Always exists the temptation to stress, don’t you find? If things seem to be going badly, the temptation (dressed up as reasonable thinking) is there to stress about it, as if it’s the sensible ting to do, as if stressing will give you the chi to turn things. In fact it generates exactly the opposite effect. And if things seem to be going well, inevitably bringing in their wake a whole new slew of decisions and tasks, the temptation is there to stress about it, as if that will help you acquit yourself with more dexterity and adroitness, which again, is the opposite of what you’ll achieve.
Obviously the more relaxed, stress-less and hence flowing you are, the more swiftly and naturally you’ll turn things around in the first instance and rise to the challenge in the second.
However in real, as opposed to theoretical life, it’s not a case of stressing or not stressing, but one of degrees: the less you stress, the more relaxed and flowing you are, hence the better you perform no matter the situation.
Own your habit
I use stress as an active verb, rather than adjectivally, stressed incidentally, as the latter’s disempowering and falsely infers a dynamic comprising stress as exogenous agent with you as victim. If it’s not you actively stressing, who’s going to release or reduce the stress by actively stopping stressing so much?
Suggested approach to reduce stressing levels
Know and remind yourself that the sensation, view or experience of things going against you and things going for you, is merely subjective and relative. What appears obstructive initially is invariably the precise combination of factors required to cause you to discover the next crucial piece of the puzzle, or pick up the next essential clue, to trigger the situation to the good. And what appears initially as things going your way, inevitably masks the very mechanism that will make things difficult later.
Knowing this and knowing true success is not defined by what you achieve but by how fully you’re enjoying being alive in any given moment, this one for instance, you choose to transcend preferences. Transcending preferences for this over that arises naturally as soon as you acknowledge the mere relativity of desirable and undesirable and how the one turns into its opposite on reaching its zenith, and how furthermore, that the opinions defining desirable and undesirable are merely subjective. This causes you to desist seeking the fleeting gratification from moments of apparent success juggling the externals so much, which enables you instead to derive true joy from simply being alive in the moment, a far more constant and satisfying state altogether.
Choose joy
So you could say it all comes down to choosing joy (about being alive) instead of stress (about achieving external results) in any particular moment, and thereby actually achieve far better external results as a by-product.
Which sounds sweet as a strawberry but how in reality, during the course of a busy day do you do so?
Stress reduction method
For a start, stand up, make a physical gesture of sloughing off the past, along with all former ways of doing things, including stressing over externals, and then with arms open wide to destiny, declaring with the fullness of your person brought to bear on the moment: “I [your name here], now do solemnly vow to seek and experience the joy of simply being alive in each and every moment, to let that be constantly central to my experience and to let this cause me to achieve everything external with excellence and ease!”
And for the rest, you find it at www.schoolforwarriors.com, (which I hear is rumoured to be taking in some more applicants in the not too distant future).
With love, Supercharged
Desist seeking the fleeting gratification from moments of apparent success juggling the externals so much and instead derive true joy from simply being alive in the moment.
