lifts the matter off the screen. You're so easy to read. Thank you. I hope you continue doing what you're doing for much more time.
I always knew that Beaker had a super hero in him (or 7). I'm so happy that he found his path. It totally suits him - like he's come out of his shielded-for-his-own-survival self! Good on him. Shame on you Dr. Honeydew.