Lose Your Stress And Find A Stress-Free Life GF Live 2-14-26

43:33

43:33

Lose Your Stress And Find A Stress-Free Life GF Live 2-14-26

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First Key Lesson: The whole idea of learning to live with "controlled stress" is like believing that not only are you in control of a war you didn't start, but that you're on the winning side. Second Key Lesson: We must work to understand the nature of stress, instead of working to find newly imagined ways to avoid its pain! Third Key Lesson: It's impossible to look away, and look within at the same time. Attention divided is self-deception. Until we attend to the undivided experience of stress - rather than looking at what it blames - we remain the captive of a lower nature that keeps us seeking false solutions to the very suffering it creates.

Stress Self Inquiry Christianity Spirituality Stress Management Biblical Teachings Stress Symptoms Stress Sources Stress And Identity Stress And Distractions Stress And Perception Stress And Control Stress And Self Deception Stress And Fear Stress And Suffering Stress And Peace

Meet your Teacher

New Smyrna Beach, FL, USA

Meet your Teacher

New Smyrna Beach, FL, USA

Transcript

I have quite a bit of material to cover with you and something in depth at a certain point we're going to dive, Deeply dive into it. I have three stories and three key lessons and each and all as is true whenever I speak is intended to further along the understanding that we're trying to come to. It's so important that you realize and I hope that you're getting to the point that this is not a one and done deal the way the mind wants it to be. Because so much of our stress and I'll ask Kate to put the talk title up is born out of this idea of arriving, Acquiring and achieving something in a time to come. So if you can see the talk title it's lose your stress and find a stress free life. This is a bit of a take off on a passage that we're going to look at deeply at the end of this material. From Christ he was talking to his disciples, He was talking to the people who had come to get a taste of whatever the truth it was that he was teaching. And he said, For whoever will save his life shall lose it and whoever will lose his life for my sake will find it. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it and whoever will lose his life for my sake will find it. And I want to make it very clear that, Because I will at the end, What they did to that language, The original Aramaic, Is indefensible. And we will see why that's true. But I want to tie together this idea. Well, Let's see. Lose my stress and find a stress free. How can I lose something and find it at the same time? That's what we're going to look at deeply. So let's take a nice deep breath and see where we can go from here. I need to bring you in. I want you to really consider with me for a moment and I'll ask you, As I often do, Over here in the sidebar, If you can see this with me or not. What if you were asked, Hey, Bill, Sam, Willie, Martha, Mary, What do you do with most of your time every day? And I would add that most of what we do with our time is, In fact, Our experience of life. So our attention goes to our experience and experience is basically what we're doing with our life in that moment. What are we doing most of the time? Somebody already threw in the word rush. That's not bad because it is tied to it. I think that's also true. These are all, As they come up on the board, Symptoms. No, That is not sure what we do. It's what we should be doing. Worry, Yes. Make lists of things to do, Yeah. Okay, Good. So hold on. Yes, All of that's true. But these things that you're describing are mostly, If we might say, Actually symptoms of what it is that we are trying to do. And here's what we are. I'm going to ask you to see it. Most of our life, Most of our time is spent looking for ways to save our life. If you look at what you're thinking about, It's what do I do in order to keep this in place? How do I handle this so I don't lose this experience of myself? What's necessary right now because things are a little bit threatening? How do I deal with that? How do I avoid it? How do I fix it so that our mind at all points, For the most part, When you're laying in bed at night, What's your mind doing? It's thinking about how to deal with what it didn't successfully deal with the day, The month, The year, The 50 years in the past. So this is really important to see. My life is spent mostly trying to figure out how to pursue, Acquire, Or protect what I believe I need in order to be at peace. Now, That aside, I want to get into the story. Can you see this to some extent? Critical before we get into the first story. All right. Nice deep breath. Here's the first story. Two friends, They work together. They're executives in a large corporation, One of those 50-story buildings. And he comes to his bud and he says, Hey, Man, You know, You're kind of acting strange lately. I mean, I don't know what's going on with you, But you missed that special executive party to celebrate the new sales level that we all reached. And I mean, I assume you knew you were going to be called out from amongst the excelling salespeople and you didn't even show up. What's going on with you, Man? I mean, You're just not quite the same. And his friend looks at him and he says, Well, I don't know. Let's not talk about it. No, I want to. Well, He said, Things have changed. Well, Tell me. He said, All right, Look, I've been seeing something about myself that's really troubling me. Well, We all do that. What's going on? And he says, He says, I'm always stressed. And I mean, At times to the max. His friend says to him, You're just