WHY Stress?

We believe we have time.

If we come to terms with the fact that we don’t know how much time we got, we will never go down with stress and will take it as a driving force instead, pay more attention to life, take more risks, and explore many more possibilities.

The aspects in life that we allow to define & rule our overall life, the things we derive our identity from, naturally we want to protect that. We make, what are big or small parts of our lives, our LIFE. We fail to make peace with this universal truth that even if everything goes wrong we will continue to live. Also, if everything goes right and more, and we die the next moment, that is the end. Life as we know it is over for us.

I personally came out of major roadblocks, that kept me sick, and disoriented & several other symptoms; when I went through a near-death experience, during a cloudburst in Himachal, in 2019. It was not the death of my father, or the dogs who I thought were my life; that turned me around, but my own face-to-face encounter with death, that truly turned me around. We had to drive across bridges that were meant only for pedestrians & small cars & two-wheelers. Ours was an SUV. Several turns made us witness roads caving in, and small settlements washed away. Cars flowing, and a couple of animals are being swept away in the strong current of the Beas river. We had left all hopes of reaching home. The entire time, till we reached Anant Pur Sahib, we were on alert & fully aware. We didn’t talk to each other as we needed all eyes on the road and at times behind us.

For over 4hrs we didn’t see any other vehicle, as the skies continued to poor & the clouds continued to make earth-shattering sounds.

This helped me seriously analyze my life basis the fact that I don’t know how much time I have. What am I rooting for?

This alone pushed me out of my depression, and my disorientation went away. It was as if I am struck by a miracle. I started to sleep better. One by one in the next few months get out of all struggle and wriggled free of all the residual fear. I was truly free. All I now had to do was live this life. And here I am as I am typing this article, truly feeling the freedom in my very skin. The trauma & abuse I went through was not made up, it was real, it was physical. I have those memories as fresh as yesterday. But I have trained myself to distance myself from them. I have created, through my practice, SPACE between my trauma & me. Every time a nearly similar situation occurs, I don’t get dragged along with it into fear. Not anymore. I listen to it carefully.  Try and understand as humanly as possible with complete compassion, where this may be coming from. Then respond as best as I can. I am mostly saying no to people in order to say yes to myself. I have even said no to clients because they weren’t looking for a solution, they were looking for a paid shoulder to cry on. I am not that shoulder. I am a passionate meditation teacher, serious about breaking the chain of stress from the world. I know what I want & can do. There is nothing that can deviate me now.

Because I truly don’t know how much time I got left. And I sure don’t wish to waste it pleasing people for their egos & tantrums.