Stress is epidemic with no relief in sight. Hundreds of books have been written, hundreds of drugs have been developed, and therapeutic programs flourish. We’re lost in the capitalism of stress.

There is a new approach that can stop stress in its tracks. When you understand thought and its creative power you can free yourself from its clutches. Your time belongs to you. Your bruises heal and your energy surges. Hope returns and your heart sings.

How Thought Works

The first step to eliminating stress in your life is to understand how thought works. Brain research shows that each half of our brain supports a unique function. The left brain is analytical, sequential, and organizes our lives. The right brain is associated with intuition and creativity. Author Richard Carlson gives the mind two distinct functions which correlate. The computer mind is that part of our mind which organizes and stores information. It collects all of our experiences, everything we have observed, and generations of family and cultural beliefs. It also stores our behavior habits, like brushing our teeth or driving the car, without our having to think much about it. Our transmitter mind connects us to our natural brilliance and creativity. It provides new answers and insights that move us to a new level of expression.

Our reality follows our thinking. When we’re thinking “aint it awful”, it seems awful! When we think “I’ll never get this done”, we probably won’t!  And when we think “Why are they doing this to me?” we give up our power and feel like a victim. Years ago Flip Wilson played a female character on his weekly television show. He wore a curly grey wig and a big housedress and strutted across the stage saying, “What you see is what you get – what you see is what you get!” This was a perfect metaphor for understanding how thoughts become things. The more attention we put on a thought, the quicker it becomes a reality.

So what is stress? Most people think stress is an event or circumstance in their lives that creates tension, anxiety or worry. When we see stress as something outside of ourselves, we tend to think there isn’t much we can do about it except live through it. There is a new view of stress. Even with physiological or mental stress related to a near accident on the road or the death of a loved one, there is a way to prevent long-term stress reactions. Stress is a feeling that comes out of what we are thinking. Shifting a thought is a simple solution to resolving stress. For example, when we shift “I’ll never get this done” to “I’ll do one piece today and get help with the rest tomorrow” the feeling of stress disappears. Stress is a feeling that comes from what we think about an event or circumstance; stress is not the event or circumstance itself. We can control the thoughts we pay attention to regardless of our circumstances.

Check Your Thoughts

The second step to eliminating stress is to identify the perceived cause of your stress by checking your thoughts. We use the word perceived here because our perceptions are filters of thought that we carry from past experience. Perceptions are the way things look, formed out of our conventional belief systems. Just because it looks a certain way, doesn’t mean it is. Here we’re talking about thoughts stored in our computer mind, thoughts connected with our past experiences. We are talking about our thoughts, interpretations, and perceptions rather than the event or circumstance that triggered our stress. When you are feeling stress and want to change that feeling you must learn to check your thoughts, the source of long-term stress.

Thoughts Become Things

Understanding that thoughts become things is the third step to eliminating stress. Today athletic trainers coach their athletes to visualize the success they want to achieve. They are taught to see every part of their performance from beginning to end in their mind’s eye, until it becomes second nature. Combined with strength training this process has pushed the envelope beyond all previous records. Anything becomes possible through this focused thinking. The average guy or gal, without this training, tends to focus more on worries and concerns than success. When you focus on the struggle to pay your bills, the conflicts in your relationships, and the insecurity in the job market, then you create that reality. Your bills will increase as will the conflicts in your relationships. Your job may end sooner than you’d like. It is really important to recognize how thinking correlates with the reality of our lives.

There is a parable about a famous landscape painting that has one small flaw down in a corner. At first glance the painting looks perfect and filled with beauty. Once the flaw is pointed out, for some, the painting loses its power. Because those viewers have focused on the flaw and lost sight of the incredible beauty of the whole, that beauty no longer exists for them. Our lives can be incredibly beautiful. When our thoughts magnify the flaws, we miss the beauty all around us.

We’ve all experienced feeling stressed, and stress has been so normalized by our culture and the media that we now expect to feel stress. It is up to us to choose if we want to live out our lives feeling stressed-out, irritable and cheated of the life we had hoped to have. Using this new approach to eliminating stress can give us the access and energy to reawaken our creative and lighthearted selves that are awaiting the chance to come out and play the game we call life at a higher and fuller level.

