Here is the next part taken from my book Creating A Bug Free Mind written in 2010.
It’s quite a big section as there is a lot to break down in this part of removing fear.
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How To Overcome All Fears – Part 4
Now That’s Stressful!
~ Stress is nothing more than a socially acceptable form of mental illness ~
Richard Carlson
Are you stressed? Well, right now you are probably not, but shortly, or later today, or sometime soon you will probably once again lose yourself to stress. Alternatively you may be one of the minority like I used to be who was able to manage their stress.
There is a problem with managing stress though which is that we are accepting our stress needs to be there in the first place! We accept it has to be because of our life situation, or our business, or our jobs… whatever. We falsely ‘believe’ it is just a part of our everyday lives that has to be managed in some way. Well it doesn’t. It can be removed completely. However, to attain this state may take seconds or months.
Before I start I do not ‘want’ to give you any false impressions. I am not 100% free of bad stress; I am approximately 98–99% free of it. Occasionally it sneaks up on me when I am not looking. However, I would say I was 94% free of it a couple of months ago and would say I’ll be 99.5% free in another couple of months. Then shortly after that it may pop in occasionally to say hello, but that’s all it will ever be able to do, and at those times I will quickly dissolve it without effort, just recognition (as I am editing this I can say that I was bang on with that estimate).
Sounds like I may have put in some hard work, but you should know by now none of this involves hard work. All I did was I remembered to think when I was supposed to.
Then achieving that will cut your stress by 90%+ in no time at all. Would that be good? No pills, no doctors, no stress. Just reading this article should cut your stress by 60–70%. You’ll achieve this by simply becoming aware of what’s going on and not even applying the very small effort on your part to attain freedom from this disease which, not only can make you seriously ill, but literally keeps you locked into repeating the same mistakes again (and never getting anywhere).
Where Are You Now?
~ The Present is a gift, that’s why it’s called the present ~
Unknown
Are you so busy getting to the future that the present is reduced to a means of getting there? I always look at the people with their iPhones, Blackberrys and emails, rushing to meetings and I wonder if they are getting any more done?
Do they ever take account of their lives and the price they are paying to attain a result which could be attained without any effort? The trouble is that we have it backwards on this way of doing things, but I will come on to resolving this later on. For now we are going to examine the result of all of this stressful activity.
Stress - you see it in everybody, we are plagued by it as a race. We do not release it – we don’t know how (this should be taught in schools too) and most do not know how to control or manage it. Then they leave it so long before learning management of it they become ill. I was one of them. Then after that, this is just management. What I am going to explain today is how to manage it if you have to, how to release it if it builds up, how to avoid it, and most important of all how to not create it in the first place.
In the modern world stress is on the increase all of the time. Over approximately the last 280 years we have been increasing stress at a steady pace. Then usually 20 years after a new communication device is invented the rate of increase accelerates. The first big increase was around the time the telephone started to be used. Then a big increase when mobile phones had gone from the few to the many. Then when social media came along the stress levels accelerated again. As we move to virtually everybody being connected to the web at all times over the next five years, our stress levels will inevitably dramatically rise again. Never has it been more important to know this stuff here than right now!
The reason for the increase is simply the speed at which we can communicate. The communication age was supposed to give us more time thanks to the efficiency of the communication. All it has done is create less time for most people. However, it has created time for me because I use it the right way. I control it, it does not control me. A bad workman blames his tools and the communication capability is simply another tool we need to learn how to use properly. Just because you can program a mobile phone (and I struggle to switch one on) does not make you the expert on the use of this tool… another of the many assumptions the world has backwards.
When used incorrectly the constant interruption to productivity is overwhelming. Everyone I speak to suffers from overwhelm. Well I do not know anyone who is doing as much as I am; I have plenty of time and don’t get overwhelmed. I will be covering how to remove overwhelm later, it is just here to demonstrate how we create stress.
These constant interruptions create a build up of stress in each person. There are plenty of other reasons too. I could write an entire book on the causes of stress, but I don’t need to, to get across what’s needed to remove it forever.
The problem is not with the communication capability but with the way we work with it. We have to learn to control this. I see people now who put in 100 times the effort I do, yet achieve nothing and are always busy. All I see wherever I go is busy ‘stress heads’ going about their lives going from one stressful moment to another. Are they mad? Well of course they are - this is not the activity of a sane person. Just because everyone does it, does not make it any more sane. However, they (probably you) don’t realise that it doesn’t have to be done that way.
There is a difference between being busy and being productive. Our consciousness knows the difference. However, people are not really conscious very often and do not know what they ‘want’ (that’s virtually everyone including you), let alone what they desire (now we have got it down to the final few). They are all managing their stress that is created by knowing they are screwing it up unconsciously but cannot figure out what they are doing wrong. I.e. they know it instinctively but have assumed that as everyone does it that way, well it is simply then the way it is.
