How can I reduce stress in my life?
When you don’t see perfection in everything that is happening around you, or when you don’t experience the divinity in yourself and others, you may think that you have to fix things. You often feel that the responsibility lies with you and a heavy weight descends upon your shoulders. It seems that you must deal with all of these challenges and with the ”idiots” surrounding you. It appears that you have to protect yourself from the latter, avoid them, or attempt to control them, so that they don’t ruin this great effort you are making to create perfection. It sounds like a tough job. I’m glad I don’t have to take that one on.
Your life becomes such a struggle that you lose sight of how total, constant, and unending the battle is. You try to reduce the amounts of stress you are aware of to a level that is bearable, but no matter how much you are able to alleviate situations, life remains a battle. This struggle is your creation. You are choosing to have hell on earth. No matter how much you let go of, the inferno remains. The questions is, ”Why are you creating hell on earth to begin with?” You can see divinity and perfection, or you can choose to fight. We have spent the past two messages focusing on the former, so let’s try working from another side this time. You don’t have to see the divinity in another, when they seem to act as your trigger. Nor do you have to see the perfection of what is happening, to give up your resistance. Just say NO to struggle. Decide to stop fighting. Let go of it. Decide that there is nothing that is so important that it requires straining.
If today were the last day you were going to be in this body, would you spend it in struggle and stress over little things? This is one acid test to see if struggle is involved in your day. Ease up on yourself. As you become aware that you are struggling, take a deep breath and relax. Go do something that does not feel like struggle, something that feels like fun, or joy, or even ecstasy. What would you truly rather be doing right now?
Buried deep in your consciousness is the belief that your very existence depends upon struggle, that if you don’t fight to survive you will simply go down – for the third time. And that’s it. Your whole life is defined by separation from divinity. Your brain-mind is full of reasons why you have stress. Things have to be done, it argues. This is a story of separation from the divine, a belief in your weakness. Argue for your limitations and they are yours. You are that powerful. The ego arguments for struggle are very rational to your brain-mind. There is no end of them. You will carry them to your grave. Or, you can just say NO. You can refuse to listen to them. You can change your mind. This might throw you into such terror that it will be best to do the five-step process. Eventually, you will be able to choose your passions over your guilt and fear with greater ease. The first step, as always, is to have the intention to give up the fight. Remember that what you are fighting against is always an illusion. It is never the truth.
There are two primary places where you can get stuck. One is the belief that the nature of life is simply that you have to struggle. You think you have no choice but to work at something you don’t like, that you are required to do all these things you don’t want to do merely to survive. If you want to do better than just subsist, it seems you have to strain even more. Look how much hassle is involved just to go have fun on a vacation. The other belief is that anytime somebody else is involved with what you are doing, there will be a battle. You anticipate working together as a challenge and relationships as hard work. That’s the story. It is a belief in struggle. You don’t have to do it anymore. The battle is totally within you. Nobody else can force you to fight. Every time that you give up a little piece of this resistance you realize a little more of what true joy can be like. If you absolutely give up control, you can sense your divine nature right here, right now.
You have experienced this. You have had moments when you were at peace and your brain-mind was at rest, not wrestling with any devils at all. You were enjoying what was there right then, feeling the unconditional love of the belly-mind. You feel that when you finish the second step of the process. But you have the story that it is not practical to stay there all of the time. You wonder how you could get anything done, how you could survive. On the other hand, when you believe that there is nothing but struggle, you begin to call for and welcome your death on a subtle level. Nobody wants to live forever if survival means constant stress. Let’s talk about what true responsibility is. You are responsible for choosing your reality. You are not responsible for taking whatever steps are necessary for making your reality happen. Spirit does that for you. Let it. There was an advertising program for an American busing company back in the 60’s. The image was a powerful, comfortable bus with a competent, professional driver. The voice-over said, ”Leave the driving to us.” The ad implied that you would enjoy the ride, have fun, relax, be safe and protected, and arrive well rested. In your mind, hear Spirit saying, “Leave the struggle to us.”
God Blesses You,
Sanhia