Excerpt from ACTIVATE YOUR BRILLIANCE, Back to Brilliance ©2007

Ask yourself this question: Can I let go of anger in my relationships? Because anger is such a common stressor in relationship problems, we need to give it some attention. To truly master our relationships, we need to master our feelings of anger. Anger is easily triggered because of our family conditioning and because it appears to be the “best” expression that shows how we are feeling at the time.

Our feeling vocabulary may be limited. We may be afraid, and cover it with anger. We may be frustrated to the max and let anger take over our words. We might simply feel defeated by a voicemail system when we have tried to get an important message through to a service representative. No matter when or where our anger takes the stage, we damage relationships with unrestrained anger.

Our frustration, irritation, and distress frequently build into anger because we don’t let these feelings out until we feel safe. Too often we let anger run riot with the people closest to us, or with those with whom we can “get away with it”. Because our anger response often is harsh, explosive, and quickly gets out of control, it is imperative that we recognize its source.

Any negative feeling is attached to a pattern of thinking or belief about ourselves or others. Anger is attached to a thought, and a thought is just a thought until we give it life. The impact on relationships from anger, explosive, seething, sulking, or hostile, is devastating. Quiet anger is no less destructive than noisy anger. Whether anger is triggered by an old belief pattern or is purposely used to control others, it is a destroyer rather than a builder of relationships.

It is possible to master our feelings of anger. Any negative feeling is telling us to check our thinking. Anger is showing us that our thought system is in control and we’re out of control. We need to know our own flash points and learn to identify our early physical symptoms if we want to stop the process and avoid angry outbursts.

If you find yourself clenching your teeth, tightening your fists, or shaking, take a deep breath, relax, and check your thinking. Ask yourself: Is making this thought “right” worth damaging my relationship with this person? Could I share this thought or resolve this situation another way without anger and stress?

Once you gain the ability to catch your anger before it gets away from you and to look at the thoughts that are triggering your anger response, you’ll realize that these thoughts really weren’t all that important. They didn’t reflect your values. They weren’t justified. They certainly were not worth destroying a relationship.

Anger is a kind of rejection that pushes people away and resolves nothing. When we shift from the thought patterns behind the anger to our brilliance, we receive the gift of acceptance. We can accept that we have different viewpoints, different experiences, and different realities. We may still have problems to resolve, but through our wisdom and understanding, we can access the best solutions and alleviate stress.

Giving up anger means giving up the thoughts behind it, particularly “I am right and he/she/you/they are wrong.” By giving up that one thought we gain more than we are afraid we might lose. We do not lose power (because we never had it). We do not lose importance (because we are always important). We do gain respect and the chance for safe, sane and loving communication that sustains us and all of those in our world.

Excerpted in part from Activate Your Brilliance, Back to Brilliance ©2007-2009

Today we can watch the late news and the 24-hour news channels, or a late-night tear ‘em up movie. Some of us get connected to family and friends with late-night phone calls and can’t get to sleep because our minds are processing the conversations again. It’s hard to assess the real risk these news or life events we focus on 24/7 pose in our lives. But the side effects from lack of sleep are well-documented.

So, what is the real solution?

You could take drugs to entice your brain to shut down. You could get up and make the sleepless time useful, like cleaning out that garage you’ve had on your list forever. Or you could get a handle on your thinking. You could choose to focus on a thought that relaxes you, makes you smile, or brings good feelings to every cell in your body.

If you don’t believe you have the power to choose which thoughts you pay attention to, think again. It’s time to figure it out and there’s no better time than now. Stress is a feeling that comes from the thoughts we are thinking. Healthy, happy thoughts create healthy, happy feelings.  And the opposite is equally true.

If you want to stop stress now and sleep well, the fastest way is to handle your thoughts in a new way. Choose to focus on thoughts that relax, give hope, or further your goals and desires. It is simple, once you learn that you are in charge of which thoughts you pay attention to.

For additional information, check out our approach to stress relief and sign up for our “Stop Stress Now” 7-session mini-course, in the blue box on this page.  Give yourself a break, and learn how to relieve your late-night stress.

