I find it amusing when people talk about 'coping' with stress. Simply because I don't believe that it is an effective or helpful mindset to have.
I dislike this concept because it says lets try and help you deal with stress better. When we all know that stress is not the cause, but the effect.
We are all aware that stress increases the probability of many diseases and causes a lot of dysfunction and mental discomfort. Even more reason why coping with stress is not a good approach.
I said earlier that stress is the effect, it is best to think of stress as a sign post. A sign telling you that something is not working. Sometimes it will feel like all too much is going on, other times you feel overwhelmed, rushed or disconnected. Our thoughts are often on potential problems, and fear based. We feel limited and restricted. As a result of all these feelings and thoughts we get this internal sensation that we label as stress.
The sign is to tell us to make a change, perhaps alter our thinking. Move our focus away from the problem and towards a solution. Away from fear and towards possibilities! Stop thinking about how there is too much to do and start breaking it down into chewable pieces.
Stress is there for a reason, when you learn why it is there, and respect the message contained within, you tap into your internal wisdom this empowers you and as you make the change of thought you eliminate stress. So now stress is being used to improve your quality of life.
So you can be like most people and learn to cope with stress or you can learn to grow from your experience. As we grow we feel great. Maybe stress is simply a message telling us that we have become a little too restricted in our thinking and at the same time nudging us towards greater flexibility.
I am clearly no economist nor do I think I know how to solve the world's financial problems but I can't help think about how we are trying to fix it has many similarities to the way we try to fix problems in the human body, often we just make things worse.
Let me explain. The world is clearly in pain, there are definitely problems and we think the problem is the recession and so we focus on trying to fix it. This is just like when we have a symptom we look to remove the symptom; we take drugs or surgery to stop the symptom from annoying us, so we can carry on with living life the way we have grown accustomed. All the leaders are trying to fix the recession by encouraging people to spend and go back to their old behaviors, changing a few things, but are they changing the right things and enough of them?
As you are now aware, the body gives us symptoms to tell us that something is wrong, this is so we can act, do things differently, so we can evolve. Moving forward means letting go of the old, what no longer works, even if it feels familiar and therefore safe to us, we still must let go.
The symptom is the recession but the problem is far deeper. The world has become global, we are more connected than we have ever been and yet still 85% of the world's wealth belongs to a tiny 10% of the population.
We are worried about losing our jobs or earning less when in Zimbabwe people are giving up there currency and trading in gold, which means they pan for gold. 0.1 ounces of gold is enough to buy a loaf of bread and it may take the whole day of panning to find this much. They are panning so they can survive.
The financial markets are driven by two human emotions; greed and fear. We want more and more things, it is a like a drug, we believe it will make us happy. Which is funny because we all know it won't make us happy, yet we still pursue. We don't want to sell the house because it might go up in value, we hold on to the shares so we can get the best return. Then things turn around, things start to drop, we become afraid of what we will lose, which creates a vicious circle, things are bad, so we tighten up, and because we tighten up, things get worse.
Do we really want to be living in a world where the financial markets are governed by fear and greed?
I would much rather be living in a world of value, respect, passion and contribution.
Sometimes someone needs a breakdown of some sort; they need their world to fall apart because this makes it possible for them to reorganise their life. This making it one that is more fulfilling and meaningful. Maybe the way we use money and treat others needs addressing. Maybe we need to stop focusing on fear and greed and start caring more about others. This might be the time for the world to evolve to a more compassionate consciousness, we can only hope and hold the space for this to come.