Learn one Eastern
practice that can make all the difference.
If you lead a busy modern life, then there’s one crucial
strategy from Eastern practices that will help you find real happiness. This
one skill (hint: it’s in your brain) will keep you from being led astray and
swallowed up by stress.
By Jeff Skolnick, MD, PhD.
Let me set you straight right away. The title of this blog
might conjure up an image of a corporate employee or better yet an executive
using stress to get more done. No. That’s not what I mean.
I’m talking about turning stress — whether from something
specific, like a boss riding you, or something general, like being worried
about getting older — into life success.
What is life success? It’s feeling like your life is
complete. Being so satisfied, so fulfilled, so dialed into happiness and peace
that even if you knew you were going to die in the next hour, you’d feel
grateful that you had lived fully. No regrets. No disappointments. Life success
is success that’s on a whole different level than just accomplishing things.
It’s really important to say that stress is not just
something to be removed as fast as possible — if at all really. It actually helps you get to life success.
So, how can that be — stress being good? And how is it possible
to be so happy and fulfilled you could die in the next moment being really ok
with it?
Well, we know that both are possible, because people from
every walk of life have reported being able to achieve it. All kinds of people
throughout human history. Here’s a modern take on what they said they did.
First, recognize that stress, the mental and bodily tension
and emotions that make it up, is a source of energy, a motivator. It’s what
makes you want to take the journey to the highest place in life you can get to.
You wouldn’t be motivated without it. In fact, you probably wouldn’t even
bother reading this blog without it.
And actually, the more stress the better. There’s an ancient
expression that says those who suffer the most have the best chance of
achieving deep fulfillment, of reaching the highest realms of spiritual
attainment (read: life success).
Now, I’m not recommending that you stress the heck out of
yourself so you can attain Nirvana. What I am saying is that you shouldn’t try
to run from your stress or get freaked out by it, because it is your friend.
Welcome it — as bizarre as that may be to hear.
Next, what you’re going to do is use the feelings of your
stress to find an inner place of silence and stillness that is stressless.
Known for centuries as the “mind’s eye,” “third eye,” or “inner eye,” it is a
virtual place inside your head behind your eyes and between your ears.
Pay attention in there carefully enough and you’ll feel it.
Of course, you’ll know you hit on it because you’ll immediately see the
difference between the feeling of stress in your mind and body and that place
of peace within. Try feeling for it. Use your stress like a divining rod. What
could be more important than learning how to do that?
That’s a skill that takes some practice. You might be lucky
and feel it right away. The trick is to be able to stay there longer and
longer. Eventually you’ll move in. Be careful though. The more you grasp for it
the more elusive it can be. You have to watch for that.
Finally, when you are able to stay in that inner place of
stressless silence and stillness long enough, what happens is that the normal
“you” starts slowly disappearing. Now don’t freak out at that possibility.
You’re not going anywhere. You just become something more. Let’s call it being
less self-conscious to the point that you’re not operating from a place of self-consciousness
at all!
Sure, you feel the stress and recognize the thoughts and
beliefs that are causing it. You feel the emotions that come from your stress.
You just know it from a place of unselfconscious inner knowing. Simply put it
means there’s an inner reference point where you are just present, knowing —
and really grasping the significance of — the moment. The moment sort of comes
alive. It’s really cool even though it does take some practice to find.
The stress of life — which everyone has — happens because
you see your life like it’s a movie or story that has a plot and an ending that
you have to find. The ending of course is the holy grail, the ultimate goal.
You know, happiness. An ideal life that you have to find somewhere!
When “you” disappear more and more, you find what you want
inside you each moment. You enter a wonderful inner place of silence and calm.
That’s when the story becomes just that — a story. You realize it doesn’t have
to control you.
In that unselfconscious inner place, you find relief from
self-consciousness — which is important by itself. When you operate from an
inner place of stressless silence and stillness you feel serene, yet excited
joy. It’s the fulfillment that we talked about in the beginning of this blog. A
place where you could die tomorrow and feel ok because you had lived fully each
moment.
So, the lesson? Bless that stress. It leads to success…
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