Stress and anxiety are not the same thing yet did you know that both can actually make you social?
Carly Simon has a long and public history with anxiety. At some point as a kid I became aware of this. Probably because I have experienced running on the anxious side more often than not.
What I remembered from one of her on stage experiences came to mind recently while I was preparing to lead a corporate group coaching workshop on leveraging stress for personal and team resilience for Google.
Caryl Simons’ story did not make it into the workshop yet my takeaway from it did. She literally stopped the show.
''I had two choices,'' Simon would later tell The New York Times. ''I could either leave the stage and say I was sick or tell the audience the truth. I decided to tell them I was having an anxiety attack, and they were incredibly supportive.
We often hear about the stress response Fight or Flight yet we rarely hear about Tend and Befriend which is also a stress response. My favorite actually. I have come to embrace the scientifically categorized stress responses and even their physiology for each has something to offer, information to be aware of as ironic as this may sound or as uncomfortable as that physiology may be.
Her choice to be vulnerable, to be honest, to be in the moment enabled an entire crowd to participate in a response that fosters empathy and social connection. These are real opportunities for connection, compassion, empathy and even transformation.
What habitually happens to you when you feel stressed? How can reflecting on that experience provide valuable insight for you?
Here is to the social side “stress”.