seeing that? Everybody knows that about you. I mean, You've always been wound up, But that's part of what makes you great. And his friend looks at him and he kind of shaking his head because they're not on the same track at all. And he picks it up. His friend says, Look, It's like I said, That's part of what it's no big deal. I mean, We're all like that. Just enjoy the ride. You can start, You know, Using the executive gym a little more, You know, Get that cardiac, Cardiac, Get that thing going along. And did you know they added two more masseuses up there after you've exercised? And they just opened that happy hour bar on the 40th floor. And you can go there when work is over. And his friend will call the man who's always stressed. We'll call him Bill and we'll call his pal Sam. And Bill says to Sam, Look, You don't get it, Man. All of that is part of the problem. Sam says, I do understand. You're not giving me enough credit. Sometimes I don't want to socialize with people after work either. Look, Bill, You're just going through a bad patch. But I've got some news that should cheer you up for sure. And Bill looks at Sam with almost no expression because he realizes they're on different planets in the moment. And Sam goes on to say, I just heard the company is building right on the executive floor, A hot yoga studio. One of those new places you can go in and scream your lungs out in pillows and all that stuff and nobody can hear you. And they've added one of those smashing rooms. You know, Those places where people go and they take their wrath out on objects with sledgehammers and stuff like that. And Sam was pretty excited about it. And then he looks at Bill and says, Man, I mean, We've got it all. Bill looks at Sam and he shakes his head. Man, I already can afford all of those things myself. I want them without those perks. Look, Forget I said it. OK, With all due respect, I just don't think you see it. Sam goes a little irritated and by the way, A little stressed. We'll see what. Bill thinks to himself, I'll give this one more shot. Why does the company keep coming up with new ways, New perks to help us reduce stress? Sam looks at Bill like he's an idiot. Well, That's obvious. They want to keep us happy. They want to help us feel better, You know, Keep us in shape. Bill looks at Sam and says, I don't think so. Sam goes, Well, Then what? Bill says, You don't get it. You don't get it. First, He said, All of this so-called stress reducing activity, It doesn't work. It doesn't work. It's a short term solution that never addresses the real problem. All it does, Sam, Is manage the symptoms. And I got to say, In some ways, That management of symptoms becomes stressful itself. Sam not following. I don't understand what you're saying. He said, Look, I don't know about you, And I'm going to ask you listening here. He said, We've become so dependent on these distractions, These perks, These promises to temporarily relieve our stress. We get worried. I get worried. I get stressed worrying about what happens if I even miss one of those stress relieving activities. If I can't get to my plan on time to get the pleasure, I'm stressed. I mean, Haven't you ever, He asked Sam, Felt rushed, Anxious to get someplace to relax? How about you? My friends listening. Sitting at home and maybe you're going someplace. Oh, That's exciting. Then your mind says, Well, What about this? How many suitcases? What about what's it going to cost? Or is it going to have that the way I want it when I get there? Or is this going to be another disappointing event? And there you are. And the pleasure twists and turns and slowly turns into a form of stress produced by a mind imagining that the pleasure it wants won't turn out as it's imagined and stress rushes in. And then the more stress, The more you try to free yourself from it by making plans, More plans, Plans on top of plans. I trust you're following me with this. Yes. So if you are, Let me bring up the first key lesson, Kate, When you're ready. Here it is. Read along with me. The whole idea of learning to live with controlled stress is like believing that not only are you in control of a war you didn't start, But that you're on the winning side. The idea of learning to live with controlled stress. That's humanity. We know nothing at all about the source of this suffering. Of this ambition that cannot be brought to an end through anything it acquires. About this fear that somehow or other I won't be important anymore if this happens or that passes and suddenly I'm not seen in the light that I want to be seen. Now I'm stressed holding candles and torches and spotlights on myself. Controlled stress. You must let this sink in. It's not intended to be one fell swoop, One blow and liberation. It's intended to help you start seeing something you don't yet see about yourself. So that you can begin to act in a different way under certain conditions that we'll get to. So we believe we can control stress. We believe it. That's what so-called stress management is about. I watched something on television last night where a celebrity was with a happiness expert. Talking about how to produce happiness instead of understanding that wholeness, Which is essential and inseparable from happiness, Is the prerequisite. And until the heart and mind is unified and whole, There's no such thing as happiness. Just the promise of some happiness to come that becomes the seed of stress when it doesn't flower as imagined. So stress management is what? Involves doing what? Imagining, Enacting, Time and time again, Temporary methods. I touched on some of them. You fill in the blanks. Just sitting at home and window shopping in your mind. They serve only to distract us. But none