Flowing with the Current: A Practical Guide to Stress Management Inspired by “One Turning”
In a world that values speed, productivity, and control, stress often arises not just from what happens to us, but from how we respond. Eric Pollok’s “One Turning” offers a deeply reflective but grounded framework for approaching stress and overwhelm, not by resisting life’s challenges, but by moving with them. This guide distills those insights into a series of practical steps you can begin using today.
1. Breathe Into the Moment: Practicing Presence
The Principle:
Stress often comes from being pulled into the past or the future. The present moment, however, is usually far more manageable.
The Practice:
Sit or stand quietly. Inhale slowly through your nose for 4 counts, hold for 2, exhale through your mouth for 6.
As thoughts come up, notice them like clouds in the sky, then return to your breath.
Repeat: “I am breath. I am being. I am here.”
Why It Helps:
Returning to your breath grounds you in the body and reduces physiological symptoms of stress.
2. Accept the Waves: Honor Life’s Natural Rhythms
The Principle:
Life moves in cycles, so do your emotions, energy, and productivity. Stress increases when you try to stay in a constant state of output or happiness.
The Practice:
Track your energy and emotions for a week. Note when you’re most focused, fatigued, calm, or overwhelmed.
Instead of pushing through low periods, schedule rest, quiet, or creative play.
Why It Helps:
Accepting that everything moves in phases prevents you from battling your own biology.
3. Loosen the Grip: Let Go of Control
The Principle:
The tighter we try to hold on, the more turbulent life feels. Control is often an illusion that increases suffering.
The Practice:
Identify something causing you tension.
Ask: “Am I trying to control something I cannot?”
Choose one small thing to let go of today, a decision, a worry, a ‘should’.
Why It Helps:
Surrender isn’t giving up, it’s choosing peace over struggle.
4. Remind Yourself: Everything Changes
The Principle:
Stress builds when we assume something painful is permanent. But nothing is.
The Practice:
When overwhelmed, pause and say: “Even this will pass. Everything always changes.”
Imagine the feeling or situation as a wave, it will crest, then recede.
Why It Helps:
This perspective interrupts the panic that often accompanies difficult emotions.
5. Connect to Something Bigger: Remember You’re Not Alone
The Principle:
Stress and overwhelm often feel isolating. But you’re part of a much bigger whole.
The Practice:
Step outside. Watch trees, clouds, or birds for 5 minutes.
Text someone “Thinking of you,” or ask, “How are you, really?”
Reflect: “Others have felt what I feel. I am not separate from the world.”
Why It Helps:
Connection, whether to nature, people, or spirit, brings a sense of belonging that reduces internal tension.
6. Trust the Underlying Intelligence of Life
The Principle:
There’s an inherent order to life, even if we can’t see it yet. Trying to micromanage it often creates more harm than good.
The Practice:
Recall a past difficulty that worked itself out, or taught you something essential.
Say: “I don’t have to force the outcome. Life knows what it’s doing.”
Try doing less today. Watch what unfolds without effort.
Why It Helps:
Trust lightens the pressure to always “figure it out,” especially when you’re already stretched thin.
7. Spiral Inward, Not Just Upward
The Principle:
True growth isn’t always about climbing higher, it’s about deepening your relationship with yourself, including your pain.
The Practice:
Write down a version of yourself you’ve judged or tried to leave behind.
Imagine placing your arm around them: “You are still part of me. You belong.”
Journal: “What strength did I gain from that chapter?”
Why It Helps:
When you stop rejecting parts of yourself, inner tension eases and stress lessens.
Closing Reflection: Dance, Don’t Battle
One Turning teaches that life is a flowing current, not a wall to climb or a test to pass. Stress comes when we resist what is. Healing begins when we start dancing with it.
So next time stress rises, pause. Breathe. Look around. Ask yourself:
“What if I don’t need to fight this? What if I flow?”
The answers may not come quickly, but peace will begin to.
Want More?
📘 “One Turning” by Eric Pollok is available now on Amazon:
https://a.co/d/0ZxyuMB
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