The Source of Stress is Misunderstanding

And the absence of stress comes from a change in understanding, not from changed behaviours or conditions.

The Misunderstanding

Like love, true wellbeing is unconditional.  Yet when it comes to both love and wellbeing, society has taught us to expect certain conditions.  We’ve been taught how much sleep we need, how many hours of work are acceptable, what sort of levels of pressure we can manage before we start to feel stressed.  Yet we’ve all been okay with less sleep and more work than the recommended amounts, we’ve all experienced thriving under pressure, as well as feeling anxious with nothing to do. 

But the conditioning is strong, so we believe it.

If we believe that we need our conditions to be a certain way to prevent stress, then we will feel stressed about meeting this requirement!  We’ll feel stressed about maintaining the right conditions if we already have them, or stressed that we don’t have these perceived ideal conditions if they are lacking.

It all boils down to the misunderstanding that “I need _____________ (fill in the blank) in order for me to be okay”.  You don’t.  And even if you could get the thing that it looks like you need, you’d soon notice something else that’s lacking, and you’d pin your wellbeing to that instead.

Stress is not the result of conditions.  Stress is the condition of believing that your wellbeing is attached to the circumstances of your life.  This is the misunderstanding.

Absence of Stress

In the absence of the misunderstanding, stress is not experienced.  When we aren’t looking in the wrong direction, we find well-being is the essence that pervades.  Why is this the case?

Because Who We Are is already whole.  Who We Are isn’t the ego with its wants and needs.  It’s the Sense of Being that is present in all experience.  This Sense of Being does not have a preference.  It doesn’t have expectations or agendas.  It doesn’t believe that there is a right or wrong way for things to be.  Who We Are does not need anything.  Not even meditation, yoga or a grounding mat.

This is what I show my clients.  I show them that Who They Are is the Sense of Being that is always there.  When we look away from the beliefs of the ego, claiming how things ought to be, we can see that we are not this ego.  We do not need to protect and promote ourselves.  We aren’t even separate/isolated.  We are pure Awareness.  The One Awareness within which everything exists.

Know Who You Are

If you want to resolve stress, knowing Who You Are is the only thing you need on your to-do list. Without this understanding, nothing else helps anyway. Know that you aren’t your ego. Know that you don’t need to be protected or promoted. Know that Who You Are can never not be okay. This is all you need to do. Know yourself.