Finding Gratitude in Unexpected Places: Even in Stress

Thanksgiving invites us to reflect on the things for which we're grateful - like our relationships, blessings, opportunities, and even the lessons learned through life's challenges.

But how often do we consider being grateful for what our experiences of stress might teach us?

I'm not suggesting we should be thankful for every stressful circumstance; but, personally, I'm increasingly discovering that my reactions to stress have something to reveal to me about myself - perhaps an underlying fear or an ingrained protective pattern. And when I’m willing to look beneath those reactions, I may discover an opportunity for personal growth and transformation within the very circumstances creating the stress.

This evolving understanding of stress has become an important focus of my personal and professional journey. Through my years of coaching, Enneagram training, and ongoing curiosity in the fields of neuroscience and neurobiology, I've come to appreciate that stress isn't just something to manage. It can also be an invitation to go deeper, becoming a catalyst for personal growth and transformation.

Three complementary perspectives have been especially influential in broadening my understanding of stress:

·       Neuroscience helps explain what happens in our brains and bodies when we experience stress, including why our reactions can be so automatic.

·       The Enneagram offers a framework for exploring why we respond in particular ways, revealing underlying fears, motivations, and protective strategies.

·       Spiritual Formation through scripture invites us to consider how we can change—renewing our minds (Romans 12:2), releasing old patterns (Ephesians 4:22–24), and growing into the people God created us to be.

Together, these perspectives have led me to look beyond simply managing my stress reactions, toward recognizing and understanding what lies beneath them, presenting opportunities for greater self-awareness and intentional choices.

I have always had a strong connection with the power of music for finding my own feelings and experiences in the lyrics of songwriters. Recently a song entitled Scales, by the group Citizens, got my attention and has me playing it on repeat. The song is about someone who is feeling alone in his pain, with no hope; and then he has an aha moment where the “scales fall off his eyes” and he sees what is truly there: a loving God who has never left him, even when he didn’t see or feel Him. (See full lyrics at bottom of post.)

The particular lyrical line that caused an instant bond with the songwriter and a confirmation deep within my soul is “It’s funny how pain can be a doorway.”  

Yes, I have found a painful experience - a stress-producing situation - can be a threshold into a reflective state that I could not reach when life was going smoothly. Have you had that experience too?

Perhaps pain isn't always just something to get through. Sometimes, it becomes the threshold to discovering something about ourselves that we need to understand, release, or change.

We spend considerable time and energy trying to avoid or relieve the discomfort that stress creates. And understandably so. But I’ve increasingly come to appreciate that our discomfort can also be an invitation to look beneath the surface.

As we move into the season of giving thanks for our blessings and being grateful for the birth of God’s son, might we consider seeing the gift in the daily challenges and stressors of our lives? Instead of just giving into the full-body compulsion to escape the stress, might we see it as an invitation to look inward?

Instead of “How do I make this stress go away?” might we ask, “What can my reaction to the stress be revealing about me? Inviting me to explore?”

Full Lyrics to Scales (by Citizens)

I was in a terrible place

Just a runaway looking from the outside in

I had a hunch in my gut

Wasn't time to give up, but didn't know what that meant

I was just feeling my way through desert sand

Looking for signs of a promised land

But all the roads that took me nowhere

Were what I needed just to get there

I didn't know a different story

I was just living what I knew

If you hadn't shown me something more

I might've missed you

It's funny how pain can be the doorway

And love can be blindly stumbled into

All the scales fell off my eyes

The moment that I saw you

You read me like poetry

I guess what I'm trying to say is

You see me like nobody else does

And now I see it too

I didn't know a different story

I was just living what I knew

If you hadn't shown me something more

I might've missed you

It's funny how pain can be the doorway

And love can be blindly stumbled into

All the scales fell off my eyes

The moment that I saw you

Eyes wide, brighter than the blue sky

It's like seeing for the first time

Eyes wide, brighter than the blue sky

It's like seeing for the first time

I didn't know a different story

I was just living what I knew

If you hadn't shown me something more

I might've missed you

It's funny how pain can be the doorway

And love can be blindly stumbled into

All the scales fell off my eyes

The moment that I saw you

The moment that I saw you

The moment that I saw you

Eyes wide, brighter than the blue sky

It's like seeing for the first time

[If you'd like to hear the song , here's the link on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/track/6sxUl1pvN1EUD1fSVyEu7Y?si=3992ef3ce0f14490]

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Blessed to play a part ~

g