Worry Free Living is Closer Than You Think

Yoga has been attributed to giving people better bodies, but that is just the tip of the iceberg. As owner of the Yoga Wellness Center, I am both a teacher and a student. I continually study multiple areas that lead to health and wellness. This continuing education includes both our physical systems: anatomy, physiology, biomechanics; and the inner world of human beings; thought, emotions and physiological wellness.

Recently, I was in the Seattle area studying the foundations for inner health. Driving through busy city traffic, I looked over at a big panel truck. Right there glaring at me were the words “Worry Free Living is Closer Than You Think!” I laughed out loud. This is exactly what I had been studying and it is also what we all forget - that we can always at any moment be free of worry and stress.

There is overwhelming research that stress is about the worst thing you can have in your life. Prolonged stress halts the body’s ability to repair tissues, grow new cells and keep all systems running smoothly. Besides stress being linked to diseases of the body, it contributes greatly to depression, sleeplessness and anxiety. Currently, main stream media, well meaning health centers and even the yoga community are pursuing an idea that stress happens to us, that it is outside of us. The concept that stress is something that is out of our hands and out of our control makes us work even harder to get rid of it. We feel we need to create strategies to find our center, our peace of mind.

Here is where I take a 180-degree turn. Stress is not happening outside of us. Stress is a felt by- product of our personal thinking, of our inner world. We experience life from the inside out. We live in the feelings created by our own thinking.

If this seems far fetched to you, pause a moment and read on with curiosity and the possibility that you can feel less stress by the end of this article. I know it seems like this political season or our kids constant screaming, or that driver who seems to be on a Sunday drive at 8 a.m. on Monday, is keeping us all crazy. The clincher is there are people who are calm about what is happening politically, those who’s blood pressure stays steady when the kids scream, and even those people who enjoy letting that slow driver set the pace. We stress differently because we think differently. And we aren’t experiencing that slow driver, only our own thinking about the slow driver. Again, what we only ever experience is our own thoughts. This is great news because thoughts always change. And as soon as our thoughts change, our feeling experience changes, too.

But often times we try to think our way out of a difficult situation or feeling. The more our thoughts focus on the problems, the political debates, the fighting kids, the lack of money, the bigger the problem feels and the more stressed we feel. We build more and more stress and anxiety by rethinking the same thoughts over and over. We believe we need to keep thinking about a problem to fix it. As Albert Einstein said, “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” This is a powerful insight. But how do we get new thinking? It happens naturally when we look away from the “problem thinking” and let the busy mind settle. In a moment of slower thinking, or of quiet mind, a new thought can arise. The more we rest and relax away from our personal thinking, the quieter our thinking will become and the better we will feel. Our quieter state isn’t something that has to be worked for -- it is always present. Only our thinking creates the noise that drowns out our innate quiet and peace.

If you’re wondering if it really is that simple, it is. Once you notice you are feeling worried or stressed, look within, realize it is a thought created experience, then do nothing to “fix” your thinking and rest in your quiet clarity that is already present. At any moment we are free to let go of our current thinking/feeling experience and in that pause as worried and stressed thoughts begin to fade, the associated feelings fade too. The more we let go of thinking and let it all slide by, like watching a stream, the quieter and better feeling we will have and just touching that quieter space, even momentarily, allows internal shift to happen. In the quiet shift a new thought, insight or direction we need, can and will arise. With this understanding that our personal thinking creates our feeling experience, we are always only one thought away from worry free living.

Toni Marie LaGree’s work is inspired by Sydney Banks, Dr. Dicken Bettinger, T.K.V. Desikachar, Paola Feher, Leslie Kaminoff and many more. To learn more about the Yoga Wellness Center in Glasgow visit ywcglasgow.com.