The huge uncertainty arising from the COVID-19 virus will impact stress levels around the world and create serious mental health problems. We need a cure against the physical consequences of the virus. We also need a cure against the stress consequences of it. Mind training is the cure.
Have you ever wondered how stress is created?
In a world where more people suffer from stress than ever before, isn’t it useful to know where stress comes from.
Stress rules our lives. That’s it? Is stress indeed inevitable and we just have to accept it as a fact of life? Or is there something we can do about it?
My teacher Vikas Malkani says: ‘either you manage stress or stress manages you!’
We tend to believe that stress is caused by people or things or circumstances external to us.
My job causes me stress.
My mortgage causes me stress.
My partner causes me stress.
My children cause me stress.
The weather causes me stress.
COVID-19 causes me stress.
My suppliers cause me stress.
My business causes me stress.
And so on…
We believe that stress is caused outside of us.
Wisdom says that all stress is self-created. Stress results from the way we think about the external world.
Have you ever noticed that the same person or the same circumstance triggers stress for some but not for other people? Our own thinking, our own mindset, is the cause for our own stress; not the external world.
The awareness that we create stress ourselves can be confronting (‘it is me…’) but think about it in a different way: if we create our own stress, we can also manage it! Isn’t that a powerful and liberating awareness to have?
If we let our thinking go with the external world, stress will manage us.
If however we take control over our thoughts and deliberately choose our mind focus, we have the capacity to manage stress.
We all have the ability to choose the focus of our mind. Whatever the situation is, whoever the person is that we are engaging with, we have the ability to choose our thoughts and create our feelings.
Mind training teaches you how you can take control over your thinking.
With an untrained mind, stress will manage you. With a trained mind, you will be able to manage stress.