A Stressed Thirteen Percent, Red Herrings, and The Ego | VictorSchueller.com

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“Stress is basically a disconnection from the earth, a forgetting of the breath. Stress is an ignorant state. It believes that everything is an emergency. Nothing is that important. Just lie down.” ~Natalie Goldberg

I was recently researching the impact of stress on people in the workplace, and I stumbled upon this very interesting statistic: According to the CCH 2007 Unscheduled Absence Survey, “Two-thirds of U.S. workers who call in sick at the last minute do so for reasons other than physical illness,” and thirteen percent of those who call in sick at the last minute call in because of stress!

No doubt, this thirteen percent is costing companies a lot of money, and people are still sitting at home and still stressed.  Nothing improves.  What is it about us that causes us to be so incapacitated by stress that we feel we can’t go on, and that we need those “mental health days” off from work to try to cope?  Our stress response itself is the body’s way of coping with stress.  But, what is stress?

“Stress” is a shortened version of the word “distress.”  Stress is essentially “distress.”  What is causing the distress?  In my humble opinion, I believe the distress is caused by a person’s fear…A person is experiencing fear day after day, hour after hour, and this prolonged fearful state causes distress.  So, in other words, our fear is causing our distress!

In his book, The Emotional Brain, Joseph LeDoux talks about two different types of fear.  One type of fear is the “real” fear — the fear that causes you to soil yourself because a bear is chasing you and your life is indeed in peril.  This type of fear is that true fear that is necessary for self preservation.  However, there is another type of fear, which LeDoux refers to as a “red herring,” because although it is fear, it is not a fear caused by a possible loss of life.  It’s caused by fear of a loss of a job, money, power, control, or some other non-life-threatening factor.  Even though one’s life isn’t in peril, the body still acts as if it were.  The result of this non-life-threatening factor is the same short-term stress response.

So what does this fear do?  It serves the ego.  The ego thrives on attachments to “things.”  It loves to have possessions, because then it can convince the body to fight to preserve the attachment to whatever it is it fears losing.  To live out of this automatic, hard-wired, reflexive operational state of being is to live life through the ego, continually responding to fear, and continually throwing the body into an emotional reaction to the fear the person experiences.  To live through the ego is to cause suffering due to what Eckart Tolle calls a “pain body.”  This “pain body” is a shadow of the ego — it is the suffering which is caused due to living through the ego.

So how do we come full circle?  Let’s give it a shot — Get rid of the ego, and you’ll get rid of the attachment to “things;” get rid of the attachment, and you’ll eliminate the fear of losing those “things.”  Once you eliminate your fear and the ego, the “pain body” will go away, and so will the stress response.

This seems to make sense, but then again, what can someone do to eliminate the fear and the ego?  Here are some of my recommendations.  First off, look at the source of the fear.  Is the fear caused by something that is life threatening?  Just building a conscious awareness of your feelings is huge.  I know that when I start feeling my body’s reaction to my stress hormones, which usually is sensing that my heart is racing and I feel that twinge of resentment, envy, or anger, I step back and think about what is causing this reaction.  I ask myself, “Am I going to die as a result of these circumstances?”

If the answer is “no,” then I start talking myself down, reminding myself that I am physically responding to my emotions, and I tell myself there is nothing to fear; everything is okay.  I also ask myself if I am attached to something, which is causing this reaction.  Am I attached to some sort of sense of power or control?  Am I fearful of losing control over a situation?  Again, just building that conscious awareness of my thoughts and feelings makes a big difference.

If you’re one of that thirteen percent that is letting stress get the better of you, maybe you could take some time to analyze what is causing your stress.  Is it a perpetual fear of something?  More accurately, is it a perpetual fear of losing something, or fear of losing an attachment to something?  Is your ego getting the best of you?  By getting in touch with the source of your emotions, you may discover the source of your stress, and then perhaps you’ll be in a better position to handle and then eliminate it.  Just a thought… 🙂

If you want more tips and strategies for quieting the ego, I highly recommend checking out my free publication, “Mediocre No More,” which provides insight on the fear mechanism and its relation to the ego, as well as my “Antidote to the Mediocre Mind,” which is aimed at subsiding the fear caused by attachments and the ego.  Just fill in the information at the top of the screen, and it will be yours! 🙂
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