of that, Not one of those distractions does anything to bring an end to the pain that compels us to seek out these incessant distractions. Because if one of them did it, We'd be done. But it's always another and another and never enough by the way. So to be clear, And this is critical because some of you I know you pretty well, This is on the other side of it, A popular myth, A poisonous myth. Others say, Well not me, I use stress to excel. At what? Winning another temporary sense of self whose equally temporary trophies are taken from you by time. And if not relatively immediately by the fact that all that, Everything sitting on that wall that announces you as someone who's achieved something. All of that turns to dust and sold for two dollars for two pennies on the dollar. And trying to keep all of that in place does what? Leaves you more stressed. I got to keep this in place. Why? Because I proved that I could use this to elevate myself. Well did you elevate yourself or are you always holding something up to keep you from being crushed by a life that is always contrary, Running contrary to the conditions you've imagined will free you. Can you see it with me everybody? Because I want to go on to the next story. Nice deep breath. Slow down a little bit. I do have a lot to get to though. So here's, Excuse me, A newly recruited lawyer, Top of the class, His name is Levi. And he has been brought into a large partnership where the aim of everybody there is to become a partner so they can have the perks to reduce the stress of selling their soul to be someone important. I'm not saying some people don't love things. If you love something, God bless you, You have no idea how far ahead of the game you are. But the love of something doesn't have stress in it. Let me go on. So here's Levi. And he's been there six weeks and he's already had three meetings with his staff supervisor whose name is Kurt. And everybody knows that Kurt is the oldest brother of the CEO of this corporation. So Levi's sitting there after his last meeting with Kurt in the executive cafe, Whatever it is. And he's sitting there, And if you've ever been like that, He's sitting there and he's going over the conversation, The third of them, Each and every one as troublesome as the first, Because it seems like he's not cutting it. It seems the way he's being treated. And of course, He's stressed. And over in the corner, He looks over and there's the CEO. And he turns his attention to him, You know, Who am I, CEO walks over and says, Mind if I sit with you? Levi says, No, Not at all. Please make yourself comfortable. Can I get something for you? And the CEO says, No, I just was looking at you. I could see you were kind of shaking your head and like kind of flinching a little bit. He said, I know the symptoms. I've had them myself. What's going on? You got a problem you want to share? And Levi's thinking, What's going on here? Am I being sick? Oh, God help us. Am I being set up? And the CEO, Kirsten, Seriously, Tell me what's going on. And Levi says, Look, OK, I don't know what to do. I mean, I'm doing the best I can, But and with complete respect, I've met three times now with your brother, Kurt. And I don't know if he means it, Maybe I'm not doing a good job, But he's so quick to fly off the handle. I mean, I barely get a couple of words out and he's on me, Even suggestions, Good ones. He seems to think like I'm insulting him or something, Like he'd already thought of that. I mean, It's just please don't get me wrong. I love being here. I love the firm, All that. I just don't know what to do. I'm stressed to the max. The CEO laughs and says, You know, Look, Levi, I'm not saying it's right, OK? But Kurt, My brother, He is a partner in this firm. And well, You know, And then he the CEO looks around the room a little bit. Then he leans down and he whispers something to Levi. He goes, Honestly, Keep it to yourself. Everybody needs to cut Kurt a little extra slack. Excuse me? Everybody has to cut Kurt a little extra slack. And Levi says, I'll do my best, Sir, But if I may. Why? He's an important executive here. He should be helping. And the CEO says, I understand. And I'm not making excuses for him. But here's what you don't understand. Kurt has become so used to being impatient, Flying off the handle, Stressed to the max. It's actually become second nature to him. In fact, Between you and me, I would say it is his nature now. End of story. How about us? Please, God, And one day you will say it with great sincerity. Please, God, Let me see what is this nature that can't wait to sink up a problem? That can't help worrying about, Do I look right? Am I doing the right thing? What's going to happen if that never stops asking questions? And no matter the question it asks, It's to protect itself from something it fears is threatening it. What is our second nature? Do you understand the question? Because if you can see that this stress, And I know you don't know the stress directly, All you know are the measures to escape it. The measures to escape the pain of a stress cannot be separated from the pain of that stress. They're inseparable. They're one in the same thing. And if we can see they are actually as one and the same, Then we have to start asking ourselves, Is anything that this nature that creates stress ever going to free itself from the stress it creates? Or is everything that it imagines, Is everything the world throws at its feet to help it escape that pain, Actually part of the process of producing that suffering? And if you know the answer to it, Which is built into this, And I'll get to another story, We have to ask, How is this going to be reversed? How in biblical terms will the first become the