photo credit: the|G|™

“Instead of trying to cover the whole world with leather, put on some sandals.” – Shantideva

Stress. Tight throat, saw jaw, headaches and an uneasy stomach. It is everywhere you look and in everyone you know. Some people experience mild cases of it whilst others need to spend half their Wednesday in a shrink’s armchair. Some people are good at dealing with it while others struggle to get out of bed. Whole industries are perpetuated by the great lie of stress; a bunch of professionals telling you that you should be stressed.

But there is something you need to know; something no one bothered to teach us in school:

Stress is not a real thing. And its cause isn’t what you think it is.

In this post I am going to show you that stress not real and that its causes are actually inner events, not outer ones. Hopefully someone out there will find some benefit in my ramblings.

The great stress lie: stress is a real thing

We are all conditioned to believe that stress is a real thing. We are told that it can make you sick and that your problems are all due to the stress you are feeling. Over time we have become so accustomed to blaming stress that we have given it a solid reality. It is like a bad person that follows us around.

But is it as real as we think? I don’t think so.

Stress does not have a baseball bat in its hand. Stress is not a murderer or a rapist. Stress has no color or shape or location. Stress is a figment of your imagination. Stress is created in your head, like a dream. And like a dream, it is possible to ‘wake up’ from stress-ridden life. And the way you do that is by tackling the true causes. Read on.

The lion and the dog: outer and inner causes

photo credit: Mark Turner

We all know what stress feels like. Its dreadful. And we all know what triggers our stress. It could be money worries, marital problems or a fear of sickness. There are literally millions of different outer causes for you to be stressed. It would be impossible to eliminate them all.

So what about the inner ones? Would it perhaps be more intelligent to look at the inner causes of stress and learn to deal with that? I think so. Instead of trying to control the whole world we could look inside and learn to deal with our own reactions. Perhaps then we might get somewhere.

To use a wonderful Buddhist analogy, the issue of stress is like throwing a rock at a lion and a dog. When you throw a rock at a dog the dog will chase the rock. When you throw a rock at a lion the lion will kill you! We need to be like the lion. Instead of chasing after all the rocks in life we need to tackle the root cause.

The inner causes of stress

photo credit: Evil Erin

So what are the inner causes of stress? It is a very interesting and expansive topic. In fact, it is impossible to address the issue in its entirety in a simple blog post. Many great philosophers and scientists have dedicated their whole life to this topic. But we can give a general overview. That’s what I will try to do. As always, if you have anything to add I would love to read your comments.

1. Self cherishing
The first and most powerful cause of stress is the world is something called “self cherishing”. Self cherishing is rampant in our world and it is something that is even encouraged in many societies, especially western ones. At school kids are told that they are most important and in the media we are told to “get ours” before we help others.

But self cherishing always brings pain. We create this massive ego in our life times. We educate it and feed it and give it sensual pleasure. But we never stop for a second to consider whether we are actually creating the causes for happiness. Many meditation masters refer to this phenomena as “licking honey off a razor”. Sure it tastes good at first but sooner or later you realize you have made a mistake.

Stress comes about due to self cherishing. Putting ourselves before others. Thinking of our own needs before considering what would help another person. Take a look around you, the people who are the most stressed are the ones who are most self obsessed. Those who are less stressed usually have more compassion and concern for the welfare of their friends and families.

If we spend all day thinking about “me” we will soon start stressing about how we can best protect that ego.

2. Fear
The next true cause of stress is fear. Humans fear the loss of the known. We fear losing our wealth, families and status. We fear a lot of things. Quite often you will find you are stressed because you are afraid of something.

As you have probably noticed, fear has a lot to do with self cherishing. If you cherish your self more than others you will soon start to fear losing what you have built up over your life time. My parents do this a lot. My father fears losing his status as a business man so he constantly stresses about work. My mother fears losing security so she constantly stresses about bills and marriage issues.

But there is something quite remarkable about putting others before yourself. You develop a keen and powerful sense of bravery. And bravery helps you deal with stress in a way that you often don’t even know its there. Take a look at a doctor or a firefighter. Their only concern is to help others; sick people and people caught in fires. They put themselves aside and they act solely for the welfare of others. And how brave are they? Incredibly. Stress becomes a very minor concern for these people.

How to beat your stress

photo credit: epbourgois

So far we have learned some important things that will help us deal with our daily stresses.

Firstly, we know that stress is not real. It is not a solid entity that can hurt or control you. It is in your mind and anything that is in your mind can be changed, controlled and manipulated.

Secondly, we have learned that the real cause of stress is not outer events like work, bills or sickness. It is the inner events like self cherishing and fear.

So how do we put all this information together and beat our stress? Well it is really quite simple. You need to learn to look directly at your stress. Consider your stress to be strange figure in a dark room. It frightens you because it looks real and intimidating. Now consider your awareness to be a flashlight. When you shine the light on the figure you see that it is just the curtain blowing in the wind or a pile of clothes on the floor. It is not real in the way you thought it was.

The very act of becoming aware of stress and its lack of reality will make you less stressed. This is a very powerful method.

What do you think?

Are you convinced? Do you think stress is something that has its causes inside us or do you think that stress is directly linked to the external world. Do you feel like you could try and get rid of self cherishing and fear using your awareness or will you still need something more? I would love to hear your opinions.

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