There are many common signs of stress that you will be familiar with, such as: irritable bowl syndrome, increased fatigue and headaches.
However there are some less obvious effects of stress that you also need to be familiar with such as: increased worry, unclear and foggy thinking, increased susceptibility to sinus infections and allergies.
Stress causes loss of memory, changes in body chemistry, susceptibility to virus, and often drives secondary behaviours such as addictions and food allergies. So, dealing with stress at the root might be a great way to extend the length and quality of your life.
Uncertainty creates stress. It is one of the single greatest causes of stress. At the bottom end of uncertainty is doubt and doubt is the enemy of health.
However there are some less obvious effects of stress that you also need to be familiar with such as: increased worry, unclear and foggy thinking, increased susceptibility to sinus infections and allergies.
Stress causes loss of memory, changes in body chemistry, susceptibility to virus, and often drives secondary behaviours such as addictions and food allergies. So, dealing with stress at the root might be a great way to extend the length and quality of your life.
Uncertainty creates stress. It is one of the single greatest causes of stress. At the bottom end of uncertainty is doubt and doubt is the enemy of health.
Uncertainty and Stress
There are 3 areas of focus for uncertainty and it's partner, doubt;
1. Removing doubt about the past
Did you do the right thing? Was it the right choice? Could you are done a better? Was it your fault? Are you to blame? These questions and many others leave people stuck and in deep regret, uncertainty, about the past.
Classic techniques for dealing with the past involved apologies and forgiveness which, in nature’s law are only halfway to resolving doubt about the past. Very often they leave a deep nagging resentment about the past buried beneath a false sense of completion.
The healthiest way to deal with the past is to make sure that the story fits the crime. In other words to make sure that we are not inventing a reality based on our own perceptions of who did right and who did wrong.
Natures law will say that there are two sides to everything, there can’t be a benefit without a drawback and nobody does to you more than you do to yourself.
So, it’s highly likely that if you are hanging onto any form of doubt about the past you are telling the story of the past in an emotional, very human and understandable, but in all probability, distorted way. There is absolutely no gain in trying to mend a distorted story because the best you can do is end up with a distorted solution. That’s the blessing of natures law applied to the past: it retells the stories and once told properly, the past really does become the past, no doubts, no regrets.
2. Removing doubt about the present
Right now, this very moment, this second, you have the opportunity to live without doubt. This is an incredible mind game. Living without doubt in the present moment can be very easy if the present moment is not threatening. But if you are staring into the face of an attacking bear doubt can creep in, and really mess with your result.
When I was working in Canada helping some First Nation people I helped a young lady deal with some domestic violence. She went home and told her violent partner to leave. The next thing I knew the man who had been causing her trouble arrived at my counselling room, sat down and placed the gun on the table. He was crying, drunk, and in a heightened state of violence. In his mind I had ruined his relationship. There was a moment where I had the opportunity to go into doubt and I know that if I’d gone into the state of doubt I would have attracted trouble like a bee to honey. The gun would have been used. I therefore chose to stay in certainty.
So how did I respond in a way that kept me in absolute certainty in that moment in time and therefore prevented what could have been a life-threatening circumstances? I know this might sound to some people fluffy, but I simply said to myself “there is nothing I’ve done or not done that’s not worthy of love.”
Nobody does to us more than we do to ourselves so if we are sitting in a chair with guilt or remorse or feeling as if we have done less than we should have then it’s highly probable that we will attract trouble. This is very often the case with domestic violence when one partner goes form relationship to relationship and finds violence in each of them. They blame the perpetrator of the violence but really if we’re beating ourselves up we will eventually attract trouble.
Although the words “nothing I’ve done or not done that is not worthy of love” roll off my tongue easily these days they didn’t in the past. So it’s taken a little processing to make sure that I respect and appreciate myself and my life in order to say those words authentically. I call this turning up and the laws of nature present a simple process of making sure we’re clear and authentic in our turning up.
3. Removing the doubt about the future
There are 3 aspects of the future that are important. Someone to love, something to do, and something to look forward to. Sometimes one or all three are missing at which time we gravitate to hope. Hope is the lowest form of motivation for the future and is filled at its root with doubt.
The opposite to doubt about the future is certainty about the future. One can never be certain about what will happen tomorrow, so trying to create certainty around events is foolhardy. However what we can create is a clear commitment to a purpose greater than ourselves, and vision of what we’d love to create and the knowledge that nothing is ever missing just changes in form.