last and the last the first? How will the first nature now, Which is this stressed person, This persona, This sense of self deriving its identity from everything that it adds value to, That it believes makes it valuable, How is that nature going to become last and that which is last now, The spirit, Become first? How is that going to take place? If you're understanding, I'll go on. Kate, Let's bring up the second key lesson, Please. Read along with me. We're working to understand something, Which is the key lesson. We must work to understand the nature of stress, Instead of working to find newly imagined ways to avoid its pain. We must work to understand the nature of pain itself, Of worry, Of doubt, Of regret. We must come to understand the nature of this stress, Instead of always coming up with this identifying with some new way, The same nature gives us to escape that pain. So to do that, We need new understanding, Which is why we have these talks. So we'll look at it as simply as we can. What is stress? At its simplest level? Well, Take two hands and push them together. When you push two hands together, There's tension. There's a friction. And the friction is between what? Opposing forces. Now, We experience this tension, This stress, But we believe the opposing forces is a world set against us. And the part of us that says it is set against us, It doesn't know what's good like I do. And so I set myself against the world. I set myself against the person who seems to disrespect me. I oppose whatever opposes me, Believing that what I'm opposing is not a creation of my own imagination, But rather exists outside of me and is there to stress me out. So we believe that our fears point to, And then basically prove the nature of what we see as opposing us. See it with me. I'm stressed. Well, I know I'm stressed. My husband, He's like this. I know why I'm stressed. Look at the world. I know I am stressed. Look at this. Look at my face. What did the doctor say? I know I am stressed. No, You don't know why you're stressed. What you know is a symptom that is summarily taken and made to look as if what's causing it is outside of you so that you can spend your life fighting with that and then finding ways to relieve yourself from the stress of that constant conflict. Are you following me? So painful stress reveals a lower nature that is opposed to anything that threatens what it's attached to and that it, That nature depends on for the continuity of its false sense of self. So what does this mean? I got to keep going. It means stress is not just a symptom of a divided, Conflicted mind. Stress is not just the symptom of that mind, But it is the revelation of it at the same time. I'm going to repeat it. I want it to sink in. So here I am, Here's stress. It's a symptom because he's, She's, They're, That. And I'm saying to you, Look, Yeah, It's a symptom, But not of the circumstance it blames, But of a, Of a mind, Of a nature that is always divided, Which means, And this is huge, That stress, That fear, That anxiety, That regret, That doubt, The moment it appears is the same as the revelation of the consciousness responsible for it. But we don't see the consciousness responsible for it because that unconscious nature is pointing to something outside of us and says, See it. I knew it. There it is. Do you see it with me? If you do, Then we're going to go to the next key lesson, Kate, Please. Read along with me, Everybody, If you will. It is impossible to look away and look within at the same time. Attention divided is self-deception. Attention divided is self-deception. Until we attend to the undivided experience of stress, Rather than looking at what it blames, We remain the captive of a lower nature that keeps us seeking false solutions to the very suffering it creates. I'd like to go over that, But I haven't time. It would be very valuable for you to understand that attention that is divided is a form of self-deception, Because what? It means there's you and me, This and that, Them and those, And I'm apart from that. Let me keep going, Because we're going now. Make a big transition. Try to show you something a little deeper. Tie the first two stories together. Here's a child in bed, And it's stressed to the max. I remember this, If you don't. You heard a noise, You saw a shadow streak across the wall, And in a heartbeat, And literally, Heart starts beating, There's something in that child that's essentially saying, Calling mom, Dad, Pulling the covers over the head, Jumping up, Turning on the light. What's, Make it go away. Make it go away. We remember that, Don't we? We're still doing it, But I'll get to that. Make it go away. And when that happens for the child, The child doesn't see this, But we can, Two things happen at the same time. First, That stress makes the object of her fear real. Stress makes the object of it feel real, And at the same time, The actions that we take to escape the feeling of that stress become more desperate. So two things, The object, Oh my God, It's real. How do I know? Because I'm afraid, I'm stressed. And the more stressed I am, The more desperate become the actions I take to escape it. Why is this true, If you can see it with me? Because stress is a symptom of an unconscious nature struggling to free itself from a fear it creates every time it imagines the next distraction, The plan, The outcome, Whatever it might be. Now, Let me summarize that part. I want you to see this in scale. I'm sitting in my office. You're sitting in your car. You're at a business meeting. You're by yourself sitting on a beach, Whatever. Have you ever been someplace like that and the shadow of some uncertainty passes by? What does that mean, The shadow of uncertainty? Anything