ERKA

ERKA EDU · Your course

Same Stress, Different Symptoms

All lessons and materials in one place. Bookmark this page — come back to it at your own pace.

Before you begin

One lesson a day, or one every few days, works better than everything at once. Each lesson has its own Journal card — print it or keep a notebook beside you. In lessons 10, 11 and 12 you choose one thing for seven days. One, not three.

Wind, Fire and Roots are a traditional, pictorial map — a way of looking, not a diagnosis. The map does not replace a doctor. The map teaches you to look.

Welcome

Part One · The Riddle

Lesson 1 · Journal card 1

The same week, three different nights

Stress is one. People are different.

Lesson 2 · Journal card 2

The alarm: one bell, three answers

The alarm is not the enemy. The alarm is a watchman nobody told that it is over.

Lesson 3 · Journal card 3

Three forces of nature: it moves, it warms, it holds

All three forces are in me. One speaks loudest.

Part Two · The Portraits

Lesson 4 · Wind · Journal card 4

Ania and fear

My unease is my quickness looking for a place to land.

Lesson 5 · Fire · Journal card 5

Robert and anger

A break is not a defeat. A break is fuel for tomorrow.

Lesson 6 · Roots · Journal card 6

Alicja and worry

This is not laziness. This is a weight carried too long.

Part Three · The Road of Emotion

Lesson 7 · Journal card 7

Ania’s fear: an emotion that keeps watch too long

Fear that keeps watch too long pays out of the strength that was meant to last a lifetime.

Lesson 8 · Journal card 8

Robert’s anger: an emotion swallowed

The anger you do not speak will find itself a place you would not have chosen.

Lesson 9 · Journal card 9

Alicja’s worry: an emotion that goes round in circles

Only the thought that was given no direction keeps circling.

Part Four · The Practice

In this part you choose one thing and do it for seven days. Journal cards 10–12 have a seven-day grid for exactly this.

Lesson 10 · Wind · Journal card 10

Practice for Wind: warmth, rhythm, grounding

Wind is quieted not by force, but by rhythm.

Lesson 11 · Fire · Journal card 11

Practice for Fire: coolness, moderation, letting go

To let go is to take the pot off the fire before it boils over.

Lesson 12 · Roots · Journal card 12

Practice for Roots: movement, lightness, warmth

Small but daily beats great but never.

Part Five · Life

Lesson 13 · Journal card 13

When an emotion is healthy, and when it is an alarm

An emotion is a messenger. The trouble starts when the messenger moves in for good.

Lesson 14 · Journal card 14

What keeps overload going

Sometimes you do not need more strength. Sometimes you need less weight.

Lesson 15 · Journal card 15

Your plan and the limits of self-help

Stress is one. People are different. And you already know your loudest force.

Closing

The limits of self-help

This course is about the ordinary overload of ordinary life. If the heaviness does not pass for many weeks, if everything that used to bring joy has stopped bringing it, or if anxiety is beginning to close you in at home — that is a signal that it is time for a conversation with a doctor or a psychologist. Not because you have failed. Because these are matters for two people, not for one.

If thoughts of taking your own life or of harming yourself appear, do not stay alone with them for even an hour. Call your local emergency number — 112 in the European Union, 911 in the United States — or a free, round-the-clock crisis line in your country. In the United Kingdom you can call or text 111 and select the mental health option; in the United States you can call or text 988. You can also go to the nearest emergency department.