Homeostasis

 

A few days ago, somehow, somewhere, I heard the word homeostasis.  For some reason, it now has taken up lodging in my brain, and will not go away…sort of like one of those jingles you hear on the radio or TV commercials, and then it plays over and over in your head for the rest of the day.

I have decided I like the word very much…hoooo…meeeeo…stasis…just for the way it sort of rolls off your tongue.  (or the tongue in your brain if you are saying it to yourself.)  But as a person who loves to play armchair psychologist, I realize that there must be some other reason why I am now a little obsessed with the word homeostasis.

I have a vague memory of using the word in science courses in high school, (was I ever that young?), so have some idea of what it means.  I figure maybe I like the word because I would like to think my life, and me in the center of my life, have finally achieved some sort of…homeostasis.  But really, the word means something that has been there all the while.

When I decided to look up definitions of the word…these are some of the phrases or definitions that are used to explain what homeostasis is:  “a relatively constant internal environment , despite changes in the external environment;  “the tendency of a system to maintain internal stability, owing to the coordinated response of its parts to any situation or stimulus that would tend to disturb its normal condition or function”; and “a process in which the body’s internal environment is kept stable.”

Reading further, it seems that this is a condition of all living things, that there are inherent mechanisms in all things from amoebas to us, to thrive and live, in spite of changes outside of themselves. 

So now I know why I like the word homeostasis. 

It helps me understand how the heck I have kept on going after all that has happened in the last eight years of my life, including the loss of my dear son.

When it states that it is what happens to the organism in response to “any situation or stimulus that would tend to disturb its normal condition or function”…I had a bit of an aha moment about the word.   Could any situation be more disturbing than finding out your loved one has committed suicide?  Could anything be more likely to disturb our “normal condition or function”? 

I am thinking we would all agree that our normal conditions and ability to function were severely disturbed when we lost out loved ones.  I am sure that all of us had moments when we thought we could not keep going or survive.  Sometimes I catch myself looking back or remembering and wonder…How did I get through that part...How did I get through that day?  

And while there were a multitude of ways we got through, and strategies we used, and support systems that came our way, I have to think that part of the drive to use them, the deep down gut work that had to be done to keep on going, was part of our homeostasis.

So I am glad the universe has provided us with homeostasis…I think I will use it as a “buzz word” for myself if I start to falter.  “Mary Ann, you can get through this…you have…homeostasis”.