Stress / Anxiety

The only responses to life's challenges that any of us "ride" are those we think can carry us to safety. Leaping onto the back of the dark horse of a fearful reaction, according to our old habits, is like entering a runaway carriage being pulled along by wild thoughts and pounding feelings.

Before we can experience the truth of a higher state of consciousness, before we can stand on the ground of ourselves that is the secret stuff of Reality, we are asked to quietly be who and what we are in the Now. To do this we must learn to let go of those parts of our present nature that are never quite pleased with what is. After all, doesn't it seem that we are always in some sort...

In the same way you know that a dog may bark and nip at you but not harm you, when you hear a voice that says, "you're out of time," or feel a pressure telling you, "you've got to run," one day you'll feel that pressure, that hypertension, that anxiety, and inwardly you will hear another certain kind of voice that basically says, "That's it. No more running for you. No more running for you."

We have an innate need to rise above ourselves, to open ourselves to higher influences... for one thing, because we understand that without higher influences, we're left to our own flu-like influences from which we don't get well, and that we are sick from following our own prescriptions! Our present condition is imagining what we need to do in order to get above ourselves...

Anxiety is torment. But we never suspect that the mind that is anxious is anxious because it is trying to bring an end to its own pain... and it can't, because there is no peace in the world of a mind set against itself. The problem is that we are born into a world where, within a very short time, we each have our own inner "personal attendant." This attendant has two things in its hands...

We're not meant to see life through our thinking. We don't need to think about what is. In fact, why do I need to tell myself what just happened? Wasn't I there? Are you jumpy? The minute that a shadow approaches, we can't see what it is, but we think something is coming based in fear, and we dive for cover! What would it be like to never have to wonder or worry about whether or not...

Do we not try to escape the stress we have by further imagining ways to relieve ourselves from the circumstances held responsible for it? And the more we do to create for ourselves an enclave in which we will no longer be confronted with the trouble, the more we isolate ourselves, and the greater the problem becomes because we increasingly resist anything not part of what we've..."

Who is the most unwelcome guest that appears at your door? (And it is not your son-in-law!) Again... Who is the most unwelcome guest that ever came 'knock-knock-knocking' at your door? How many of you had some dark thought or feeling knock at your door and wake you up this very morning... unwanted guests such as depression, anxiety... "Hello, anybody home?" How about worry...

The awakening mind is fully capable of recognizing the difference between states of darkness and light, between what "serves" and what "steals" the new life stirring within us.

The only reason we ever feel trapped by anxious thoughts and feelings is that we just won't let go of the false idea that it takes time to know the strength and happiness of our original wholeness.

The more clearly we can see that it's impossible to reach a place of rest by rushing to get there, the sooner we'll arrive at the true solutions that allow us to relax, slow down, and realize the relaxed pace of an inwardly liberated life.

Whenever we picture ourselves, there is one image that rarely, if ever, enters into our mental movie: that of being someone who is ready to fall apart. But truthfully, few of us see ourselves in any self-comprising light at all. We feel safe within the dimly lit theatre of our own circle-of-self-pictures and we return to it often -- especially when the harsh light of reality starts to break th...