Stress and Your Imagination. 

Sometimes the thought of an event or situation happening can
be enough to give you a heart attack. I know there have been many situations in
my life where I got myself all worked up for a time in my life where I did not
need to be worried about. We want everything to be ok and we hope for the best
but we sometimes if not most times imagine an outcome that is far removed from
the actual result.

We spend hours and lose sleep over worrying that it will be a certain way…. When in reality the outcome is out of our hands only the perception of how we feel about it is in our control. Events and situations are just that, the stress attached to those things are out of our imagination. We do not need to feel if we do not want to. 

To prove to you that this is the case….think of how many time you have felt stress over something that never materialized or, if it did materialize, ultimately turned out to be to your benefit. If you only knew from the beginning that it would have turned out in your favor, how much more pleasant could your life have been? That is the way you can approach all situations. 

Expectations

You should not be surprised at whatever you see or hear….. If you are ready to accept things as they are, you will receive them as old friends. 

­­-Shunryu Suzuki

To come to this state of mind takes work. Like weight
lifting you have to put forth some effort. Small exercises daily practicing the
changi9ng of your perception towards situations and events in your life. The
daily repetition of accepting yourself as you are in any place. Accept that you
have arrived there and then decide to take a different course. Decide you want
to climb Mount Everest and succeed. To climb that mountain takes training, hard
work, commitment and determination. You have to live fearlessly.

Changing a comfortable perception and way of thinking is
scary. It takes courage. Most people cannot just do it for themselves, they
need help. I know for myself I have always attributed any successes to my
courage to accept the help from someone else. The letting go of pride to listen
and learn. The teaching sometimes came from the most unorthodox places. We have
to look outside of our own understanding and trust our instinct and intuition.
We have to love ourselves first accepting who we are.

Obstacles

Another part of a strong and healthy philosophy that allows us to create happiness in our lives has to do with how we look at obstacles. One of the reasons that any obstacle in your life is so that you can grow from it and become strong. You know the old saying that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. Well, you’re only as strong as your area of greatest weakness. 

Our greatest anxiety comes from imagining a bad result
coming from a situation in our life. Anxiety and stress turns into physical
illnesses and issues. We are killing ourselves by reducing our ability to heal
from this stress by overloading ourselves with this burden. If we were happy
and laughing in the face of adversity we could be alleviating the stress we
have on us and healing. Our bodies will have the energy and resources to fight
off disease and negativity in our environment. We would have the strength to
help others.