The Illusion Of Stress With SiRi Opili

Today we'll be exploring that stress is actually an inside job.

Stress is coming from thinking into the future and thinking into the past.

It feels like life's happening to us as stress is happening to us.

Whereas actually when we start to realize how much of life through the lens of free principles actually comes from the inside out.

It all is coming from within our own minds.

That doesn't make us blame.

Remember this is a blame and shame free place.

But it does help us to see that it's us creating this personal experience that we're seeing.

And you can think of this in different ways.

You can think of,

For instance,

How two people in the same experience the same situation will experience it differently.

Two people at a party,

One person will say the music was too loud.

I couldn't hear myself think.

I felt really overwhelmed.

I didn't like the lighting.

I was feeling really tired.

And the other person who was with them might say,

What a banging party that was.

I really enjoyed it.

The music was amazing.

How did they know to play that music?

I loved the way the lighting made me look.

And I met so many interesting people,

Totally different experiences.

And that is coming from their own perspective of maybe past experiences,

Where they were in that moment,

Where their state of mind was.

It's not coming from the party.

And the more that we realize this,

The more we can let go of the idea that stress is happening to us and reconnect to that deeper intelligence behind life.

And then stress naturally dissolves.

And it might be that the stressful situation is the same,

But that actually we come at that with more peace.

And when we have a more peaceful mind or a more clear mind,

We get different solutions.

Different ideas occur to us.

We get more creative.

We've got a special guest with us today,

Siri Apli,

Who is a teacher on Insight Timer.

So I would love,

Siri,

For you to talk on this subject.

And I know that you have a lot to say on this subject and you're pretty much an expert in this area.

So I'd love to hear some of your stories and what's changed for you.

Thank you,

Mama J.

It's lovely to be here.

Thank you for having me still shortly after I met you.

I just bumped into you randomly by clicking on one of your lives where Tom Evans was a guest last time.

And then you gave me an opportunity to choose and pick from dates and themes.

So I chose today because the theme you were describing so greatly,

The way we look at stress and where it actually comes from.

As many of you don't know me,

Perhaps,

I'm Siri.

I live in Norway,

Northern Norway,

A place called Pauske,

Which is just above the Arctic Circle.

So at the moment,

We have no daylight at all.

We have perhaps like dusk or dawn when there's sunshine and we may see the blue sky,

But no sun where I live.

So this is the way we live two months a year.

And so it's easier then to go deep inside yourself and to find the dark feelings.

You can end up depressed if you are not cautious about how you treat yourself.

And you can also end up on the other side of it,

Which is really cozy,

Sitting indoors with the candle lights and hot chocolate and a movie and going skiing.

For us Norwegians,

It's very traditional.

And I also learned the very hard way about this,

Where the stress coming from inside rather than the thinking that makes us believe everything is outside of ourselves.

And I ran into this famous wall of despair and stress twice in my life.

I have kind children,

So naturally there is a lot of stress going on and you have to manage stuff and you have to please other people and you have to also take care of yourself,

Which is then very easily forgotten and hard to prioritize sometimes.

So I really burnt myself out.

What can you do when you have five children and much to do?

And I realized that the amount of stress which I experienced from my inside,

Of course,

Got higher and higher the less I painted and drew and was creative.

As long as I balanced myself through drawing and painting and also dancing and moving and sleeping and doing things for myself,

The less stress I felt.

But when I put my art totally away to become a teacher and jump into a full daytime job after having given birth to number three,

I think it was,

I ran into this stressful thinking again.

And then I actually had put away all my pencils and brushes and everything because I wanted to make this.

I wanted to do this the proper way and be a perfect woman and,

You know,

Fix everything,

Including being a housewife and managing the home.

I had a hundred percent job,

So that didn't work out very well.

So I ended up in Cycleen,

Where I got myself a great team around me,

Which actually asked me several times how is this for you,

Which made me go in once,

Like I say,

And really changed my perspective on things.

And then I ran into a coach,

Which taught me all about the three principles.

And I had an epiphany,

Which told me that,

Okay,

I already know this.

Why did I put it away?

And it's all up here between our ears.

There's a great computer that does everything it can to,

Possibly can to,

Convince us that there is something wrong outside of us.

But there isn't.

And there also is no wrong thing about yourself,

Even though you feel stressed out,

You're not,

Because then we've forgotten where we came from and what we also have accessible inside.

Just like walking from another room and into this room,

I can let go everything.

And it's all about emptying the mind.

So what I do when I paint,

Because I'm an artist,

That's what I do here on Insight Timer.

And also it's my full-time job,

As you can call it,

Being a creative and being a channel and being open and present.

It's about this being in the nothing,

The place where everything can come through and there is no room for the ego or me,

So to speak.

I just leave that outside that door,

Actually,

And in here everything can come and go as it wants to.

I have a bright example from this morning.

Yesterday was my permanent possible cry day,

So I just cried and cried and cried.

Now stop.

Until I went into this room and it stopped like that,

Because my focal point got into something else and all my thoughts just flew away.

So I teach this.

I point into another direction instead of focusing on what did you do wrong,

What happened,

Etc.

Because we can't control anything outside of ourselves.

We can control only what we focus on.

So that is the way to deal with what we think is stress outside of ourselves.

It's actually because we've forgotten what we actually are.

So that's what I can share about things.

Any questions,

Just pop them along and I'll try to answer them as good as I can.

I didn't know that you knew about the three principles.

That's very cool.

And that's also the way I paint,

By the way,

Because it flows.

I don't try to control anything of it.

