stress is catching up fast.. part 1

In his wildest of dreams would this normal family man with a loving wife and three sons — a 2-year-old and two 6-year-old twins who lived for the past 11 years on Emerson Lane, a quiet Mountain View cul-de-sac, ever thought that one day he would go get a gun and shoot down his CEO, VP and HR Director in moments of dispair. It is so shocking what stress, pressure can do to a person - our rational thinking, logic everything goes out of the window! Nothing makes sense any more.

We are fast approaching a highly stressful time ahead. Many folks I know have lost jobs, have had to go through pay cuts, foreclosure, tripping on mortgage payments and also bare necessities. As if it were not already enough, stress is catching up fast and engulfing us in its wretched grips! I remember President Obama's victory speech that we need to take care of each other. No one can be left behind.

It is becoming all the more clear that we all need to know how to throw stress out of our system. We need to learn how to relax the mind, and how to relax in moments of pressure. It is so unbelievable that neither at home nor at school have we learnt how to relax the mind, how to deal with our emotions, how to manage our stress! Isnt that so funny!

Mind is our most invested commodity! Without the mind, we are no different from an animal. And yet our mind has our least attention! It is used 24*7, 365 days without ever getting re-charged, oiled or servicing! Wow! No wonder it cracks down someday...

We can never manage our mind through the mind. The more you try to relax the mind by asking it to do so, the more it runs away from it. The more you dont want thoughts in the mind, the more thoughts come charging in. The more you dont want to think about something, the more it keeps popping up! What do people do to get away from the trauma of the stuck mind -
drinking, smoking, listening to loud music, popping pills, masochism, and zillion other self-destructive ways!

All these methods do is to take the attention away from the mind but the jin-bang in the mind is very much other!

What is the key to managing the mind and emotions?
What can bring the mind to present moment?

The most simple and yet working answer is your BREATH.
Really it is that simple! Breath is the most powerful tool given to us naturally. It sustains life, it is happening every moment without our knowing.