I used to be one of those horrible people who handled stress by taking it out on others, which of course didn’t release it at all. Now if I find I have slipped into unconscious thought and stress is built up, I mentally just release the negative energy.
How I got Ill And Learnt To ‘Manage’ Stress
~ Stress is an ignorant state. It believes that everything is an emergency. ~
Natalie Goldberg
A few years ago when I was building my manufacturing company, business was flying and we employed up to about 80 people. I started to get bad stomach cramps all across my lower rib cage. Back then, even before I knew about health and nutrition, I never went to see the doctor either, but the pains were very bad and came on five or six times a day. So I had to give in and go.
He gave me some pills (big surprise) and told me if it didn’t stop the pain, they’d have to go in and have a look (an operation). I left there thinking this is not an illness, it is stress. I knew I had increased my work level to a ridiculous one and I thought I could stop the problem by controlling my stress.
So way back in the late 90’s I learnt to manage my stress. I was fortunate/unfortunate enough to have done damage to my body so that I had a physical warning sign. Every time I started to become stressed made the muscles in front of my lower rib cage sort of tighten up.
Since November last year of course, I acquired the skill of removing the need to manage my stress. It simply isn’t really there anymore. After all, the only way stress can come in is if you allow it to, so it is only on the odd occasion I slip into the old unconscious thought pattern that stress sneaks in.
You allow it in by either accepting someone else’s stress, which they release on to you, or you allow it to build up in you and you do not release it. Or you allow it to build up because you fill your day with being busy, or you fill your day with being a bad time manager. Managing it does do some good. Some stress gets dissolved with this, but some stays and builds up underlying problems (real bugs), which show themselves in a moment of high stress. So unfortunately management is a temporary fix and creates the time-bomb problem.
Basically stress can only come in if you allow it to. If you are stressed, it is because you are accepting the position. I still have a huge amount of work to do but I continually keep some of my attention inside me to watch my stress level.
Don’t get me wrong, I am watching other reactions as well, but I am always on the lookout for stress as this little bugger is crafty. However, there is positive stress as well which I do like creating, as I’ll explain shortly.
Stress Is Caused By Being Here But Wanting To Be There
~ Looking to any angry, anxious, or otherwise stressed emotional state to help you sort out the pain you're in, is like trying to organize your monthly bills by throwing them into a blender. ~
Guy Finley
What we are taught to believe is that when we get there (wherever ‘there’ is!), we will be happy. However, this is untrue. How it works is the reverse of that - when we are happy, we get there (wherever ‘there’ is!).
By being stressed because you are here and ‘want’ to be there, you are of course automatically using the law of attraction to create more stress (and you thought you couldn’t make it work for you!). You are saying to the Universe, can I have some more stress please? – You might ‘want’ to re-think this action as it’s not very productive! A build-up of stress without release just causes a similar stress problem to be attracted in again, which then does it again, and again, and again, you get point…
This is all about not being stuck, just repeating the same mistakes. So being here and wanting to be there causes a great tear in the fabric of your life. It literally rips you apart inside. For you to create stress and then live with it, is of course once again insane. Just because everyone else is doing it does not make it any more sane does it? Just because all the lemmings are jumping off a cliff does not make it the correct thing to do!
Ok, so you are here and you ‘want’ to be there. Have you noticed that you can always cope with here, this moment? Please don’t say you couldn’t because you are here right now, so you must have!
It may have been hard at times but you are here, so therefore, you coped. So a sane, reasonable assumption will be that you will always be able to cope with the future too. However, you can always cope with now. But the future, even though it seems much brighter, is nearly impossible to ‘actually’ cope with from here because there are so many variables, so many ‘what if’s’. But you are not there now, so why are you concerned about it as you live now, not then.
What you need to remember is that the resources to deal with that ‘future moment of now’ will be there for you to enable you to deal with it when you actually get there. They always have been and they always will be. If they are not then you will still deal with it, so they will be… do you get it?
The point is stop wanting to be there, just be here and the stress dissolves. It really is simple. Your ego doesn’t ‘want’ to be in the present, so it seeks to take you to the past or the future, resulting in you living out of time and missing your life. I.e. you are not living at all unless you are here.
There is another great advantage of being here and being present as well as actually enjoying your life. When you are in the present moment, the ideas you have do not come from your mind, they come from your intuition and are therefore not plagued with old assumptions. This is like sticking a turbo-charger on an engine!
I’m going to cover the power of being present and staying in the now in greater detail later on. But a quick way to snap yourself back to the present moment and create positive energy, to fend off the attack from stress, is by being grateful for now. Your gratitude for the present moment and the fullness of your life now is true prosperity.
