But just as a poorly laid out garden can oppress some plants and rob them of enough nutrients and humidity, so too our human-made systems can rob us of the things we need to grow. That is why learning assertiveness skills is one of the most powerful ways to face symptoms of anxiety and stress, which are frequently the result of oppression.
Assertiveness can be learned, practiced, and implemented through four areas: What I think. What I feel. What I want. What I need. As you can see, each statement is an "I" statement, because a "you" statement only puts others on the defense. This direct form of communication states how you see things, how you feel about the things you see, what your general goal or want is, and finally, asking for something you need from others in order to get that goal reached. It doesn't mean that you will always get what you want, but it is the "action" of asserting for what you want and need.
Assertiveness falls at the center between "passive" and "aggressive". So instead of staying silent about not getting a raise from your boss in a while, or turning aggressive toward your partner for some habit they continue to do, assertiveness falls in the middle ground where direct communication takes place, using I statements only, and making a good attempt at getting the things you need to thrive.
Though assertiveness falls on the "fight" side of the fight-or-flight response, it doesn't mean you are fighting. But it does mean you are standing your ground as opposed to falling passive or fleeing a situation. So yes, it may raise your anxiety level a bit as cortisol steroids will be pumped into your system a bit for any "fight" situation. But the big difference is that assertiveness brings short-term stress to the body for the duration of the assertive action, whereas staying passive will lead to prolonged stress to your entire system, and aggression may have a temporary outburst but the stress trigger is never solved, so anger will come again and again. In the long run, asserting oneself is very good for stress reduction and can solve many problems that lead to prolonged and chronic stress.
We can learn a lot from going out into nature and seeing how the plants thrive. They know what sustenance they need and they strive to get those things. They turn their leaves to the sun, they stretch toward water sources, they capture things in their limbs and pull in every element they can find that will help them thrive. We are really no different. Given that the oppressive systems around us are not so suffocating that they keep us even from our right to assert ourselves, we can strive for the things we want and need that will bring us a peaceful environment where everything in our life's-garden can grow.
For more info about stress reduction, you can find one of my prior blog entries about the relaxing quality of Nature here
"The greatest threat to our planet is the belief that someone else will save it" ~Robert Swan
Thanks to Cecily Miller for the great photos, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en
