I’ll bet that if I were to go out on the street, and ask this question of the first 100 people that I met, most of the answers would center around things like money, work, bosses, health, kids etc. In fact none of these is the actual cause of stress - sure they can all lead to stress or anxiety, but they don’t cause it.
The real cause of our stress and anxiety lies in the underlying beliefs and expectations that we have about how life in general, and our life in particular, "ought to be". These beliefs and expectations control what we say to ourselves about any situation. They shape how we judge events and ourselves - and how we deal with those events.
Most of the time we have a continuous, silent, internal commentary going on in our minds (self-talk). Our self-talk is perpetually judging, criticizing, commenting, expressing frustration etc. It can target just about anything but, in the majority of people, it is heavily self-critical (even abusive). On the occasions when it is not telling us how bad we are, it is raging about how awful things in general are i.e. people, society, the government, our employer, our neighbors, other drivers, and on and on.
It is probably fair to say that the vast majority of us who were born and raised in the Industrialized West (The so-called "developed nations") believe some version of the following:
We have bought into the delusion that it is possible to have an ideal life with no pain, no disappointment, no frustration, no problems, plenty money etc., permanent happiness, stability, and security. Therefore we invest all our energies into pursuing this, and waiting for the day that it comes true before we can actually really begin living.
The result of this is that we devote our lives to the ardent, and often aggressive, pursuit of those things that we believe will make us happy; only to discover that our happiness is short lived. We must therefore set off again in pursuit of something else, and something else, and something else. As we do this, we create another problem for ourselves. We now have to make sure that we don’t lose what we’ve got, or that it is not taken from us.
So now we have built ourselves two big permanent on-going stressors:
At the same time as chasing things that we think will make us happy, we also have to work to either avoid or attempt to eliminate those things that cause us emotional pain, physical discomfort, any inconvenience or unhappiness. For example;
So - we worry about whether what we want will happen; we worry about what we’ll do if it doesn’t happen; we worry about what might happen that we don’t want to happen; we worry about what we’ll do if it does happen. We spend the rest of our time scheming to try and make it happen - or not happen.
In short, we want, and expect things to go our way - we think things ought to go our way - almost as if it is our right.
Unfortunately, the truth is that life generally doesn’t go our way - or at least, if it is going our way, it doesn’t stay that way for very long.
The result is that we spend the majority of our time unhappy, stressed, angry, jealous, or resentful.
Now don’t misunderstand me - I’m not saying that we shouldn’t have material possessions or that we shouldn’t have money. ------- Far from it! ----- I personally enjoy nice things such as cars, boats, houses etc. - and I like to live well. The point is that if we live our lives expecting that acquiring and having these things will give us the long term, deep satisfaction, fulfillment and happiness that we crave, then we are going to be sadly disappointed - and many of us are!
So how do we go about releasing ourselves from some of this suffering? Well, what I’ll do here is tell you briefly what we need to do. However, I’m not going to go into the detail of how to do it - for two reasons:
Acceptance
The first skill that we need to learn is acceptance. This is one of the most fundamental skills we need if we are going to have a more peaceful, effective, and successful life.
It may seem to be counterintuitive but – if we approach every situation (and life in general) from a position of accepting things as they are (at least to begin with) then we have much more freedom. If things aren’t the way we would like them to be (and they frequently aren’t) yet we begin by accepting them as they are; then we are free from all the wasted time and energy we normally spend on complaining, getting angry and ‘outraged’, and becoming bitter ‘victims’. We free ourselves to think clearly and objectively about what we can do, rather than being stuck in the impotence of ‘self-righteous indignation’.
If we always begin by accepting, then we frequently find that we can do something to change things or, at least, begin the process of change. Acceptance allows us to look at and analyze a situation or event more objectively, and can bring a quality of serenity to our problem solving.
