CONQUERING STRESS
The more you know about yourself ~ about your inner-workings ~ the more you are able to understand all humans. This makes for smooth and easy relations always and everywhere.
In his handbook How to Beat the Stress and Get More Out of Life, Murray Oxman speaks of the conflict we far too often inflict upon one another and then suffer from in our relations. This is always due to our own personal ignorance. Here are some helpful and eye-opening words from Chapter 2: A New Way to Approach Problems.
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We are all conditioned to think that the painful thoughts and feelings we have are not only needful, but that they are us. But they are not. We are not the worries, regrets and self-criticisms we experience. We are neither the stressful feelings nor the elated feelings. None of it.
At the same time, we have to take full responsibility for ourselves — including not only our actions, but our thoughts and emotions. We can’t blame someone else or blame circumstances for anything anymore. Each of us has to begin to see that only we ourselves have made our own lives what they are, and only we ourselves can correct it. We can acquire knowledge, but the understanding must be ours individually.
Each one of us has to accept the fact that we can be free of our problems as soon as we fully see the cause of them, which is our own personal conditioned attitudes and behavior. That’s what really works. Seeing what and where the problem really is. When we see the problem as the problem that’s the end of it.
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Inner Life Exercise
(also from How to Beat the Stress…)
Slow down. Deliberately slow yourself down several times a day. Perhaps walk somewhere at half your usual pace. Go through a meal in slow motion. Drive at a safe, lawful speed, without hurrying or cutting in and out of traffic, even if you are behind schedule. Find other ways to become more aware of yourself by slowing down on purpose. This new physical tempo will signal your mind to slow down, too.
Truckloads of warm thanks to Murray Oxman for clarifying the obvious in my over-complicated, and problem ridden mind. Taking this to heart, and applying his simple and effective methods for ending personal tragedy and suffering, my Life will never be the same~ Thank God!
This short, unassuming looking book, “How to Beat the Stress” by Murray Oxman is one of my favorite books because it’s so clear and powerful. Murray explains stress and what to do about it in such a way that can’t be misunderstood. The only thing left to do after reading it is follow the instructions, which is the hard, but rewarding part.
The “Slow Down” exercise is fantastic for showing me what is going on inside, so that I can see the source of the problem, crazy thinking and thus let it go. I can use it anytime, when speaking, eating, walking, washing dishes, driving and it always helps me see more about myself.