that starts with the feeling, What if, How about, What then? A shadow of uncertainty. I thought this was tied down and I just saw some news that maybe it's not. I thought this was settled, Oh my God, Maybe something's going to disturb it. So the shadow, Like the child in bed, Of an uncertainty passes by. And we say in that moment, What? Make that go away. Whatever it was that's undone my security, Redo it. Whatever the regret or anger, Make it go away. I'll figure out what to say to that person. Make it go away, Yes or no. And then comes the desperation out of which comes these terrible choices and painful actions where we struggle to overcome the painful experience that's literally the product of our own negative imagination. And this is when, And if you can see it, Have you ever marveled at how unbelievably irrational you can be over nothing? Suddenly shouting out an explicative, Like some giants crushing your chest with anxiety. Over what? The equivalent of a burnt piece of toast. Someone says something and it burns you. Something you thought you were building turns out to be a funeral pyre on fire because the conditions changed and with it went away. So that's evidence, If you can see it with me. The reason that we have outbursts is because we're so wound up inwardly. Why? Because we live with controlled stress that is put into a state of being out of control the moment the condition that temporarily relieved it is obliterated. If you're ready, We'll take the next and last part of this talk. If you're understanding everything that I'm saying. And not everything, Meaning you're getting the drift of this, How this runs so deeply that we are so deeply engrossed, Involved and the servant of this second nature. A nature that is a creation of a relationship to a world that this poor child comes into and doesn't know what to do other than to immediately try to separate and protect itself from the offensive forces of a world set on the offense all the time, Doing what, Trying to defend whatever it is that's going to come and take from it what it's mine. So if you can understand this second nature business, Then we can look at what I started this talk with. Back to the beginning of this talk. Remember the title was Lose Your Stress and Find a Stress-Free Life. Well, How am I going to lose this stress without understanding the second nature that I have become so identified with that I believe controlling stress is the same as being in charge of my life? There isn't one codependent relationship on this planet that isn't born out of the stress of fearing that you may lose someone that you need to depend on you. And so there's this constant stress where I keep doing the things I don't want to do for the sake of getting what I hope will at least keep me from feeling like I'm not relevant anymore. So back to the beginning. Christ said, For whoever will save his life shall lose it, And whosoever will lose his life for my sake will find it. I'm going to take this apart so that you can understand what the language is and meant and how it applies to this idea of this stressed second nature that presently is the whole of our existence and confines us to it. First, Christ said, Whoever will save his life. The word save in this instance means whoever will keep his life from destruction. Now, That's what save means, To keep something from destruction. But now we have to understand that the word life in this, That's mentioned twice, For whosoever will save his life shall lose it, And whoever will lose his life for my sake will find it. So, First part, The first life, Whoever will keep from destruction his life is going to lose it. What's the life he's going to lose? Christ is saying in this first one that this life, This, Phew, I can't pronounce it properly, It is the breath that animates life at the level of animals. It isn't, It isn't the second life mentioned in the passage, Which is the Ruach Adonai, The breath of God. So the first one, Whoever will protect this animal nature, Who will ever keep it in place so that it's not destroyed, That man or woman is going to lose it. They're going to lose their life. But whoever will lose their life, Whoever will next lose, Whoever will render that life useless, That's lose, Render that level of life useless. Whoever will lose his life, Whoever will render that first nature useless, For my sake will find it. And this is where it gets interesting because for my sake doesn't mean what we think it means. To find in this passage means that whoever will find it will be present to, Will be possessed by the understanding of God and that life will return to its rightful place like the prodigal son. And when did the prodigal son return? When he saw that all of the stress and anxiety that he thought he'd find in the world free himself, He didn't. So when we find this life, It means that by losing our identification with this second nature, This former nature, And rendering it useless, Something marvelous happens. And then this part, For my sake. Oh man, What they've done. The language of for my sake does not mean what everybody tells you it means. It means, My sake, To serve the cause of this reversal. Whoever will serve the cause of this reversal, The first and the last should be first. Whoever will serve the cause of rendering this first nature, This stressed self, This animal, Dog-eat-dog life, Whoever will render that useless will find that which is permanently useful because it belongs to what is eternal. And this serve the cause of reversal, If you know anything about scripture, I talk about that a lot, Metanoia, That's what the word repent meant, To reverse, To turn around. So serve the cause of this reversal. So that's what we're