That's incredible and I love the way you pointed to the cry day and then when you come into this room,

How you can let that go.

And that's only possible because of the fact that beneath any experience that we're having,

We are perfectly okay.

We are not broken.

There's nothing lacking.

We are absolutely intact,

Beautiful essence,

The essence that we were born as.

And yet it's still okay to have those emotions and those experiences and be fully in life.

But to be able to come into the same for me when I come into this room and I talk to these beautiful people,

I forget everything else.

And I might be tired.

I might be worn out.

I might think all these things,

But I come in here and connection and falling into that deeper place of where we all are,

Who we all are,

Enables me to not actually be thinking about those things.

So I love that you shared that.

I have one more thing I can actually share because a few years back,

I was talking to Dickon Bettinger and I made a movie with him and Julian Freeman,

Who is a photographer.

And it was about the teachings of Sid Banks and the new way to see life.

So we can also watch that somewhere else.

But the theory is,

The new psychology has said,

If you don't like where you're at with the picture you're looking at,

You can do like me,

An artist,

And paint another picture that you like the colors of.

And that's a great metaphor for what I was thinking about talking with you about today.

If you don't like it,

Just put it aside and create something that you actually enjoy in here and in your body and in your heart.

Wow,

That's amazing.

I'm so excited to meet a fellow Free Principles teacher.

Yeah,

Me too.

What a gift.

Like,

I didn't know.

I didn't know that.

Yeah.

So I would love to invite you all right now to have a moment.

Let's have a small moment where we can take this time so that you can reconnect with your true self and realize these truths for yourself that your wellness and your okayness is within.

And if during this time you find it difficult to let go or you find it difficult to connect with what I'm saying or what we're saying,

Don't worry about that.

Don't worry about that.

Allow yourself the gift of completely not judging what's going on in your head today,

Or at least in these few moments.

And allow yourself the gift of just being okay with whatever happens.

If your mind gets quiet,

Then that's wonderful.

But if it doesn't,

That's okay too.

And the more that you see that you're okay without doing anything,

The least you'll be by those thoughts,

Those stressful thoughts.

And as Siri alluded to,

She still has experiences,

Right?

So do I.

I still experience sadness and stress and worry and anxiety and joy and all of the whole gamut of human emotions.

But I don't have to follow them so much.

And I see that I change,

My mind pops into a different,

More peaceful state,

And I'm able to not worry about what emotional state I'm in because underneath everything is perfect.

And our mind is always trying to help us to realize that it is always working for us and not against us.

And when I worked in prison,

To have people say to me that they felt more peaceful than they'd ever felt in their life,

That they felt more freedom than they'd ever felt in their life,

It helped me to see that freedom's an inside job.

And that once we let go of thinking things need to be a certain way,

Wanting to control outcomes,

Trying to be something,

Actually we experience immense freedom.

And you might only experience that for a few seconds in any given day,

But that's okay.

That's okay.

That's pointing to the fact that that peace is you.

You are peace.

So let's take a few moments for ourselves to connect with ourselves.

If you're not already super comfortable,

Please take a moment to get comfortable.

Maybe you want to wriggle a little bit,

Settle down.

Let your breathing fall into a steady rhythm.

If it pleases you to do so,

Then take a deep breath and notice how your breath starts to slow down.

And as your breath slows,

So does your mind.

Leave your thinking at the door if you can.

Remember that in this time that we have together,

You have nothing to do,

Nowhere to be.

There are no expectations.

You can purely be you in this moment.

With each breath,

Let go of any pressure or expectation that you've been holding on to and allow it to dissolve into the peaceful glow.

While you rest in this place,

I'll read a short chapter from The Missing Link by Sidney Banks called Wisdom.

Spiritual wisdom lies within the consciousness of all living creatures.

It is formless.

The second it is revealed to human soul,

It is taken on a form that only represents its true nature.

In the old Hawaiian religion,

The kahunas,

Or wise priests,

Said that the wisdom that they were trying to convey was a secret that could not be told.

They were not intentionally hiding this secret,

But they literally could not convey it by words alone because words are symbolic of their true meaning.

The answer you seek is beyond the words.

No one can give away wisdom.

A teacher can only lead you to it and hope that you have the courage to look within yourself now and find wisdom within your own consciousness.

The wisdom that we see lies within the consciousness of all human beings.

It is not found in the world of four nor in the remote corners of the globe.

Wisdom lies within your own consciousness and you have the golden key to your soul and the wisdom that lies within.

So bring your attention back to your light,

Your light that holds all that wisdom and that is a beacon of peace for you and for other people.

Allow yourself to feel the calm and clarity and the knowing that everything doesn't have to be perfect for peace to flourish.

It's doing it anyway.

I invite you to trust that you are always guided by inner wisdom and that it is available to you just as easily as anybody else.

No one has more wisdom or less wisdom than another human being or creature.

So I'm going to bring you back to the room shortly.

Take a deep breath in and feel the love and tenderness that you are being held with by all these amazing people around the world.

That you are welcome and you are perfect exactly as you are.

Feel the clothes against your skin,

Feel the air on your face,

Move your head on your shoulders a little,

Wriggle your fingers,

Wriggle your toes and when you are ready,

Flutter open your eyes and know that this peace and gratitude is with you at all times.

If you want to stay in this peaceful space then feel free to disconnect from her.

I hope you've enjoyed this talk with Ziri Apli.

She is an amazing teacher here on Insight Timer so do check her out.

If you'd like more then join my course Discovering Inner Peace Unlocking Your Natural Wellbeing.

Until then my friend,

Lots of love.