The Real Cause of Anxiety and Stress According to this Modern-Day Buddha
And here’s the only thing we can do about it.
“I’ve been through some terrible situations in my life and some of them actually happened.” — Mark Twain
Are anxiety and stress an illusion?
Yes, while the feelings of anxiety in our bodies are very real, is what makes us anxious and stressed simply in our heads?
Many teachings in both spirituality and psychology point to our distorted cognitions as the cause of our anxiety.
But what exactly is anxiety?
Physiologically, we know that the feelings of anxiety are the result of our body’s sympathetic nervous system preparing our fight or flight response to a perceived “danger” in our environment.
This response began as a way for our prehistoric ancestors to mobilize all their bodily resources so they can survive an attack from some tiger lurking in the trees looking to make them their dinner.
For us modern humans, the events that trigger anxiety are far less catastrophic but what’s happening physically inside of us still manifests in the same way.
Whether it’s due to our jobs, finances, or dealings with others, every time we experience anxiety our body is preparing itself to deal with that attack from the proverbial tiger hiding in the trees.
But, on a personal level, in terms of our everyday lives, what is anxiety?
The common theme of anxiety held by many spiritual teachings always seems to boil down to our monkey mind and its propensity to run amuck.
So, maybe the most matter-of-fact way to describe anxiety is to say it’s the end result when the world isn’t conforming to the way we want it to be.
Legendary MBA professor Srikumar Rao who is referred to as “The Buddha of Success and Happiness” summed it up simply as:
“There is one reason and one reason only that you feel stress, and that is that you have a very rigid idea of how the universe should be, and the…