looking at. What man-taking thought can add one cubit to his tale? All scripture, East and West, All points to the same idea. That there is a surreptitious nature that is noisy, Aggressive, Greedy, Selfish, Self-possessed, Puts itself first even when it's pretending that it's not because behind the curtain that little man pulling the levers, So to speak, Can't stand the thought of not being relevant anymore. I must be relevant. So that nature makes itself relevant by setting up enemies and creating conditions that it feels are threatening it because the more threatened I am, The more important I must be. Are you able to see this with me that whosoever will save his life will lose it and whoever will lose his life for my sake will find it. Whoever tries to protect this second nature that doesn't know it's a second nature, They're going to lose it. But whoever will understand the necessity to render that nature useless and essentially die to it, Will find a completely different order of life that is inseparable from that very reversal taking place. It's one thing. Lose and find, Die and be born. All of these things, Our mind and the world that is in our mind and through which we see the world around us, That mind is impossibly separated but nothing is impossible for God. What makes it possible by the way for us to even have a conversation like this? So how do we apply what we've talked about? How do we, What has to happen? Because I've, I've tried my whole life, Haven't you? I tried to fight, Struggle, New spiritual discipline, You know, Eat carrots, Do this, Do, Do, Do, Do, Do, Do, Do. Why? So that I can be what I imagine I'm meant to be. And yet the very source of all my stress is because I have an imagined nature, A self that believes it is somehow superior to the conditions that cause it suffering instead of seeing that there can't be that suffering without a nature that has engendered it through meeting that moment set against it. So how do we apply what we're looking at here? As, As, As, As pertains to this painful moment of stress. And if you've understood this, This painful moment of stress is what? It is inseparable from the unconscious nature that creates it. This painful moment of stress, Anxiety, Hatred, Fear, That painful moment is inseparable from the unconscious nature that creates it. So if we want to lose our stress, And be, And find a stress-free life, We have to ask ourselves the whole point of this talk. Is there actually another kind of security? Is there actually a different order of peace that doesn't have a possession or a place or a promise required to maintain it? Is there another order of being that we can realize in proportion to seeing through and releasing ourselves from the one, Our present nature, Our second nature? Because then you can start to see, And I'm going to go into this in depth tomorrow. The in-breath is not separate from the out-breath. The body doesn't stress when you breathe in. It's a movement. And you and I are intended to participate in this intelligence, In the movement of intelligence that is there when we are doing the right thing at the right time so that in the onset of any stressful thought or feeling, Or I might add, Seemingly innocent question. How many, I know you, I know you well. Questions come up, What about this, And what about, How about, And we actually take the question as proof that we want to be free from the stress or the fear failing to see that there was no stress or fear prior to the appearance of that question. And who asks that? So it seems like it's asking for peace and it's producing pain. But because we're so divided, We can't see this taking place. So if we want this reversal, If we want to understand actually what's taking place, Then in that moment the onset of stress, Of anxiety, Fear, Regret, Anger, We must wake up, Look within, And attend to the whole experience of who and what we are in that moment instead of looking at what that stressed sense of self is pointing to and wants to blame for its experience that it's creating, By the way. Try to see this with me. I see the news, I get a text, An email, My brother calls me. Rather than grateful for the fact that he called me, My mind says, You know, He wants to punish him. You haven't called me in 18 years as if he's responsible to place the call. So that's going on all the time. So here's that onset of stress and it's just like that. That mind that lives for that stress, That mind that is the body of that second nature, Its incarnation of that nature always does what? It points to what it blames for the pain of itself. We must stop looking at what that stress is pointing to and reverse our attention and turn it around and see the whole experience of who and what we are in that moment because if we do that we'll start seeing this conflict. We'll actually start seeing, You know, I know better than to blame now. I've been a student, A spiritual student for 8, 000 years. I'm starting to get it. Blame is a lie. Oh, But man, If I don't blame, What am I going to do with this pain? But then you don't go ahead and blame. You understand that blame is part of the pain game and you get it. Ah! Whoo! Now I understand. This is not I. This nature that's suffering from this stress created it and I will not participate in its incarnation and then I see on the spot what it means to lose my life so that I can find it because even as I lose to whatever extent I'm capable that unconscious identification with that nature even as I lose it something else is revealing to me not just the need to do it but growing within me the wish to understand it more fully so that I can find as the talk title says so that I can lose my stress and find a stress-free life.