force exerted on one thing by another’. So, it’s like you are being worked on, there is no
internal volition, your will isn’t there. Or, ‘an internal resistance of a thing to an external
force applied to it’ – a lack of allowing flow, blocking. It is interesting to think of human
beings in terms of a concept that is used in engineering. It doesn’t take into account
our ability for resilience, flow, jugaad. I think, often we use the word stress in place of
anxiety, in which case it is understandable. Sometimes we feel stressed as a response
to a feeling – I am feeling sad, I am feeling hurt – and you don’t want to feel hurt, your
body is resisting that feeling – that fight sets up a stress response. When you are being
critical of yourself – it is a fight inside of yourself – sets up a stress. If you really want to
get to the bottom of dissolving your stress, you have to look at what is beneath it. Are
we sad, overwhelmed, do we feel ill-equipped for life, deserted, abandoned? What is it?
All our emotions convey something to us – sadness is ‘what do I need to let go of ’, anger
is ‘I need to re-establish my boundary’, shame is ‘how do I feel about myself ’, so is guilt.
So you need to look at what is the feeling beneath the stress