OUR STRESS ALLOWANCE SYSTEM
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| "Paddy Field And The Mountain" by Detanan, freedigitalphotos.net |
• An allowance is a predetermined amount of something we are willing to tolerate.
• How much stress will you tolerate?
• What happens when you hit your allowance of stress? You change and grow, or you get sick and eventually die if the stress is severe enough.
How do we defeat stress?
• The only way to defeat stress is to outgrow it.
• How do you outgrow stress? By realizing it doesn’t exist: Stress is a by-product of not getting what you want. If you change your mind about what you want, stress can go away. All of us have been in stressful situations. Most of us could see no clear way out of or around that stressful situation. Yet, we have all navigated it successfully, and would admit that we are a better person for having gone through it.
• How so? Stress is always a lie, a misperception. When we see things the way they really are, stress goes away. We are counseled in the Bible to "give thanks to God in all things," and that "all things work together for good." If this is true, and I know that it is, then every situation in life is for our best good. Our challenge is to see it clearly, and as it really is. If we can do that, our stress is relieved and we come to understand that there is no stress in reality, only in our misjudgments and misperceptions.
• Stress can’t tolerate the full light of truth. When we see "things as they really are and as they really will be," we are freed from stress. Christ taught that, "... ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free."
The Grand Key to Defeat Stress
• Develop your spiritual reality to a higher level. Regular, determined spiritual practices like prayer, meditation, pondering, reading holy writ, and going outside of your comfort zone to serve another will refine your spiritual perspective. It will take some time, but it will have steady and consistent impact.
• Find your purpose in life. Continually challenge it. Make it better and better, until it is perfect. In a perfect life, meaning a perfectly faithful life, “the Master prefers what occurs.” There then is no stress.
• Stress in life is a curse and a gift. It is a curse because it makes health disintegrate. It is a blessing because it is a Geiger counter for an inner lack of congruence. If we will listen carefully to what the cause of our stress is, allow it to lead back to ourselves, and seek the inner changes we need to make to vanquish the stress, we will step up to a new, higher level of health and well-being than we have ever enjoyed before. Learn from your stress.
Have a blessed month,
Dr. O.