Not Looking for Outside Solutions
When we make our happiness dependant on other people behaving in a certain way, or outside events going the way we want them to, we turn ourselves into a powerless victim. Once we begin to realize that it is nobody else’s responsibility but our own to make ourselves happy, or to make our life how we want it to be; then we are on the road to true freedom, joy, and inner peace.
Limiting Our Attachment
Much of our unhappiness is the result of being too attached to our "possessions", and the illusion of stability and permanence.
This is in fact a massive topic of its own so I am going to limit what I say here to the following:
Nothing in life is permanent, or fixed. People die, possessions wear out, the earth changes, the weather changes, governments change, jobs change. It therefore follows that it is a massive mistake to make our happiness, or our very identity dependent on anything external to ourselves. Sure, when we lose something or somebody we grieve - that is perfectly natural. However, if we find that we also lose our long term happiness, or our identity along with that loss, then our attachment to what we have lost has been, and still is, too great to be healthy.
Self-Talk and Beliefs
What we say to ourselves about the events in our live or our feelings directly affects our inner peace, our wellbeing, our stress, and our ability to cope and problem solve.
What we say to ourselves, and how we say it depend on our underlying beliefs and values – how we think things ought to be.
It is always worth taking a long hard look at these to find out how well they match our true self, and to indentify any that are unreasonable e.g. Expecting to be happy all the time.
This has been a mere scratching of the surface of this topic. However, I hope to have given you enough insight to make you want to explore further.
The real cause of our stress and anxiety lies in the underlying beliefs and expectations that we have about how life in general, and our life in particular, "ought to be". These beliefs and expectations control what we say to ourselves about any situation. They shape how we judge events and ourselves - and how we deal with those events.
Most of the time we have a continuous, silent, internal commentary going on in our minds (self-talk). Our self-talk is perpetually judging, criticizing, commenting, expressing frustration etc. It can target just about anything but, in the majority of people, it is heavily self-critical (even abusive). On the occasions when it is not telling us how bad we are, it is raging about how awful things in general are i.e. people, society, the government, our employer, our neighbors, other drivers, and on and on.
It is probably fair to say that the vast majority of us who were born and raised in the Industrialized West (The so-called "developed nations") believe some version of the following:
- We should be happy the majority of the time.
- Our lives should be free from pain, suffering, or unhappiness.
- Things should go the way we think they should
- Things that don’t go our way or make us unhappy should be avoided, fixed, or destroyed.
- Things that go our way or make us happy are good or right and should be sought out, acquired and guarded fiercely lest they be taken away.
- If we are unhappy, it is because of something or someone outside ourselves that is not behaving the way we think it should.
- Our happiness will be increased by having more/better things that make us happy e.g. money, toys, cars, houses, friends, job, boss, luck, partner etc. etc.
- Life is about driving towards the day when everything will go our way, we’ll have more than enough things that make us happy, and we’ll be happy all the time. THEN LIFE CAN BEGIN!!
We have bought into the delusion that it is possible to have an ideal life with no pain, no disappointment, no frustration, no problems, plenty money etc., permanent happiness, stability, and security. Therefore we invest all our energies into pursuing this, and waiting for the day that it comes true before we can actually really begin living.
The result of this is that we devote our lives to the ardent, and often aggressive, pursuit of those things that we believe will make us happy; only to discover that our happiness is short lived. We must therefore set off again in pursuit of something else, and something else, and something else. As we do this, we create another problem for ourselves. We now have to make sure that we don’t lose what we’ve got, or that it is not taken from us.
So now we have built ourselves two big permanent on-going stressors:
- The stress of continually having to find a way to acquire more and more “happiness giving things”.
- The anxiety produced by the grinding fear that we might lose what we’ve got. For example, we may have a nice car, a nice home, even a boat, but we now need to worry about what would happen if we lost our job and couldn’t keep up the payments. Or what if you got too sick to work for a period of time. Oh and that reminds me, do you have health insurance? What’s your deductable? What if the car needs a major repair? ---- You get the picture?
