How to Deal with Being Highly Strung

“Strings are neither negative or positive; what’s important is what they’re attached to and how tightly they are attached.”

Photo by Janelle Pol

I’d love to be writing this…

from the vantage point of someone who has spent her young adulthood mastering the art of stress management. Rather, I’m writing soon after experiencing a near panic attack upon receiving news there might not be poinsettias on the altar during my wedding ceremony. And I’d love to pin my reaction to this news on my temporary role as a bride-to-be, but the reality is that such a reaction is not out of character for me. I am, by nature, a high-strung person.

THE BENEFIT OF A LITTLE PRESSURE

Ironically, perhaps because stress is so tightly woven into the threads of my temperament, I feel most serene when I’m under a little bit of pressure (enter, maybe, the concept of anxiety blankets). This pressure might come in the form of a goal, deadline, to-do list, anticipation of an upcoming event, or a combination of any of these. My point is that I feel most at ease when my mind and energy are focused on (i.e., strung to) something, or multiple things, outside of myself. Otherwise, my energy tends to spiral inward, not in an introspective way, but an anxious one. I might even, for example, tell myself that my wedding day will be lacking -- or worse, actually ruined without poinsettias on the altar.

Don’t get me wrong; planning a wedding definitely checks all the external pressure boxes. But with the ‘big’ things already planned, I’m realizing much of the stress has more to do with idle time waiting for other people to execute tasks while I turn my energy toward superficial things that are outside of my control.

SEEING BEING HIGHLY STRUNG AS A GIFT

This is where “highly strung” gets a bad rep. Strings are neither negative or positive; what’s important is what they’re attached to and how tightly they are attached. A violin string that is strung too tightly will break, but a violin that isn’t strung tight enough won’t function as the harmonic instrument it’s meant to be. This explains why self-help books and Google searches often tout “balance” as the solution for us “higher strung folks.” We tend to compulsively seek out help in hope of curing our chronically taut condition. I’m not going so far as to say balance has no place here. But I am suggesting that maybe the balance exists more in recognizing our highly strung natures as a gift, and allowing God to work our perfectly imperfect taut strings like the instruments he means for us to be.

DEVELOPING INSIGHT INTO WHAT’S ESSENTIAL

I am not an expert in avoiding stress. But because I operate within an inessential stress tangle, I have developed some insight into unraveling this tangle and applying tension only to the essential strings. It feels like taking a moment — a breath, a prayer, a walk, anything — to let go of all of the strings, trusting that if a string is essential, God will pick up the slack. If it isn’t, the string will remain loose or fall away altogether. It feels like letting God be the beginning and endpoint to which all of your strings are anchored, and believing that no matter how dissonant you might feel in any given moment, he knows your potential for harmony. Actually, the dissonance might even be part of his tuning process.