The first and most important thing to do about visioning the future is to remove fantasies. For example a vision that includes happiness, painless emotion, absence of challenge, peace without war, good without bad, right without wrong, happy without sad, health without ill health, support without challenge, wealth without stress, work without rejection, love without emotion or any such singularity that avoids or fantasises about having half a story without the balance is a fantasy. Fantasies are fantastic but fantasies contain no certainty only pure hope.
This is not to suggest that hope is bad. Hope is wonderful and helps billions of people sustain a wonderful existence under difficult circumstances. However, hope places power outside ourselves and into the hands of others. In some sense we are at the mercy of the universe rather than a partner with it.
Ancient tradition combines with modern technology to create V.i.P vision, inspiration and purpose. It is only in recent times that people have forgotten the tradition of taking time away from their busy lives to create clear vision of the future and therefore remove doubt about it. The process for creating vision of the future has always been isolation in nature for a period of 2 to 3 days (sometimes more) with a healthy diet and minimal disruption in order to come down into the clear reality of the human heart. Again this is another gift of nature’s law.
Certainty is an antidote to stress
Whether it’s moving house, the death of a loved one, the breaking up of a relationship, or pressure in the workplace certainty can overcome stress. Clarity cannot overcome stress.
Certainty does not come from the mind. Clarity comes from the mind so a clear mind can provide a gateway to certainty. Certainty comes from our intuition, inspiration and these come from the human heart. When we say to follow our heart we are saying follow your inspiration.
A great example; you’re about to buy a very expensive and very important new car. You sit down with a sheet of paper to make your decision. You analyse the pros and cons of making this choice and finally you decide the car you want is a Mercedes. I use certain?
The answer is no because you’ve made a decision and all decisions are flawed. Mercedes know this survey spend millions of dollars convincing those who have bought their cars that they have made the right decision. Post purchase uncertainty is the cause of massive overhead and customer service problems in any car dealership. Mercedes know this and rather than leave you sitting questioning your choices, they send messages to you congratulating you on the wisdom of your choice.
Certainty goes beyond decisions. There are 2 sides to everything, refer natures law, and therefore no matter how many columns you do to analyse a decision you will always come up (if you’ve done the analysis properly) with ambivalence. Ambivalence means an equal balance of positives and negatives.
Another example; you are the chairperson of the board and you have 12 people in your board meeting who have been hand picked to bring specialist information to the board. You are gathered to make one of the most important decisions of your business history and you need to extract the specialist skills of everybody in the room. The meeting begins and everybody agrees with each other. With this scenario do you have a mandate to make the final decision as CEO given that everybody agreed to the decision?
The simple answer is absolutely not. If a group of people agree somebody is lying. The ideal board meeting is complete balance between agreement and disagreement. It can be 11 people agreeing and one person violently opposing. However, until there is a balance of support and challenge any decision the decision will be made with uncertainty.
Footnote: Signs of stress
Stress is a fact of life but it does not have to be a way of life. Knowing your signs and symptoms of stress is an important step in dealing with stress and taking control.
Each of us reacts to stress differently. Here are a number of common signs of stress:
Increased fatigue - too much stress for too long can leave you feeling frazzled and fatigued. The general adaptation syndrome explains the effect of stress on the body and how stress can lead to job burnout.
Headaches - one of the common symptoms of stress is excess muscle tension. This daily build-up of stress can result in stress headaches.
Sleep disturbances - do you wake up each morning from a terrible sleep? There are over 70 sleep disorders that are characterised as too little sleep, disturbed sleep, and excessive sleep. Stress can result in disturbances to your sleep patterns.
Sinus and allergies - the body's immune system can protect you from germs, dust, pollution. Chronic stress weakens the immune system making you more susceptible to cold's and flu. I talk more about stress and the immune system.
Mood swings - stress can increase your frustration and irritability.
Focusing on negative thoughts - when the fight or flight response is activated your mind becomes alert to threats and may view the world in a more threatening way. This can culminate in more negative thoughts. I talk more about adopting an attitude of gratitude as a means to deal with stress.
Digestion problems - excess muscle tension can interrupt the digestive process. Combined with excessive stomach acids can lead to a number of digestion problems.
Stress has been implicated in irritable bowel syndrome and intestinal gas.
Skin problems - breakouts, rashes, hives. Stress sometimes manifests on the skin. Skin conditions such as psoriasis, eczema, rashes and acne hinder an individual's confidence and can impact on their mood.
Hair loss - stress can cause you to pull your hair out! But stress and hair loss related in a few other ways!
Decreased sex drive - ya, if the yadda yadda goes out of you lubba dubba, stress is around in some form or anuuda.
