We tend to think of stress as something that occurs because of outside events, such as having financial problems, relationship problems, health problems, or having too much to do. Certainly events such as these are challenging, but they are not the actual cause of stressful feelings.
Your Stress has Information for you…
Stress is the way your inner feeling self lets you know that you are thinking thoughts or taking actions that are out of alignment with what is in your highest good, or you are trying to control something that you cannot control – such as how people feel about you or the outcome of things. Stress may also be letting you know that something in your body is out of whack – you are on medications or substances that are affecting your brain and causing the stress, or you have eaten foods such as sugar, caffeine, or pesticide-laden food that that cause you to feel stress.
When you are trying to control something over which you have no control, your thoughts are off the mark – out of harmony with what is loving to you and in your highest good. Trying to control what you can’t control is the opposite of being present and in reality.
Wallace Wattles, the author of the 100-year old book, “The Science of Getting Rich,” states that “Man [and woman] may come into full harmony with the Formless Substance [this is what he calls God] by entertaining a lively and sincere gratitude for the blessings it bestows upon him [and her]. Gratitude unifies the mind of man with the intelligence of Substance, so that man’s thoughts are received by the Formless Intelligence through a deep and continuous feeling of gratitude.” He states that when you frequently contemplate the mental image of what you want, “coupled with unwavering faith and devout gratitude,” you set in motion the creative forces of manifestation.
Your stress is letting you know that you are doing the opposite of this – you are using your thoughts to create what you don’t want and to control others and outcomes rather than to co-create with Spirit.
The major challenge here is about being in faith that all of this is true. You might intellectually know that this is true, but your ego likely doesn’t believe it. It is very easy for the ego wounded self to come in with thoughts of bad things happening, which moves you out of faith and gratitude and into stress. It is very easy for the wounded self to focus on how to have control over others and outcomes, which will always create stress. It is very easy for the wounded self to turn to substances that bring the body out of balance and cause stress. It is even easy for the wounded self to try to use personal growth and gratitude as a way of controlling God! It is so important, when opening to learning and moving into gratitude, to make sure that your intent is to be loving to yourself and others, with no other agenda, rather than as just another way to attempt to control others and outcomes.
Stress is Your Friend!
Stress is your friend in that it is instantly letting you know that you are off track in your thinking and/or behavior. Instead of ignoring your stress or pacifying it with various addictions, which will ultimately cause more stress, why not attend to it with a deep desire to learn about how you are off track?
When you really think about it, it is strange that our society tries so hard to get rid of stress with medications and addictions instead of learning what it is trying to tell us. When you really get that stress is your inner guidance’s way of telling you that you are “off the mark,” (in the original Aramaic Bible, sin is translated as off the mark) in your thinking and/or behavior, you will attend to what you are doing to create it, rather than ignore it or try to get rid of it.
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