Meditation And Stress
I often wish that I was blessed with the ability to communicate clearly and accurately. Unfortunately my mind jumps around much too quickly for my mouth to keep up.
Likewise when I start to write just a short response, my mind jumps in with more questions and more gaps in what I have written and so eventually a couple of lines turns into a page. I was starting to reply to Ruth’s comments on the Problem of Living Up to Our Ideals when I realised that I should make this into a post of it’s own.
Meditation And Stress
Probably the most popular stress management technique recommended is to meditate. Now I think that’s an excellent tool to manage stress. But as Tim pointed out, techniques are only a temporary expedient to the end result. This is the problem I see with most stress management advice. That it is based on an assumption that the world is a hostile, dangerous place, that is too treacherous to cope with without putting your life on hold while you deal with it.
Imagine you are settled in front of your TV to watch a gripping thriller. As the plot unfolds your heart pumps faster with every twist and turn. You fidget to mimic the character’s actions. As you identify with the characters and get more involved with the storyline you feel the emotions that they feel. Then the phone rings and you have to pause the film. Still you are caught up in the emotions caused by the film. But as you respond to the mundane details on the phone call your emotional state returns to a more normal level.
Were you to now stop and consider the film plot in great detail, it would not have nearly as tight a grip of your emotions. Some of the scenes might seem unbelievable. In fact if you did this long enough, you might not want to see the end of the film because without being on the rollercoaster of scenes and emotions, it’s just not that exciting.
photo credit: Soulrider222
Meditation is like the phone call in the middle of the film. It’s a temporary state of sanctuary, putting the events of life on hold, calming the emotional state and then looking at the events without the raging emotions. When your emotional response is too intense and so far from your (seeming) control, then obviously meditation is a great tool.
Ultimately though, you want the rollercoaster ride from the negative into the positive. Doesn’t a good thriller rescue victory from the depths of despair? And would that victory be as thrilling when all is calm?
If you ever play video or computer or arcade games aren’t the best ones, those with the most dramatic scenarios?
They put you in the middle of World War 2 or fighting off killer Zombies or rescuing the world. The deeper the dips, the more exhilarating the ride.
Life is the ultimate video game. The events around you are the context of the game, designed to be enthralling, frightening and even desperate. But you have the controls to manouevre through the scenes and ultimately your decisions and actions determine whether you end up devoured by the game or triumphing over all.
Dealing with stress is a little like changing gear from reverse to first in your car. At first you might go from reverse to neutral. But with time as you become more skilled as a Driver, you can then switch direct from reverse to first. It saves you time and speeds up your experience of life. And the key to life is really about how much we experience. That’s really the goal of being here that drives everything we do, wanting to experience as much as we can.
So to meditate is great whilst stuff seems too much to handle. But just like driving the key is really how quickly we can move from A to B. Instead we are moving from very negative emotions to less negative emotions and then to positive and onwards to more and more positive emotions.
Everything in life has value in it’s place. For a full life. you need to have the full range of emotional experiences. Depression, anger, frustration and all the others are necessary for a happy and fulfilled life.
The key is how quickly you move through them. Get stuck in any of them and life seems to suck, but move through all of them quickly as an experienced Driver can move through the gears and life will flow for you.
