Managing stress by many of the more conventional methods promoted by counseling and psychotherapy professionals are amongst some of the most unsuccessful treatment processes available. Why?
In contemporary counseling, attempts to heal the problem are targeted at the person changing the results of their choices or by reducing the effect of the choices on the body and mind.
As long as the focus is on dealing with the results or effects of the stress, no valid cure can be had. After all, there is no medicine that will ever stop the stress. Pharmaceutical products can only, at best, numb the mind and body.
Meditation is a useful technique for managing stress. Far better than medication! However, meditation as well has limitations. In my experience with meditation, it definitely teaches the person to slow their mind and body down, hopefully to a more manageable level giving them the opportunity to gain a more acceptable level of tolerance to the effects of life on their being.
I strongly support the art of meditation in its many styles as it does have great benefit. However, the drawback to most styles of meditation is that it promotes having to move the mind to an alternate level of consciousness in order to find peace.
For example, in Transcendental Meditation, the practitioner is taught a mantra which is repeated over and over as the person causes the cycles of mental energy in their mind to slow down. It feels wonderful and is very beneficial!
But it teaches the mind that it needs to create a different NOW in order to find peace!
My approach to dealing with stress is to help people learn to live and manage their life in present time... IN THE MUNDANE NOW!
There are three mental time frames we can live in. They are past, present and future. If you look at the issues that are causing stress in your life, you will realize that the emotional basis of the stressor is found in memories of the past. Other stressful thoughts, although still based on past memory, stimulate worry about the future.
The reality is that the best method for managing stress from one's life is to learn to live in PRESENT TIME.
It is the only place we actually exist.
It is the only place where we can do anything about changing our lives.
It is the only place we have the power to make changes.
Eckhart Tolle speaks about the importance of living in the NOW in his Book "The Power of Now". By learning to recognize what it feels like to be in your body connected to the presence of life right now is absolutely the first key to managing stress.
Did you know that the majority of people in our society do not even know what it truly feels like to be in their body?
Not what the body feels like by touching it on the surface but by touching it from the inside.
What does it feel like to breathe? A very profound question! Try it!
The other aspect of mind management that is essential to stress reduction is to realize that you have the power to choose how you interact with your thoughts.
YOU ARE NOT REQUIRED TO ACT ON THOUGHTS IN YOUR HEAD JUST BECAUSE THEY ARE THERE!
THOUGHTS ONLY HAVE POWER IF YOU GIVE IT TO THEM... YOU ARE NOT OBLIGATED TO ACT THEM OUT!
My Stamp Out Stress book includes a CD* that contains two visualizations. The first visualization teaches you how to get into your body and feel yourself in present time.
This provides you with an anchor for living in present time. If you know how it feels to be in present time, you will automatically know when you have moved into past or present memories. Then you can consciously move out of the alternate time frame and back into the present.
Visualization two teaches you how to recognize thoughts you want to keep and thoughts that are in need to being tossed. It then goes on to teach you how to remove the emotional energy that activates thoughts that you desire to eliminate and teaches you how to build on and reinforce thoughts that you choose to keep.
The key to the whole process is to recognize you are not your thoughts. Thoughts are a product of a whole lot of different factors in your life and may have little or no truth as a basis. So now, you can separate yourself from your thoughts and choose what works for you.
Will this process eliminate stress from your life?
Absolutely not! Stress is a product of living.
However, what this process will do is help you to realize that you have a choice about how you react or respond to the stimulus in your life.
If you feel stressed out about something, make a choice for yourself about how you will interact with the thought. Is there a benefit in giving over your personal power to the thought? Or, would it be better to stay in the present, recognize that the situation has caught your attention, feel it and make a choice that works for you?
The process will take time to integrate but it will help you to live your life more comfortably in your own power!
It truly is your choice!
Remember Living With Stress is a Choice Not a fact of Life.
*The visualizations are now available as well on YouTube. Just search my name: Monty Ritchings
Monty Ritchings is an avid writer of books and blogs about matters of the heart that express themselves in everyday living. Monty has written and published two books in the self help field. Embracing The Blend was originally published in 2007 then re published in 2010 and Stamp Out Stress was published in 2008.
Monty is a Lay Counselor with training in many aspects of energetic healing and core belief work.
Monty lives in Surrey BC near Vancouver Canada
You can find more blogs on Monty’s website at www.powerofsafety.com
Videos of the related visualizations are available on www.youtube.com. Search “Monty Ritchings”