Unique Identity

We have set of strong and weak points. A strong point helps in compensating a weak point. This is the law of compensation. We are in our lows in the stressful situations. We need high for the compensation. These highs sometimes we falsely augment with drinking, smoking, eating etc. These are created with the external resources. These highs are weak that loses their strength very fast with respect to time. So, these are the temporary highs which give relief only for the shorter duration.

A true high can be built by enhancing the inner strength using the internal resources. One way of doing this to build a unique self-identity.  Self-identity is that how one sees himself. Each one of us has some sort of talents or skills. All one needs to do is to enhance and sharpen the faculties to a point that he becomes unique by those talents. It is then good to associate him to those heightened talents.

.This attribute adds value to a person because he has proved to himself his worthiness. This self-identity helps in his low stressful life. Our identity changes with time and is not fixed. We can consciously build one that adds value to us. For example, let us consider that one is good in cycling. Now, he has to put conscious effort in enhancing and sharpening this talent. Over a period of time, his skill level has moved to a place where it fetches some unique position. He is different and becomes the new version of himself. This “high” effectively compensates the low period of stress.

Become unique by your talents. This “high” effectively compensates the low period of stress.

Releasing Habit

During the wakeful hours of the day, mostly we engage in activities in our works, family, travel etc. We repeat these set of engagements day after day and slowly these engagements become part of our life. We wear different masks with the engagements. We wear the mask of a father while engaging with the son, a mask of an employee with the employer, mask of a consumer with the seller and so on. Anything, when repeated, becomes our habit. When one or more of these engagements not going as per our desire then that would become the primary cause of the stress in life. So, stress has also become a pattern of our life.

To break this stressful pattern, one needs to create few of the releasing moments during the wakeful hours of the day. These moments can be anything that truly connects a person to the deeper side of him. These moments can be anything from listening to the music, doing physical exercises, riding a bike, cooking, singing, uttering even some meaningless words, chatting with a person very close and so on.

The boundary condition in creating such a moment is that the person should get connected to his deeper self or simply, live in that moment without wearing a mask. Voluntarily, create such moments and embed those with the daily activities of the wakeful hours.

Now, we have created a perfect balance of the releasing moments to the active moments which helps in creating a tension-free life.

Releasing moments truly connect a person to the deeper side of him.

Technique 4: THINKING BRAIN INTERVENTION

Stress is an automated process and it is emotion-centric. When the emotion is highly dominant, the thinking brain is completely bypassed. That is the reason, a person cannot think straight in a stressed out situation. Can we change the stress response by the intervention of thinking brain?  The answer is NO if we leave the automation freely. But, with sensitivity training, it is possible to dynamically alter the stress response as it unfolds in real time. There is a thin line of a gap between the trigger and response. One can exploit this region.

In between response and experience is space. Experience has no inherent meaning to it. Meaning is outside the experience & it comes from our mind. How we assign the meaning to the experience has an effect on our feeling. If the experience generates a bad feeling then it is important to work on the alternate possibilities of the “meaning” that we assign to the experience. This is the way the thinking brain helps in changing the stress response.

The entire process of experience, assigning meaning & responding to the experience have become so integral that all of those activities incoherence as one entity. It is so automatically programmed that we don’t even realise that there are individual components to the experience i.e the experience in itself as well as the meaning of the experience. The meaning is assigned straight from our own faith & belief structure.

Practice method:

In order to have the less stressful effect of the experiences of life, it is good to follow this practice method.

1.            Pick the experience that causes the stress

2.            Bring it to your mind, the event/people responsible for this experience

3.            Find out the meaning that you have automatically assigned to this experience

4.            Now, look for 3 more alternative meanings to this experience

5.            If all the alternatives generate negative feeling then specifically generate a more positive meaning to the event.

6.            Now, substitute this meaning for the experience to have a positive feeling.

Technique 3: BRAIN SENSITIVITY

Stress is an automated process and it is emotion-centric. When the emotion is highly dominant, the thinking brain is completely bypassed. This is the reason, a person cannot think straight in a stressed out situation. Can we manage the emotion while we are in the stress mode? Then, it is possible to alter the emotional input to the stress circuit and hence the response out the circuit will be different. This is a leap step forward in handling a stressful situation. We are dynamically altering the stress response as it unfolds in real time.

The first step is how good are we in capturing the emotion? This means we are completely aware of our emotion in any given situation. With this emotional awareness level, it is then possible to manage the emotion. When one is in control of his emotion, he gets the ability to manage his emotion. Also, he gets the power to become aware of others emotions and he gets the ability to manage them in a better way.

How do we capture our emotions? Emotions are nothing but feelings and popup from the body as bodily sensations. The sensitivity to capture these sensations determines our emotional awareness. But, unfortunately, most of us lack this skill. We have the ability to capture gross sensations such as pain and pleasure but not the subtle & finer sensations such as throbbing, pulsating and tickling sensations. Better the brain sensitivity for the finer subtle sensations, higher would be the emotional awareness and greater the ability to handle a stressful situation.

If an electronic gadget such as a pulse oximeter is inserted into the fingers, it preciously detects the heart rate. This means there is a pulsating signal that is there in the index finger. So, if one gently touches the thumb and the index finger, he should able to feel his own hard beat. If he can’t feel this pulsating sensation but just the touch sensation then definitely the brain sensitivity is less in his case. A dumb pulse oximeter can able to detect the signal while our own brain cannot able to detect. It is now time to improve the sensitivity of the brain so that one’s emotional awareness gets enhanced.

Sensitivity Practice:

Duration: 3minutes

1.            Sit upright in a calm and quite place either on the floor or in a chair.

2.            Relax the body consciously and let there not be any form of tension in the body.

3.            Pay attention to your rise and fall of your breathing for ten breath counts.

4.            Gently, touch the index finger with the thumb finger. Retain this finger lock for next three minutes. Divert your attention to the touch sensation, that is the meeting point between the thumb and index finger. Initially, one may feel only the gross touch sensation but with consistent practice, one slowly witnesses the pulsating sensation of the heart. 

5. With consistent practice, when the attention is diverted to the middle of the palm, one might even witnesses subtler sensation of the nerve ending points.

6.            After three minutes, slowly come out this practice mode.

With the above practice, one can train the brain for the subtle sensations.