This just cannot come in the future, it has to happen in the present moment. This is being prosperous. Then of course in time your prosperity will manifest for you in all sorts of ways.
As I said earlier, you should not give all of your attention to what is going on outside. Keep something within. Observe your ego at all times. It might seem like a lot of effort to start with as it involves some thinking and concentration. However, it is merely learning a new skill.
We only use an incredibly small amount of our mind to run our life situation anyway, so squeezing a little more out is not any trouble for it. It may give the illusion that it is at the start, but this is like overcoming the barriers to any new skill.
To remain present, just keep still when you can. If you are having a stressful day, then relax, read your body. Notice what is going on inside. Don’t think with your head – you need to think with your body – while you are doing this swing into and out of meditation (effectively daydream) – except without thinking of problems, just what a lovely day it is – I have a lovely day whatever the weather is doing. The weather doesn’t slow me down as each day is a large number of now moments, what an opportunity.
Your daydreaming will also provide you will a solution to problems as well, but don’t expect your subconscious to provide them straight away. Maybe it will, however, you haven’t been regularly using this technique. The last time you probably used it was when you were a kid. So any tool needs to be practised with before you can expect good results.
How To Diffuse Stress In An Instant
~ Pressure and stress is the common cold of the psyche. ~
Andrew Denton
Would you like to be able to do that?
I’m betting you would! However, this information comes with a price. The price is that you have to remember to use it, because you will not be able to apply it if you do not have it with you!
Before I tell you though, just think about all, some, or just one of the times you have been stressed and you would have really wanted to be free from it. Ask yourself now, “How much better would the situation have been for me if I could have just dissolved my stress?”
Just imagine the next time you know you are going to get stressed. Let’s say the boss asks you to do the element of the job you hate and you know it causes you stress. Well next time you are going to be able to diffuse it and watch your stress disappear! Now would that feel good? To be in control of stress rather than to be stressed? No need to answer, I’ve been there!
However, knowledge without application is pretty much useless. I don’t ‘want’ you to let the simplicity of what I am about to show confuse you. The simple solutions sometimes seem like they can’t possibly be that simple. Well sometimes they can! So here’s how to diffuse stress in an instant. Stress demands attention – this sentence diffuses stress!
Too simple for you? Your stress is demanding that you pay attention to it. It is like a child that wants attention and is screaming at you. If you say to yourself when you next feel stress building up, or when you are stressed, “My stress is demanding my attention,” then you will diffuse your stress.
Here’s another way to put it into a sentence for practical use to re-program your mind, “Ahh! Stress you are demanding my attention. But I’ve noticed you and I am not going to give you my attention. You can ‘try’ and come back another day if you like, but today right now I am not giving you any attention.”
As I said, the information comes at a price:
You have to notice you are stressed
You have to remember to use the stress diffuser button! However, you now have a complete choice about whether to allow stress in to play or not
Good, Healthy Stress
~ Tension is who you think you should be. Relaxation is who you are. ~
Chinese Proverb
Not all stress is bad and I don’t seek to eliminate all stress. In fact there is some stress I actually like to create, and you do too. I’ve been applying it for years as have you, I just didn’t know it for its true name until recently.
Its name is called eustress. This is a word that is a Greek prefix for ‘healthy’ and is used in the same sense as in the word euphoria, e.g. ‘euphoria’ has its opposite ‘dysphoria’ and this word is seldom used as well.
Examples of eustress are: exercise to remove fat, role models who push us to exceed our previous limitations, taking risks that move us beyond our comfort zone. These are elements of good, healthy stress. They occur when we push ourselves. When we criticise ourselves for not having attained a goal we set, we create distress, which of course is bad.
People are often paralysed by their fear of criticism. So they avoid all criticism by failing to act. This of course causes stress in them. The only criticism of course which needs to be avoided is destructive criticism; constructive criticism is of course good.
So, similar to criticism, there is good and bad. Stress holds us back whereas eustress propels us forward. In fact, you are trying to create eustress right now by reading this.
You are trying to propel yourself forward thanks to throwing off dead weight and applying positive pressure to motivate yourself. So the more eustress we can create or add to our lives, the sooner we can actually achieve our desires.
The hard bit is telling the two apart, so all we need to do is keep watch inside and ask the question… “Is this thought or feeling helping me to get where I ‘want’ to go?” The answer is yes or no; there is no grey area as nothing stands still does it?
People say they don’t know how I can do what I do, or they say things like, “Do you ever sleep?” The answer to both is, ‘With ease.’ I am just very aggressive at creating eustress. But sometimes I don’t ‘want’ to and that is my body saying it needs a break, so I stop and relax because too much of a good thing creates a bad thing.
Learning to observe the signs our bodies give us is essential to create positive momentum ALL of the time, as sleep and standing still is still positive momentum. This is how I achieve so much in the same amount of time as others. Even if that positive momentum is sitting down and watching the day go by because your body has asked for a rest.
