Living A Stress-Free Life (WD)

IT IS MY INTENTION TO: LIVE A STRESS-FREE, TRANQUIL LIFE Fulfilling this intention to live a stress-free and tranquil life is a way of manifesting your grandest destiny. It seems to me that what our Source had in mind when we were intended here is for us to have happy and joyous experiences of life on Earth. When you’re in a state of joy and happiness, you’ve returned to the pure, creative, blissful, nonjudgmental joy that intention truly is. Your natural state—the state from which you were created—is that feeling of well-being. There’s nothing natural about living a life filled with stress and anxiety, having feelings of despair and depression, and needing pills to tranquilize yourself. Agitated thoughts that produce high blood pressure, a nervous stomach, persistent feelings of discomfort, an inability to relax or sleep, and frequent displays of displeasure and outrage are violating your natural state. Believe it or not, you have the power to create the naturally stress-free and tranquil life you desire. Making Your Intention Your Reality Below is my ten-step program for creating a stress-free, tranquil life: Step 1: Remember that your natural state is joy. You are a product of joy and love; it’s natural for you to experience these feelings. You’ve come to believe that feeling bad, anxious, or even depressed is natural, particularly when people and events around you are in low-energy modes. Remind yourself as frequently as necessary: I come from peace and joy. I must stay in harmony with that from which I came in order to fulfill my dreams and desires. I choose to stay in my natural state. Anytime I’m anxious, stressed out, depressed, or fearful, I’ve abandoned my natural state. Step 2: Your thoughts, not the world, cause your stress. Your thoughts activate stressful reactions in your body. Stressful thoughts create resistance to the joy, happiness, and abundance that you desire to create in your life. These thoughts include: I can’t, I’m too overworked, I worry, I’m afraid, I’m unworthy, It will never happen, I’m not smart enough, I‘m too old (young), and so on. These thoughts are like a program to resist being tranquil and stress free, and they keep you from manifesting your desires. Step 3: You can change your thoughts of stress in any given moment, and eliminate the anxiety for the next few moments, or even hours and days. By making a conscious decision to distract yourself from worry, you’ve inaugurated the process of stress reduction, while simultaneously reconnecting to the field of all-creating intention. It’s from this place of peace and tranquility that you become a co-creator with God. You can’t be connected to your Source and be stressed at the same time—this is mutually exclusive. Your Source doesn’t create from a position of anxiety, nor does it need to swallow antidepressants. You’ve left behind your capacity to manifest your desires when you don’t choose in the moment to eliminate a stressful thought. Step 4: Monitor your stressful thoughts by checking on your emotional state right in the moment. Ask yourself the key question: Do I feel good right now? If the answer is no, then repeat these five magic words: I want to feel good, then shift to: I intend to feel good. Monitor your emotions, and detect how much stress- and anxiety-producing thinking you’re engaging in. This monitoring process keeps you apprised of whether you’re on the path of least resistance or going in the other direction. Step 5: Make a conscious choice to select a thought that will activate good feelings. I urge you to choose your thought based exclusively on how it makes you feel, rather than on how popular it is or how well advertised. Ask yourself: Does this new thought make me feel good? No? Well, how about this thought? Not really? Here’s another. Ultimately you’ll come up with one that you agree makes you feel good, if only temporarily. Your choice might be the thought of a beautiful sunset, the expression on the face of someone you love, or a thrilling experience. It’s only important that it resonate within you emotionally and physically as a good feeling. In the moment of experiencing an anxious or stressful thought, change to the thought you chose, which makes you feel good. Plug it in. Think it and feel it in your body if you can. This new thought that makes you feel good will be of appreciation rather than depreciation. It will be of love, beauty, receptivity to happiness. Step 6: Spend some time observing babies, and vow to emulate their joy. You didn’t come forth into this world to suffer, to be anxious, fearful, stressful, or depressed. You came from the God-consciousness of joy. Just watch little babies. They love everyone, they’re completely entertained by a plastic bottle or goofy faces, and they’re in a constant state of love—yet they have no teeth, no hair, and they’re pudgy and flatulent. How could they possibly be so joyful and easily pleased? Because they’re still in harmony with the Source that intended them here; they have no resistance to being joyful. Be like that baby you once were in terms of being joyful. You don’t need a reason to be happy . . . your desire to be so is sufficient. Step 7: Suspend the demands of your ego, which keep you separated from intention. When you have a choice to be right or to be kind, pick kind, and push the ego’s demand out of the way. Kindness is what you emanated from, and by practicing it, rather than being right, you eliminate the possibility of stress in your moment of kindness. Step 8: Accept the guidance of your Source of intention. You will only come to know the Father by being as He is. You’ll only be able to access the guidance of this field of intention by being as it is. Stress, anxiety, and depression will be lifted from you with the assistance of that same force that created you. If it can create worlds out of nothing, and you out of nothing, surely the removal of some stress isn’t such a big task. I believe that God’s desire for you is that you not only know joy, but that you become it. Step 9: Practice being in silence and meditation. Nothing relieves stress, depression, anxiety, and all forms of low-energy emotions like silence and meditation. Here, you make conscious contact with your Source and cleanse your connecting link to intention. Take time every day for moments of quiet contemplation, and make meditation a part of your stress-reducing ritual. Step 10: Stay in a state of gratitude and awe. Go on a rampage of appreciation for all that you have, all that you are, and all that you observe. Gratitude is the tenth step in every ten-step program for manifesting your intentions, because it’s the surest way to stop the incessant inner dialogue that leads you away from the joy and perfection of the Source. You can’t feel stressed and appreciative at the same time. Excerpt taken from The Power of Intention