When we are content and peaceful we begin looking for an additional challenge: some tension, hopefully, constructive and growth-oriented.
We take on the challenge and become stressed, this is when things start to break in our lives.
How we handle ourselves during these moments is vital, because being under stress creates a narrow focus of our attention, which leans towards analytical efficiency and rationality, not towards empathy.
Understanding and witnessing this cycle allows us to keep from overreacting, which prevents us from having to clean up a mess we made with apologies and self-recrimination. The trick is to ride the highs of overload without creating the inverse lows.