Stressing Out Over Everything? How to Detach from Work, Relationships & Life Drama
TAKING ON THE WORLD
Do you stress out easily? Is your head about to explode from the extensive list of mundane things you need to do every day? What about your job? Do you ever turn it off? Do you wake up in the middle of the night consumed with the tasks ahead of you? What about your relationships? Are you absorbing everyone else’s problems and emotions? Do you take things to heart and struggle to move past them? Do you lose sight of yourself in the midst of relationship turmoil?
When does it ever end, right? Well, it doesn’t, does it? It’s simply a matter of how you want to live through the exceptional amount of chaos this world produces. Do you want to take on everything around you, feel exhausted, lifeless, and unmotivated? Or do you want to learn how to stay rooted in WHO YOU ARE and discover the vast space within you as you navigate through the act and scene of the infamous production called life.
Life pulls you in so many directions. Work and all that is demanded of you there, family life, intimate relationships, friends, and other community functions often cause more stress than needed. Maybe the media and constant barrage of breaking news stories lure you in and now your energy is sucked into the screen.
However, many people struggle the most with work. After all, it is your livelihood, your survival mechanism, and your meal ticket. It’s easy to get so wrapped up in your job, so much so that you become the job itself. The career path you have chosen is no longer something you do to make ends meet. It becomes who you are, or you think it’s who you are.
IT’S WHAT YOU DO, NOT WHO YOU ARE
If you struggle to disconnect from your job, to detach from emotional interactions that are taking over your life, or to discover your own sense of inner peace, then it might be time to evaluate why you are getting so attached to every little detail around you?
The ego mind loves to grab a hold of whatever it can find. Its entire focus is on the external world. It loves to attach to the next distraction, so you miss the vast space within you opening the way to a more curious mind, as well as a calmer, clearer, and happier way of life. This larger awareness is the space inherent within giving you the opportunity to see from a different perspective and experience a completely new way of life.
The ego identity, or the individual self or persona you relate to, keeps the separation from your spiritual nature alive and well. The spiritual doorway to your larger self is the reminder that there is no separation from your spiritual essence. It is available 24/7. It’s simply a matter of willingness to see it. It’s as simple as check marking YES to the invitation.
However, the world demands so much from us, doesn’t it? It certainly keeps you busy around the clock, making you believe everything must get done so you keep plugging away. In this process you might start taking everything personally and to heart, allowing your emotions to takeover to the point of meltdown. If this isn’t enough, it’s literally waiting for you every single morning. Each day you wake up, this entire process begins again.
Does it have to be this way? Are you beginning to question the insanity yet? Are you wondering if there is another way to live this life?
The ego mind will lead you to believe that you are your work, you are all the specific roles you take on throughout your life, or the accomplishments you achieve in life. And the opposite is true too. If you do not live up to your desired potential, or what you think you should be doing, your ego mind will identify as a failure, a loser, not being good enough, or worthy of anything.
THE EGO LOVES PROJECTING ROLES
Whether it’s positive or negative your mind will still attach to something. This is its main objective, to become whatever role is currently presented to you. Roles keep the ego locked into that particular identity. For example, if you are a doctor, you might truly feel you are that role. You become the savior and healer. But is that who you really are, or is that simply what you do in life?
The ego will focus on the external world by projecting everything it feels out onto the world stage, including the roles or archetypes you wear. Projecting outward is the key to staying overwhelmed, stressed, and holding on to unnecessary things. In order to detach from all the irritations of life, from all of the burdens you carry, a shift in perception is all that is required. It is not complicated, yet the ego mind will make it so.
TAKING ON RELATIONSHIP DRAMA
Relationships can be just as distracting. Depending on the type of relationships you experience, will determine how invested you become in them. It’s one thing to love someone else, to support and care for them, to respect and have compassion for them, yet it’s quite another to dress up in the issues they are dealing with. Are they your issues to wear? Do you need to tuck them in nicely and button them up in your heavy winter coat?
Loving and caring for others can be a slippery slope. If you take on the nurturing role, it might be difficult for you to separate from the pain others go through. Is that pain necessary for you to carry? Do you need to wear that heavy outfit? Does taking on others personal dramas help or hurt you? These are questions to ask yourself if you are feeling overwhelmed or stressed in your personal and intimate relationships.
Can you still have loving connections without attaching to everyone’s struggles and personal issues? Can you imagine how much more helpful you would be if you didn’t become the other person? Think of how much you could assist them. Think of how much real love and compassion you could extend. Think of how much better you would feel at night. No more worrying and tossing and turning just to wake up smothered in exhaustion and overwhelm again.
There are other ways to approach the heaviness and stress that accumulates so quickly. And it doesn’t require lots of money or a 6-month waiting list to get in either. It only takes curiosity of mind and willingness to try.
3 SIMPLE IDEAS TO DISCOVER INNER PEACE
Shift Inward. The ego mind will always project outward. In order to change how you attach and react to everything around you, the very first thing to do is SHIFT INWARD. Shift your attention and focus from what your eyes think you see and move inward to the vast space inside that is available to you.
Within this sacred space is eternity. Time extends forever. Moving your attention here gives you the opportunity make a decision. You are no longer simply reacting to the chaos around you. You move inward, take a breath, and connect to the large sense of stillness and presence that is there. That’s step number one. Simply shift and connect. You can do this anytime. Either at work or anytime in your personal life, this is an option.
Choose Your Teacher: Ego or Spirit? A Course in Miracles teaches this very concept. Now that you are in the larger awareness field within, there is time to decide which side of your mind you’d like to see with. Think of this type of sight as choosing a teacher or choosing a perception. It is not about what your eyes are seeing in the physical world in front of you. This is inner sight.
Do you wish to see with the ego, who wants to attach to roles, identities, your job, stressors, personal turmoil, and worldly dysfunction to keep you separated from wholeness? The ego’s distractions will keep you focused on the outside, keep you running in circles of self-preservation, and completely disconnected from inner peace.
On the other hand, if you choose Spirit within your mind, your perception shifts from projecting your career and relationship overwhelm onto everyone else, and brings it to love, compassion, and forgiveness for resolution. Choosing Spirit is your ticket into sanity, a clear mind, and a calm sense of self.
The spiritual side of your mind is reminding you that nothing on the outside is as it seems. It is the reminder of Home, your true sense of real love and eternal peace. It shows you that everyone around you is just like you. You can join with them in your mind, knowing you are all connected in the need to separate AND the desire to feel whole. Eventually the stresses of the day disappear.
Practice this Choice Every Day. The most important thing is to PRACTICE. Apply these two simple things, go inward, and choose your teacher, every day. If you leave them sitting in your conceptual thought, nothing changes. But, if you are curious what lies in the vastness within yourself, and you are willing to commit to it, what do you have to lose?
Implementing these two changes daily will take some getting used to, especially if you are not used to doing anything like this. Over time, with more awareness growing within you, it will become easier. You will see more clearly behind the scenes of life than you ever have before. Instead of getting stressed out, overwhelmed, and attaching to everything, you will detach, move inward, and choose a more peaceful teacher to guide you through life.