Yes, I have had my share of stress. I appreciate your emails and helpful tips. I've had so much stress in the last couple years of my life that I had to seek counseling which has helped a little bit.

Thank you for sharing your story. You have articulated your experience very powerfully and clearly. Your story highlights something many people miss.

By ourselves we can do nothing, except trap ourselves in a prison of our own thoughts. Yet when we join forces with Life we can do anything. It’s all about finding that connection. And to find that connection we have to take the leap into the unknown, beyond our fears and sense of limitations.

It’s true that none of us can reach down and pick you up. But we’re all here for you, waiting for you to take that leap and share the story.

You show great warmth and empathy to be concerned with Sean. I think we are all concerned, but as Brian says, our best focus is on shining a light on the path to a happier easier life.

I’ve been around many people in desperate situations and the thing I have learned is that there is always a route out when they are ready.

Yet there is a terror of change to someone already shell shocked by life. And so often they will linger a while before making that leap of faith.

I think Doug’s done a great job of giving the 50,000 feet overview. But as you break it down into more precise elements, you have to refine it.

The traditional view of stress says a little is good for you. Psychologists call it Eustress. Basically what it is, is enough stimulation that activates the adrenalin ‘fight or flight’ response, but not prolonged enough to start releasing Cortisol, which is where it starts to damage the body.

I look on this as the ‘flow state’ that Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi talks about. The state of being ‘in the zone’. This involves being challenged and stretched, which can seem like being stressed, but the difference is that the focus is not on fear of harm, but on reaching something beyond yourself. Saving a child, championing the underdog etc versus ‘what might happen to me.’

It’s the difference in focus, between the Ego and the Higher Self I talked about in the Happiness 2.0 report.

If your focus is on something bigger than you, you are drawn towards the thrill of expanding yourself. If your focus is on yourself, you become fearful and stressed.

I liked Doug’s summary. It is very logical.

My only concern with it is that how do we ‘know’ when something is under our control? Many of us find ourselves in situations that appear outside our control, unescapable (because we did not apply Doug’s formula!) and then apparently against all odds we win through!

Haven’t we all done things that when we started out we had no idea how we were going to succed – infact we have actively thought we would fail – and yet find a way through. Isnt this an inherent part of the human condition – the need to be creative, to champiuon lost causes, to dive into the river to save a drowning child when we have no idea how we are going to do so?

The idea that we are capable of identifying what is and what is not in our power worries me – as it seems to me to be part of our nature to try…!

I’d be interested to see what you have to have to say on stress as i am affected by stress right now..i broke up with my biyfriend who i loved so much.the problem is that he was always drunk..i tried to talk to him several times but the situation went worse untill i decide to live him.after breaking up with him i am now having the difficulties of coping with the situation.we are stay together in the hostekls..so everytime i see him with other girls i become jealousy..and yhis is really affecting even my education at school pls help.

So I think the best way to help Sean in a forum such as this, is just to keep posting insights and reveal how ‘acting’ on them have worked. When something clicks it can be what “moves” a person who decides it’s useful. But insights without action are never life changing. That just makes you someone who knows a lot of insights. On the other hand, just plain action even without insight, is often like a big dose of self love.

So Sean if you’re reading this, hang in my man. There’s a lot of us who feel your pain and it’s probably been rough, But get up today and start something. Start anything. Call up and find out where you can help with food prep at the local Soup Kitchen or Shelter tomorrow morning early. Offer to come back and cut the grass for the owner of the first unkempt yard you pass on the way there. Then sit with the loneliest soul you encounter there and tell them you know how they feel and you’d like to hear about it. Then go home and know that you gave the world something incredible today. Then do it again until it leads you to something more fulfilling and one thin will lead you to another. Maybe one day you’ll be the one person able to help the next Sean because you walked the walk. And then Sean you’ll know why you were put on the earth. And you can do all of that without one more insight. C’mon Sean. There’s some people waiting on you. They need YOUR help.

Brian

This requires true commitment to self and awareness of inner process within and honesty at all times to question those dark energies as they pop up inside us, and courage to face that with truth and release it unto the light… observe ones own emotional reaction which is set-up pattern by oneself, when observed with non-judgment dissolves itself… darkness is merely lesser light and releasing it unto light is just what it is seeking through us… know that darkness is within us all, giving us opportunities to act upon our truth… acknowledging this will help us to look at it with compassion and love for our selves…