At the same time as chasing things that we think will make us happy, we also have to work to either avoid or attempt to eliminate those things that cause us emotional pain, physical discomfort, any inconvenience or unhappiness. For example;
- Difficult situations at work, or in our relationships.
- Criticism
- Loss and grieving
- People that disagree with us
- Aging
- Anything that doesn’t produce instant gratification
- Anything that is inconvenient
So - we worry about whether what we want will happen; we worry about what we’ll do if it doesn’t happen; we worry about what might happen that we don’t want to happen; we worry about what we’ll do if it does happen. We spend the rest of our time scheming to try and make it happen - or not happen.
In short, we want, and expect things to go our way - we think things ought to go our way - almost as if it is our right.
Unfortunately, the truth is that life generally doesn’t go our way - or at least, if it is going our way, it doesn’t stay that way for very long.
The result is that we spend the majority of our time unhappy, stressed, angry, jealous, or resentful.
Now don’t misunderstand me - I’m not saying that we shouldn’t have material possessions or that we shouldn’t have money. ------- Far from it! ----- I personally enjoy nice things such as cars, boats, houses etc. - and I like to live well. The point is that if we live our lives expecting that acquiring and having these things will give us the long term, deep satisfaction, fulfillment and happiness that we crave, then we are going to be sadly disappointed - and many of us are!
So how do we go about releasing ourselves from some of this suffering? Well, what I’ll do here is tell you briefly what we need to do. However, I’m not going to go into the detail of how to do it - for two reasons:
- There isn’t time here, in this brief overview, to even come close to doing it justice.
- It is preferable to learn how to do this in the context of a more comprehensive approach to total stress management.
Acceptance
The first skill that we need to learn is acceptance. This is one of the most fundamental skills we need if we are going to have a more peaceful, effective, and successful life.
It may seem to be counterintuitive but – if we approach every situation (and life in general) from a position of accepting things as they are (at least to begin with) then we have much more freedom. If things aren’t the way we would like them to be (and they frequently aren’t) yet we begin by accepting them as they are; then we are free from all the wasted time and energy we normally spend on complaining, getting angry and ‘outraged’, and becoming bitter ‘victims’. We free ourselves to think clearly and objectively about what we can do, rather than being stuck in the impotence of ‘self-righteous indignation’.
If we always begin by accepting, then we frequently find that we can do something to change things or, at least, begin the process of change. Acceptance allows us to look at and analyze a situation or event more objectively, and can bring a quality of serenity to our problem solving.
Not Looking for Outside Solutions
When we make our happiness dependant on other people behaving in a certain way, or outside events going the way we want them to, we turn ourselves into a powerless victim. Once we begin to realize that it is nobody else’s responsibility but our own to make ourselves happy, or to make our life how we want it to be; then we are on the road to true freedom, joy, and inner peace.
Limiting Our Attachment
Much of our unhappiness is the result of being too attached to our "possessions", and the illusion of stability and permanence.
This is in fact a massive topic of its own so I am going to limit what I say here to the following:
Nothing in life is permanent, or fixed. People die, possessions wear out, the earth changes, the weather changes, governments change, jobs change. It therefore follows that it is a massive mistake to make our happiness, or our very identity dependent on anything external to ourselves. Sure, when we lose something or somebody we grieve - that is perfectly natural. However, if we find that we also lose our long term happiness, or our identity along with that loss, then our attachment to what we have lost has been, and still is, too great to be healthy.
Self-Talk and Beliefs
What we say to ourselves about the events in our live or our feelings directly affects our inner peace, our wellbeing, our stress, and our ability to cope and problem solve.
What we say to ourselves, and how we say it depend on our underlying beliefs and values – how we think things ought to be.
It is always worth taking a long hard look at these to find out how well they match our true self, and to indentify any that are unreasonable e.g. Expecting to be happy all the time.
This has been a mere scratching of the surface of this topic. However, I hope to have given you enough insight to make you want to explore further.
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