Nervous behaviours - these may include nail biting, pacing, or teeth grinding.
Excessive coffee, alcohol, or cigarette intake. One way of coping with stress is that people turn to unhealthy behaviours. This unhealthy coping strategy can increase stress levels.
Eating poorly - it is not unusual to make poor nutritional choices when stressed. We reach for fatty foods or foods that are heavy in sugar. These unhealthy behaviours can further increase the severity of stress.
There are 3 areas of focus for uncertainty and it's partner, doubt;
- Uncertainty and doubts about the past
- Uncertainty and doubts about the present
- Uncertainty and doubts, about the future, the most severe.
1. Removing doubt about the past
Did you do the right thing? Was it the right choice? Could you are done a better? Was it your fault? Are you to blame? These questions and many others leave people stuck and in deep regret, uncertainty, about the past.
Classic techniques for dealing with the past involved apologies and forgiveness which, in nature’s law are only halfway to resolving doubt about the past. Very often they leave a deep nagging resentment about the past buried beneath a false sense of completion.
The healthiest way to deal with the past is to make sure that the story fits the crime. In other words to make sure that we are not inventing a reality based on our own perceptions of who did right and who did wrong.
Natures law will say that there are two sides to everything, there can’t be a benefit without a drawback and nobody does to you more than you do to yourself.
So, it’s highly likely that if you are hanging onto any form of doubt about the past you are telling the story of the past in an emotional, very human and understandable, but in all probability, distorted way. There is absolutely no gain in trying to mend a distorted story because the best you can do is end up with a distorted solution. That’s the blessing of natures law applied to the past: it retells the stories and once told properly, the past really does become the past, no doubts, no regrets.
2. Removing doubt about the present
Right now, this very moment, this second, you have the opportunity to live without doubt. This is an incredible mind game. Living without doubt in the present moment can be very easy if the present moment is not threatening. But if you are staring into the face of an attacking bear doubt can creep in, and really mess with your result.
When I was working in Canada helping some First Nation people I helped a young lady deal with some domestic violence. She went home and told her violent partner to leave. The next thing I knew the man who had been causing her trouble arrived at my counselling room, sat down and placed the gun on the table. He was crying, drunk, and in a heightened state of violence. In his mind I had ruined his relationship. There was a moment where I had the opportunity to go into doubt and I know that if I’d gone into the state of doubt I would have attracted trouble like a bee to honey. The gun would have been used. I therefore chose to stay in certainty.
So how did I respond in a way that kept me in absolute certainty in that moment in time and therefore prevented what could have been a life-threatening circumstances? I know this might sound to some people fluffy, but I simply said to myself “there is nothing I’ve done or not done that’s not worthy of love.”
Nobody does to us more than we do to ourselves so if we are sitting in a chair with guilt or remorse or feeling as if we have done less than we should have then it’s highly probable that we will attract trouble. This is very often the case with domestic violence when one partner goes form relationship to relationship and finds violence in each of them. They blame the perpetrator of the violence but really if we’re beating ourselves up we will eventually attract trouble.
Although the words “nothing I’ve done or not done that is not worthy of love” roll off my tongue easily these days they didn’t in the past. So it’s taken a little processing to make sure that I respect and appreciate myself and my life in order to say those words authentically. I call this turning up and the laws of nature present a simple process of making sure we’re clear and authentic in our turning up.
3. Removing the doubt about the future
There are 3 aspects of the future that are important. Someone to love, something to do, and something to look forward to. Sometimes one or all three are missing at which time we gravitate to hope. Hope is the lowest form of motivation for the future and is filled at its root with doubt.
The opposite to doubt about the future is certainty about the future. One can never be certain about what will happen tomorrow, so trying to create certainty around events is foolhardy. However what we can create is a clear commitment to a purpose greater than ourselves, and vision of what we’d love to create and the knowledge that nothing is ever missing just changes in form.
The first and most important thing to do about visioning the future is to remove fantasies. For example a vision that includes happiness, painless emotion, absence of challenge, peace without war, good without bad, right without wrong, happy without sad, health without ill health, support without challenge, wealth without stress, work without rejection, love without emotion or any such singularity that avoids or fantasises about having half a story without the balance is a fantasy. Fantasies are fantastic but fantasies contain no certainty only pure hope.
This is not to suggest that hope is bad. Hope is wonderful and helps billions of people sustain a wonderful existence under difficult circumstances. However, hope places power outside ourselves and into the hands of others. In some sense we are at the mercy of the universe rather than a partner with it.