All of these thoughts can go whirling around your head, time and again, night after night, with new reports replacing the old ones. Bedtime musing may be helpful once in a while, but when it persists and you don’t get a good amount of that deep sleep, life generally becomes more difficult.  You may wonder how you can go back to sleeping well.

Concerns and questions that we chew on tend to linger and create a viewpoint that the world “isn’t really on our side”, is “dangerous” at most, and “uncertain” any way you look at it. Stress starts its overnight visits with you, in your bed.

Our good old reptilian brain is made to face the lion and fight or flee.  Just imagine seeing a snake on your back doorstep and how you would respond. It’s almost automatic—the mind/body connection moves you in one direction or another, and with great speed.

So, what do we do about the worry, the uncertainty, that daily deluge of information that might or might not be harmful to us personally? You can’t really get away from it and it’s hard to know how to fight it.  TV ads will tell you to take the latest sleep aide. These have their place but do not get at the real cause of stress-induced loss of sleep.

There is an easier way to calm the mind and bring restful sleep back to your life. For a glimpse, visit the Stress Page on our site and let the ideas for stress relief begin to percolate. You certainly won’t lose any sleep with the ideas we present there.   More next week on the Real Solution to losing sleep to stress.

We all love going to the bank or using our debit cards when our accounts are full and overflowing. Lucky for us, we all have an overflowing bank of wisdom, which we call natural Brilliance. It has nothing to do with our IQ or our academic history. Natural Brilliance is the essence of the life force that flows through us every second of the day. Some call it wisdom, Higher Power or the force field of the Universe. Others experience it as intuition, a gut feeling, a hunch, or common sense. It is ours and it is always overflowing and abundant.

For those who study the body, they realize that our bodies have wisdom so grand and automatic that we’d be hard pressed to get all the systems to work well if we had to think of each one, organize the order of things, and then instruct the right part of the body to respond. In fact, we’d probably not make it through one minute of life if our thoughts had to “think it done.”

The same is true of the mind. We do have a part of our minds that records, sorts and stores each event and piece of learning for future use as necessary; we call this the computer mind. We also have a much grander mind, the Brilliant Mind, that is available to us from day one. For every story of the global condition that gets our concern, for every seeming seismic quaver in our personal life, there is an inborn treasure chest, full of answers and new ideas just waiting to be unlocked and then transmitted to us for our understanding and use.

The stress we experience from our worries, judgments or our old beliefs about how life should work quickly morphs into a relaxed viewpoint when we tune in to the station of our Brilliant Mind. This mind gives access to the wisdom of the entire Universe, more than enough by far to handle any situation or stress that occurs.

How does the Brilliant Mind work? How do I get to it? The most important way to access the Brilliant Mind is to slow down, breathe deeply, and get quiet. You can’t hear it if you are talking; you’ll never catch the transmission if you are speeding every minute of the day. And worry, anger, frustration and anxiety will block the messages. Those feelings all relate to the past or the future; we need to stand in the here and now and listen softly for the answers to our questions. The Brilliant Mind is heard in the present moment.

You may wonder if you can trust such an elusive or intangible mind. Do you trust, that when you punch some numbers into your cell phone and hit the send button, that you will reach the person you intended to? With those little embedded chips we consistently reach the number we entered. Even without seeing a cord or wire, we trust that the waves of energy our phone connects with are doing their job, because it works like clockwork (in the right location, of course). If there is a dropped call, we assume some interference. If we are traveling in an exotic location, we assume the towers may be too far away to give power to our call. But do we doubt the technology, the patent ability of this phone to work? Never—it has proven itself over and over. The same is true with Brilliance.

Brilliance can show us the big picture of our lives. It shares the answers to perturbing questions, doubts and uncertainties. Brilliance shows us how to leave stress in the dust and to live each day as the exciting adventure that life was meant to be. We have this natural core of Brilliance, and it will never steer us wrong. Open the vault in your Bank of Brilliance today to uncover the riches that await you.

First of all when anyone gets caught up in what they think someone else thinks about them, there is a gut clenching or very uncomfortable feeling that may range from sadness or despair to anger. Some people go to the anger first. When this happens to us it is our first indication that something is out of kilter.

We have come to understand that our feelings are messengers. Negative feelings tell us that our thoughts about whatever is going on are negative. In other words, we are making up something negative about another person, believing it, and perhaps acting on it. Whenever we experience trauma and drama in our families or jobs, it is because we have made our thoughts into facts.

