Mindshifters Group - Getting The Stress You Need

This week the Mindshifters group watched the first half of the lecture by Dr. Michael Ryce titled: Getting the Stress You Need. The essence of this lecture is that the human mind functions as a stress management system. The simple definition for stress in this instance is "the tension which is produced within me, by the difference between the way I want things to be, and the way things are, or appear to me to be". When there is a difference between these two things, it creates a discomfort within me, and I experience it as stress. Then, whether I realize it or not, I create a goal based on the way I want things to be and this goal determines my behavior.

Dr. Ryce cites research from ancient texts which discuss the fact that there is a filter in the mind over intention which can be set to Fear, Hostility, or Love. Whenever the filter is set to fear or hostility it distorts my perception and I do not see actuality clearly. Whenever the filter is set to Love I see actual events more clearly and I have the best evidence for how to proceed in the world. If I have the filter over intention in my mind set to Love, this allows only intentions keyed to Love to be used as the raw materials for forming my goals. This means that my goals will be Loving.

If the filter in my mind over intention is set to hostility or fear, then my intentions will be keyed to hostility or fear, and my mind will create a picture -("reality") - of the world as being a hostile or fearful place. Then my goals will be formulated by the raw material of those hostile or fearful intentions, and my goals will be based in fear or hostility.

The first exercise in the first part of the lecture focused on creating different emotions and letting yourself experience them. After doing this we are asked to examine how we were able to call-up the various emotions and feel them. The conclusion is that in order to feel the different emotions, we had to think different thoughts which produced those emotional feelings within us. So we were led to discover that as we choose our thoughts, they create our emotions and the physical sensations which accompany them. We are then asked to watch this process in our daily lives and to actively choose the thoughts which leave us feeling pleasant emotions.

The second exercise is the process of generating a strong feeling of Love and then to imagine sending that Love out through our eyes to a partner. Our partner then works to feel and experience the effect of that energy coming toward them. We then traded roles and let our partner generate a strong feeling of Love and imagine sending it out their eyes to us as we attempt to focus on whatever sensations it stirs in us, to be on the receiving end of that energy.

This exercise is crucial in this work because the active force for healing in this work is Love. The key is the ability to hold my awareness on the energy of Love and keep that awareness present and active in my conscious mind when something unlike Love comes up. The more familiar I am with how I feel when I am able to focus my conscious attention on my actual nature as Love, the easier it is for me to shift my conscious awareness to that actuality. The more I practice this, the easier it becomes and eventually it develops into a habit, which I can strengthen to higher levels. The more I do this the easier it is to shift the focus of my conscious awareness to Love whenever something unlike Love gets resonated within me. Each time I do this, healing takes place. Love is the true healing force. Love is the energy of creation, that which reconciles opposites and creates anew.

We come from Love, we are made of Love, we are Love. Everything else is false.