Always Being Able To Travel At Maximum Safe Speed
~ More haste, less speed ~
Old Fred
Previously I would work hard (madness I now know). I would push myself through this sort of barrier again and again until my body literally crashed. If you ‘want’ to achieve freedom from stress and create nothing but eustress then you must remain present and read your body.
Think about it this way, if you were driving your car along a straight road at 70mph and a warning sign came up which said slow down as there’s sharp bends ahead, you’d slow down right? Well what if you didn’t? You’d probably crash, or at best have a few near misses.
A crash will not help you get where you ‘want’ to go any faster. For some people, one crash is a literal life-stopper. And there are only so many near misses you can have before you have a crash. If you survive it and go forward then you will have been slowed up considerably. You’ll need a new car and you will either be put off driving fast or you will make the same mistakes again.
I do not have these crashes now because I will not over-push myself. I listen to my body’s requirements. If it says don’t work, even if I have stacks to do, I won’t work. Using eustress, combined with reading what your body requires, means that you can be propelled at the maximum safe speed wherever you travel.
What Will Come Up Later To Catch You Out
Now, I’ve given you the choice of stress or no stress. You now have the power over it. You really do! If you don’t think you do then just re-read this a few times and see what happens in your next stressful situation. I’d say without ANY effort you’ll have removed at least 80%! Just from re-reading and doing nothing else… I love the law of least effort!
If you choose to not be stressed anymore, then watch your mind as it says to you things like – ‘Stop taking it easy, you should be working, you are wasting time.’ This is your ego of course and just observe him/her. You’ll be reading your body; you’ll know what you should or should not be doing. You do not need your ego helping to create more of the life you have. You need your presence creating the life you desire.
Finally, I put this into the fear section because we fear stress. We think of doing something to achieve our goals and free ourselves from an unpleasant situation. However, we fear the new situation may be more stressful than the current one. Stress is actually one of the key anchors in the ground and it is a bolt-on to the fear of failure. You now though can see that you created your stress by being in a stressful situation and allowing it into your mind.
I am in stressful situations very regularly even though I work from home and have removed most of the stresses in everyday life. Sometimes these can be very, very challenging. However, I never allow stress into my mind. They are just situations which are to be dealt with. If stress sneaks in while I’m not looking, I look at him, I notice he’s there, and he then dissolves.
No bad stress, loads of good stress. Simple, when you know that’s the way it is!
Summary of the techniques
To master your fears you just need to start looking at them
Understand each fear then look at just how bad it can get, when you have looked at that you now have a starting point
To master them you must look at them all, big and small
Your fear is always about what might happen, not what's happening now. You cannot deal with the future but you can always deal with now
If you are not getting anywhere then it is because you probably have a fear which you have not shone a light on to yet. So go and find it, get rid of every last one. But do not use effort, just shine the light on them and observe them.
Avoid unconscious inaction
Look for opportunities to make minor mistakes, re-learn your natural way of learning. This builds emotional strength
Saying something bad about yourself is bad enough even if it is unconscious. But saying it about someone else is terrible! As the way things work, whatever you put out comes back to you magnified
What others think is totally, completely and absolutely irrelevant to you unless it can help you
Are you stressed? Then choose to not be, only you are creating it after all
Your stress is caused by being here and wanting to be there, so get happy with being here and watch your stress dissolve
Your gratitude for the present moment and the fullness of your life now is true prosperity
Spend some time inside you mind, go and explore why you get stressed and shine a light on the illusion which you are allowing your ego to create
Stress demands attention – this sentence diffuses stress!
“Ahh! Stress you are demanding my attention. But I’ve noticed you and I am not going to give you my attention. You can ‘try’ and come back another day if you like, but today right now I am not giving you any attention.”
As you notice your stress, be grateful for noticing it, then you will notice it more. As you notice it, you will see it for the illusion it is and therefore will have less stress
To ensure if the stress is negative and not positive, just remember to ask yourself often, is this helping me get to where I ‘want’ to, or is it taking me away from it?
There is a lot to take in from this chapter, but more importantly there is a lot of personal time you must spend inside your mind. You can get a lot out of this chapter and read it a dozen times. However, a couple of times through and then plenty of time spent in thought will ensure you eradicate the vast majority of the problem quickly. The important thing here is to see fast results as it will inspire you to clean out the rest of these bugs.
***END***
I’ll publish How To Overcome All Fears Part 5 tomorrow or Wednesday at the latest.
Best wishes,
Andy
P.S. I have had a few questions in now for the paid subscribers webinar, and I have a few ideas of my own. If you’d like to submit a question for me then Click Here:
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It was a long time ago i read the stress bit. A very nice refresher thank you Andy