We have learned to fact check from our natural Brilliance. Then we don’t have to personalize what other people are saying or thinking about us.  This is a huge stress eliminator. This makes stress relief easy for us.

The experts say that we are designed to experience stress and react to it. Stress can be positive and intensify our awareness. If you have ever played soccer or softball or tennis or any competitive sport, you know this kind of stress is actually exhilarating and can bring out our best efforts.

However, the stress we feel from job pressures and demands is not exhilarating. The stress you experience when getting bad news about someone you love might feel like a ball of fire in your gut and a tightness that takes time to release. The stress many of us have felt in long-term bad relationships can even lead to emotional disorders because our chronic stress reactions haven’t been released or resolved.

In other words, the stress that continues unabated, that we can’t get relief from, becomes distress to our bodies. That’s the kind of stress we have to get a handle on. If we don’t, we face the consequences of anger, depression, high blood pressure, and many more health problems.

Statistics say that 60-90 percent of illness is stress-related. Would you like to avoid that statistical outcome? We have found that we can change our minds. In other words, we have to change what we are thinking to get some real freedom from long-term stress.

Let’s say you have a demanding and harsh boss who is high on criticism and low on positive acknowledgement. Over time you vacillate between being angry and complaining to others, to personalizing his/her behavior and thinking there is something really wrong with you or your abilities.

The tension, anger, anxiety and hopelessness spin around you. The job you thought was great has turned into a nightmare. And your friends and family are feeling the brunt of your unhappiness.

Can you step back and take a deep breath? Your boss is in charge of his/her behavior and his reaction is coming from his own set of beliefs and thoughts. Any number of people could have your job and be treated exactly the same way as you are being treated.

Can you change to a new thought: “I will do the best I can because I want to do my best”. “My boss doesn’t know how to handle stress and it’s not my fault”.

With new thoughts, you will experience some immediate relief in your reactions—less anger and tension. You have to be persistent in keeping your attention on these new thoughts. But changing your mind will bring more stress relief that you can imagine.

Can you stay in a poor work environment long term? That will be your decision. It’s hard in today’s workplace one may feel trapped by your need for a paycheck, health insurance or other benefits, and will put up with extremely negative conditions. You may feel uncertain as to what a next career move is and delay making a change. If the situation is intolerable, then looking for a new job could be your best plan.

Keep checking your thoughts and changing your mind whenever you are feeling stressed. If you don’t believe it will work, experiment with the little stuff that bothers you. Change your mind about how every little thing ‘should’ be and insert a new thought that is more flexible. Changing your mind works, if you work at it.

Get OFF The Stress Train

It’s time to get out the word. In this crazy, upside-down world where everything is changing at the speed of sound, are you ready to get off the stress train and free yourself to travel to a new destination called stress relief?

• If you feel like you are running in circles most of the time, like a dog chasing its tail, your body is stressed.
• If you feel tired, maybe exhausted, and possibly irritable a lot of the time, your emotions are stressed.
• If you have problems sleeping and you can’t relax because your thoughts are running a mile a minute, your mind is stressed.

As a quick example, when you get caught in a traffic slow-down, do you immediately get angry and curse under your breath, or do you take a time-out and turn up the radio to your favorite station until the cars begin to move again?

Whichever way you reacted depends on what you were thinking at the time. “I hate this freeway, and I’ll never get to my meeting tonight” leads to frustration and other feelings related to stress. “I think I’ll flip to LOVE 101 or WCCO 850 and catch the latest song or news and breathe easy for a minute” will lead you to relaxation and enjoyment.

It’s pretty simple: our thinking is at the center of all of our responses to stress. An exception is environmental stressors to our bodies. Defensive responses experienced when we are physically or emotionally threatened is another. But in reality, most of our stress is linked to our thinking, to our mindset.

With this in mind, we can begin to get off those train tracks of stress. Although a real train ride can be relaxing, the tracks lead in one direction and you can’t get off until you can get off. In real life a ride on the stress train only leads to more of the same scenery—we begin to see stress everywhere. It’s time to learn the secrets to getting off the train and get moving toward a new mode of transportation—one that is truly stress free.