Stressed out? “Go with the flow!”

We’ve all heard of the saying “go with the flow”, I believe that stress comes from our resistance to go with the flow. In our attempts to control others and life events, we waste precious energy swimming upstream and burning ourselves out. The need to control comes from the belief that happiness and peace is dependent on external factors (e.g. job, relationships, health etc.).

Stress can be brought about by the codependent relationships that I believe most of us have and nurture in one form or another. We develop those relationships when we hold others responsible for how we feel about ourselves. We too often let other people’s actions, opinions and feelings dictate our sense of selves and in this process we give our power away. As a consequence, these people hold the key to our inner peace and happiness. In order to access our desired state of being, we now have to attempt to control the key holders that we have subconsciously assigned (e.g. husband/wife, parents, children, coworker etc.).

We get back the key (our power) when we recognize that our sense of self, our peace and joy is internally generated and controlled, independent of other people’s actions, opinions, and feelings. This means that when our children, our spouse, our boss, friends etc. act in a disrespectful manner towards us for example, we no longer attribute their behavior as a reflection of who we are. It doesn’t send us into a state of reactivity where the need to judge and control dominates in an attempt to make us feel whole again.

As a result of choosing to let ourselves and others be -in the absence of judgment, we release the negative connection that keep us bound to each other through pain. A tremendous amount of stress gets released as we begin to recognize that we now hold the key to our happiness. The energy once spent trying to control and hold on to negative feelings towards the key holders is now available to open the door for healing, following our passions in life, our higher purpose. We’re then able to “go with the flow!”

© Copyright. Resonance For Life Body/Mind Harmonization Center, 2014. All rights reserved. Unpublished. Anne-Marie Campanella, MA