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Our Stress Reduction Through Mindfulness event kicks off on Tuesday, Nov 1! Many people think that being a meditation teacher means I’m immune to stress, but that’s far from the truth. Life has thrown several challenges my way over the past four or five years. I discovered my tax accountant hadn’t filed my business tax returns for two consecutive years, leading to the IRS coming after me for hefty fines. Luckily, I didn’t have to pay those. I also went through a painful divorce, moved several times, had surgery for cancer (don’t worry, I’m fine now!), and dealt with financial stress because my health insurance didn’t cover all my medical bills.
I once told a friend it felt like I was walking up a down escalator while someone threw bowling balls at me! My meditation practice helped, but those challenges showed me that I needed to deepen my practice and develop new tools to manage the stress. Over the 28 days of this course, I’ll share these strategies with you.
My approach to reducing stress addresses two types: primary and secondary. Primary stress comes from situations your mind perceives as threats, like being chased for tax penalties, going through a divorce, moving, getting ill, or losing something important. These situations bring about feelings like anxiety, confusion, and grief.
Secondary stress stems from how we react to primary stress. Sometimes we feel like we’re failing because we’re stressed, leading to self-criticism, which creates more distress. Other times, we might overeat, drink too much, or lash out at others, which adds to our stress. Much of our stress comes from our attempts to fix or avoid unpleasant feelings, which only generates more unpleasant feelings.
To handle primary stress, it’s essential to show ourselves empathy, kindness, compassion, and reassurance. We need to be gentle with ourselves, just as we would with a dear friend or a child who’s stressed and anxious. For secondary stress, mindfulness is incredibly helpful. It enables us to release unhelpful mental patterns and cravings that try to avoid unpleasant experiences. Throughout this course, we’ll explore several mindfulness practices to help identify and let go of stress-inducing habits.
Over the next four weeks, we’ll cultivate these skills together. To support you, there will be daily readings, which I’ll keep brief to avoid adding to your stress. Additionally, there will be about a dozen guided meditations, some short and some longer. You can listen to the first meditation here. It’s a 5-minute session designed to help set the intention to be kind and patient with ourselves as we develop mindfulness and self-compassion.
Register here to learn more about reducing stress in your life.
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Thank you for all your support. It’s your encouragement that keeps this initiative going.