Upon reviewing the results of my annual physical exam, I noted my blood pressure was elevated at 140/90 when it was first taken in the doctor’s office. I was scheduled for a flexible sigmoidoscopy. I don’t know if you have ever had this procedure done, but flexible or not, it’s not something one wants to happen. Therefore, my body was in a “fight or flight” mode. (I wanted to get the hell out of there).

Why am I bringing this up? Because stress that we put on our bodies due to an “assessment of a situation” such as waiting in a doctor’s office, can be just as stressful, if not more stressful, than physical exertion or an actual physical threat to the body itself. (As a note: my maximum blood pressure while pushing myself to the limit on the treadmill was only 144/90).

Therefore, perception can be as hard on the body as reality. How one ‘perceives’ the environment can lead to stress. Stress is not something “out there”. It is not something that is done to us. It is our assessment or perception of what is out there.

Why is this important? This is important because we can control or at least be aware of how we assess our environment and then actually do something about stress.

Let’s take a look at a basic theory in psychology: stimulus and response. The stimulus/response theory put forth by Ivan Pavlov revealed that when dogs were subjected to a stimulus of the ringing of a bell right before being presented with food, the dogs, after a while, began to salivate just upon hearing the bell ring. The dogs heard the bell, then “assessed” that they were going to receive food. This is called a conditioned response or conditioning.

In the same way we have been subjected to all kinds of conditioning in our lives, i.e. parental teachings, religious preachings, societal pressure, governmental control, etc. etc. We have been so conditioned that as adults we may have a tendency to respond without even considering why we are responding in such a way. J. Krishnamurti wrote a very fascinating book called “Freedom from the Known” in which he explores how we become imprisoned by our conditioning. It becomes so automatic such as the dogs response to the ringing of the bell, that we are no longer able to create our own reality. Someone else has already done this for us. Our conditioning becomes our prison and we spend the rest of our lives trying to figure out why we are victims.

Let’s go a little deeper. Since how we ‘assess’ leads to how we ‘feel’ about a certain situation, then the way we respond has a base in feelings or emotion. The base from which we operate is very simple and this is the key to eliminating stress in our life. Matter of fact, it is so simple that as soon as it is explained, it immediately can be incorporated into your everyday life.

The key to understanding is that there really are only two emotions in life, which determines the base from which we operate. These two emotions, of all the emotions we experience as human beings, are a springboard to all other emotions. They are “love” and “fear”. Love is the emotion that expands, reaches out, liberates, and embraces. Fear is the emotion that retracts, pulls in, confines, and repels.

If you were to guess from which base of operation would stress more than likely result, I am sure your answer would be “fear”. That is why this idea is so simple. It makes sense. With the conditioning we have had all our lives and with the many insecurities that we have been instilled with starting in early childhood, it is easy to see how fear may have developed as a predominant base of operation.

When we are subjected to a situation such as a critical boss, a passive spouse, distant friends, it sets up a conditioned response of “fear”. The assessment is: the boss will fire me, my spouse will leave me or my friends will betray me. All of this is a result of our fear of failure or fear of abandonment when in reality none of this may be the case. However, the “fear” of this result is real and even greater than the reality itself because we have been so conditioned to respond this way.

In order to eliminate stress from one’s life, do not choose fear. It is as simple as that. Instead, assess from a base of love. You may say this sounds really nice but how exactly does one do this? How does one operate from a base of love? One can do this by assessing that “every action has a good intention”. I know this is a difficult concept to embrace but think about this for a minute and you will see the beauty in its premise. If every action truly has a good intention, then one will assess from a base of love naturally because one will always see the good in every situation no matter how negative it may appear on the surface. Think how liberating this could be…never to be afraid of anything again.

If you begin to embrace this premise and choose to operate from a base of love based on an assessment of good intention, you will notice a remarkable change in your life and how you react to people and situations. You will gradually be liberated from your prison because fear will no longer dominate you.

Furthermore, “ego” will no longer control you for you realize that there really is no threat to “you” so there is no need to protect your fragile ego. And since “ego” is a protective shield, you will begin to lower that shield and interact with people and situations in a much different way.

You will be proactive instead of reactive. You will be reaching out and embracing people instead of pushing them away. Your sphere of influence will increase and personal power will come to you naturally. You will have a life without stress because you will no longer fear anything.

There was a very famous man whose quote may have puzzled many but in the context of this article, it says it all…”There is nothing to fear but fear itself.” I couldn’t have said it better.