Stress / Anxiety

There may be no greater self-deception than the false notion that rushing through anything actually helps us in any way whatsoever.

Trying to dominate our destructive thoughts and feelings, or seeking to liberate our "better" parts through some form of self-discipline, is secretly at the expense of our freedom, and not in its cause. Freedom from the ties that bind, victory over our own nature, is not a conquest in the usual sense. Try to see the following as deeply as possible: *anything that has to be kept in check must a...

Before you can step out of the rush and into your own life, you must first see that while anxious, hurried feelings often lend a temporary sense of self-importance, these same racing emotions actually rob you of the power you need to be self-commanding. A brief investigation will confirm this finding. Self-command begins with being able to choose your own direction in life. And whether you're...

The next time you run into some familiar blockage or begin to feel unsuited to face some new and difficult personal challenge, don't do what you've always done before. Don't try to think your way around it. You no longer want a way around your troubles because what goes around, comes around! What you want is to grow beyond the level of that disturbance. And to do that, you must not act from...

When some anxiety comes along and takes over your life, are you an awake, inwardly centered person or are you an unconscious, outwardly driven man or woman? Which are you? That you're outwardly directed is pretty obvious. Why? Because that anxious state could not exist without your false belief that who you are -- your well-being -- is connected to something happening exterior to yourself. And...

We find it natural to seek relief from the world around us, a world appearing to be one stronghold atop another of stressful conditions and anxiety-producing events. Accordingly, we seek relief from these contentment-crushing states by struggling to change those circumstances we see as being responsible for their cause. Think of all the ways we've attempted to escape those unwanted pressures...

When we turn on a faucet connected to a hose with a small nozzle at its other end, we know from experience that we have to keep the hose in hand, otherwise we will likely get soaked chasing down the runaway end. What happens is that the water pressure, as it passes through the nozzle, transforms our ordinarily tame garden hose into the equivalent of a tethered rocket. With this picture in min...

Rebecca had decided that her best chance of getting hired by a company doing geological survey work in the Alaskan wilderness was to earn a private license to fly twin-engine planes. A few days later she began taking lessons from a wise old bush pilot, highly respected throughout the region for his cool and collected ways of dealing with the worst possible situations. After the mandatory gro...

Nothing is set in real life, but we live from a mind-set that wants to get things settled. Just when we think we have everything taken care of -- when all of our ducks are in a row -- life seems to come along and place another demand upon us. In general, we would prefer that nothing interfere with our carefully constructed plans. What is the nature of a mind that is always scrambling to put e...

There is an ancient idea, perhaps best expressed in the New Testament, which states that before a human being can hope to awaken, he or she must have not enemies. When you lie to someone, you have automatically made an enemy because you will always resist that person out of fear that he or she will expose your lie at any given moment. Therefore, not only have we made an enemy when we lie, we a...

The following six lessons contain special understanding about the nature of invisible pressure-filled states that cause human beings to run themselves ragged. The clearer we can see the reasons for why our lives are always in such a rush, the sooner we arrive at the true solutions that allow us to slow down, take command, and realize the relaxed pace of Real Life. Study each lesson separately...

When all you have is yourself, you have to be afraid. And yet if you really had possession of yourself, fear would not have any power over you. And if we're really honest with ourselves, we can see that presently we lose ourselves all of the time. We are always trying to hold in place who we think we are supposed to be. That is not freedom. Being yourself is not the same thing as straining to...