Ancient tradition combines with modern technology to create V.i.P vision, inspiration and purpose. It is only in recent times that people have forgotten the tradition of taking time away from their busy lives to create clear vision of the future and therefore remove doubt about it. The process for creating vision of the future has always been isolation in nature for a period of 2 to 3 days (sometimes more) with a healthy diet and minimal disruption in order to come down into the clear reality of the human heart. Again this is another gift of nature’s law.
Certainty is an antidote to stress
Whether it’s moving house, the death of a loved one, the breaking up of a relationship, or pressure in the workplace certainty can overcome stress. Clarity cannot overcome stress.
Certainty does not come from the mind. Clarity comes from the mind so a clear mind can provide a gateway to certainty. Certainty comes from our intuition, inspiration and these come from the human heart. When we say to follow our heart we are saying follow your inspiration.
A great example; you’re about to buy a very expensive and very important new car. You sit down with a sheet of paper to make your decision. You analyse the pros and cons of making this choice and finally you decide the car you want is a Mercedes. I use certain?
The answer is no because you’ve made a decision and all decisions are flawed. Mercedes know this survey spend millions of dollars convincing those who have bought their cars that they have made the right decision. Post purchase uncertainty is the cause of massive overhead and customer service problems in any car dealership. Mercedes know this and rather than leave you sitting questioning your choices, they send messages to you congratulating you on the wisdom of your choice.
Certainty goes beyond decisions. There are 2 sides to everything, refer natures law, and therefore no matter how many columns you do to analyse a decision you will always come up (if you’ve done the analysis properly) with ambivalence. Ambivalence means an equal balance of positives and negatives.
Another example; you are the chairperson of the board and you have 12 people in your board meeting who have been hand picked to bring specialist information to the board. You are gathered to make one of the most important decisions of your business history and you need to extract the specialist skills of everybody in the room. The meeting begins and everybody agrees with each other. With this scenario do you have a mandate to make the final decision as CEO given that everybody agreed to the decision?
The simple answer is absolutely not. If a group of people agree somebody is lying. The ideal board meeting is complete balance between agreement and disagreement. It can be 11 people agreeing and one person violently opposing. However, until there is a balance of support and challenge any decision the decision will be made with uncertainty.
Footnote: Signs of stress
Stress is a fact of life but it does not have to be a way of life. Knowing your signs and symptoms of stress is an important step in dealing with stress and taking control.
- Do you find that your stomach tightens up when stressed?
- Does your heart pound or do you feel anxious?
- Do your thoughts become rushed?
Each of us reacts to stress differently. Here are a number of common signs of stress:
Increased fatigue - too much stress for too long can leave you feeling frazzled and fatigued. The general adaptation syndrome explains the effect of stress on the body and how stress can lead to job burnout.
Headaches - one of the common symptoms of stress is excess muscle tension. This daily build-up of stress can result in stress headaches.
Sleep disturbances - do you wake up each morning from a terrible sleep? There are over 70 sleep disorders that are characterised as too little sleep, disturbed sleep, and excessive sleep. Stress can result in disturbances to your sleep patterns.
Sinus and allergies - the body's immune system can protect you from germs, dust, pollution. Chronic stress weakens the immune system making you more susceptible to cold's and flu. I talk more about stress and the immune system.
Mood swings - stress can increase your frustration and irritability.
Focusing on negative thoughts - when the fight or flight response is activated your mind becomes alert to threats and may view the world in a more threatening way. This can culminate in more negative thoughts. I talk more about adopting an attitude of gratitude as a means to deal with stress.
Digestion problems - excess muscle tension can interrupt the digestive process. Combined with excessive stomach acids can lead to a number of digestion problems.
Stress has been implicated in irritable bowel syndrome and intestinal gas.
Skin problems - breakouts, rashes, hives. Stress sometimes manifests on the skin. Skin conditions such as psoriasis, eczema, rashes and acne hinder an individual's confidence and can impact on their mood.
Hair loss - stress can cause you to pull your hair out! But stress and hair loss related in a few other ways!
Decreased sex drive - ya, if the yadda yadda goes out of you lubba dubba, stress is around in some form or anuuda.
Nervous behaviours - these may include nail biting, pacing, or teeth grinding.
Excessive coffee, alcohol, or cigarette intake. One way of coping with stress is that people turn to unhealthy behaviours. This unhealthy coping strategy can increase stress levels.
Eating poorly - it is not unusual to make poor nutritional choices when stressed. We reach for fatty foods or foods that are heavy in sugar. These unhealthy behaviours can further increase the severity of stress.
RSS Feed
