The Only Essential Stress Reduction Technique
After reading the comments on meditation and stress I saw that I needed to make a slight clarification. All the comments showed that people were linking up the dots and coming to this conclusion themselves, but I wanted to add a little emphasis so no-one is in any doubt as to what is needed to overcome stress.
Meditation is one stress reduction technique that I happened to focus on, but it’s true of any other tool that you care to choose. It’s value is not in the technique itself, but in the fact that as you practice it you develop and strengthen a mental pattern. This makes it easier and easier for you to use. And you also become quicker and quicker at being able to get the result you wanted. And when you reach a certain level of competence you can do it under pressure. Psychologists have studied how people perform under pressure. Essentially their findings were that those skilled and practised rose to a higher level under pressure, whilst those with less experienced crumbled.
So in the case of meditation, you begin by maybe sitting for 20 minutes without achieving a quietened mind. But maybe after six months of practice you are able to sit in a busy Doctors surgery, full of lots of noise and activity and yet block it out and attain the quietness of mind that previously only came about after lengthy efforts. What has changed is that you have developed the skill to quieten your mind, almost at will.
Now this next section is probably going to sound completely unrelated, but by the end it will help you understand this idea at a much deeper level.
Time is a purely human concept. People talk of spiritual growth, development and attainment. However Oneness is complete. It is everything, together (at the same time in our words). So there can be no spiritual growth. There can only be the human experience that seems to occur in a sequence of time. In other words we seem disconnected from Oneness and seemingly find our way back to it.
The nature of being physical is that everything is relative. So the art of living, is really the art of how we relate to what is around us. Therefore the critical skill in living as a human is the ability to manipulate time and space.
Sport is a great way to see this manipulation of time in space in real time.
photo credit: Roby Ferrari
Now the only sport I really follow is football (Soccer) but the same applies to all sports. The difference between a star player and a mediocre player is their ability to read situations and see what is coming, to control the ball, to see opportunities to pass, to score, to beat players and the speed to make that happen before their opponent can.
The difference isn’t that a mediocre player can’t do these things. Put them on a training ground and ask them to do all these things around posts and they could do them. The difference is that they can’t do them quickly enough in a fast moving, crowded and pressurised game to beat their opponents.
What star performers in all fields have in common is the ability to do these things so fast, that to them relatively to the mediocre, it seems as if things are happening in slow motion. They have the skills so ingrained that they can react so fast that the speed they are capable of operating at, is much faster paced than most people can cope with.
photo credit: ThisParticularGreg
A great example of this is in humour, flirting or with smart replies. Most of us can think of a great reply, but we think of it when the moment has passed and it’s too late to use. Some people though, have the speed of thought to sum up the situation and respond in what seems like a split second.
The difference is that most of us feel too crowded and pressurised to think through the process quickly enough. The quick witted ones have the ability to mentally make space for themselves by not panicking and then think through the process much quicker.
A couple of years ago at one of the Majors, Tiger Woods pulled out of his shot spectacularly. Almost at the point of impact he realised and was able to steer his club away from hitting the ball. It amazed everyone watching because almost no-one else could change direction so late after commiting themselves. He could because time works differently for him while he’s playing golf.
The same is true in tennis, basketball, baseball, ice hockey and any other sport you can think of. In engineering, mechanics and crafts, most of us find things too awkward and fiddly, too hard to get at, but the great Craftsmen can easily make the space to do the detail work. The great Speakers, Artists and Writer’s can create a tranquility that enables them to detach from life and express themselves, but in real time.
photo credit: JohnHallAssociates
Analyse anyone skilled at a task and you’ll find that where others feel like they are too crowded, the skilled are able to make space for themselves. Where others feel that things are passing by too fast, they are able to move so fast that, relatively to them, things seems to be moving slower. And so a lower level game is boring because everything seems to be in slow motion.
Now to bring this discussion back relative to the topic of stress. The only essential stress reduction technique is the ability to create for yourself the time and space to respond effectively to situations that seem stressful.
Meditation and any other technique you use are only ways that help you to make space for yourself. As you practice the skills to process the events of life and so manage stress, you are developing and strengthening mental patterns that speed up your ability to cope with stress. As you get quicker and quicker at doing this, it is possible that you can eventually respond to life in real time. In other words, you process life as it happens without dwelling in toxic emotions and so you don’t experience feeling stressed or overwhelmed as any more than a momentary sensation.
Living smoothly and joyfully, is much like driving a car.
If you imagine the reverse gear to be negative emotions, lower gears to be less positive and the higher gears to be the more blissful states. Initially and when you run into dead ends and get stuck you need the reverse gear. In busy and built up places or in traffic jams you need the lower gears. For the most part though, you can move through these quickly and spend most of your time sailing along in top gear.
This is how life should also be lived.
