We, as a culture, do not know how to function smoothly within ourselves.

Via elephant sponsor Isha Foundation.

We need to get a grasp of our bodies, minds, emotions and energies.

When I first landed in U.S. a few years ago, one word that I heard everywhere was stress management. Why would anybody want to manage their stress? I can understand if we want to manage our money, our business, our family, our property—but why would anybody want to manage their stress? It is because we have established a whole culture of believing that stress is a part of our lives.

Stress is not a part of our lives. It is not the nature of work that we are doing which is causing the stress; it is just that we have no control over our systems. We don’t know how to function smoothly within ourselves. That is why we are stressed. In many situations, one person would be very stressed out and another person would go through it effortlessly? Stress is not coming because of the situation. Stress is coming because of our inability to manage our inner situation. If our minds, our bodies and our energies could take instructions from us and behave the way we want them to behave, would we make ourselves stressful, no matter what is happening around us?

We are making ourselves stressful because we have not kept control over our fundamental faculties within us. If we could experiment, keeping our palms facing down and breathing deeply, we would see breath will happen one way. If we turn them around, facing them up and breathing, we would notice our breath will happen in a different way. If our palms are facing down, the maximum expansion and contraction will be in our diaphragms. If we turn them over, it will be higher up, in the chest. Turning over our palms changes the way we breathe. This is not just about our breath, the way our energies function in the body is changing.

Our bodies, our minds, our emotions, and our energies—these are the vehicles through which we are traveling through our lives. Without any understanding about it, without any control about it, without any subjective experience about it, we are trying to live ours lives—it is an accidental existence. When we exist accidentally, anywhere we manage to get in life would be an accident. We need to do something about this. We need to get a grasp of our bodies, minds, emotions and energies. If this does not happen, we will live life by accident. We will always hope the situations will work out well. If we are seeking to expand the scope and play of our lives, if we are seeking challenging situations, then we have to do something about the way we function. Challenging situations mean we want to face situations that we have no clue about. If we are going to get stressed naturally, we will avoid those situations. When we avoid those situations, we will naturally avoid all the growth possible for our businesses and for ourselves.

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