So what is stress exactly? A simple definition. Stress is a form of pain or discomfort that comes to tell you there is something you need to change. All pain, suffering and discomfort are really messengers saying there is something you need to learn. Both learning, and realising what needs to be unlearned, provides the impetus and the direction we need in order to change the thinking that is generating our stress.
For example, you are sitting on your chair and your body sends you a message that it is uncomfortable. So what do you do? You change your position in the chair. You don’t turn to the chair and start saying, "You rotten, nasty chair, it’s you that is making me uncomfortable". (although amazingly some do!). If you put your hand in the fire what do you feel? Pain, obviously. What do you learn? Never to put your hand in the fire again. And you never do. A lesson is quickly learned and behaviour is quickly changed.
You are sitting in your car on the way to an important meeting and the person in front is driving very slowly on a winding, single lane road. There is no way you can pass. You begin to feel irritated, then frustrated, then downright angry. You are in pleasure or pain? Pain, obviously. Who creates your pain? You do! What do you learn? Absolutely nothing. Why? Because you are carrying and holding on to three learned beliefs that block your learning. Belief one is that it’s OK to feel angry, its natural, it’s a normal response in such situations. Besides, mum and dad used to get upset too! Belief number two, it’s not you that’s making you angry, it’s the person in the car in front, it’s ‘them’!. Which of course is a lie. Your anger is entirely created by you. Belief three, is more like an addiction. You are addicted to the suffering of anger because it gives you a quick hit of adrenaline which makes you feel more alive for a short while. The car in front of you is a great excuse to generate some adrenaline.
So despite the messenger of your emotional suffering coming to tell you there is something you need to change, nothing changes! You ignore the messenger and the stress that you create continues. Every time you do this you become better at being stressed, it becomes just a little bit harder to de-stress and the habit of creating stress becomes deeper. Eventually you may even identify with your suffering and feel uncomfortable if you are too relaxed and not stressed! That’s when you start thinking you are happy when in fact, you are unhappy. It’s a truly a crazy life when it gets to that stage. And for many, some say most, it does become like that.
If you can be aware after the experience of any anger (irritation/frustration) has passed you may notice the emotion that always precedes anger. It may last only a few seconds, maybe a few minutes, but it’s always there. It’s called sadness. Sadness always precedes anger. Sadness always follows from a sense of loss. When you desire something you already have the object of your desire in your mind, and when it doesn’t show up in reality exactly when you expect it, it is as if we have lost it. But the sadness, like all emotion, does not last as it turns, turns, turns into anger as you look for someone or something to blame for your loss. Even the anger does not last as it will eventually turn, turn, turn into fear – the fear that such an event might happen again. Hence our most frequent habit of worry. Worry is simply fear of loss projected into the future. And if you fear something enough it will happen and you are back in sadness.
And so we create and live in a cycle of stressful emotions, an emotional rollercoaster that goes up and down and round and round. There is a way to free ourselves from each emotion but it requires certain ‘moments of realisation’. While these solutions can be articulated here in words, they won’t give you the power to change your habit of creating sadness, anger and fear until you realise the truth for yourself. The three key truths (in the form of words) are as follows.1 Sadness. You have nothing to lose because you don’t actually own or possess anything. Nothing is ‘mine’! Easy theory, but it is challenging to practice as you have been deeply conditioned to believe that you do own and possess things. And yet if you look at the evidence of your entire life so far, everything and everybody that comes, eventually goes. It has to because that’s the way life flows. Nothing stays. When you truly realise you have nothing to lose, and that nothing and no one is mine, you will never experience sadness again. 2 Anger. You cannot control or change the past or other people. Anger is always the result of trying to change the past and other people, which is to try to do the impossible. This is why whenever you get angry it means you are clinically insane. Apart from the fact that you are out of control (the emotion is controlling you) and that you are irrational, the real reason for your temporary insanity is you are attempting to do the impossible. Once you see this and stop resisting a) what has already happened and b) other people, you will never get angry again.3 Fear is created the moment you imagine future loss. It may be loss of an object, loss of health, loss of a comfort zone, loss of anything. It’s simply worry. So instead of creating images of the worst possible outcome turn your thinking, your ‘imaging’ around, and visualise the best, the positive, the anastrophe, not a catastrophe. But don’t make it a desire, don’t get attached to your positive vision. Just create it, let it go, and return to live in the present moment.
Some people say its human nature to experience sadness, anger and fear. They say it is natural. If you can take some ‘introspective time’ and watch inwardly you will see these emotions are not just personal experiences they are personal creations. When you see that take a moment to ask your self would I choose to create suffering for myself within myself? You may realise then that they are not natural but unnatural. That just may be the beginning of the re-empowerment of your self and the first step towards healing the stress making habit.
Question: Which of the three emotions do you seem to create most? Why do you think that is?
Reflection: Emotion is the price you pay today for your attachments yesterday.
Action: During the coming week take a moment at the end of each day and note down particular moments that you created each of the above emotions.
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